Part 5 (1/2)

We et, in which certain spots or territories countto their distance fro to what fills theains power to excitethat power in the flat pattern A noble vista is understood and enjoyed as a vista, but it is COUNTED in the motor equation, our ”balance,”

as a spot of so much intrinsic value at such and such a distance froet in the way to give the maximum of motor impulses with the perfection of balance between them

It is thus in a kind of substitutional symmetry, or balance, that we have the objective condition or counterpart of aesthetic repose, or unity From this point of view it is clearly seen in what respect the unity of Hildebrand fails He demands in the statue, especially, but also in the picture, the flat surface as a unity for the three dimensions But it is only with the flat space, won, if you will, by Hildebrand's ins Every point in the third dimension counts, as has been said, in the flat The Fernbild is the beginning of beauty, but within the Fernbild favorable stiht And repose or unity is given by symmetry, subjectively the balance of attention, inasonistic impulses, an equilibrium, and thus an inhibition of movement

From this point of viee are in a position to refute Souriau's interesting analysis<1> of form as the condition for the appreciation of content He says that form, in a picture for instance, has its value in its power to produce (through its fixation and concentration of the eye) a estions co vividness This is, then, just the state in which the contents of the picture can most vividly iiving the conditions for suggestion, is Sourieau's account of it In so far as forh balance and equilibrium of impulses, the arrest of the personality, it may indeed be compared with hypnotism But this arrest is not only a means, but an end in itself; that aesthetic repose, which, as the unity of the personality, is an essential element of the aesthetic eestion en l'Art_

VI

There is no point of light or color, no contour, no line, no depth, that does not contribute to the infinite coives the maximum of experience with the minimum of effort and which we call beauty of for the beautiful object, on which we touched in the introduction to this chapter So far, e see is only another na has proved to contain enough to bring to stimulation and repose the psychophysicalto beauty? Is it an ele superposed? or is it an end in itself, the supreme end? What relation to the beauty of form has that quality of their works by virtue of which Rembrandt is called a dreamer, and Rodin a poet in stone? What do we ist? Is it a virtue to be a poet in stone? If it is, we must somehow include in our concept of Beauty the ele how it serves the infinite coreat artist and poet coreat artist because poet, as some would say? What is the relation of the objective content to beauty of form? In short, what place has the idea in Beauty?

In the preceding the place of separate objects which have only an ideal iauntlet in a picture counts as a patch of light, a trend of line, in a certain spot; but it counts more there, because it is of interest for itself, and by thus counting more, the idea has entered into the spatial balance,--the idea has become itself form Now it is the question whether all ”idea,” which seeo this transmutation It is at least of interest to see whether the facts can be so interpreted

We have spoken of ideas a parts of an aesthetic whole What of the idea of the whole? Corot used to say he painted a drea we see in his pictures

Millet portrays the sad majesty and sweetness of the life near the soil How must we relate these facts to the views already won?

It has often been said that the viehich makes the element of form for the eye alone, in the strictest sense, is erroneous, because there is no for a line involves not only motor memories and impulses, but numberless ideal associations, and these associations constitute the line as truly as do the others The i which we cannot escape The fors constitute a kind of dialect of life,--and thus it is that the theory of Einfuhlung in its deepest sense is grounded The Doric column causes in us, no doubt, motor impulses, but it y through those very i our , bending and lifting, pressing down and pushi+ng up; in short, as soon as the visual impression is really isolated, and all other ideas really excluded, then the motor impulses do not awake actions which are taken as actions of ourselves, but feelings of energy which are taken as energies of the visual for to the object, and the psychophysical effect of the object are only obverse and inverse of the same phenomenon

And our pleasure in the fory than our feeling of favorable sti of a picture would be the same as its beauty, it is said The heroic art of J-F Millet, for example, would be beautiful because it is the perfect expression of the si, _The Principles of Art Education_, p 87

Let us examine this apparently reasonable theory It is true that every visual element is understood as expression too It is not true, however, that expression and i beyond the elements Suppose a concourse of columns covered by a roof,--the Parthenon Those psychophysical changes induced by the sight now mutually check and ,”

like the energy of the colu to that coy itself Ask the saards the lines and masses of a picture by Corot In the sense in which we have taken ”ically possible one, our reactions could be interpreted only by soy because it makes us tower, then the picture must mean what it makes us do That is, a combination of feathery fronds and horizontal lines of water, bathed in a gray- green silvery rave yet cheerful spirit In short, this theory of expressiveness cannot go beyond the mood or moral quality In the sense of INFORMATION, the theory of Einfuhlung contributes nothing Now, in this limited sense, we have indeed no reason to contradict it, but simply to point out that it holds only in this extre lines we interpret they When those sweeping lines are et the sa to distinctively ht define the sweep of a drapery, or the curve of an infant's lis to the lines themselves remains constant under whatever circu-tone, a certain s, say, to Raphael's pictures, in which this kind of outline is to be found But as belonging to a titan, the additional ele are not due to sympathetic reproduction They are not parallel with the estions; they are simply an associational addition, due to our information about the power of men with muscles like that That there are secondary motor elements as a reverberation of these ideal elements need not be denied But they are not directly due to the form Now such part of our response to a picture as is directly induced by the forht to include in the aesthetic experience It will, however, in every work of art of even the least complexity, be expressible only as a mood, very indefinite, often indescribable To ,” then, the essential aim of a picture seems unreasonable

It is evident that in experience we do not, as a matter of fact, separate the mood which is due to sympathy from the ideal content of the picture Corot paint a suht fro; yet it is the visual co of the scene is due to factors of association The ”serene and happy dream,” the ”conviction of a solemn and radiant Arcadia,” are not ”expression” in that inevitable sense in which we agreed to take it, but the result of aof ideal (that is, associational) elements

The ”idea,” then, as we have propounded it, is not, as was thought possible, an integral and essential part, but an addition to the visual form, and we have still to ask what is its value But in so far as it is an addition, its effect -tone produced by sympathetic reproduction In that case, one must yield to the other Now it is not probably that even the most convinced adherents of the expression theory would hold that if expression or beauty MUST go, expression should be kept

They only say that expression IS beauty But the moment it is admitted that there is a beauty of forer stand If there is a conflict, the paliven to the direct, rather than the indirect, factor Indeed, when there is such a conflict, the prian, the sensuous factor For if it were not so, and expression WERE beauty, then that would have to be most beautiful which was ard the extraordinary conclusions to which this would lead,--the story pictures preferred to those without a story, the photographic reproductions preferred to the syed to ad still more incendiary Expression is always of an ideal content, is of so to express; and it is unquestioned that in words, and in words alone, can we get nearest to the inexpressible Then literature, as being the hest art, and we should be confronted with a hierarchy of arts, from that down

Now, in truth, the real lover of beauty knows that no one art is superior to another ”Each in his separate star,” they reign alone In order to be equal, they must depend on their ht which each has in a differing degree, and all less than literature

The idea, we conclude, is then indeed subordinate,--a by-product, unless by chance it can enter into, melt into, the form This case we have clearest in the exaauntlet, or the jeweled chalice,--say the Holy Grail in Abbey's pictures,--which countsto its intrinsic interest

We have seen that through sympathetic reproduction a certain mood is produced, which becomes a kind of emotional envelope for the picture,--a favorable sti of the whole harmony one tone, as it were Now the further ideal content of the pictureThus all that we know about dawn--not only of a su to rejoice, in Corot's silvery mist or Monet's iridescent shi+mmers All that we know and feel about the patient et the slow, large rhythlooloom that are the beauty, and the idea reinforces our consciousness thereof The idea is a sounding-board for the beauty, and so can be truly said to enter into the form

But there are still soreatest of modern sculptors is reputed to have reached his present altitude by the passionate pursuance of Nature, and of the expressions of Nature And few can see Rodin's ithout being at once in the grip of the ereat deal of contemporary criticism on modern tendencies in art rests on the intention of expression, and expression alone, attributed to him It is said of him: ”The solicitude for ardent expression overmasters every aesthetic consideration He is a poet with stone as his instrument of expression He makes it express eical and lyric literature”<1>

<1> C Mauclair, ”The Decorative Sculpture of August Rodin,”

_International Monthly_, vol iii

Nohile the last is undoubtedly true, I believe that the first is not only not true, but that it is proved to be so by Rodin's own procedure and utterances, and that, if we understand his case aright, it is for beauty alone that he lives He has related his search for the secret of Michael Angelo's design, and how he found it in the rhythm of two planes rather than four, the Greek composition This systeeo the whole

<1>”The ordinary Greek composition of the body, he puts it, depends on a rhythm of four lines, four volumes, four planes