THE STANDARD OF TASTE
Our interest in art is seldom a matter of mere feeling or appreciation;
usually it is a matter of judgment as well. Beginning in feeling, the
sthetic experience passes over into comparison and estimation--into
criticism, and there finds its normal completion. This, which is
evidently true of the aesthetic life of artists and connoisseurs, is
true also of average men. We all enjoy the beautiful in silence, but
afterwards we want to talk about it to our friends. If conversation
about art were suppressed, the interest in it would hardly survive.
On this side, the enjoyment of art is intensely sociable, for to the
civilized man sociability means discourse.
But, as Kant pointed out, it is characteristic of conversation about
art that the participants try to reach agreement in their judgments
without acknowledging common principles with reference to which disputes
can be decided. And yet, since no man is content to hold an opinion
all by himself, but each tries to persuade the others of the validity
of his own judgment, it would seem as if there must be some axioms or
postulates admitted by all. Hence what Kant called the antinomy of
taste: Thesis--the judgment of taste is not based on principles, for
otherwise we would determine it by proofs; antithesis--the judgment
of taste is based on principles, for otherwise, despite our
disagreements, we should not be quarreling about it.
In accordance with this situation, two opposed theories of criticism
have always existed. On the one hand, in face of the apparent
lawlessness of beauty, some thinkers have believed that there exist
principles which can be applied to works of art to test their beauty
with a certainty equal to that of the principles of logic in their
application to inferences. Lessing, for example, in the _Hamburgische
Dramaturgic_ wrote that the laws laid down by Aristotle in the
_Poetics_ were as certain in their application to the drama as
Euclid's _Elements_ in geometry. This comparison is a forcible
statement of belief in the existence of aesthetic standards, held by
the entire classical tradition, and still held by those who are
spiritually akin to it, although of course no one to-day would
claim--and when it came to details Lessing himself did not claim--that
the judgment of Aristotle or of any one else is infallible. To-day
those who believe in the possibility of rational aesthetic criticism
think that reflection upon the purpose and methods of the arts results
in the formulation of broad principles by means of which judgments of
taste can be appraised and a community of taste achieved. These
principles, they would admit, are more difficult of application than
the simpler logical rules, owing to the greater subtlety and complexity
of art, yet, when found, have an equal validity within their own field.
On the other hand, the view that "there is no disputing about tastes"
has never lacked adherents. According to this view, criticism can be
only a report of personal, enthusiastic appreciation or repugnance
without claim to universality. Anatole France, surely a master of such
criticism, has expressed this conviction as follows: "L'estetique ne
repose sur rien de solide. C'est un chateau en Pair. On veut l'appuyer
sur Pethique. Mais il n'y a pas d'ethique. Il n'y a pas de sociologie"
... And again, in the same preface to _La Vie Litteraire:_ "Pour
fonder la critique, on parle de tradition et de consentement universel.
Il n'y en a pas. L'opinion presque general, il est vrai, favorise
certains oeuvres. Mais c'est en vertu d'un prejuge, et nullement par
choix et par effet d'une preference spontane. Les oeuvres que tout le
monde admire sont celles que personne n'examine." Although the classic
view is, I think, nearer the truth, let us examine the arguments that
may be advanced in favor of the impressionistic theory, as it has been
called. What is there about aesthetic appreciation that makes it
seemingly so recalcitrant to law?
First, every aesthetic experience is unique, and therefore, it is
claimed, incomparable. Art is the expression of personality, and
personality is always individual. But unique things are, in the end,
incapable of classification, hence are not amenable to general laws
or principles. Of course, works of art can be classified by following
some abstract characteristic, arranged in a series according as this
quality is realized in them to a greater or less degree; but, in so
far as a work is beautiful, it contains at least one quality not
possessed by other works, the quality that gives it its distinctive
flavor,--which is, indeed, its beauty. The impressionist would admit,
for example, that in intellectual power Keats's _Eve of St. Agnes_
is inferior to Wordsworth's _Intimations_; also that it lacks the
moral grandeur of the latter; but would claim, on the other hand, that
in saying this, one is far from judging the beauty of Keats's poem,
because that is completely lacking in Wordsworth. So far as the poem
is beautiful, it is unique; hence you get no farther with it through
comparison with some other poem. You either appreciate it absolutely
or you do not; if you do, well and good; you may then write a prose
poem about it, if you desire, and so communicate some of your feeling
for it to another person; if you do not appreciate it, no one can blame
you or quarrel with you; all that any one can do is to invite you to
read again, and, perhaps through his eloquence, seek to inspire you
with--his own enthusiasm. Every work of art is superlative. Just as
the lover thinks his sweetheart the most beautiful woman in the world,
so he who appreciates a work of art finds it supreme. And among
superlatives there is no comparison, no better or worse.
From another point of view, moreover, the aesthetic experience seems
unfavorable to comparison and classification. For a work of art demands
a complete abandon of self, an entire absorption in it of attention
and emotion. Every picture has a frame, and every other work of art
an ideal boundary to keep you in its world. Beyond the frame you shall
not go; beyond the stage you shall not pass; beyond the outline of the
statue you shall not look. And if you do pass beyond, you have lost
the full intensity and flower of the experience; and whatever
comparisons you then make will not concern its original and genuine
beauty. Every work of art is jealous; to appreciate it aright, you
must for the moment appreciate it singly, without thought of another.
Finally, the impressionist or skeptic would maintain that an alleged
aesthetic principle would necessarily be abstracted from extant works
of art; hence could not be applied to new art. A thing which does not
belong within a class cannot be judged by principles governing that
class. In so far, therefore, as a work of art is original, it must
frustrate any attempt to judge it by traditional, historical
standards--and what other standards are there?
Although the two facts of the aesthetic experience--its uniqueness and
claim to complete sympathy--upon which the skeptical opinion can be
based, are undoubted, the inferences deduced from them do not follow.
If they did follow, the aesthetic experience would be fundamentally
different from every other type; it would be totally atomic and
discrete, instead of fluid and continuous like the rest. But its
apparent discreteness is due to a failure to distinguish between the
silent, unobtrusive working of comparison and the more obvious and
self-conscious working. When rapt in the contemplation of a work of
art, I may seemingly have no thought for other works; relative isolation
and circle-like self-completeness are characteristic of the aesthetic
experience; yet, as a matter of fact, the completeness of my reaction
and the measure of my delight and absorption are partly determined by
the accordance of the given work of art with a certain expectation or
set of mind with reference to objects of its sort. I can consent fully
to the will of the artist only if he has first consented to my will
as expressed in other works which I have enjoyed and praised. The
situation in aesthetics is no different from that which exists in any
other field of values; through many experiences of good things I come
to form a type or standard of what such things should be like; and,
if any new thing of the kind is presented to me, I cannot be so well
pleased with it if it does not conform. The type may never be formulated
by me explicitly, yet it will operate none the less. The formation of
what is called good taste occurs by exactly this process. The first
work of art that I see, if it please me, becomes my first measure. If
I see a second, in order to win my approval, it will either have to
satisfy the expectation aroused by the first, or else surpass it. In
the latter case, a standard somewhat different from the old is created
through the new experience; and, when I have acquired a large
acquaintance with works of art, there grows up a standard which is the
resultant of all of them--a type or schema no longer associated with
particular works. Sometimes, however, it happens that the standard
continues to be embodied in some one or few works which, because of
outstanding excellence, serve as explicit paradigms governing judgment;
such works are classics in the true sense. And the impressionist is
certainly wrong in his contention that the aesthetic appreciation of
a work of art excludes the recall of other works and conscious
comparison with them. It is only when appreciation is of the more naive
sort that this is the case. The trained observer, on seeing one of
Vermeer's pictures, for example, cannot fail to think of other works
of the same artist; and, if he is learned in the history of art, he
may even recall the whole development of Dutch painting. For the moment,
perhaps, at the beginning, the single work will completely absorb the
attention; but, as we linger in appreciation and reflect upon it, our
memory is sure to work. And the process of memory and comparison cannot
be excluded on the ground that it is an external, irrelevant context
to appreciation; for it actually functions to determine the degree of
pleasure and absorption in a work of art. Moreover, this process of
memory and comparison is not confined to the individual observer; it
is social and historical as well. All art movements are inspired by
the desire to improve on, or to create something different from, the
conserved tradition. The process of creation itself involves comparison
and the recognition of a standard. And for our civilization at any
rate these movements are international. They are not the products of
isolated discrete groups, impenetrable to each other, but of a
relatively universal, continuous experience.
As for the uniqueness of aesthetic value, that, to be sure, is a fact;
yet uniqueness is never the whole of any object. Those aspects which
ally it with other things are just as genuinely its own as those which
differentiate it from them; they equally are a part of its beauty. The
attempt to separate any part of a work of art from the rest as "the
real part" is an unwarranted and arbitrary dismemberment. The work is
whole, and beauty belongs to it as whole. Hence, when, through
comparison, you attend to the qualities that are shared with other
works, you are still judging the reality and beauty of the object,
quite as much as when you seek to taste its unique flavor. A competent
judgment can neglect no aspect. The judgment that a work of art is
better or worse than another in some general aspect touches it just
as surely as the feeling for its distinctiveness. And if it be true
that so far as things are unique they are all on a level, it is equally
true that so far as they are not unique they are capable of being
serialized, and our total judgment upon them must follow the lines of
comparison.
It is impossible, therefore, not to compare works of art one with
another. We will concede to the impressionist that anything which
anybody finds beautiful is beautiful momentarily; but we must insist
on the everyday fact that, because of the operation of the standard
as a result of growing experience in art, what once seemed beautiful
often ceases to seem so. And we must also insist that among the things
surviving as beautiful we inevitably set up a hierarchy, a scale. A
plurality of values, each unique and in its own way indispensable to
a complete world of values, is not inconsistent with relations of
higher and lower among them. The impressionist has taught us to love
variety and to renounce the bigotry of the old refusal to accept
anything short of the highest. But in aesthetics--and in ethics too,
I believe--the standpoint of Spinoza rules: "God is revealed in the
mouse as well as in the angel, although less in the mouse than in the
angel;" and, I should add, the revelation through the humbler mouse
is necessary to a complete revelation of God, that is, of the Good.
Or, as Nietzsche said, "_Vieler Edlern naemlich bedarf es, dass es
Adel gebe!_" Our appreciation of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ does not
prevent us from appreciating _Alice in Wonderland,_ just as our esteem
for the man does not hinder our feeling for the peculiar charm of the
child.
What takes place through the process of comparison is this: we come
increasingly to realize what we want of art. Every artist seeks to
express something in terms of the material with which he works. But
it is only by experimenting with his medium that he learns what he can
and what he cannot do; and it is only by constant hospitable, yet
discriminating appreciation by us spectators that we, in our turn,
discover what to demand of him and commend. Consider, for example, the
history of painting. That we want of a picture, sometimes the
delineation of emotion and action, yes; but above all and always, the
representation of visible nature, with space and atmosphere and
light--this purpose has been developed slowly and as the result of
many experiments and comparisons. But having won it, we are secure in
it. We shall still appreciate the beauty of the primitives and
academics, but we shall not be able again to prefer them to the
_plein-airistes_. Or recall the development of English poetry.
We still admit the contribution of Dryden and Pope, but we shall never
have to fight over again the battle won by Wordsworth and his
contemporaries for imagination and emotion. Our conception of the
purpose of poetry has been enriched by an insight that we cannot
permanently lose. There are, to be sure, retrograde movements in the
arts--like the Pre-Raphaelite movement in painting--but they are soon
recognized as such.
Now with reference to the purpose of art to express in a given material,
there are, I think, a few general principles of judgment applying to
all the arts, implicitly or explicitly recognized in criticism, and
capable of formulation. First, the complete use of the medium. We
prefer, other things being equal, the work of art that has fully
exploited the expressive possibilities of its medium to one that has
failed to do so. As an illustration, I would cite the almost universal
condemnation, at the present time, of neo-classical sculpture, in which
the touch values of the surfaces of statues were destroyed. Of course
some compensating gain may be claimed--a greater visual purity; yet,
as we shall see, from the point of view of expression, the gain was
negligible compared with the loss. So likewise, unless the
_vers-libristes_ can show some positive gain in expression,--a
power to do something that normal verse cannot do, their work must
rank lower than normal verse, which makes fuller use of the rhythmic
possibilities of language.
Second, the unique use of the material. What we want of art depends,
not only on comparison between works of art belonging to the same
genre, but on comparison of the purposes of different genres, indeed
of the different arts themselves. What we want of painting depends
upon what we want of sculpture; what we want of poetry depends upon
what we want of painting and music. We compare picture with picture;
but equally we compare picture with statue and poem. We do not want
the sculptor to try to do what the painter can do better, and
vice-versa; or the poet to encroach on the domains proper to the
musician and painter. We do not want poetry to be merely imagistic or
merely musical when we have another art that can give us much better
pictures and still another that can give us much better music than any
word-painting or word-music. When we read a poem, we do not want to
be made to think how much better the same thing could be done in a
different medium. There is nothing so salutary in keeping an art to
its proper task as a flourishing condition of the other arts. Here the
great example is France, where the limitations of the different arts
have been best recognized all the while the highest level of perfection
has been reached in many arts contemporaneously.
Third, the perfect use of the medium in the effort to fulfill the
artistic purpose of sympathetic representation--the power to delight
the senses and create sympathy for the object expressed, on the one
hand, and the range of the vision of the object, on the other; the
depth and the breadth of the aesthetic experience. With reference to
the former we ask: how vividly does the work of art force us to see;
how completely does it make us enter into the world it has created;
and, in doing this, how poignantly has it charmed us, how close has
it united us to itself? The measure of this is partly subjective and
irreducible to rules; yet experience in the arts establishes a norm
or schema of appreciation through the process of comparison, largely
unconscious, by which what we call good taste is acquired. There are
certain works of art that seem to have fulfilled this requirement in
the highest possible degree, thus attaining to perfection within their
compass. Such, for example, are some of Sappho's or Goethe's lyrics,
or the Fifth Canto of the _Inferno_. Nothing more perfect, more
beautiful of their kind can be conceived. And to see how works of art
may differ in degree of perfection of sympathetic vision, one has only
to recall lesser works expressing the same themes. Yet we recognize
greater works even than those cited--works in which, although the
sympathetic vision is no more penetrating and compelling, it is broader,
more inclusive. Goethe's _Faust_ is greater than any of his lyrics
because the range of experience which it expresses is vaster. A
Velasquez is greater than a Peter De Hooch because, in addition to an
equal beauty of expression through color and line and composition, an
equal dominion over light and space, it contains a marvelous revelation
of the inner life, which is absent from the latter. According to
Berenson, no one has yet painted the perfect landscape because thus
far only a certain few aspects have been expressed, but not all.
There are, I think, certain qualities which are generally recognized
as necessary to the perfect fulfillment of the artistic purpose of a
work; which follow, indeed, from the very meaning of art. Thus, without
uniqueness and freshness there can be no perfection in artistic
expression. A well-worn or even an identical expression may have value
in the solution of a practical problem, or in bringing men into
good-natured relationships with one another in social life; as when,
for example, the officer cries "Halt!" repeatedly, or we say "Good
morning" at breakfast; because, in such cases, the expression gets its
significance from the context in which it belongs. But in art, where
expression is freed from the particular setting within which it arises,
thus attaining universality, the repetitious and imitative, having no
environment from which they may derive new meaning, are purposeless.
They are, indeed, worse than negligible, because having grown into the
habit of expecting originality, we are disappointed and bored when we
fail to find it. Originality is, of course, relative; it is not
incompatible with the reminiscence of old works--what works of art are
not reminiscent?--but it does prohibit saying the old things over again
in the same medium; the artist must have a new message to put into the
medium; or else, if the old themes are still near to his heart, he
must invent a new form in which to express them, from which they will
derive a new music. Closely allied to freshness are spontaneity and
inner necessity, the signs of a genuine, as opposed to a factitious,
expression. If we get the impression from a work of art that no part
could be otherwise--not a single line or note or stroke of the
brush--then we have the same sort of feeling towards it that we have
towards the living thing that was not made by hands capriciously, but
grew in its inevitable way in accordance with the laws of its own
nature. Of course, works of art are products of thought, of plan, and
conscious purpose; they are seldom composed all at one flash, but grow
tentatively into their final form; nevertheless, in the words of Kant,
"A work of art must look like nature, albeit we know that it is art."
Sense charm and order are also necessary; for they are the conditions
of a perfect sympathy and vision. We are indulgent towards the vigorous,
impatient passion that bubbles over into rough and careless music or
poetry, but are not satisfied with it. For art's task is not merely
to express, but to dominate through expression, to create out of
expression, beauty; and without order and charm of sense, there is no
beauty. Compose your passion, we say to the musician; pattern it forth,
we say to the poet; it will not lose its vigor; rather it will acquire
a new power; for thus it will achieve restraint, the sign of art's
dominion.
The recognition of the principles indicated presupposes, of course,
that art really has a purpose with reference to which it can be judged
as successful or unsuccessful. But I do not see how this can very well
be denied. Art is one of the oldest of human activities, one might
almost say institutions, and it is inconceivable that it should not
have been directed by some intention, conscious or unconscious. To be
sure, men have expressed this intention in varying, often in
inconsistent ways, but the same is true of all other human activities
and institutions. Few would deny, I suppose, that science and the state
have purposes; yet how various have been the definitions of them. These
variations have corresponded, without doubt, to adaptations to new
conditions, yet throughout some unique purpose in human life has been
subserved. So with art. Art has been identified now with one interest
and now with another; what people want of art differs from one age to
another, and each must define that for itself; yet throughout there
has been a core of identity in the purposes it has served. In our own
age we witness the attempt to distinguish the purpose of art from the
purposes of other elements of civilization, with which it has often
been fused and confused,--science, religion, morality. Correspondingly
we witness the effort to limit the functions of political control; to
take from its jurisdiction religion, culture, love. And this effort
is for the sake of a fuller and freer realization of values.
Furthermore, not only has art a general function, but this function
is differentiated among the different art forms and genres. No work
of art can be judged without reference to its function. Its beauty
consists in the fulfillment of this function. Now this function is,
of course, largely unique for each art form and for each particular
work of art, and every work has to be judged with reference to its
individual purpose, yet a knowledge of other works of the same artist
and the same genre, and of the general history of art, helps to divine
this purpose and to judge of its relative success. There is a large
measure of continuity in the intentions of a given artist and school
of art. The development of painting in the last century is a striking
illustration of such continuity. The painters sought to develop a
definite tradition, thinking of themselves as carrying further the
work of their predecessors. Of course these developments were largely
technical in character, but beauty itself is the fruition of technique.
The people who base a skeptical opinion upon the historical changes
in taste forget that taste is necessarily a growth; that it is developed
by trial and error, through and despite the following of many false
paths. Only if the standard were something delivered to men by divine
revelation--as indeed the old dogmatists came very close to believing--
would it be strange and inconsistent for changes to occur. But if, as
is the fact, the standard is experimental and representative of actual
artistic purposes, then change is normal. Moreover, the standard is
not single and absolute, but plural and relative. Growth in taste means
not only development along a given line, within a given form, but
enlargement through the origination of new forms and beauties. It is
not like the straight line growth of an animal, but rather radial,
like the growth of a plant, sending out branches in every direction.
An art may attain to perfection in a certain genre, and then continue
only through the creation of new types. Thus sculpture and architecture
reached a kind of perfection in the classic, beyond which it was
impossible to go--the only possible development lay in the creation
of new types.
If it is true, then, that the existence of standards has a sound basis
in the aesthetic experience, how can their apparent failure to work and
secure unanimity of judgment be explained? How account for the actual
chaos of judgment? Partly, at least, because many judgments passed on
works of art are not aesthetic judgments at all. These must be eliminated
if any consensus is to be won. We may call these judgments "pseudo-
sthetic" judgments. They fall naturally into several classes, which
it will be worth while to describe.
First, there is the very large class of partisan judgments--judgments
based, not upon a free appreciation, but upon some personal predilection
or transient appeal. To this class belong the special preferences of
boyhood and youth--the liking for Cooper and Jules Verne, for example--
and those due to nationality, like the Englishman's choice of Thackeray
and the Frenchman's of Balzac, or, what is a more flagrant case, the
long resistance of the French public to the beauty of Wagner's music.
The former type of judgment is corrected by the simple process of
maturing, when the beauties appreciated in youth are not lost, but
only given their due place in the hierarchy of aesthetic values; the
latter type, on the other hand, being more deeply based, is more
difficult to remedy. But that even this prejudice can be largely
overcome is shown by the example of critics who, through prolonged
sympathetic study, come to prefer the art of a foreign land. A notable
example of this is Meier-Graeffe, who condemns almost all of modern
German painting and exalts the French. [Footnote: See his _Modern
Art_, and his special studies of Manet, Renoir, and Degas.] Patriotic
preferences are so difficult to overcome because they spring from
limitations of sympathy. Sympathy depends upon acquaintance, and few
of us can acquire the same expertness in an alien language or artistic
form that we possess in our own. Yet, understanding the reason for
these deficiencies of judgment, we can go to work to improve them,
through increasing our knowledge of foreign art.
No less inevitable psychologically is the preference for works of art
that treat of the problems and conditions of contemporary life. Part
of this, to be sure, is expressive merely of some transient mood of
the popular mind. The enthusiasm, happily passing, for the plays of
Brieux or the craze for Algerian landscapes in France after the
acquirement of the colony, are examples. Such preferences, being
superficially motivated, correct themselves with ease, giving way to
some new fashion in taste. The preference for works of art that reflect
the more serious and permanent problems of contemporary society is
more firmly rooted. Men inevitably seek the artistic expression of the
things that deeply concern them. The problems of the reconstruction
of the family, of the working classes, and of government must continue
to inspire art and to determine our interest in it, until new
difficulties occupy our minds. The mere passage of time, however,
brings a remedy for critical injustices flowing from this source; for,
when present problems are solved, the difference between living art,
which expresses them, and historical art, vanishes. Then, only those
works which reflect the eternal enigmas have any advantage over the
others. The same process tends to eliminate the prejudice, rooted in
temperament, in favor of the old and familiar in art; or, following
a different bent, in favor of the new and startling. In such cases,
a just estimate can be made only when the new becomes the old, and
both are reduced to a common level.
Another type of pseudo-aesthetic judgment is the imitative. By this I
mean the judgment which is made because somebody else has made it,
particularly somebody in authority. The imitative judgment is the
expression, in the field of aesthetics, of what Trotter has called "herd
instinct," [Footnote: See his _The Herd Instinct in Peace and War_,
first part.] the tendency on the part of the gregarious animal to make
his acts and habits conform to those of another member of the same
group, particularly if that member is a leader or represents the
majority. The dislike of loneliness and the love of companionship
operate, as we have already had occasion to notice, even in the sphere
of the spirit. Differences here separate people just as other
differences do. In art, herd instinct tends to make the judgment of
the authoritative or fashionable critic take the place of spontaneous
and sincere judgment. I do not mean that such judgments are usually
consciously insincere; although they often are so, since men seek to
ingratiate themselves by flattering even the aesthetic opinions of those
whose love or protection they desire. I do mean, however, that they
tend to suppress opinions which would reflect an autonomous
appreciation. Moreover, whatever may be said for herd-instinct in the
realm of politics and morals, where the need for common action makes
necessary some sort of consensus among the members of a group, very
little can be said for it in aesthetics, where no practical issues are
directly involved. There, herd instinct simply substitutes sham
appreciation for a vital and healthy reaction. Of course, imitative
judgments must be distinguished from those that agree because they are
based on a genuine contagion or community of feeling. This distinction
may be a difficult one for the outsider to make; but is not so for the
individual concerned. I do not deny the value of authority in aesthetics;
what I am inveighing against is the substitution of authority for
sincerity. In art, the suasion of the norm should be absolutely free,
with no penalty except isolation from the best. The only value of
authority is to counteract laziness and superficiality of appreciation;
to stimulate those who would rest content with first impressions to
a more studious and attentive examination. Yet, however great be our
natural desire to convince others of beauty, we want their conviction
to be as sincere as our own: we do not want it to be
factitious,--suggested or dragooned. It is often too easy, rather than
too hard, to win agreement.
The question of the place of authority in aesthetics is raised again
by a consideration of another class of pseudo-aesthetic judgments,
which I shall call ignorant judgments. These judgments are perfectly
sincere, but express an aesthetic experience that is imperfect, owing
to defective understanding of art. So many people judge works of art
as if they could assimilate them immediately, without any knowledge
of their purpose and technique. They fail to recognize that a work of
art has a language, with a vocabulary and grammar, which has to be
mastered through study. A work of art is a possibility of a certain
complex of values, not a given actuality that can be grasped by merely
stretching out the hand. Very little of any work of art is given--just
a few sense stimuli; the rest is an emotional and meaningful reaction,
which has to be completed in a determinate fashion. A work of art is
a question to which the right answer has to be found. And in order to
find the answer, it is necessary to know both what to look for and
what not to look for. For example, in judging Japanese prints, one
must realize, from the limitation of the medium, that one cannot look
for all the fullness of expression of shadow and atmosphere possible
in an oil painting; or in judging decorative or post-impressionistic
painting, one must realize that the purpose of the artist is chiefly
to obtain musical effects from color and line, not to represent nature
realistically.
Because works of art are ideals, possibilities of experience, and not
given things which everybody can appreciate without knowledge and
effort, I am skeptical of all results obtained in laboratories of
experimental aesthetics, where college students are asked to judge
works of painting, music, and sculpture. An uninstructed majority vote
cannot decide any question in aesthetics. Such experiments, with the
exception of those that concern the most elementary reactions, yield
interesting statistical results about the groups employed as subjects,
but are of no value in aesthetics. And what wonder that we should find
people disagreeing in their judgments when, because of ignorance, they
are not reporting about the same objects!
Finally, an aesthetic consensus is possible only if non-aesthetic
standards and all judgments based on false conceptions of the purpose
of art are eliminated. Some of these judgments I have already
discussed--the scientific and the moralistic. The purpose of art is
sympathetic vision, not scientific truth or edification. It is often
necessary, in order to win a vision of actual life, for the artist to
possess scientific knowledge; but only as a means, not as an end. And
again, insight into the more enduring preferences of men and the
conditions of their happiness, upon which rational moral standards are
founded, is indispensable to a complete interpretation of life; but
there is much of life that can be envisaged sympathetically, that is,
artistically and beautifully, with small hold on ethical wisdom. No
one, I suppose, would regard de Maupassant as a wise man in the Greek
sense of possessing a philosophical grasp of the norms which make up
the conscience of men, yet few would deny him the supreme gift of
delineating the pathos and comedy of passion. I do not doubt that men
will always judge works of art from abstract standpoints; that to-day
they will judge them from the points of view of science and morals,
since we are so dominated by their sway; but I do claim that these
standards are not aesthetic, and that so long as they control our
estimates of art, there can never be anything except chaos in taste;
for they will always come into conflict with the genuinely aesthetic
point of view. And, I ask, why not grant to art its autonomy? If art
has a unique purpose, different from that of science or morals, why
should we not judge it in terms of that purpose?
Of course, since man's nature is one, not many, it will always be
impossible entirely to get rid of the non-aesthetic bases of judgment.
Personal predilection for a certain kind of subject-matter, patriotic
preference for one's own language and style, the influence of authority
and the lure of the crowd, the intrusion of the moralistic and the
scientific bias,--all these must, to a greater or less degree, divide
and dispute the hegemony of taste. Nevertheless, although it is
impossible to reach a pure aesthetic judgment, we ought to strive to
approach it, and, by dint of training and clear thinking about art,
we can approach it. We ought to do this, not because of any formalism
or purism, but for the sake of preserving the unique value of art,
which is covered up or destroyed by the intrusion of non-aesthetic
standards of judgment. For judgment does influence feeling, especially
such a delicate and subtle thing as aesthetic feeling. The patriotic
and the partisan judgments narrow appreciation, the imitative substitute
a judgment for a feeling, the moralistic and scientific prejudices
often inhibit the possibility of the aesthetic reaction at the start,
or, if they allow it to begin, prevent the full sympathy and abandon
which are required for its consummation. We can get scientific truth
from science, why then seek it in art? We can obtain moral wisdom from
the philosopher and priest, why require it of the artist? Reformers
and statesmen will enlighten us concerning reconstruction, why not
turn to them? I do not mean, of course, that art may not express the
mystery and the wonder of science, the voice of conscience, the cry
of distress; but even this is not science, or sociology, or morals;
and art must and should also express dark passion, hot hate or love,
and joy--in the sea, in sunlight, in the shadow of leaves on the grass,
in the bodies of men and women--and the other myriad forms of human
life and nature that are neither right nor true, but simply are. And
furthermore: the tyranny of the scientific and the moral is the death
of art. Art can live only when free. So long as men are subject to the
exclusive habit of condemning and praising and analyzing and
classifying, they are incapable of a free envisagement and expression.
Between sociology and Puritanism, the artistic novel and the drama
have become all but impossible in this country. During the nineteenth
century, the predilection, among the Pre-Raphaelites, for the scientific
and moral nearly killed landscape painting in England, its birthplace.
And only in France, where alone of modern nations the moral and hygienic
attitude towards the human body has not completely driven out the
artistic, has there been a vital and enduring sculpture.
If the aesthetic judgment is given autonomy, a sure foundation for
aesthetic norms can be established, because then art will be judged
with reference to a perfectly definite purpose. Feeling will always
tell us whether a thing is beautiful or not; but feeling itself will
depend upon whether the implicit purpose of art has been realized;
and, when we reflectively consider a work in relation to other works,
we shall have a solid basis for comparison. Judgment will have a
foundation in reason as well as in feeling. We shall ask of the artist,
not whether he has instructed us or edified us, but solely whether he
has given us a new and sympathetic vision of some part of our
experience. The kind of vision that he gives us will depend, of course,
upon the materials of his art--it will be one thing in sound, another
in color or line or patterned words. Even as we demand of art in general
a unique value, as fulfilling a unique function, so we shall demand
of the different arts that each provide us with the unique beauty which
its materials can create. We shall therefore commend the separation
of the arts and view with suspicion any attempt to fuse them. Whatever
be his materials, we shall demand of the artist always the same result:
that he make us see, and command our sympathy and delight for his
vision. Any judgment that we make, or any standard that we set up,
must proceed upon a knowledge of this master purpose and of the
materials and technique of the particular art through which it is to
be realized. And such standards, experimental and tentative, but
nevertheless potent and directive, are capable of discovery and
formulation. Some of the larger and more important of these we shall
try to set forth in our chapters on the special arts. An artist who
works within these standards is sure to produce something beautiful;
one who breaks them will fail or, rarely, find some hitherto
undiscovered, surprising beauty in the medium.
There still remains for consideration the fear lest the recognition
of standards may discourage new experiments and so interfere with the
creative impulse. It is true that tragedies have occurred when criticism
has been unsympathetic and malicious--remember Keats and the struggles
of the early French impressionistic painters--but even then I doubt
if any real harm to art has resulted. For the situation in aesthetics
differs from the situation in ethics and politics where the retarding
effect of convention is undeniable. In art there can never be the same
closeness of alliance between convention and vested interests that is
so repressive a force in the "world." It is probably true indeed that,
as Plato said, "when the modes of music change, so do constitutions
change"; for example, there is doubtless to-day some connection between
imagist poetry, post-impressionistic painting, Russian music, and
revolutionary sentiment--witness, in our own country, _The Masses_
and _The Seven Arts_--but the link is too delicate to alarm the
powers that be. The upholding of a standard must be allied with material
interests if it is to be repressive of creation and novelty. But, as
a free force, operating solely by influence, the standard has the
effect only of keeping alive the love of excellence, and, by providing
some stability in the old, creating that contrast between the new and
the old, so stimulating to the new itself. For the impulse to originate
operates best alongside of and in opposition to the desire to conserve.
France has been the great originator in the plastic arts during recent
times; but it has also been the only country where a genuine traditional
standard has existed. When tradition is based on experiments, as in
art, it cannot be in essence hostile to them. And all valid aesthetic
principles are sufficiently broad and abstract not to interfere with
novelty and creation.
When such principles as we have tried to formulate are admitted, the
world of aesthetic judgments can be organized and some consensus about
the beautiful achieved. Without an approach to a consensus, the aesthetic
impulse can never be content; for it is indefeasibly sociable. Agreement
in judgments depends upon a common experience, and this also art can
provide. For beauty is constituted of elementary reactions to sense
stimuli which are well-nigh universal among men, and of symbols and
meanings which can be learned like any language. The delight in harmony
and balance, order and symmetry and rhythm, and again, the pleasure
in the unique and well finished, are felt by every one. The entire
form side of art, its structure or design, is based on fundamental and
enduring elements of human nature. The symbolism of sensation, its
musical expressiveness, as we have called it, is rooted likewise in
reactions and interpretations that either are, or may become, through
suggestion and training, common property. There are, of course, the
people who have no feeling for tones, and through defective memory for
tones, no appreciation of musical design; there are also those who are
insensitive to color and line. In many cases, through the training of
the attention, these defects can be overcome; yet, in others, they are
permanent and incurable. This fact limits the universality of art;
oftentimes, when two people are discussing a work, they are not talking
about the same object; for a large part of its potentialities are lost
to one of them. Nevertheless, the validity of empirical standards among
those who are capable of appreciating the whole of a work of art is
not touched by this fact. Those who can agree, ultimately will agree.
As for art as representation, that is a language readily acquired. It
is an easier and more natural language than ordinary speech. What is
meant by the colors and lines of a painting or statue, or by the mimic
of the drama, is immediately grasped by any intelligent person; for
to make use of images of things in order to represent them is a
universal habit among men. The painting and sculpture of the Chinese
are intelligible to us; not so their speech. Of course, to some extent,
the language of painting and sculpture is conventional; the limits of
accuracy of imitation are not set by nature, except at the extremes,
but by the tradition or practice of painters. Yet the convention is
a simple one, easily understood and accepted.