1. Since he who rises to the contemplation of the intelligible world,
and who conceives the beauty of true intelligence, can also, as we
have pointed out, by intuition grasp the superior Principle,[203]
the Father of Intelligence, let us, so far as our strength allows
us, try to understand and explain to ourselves how it is possible to
contemplate the beauty of Intelligence and of the intelligible world.
Let us imagine two pieces of marble placed side by side, the one rough
and inartistic, the other one fashioned by the sculptor's chisel, who
made of it the statue of a goddess, a grace, or a muse; or that of a
man--but not that of any individual whatever, but that of a (cultured
gentle) man in whom art would have gathered all the traits of beauty
offered by different individuals. After having thus from art received
the beauty of the form, the second marble will appear beautiful, not
by virtue of its essence, which is to be stone--for otherwise the
other block would be as beautiful as this one--but because of the
form received through art. The latter, however, did not exist in the
matter of the statue. It was in the thought of the artist that it
existed before passing into the marble; and it existed therein, not
because it had eyes and hands, but because it participated in art. It
was therefore in art that this superior beauty existed. It could not
have become incorporated in stone. Dwelling within itself, it begat
an inferior form, which, passing into matter, could neither preserve
all its purity, nor completely respond to the will of the artist,
possessing no perfection other than that allowed by matter. As the
nature of art is to produce beauty, if art succeed in producing beauty
which conforms to its constitutive essence, then, by the possession
of the beauty essential to it, art possesses a beauty still greater
and truer than that which passes into exterior objects. As all form
extends by passing into matter, (this objectified form) is weaker than
that which remains one. All that extends abandons its own (nature),
as do force, heat, and in general any property; likewise with beauty.
Every creating principle is always superior to the created thing. It
is not the lack of musical ability, but the music itself that creates
the musician; while it is the intelligible music that creates the sense
music. It has been attempted to degrade the arts by saying that to
create they imitate nature. This may be answered by pointing out that
the natures of beings are themselves the images of other beings (or
essences); besides, the arts do not limit themselves to the imitation
of objects which offer themselves to our view, but that they go as
far back as the (ideal) reasons from which are derived the nature of
objects. Further the arts independently create many things, and to the
perfection of the object they add what is lacking, because they possess
beauty in themselves. Phidias seems to have represented Jupiter without
copying any sense-objects, conceiving him such as he would appear to us
if he ever revealed himself to our eyes.[204]
BEAUTY INHERES NOT IN THE ORGANISM'S PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS, BUT IN
ITS COLOR AND FORM.
2. Now let us turn away from the arts and consider the objects they
imitate, such as natural beauties, namely, rational and irrational
creatures, especially the more perfect, in which the creator was
able to master matter, and endue it with the desired form. What then
constitutes the beauty in these objects? Surely not (the physical
characteristics, such as) blood or menstrual discharges, but the color
and figure, which differ essentially therefrom; otherwise that which
constitutes beauty is something indifferent--either something formless,
or something that contains a simple nature (that is, the "seminal
reason"), as does matter, for instance.