DEFINITION OF ART
Since it is our purpose to develop an adequate idea of art, it might
seem as if a definition were rather our goal than our starting point;
yet we must identify the field of our investigations and mark it off
from other regions; and this we can do only by means of a preliminary
definition, which the rest of our study may then enrich and complete.
We shall find it fruitful to begin with the definition recently revived
by Croce: [Footnote: Benedetto Croce: _Estetica_, translated into
English by Douglas Ainslie, under title _Aesthetic_, chap. i.] art
is expression; and expression we may describe, for our own ends, as
the putting forth of purpose, feeling, or thought into a sensuous
medium, where they can be experienced again by the one who expresses
himself and communicated to others. Thus, in this sense, a lyric poem
is an expression--a bit of a poet's intimate experience put into words;
epic and dramatic poetry are expressions--visions of a larger life
made manifest in the same medium. Pictures and statues are also
expressions; for they are embodiments in color and space-forms of the
artists' ideas of visible nature and man. Works of architecture and
the other industrial arts are embodiments of purpose and the well-being
that comes from purpose fulfilled.
This definition, good so far as it goes, is, however, too inclusive;
for plainly, although every work of art is an expression, not every
expression is a work of art. Automatic expressions, instinctive
overflowings of emotion into motor channels, like the cry of pain or
the shout of joy, are not aesthetic. Practical expressions also, all
such as are only means or instruments for the realization of ulterior
purposes--the command of the officer, the conversation of the market
place, a saw--are not aesthetic. Works of art--the _Ninth Symphony_, the
_Ode to the West Wind_--are not of this character.
No matter what further purposes artistic expressions may serve, they
are produced and valued for themselves; we linger in them; we neither
merely execute them mechanically, as we do automatic expressions, nor
hasten through them, our minds fixed upon some future end to be gained
by them, as is the case with practical expressions. Both for the artist
and the appreciator, they are ends in themselves. Compare, for example,
a love poem with a declaration of love.[Footnote: Contrast Croce's use
of the same illustration: Esthetic, p. 22, English translation.] The
poem is esteemed for the rhythmic emotional experience it gives the
writer or reader; the declaration, even when enjoyed by the suitor,
has its prime value in its consequences, and the quicker it is over
and done with and its end attained the better. The one, since it has
its purpose within itself, is returned to and repeated; the other,
being chiefly a means to an end, would be senseless if repeated, once
the end that called it forth is accomplished. The value of the love
poem, although written to persuade a lady, cannot be measured in terms
of its mere success; for if beautiful, it remains of worth after the
lady has yielded, nay, even if it fails to win her. Any sort of
practical purpose may be one motive in the creation of a work of art,
but its significance is broader than the success or failure of that
motive. The Russian novel is still significant, even now, alter the
revolution. As beautiful, it is of perennial worth and stands out by
itself. But practical expressions are only transient links in the
endless chain of means, disappearing as the wheel of effort revolves.
Art is indeed expression, but free or autonomous expression.
The freedom of aesthetic expression is, however, only an intensification
of a quality that may belong to any expression. For, in its native
character, expression is never merely practical; it brings its own
reward in the pleasure of the activity itself. Ordinarily, when a man
makes something embodying his need or fancy, or says something that
expresses his meaning, he enjoys himself in his doing. There is
naturally a generous superfluity in all human behavior. The economizing
of it to what is necessary for self-preservation and dominion over the
environment is secondary, not primary, imposed under the duress of
competition and nature. Only when activities are difficult or their
fruits hard to get are they disciplined for the sake of their results
alone; then only does their performance become an imperative, and
nature and society impose upon them the seriousness and constraint of
necessity and law. But whenever nature and the social organization
supply the needs of man ungrudgingly or grant him a respite from the
urgency of business, the spontaneity of his activities returns. The
doings of children, of the rich, and of all men on a holiday illustrate
this. Compare, for example, the speech of trade, where one says the
brief and needful thing only, with the talk of excursionists, where
verbal expression, having no end beyond itself, develops at length and
at leisure; where brevity is no virtue and abundant play takes the
place of a narrow seriousness.
But we have not yet so limited the field of expression that it becomes
equivalent to the aesthetic; for not even all of free expression is
art. The most important divergent type is science. Science also is
expression,--an embodiment in words, diagrams, mathematical symbols,
chemical formula, or other such media, of thoughts meant to portray
the objects of human experience. Scientific expressions have, of course,
a practical function; concepts are "plans of action" or servants of
plans, the most perfect and delicate that man possesses. Yet scientific
knowledge is an end in itself as well as a utility; for the mere
construction and possession of concepts and laws is itself a source
of joy; the man of science delights in making appropriate formulations
of nature's habits quite unconcerned about their possible uses.
In science, therefore, there is much free expression; but beauty not
yet. No abstract expression such as Euclid's _Elements_, Newton's
_Principia_, or Peano's _Formulaire_, no matter how rigorous and
complete, is a work of art. We admire the mathematician's formula
for its simplicity and adequacy; we take delight in its clarity and
scope, in the ease with which it enables the mind to master a thousand
more special truths, but we do not find it beautiful. Equally removed
from the sphere of the beautiful are representations or descriptions
of mere things, whether inaccurate or haphazard, as we make them in
daily life, or accurate and careful as they are elaborated in the
empirical sciences. No matter how exact and complete, the botanist's
or zoologist's descriptions of plant and animal life are not works of
art. They may be satisfactory as knowledge, but they are not beautiful.
There is an important difference between a poet's description of a
flower and a botanist's, or between an artistic sketch and a photograph,
conferring beauty upon the former, and withholding it from the latter.
The central difference is this. The former are descriptions not of
things only, but of the artist's reactions to things, his mood or
emotion in their presence. They are expressions of total, concrete
experiences, which include the self of the observer as well as the
things he observes. Scientific descriptions, on the other hand, render
objects only; the feelings of the observer toward them are carefully
excluded. Science is intentionally objective,--from the point of view
of the artistic temperament, dry and cold. Even the realistic novel
and play, while seeking to present a faithful picture of human life
and to eliminate all private comment and emotion, cannot dispense with
the elementary dramatic feelings of sympathy, suspense, and wonder.
sthetic expression is always integral, embodying a total state of
mind, the core of which is some feeling; scientific expression is
fragmentary or abstract, limiting itself to thought. Art, no less than
science, may contain truthful images of things and abstract ideas, but
never these alone; it always includes their life, their feeling tones,
or values. Because philosophy admits this element of personality, it
is nearer to art than science is. Yet some men of science, like James
and Huxley, have made literature out of science because they could not
help putting into their writings something of their passionate interest
in the things they discovered and described.
The, necessity in art for the expression of value is, I think, the
principal difference between art and science, rather than, as Croce
[Footnote: _Estetica_, quarta edizione, p.27; English translation.
p.36.] supposes, the limitation of art to the expression of the
individual and of Science to the expression of the concept. For, on
the one hand, science may express the individual; and, on the other
hand, art may express the concept. The geographer, for example,
describes and makes maps of particular regions of the earth's surface;
the astronomer studies the individual sun and moon. Poets like Dante,
Lucretius, Shakespeare, and Goethe express the most universal concepts
of ethics or metaphysics. But what makes men poets rather than men of
science is precisely that they never limit themselves to the mere clear
statement of the concept, but always express its human significance
as well. A theory of human destiny is expressed in Prospero's lines--
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep;
but with overtones of feeling at the core. Or consider the passion
with which Lucretius argues for a naturalistic conception of the
universe. And the reason why poets clothe their philosophical
expressions in concrete images is not because of any shame of the
concept, but just in order the more easily and vividly to attach and
communicate their emotion. Their general preference for the concrete
has the same motive; for there are only a few abstractions capable of
arousing and fixing emotion.
Even as an element of spontaneity is native to all expression, so
originally all expression is personal. This is easily observable in
the child. His first uses of words as well as of things are touched
with emotion. Every descriptive name conveys to him his emotional
reaction to the object; disinterested knowledge does not exist for
him; every tool, a knife or a fork, means to him not only something
to be used, but the whole background of feelings which its use involves.
Our first perceptions of things contain as much of feeling and attitude
as of color and shape and sound and odor. Pure science and mere industry
are abstractions from the original integrity of perception and
expression; mutilations of their wholeness forced upon the mind through
the stress of living. To be able to see things without feeling them,
or to describe them without being moved by their image, is a disciplined
and derivative accomplishment. Only as the result of training and of
haste do the forms and colors of objects, once the stimuli to a
wondering and lingering attention, become mere cues to their recognition
and employment, or mere incitements to a cold and disinterested analysis
and description. Knowledge may therefore enter into beauty when, keeping
its liberality, it participates in an emotional experience; and every
other type of expression may become aesthetic if, retaining its native
spontaneity, it can acquire anew its old power to move the heart. To
be an artist means to be, like the child, free and sensitive in
envisaging the world.
Under these conditions, nature as well as art may be beautiful. In
themselves, things are never beautiful. This is not apparent to common
sense because it fails to think and analyze. But beauty may belong to
our _perceptions_ of things. For perception is itself a kind of
expression, a process of mind through which meanings are embodied in
sensations. Given are only sensations, but out of the mind come ideas
through which they are interpreted as objects. When, for example, I
perceive my friend, it may seem as if the man himself were a given
object which I passively receive; but, as a matter of fact, all that
is given are certain visual sensations; that these are my friend, is
pure interpretation--I construct the object in embodying this thought
in the color and shape I see. The elaboration of sensation in perception
is usually so rapid that, apart from reflection, I do not realize the
mental activity involved. But if it turns out that it was some other
man that I saw, then I realize at once that my perception was a work
of mind, an expression of my own thought. Of course, not all perceptions
are beautiful. Only as felt to be mysterious or tender or majestic is
a landscape beautiful; and women only as possessed of the charm we
feel in their presence. That is, perceptions are beautiful only when
they embody feelings. The sea, clouds and hills, men and women, as
perceived, awaken reactions which, instead of being attributed to the
mind from which they proceed, are experienced as belonging to the
things evoking them, which therefore come to embody them. And this
process of emotional and objectifying perception has clearly no other
end than just perception itself. We do not gaze upon a landscape or
a pretty child for any other purpose than to get the perceptual,
emotional values that result. The aesthetic perception of nature is,
as Kant called it, disinterested; that is, autonomous and free. The
beauty of nature, therefore, is an illustration of our definition.
On the same terms, life as remembered or observed or lived, may have
the quality of beauty. In reverie we turn our attention back over
events in our own lives that have had for us a rare emotional
significance; these events then come to embody the wonder, the interest,
the charm that excited us to recollect them. Here the activity of
remembering is not a mere habit set going by some train of accidental
association; or merely practical, arising for the sake of solving some
present problem by applying the lesson of the past to it; or finally,
not unpleasantly insistent, like the images aroused by worry and sorrow,
but spontaneous and self-rewarding, hence beautiful. There are also
events in the lives of other people, and people themselves, whose lives
read like a story, which, by absorbing our pity or joy or awe, claim
from us a like fascinated regard. And there are actions we ourselves
perform, magnificent or humble, like sweeping a room, which, if we put
ourselves into them and enjoy them, have an equal charm. And they too
have the quality of beauty.
Despite the community between beautiful nature and art, the differences
are striking. Suppose, in order fix our ideas, we compare one of Monet's
pictures of a lily pond with the aesthetic appreciation of the real
pond. The pond is undoubtedly beautiful every time it is seen; with
its round outline, its sunlit, flower-covered surface, its background
of foliage, it is perhaps the source and expression of an unfailing
gladness and repose. Now the painting has very much the same value,
but with these essential differences. First, the painting is something
deliberately constructed and composed, the artist himself controlling
and composing the colors and shapes, and hence their values also; while
the natural beauty is an immediate reaction to given stimuli, each
observer giving meaning to his sensations without intention or effort.
Like the beauty of woman, it is almost a matter of instinct. In natural
beauty, there is, to be sure, an element of conscious intention, in
so far as we may purposely select our point of view and hold the object
in our attention; hence this contrast with art, although real and
important, is not absolute. Moreover, beauty in perception and memory
is the basis of art; the artist, while he composes, nevertheless partly
transcribes significant memories and observations. Yet, although
relative, the difference remains; art always consists of works of art,
natural beauty of more immediate experiences. And from this difference
follows another--the greater purity and perfection of art. The control
which the artist exerts over his material enables him to make it
expressive all through; every element conspires toward the artistic
end; there are no irrelevant or recalcitrant parts, such as exist in
every perception of nature. Last, the beauty of the painting, because
created in the beholder through a fixed and permaneat mechanism
constructed by the artist, is communicable and abiding, whereas the
immediate beauty of nature is incommunicable and transient. Since the
sthetic perception of nature has its starting point in variable aspects
that never recur, no other man could see or feel the lily pond as Monet
saw and felt it. And, although in memory we may possess a silent gallery
of beautiful images, into which we may enter privately as long as we
live, in the end the flux has its way and at death shatters this
treasure house irrevocably. Hence, only if the beauty of the lily pond
is transferred to a canvas, can it be preserved and shared.
The work of art is the tool of the aesthetic life. Just as organic
efficiency is tied to the nerve and muscle of the workman and cannot
be transferred to another, but the tool, on the other hand, is
exchangeable and transmissible (I cannot lend or bequeath my arm, but
I can my boat); and just as efficiency is vastly increased by the use
of tools (I can go further with my boat than I can swim); so, through
works of art, aesthetic capacity and experience are enhanced and become
common possessions, a part of the spiritual capital of the race.
Moreover, even as each invention becomes the starting point for new
ones that are better instruments for practical ends; so each work of
art becomes the basis for new experiments through which the aesthetic
expression of life attains to higher levels. Monet's own art, despite
its great originality, was dependent upon all the impressionists, and
they, even when they broke away from, were indebted to, the traditions
of French painting established by centuries. Through art, the aesthetic
life, which otherwise would be a private affair, receives a social
sanction and assistance.
That permanence and communication of expression are essential to a
complete conception of art can be discerned by looking within the
artistic impulse itself. However much the artist may affect indifference
to the public, he creates expecting to be understood. Mere self-
expression does not satisfy him; he needs in addition appreciation.
Deprived of sympathy, the artistic impulse withers and dies or supports
itself through the hope of eventually finding it. The heroism of the
poet consists in working on in loneliness; but his crown of glory is
won only when all men are singing his songs. And every genuine artist,
as opposed to the mere improviser or dilettante, wishes his work to
endure.[Footnote: See Anatole France: _Le Lys Rouge_. "Moi, dit
Choulette, je pense si peu a l'avenir terrestre que j'ai ecrit mes
plus beaux poemes sur les feuilles de papier a cigarettes. Elles se
sont facilement evanuies, ne laissant a mes vers qu'une espece
d'existence metaphysique." C'etait un air de negligence qu'il se
donnait. En fait, il n'avait jamais perdu une ligne de son ecriture.]
Having put his substance into it, he desires its preservation as he
does his own. His immortality through it is his boast.
Exegi monumentum aere perennius
Regalique situ pyramidum altius
* * * * *
Non omnis moriar.
Art is not mere inspiration, the transient expression of private moods,
but a work of communication, meant to endure.
There are certain distinguishing characteristics of aesthetic expression
all of which are in harmony with the description we have given of it.
In the first place, in art the sensuous medium of the expression
receives an attention and possesses a significance not to be found in
other types of expression. Although every one hears, no one attends
to the sound of the voice in ordinary conversation; one looks through
it, as through a glass, to the thought or emotion behind. In our routine
perceptions of nature, we are not interested in colors and shapes on
their own account, but only in order that we may recognize the objects
possessing them; in a scientific woodcut also, they are indifferent
to us, except in so far as they impart correct information about the
objects portrayed. Outside of art, sensation is a mere transparent
means to the end of communication and recognition. Compare the poem,
the piece of music, the artistic drawing or painting. There the words
or tones must be not only heard but listened to; the colors and lines
not only seen but held in the eye; of themselves, apart from anything
they may further mean, they have the power to awaken feeling and
pleasure. And this is no accident. For the aesthetic expression is meant
to possess worth in itself and is deliberately fashioned to hold us
to itself, and this purpose will be more certainly and effectively
accomplished if the medium of the expression has the power to move and
please. We enter the aesthetic expression through the sensuous medium;
hence the artist tries to charm us at the start and on the outside;
having found favor there, he wins us the more easily to the content
lying within.
If the medium, moreover, instead of being a transparent embodiment of
the artist's feelings, can express them in some direct fashion as well,
the power of the whole expression will gain. This is exactly what the
sound of the words of a poem or the colors and lines of a painting or
statue can do. As mere sound and as mere color and line, they convey
something of the feeling tone of the subject which, as symbols, they
are used to represent. For example, the soft flowing lines of Correggio,
quite apart from the objects they represent, express the voluptuous
happiness of his "Venus and Mars"; the slow rhythm of the repeated
word sounds and the quality of the vowels in the opening lines of
_Tithonus_ are expressive in themselves, apart from their meaning,
of the weariness in the thoughts of the hero, and so serve to re-express
and enforce the mood of those thoughts. When we come to study the
particular arts, we shall find this phenomenon of re-expression through
the medium everywhere.
A second characteristic distinguishing aesthetic expressions from other
expressions is their superior unity. In the latter, the unity lies in
the purpose to be attained or in the content of the thought expressed;
it is teleological or logical. The unity of a chair is its purpose,
which demands just such parts and in just such a mechanical arrangement;
the unity of a business conversation is governed by the bargain to be
closed, requiring such words and such only, and in the appropriate
logical and grammatical order. The unity of an argument is the thesis
to be proved; the unity of a diagram is the principle to be illustrated
or the information to be imparted. Compare the unity of a sonnet or
a painting. In a sonnet, there is a unity of thought and sentiment
creating a fitting grammatical unity in language, but in addition a
highly elaborate pattern in the words themselves that is neither
grammatical nor logical. In a painting, besides the dramatic unity of
the action portrayed, as in a battle scene; or of the spatial and
mechanical togetherness of things, as in a landscape; there is a harmony
of the colors, a composition of the lines and masses themselves, not
to be found in nature. And, although the general shape and arrangement
of the parts of a useful object is dominated by its purpose, if it is
also beautiful--a Louis Seize chair, for example--there is, besides,
a design that cannot be explained by use. In artistic expressions,
therefore, there exists a unity in the material, superposed upon the
unity required by the purpose or thought expressed. And this property
follows from the preceding. For, since the medium is valuable in itself,
the mind, which craves unity everywhere, craves it there also, and
lingers longer and more happily on finding it; and, since the medium
can be expressive, the unity of the fundamental mood of the thought
expressed will overflow into and pervade it. Hence there occurs an
autonomous development of unity in the material, raising the total
unity of the expression to a higher power.