I call vulgar (common) all that does not speak to the mind, of which all
the interest is addressed only to the senses. There are, no doubt, an
infinite number of things vulgar in themselves from their material and
subject. But as the vulgarity of the material can always be ennobled by
the treatment, in respect of art the only question is that relating to
the vulgarity in form. A vulgar mind will dishonor the most noble matter
by treating it in a common manner. A great and noble mind, on the
contrary, will ennoble even a common matter, and it will do so by
superadding to it something spiritual and discovering in it some aspect
in which this matter has greatness. Thus, for example, a vulgar
historian will relate to us the most insignificant actions of a hero with
a scrupulousness as great as that bestowed on his sublimest exploit, and
will dwell as lengthily on his pedigree, his costume, and his household
as on his projects and his enterprises. He will relate those of his
actions that have the most grandeur in such wise that no one will
perceive that character in them. On the contrary, a historian of genius,
himself endowed with nobleness of mind, will give even to the private
life and the least considerable actions of his hero an interest and a
value that will make them considerable. Thus, again, in the matter of
the plastic arts, the Dutch and Flemish painters have given proof of a
vulgar taste; the Italians, and still more the ancient Greeks, of a grand
and noble taste. The Greeks always went to the ideal; they rejected
every vulgar feature, and chose no common subject.
A portrait painter can represent his model in a common manner or with
grandeur; in a common manner if he reproduce the merely accidental
details with the same care as the essential features, if he neglect the
great to carry out the minutiae curiously. He does it grandly if he know
how to find out and place in relief what is most interesting, and
distinguish the accidental from the necessary; if he be satisfied with
indicating what is paltry, reserving all the finish of the execution for
what is great. And the only thing that is great is the expression of the
soul itself, manifesting itself by actions, gestures, or attitudes.
The poet treats his subject in a common manner when in the execution of
his theme he dwells on valueless facts and only skims rapidly over those
that are important. He treats his theme with grandeur when he associates
with it what is great. For example, Homer treated the shield of Achilles
grandly, though the making of a shield, looking merely at the matter, is
a very commonplace affair.
One degree below the common or the vulgar is the element of the base or
gross, which differs from the common in being not only something
negative, a simple lack of inspiration or nobleness, but something
positive, marking coarse feelings, bad morals, and contemptible manners.
Vulgarity only testifies that an advantage is wanting, whereof the
absence is a matter of regret; baseness indicates the want of a quality
which we are authorized to require in all. Thus, for example, revenge,
considered in itself, in whatever place or way it manifests itself, is
something vulgar, because it is the proof of a lack of generosity. But
there is, moreover, a base vengeance, when the man, to satisfy it,
employs means exposed to contempt. The base always implies something
gross, or reminds one of the mob, while the common can be found in a
well-born and well-bred man, who may think and act in a common manner if
he has only mediocre faculties. A man acts in a common manner when he is
only taken up with his own interest, and it is in this that he is in
opposition with the really noble man, who, when necessary, knows how to
forget himself to procure some enjoyment for others. But the same man
would act in a base manner if he consulted his interests at the cost of
his honor, and if in such a case he did not even take upon himself to
respect the laws of decency. Thus the common is only the contrary of the
noble; the base is the contrary both of the noble and the seemly. To
give yourself up, unresisting, to all your passions, to satisfy all your
impulses, without being checked even by the rules of propriety, still
less by those of morality, is to conduct yourself basely, and to betray
baseness of the soul.
The artist also may fall into a low style, not only by choosing ignoble
subjects, offensive to decency and good taste, but moreover by treating
them in a base manner. It is to treat a subject in a base manner if
those sides are made prominent which propriety directs us to conceal, or
if it is expressed in a manner that incidentally awakens low ideas. The
lives of the greater part of men can present particulars of a low kind,
but it is only a low imagination that will pick out these for
representation.
There are pictures describing sacred history in which the Apostles, the
Virgin, and even the Christ, are depicted in such wise that they might be
supposed to be taken from the dregs of the populace. This style of
execution always betrays a low taste, and might justly lead to the
inference that the artist himself thinks coarsely and like the mob.
No doubt there are cases where art itself may be allowed to produce base
images: for example, when the aim is to provoke laughter. A man of
polished manners may also sometimes, and without betraying a corrupt
taste, be amused by certain features when nature expresses herself
crudely but with truth, and he may enjoy the contrast between the manners
of polished society and those of the lower orders. A man of position
appearing intoxicated will always make a disagreeable impression on us;
but a drunken driver, sailor, or carter will only be a risible object.
Jests that would be insufferable in a man of education amuse us in the
mouth of the people. Of this kind are many of the scenes of
Aristophanes, who unhappily sometimes exceeds this limit, and becomes
absolutely condemnable. This is, moreover, the source of the pleasure we
take in parodies, when the feelings, the language, and the mode of action
of the common people are fictitiously lent to the same personages whom
the poet has treated with all possible dignity and decency. As soon as
the poet means only to jest, and seeks only to amuse, we can overlook
traits of a low kind, provided he never stirs up indignation or disgust.
He stirs up indignation when he places baseness where it is quite
unpardonable, that is in the case of men who are expected to show
fine moral sense. In attributing baseness to them he will either
outrage truth, for we prefer to think him a liar than to believe that
well-trained men can act in a base manner; or his personages will offend
our moral sense, and, what is worse, excite our imagination. I do not
mean by this to condemn farces; a farce implies between the poet and the
spectator a tacit consent that no truth is to be expected in the piece.
In a farce we exempt the poet from all faithfulness in his pictures; he
has a kind of privilege to tell us untruths. Here, in fact, all the
comic consists exactly in its contrast with the truth, and so it cannot
possibly be true.
This is not all: even in the serious and the tragic there are certain
places where the low element can be brought into play. But in this case
the affair must pass into the terrible, and the momentary violation of
our good taste must be masked by a strong impression, which brings our
passion into play. In other words, the low impression must be absorbed
by a superior tragic impression. Theft, for example, is a thing
absolutely base, and whatever arguments our heart may suggest to excuse
the thief, whatever the pressure of circumstances that led him to the
theft, it is always an indelible brand stamped upon him, and,
aesthetically speaking, he will always remain a base object. On this
point taste is even less forgiving than morality, and its tribunal is
more severe; because an aesthetical object is responsible even for the
accessory ideas that are awakened in us by such an object, while moral
judgment eliminates all that is merely accidental. According to this
view a man who robs would always be an object to be rejected by the poet
who wishes to present serious pictures. But suppose this man is at the
same time a murderer, he is even more to be condemned than before by the
moral law. But in the aesthetic judgment he is raised one degree higher
and made better adapted to figure in a work of art. Continuing to judge
him from the aesthetic point of view, it may be added that he who abases
himself by a vile action can to a certain extent be raised by a crime,
and can be thus reinstated in our aesthetic estimation. This
contradiction between the moral judgment and the aesthetical judgment is
a fact entitled to attention and consideration. It may be explained in
different ways. First, I have already said that, as the aesthetic
judgment depends on the imagination, all the accessory ideas awakened in
us by an object and naturally associated with it, must themselves
influence this judgment. Now, if these accessory ideas are base, they
infallibly stamp this character on the principal object.
In the second place, what we look for in the aesthetic judgment is
strength; whilst in a judgment pronounced in the name of the moral sense
we consider lawfulness. The lack of strength is something contemptible,
and every action from which it may be inferred that the agent lacks
strength is, by that very fact, a contemptible action. Every cowardly
and underhand action is repugnant to us, because it is a proof of
impotence; and, on the contrary, a devilish wickedness can, aesthetically
speaking, flatter our taste, as soon as it marks strength. Now, a theft
testifies to a vile and grovelling mind: a murder has at least on its
side the appearance of strength; the interest we take in it aesthetically
is in proportion to the strength that is manifested in it.
A third reason is, because in presence of a deep and horrible crime we no
longer think of the quality but the awful consequences of the action.
The stronger emotion covers and stifles the weaker one. We do not look
back into the mind of the agent; we look onward into his destiny, we
think of the effects of his action. Now, directly we begin to tremble
all the delicacies of taste are reduced to silence. The principal
impression entirely fills our mind: the accessory and accidental ideas,
in which chiefly dwell all impressions of baseness, are effaced from it.
It is for this reason that the theft committed by young Ruhberg, in the
"Crime through Ambition," [a play of Iffland] far from displeasing on the
stage, is a real tragic effect. The poet with great skill has managed
the circumstances in such wise that we are carried away; we are left
almost breathless. The frightful misery of the family, and especially
the grief of the father, are objects that attract our attention, turn it
aside, from the person of the agent, towards the consequences of his act.
We are too much moved to tarry long in representing to our minds the
stamp of infamy with which the theft is marked. In a word, the base
element disappears in the terrible. It is singular that this theft,
really accomplished by young Ruhberg, inspires us with less repugnance
than, in another piece, the mere suspicion of a theft, a suspicion which
is actually without foundation. In the latter case it is a young officer
who is accused without grounds of having abstracted a silver spoon, which
is recovered later on. Thus the base element is reduced in this case to
a purely imaginary thing, a mere suspicion, and this suffices
nevertheless to do an irreparable injury, in our aesthetical
appreciation, to the hero of the piece, in spite of his innocence. This
is because a man who is supposed capable of a base action did not
apparently enjoy a very solid reputation for morality, for the laws of
propriety require that a man should be held to be a man of honor as long
as he does not show the opposite. If therefore anything contemptible is
imputed to him, it seems that by some part of his past conduct he has
given rise to a suspicion of this kind, and this does him injury, though
all the odious and the base in an undeserved suspicion are on the side of
him who accuses. A point that does still greater injury to the hero of
the piece of which I am speaking is the fact that he is an officer, and
the lover of a lady of condition brought up in a manner suitable to her
rank. With these two titles, that of thief makes quite a revolting
contrast, and it is impossible for us, when we see him near his lady, not
to think that perhaps at that very moment he had the silver spoon in his
pocket. Lastly, the most unfortunate part of the business is, that he
has no idea of the suspicion weighing over him, for if he had a knowledge
of it, in his character of officer, he would exact a sanguinary
reparation. In this case the consequences of the suspicion would change
to the terrible, and all that is base in the situation would disappear.
We must distinguish, moreover, between the baseness of feeling and that
which is connected with the mode of treatment and circumstance. The
former in all respects is below aesthetic dignity; the second in many
cases may perfectly agree with it. Slavery, for example, is abase thing;
but a servile mind in a free man is contemptible. The labors of the
slave, on the contrary, are not so when his feelings are not servile.
Far from this, a base condition, when joined to elevated feelings, can
become a source of the sublime. The master of Epictetus, who beat him,
acted basely, and the slave beaten by him showed a sublime soul. True
greatness, when it is met in a base condition, is only the more brilliant
and splendid on that account: and the artist must not fear to show us his
heroes even under a contemptible exterior as soon as he is sure of being
able to give them, when he wishes, the expression of moral dignity.
But what can be granted to the poet is not always allowed in the artist.
The poet only addresses the imagination; the painter addresses the senses
directly. It follows not only that the impression of the picture is more
lively than that of the poem, but also that the painter, if he employ
only his natural signs, cannot make the minds of his personages as
visible as the poet can with the arbitrary signs at his command: yet it
is only the sight of the mind that can reconcile us to certain exteriors.
When Homer causes his Ulysses to appear in the rags of a beggar
["Odyssey," book xiii. v. 397], we are at liberty to represent his image
to our mind more or less fully, and to dwell on it as long as we like.
But in no case will it be sufficiently vivid to excite our repugnance or
disgust. But if a painter, or even a tragedian, try to reproduce
faithfully the Ulysses of Homer, we turn away from the picture with
repugnance. It is because in this case the greater or less vividness of
the impression no longer depends on our will: we cannot help seeing what
the painter places under our eyes; and it is not easy for us to remove
the accessory repugnant ideas which the picture recalls to our mind.