"But science, art, civilization, and culture will cease to be!" But

if all these are only diverse manifestations of truth, the impending

change is to be accomplished for the sake of a further advance

toward truth and its realization. "How, then, can the manifestations

of truth disappear, in consequence of further realization of truth?"

The manifestations of truth will be different, better, loftier, the

error that has been in them will perish, while the verity that is in

them will remain and flourish with renewed vigor.

Return to yourselves, sons of men, and have faith in the gospel, and

in its doctrine of eternal happiness! If you heed not this warning,

you shall all perish like the men slain by Pilate, like those upon

whom the tower of Siloam fell; like millions of other men, who slew

and were slain, who executed and suffered execution, who tortured

and were tortured; as perished the man who so foolishly filled his

granaries, counting on a long life, on the very night when his soul

was required of him. Return, sons of men, and believe in the words

which Christ uttered 1800 years ago, words which He repeats to-day

with greater force, warning us that the evil day He foretold is at

hand, and that our life has reached its last descent of folly and

wickedness.

Now, after so many centuries of futile effort to protect ourselves

by the methods of the pagan system of violence, it should be evident

to every man that all such effort, far from insuring our safety,

tends only to add a new element of danger both to individual and

social existence.

No matter by what names we may be called, nor what garments we may

wear, nor in the presence of what priest we may be anointed, nor

how many millions our subjects may number, nor how many guards

may be posted on our journey, nor how many policemen may protect

our property, nor how many so-called criminals, revolutionists, or

anarchists we may execute; no matter what exploits we may perform,

nor what states we may establish, nor what fortresses and towers

we may erect, from the Tower of Babel to the Eiffel Tower,--we

have before us two ever present and unavoidable conditions, that

deprive our mode of life of all significance: (1) death, that may

overtake each of us at any moment, and (2) the transitory nature

of all our undertakings, that disappear, leaving no trace behind

them. No matter what we may do, found kingdoms, build palaces and

monuments, write poems and songs,--all is but fleeting and leaves no

trace behind. Therefore no matter how much we may attempt to conceal

this from ourselves, we cannot fail to perceive that the true

significance of our life lies neither in our individual, physical

existence, subjected to unavoidable suffering and death, nor in any

institution or social organization.

Whoever you are, you who read these lines, reflect upon your

position and your duties, not upon the position of landowner,

merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or

soldier, which you may assume but for a time, not upon the

imaginary duties which these positions impose upon you, but upon

your actual and eternal position as a being, who, after a whole

eternity of non-existence, is called by the will of Some One from

unconsciousness into life, and who may at any moment return whence

he came by the same will. Consider your duties! Not your imaginary

duties of landowner in regard to your estate, nor of merchant to

your capital, nor of emperor, minister, or governor to the State,

but of your real duties, of a being called forth into life and

endowed with love and reason. Do that which He who has sent you

into this world, and to whom you will shortly return, demands of

you. Are you doing what he requires? Are you doing right when, as

landowner or manufacturer, you take the products of the labor of

the poor, and establish your life on this spoliation; or when, as

governor or judge, you do violence in condemning men to death; or

when, as soldier, you prepare for war, for fighting, robbery, and

murder,--are you doing right?

You say that the world is as you find it, that it is inevitable

that it should be as it is, that what you do you are compelled to

do. But can it be that, having so strongly rooted an aversion to

the suffering of men, to violence, to murder; having such a need of

loving your fellow-men, and of being loved by them; seeing clearly,

too, that the greatest good possible to men comes from acknowledging

human brotherhood, from one serving another: can it be that your

heart tells you all this, that you are taught it by your reason,

that science repeats it to you, and yet regardless of it, on the

strength of some mysterious and complicated argument, you are forced

to contradict it all in your daily conduct? Is it possible that,

being a landowner or a capitalist, you should establish your life on

the oppression of the people; that, being an emperor or a president,

you should command armies, and be a leader of murderers; that,

being a functionary of State, you should take from the poor their

hard-earned money for your own benefit, or for the benefit of the

rich; that, being a judge or juror, you should condemn erring men to

torture and death, because the truth has not been revealed to them;

or, above all, is it possible that you, a youth, should enter the

army, doing that upon which all the evil of the world is founded,

that, renouncing your own will, all your human sympathy, you should

engage at the will of others to murder those whom they bid you

murder?

It is impossible!

If you are told that all this is essential for the support of the

existing system of life; that this system, with its pauperism,

famine, prisons, executions, armies, wars, is necessary for society,

and that if it were to be abolished worse evils would follow, you

are told so only by those who benefit by this system; while those

who suffer from it,--and their numbers are ten times greater,--all

think and say the opposite. And at the bottom of your heart you

know that this is false,--that the existing system has had its day,

and must inevitably be remodeled on new foundations; and that there

is no need whatsoever to support it by the sacrifice of human life.

Even supposing that the existing system is necessary, how is it

that you should have to support it by trampling upon all finer

feelings? But who has made you a guardian of this crumbling

structure? Neither has the State, nor society, nor has any one

requested you individually to support it by occupying your position

of landowner, merchant, emperor, priest, or soldier, and you are

well aware that you have accepted and are holding it, not for

purposes of self-denial, for the good of your fellow-men, but for

your own selfish interest; for your greed of gain, vainglory,

ambition, through your indolence or your cowardice. If you do not

desire this position you should not persist in doing what is cruel,

false, and contemptible in order to retain it. If you would once

refrain from these things which you do continually for the purpose

of retaining it, you would lose it at once. If you are a ruler or

an official, make only an attempt to cease polite lying, cease to

take part in violences and executions; if you are a priest, desist

from deceiving; if a soldier, cease killing; if a land-owner or

manufacturer, cease defending your property by roguery and violence;

and forthwith you will lose the position which, as you say, is

forced upon you and seems to you burdensome.

It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in a

position contrary to conscience.

If you are put in such a position, it is not because it is necessary

for some one to be there, but only because you are willing to accept

it. And therefore, knowing that such a position is directly opposed

to the mandates of your heart, your reason, your faith, and even to

the teaching of that science you believe in, you cannot but pause

to consider, if you wish to keep it, and especially if you try to

justify it, if you are doing what you ought to do.

You might run the risk if you had but the time to see your mistake

and correct it, and if you ran the risk for something worth having.

But when you know for certain that you are liable to die at any

moment, without the slightest possibility either for yourself or for

those whom you have drawn in with you of rectifying your mistake;

and, moreover, since you know that no matter what those about you

may accomplish in the material organization of the world, it will

all very shortly disappear as certainly as you yourself, leaving no

trace behind,--it is surely obvious that you have no inducement to

run the risk of making a mistake so terrible.

This would seem perfectly plain and simple if we did not veil with

hypocrisy the truth that is indubitably revealed to us.

Share what you have with others; do not amass riches; be not vain;

do not rob, torture, or murder men; do not to others what you would

not that others should do to you,--these things have been said

not eighteen hundred but five thousand years ago, and there can

be no doubt of the truth of them. Save for hypocrisy, it would be

impossible, even if one did not obey these rules, not to acknowledge

that they ought to be obeyed, and that those who do not obey them do

wrong.

But you say that there is still the general well-being, for the sake

of which one should deviate from these rules. It is allowable for

the general well-being to kill, torture, and rob. "It is better that

one man should perish than a whole nation," you say, like Caiaphas,

when you are signing death-warrants; or you load your gun to shoot

your fellow-man, who is to perish for the general good; or you

imprison him or take away his goods.

You say that you do these cruel things because you are a part of

society, of the State, and must serve your government and carry out

its laws, as landowner, judge, emperor, or soldier. But if you are

a part of the State and have duties in consequence, you are also a

partaker of the infinite life of God's universe, and have higher

duties in consequence of that.

As your duties to your family or to society are always subject to

the higher duties that depend upon your citizenship in the State, so

your duties of citizenship are subject to the duties arising from

your relations to the life of the universe, from your sonship to

God. And as it would be unwise to cut down telegraph poles in order

to furnish fuel for the benefit of a family or a few people, because

this would be breaking the laws that protect the welfare of the

State; so it is equally unwise, in order to promote the welfare of

the State, to execute or murder a man, because this is breaking the

immutable laws which preserve the welfare of the world.

The obligations of citizenship must be subject to the higher and

eternal obligations on your part in the everlasting life of God, and

must not contradict them. As it was said eighteen hundred years ago

by the disciples of Christ, "Whether it be right in the sight of God

to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."[33] "We ought to

obey God rather than men."[34]

[33] Acts iv. 19.

[34] Acts v. 29.

You are told to believe that in order to maintain an ever changing

system, established but yesterday by a few men in a corner of the

globe, you should commit violent deeds that are against the fixed

and eternal order established by God or reason. Can it be possible?

Do not fail, then, to reflect upon your position of land-owner,

merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or

soldier--associated with violence, oppression, deceit, torture, and

murder; refuse to recognize the lawfulness of these crimes. I do

not mean that if you are a landowner you should forthwith give your

land to the poor; or if a capitalist, your money or your factory to

your workmen; or if a czar, a minister, a magistrate, a judge, or a

general, you should forthwith abdicate all your advantages; or if a

soldier, whose occupation in its very nature is based on violence,

you should at once refuse to continue longer a soldier, despite

all the dangers of such a refusal. Should you do this, it will

indeed be an heroic act; but it may happen--and most probably--that

you will not be able to do it. You have connections, a family,

subordinates, chiefs; you may be surrounded by temptations so

strong that you cannot overcome them; but to acknowledge the truth

to be the truth, and not to lie--that you are always able to do.

You can refrain from affirming that you continue to be a landowner

or factory-owner, a merchant, an artist, an author, because you

are thus useful to men; from declaring that you are a governor, an

attorney-general, a czar, not because it is agreeable or you are

accustomed to be such, but for the good of men; from saying that you

remain a soldier, not through fear of punishment, but because you

consider the army indispensable for the protection of men's lives.

To keep from speaking thus falsely before yourself and others--this

you are always able to do, and not only able, but in duty bound to

do, because in this alone--in freeing yourself from falsehood and in

working out the truth--lies the highest duty of your life. And do

but this and it will be sufficient for the situation to change at

once of itself.

One only thing in which you are free and all-powerful has been given

you; all others are beyond you. It is this,--to know the truth and

to profess it. And it is only because of other miserable and erring

men like yourself that you have become a soldier, an emperor, a

landowner, a capitalist, a priest, or a general; that you commit

evil deeds so obviously contrary to the dictates of your heart and

reason; that you torture, rob, and murder men, establishing your

life on their sufferings; and that, above all, instead of performing

your paramount duty of acknowledging and professing the truth which

is known to you, you pretend not to know it, concealing it from

yourself and others, doing the very opposite of what you have been

called to do.

And under what conditions are you doing this? Being liable to die

at any moment, you sign a death-warrant, declare war or take part

in it, pass judgment, torture and rob workmen, live in luxury

surrounded by misery, and teach weak and trusting men that all

this is right and for you is a matter of duty, while all the time

you are in danger of your life being destroyed by a bullet or a

bacillus, and you may be deprived forever of the power to rectify or

counteract the evil you have done to others and to yourself; having

wasted a life given you but once in all eternity, having left undone

in it the one thing for which it was given you.

No matter how trite it may appear to state it, nor how we may

hypocritically deceive ourselves, nothing can destroy the certainty

of the simple and obvious truth that external conditions can

never render safe this life of ours, so fraught with unavoidable

suffering, and ended infallibly by death, that human life can have

no other meaning than the constant fulfilment of that for which the

Almighty Power has sent us here, and for which He has given us one

sure guide in this life, namely, our conscious reason.

This Power does not require from us what is unreasonable and

impossible,--the organization of our temporal, material life,

the life of society, or of the State. He demands of us only what

is reasonable and possible,--to serve the Kingdom of God, which

establishes the unity of mankind, a unity possible only in the

truth; to recognize and profess the truth revealed to us, which it

is always in our power to do.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all

these things shall be added unto you."[35]

[35] Matt. vi. 33.

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish

the Kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the

acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us. "The

kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say,

Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold the kingdom of God is within

you."[36]

[36] Luke xvii. 20, 21.

WHAT IS ART?

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

The fundamental thought expressed in this book leads inevitably

to conclusions so new, so unexpected, and so contrary to what is

usually maintained in literary and artistic circles, that although

it is clearly and emphatically expressed (and this I hope has

not been lost in translation), most readers who wish to possess

themselves of it will have to read the work carefully, and to digest

it slowly.

Especially the introductory Chapters II., III., IV., and V.,

need careful perusal by any who, having adopted one or other of

the current theories on beauty and art, may find it difficult to

abandon a preconceived view, and to clear their minds for a fair

appreciation of what is new to them.

The first four chapters raise the problem, and tell us briefly

what has been said by previous writers. Chapter III. gives (in

highly condensed form) the substance of the teaching of some sixty

philosophers on this subject, and since many of them were extremely

confused, the chapter cannot, in the nature of things, be easy

reading.

I should like to remark, in passing, that though Tolstoï in this

chapter (presumably for convenience of verification) refers chiefly

to the compilations of Schasler, Kralik, and Knight, he has gone

behind these authorities to the primary sources. To give a single

instance: in the paragraph on Darwin, the foot-note refers us to

Knight, but the remark that the origin of the art of music may be

traced back to the call of the males to the females in the animal

world will be found in Darwin, but will not be found in Knight.

In Chapter V. we come to Tolstoï's definition of art, which

definition should be kept well in mind while reading the rest of the

book.

No doubt most of those to whom it is an end in itself, who live by

it, or make it their chief occupation, will read this book (or leave

it unread) and go on in their former way, much as Pharaoh, of old,

hardened his heart, and did not sympathize with what Moses had to

say on the labor question. But for those of us who have felt that

art is too valuable a matter to be lost out of our lives, and who,

in their quest for social justice, have met the reproach that they

were sacrificing the pleasures and advantages of art, this book is

of inestimable value, in that it solves a perplexed question of

far-reaching importance to practical life.

To this class of readers neither the masterly elucidation of

the former theories contained in the opening chapters, nor the

explanation of how it has come about that such great importance

is attached to the activity we call art (Chapters VI. and VII.),

nor the explanation and illustrations of the perversion that art

has undergone, nor even the elucidation of the terrible evils this

perversion is producing (XVII.), will equal in significance the

remaining chapters of the book. These show us what to look for

in art, how to distinguish it from counterfeits (XV., XVI., and

XVIII.), treat of the true art of the future (XIX.), and explain how

science and art are linked together in man's life, are directed by

his perception of the meaning of life, and inevitably react on all

he thinks and feels.

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This book of mine, "What is Art?" appears now for the first time

in its true form. More than one edition has already been issued in

Russia, but in each case it has been so mutilated by the "Censor,"

that I request all who are interested in my views on art only to

judge of them by the work in its present shape. The causes which led

to the publication of the book--with my name attached to it--in a

mutilated form were the following: In accordance with a decision I

arrived at long ago,--not to submit my writings to the "Censorship"

(which I consider to be an immoral and irrational institution),

but to print them only in the shape in which they were written,--I

intended not to attempt to print this work in Russia. However, my

good acquaintance, Professor Grote, editor of a Moscow psychological

magazine, having heard of the contents of my work, asked me to

print it in his magazine, and promised me that he would get the

book through the "Censor's" office unmutilated if I would but agree

to a few very unimportant alterations, merely toning down certain

expressions. I was weak enough to agree to this, and it has resulted

in a book appearing under my name, from which not only have some

essential thoughts been excluded, but into which the thoughts of

other men--even thoughts utterly opposed to my own convictions--have

been introduced.

The thing occurred in this way. First, Grote softened my

expressions, and in some cases weakened them. For instance, he

replaced the words: _always_ by _sometimes_, _all_ by _some_,

_Church_ religion by _Roman Catholic_ religion, "_Mother of God_"

by _Madonna_, _patriotism_ by _pseudo-patriotism_, _palaces_

by _palatii_,[37] etc., and I did not consider it necessary

to protest. But when the book was already in type, the Censor

required that whole sentences should be altered, and that instead

of what I said about the evil of landed property, a remark should

be substituted on the evils of a landless proletariate.[38] I

agreed to this also, and to some further alterations. It seemed

not worth while to upset the whole affair for the sake of one

sentence, and when one alteration had been agreed to it seemed not

worth while to protest against a second and a third. So, little by

little, expressions crept into the book which altered the sense

and attributed things to me that I could not have wished to say.

So that by the time the book was printed it had been deprived of

some part of its integrity and sincerity. But there was consolation

in the thought that the book, even in this form, if it contains

something that is good, would be of use to Russian readers whom

it would otherwise not have reached. Things, however, turned out

otherwise. _Nous comptions sans notre hôte._ After the legal term

of four days had already elapsed, the book was seized, and, on

instructions received from Petersburg, it was handed over to the

"Spiritual Censor." Then Grote declined all further participation

in the affair, and the "Spiritual Censor" proceeded to do what he

would with the book. The "Spiritual Censorship" is one of the most

ignorant, venal, stupid, and despotic institutions in Russia. Books

which disagree in any way with the recognized state religion of

Russia, if once it gets hold of them, are almost always totally

suppressed and burnt; which is what happened to all my religious

works when attempts were made to print them in Russia. Probably

a similar fate would have overtaken this work also, had not the

editors of the magazine employed all means to save it. The result

of their efforts was that the "Spiritual Censor," a priest who

probably understands art and is interested in art as much as I

understand or am interested in church services, but who gets a good

salary for destroying whatever is likely to displease his superiors,

struck out all that seemed to him to endanger his position, and

substituted his thoughts for mine wherever he considered it

necessary to do so. For instance, where I speak of Christ going

to the Cross for the sake of the truth He professed, the "Censor"

substituted a statement that Christ died for mankind, _i.e_. he

attributed to me an assertion of the dogma of the Redemption, which

I consider to be one of the most untrue and harmful of Church

dogmas. After correcting the book in this way, the "Spiritual

Censor" allowed it to be printed.

[37] Tolstoï's remarks on Church religion were re-worded so as to

seem to relate only to the Western Church, and his disapproval of

luxurious life was made to apply, not, say, to Queen Victoria or

Nicholas II., but to the Cæsars or the Pharaohs.--TR.

[38] The Russian peasant is usually a member of a village commune,

and has therefore a right to a share in the land belonging to the

village. Tolstoï disapproves of the order of society which allows

less land for the support of a village full of people than is

sometimes owned by a single landed proprietor. The "Censor" will not

allow disapproval of this state of things to be expressed, but is

prepared to admit that the laws and customs, say, of England--where

a yet more extreme form of landed property exists, and the men who

actually labor on the land usually possess none of it--deserve

criticism.--TR.

To protest in Russia is impossible--no newspaper would publish such

a protest; and to withdraw my book from the magazine, and place the

editor in an awkward position with the public, was also not possible.

So the matter has remained. A book has appeared under my name

containing thoughts attributed to me which are not mine.

I was persuaded to give my article to a Russian magazine in order

that my thoughts, which may be useful, should become the possession

of Russian readers; and the result has been that my name is affixed

to a work from which it might be assumed that I quite arbitrarily

assert things contrary to the general opinion, without adducing my

reasons; that I only consider false patriotism bad, but patriotism

in general a very good feeling; that I merely deny the absurdities

of the Roman Catholic Church and disbelieve in the Madonna, but

that I believe in the Orthodox Eastern faith and in the "Mother of

God"; that I consider all the writings collected in the Bible to be

holy books, and see the chief importance of Christ's life in the

Redemption of mankind by His death.

I have narrated all this in such detail because it strikingly

illustrates the indubitable truth that all compromise with

institutions of which your conscience disapproves,--compromises

which are usually made for the sake of the general good,--instead

of producing the good you expected, inevitably lead you, not only

to acknowledge the institution you disapprove of, but also to

participate in the evil that institution produces.

I am glad to be able by this statement at least to do something to

correct the error into which I was led by my compromise.

I have also to mention that besides reinstating the parts excluded

by the Censor from the Russian editions, other corrections and

additions of importance have been made in this edition.

_29th March, 1898._

WHAT IS ART?

CHAPTER I

Take up any one of our ordinary newspapers, and you will find a part

devoted to the theater and music. In almost every number you will

find a description of some art exhibition, or of some particular

picture, and you will always find reviews of new works of art that

have appeared, of volumes of poems, of short stories, or of novels.

Promptly, and in detail, as soon as it has occurred, an account is

published of how such and such an actress or actor played this or

that rôle in such and such a drama, comedy, or opera; and of the

merits of the performance, as well as of the contents of the new

drama, comedy, or opera, with its defects and merits. With as much

care and detail, or even more, we are told how such and such an

artist has sung a certain piece, or has played it on the piano or

violin, and what were the merits and defects of the piece and of the

performance. In every large town there is sure to be at least one,

if not more than one, exhibition of new pictures, the merits and

defects of which are discussed in the utmost detail by critics and

connoisseurs.

New novels and poems, in separate volumes or in the magazines,

appear almost every day, and the newspapers consider it their

duty to give their readers detailed accounts of these artistic

productions.

For the support of art in Russia (where for the education of the

people only a hundredth part is spent of what would be required to

give every one the opportunity of instruction) the government grants

millions of roubles in subsidies to academies, conservatoires, and

theaters. In France twenty million francs are assigned for art, and

similar grants are made in Germany and England.

In every large town enormous buildings are erected for museums,

academies, conservatoires, dramatic schools, and for performances

and concerts. Hundreds of thousands of workmen--carpenters, masons,

painters, joiners, paperhangers, tailors, hairdressers, jewelers,

molders, type-setters--spend their whole lives in hard labor to

satisfy the demands of art, so that hardly any other department of

human activity, except the military, consumes so much energy as this.

Not only is enormous labor spent on this activity, but in it, as in

war, the very lives of men are sacrificed. Hundreds of thousands

of people devote their lives from childhood to learning to twirl

their legs rapidly (dancers), or to touch notes and strings very

rapidly (musicians), or to draw with paint and represent what

they see (artists), or to turn every phrase inside out and find a

rhyme to every word. And these people, often very kind and clever,

and capable of all sorts of useful labor, grow savage over their

specialized and stupefying occupations, and become one-sided and

self-complacent specialists, dull to all the serious phenomena

of life, and skilful only at rapidly twisting their legs, their

tongues, or their fingers.

But even this stunting of human life is not the worst. I remember

being once at the rehearsal of one of the most ordinary of the new

operas which are produced at all the opera houses of Europe and

America.

I arrived when the first act had already commenced. To reach the

auditorium I had to pass through the stage entrance. By dark

entrances and passages, I was led through the vaults of an enormous

building, past immense machines for changing the scenery and for

illuminating; and there in the gloom and dust I saw workmen busily

engaged. One of these men, pale, haggard, in a dirty blouse, with

dirty, work-worn hands and cramped fingers, evidently tired and out

of humor, went past me, angrily scolding another man. Ascending by

a dark stair, I came out on the boards behind the scenes. Amid

various poles and rings and scattered scenery, decorations and

curtains, stood and moved dozens, if not hundreds, of painted and

dressed-up men, in costumes fitting tight to their thighs and

calves, and also women, as usual, as nearly nude as might be. These

were all singers, or members of the chorus, or ballet-dancers,

awaiting their turns. My guide led me across the stage and, by means

of a bridge of boards across the orchestra (in which perhaps a

hundred musicians of all kinds, from kettledrum to flute and harp,

were seated), to the dark pit-stalls.

On an elevation, between two lamps with reflectors, and in an

arm-chair placed before a music-stand, sat the director of the

musical part, _bâton_ in hand, managing the orchestra and singers,

and, in general, the production of the whole opera.

The performance had already commenced, and on the stage a procession

of Indians who had brought home a bride was being presented. Besides

men and women in costume, two other men in ordinary clothes bustled

and ran about on the stage; one was the director of the dramatic

part, and the other, who stepped about in soft shoes and ran from

place to place with unusual agility, was the dancing-master, whose

salary per month exceeded what ten laborers earn in a year.

These three directors arranged the singing, the orchestra, and

the procession. The procession, as usual, was enacted by couples,

with tinfoil halberds on their shoulders. They all came from one

place, and walked round and round again, and then stopped. The

procession took a long time to arrange: first the Indians with

halberds came on too late; then too soon; then at the right time,

but crowded together at the exit; then they did not crowd, but

arranged themselves badly at the sides of the stage; and each

time the whole performance was stopped and recommenced from the

beginning. The procession was introduced by a recitative, delivered

by a man dressed up like some variety of Turk, who, opening his

mouth in a curious way, sang, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide." He

sings and waves his arm (which is of course bare) from under his

mantle. The procession commences, but here the French horn, in

the accompaniment of the recitative, does something wrong; and the

director, with a shudder as if some catastrophe had occurred, raps

with his stick on the stand. All is stopped, and the director,

turning to the orchestra, attacks the French horn, scolding him in

the rudest terms, as cabmen abuse each other, for taking the wrong

note. And again the whole thing recommences. The Indians with their

halberds again come on, treading softly in their extraordinary

boots; again the singer sings, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide." But

here the pairs get too close together. More raps with the stick,

more scolding, and a recommencement. Again, "Home I bring the

bri-i-ide," again the same gesticulation with the bare arm from

under the mantle, and again the couples, treading softly with

halberds on their shoulders, some with sad and serious faces, some

talking and smiling, arrange themselves in a circle and begin to

sing. All seems to be going well, but again the stick raps, and

the director, in a distressed and angry voice, begins to scold the

men and women of the chorus. It appears that when singing they had

omitted to raise their hands from time to time in sign of animation.

"Are you all dead, or what? Cows that you are! Are you corpses,

that you can't move?" Again they recommence, "Home I bring the

bri-i-ide," and again, with sorrowful faces, the chorus-women sing,

first one and then another of them raising their hands. But two

chorus-girls speak to each other,--again a more vehement rapping

with the stick. "Have you come here to talk? Can't you gossip at

home? You there in red breeches, come nearer. Look toward me!

Recommence!" Again, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide." And so it goes

on for one, two, three hours. The whole of such a rehearsal lasts

six hours on end. Raps with the stick, repetitions, placings,

corrections of the singers, of the orchestra, of the procession, of

the dancers,--all seasoned with angry scolding. I heard the words,

"asses," "fools," "idiots," "swine," addressed to the musicians

and singers at least forty times in the course of one hour. And

the unhappy individual to whom the abuse is addressed,--flautist,

horn-blower, or singer,--physically and mentally demoralized,

does not reply, and does what is demanded of him. Twenty times is

repeated the one phrase, "Home I bring the bri-i-ide," and twenty

times the striding about in yellow shoes with a halberd over the

shoulder. The conductor knows that these people are so demoralized

that they are no longer fit for anything but to blow trumpets and

walk about with halberds and in yellow shoes, and that they are also

accustomed to dainty, easy living, so that they will put up with

anything rather than lose their luxurious life. He therefore gives

free vent to his churlishness, especially as he has seen the same

thing done in Paris and Vienna, and knows that this is the way the

best conductors behave, and that it is a musical tradition of great

artists to be so carried away by the great business of their art

that they cannot pause to consider the feelings of other artists.

It would be difficult to find a more repulsive sight. I have seen

one workman abuse another for not supporting the weight piled upon

him when goods were being unloaded, or, at hay-stacking, the village

elder scold a peasant for not making the rick right, and the man

submitted in silence. And, however unpleasant it was to witness the

scene, the unpleasantness was lessened by the consciousness that the

business in hand was needful and important, and that the fault for

which the head man scolded the laborer was one which might spoil a

needful undertaking.

But what was being done here? For what, and for whom? Very likely

the conductor was tired out, like the workman I passed in the

vaults; it was even evident that he was; but who made him tire

himself? And for what was he tiring himself? The opera he was

rehearsing was one of the most ordinary of operas for people who are

accustomed to them, but also one of the most gigantic absurdities

that could possibly be devised. An Indian king wants to marry; they

bring him a bride; he disguises himself as a minstrel; the bride

falls in love with the minstrel and is in despair, but afterwards

discovers that the minstrel is the king, and every one is highly

delighted.

That there never were, or could be, such Indians, and that they

were not only unlike Indians, but that what they were doing was

unlike anything on earth except other operas, was beyond all manner

of doubt; that people do not converse in such a way as recitative,

and do not place themselves at fixed distances, in a quartet,

waving their arms to express their emotions; that nowhere, except

in theaters, do people walk about in such a manner, in pairs, with

tinfoil halberds and in slippers; that no one ever gets angry in

such a way, or is affected in such a way, or laughs in such a way,

or cries in such a way; and that no one on earth can be moved by

such performances; all this is beyond the possibility of doubt.

Instinctively the question presents itself: For whom is this being

done? Whom _can_ it please? If there are, occasionally, good

melodies in the opera, to which it is pleasant to listen, they could

have been sung simply, without these stupid costumes and all the

processions and recitatives and hand-wavings.

The ballet, in which half-naked women make voluptuous movements,

twisting themselves into various sensual wreathings, is simply a

lewd performance.

So one is quite at a loss as to whom these things are done for. The

man of culture is heartily sick of them, while to a real working-man

they are utterly incomprehensible. If any one can be pleased by

these things (which is doubtful), it can only be some young footman

or depraved artisan, who has contracted the spirit of the upper

classes but is not yet satiated with their amusements, and wishes to

show his breeding.

And all this nasty folly is prepared, not simply, nor with kindly

merriment, but with anger and brutal cruelty.

It is said that it is all done for the sake of art, and that art

is a very important thing. But is it true that art is so important

that such sacrifices should be made for its sake? This question is

especially urgent, because art, for the sake of which the labor of

millions, the lives of men, and, above all, love between man and

man, are being sacrificed,--this very art is becoming something more

and more vague and uncertain to human perception.

Criticism, in which the lovers of art used to find support for their

opinions, has latterly become so self-contradictory, that, if we

exclude from the domain of art all that to which the critics of

various schools themselves deny the title, there is scarcely any art

left.

The artists of various sects, like the theologians of the various

sects, mutually exclude and destroy themselves. Listen to the

artists of the schools of our times, and you will find, in all

branches, each set of artists disowning others. In poetry the old

romanticists deny the parnassiens and the decadents; the parnassiens

disown the romanticists and the decadents; the decadents disown

all their predecessors and the symbolists; the symbolists disown

all their predecessors and _les mages_; and _les mages_ disown

all, all their predecessors. Among novelists we have naturalists,

psychologists, and "nature-ists," all rejecting each other. And it

is the same in dramatic art, in painting, and in music. So that art,

which demands such tremendous labor-sacrifices from the people,

which stunts human lives and transgresses against human love, is not

only _not_ a thing clearly and firmly defined, but is understood in

such contradictory ways by its own devotees that it is difficult

to say what is meant by art, and especially what is good, useful

art,--art for the sake of which we might condone such sacrifices as

are being offered at its shrine.

CHAPTER II

For the production of every ballet, circus, opera, operetta,

exhibition, picture, concert, or printed book, the intense and

unwilling labor of thousands and thousands of people is needed at

what is often harmful and humiliating work. It were well if artists

made all they require for themselves, but, as it is, they all need

the help of workmen, not only to produce art, but also for their own

usually luxurious maintenance. And, one way or other, they get it;

either through payments from rich people, or through subsidies given

by government (in Russia, for instance, in grants of millions of

roubles to theaters, conservatoires, and academies). This money is

collected from the people, some of whom have to sell their only cow

to pay the tax, and who never get those æsthetic pleasures which art

gives.

It was all very well for a Greek or Roman artist, or even for a

Russian artist of the first half of our century (when there were

still slaves, and it was considered right that there should be),

with a quiet mind to make people serve him and his art; but in our

day, when in all men there is at least some dim perception of the

equal rights of all, it is impossible to constrain people to labor

unwillingly for art, without first deciding the question whether it

is true that art is so good and so important an affair as to redeem

this evil.

If not, we have the terrible probability to consider, that while

fearful sacrifices of the labor and lives of men, and of morality

itself, are being made to art, that same art may be not only useless

but even harmful.

And therefore it is necessary for a society in which works of art

arise and are supported, to find out whether all that professes to

be art is really art; whether (as is presupposed in our society) all

that which is art is good; and whether it is important and worth

those sacrifices which it necessitates. It is still more necessary

for every conscientious artist to know this, that he may be sure

that all he does has a valid meaning; that it is not merely an

infatuation of the small circle of people among whom he lives which

excites in him the false assurance that he is doing a good work; and

that what he takes from others for the support of his often very

luxurious life, will be compensated for by those productions at

which he works. And that is why answers to the above questions are

especially important in our time.

What is this art, which is considered so important and necessary for

humanity that for its sake these sacrifices of labor, of human life,

and even of goodness may be made?

"What is art? What a question! Art is architecture, sculpture,

painting, music, and poetry in all its forms," usually replies the

ordinary man, the art amateur, or even the artist himself, imagining

the matter about which he is talking to be perfectly clear, and

uniformly understood by everybody. But in architecture, one inquires

further, are there not simple buildings which are not objects of

art, and buildings with artistic pretensions which are unsuccessful

and ugly and therefore cannot be considered as works of art? Wherein

lies the characteristic sign of a work of art?

It is the same in sculpture, in music, and in poetry. Art, in all

its forms, is bounded on one side by the practically useful, and on

the other by unsuccessful attempts at art. How is art to be marked

off from each of these? The ordinary educated man of our circle,

and even the artist who has not occupied himself especially with

æsthetics, will not hesitate at this question either. He thinks the

solution has been found long ago, and is well known to every one.

"Art is such activity as produces beauty," says such a man.

If art consists in that, then is a ballet or an operetta art? you

inquire.

"Yes," says the ordinary man, though with some hesitation, "a good

ballet or a graceful operetta is also art, in so far as it manifests

beauty."

But without even asking the ordinary man what differentiates the

"good" ballet and the "graceful" operetta from their opposites

(a question he would have much difficulty in answering), if you

ask him whether the activity of costumiers and hairdressers, who

ornament the figures and faces of the women for the ballet and

the operetta, is art; or the activity of Worth, the dressmaker;

of scent-makers and men cooks,--then he will, in most cases, deny

that their activity belongs to the sphere of art. But in this the

ordinary man makes a mistake, just because he is an ordinary man

and not a specialist, and because he has not occupied himself with

æsthetic questions. Had he looked into these matters, he would

have seen in the great Renan's book, "Marc Aurele," a dissertation

showing that the tailor's work is art, and that those who do not

see in the adornment of woman an affair of the highest art are very

small-minded and dull. "_C'est le grand art_," says Renan. Moreover,

he would have known that in many æsthetic systems--for instance,

in the æsthetics of the learned Professor Kralik, "Weltschönheit,

Versuch einer allgemeinen Æsthetik, von Richard Kralik," and in "Les

Problèmes de l'Esthétique Contemporaine," by Guyau--the arts of

costume, of taste, and of touch are included.

"_Es Folgt nun ein Fünfblatt von Künsten, die der subjectiven

Sinnlichkeit entkeimen_" (There results then a pentafoliate of arts,

growing out of the subjective perceptions), says Kralik (p. 175).

"_Sie sind die ästhetische Behandlung der fünf Sinne._" (They are

the æsthetic treatment of the five senses.)

These five arts are the following:--

_Die Kunst des Geschmacksinns_--The art of the sense of taste (p.

175).

_Die Kunst des Geruchsinns_--The art of the sense of smell (p. 177).

_Die Kunst des Tastsinns_--The art of the sense of touch (p. 180).

_Die Kunst des Gehörsinns_--The art of the sense of hearing (p. 182).

_Die Kunst des Gesichtsinns_--The art of the sense of sight (p. 184).

Of the first of these--_die Kunst des Geschmacksinns_--he says:

"_Man hält zwar gewöhnlich nur zwei oder höchstens drei Sinne für

würdig, den Stoff künstlerischer Behandlung abzugeben, aber ich

glaube nur mit bedingtem Recht. Ich will kein allzugrosses Gewicht

darauf legen, dass der gemeine Sprachgebrauch manch andere Künste,

wie zum Beispiel die Kochkunst kennt._"[39]

[39] Only two, or at most three, senses are generally held worthy

to supply matter for artistic treatment, but I think this opinion

is only conditionally correct. I will not lay too much stress on

the fact that our common speech recognizes many other arts, as, for

instance, the art of cookery.

And further: "_Und es ist doch gewiss eine ästhetische Leistung,

wenn es der Kochkunst gelingt ans einem thierischen Kadaver einen

Gegenstand des Geschmacks in jedem Sinne zu machen. Der Grundsatz

der Kunst des Geschmacksinns (die weiter ist als die sogenannte

Kochkunst) ist also dieser: Es soll alles Geniessbare als Sinnbild

einer Idee behandelt werden und in jedesmaligem Einklang zur

auszudrückenden Idee._"[40]

[40] And yet it is certainly an æsthetic achievement when the art of

cooking succeeds in making of an animal's corpse an object in all

respects tasteful. The principle of the Art of Taste (which goes

beyond the so-called Art of Cookery) is therefore this: All that is

eatable should be treated as the symbol of some Idea, and always in

harmony with the Idea to be expressed.

This author, like Renan, acknowledges a _Kostümkunst_ (Art of

Costume) (p. 200), etc.

Such is also the opinion of the French writer, Guyau, who is highly

esteemed by some authors of our day. In his book, "Les Problèmes

de l'Esthétique Contemporaine," he speaks seriously of touch,

taste, and smell as giving, or being capable of giving, æsthetic

impressions: "_Si la couleur manque au toucher, il nous fournit en

revanche une notion que l'œil seul ne peut nous donner, et qui a

une valeur esthétique considérable, celle du_ doux, _du_ soyeux,

_du_ poli. _Ce qui caractérise la beauté du velours, c'est sa

douceur au toucher non moins que son brillant. Dans l'idée que nous

nous faisons de la beauté d'une femme, le velouté de sa peau entre

comme élément essentiel._"

"_Chacun de nous probablement avec un peu d'attention se rappellera

des jouissances du goût, qui ont été de véritables jouissances

esthétiques._"[41] And he recounts how a glass of milk drunk by him

in the mountains gave him æsthetic enjoyment.

[41] If the sense of touch lacks color, it gives us, on the

other hand, a notion which the eye alone cannot afford, and one

of considerable æsthetic value, namely, that of _softness_,

_silkiness_, _polish_. The beauty of velvet is characterized not

less by its softness to the touch than by its luster. In the idea

we form of a woman's beauty, the softness of her skin enters as an

essential element.

Each of us, probably, with a little attention, can recall pleasures

of taste which have been real æsthetic pleasures.

So it turns out that the conception of art, as consisting in making

beauty manifest, is not at all so simple as it seemed, especially

now, when in this conception of beauty are included our sensations

of touch and taste and smell, as they are by the latest æsthetic

writers.

But the ordinary man either does not know, or does not wish to know,

all this, and is firmly convinced that all questions about art may

be simply and clearly solved by acknowledging beauty to be the

subject-matter of art. To him it seems clear and comprehensible that

art consists in manifesting beauty, and that a reference to beauty

will serve to explain all questions about art.

But what is this beauty which forms the subject-matter of art? How

is it defined? What is it?

As is always the case, the more cloudy and confused the conception

conveyed by a word, with the more _aplomb_ and self-assurance do

people use that word, pretending that what is understood by it is so

simple and clear that it is not worth while even to discuss what it

actually means.

This is how matters of orthodox religion are usually dealt with,

and this is how people now deal with the conception of beauty.

It is taken for granted that what is meant by the word beauty is

known and understood by every one. And yet not only is this not

known, but, after whole mountains of books have been written on

the subject by the most learned and profound thinkers during one

hundred and fifty years (ever since Baumgarten founded æsthetics in

the year 1750), the question, What is beauty? remains to this day

quite unsolved, and in each new work on æsthetics it is answered

in a new way. One of the last books I read on æsthetics is a not

ill-written booklet by Julius Mithalter, called "Rätsel des Schönen"

(The Enigma of the Beautiful). And that title precisely expresses

the position of the question, What is beauty? After thousands of

learned men have discussed it during one hundred and fifty years,

the meaning of the word beauty remains an enigma still. The Germans

answer the question in their manner, though in a hundred different

ways. The physiologist-æstheticians, especially the Englishmen,

Herbert Spencer, Grant Allen, and his school, answer it, each in

his own way; the French eclectics, and the followers of Guyau and

Taine, also each in his own way; and all these people know all the

preceding solutions given by Baumgarten, and Kant, and Schelling,

and Schiller, and Fichte, and Winckelmann, and Lessing, and Hegel,

and Schopenhauer, and Hartmann, and Schasler, and Cousin, and

Lévêque, and others.

What is this strange conception "beauty," which seems so simple

to those who talk without thinking, but in defining which all the

philosophers of various tendencies and different nationalities can

come to no agreement during a century and a half? What is this

conception of beauty, on which the dominant doctrine of art rests?

In Russian, by the word _krasota_ (beauty) we mean only that which

pleases the sight. And though latterly people have begun to speak of

"an ugly deed," or of "beautiful music," it is not good Russian.

A Russian of the common folk, not knowing foreign languages, will

not understand you if you tell him that a man who has given his last

coat to another, or done anything similar, has acted "beautifully,"

that a man who has cheated another has done an "ugly" action, or

that a song is "beautiful."

In Russian a deed may be kind and good, or unkind and bad. Music may

be pleasant and good, or unpleasant and bad; but there can be no

such thing as "beautiful" or "ugly" music.

Beautiful may relate to a man, a horse, a house, a view, or a

movement. Of actions, thoughts, character, or music, if they please

us, we may say that they are good, or, if they do not please us,

that they are not good. But beautiful can be used only concerning

that which pleases the sight. So that the word and conception "good"

includes the conception of "beautiful," but the reverse is not

the case; the conception "beauty" does not include the conception

"good." If we say "good" of an article which we value for its

appearance, we thereby say that the article is beautiful; but if we

say it is "beautiful," it does not at all mean that the article is a

good one.

Such is the meaning ascribed by the Russian language, and therefore

by the sense of the people, to the words and conceptions "good" and

"beautiful."

In all the European languages, _i.e._ the languages of those nations

among whom the doctrine has spread that beauty is the essential

thing in art, the words "beau," "schön," "beautiful," "bello,"

etc., while keeping their meaning of beautiful in form, have come

to also express "goodness," "kindness," _i.e._ have come to act as

substitutes for the word "good."

So that it has become quite natural in those languages to use such

expressions as "belle ame," "schöne Gedanken," of "beautiful deed."

Those languages no longer have a suitable word wherewith expressly

to indicate beauty of form, and have to use a combination of words

such as "beau par la forme," "beautiful to look at," etc., to convey

that idea.

Observation of the divergent meanings which the words "beauty" and

"beautiful" have in Russian on the one hand, and in those European

languages now permeated by this æsthetic theory on the other hand,

shows us that the word "beauty" has, among the latter, acquired a

special meaning, namely, that of "good."

What is remarkable, moreover, is that since we Russians have begun

more and more to adopt the European view of art, the same evolution

has begun to show itself in our language also, and some people

speak and write quite confidently, and without causing surprise, of

beautiful music and ugly actions, or even thoughts; whereas forty

years ago, when I was young, the expressions "beautiful music"

and "ugly actions" were not only unusual, but incomprehensible.

Evidently this new meaning given to beauty by European thought

begins to be assimilated by Russian society.

And what really is this meaning? What is this "beauty" as it is

understood by the European peoples?

In order to answer this question, I must here quote at least a

small selection of those definitions of beauty most generally

adopted in existing æsthetic systems. I especially beg the reader

not to be overcome by dullness, but to read these extracts through,

or, still better, to read some one of the erudite æsthetic authors.

Not to mention the voluminous German æstheticians, a very good

book for this purpose would be either the German book by Kralik,

the English work by Knight, or the French one by Lévêque. It is

necessary to read one of the learned æsthetic writers in order to

form at firsthand a conception of the variety in opinion and the

frightful obscurity which reigns in this region of speculation; not,

in this important matter, trusting to another's report.

This, for instance, is what the German æsthetician Schasler says

in the preface to his famous, voluminous, and detailed work on

æsthetics:--

"Hardly in any sphere of philosophic science can we find such

divergent methods of investigation and exposition, amounting even to

self-contradiction, as in the sphere of æsthetics. On the one hand,

we have elegant phraseology without any substance, characterized

in great part by most one-sided superficiality; and on the other

hand, accompanying undeniable profundity of investigation and

richness of subject-matter, we get a revolting awkwardness of

philosophic terminology, infolding the simplest thoughts in an

apparel of abstract science, as though to render them worthy to

enter the consecrated palace of the system; and finally, between

these two methods of investigation and exposition there is a third,

forming, as it were, the transition from one to the other, a method

consisting of eclecticism, now flaunting an elegant phraseology, and

now a pedantic erudition.... A style of exposition that falls into

none of these three defects but it is truly concrete, and, having

important matter, expresses it in clear and popular philosophic

language, can nowhere be found less frequently than in the domain of

æsthetics."[42]

[42] M. Schasler, "Kritische Geschichte der Æsthetik," 1872, vol.

i., p. 13.

It is only necessary, for instance, to read Schasler's own book to

convince oneself of the justice of this observation of his.

On the same subject the French writer Véron, in the preface to

his very good work on æsthetics, says: "_Il n'y a pas de science,

qui ait été plus que l'esthétique livrée aux rêveries des

métaphysiciens. Depuis Platon jusqu'aux doctrines officielles de nos

jours, on a fait de l'art je ne sais quel amalgame de fantaisies

quintessenciées, et de mystères transcendantaux qui trouvent leur

expression suprême dans la conception absolue du Beau idéal,

prototype immuable et divin des choses réelles_" ("L'Esthétique,"

1878, p. 5).[43]

[43] There is no science which, more than æsthetics, has been handed

over to the reveries of the metaphysicians. From Plato down to the

received doctrines of our day, people have made of art a strange

amalgam of quintessential fancies and transcendental mysteries,

which find their supreme expression in the conception of an absolute

ideal Beauty, immutable and divine prototype of actual things.

If the reader will only be at the pains to peruse the following

extracts, defining beauty, taken from the chief writers on

æsthetics, he may convince himself that this censure is thoroughly

deserved.

I shall not quote the definitions of beauty attributed to

the ancients,--Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc., down to

Plotinus,--because, in reality, the ancients had not that conception

of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of

æsthetics in our time. By referring the judgments of the ancients on

beauty to our conception of it, as is usually done in æsthetics, we

give the words of the ancients a meaning which is not theirs.[44]

[44] See on this matter Benard's admirable book, "L'Esthétique

d'Aristote," also Walter's "Geschichte der Æsthetik in Altertum."

CHAPTER III

I begin with the founder of æsthetics, Baumgarten (1714-1762).

According to Baumgarten,[45] the object of logical knowledge is

Truth, the object of æsthetic (_i.e._ sensuous) knowledge is Beauty.

Beauty is the Perfect (the Absolute) recognized through the senses;

Truth is the Perfect perceived through reason; Goodness is the

Perfect reached by moral will.

[45] Schasler, p. 361.

Beauty is defined by Baumgarten as a correspondence, _i.e._ an order

of the parts in their mutual relations to each other and in their

relation to the whole. The aim of beauty itself is to please and

excite a desire, "_Wohlgefallen und Erregung eines Verlangens_." (A

position precisely the opposite of Kant's definition of the nature

and sign of beauty.)

With reference to the manifestations of beauty, Baumgarten considers

that the highest embodiment of beauty is seen by us in nature, and

he therefore thinks that the highest aim of art is to copy nature.

(This position also is directly contradicted by the conclusions of

the latest æstheticians.)

Passing over the unimportant followers of Baumgarten,--Maier,

Eschenburg, and Eberhard,--who only slightly modified the doctrine

of their teacher by dividing the pleasant from the beautiful, I will

quote the definitions given by writers who came immediately after

Baumgarten, and defined beauty quite in another way. These writers

were Sulzer, Mendelssohn, and Moritz. They, in contradiction to

Baumgarten's main position, recognize as the aim of art, not beauty,

but goodness. Thus Sulzer (1720-1777) says that only that can be

considered beautiful which contains goodness. According to his

theory, the aim of the whole life of humanity is welfare in social

life. This is attained by the education of the moral feelings, to

which end art should be subservient. Beauty is that which evokes and

educates this feeling.

Beauty is understood almost in the same way by Mendelssohn

(1729-1786). According to him, art is the carrying forward of the

beautiful, obscurely recognized by feeling, till it becomes the true

and good. The aim of art is moral perfection.[46]

[46] Schasler, p. 369.

For the æstheticians of this school, the ideal of beauty is a

beautiful soul in a beautiful body. So that these æstheticians

completely wipe out Baumgarten's division of the Perfect (the

Absolute), into the three forms of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty; and

Beauty is again united with the Good and the True.

But this conception is not only not maintained by the later

æstheticians, but the æsthetic doctrine of Winckelmann arises, again

in complete opposition. This divides the mission of art from the aim

of goodness in the sharpest and most positive manner, makes external

beauty the aim of art, and even limits it to visible beauty.

According to the celebrated work of Winckelmann (1717-1767), the law

and aim of all art is beauty only, beauty quite separated from and

independent of goodness. There are three kinds of beauty: (1) beauty

of form, (2) beauty of idea, expressing itself in the position of

the figure (in plastic art), (3) beauty of expression, attainable

only when the two first conditions are present. This beauty of

expression is the highest aim of art, and is attained in antique

art; modern art should therefore aim at imitating ancient art.[47]

[47] Schasler, pp. 388-390.

Art is similarly understood by Lessing, Herder, and afterwards by

Goethe and by all the distinguished æstheticians of Germany till

Kant, from whose day, again, a different conception of art commences.

Native æsthetic theories arose during this period in England,

France, Italy, and Holland, and they, though not taken from the

German, were equally cloudy and contradictory. And all these

writers, just like the German æstheticians, founded their theories

on a conception of the Beautiful, understanding beauty in the sense

of a something existing absolutely, and more or less intermingled

with Goodness or having one and the same root. In England, almost

simultaneously with Baumgarten, even a little earlier, Shaftesbury,

Hutcheson, Home, Burke, Hogarth, and others, wrote on art.

According to Shaftesbury (1670-1713), "That which is beautiful

is harmonious and proportionable, what is harmonious and

proportionable is true, and what is at once both beautiful and true

is of consequence agreeable and good."[48] Beauty, he taught, is

recognized by the mind only. God is fundamental beauty; beauty and

goodness proceed from the same fount.

[48] Knight, "Philosophy of the Beautiful," i., pp. 165, 166.

So that, although Shaftesbury regards beauty as being something

separate from goodness, they again merge into something inseparable.

According to Hutcheson (1694-1747--"Inquiry into the Original of our

Ideas of Beauty and Virtue"), the aim of art is beauty, the essence

of which consists in evoking in us the perception of uniformity amid

variety. In the recognition of what is art we are guided by "an

internal sense." This internal sense may be in contradiction to the

ethical one. So that, according to Hutcheson, beauty does not always

correspond with goodness, but separates from it and is sometimes

contrary to it.[49]

[49] Schasler, p. 289. Knight, pp. 168, 169.

According to Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782), beauty is that which is

pleasant. Therefore beauty is defined by taste alone. The standard

of true taste is that the maximum of richness, fullness, strength,

and variety of impression should be contained in the narrowest

limits. That is the ideal of a perfect work of art.

According to Burke (1729-1797--"Philosophical Inquiry into the

Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful"), the sublime

and beautiful, which are the aim of art, have their origin in the

promptings of self-preservation and of society. These feelings,

examined in their source, are means for the maintenance of the race

through the individual. The first (self-preservation) is attained by

nourishment, defense, and war; the second (society) by intercourse

and propagation. Therefore self-defense, and war, which is bound

up with it, is the source of the sublime; sociability, and the

sex-instinct, which is bound up with it, is the source of beauty.[50]

[50] R. Kralik, "Weltschönheit, Versuch einer allgemeinen Æsthetik,"

pp. 304-306.

Such were the chief English definitions of art and beauty in the

eighteenth century.

During that period, in France, the writers on art were Père André

and Batteux, with Diderot, D'Alembert, and, to some extent,

Voltaire, following later.

According to Père André ("Essai sur le Beau," 1741), there are three

kinds of beauty,--divine beauty, natural beauty, and artificial

beauty.[51]

[51] Knight, p. 101.

According to Batteux (1713-1780), art consists in imitating the

beauty of nature, its aim being enjoyment.[52] Such is also

Diderot's definition of art.

[52] Schasler, p. 316.

The French writers, like the English, consider that it is taste that

decides what is beautiful. And the laws of taste are not only not

laid down, but it is granted that they cannot be settled. The same

view was held by D'Alembert and Voltaire.[53]

[53] Knight, pp. 102-104.

According to the Italian æsthetician of that period, Pagano, art

consists in uniting the beauties dispersed in nature. The capacity

to perceive these beauties is taste, the capacity to bring them

into one whole is artistic genius. Beauty commingles with goodness,

so that beauty is goodness made visible, and goodness is inner

beauty.[54]

[54] R. Kralik, p. 124.

According to the opinion of other Italians: Muratori

(1672-1750),--"_Riflessioni sopra il buon gusto intorno le science

e le arti_,"--and especially Spaletti,[55]--"_Saggio sopra la

bellezza_" (1765),--art amounts to an egotistical sensation, founded

(as with Burke) on the desire for self-preservation and society.

[55] Spaletti, Schasler, p. 328.

Among Dutch writers, Hemsterhuis (1720-1790), who had an influence

on the German æstheticians and on Goethe, is remarkable. According

to him, beauty is that which gives most pleasure, and that gives

most pleasure which gives us the greatest number of ideas in the

shortest time. Enjoyment of the beautiful, because it gives the

greatest quantity of perceptions in the shortest time, is the

highest notion to which man can attain.[56]

[56] Schasler, pp. 331-333.

Such were the æsthetic theories outside Germany during the last

century. In Germany, after Winckelmann, there again arose a

completely new æsthetic theory, that of Kant (1724-1804), which,

more than all others, clears up what this conception of beauty, and

consequently of art, really amounts to.

The æsthetic teaching of Kant is founded as follows: Man has a

knowledge of nature outside him and of himself in nature. In

nature, outside himself, he seeks for truth; in himself, he seeks

for goodness. The first is an affair of pure reason, the other of

practical reason (free will). Besides these two means of perception,

there is yet the judging capacity (_Urteilskraft_), which forms

judgments without reasonings and produces pleasure without desire

(_Urtheil ohne Begriff und Vergnügen ohne Begehren_). This capacity

is the basis of æsthetic feeling. Beauty, according to Kant, in

its subjective meaning is that which, in general and necessarily,

without reasonings and without practical advantage, pleases. In its

objective meaning it is the form of a suitable object, in so far as

that object is perceived without any conception of its utility.[57]

[57] Schasler, pp. 525-528.

Beauty is defined in the same way by the followers of Kant, among

whom was Schiller (1759-1805). According to Schiller, who wrote much

on æsthetics, the aim of art is, as with Kant, beauty, the source of

which is pleasure without practical advantage. So that art may be

called a game, not in the sense of an unimportant occupation, but in

the sense of a manifestation of the beauties of life itself without

other aim than that of beauty.[58]

[58] Knight, pp. 61-63.

Besides Schiller, the most remarkable of Kant's followers in the

sphere of æsthetics was Wilhelm Humboldt, who, though he added

nothing to the definition of beauty, explained various forms of

it,--the drama, music, the comic, etc.[59]

[59] Schasler, pp. 740-743.

After Kant, besides the second-rate philosophers, the writers on

æsthetics were Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and their followers.

Fichte (1762-1814) says that perception of the beautiful proceeds

from this: the world--_i.e._ nature--has two sides: it is the

sum of our limitations, and it is the sum of our free idealistic

activity. In the first aspect the world is limited, in the second

aspect it is free. In the first aspect every object is limited,

distorted, compressed, confined--and we see deformity; in the second

we perceive its inner completeness, vitality, regeneration--and

we see beauty. So that the deformity or beauty of an object,

according to Fichte, depends on the point of view of the observer.

Beauty therefore exists, not in the world, but in the beautiful

soul (_schöner Geist_). Art is the manifestation of this beautiful

soul, and its aim is the education, not only of the mind--that is

the business of the _savant_, not only of the heart--that is the

affair of the moral preacher, but of the whole man. And so the

characteristic of beauty lies, not in anything external, but in the

presence of a beautiful soul in the artist.[60]

[60] Schasler, pp, 769-771.

Following Fichte, and in the same direction, Friedrich Schlegel and

Adam Müller also defined beauty. According to Schlegel (1772-1829),

beauty in art is understood too incompletely, one-sidedly, and

disconnectedly. Beauty exists, not only in art, but also in nature

and in love; so that the truly beautiful is expressed by the union

of art, nature, and love. Therefore, as inseparably one with

æsthetic art, Schlegel acknowledges moral and philosophic art.[61]

[61] Schasler, pp. 786, 787.

According to Adam Müller (1779-1829), there are two kinds of beauty:

the one, general beauty, which attracts people as the sun attracts

the planet--this is found chiefly in antique art; and the other,

individual beauty, which results from the observer himself becoming

a sun, attracting beauty--this is the beauty of modern art. A world

in which all contradictions are harmonized is the highest beauty.

Every work of art is a reproduction of this universal harmony.[62]

The highest art is the art of life.[63]

[62] Kralik, p. 148.

[63] Kralik, p. 820.

Next after Fichte and his followers came a contemporary of his, the

philosopher Schelling (1775-1854), who has had a great influence

on the æsthetic conceptions of our times. According to Schelling's

philosophy, art is the production or result of that conception of

things by which the subject becomes its own object, or the object

its own subject. Beauty is the perception of the infinite in the

finite. And the chief characteristic of works of art is unconscious

infinity. Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective,

of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and

therefore art is the highest means of knowledge. Beauty is the

contemplation of things in themselves as they exist in the prototype

(_In den Urbildern_). It is not the artist who by his knowledge or

skill produces the beautiful, but the idea of beauty in him itself

produces it.[64]

[64] Schasler, pp. 828, 829, 834-841.

Of Schelling's followers the most noticeable was Solger

(1780-1819--"Vorlesungen über Æsthetik"). According to him, the idea

of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see

only distortions of the fundamental idea, but art, by imagination,

may lift itself to the height of this idea. Art is therefore akin to

creation.[65]

[65] Schasler, p. 891.

According to another follower of Schelling, Krause (1781-1832),

true, positive beauty is the manifestation of the Idea in an

individual form; art is the actualization of the beauty existing in

the sphere of man's free spirit. The highest stage of art is the art

of life, which directs its activity toward the adornment of life so

that it may be a beautiful abode for a beautiful man.[66]

[66] Schasler, p. 917.

After Schelling and his followers came the new æsthetic doctrine

of Hegel, which is held to this day, consciously by many, but by

the majority unconsciously. This teaching is not only no clearer or

better defined than the preceding ones, but is, if possible, even

more cloudy and mystical.

According to Hegel (1770-1831), God manifests himself in nature

and in art in the form of beauty. God expresses himself in two

ways: in the object and in the subject, in nature and in spirit.

Beauty is the shining of the Idea through matter. Only the soul,

and what pertains to it, is truly beautiful; and therefore the

beauty of nature is only the reflection of the natural beauty of

the spirit--the beautiful has only a spiritual content. But the

spiritual must appear in sensuous form. The sensuous manifestation

of spirit is only appearance (_schein_), and this appearance is

the only reality of the beautiful. Art is thus the production of

this appearance of the Idea, and is a means, together with religion

and philosophy, of bringing to consciousness and of expressing the

deepest problems of humanity and the highest truths of the spirit.

Truth and beauty, according to Hegel, are one and the same thing;

the difference being only that truth is the Idea itself as it exists

in itself, and is thinkable. The Idea, manifested externally,

becomes to the apprehension not only true but beautiful. The

beautiful is the manifestation of the Idea.[67]

[67] Schasler, pp. 946, 1085, 984, 985, 990.

Following Hegel came his many adherents, Weisse, Arnold Ruge,

Rosenkrantz, Theodor Vischer, and others.

According to Weisse (1801-1867), art is the introduction

(_Einbildung_) of the absolute spiritual reality of beauty into

external, dead, indifferent matter, the perception of which latter,

apart from the beauty brought into it, presents the negation of all

existence in itself (_Negation alles Fürsichseins_).

In the idea of truth, Weisse explains, lies a contradiction between

the subjective and the objective sides of knowledge, in that an

individual _I_ discerns the Universal. This contradiction can be

removed by a conception that should unite into one the universal and

the individual, which fall asunder in our conceptions of truth. Such

a conception would be reconciled (_aufgehoben_) truth. Beauty is

such a reconciled truth.[68]

[68] Schasler, pp. 966, 655, 956.

According to Ruge (1802-1880), a strict follower of Hegel, beauty is

the Idea expressing itself. The spirit, contemplating itself, either

finds itself expressed completely, and then that full expression

of itself is beauty; or incompletely, and then it feels the need

to alter this imperfect expression of itself, and becomes creative

art.[69]

[69] Schasler, p. 1017.

According to Vischer (1807-1887), beauty is the Idea in the form

of a finite phenomenon. The Idea itself is not indivisible, but

forms a system of ideas, which may be represented by ascending and

descending lines. The higher the idea, the more beauty it contains;

but even the lowest contains beauty, because it forms an essential

link of the system. The highest form of the Idea is personality, and

therefore the highest art is that which has for its subject-matter

the highest personality.[70]

[70] Schasler, pp. 1065, 1066.

Such were the theories of the German æstheticians in the Hegelian

direction, but they did not monopolize æsthetic dissertations. In

Germany, side by side and simultaneously with the Hegelian theories,

there appeared theories of beauty not only independent of Hegel's

position (that beauty is the manifestation of the Idea), but

directly contrary to this view, denying and ridiculing it. Such was

the line taken by Herbart and, more particularly, by Schopenhauer.

According to Herbart (1776-1841), there is not, and cannot be, any

such thing as beauty existing in itself. What does exist is only

our opinion, and it is necessary to find the base of this opinion

(_Ästhetisches Elementarurtheil_). Such bases are connected with our

impressions. There are certain relations which we term beautiful;

and art consists in finding these relations, which are simultaneous

in painting, the plastic art, and architecture, successive and

simultaneous in music, and purely successive in poetry. In

contradiction to the former æstheticians, Herbart holds that objects

are often beautiful which express nothing at all, as, for instance,

the rainbow, which is beautiful for its lines and colors, and not

for its mythological connection with Iris or Noah's rainbow.[71]

[71] Schasler, pp. 1097-1100.

Another opponent of Hegel was Schopenhauer, who denied Hegel's whole

system, his æsthetics included.

According to Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Will objectivizes itself

in the world on various planes; and although the higher the plane

on which it is objectivized the more beautiful it is, yet each

plane has its own beauty. Renunciation of one's individuality and

contemplation of one of these planes of manifestation of Will gives

us a perception of beauty. All men, says Schopenhauer, possess the

capacity to objectivize the Idea on different planes. The genius of

the artist has this capacity in a higher degree, and therefore makes

a higher beauty manifest.[72]

[72] Schasler, pp. 1124, 1107.

After these more eminent writers there followed, in Germany, less

original and less influential ones, such as Hartmann, Kirkmann,

Schnasse, and, to some extent, Helmholtz (as an æsthetician),

Bergmann, Jungmann, and an innumerable host of others.

According to Hartmann (1842), beauty lies, not in the external

world, nor in "the thing in itself," neither does it reside in the

soul of man, but it lies in the "seeming" (_Schein_) produced by the

artist. The thing in itself is not beautiful, but is transformed

into beauty by the artist.[73]

[73] Knight, pp. 81, 82.

According to Schnasse (1798-1875), there is no perfect beauty in the

world. In nature there is only an approach toward it. Art gives what

nature cannot give. In the energy of the free _ego_, conscious of

harmony not found in nature, beauty is disclosed.[74]

[74] Knight, p. 83.

Kirkmann wrote on experimental æsthetics. All aspects of history

in his system are joined by pure chance. Thus, according to

Kirkmann (1802-1884), there are six realms of history: The realm of

Knowledge, of Wealth, of Morality, of Faith, of Politics, and of

Beauty; and activity in the last-named realm is art.[75]

[75] Schasler, p. 1121.

According to Helmholtz (1821), who wrote on beauty as it relates to

music, beauty in musical productions is attained only by following

unalterable laws. These laws are not known to the artist; so that

beauty is manifested by the artist unconsciously, and cannot be

subjected to analysis.[76]

[76] Knight, pp. 85, 86.

According to Bergmann (1840) ("Ueber das Schöne," 1887), to

define beauty objectively is impossible. Beauty is only perceived

subjectively, and therefore the problem of æsthetics is to define

what pleases whom.[77]

[77] Knight, p. 88.

According to Jungmann (d. 1885), firstly, beauty is a suprasensible

quality of things; secondly, beauty produces in us pleasure by

merely being contemplated; and, thirdly, beauty is the foundation of

love.[78]

[78] Knight, p. 88.

The æsthetic theories of the chief representatives of France,

England, and other nations in recent times have been the following:--

In France, during this period, the prominent writers on æsthetics

were Cousin, Jouffroy, Pictet, Ravaisson, Lévêque.

Cousin (1792-1867) was an eclectic, and a follower of the German

idealists. According to his theory, beauty always has a moral

foundation. He disputes the doctrine that art is imitation and

that the beautiful is what pleases. He affirms that beauty may be

defined objectively, and that it essentially consists in variety in

unity.[79]

[79] Knight, p. 112.

After Cousin came Jouffroy (1796-1842), who was a pupil of Cousin's

and also a follower of the German æstheticians. According to his

definition, beauty is the expression of the invisible by those

natural signs which manifest it. The visible world is the garment by

means of which we see beauty.[80]

[80] Knight, p. 116.

The Swiss writer Pictet repeated Hegel and Plato, supposing beauty

to exist in the direct and free manifestation of the divine Idea

revealing itself in sense forms.[81]

[81] Knight, pp. 118, 119.

Lévêque was a follower of Schelling and Hegel. He holds that beauty

is something invisible behind nature--a force or spirit revealing

itself in ordered energy.[82]

[82] Knight, pp. 123, 124.

Similar vague opinions about the nature of beauty were expressed by

the French metaphysician Ravaisson, who considered beauty to be the

ultimate aim and purpose of the world. "_La beauté la plus divine et

principalement la plus parfaite contient le secret du monde._"[83]

And again, "_Le monde entier est l'œuvre d'une beauté absolue, qui

n'est la cause des choses que par l'amour qu'elle met en elles._"

[83] "La Philosophie en France," p. 232.

I purposely abstain from translating these metaphysical expressions,

because, however cloudy the Germans may be, the French, once

they absorb the theories of the Germans and take to imitating

them, far surpass them in uniting heterogeneous conceptions

into one expression, and putting forward one meaning or another

indiscriminately. For instance, the French philosopher Renouvier,

when discussing beauty, says, "_Ne craignons pas de dire qu'une

vérité qui ne serait pas belle, ne serait qu'un jeu logique de notre

esprit et que la seule vérité solide et digne de ce nom c'est la

beauté._"[84]

[84] "Du Fondement de l'Induction."

Besides the æsthetic idealists who wrote and still write under the

influence of German philosophy, the following recent writers have

also influenced the comprehension of art and beauty in France:

Taine, Guyau, Cherbuliez, Coster, and Véron.

According to Taine (1828-1893), beauty is the manifestation of the

essential characteristic of any important idea more completely than

it is expressed in reality.[85]

[85] "Philosophie de l'Art," vol. i., 1893, p. 47.

Guyau (1854-1888) taught that beauty is not something exterior

to the object itself,--is not, as it were, a parasitic growth on

it,--but is itself the very blossoming forth of that on which it

appears. Art is the expression of reasonable and conscious life,

evoking in us both the deepest consciousness of existence and

the highest feelings and loftiest thoughts. Art lifts man from

his personal life into the universal life by means, not only of

participation in the same ideas and beliefs, but also by means of

similarity in feeling.[86]

[86] Knight, pp. 139-141.

According to Cherbuliez, art is an activity, (1) satisfying our

innate love of forms (_apparences_), (2) endowing these forms with

ideas, (3) affording pleasure alike to our senses, heart, and

reason. Beauty is not inherent in objects, but is an act of our

souls. Beauty is an illusion; there is no absolute beauty. But what

we consider characteristic and harmonious appears beautiful to us.

Coster held that the ideas of the beautiful, the good, and the true

are innate. These ideas illuminate our minds and are identical with

God, who is Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. The idea of Beauty includes

unity of essence, variety of constitutive elements, and order, which

brings unity into the various manifestations of life.[87]

[87] Knight, p. 134.

For the sake of completeness, I will further cite some of the very

latest writings upon art.

"La Psychologie du Beau et de l'Art, par Mario Pilo" (1895), says

that beauty is a product of our physical feelings. The aim of art

is pleasure, but this pleasure (for some reason) he considers to be

necessarily highly moral.

The "Essai sur l'Art Contemporain, par Fierens Gevaert" (1897), says

that art rests on its connection with the past, and on the religious

ideal of the present which the artist holds when giving to his work

the form of his individuality.

Then again, Sar Peladan's "L'Art Idealiste et Mystique" (1894),

says that beauty is one of the manifestations of God. "_Il n'y

a pas d'autre Réalité que Dieu, il n'y a pas d'autre Vérité que

Dieu, il n'y a pas d'autre Beauté que Dieu_" (p. 33). This book

is very fantastic and very illiterate, but is characteristic in

the positions it takes up, and noticeable on account of a certain

success it is having with the younger generation in France.

All the æsthetics diffused in France up to the present time are

similar in kind, but among them Véron's "L'Esthétique" (1878) forms

an exception, being reasonable and clear. That work, though it does

not give an exact definition of art, at least rids æsthetics of the

cloudy conception of an absolute beauty.

According to Véron (1825-1889), art is the manifestation of emotion

transmitted externally by a combination of lines, forms, colors, or

by a succession of movements, sounds, or words subjected to certain

rhythms.[88]

[88] "L'Esthétique," p. 106.

In England, during this period, the writers on æsthetics define

beauty more and more frequently, not by its own qualities, but by

taste; and the discussion about beauty is superseded by a discussion

on taste.

After Reid (1704-1796), who acknowledged beauty as being entirely

dependent on the spectator, Alison, in his "Essay on the Nature and

Principles of Taste" (1790), proved the same thing. From another

side this was also asserted by Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), the

grandfather of the celebrated Charles Darwin.

He says that we consider beautiful that which is connected in our

conception with what we love. Richard Knight's work, "An Analytical

Inquiry into the Principles of Taste," also tends in the same

direction.

Most of the English theories of æsthetics are on the same lines. The

prominent writers on æsthetics in England during the present century

have been Charles Darwin (to some extent), Herbert Spencer, Grant

Allen, Ker, and Knight.

According to Charles Darwin (1809-1882--"Descent of Man," 1871),

beauty is a feeling natural not only to man, but also to animals,

and consequently to the ancestors of man. Birds adorn their

nests and esteem beauty in their mates. Beauty has an influence

on marriages. Beauty includes a variety of diverse conceptions.

The origin of the art of music is the call of the males to the

females.[89]

[89] Knight, p. 238.

According to Herbert Spencer (b. 1820), the origin of art is

play, a thought previously expressed by Schiller. In the lower

animals all the energy of life is expended in life-maintenance

and race-maintenance; in man, however, there remains, after these

needs are satisfied, some superfluous strength. This excess is

used in play, which passes over into art. Play is an imitation

of real activity; so is art. The sources of æsthetic pleasure are

threefold: (1) That "which exercises the faculties affected in the

most complete ways, with the fewest drawbacks from exercise," (2)

"the difference of a stimulus in large amount, which awakens a glow

of agreeable feeling," (3) the partial revival of the same, with

special combinations.[90]

[90] Knight, pp. 239, 240.

In Todhunter's "Theory of the Beautiful" (1872), beauty is

infinite loveliness, which we apprehend both by reason and by the

enthusiasm of love. The recognition of beauty as being such depends

on taste; there can be no criterion for it. The only approach

to a definition is found in culture. (What culture is, is not

defined.) Intrinsically, art--that which affects us through lines,

colors, sounds, or words--is not the product of blind forces, but

of reasonable ones, working, with mutual helpfulness toward a

reasonable aim. Beauty is the reconciliation of contradictions.[91]

[91] Knight, pp. 240-243.

Grant Allen is a follower of Spencer, and in his "Physiological

Æsthetics" (1877) he says that beauty has a physical origin.

Æsthetic pleasures come from the contemplation of the beautiful, but

the conception of beauty is obtained by a physiological process.

The origin of art is play; when there is a superfluity of physical

strength man gives himself to play; when there is a superfluity

of receptive power man gives himself to art. The beautiful is

that which affords the maximum of stimulation with the minimum of

waste. Differences in the estimation of beauty proceed from taste.

Taste can be educated. We must have faith in the judgments "of the

finest-nurtured and most discriminative" men. These people form the

taste of the next generation.[92]

[92] Knight, pp. 250-252.

According to Ker's "Essay on the Philosophy of Art" (1883), beauty

enables us to make part of the objective world intelligible to

ourselves without being troubled by reference to other parts

of it, as is inevitable for science. So that art destroys the

opposition between the one and the many, between the law and its

manifestation, between the subject and its object, by uniting them.

Art is the revelation and vindication of freedom, because it is free

from the darkness and incomprehensibility of finite things.[93]

[93] Knight, pp. 258, 259.

According to Knight's "Philosophy of the Beautiful," Part II.

(1893), beauty is (as with Schelling) the union of object and

subject, the drawing forth from nature of that which is cognate to

man, and the recognition in oneself of that which is common to all

nature.

The opinions on beauty and on art here mentioned are far from

exhausting what has been written on the subject. And every day fresh

writers on æsthetics arise, in whose disquisitions appear the same

enchanted confusion and contradictoriness in defining beauty. Some,

by inertia, continue the mystical æsthetics of Baumgarten and Hegel

with sundry variations; others transfer the question to the region

of subjectivity, and seek for the foundation of the beautiful in

questions of taste; others--the æstheticians of the very latest

formation--seek the origin of beauty in the laws of physiology; and

finally, others again investigate the question quite independently

of the conception of beauty. Thus Sully, in his "Sensation and

Intuition: Studies in Psychology and Æsthetics" (1874), dismisses

the conception of beauty altogether, art, by his definition, being

the production of some permanent object or passing action fitted

to supply active enjoyment to the producer, and a pleasurable

impression to a number of spectators or listeners, quite apart from

any personal advantage derived from it.[94]

[94] Knight, p. 243.

CHAPTER IV

To what do these definitions of beauty amount? Not reckoning the

thoroughly inaccurate definitions of beauty which fail to cover

the conception of art, and which suppose beauty to consist either

in utility, or in adjustment to a purpose, or in symmetry, or in

order, or in proportion, or in smoothness, or in harmony of the

parts, or in unity amid variety, or in various combinations of

these--not reckoning these unsatisfactory attempts at objective

definition, all the æsthetic definitions of beauty lead to two

fundamental conceptions. The first is that beauty is something

having an independent existence (existing in itself), that it is one

of the manifestations of the absolutely Perfect, of the Idea, of

the Spirit, of Will, or of God; the other is that beauty is a kind

of pleasure received by us, not having personal advantage for its

object.

The first of these definitions was accepted by Fichte, Schelling,

Hegel, Schopenhauer, and the philosophizing Frenchmen, Cousin,

Jouffroy, Ravaisson, and others, not to enumerate the second-rate

æsthetic philosophers. And this same objective-mystical definition

of beauty is held by a majority of the educated people of our day.

It is a conception very widely spread, especially among the elder

generation.

The second view, that beauty is a certain kind of pleasure received

by us, not having personal advantage for its aim, finds favor

chiefly among the English æsthetic writers, and is shared by the

other part of our society, principally by the younger generation.

So there are (and it could not be otherwise) only two definitions

of beauty: the one objective, mystical, merging this conception

into that of the highest perfection, God--a fantastic definition,

founded on nothing; the other, on the contrary, a very simple and

intelligible subjective one, which considers beauty to be that which

pleases (I do not add to the word "pleases" the words "without the

aim of advantage," because "pleases" naturally presupposes the

absence of the idea of profit).

On the one hand, beauty is viewed as something mystical and very

elevated, but unfortunately at the same time very indefinite, and

consequently embracing philosophy, religion, and life itself (as in

the theories of Schelling and Hegel, and their German and French

followers); or, on the other hand (as necessarily follows from the

definition of Kant and his adherents), beauty is simply a certain

kind of disinterested pleasure received by us. And this conception

of beauty, although it seems very clear is, unfortunately, again

inexact; for it widens out on the other side, _i.e._ it includes the

pleasure derived from drink, from food, from touching a delicate

skin, etc., as is acknowledged by Guyau, Kralik, and others.

It is true that, following the development of the æsthetic doctrines

on beauty, we may notice that, though at first (in the times when

the foundations of the science of æsthetics were being laid) the

metaphysical definition of beauty prevailed, yet the nearer we get

to our own times the more does an experimental definition (recently

assuming a physiological form) come to the front, so that at last

we even meet with such æstheticians as Véron and Sully, who try to

escape entirely from the conception of beauty. But such æstheticians

have very little success, and with the majority of the public, as

well as of artists and the learned, a conception of beauty is firmly

held which agrees with the definitions contained in most of the

æsthetic treatises, _i.e._ which regards beauty either as something

mystical or metaphysical, or as a special kind of enjoyment.

What, then, is this conception of beauty, so stubbornly held to by

people of our circle and day as furnishing a definition of art?

In the subjective aspect, we call beauty that which supplies us with

a particular kind of pleasure.

In the objective aspect, we call beauty something absolutely

perfect, and we acknowledge it to be so only because we receive,

from the manifestation of this absolute perfection, a certain kind

of pleasure; so that this objective definition is nothing but

the subjective conception differently expressed. In reality both

conceptions of beauty amount to one and the same thing; namely,

the reception by us of a certain kind of pleasure; _i.e._ we call

"beauty" that which pleases us without evoking in us desire.

Such being the position of affairs, it would seem only natural

that the science of art should decline to content itself with a

definition of art based on beauty (_i.e._ on that which pleases),

and seek a general definition, which should apply to all artistic

productions, and by reference to which we might decide whether a

certain article belonged to the realm of art or not. But no such

definition is supplied, as the reader may see from those summaries

of the æsthetic theories which I have given, and as he may discover

even more clearly from the original æsthetic works, if he will be

at the pains to read them. All attempts to define absolute beauty

in itself--whether as an imitation of nature, or as suitability to

its object, or as a correspondence of parts, or as symmetry, or as

harmony, or as unity in variety, etc.--either define nothing at all,

or define only some traits of some artistic productions, and are far

from including all that everybody has always held, and still holds,

to be art.

There is no objective definition of beauty. The existing definitions

(both the metaphysical and the experimental) amount only to one and

the same subjective definition, which (strange as it seems to say

so) is, that art is that which makes beauty manifest, and beauty

is that which pleases (without exciting desire). Many æstheticians

have felt the insufficiency and instability of such a definition,

and, in order to give it a firm basis, have asked themselves why

a thing pleases. And they have converted the discussion on beauty

into a question concerning taste, as did Hutcheson, Voltaire,

Diderot, and others. But all attempts to define what taste is must

lead to nothing, as the reader may see both from the history of

æsthetics and experimentally. There is and can be no explanation

of why one thing pleases one man and displeases another, or _vice

versa_. So that the whole existing science of æsthetics fails to

do what we might expect from it, being a mental activity calling

itself a science; namely, it does not define the qualities and laws

of art, or of the beautiful (if that be the content of art), or

the nature of taste (if taste decides the question of art and its

merit), and then, on the basis of such definitions, acknowledge as

art those productions which correspond to these laws, and reject

those which do not come under them. But this science of æsthetics

consists in first acknowledging a certain set of productions to be

art (because they please us), and then framing such a theory of art

that all those productions which please a certain circle of people

should fit into it. There exists an art canon, according to which

certain productions favored by our circle are acknowledged as being

art,--Phidias, Sophocles, Homer, Titian, Raphael, Bach, Beethoven,

Dante, Shakespear, Goethe, and others,--and the æsthetic laws must

be such as to embrace all these productions. In æsthetic literature

you will incessantly meet with opinions on the merit and importance

of art, founded not on any certain laws by which this or that is

held to be good or bad, but merely on the consideration whether this

art tallies with the art canon we have drawn up.

The other day I was reading a far from ill-written book by Folgeldt.

Discussing the demand for morality in works of art, the author

plainly says that we must not demand morality in art. And in proof

of this he advances the fact that if we admit such a demand,

Shakespear's "Romeo and Juliet," and Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister,"

would not fit into the definition of good art; but since both these

books are included in our canon of art, he concludes that the demand

is unjust. And therefore it is necessary to find a definition of art

which shall fit the works; and instead of a demand for morality,

Folgeldt postulates as the basis of art a demand for the important

(_Bedeutungsvolles_).

All the existing æsthetic standards are built on this plan. Instead

of giving a definition of true art, and then deciding what is and

what is not good art by judging whether a work conforms or does

not conform to the definition, a certain class of works, which

for some reason please a certain circle of people, is accepted as

being art, and a definition of art is then devised to cover all

these productions. I recently came upon a remarkable instance of

this method in a very good German work, "The History of Art in the

Nineteenth Century," by Muther. Describing the pre-Raphaelites, the

Decadents and the Symbolists (who are already included in the canon

of art), he not only does not venture to blame their tendency, but

earnestly endeavors to widen his standard so that it may include

them all, they appearing to him to represent a legitimate reaction

from the excesses of realism. No matter what insanities appear in

art, when once they find acceptance among the upper classes of our

society, a theory is quickly invented to explain and sanction them;

just as if there had never been periods in history when certain

special circles of people recognized and approved false, deformed,

and insensate art which subsequently left no trace and has been

utterly forgotten. And to what lengths the insanity and deformity

of art may go, especially when, as in our days, it knows that it is

considered infallible, may be seen by what is being done in the art

of our circle to-day.

So that the theory of art, founded on beauty, expounded by

æsthetics, and, in dim outline, professed by the public, is nothing

but the setting up as good of that which has pleased and pleases us,

_i.e._ pleases a certain class of people.

In order to define any human activity, it is necessary to understand

its sense and importance. And, in order to do that, it is primarily

necessary to examine that activity in itself, in its dependence on

its causes, and in connection with its effects, and not merely in

relation to the pleasure we can get from it.

If we say that the aim of any activity is merely our pleasure, and

define it solely by that pleasure, our definition will evidently be

a false one. But this is precisely what has occurred in the efforts

to define art. Now, if we consider the food question, it will not

occur to anyone to affirm that the importance of food consists

in the pleasure we receive when eating it. Every one understands

that the satisfaction of our taste cannot serve as a basis for our

definition of the merits of food, and that we have therefore no

right to presuppose that the dinners with cayenne pepper, Limburg

cheese, alcohol, etc., to which we are accustomed and which please

us, form the very best human food.

And in the same way, beauty, or that which pleases us, can in no

sense serve as the basis for the definition of art; nor can a series

of objects which afford us pleasure serve as the model of what art

should be.

To see the aim and purpose of art in the pleasure we get from it, is

like assuming (as is done by people of the lowest moral development,

_e.g._ by savages) that the purpose and aim of food is the pleasure

derived when consuming it.

Just as people who conceive the aim and purpose of food to be

pleasure cannot recognize the real meaning of eating, so people

who consider the aim of art to be pleasure cannot realize its true

meaning and purpose, because they attribute to an activity, the

meaning of which lies in its connection with other phenomena of

life, the false and exceptional aim of pleasure. People come to

understand that the meaning of eating lies in the nourishment of

the body only when they cease to consider that the object of that

activity is pleasure. And it is the same with regard to art. People

will come to understand the meaning of art only when they cease to

consider that the aim of that activity is beauty, _i.e._ pleasure.

The acknowledgment of beauty (_i.e._ of a certain kind of pleasure

received from art) as being the aim of art, not only fails to assist

us in finding a definition of what art is, but, on the contrary, by

transferring the question into a region quite foreign to art (into

metaphysical, psychological, physiological, and even historical

discussions as to why such a production pleases one person, and

such another displeases or pleases some one else), it renders such

definition impossible. And since discussions as to why one man

likes pears and another prefers meat do not help toward finding a

definition of what is essential in nourishment, so the solution

of questions of taste in art (to which the discussions on art

involuntarily come), not only does not help to make clear what this

particular human activity which we call art really consists in, but

renders such elucidation quite impossible, until we rid ourselves

of a conception which justifies every kind of art, at the cost of

confusing the whole matter.

To the question, What is this art, to which is offered up the labor

of millions, the very lives of men, and even morality itself? we

have extracted replies from the existing æsthetics, which all amount

to this that the aim of art is beauty, that beauty is recognized

by the enjoyment it gives, and that artistic enjoyment is a good

and important thing, because it _is_ enjoyment. In a word, that

enjoyment is good because it is enjoyment. Thus, what is considered

the definition of art is no definition at all, but only a shuffle

to justify existing art. Therefore, however strange it may seem to

say so, in spite of the mountains of books written about art, no

exact definition of art has been constructed. And the reason of this

is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of

beauty.

CHAPTER V

What is art, if we put aside the conception of beauty, which

confuses the whole matter? The latest and most comprehensible

definitions of art, apart from the conception of beauty, are the

following: (1 _a_) Art is an activity arising even in the animal

kingdom, and springing from sexual desire and the propensity to

play (Schiller, Darwin, Spencer), and (1 _b_) accompanied by a

pleasurable excitement of the nervous system (Grant Allen). This is

the physiological-evolutionary definition. (2) Art is the external

manifestation, by means of lines, colors, movements, sounds, or

words, of emotions felt by man (Véron). This is the experimental

definition. According to the very latest definition (Sully), (3) Art

is "the production of some permanent object or passing action, which

is fitted, not only to supply an active enjoyment to the producer,

but to convey a pleasurable impression to a number of spectators or

listeners, quite apart from any personal advantage to be derived

from it."

Notwithstanding the superiority of these definitions to the

metaphysical definitions which depended on the conception of

beauty, they are yet far from exact. (1 _a_) The first, the

physiological-evolutionary definition, is inexact, because, instead

of speaking about the artistic activity itself, which is the real

matter in hand, it treats of the derivation of art. The modification

of it (1 _b_), based on the physiological effects on the human

organism, is inexact, because within the limits of such definition

many other human activities can be included, as has occurred in

the neo-æsthetic theories, which reckon as art the preparation of

handsome clothes, pleasant scents, and even of victuals.

The experimental definition (2), which makes art consist in the

expression of emotions, is inexact, because a man may express his

emotions by means of lines, colors, sounds, or words, and yet may

not act on others by such expression; and then the manifestation of

his emotions is not art.

The third definition (that of Sully) is inexact, because in the

production of objects or actions affording pleasure to the producer

and a pleasant emotion to the spectators or hearers apart from

personal advantage may be included the showing of conjuring tricks

or gymnastic exercises, and other activities which are not art.

And, further, many things, the production of which does not afford

pleasure to the producer, and the sensation received from which

is unpleasant, such as gloomy, heartrending scenes in a poetic

description or a play, may nevertheless be undoubted works of art.