Part 21 (1/2)
Such, then, is a general outline of the evidence which justifies, in detail, the comparison of societies to living organisms. That they gradually increase in ma.s.s; that they become little by little more complex; that at the same time their parts grow more mutually dependent; and that they continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of their units appear and disappear; are broad peculiarities which bodies politic display, in common with all living bodies; and in which they and living bodies differ from everything else. And on carrying out the comparison in detail, we find that these major a.n.a.logies involve many minor a.n.a.logies, far closer than might have been expected. To these we would gladly have added others. We had hoped to say something respecting the different types of social organization, and something also on social metamorphoses; but we have reached our a.s.signed limits.
XI. USE AND BEAUTY
In one of his essays, Emerson remarks, that what Nature at one time provides for use, she afterwards turns to ornament; and he cites in ill.u.s.tration the structure of a sea-sh.e.l.l, in which the parts that have for a while formed the mouth are at the next season of growth left behind, and become decorative nodes and spines.
It has often occurred to me that this same remark might be extended to the progress of Humanity. Here, too, the appliances of one era serve as embellishments to the next. Equally in inst.i.tutions, creeds, customs, and superst.i.tions, we may trace this evolution of beauty out of what was once purely utilitarian.
The contrast between the feeling with which we regard portions of the Earth's surface still left in their original state, and the feeling with which the savage regarded them, is an instance that naturally comes first in order of time. If any one walking over Hampstead Heath, will note how strongly its picturesqueness is brought out by contrast with the surrounding cultivated fields and the ma.s.ses of houses lying in the distance; and will further reflect that, had this irregular gorse-covered surface extended on all sides to the horizon, it would have looked dreary and prosaic rather than pleasing; he will see that to the primitive man a country so clothed presented no beauty at all. To him it was merely a haunt of wild animals, and a ground out of which roots might be dug. What have become for us places of relaxation and enjoyment--places for afternoon strolls and for gathering flowers--were his places for labour and food, probably arousing in his mind none but utilitarian a.s.sociations.
Ruined castles afford an obvious instance of this metamorphosis of the useful into the beautiful. To feudal barons and their retainers, security was the chief, if not the only end, sought in choosing the sites and styles of their strongholds. Probably they aimed as little at the picturesque as do the builders of cheap brick houses in our modern towns. Yet what where erected for shelter and safety, and what in those early days fulfilled an important function in the social economy, have now a.s.sumed a purely ornamental character. They serve as scenes for picnics; pictures of them decorate our drawing-rooms; and each supplies its surrounding districts with legends for Christmas Eve.
Following out the train of thought suggested by this last ill.u.s.tration, we may see that not only do the material exuviae of past social states become the ornaments of our landscapes; but that past habits, manners, and arrangements, serve as ornamental elements in our literature. The tyrannies that, to the serfs who bore them, were harsh and dreary facts; the feuds which, to those who took part in them, were very practical life-and-death affairs; the mailed, moated, sentinelled security that was irksome to the n.o.bles who needed it; the imprisonments, and tortures, and escapes, which were stern and quite prosaic realities to all concerned in them; have become to us material for romantic tales--material which when woven into Ivanhoes and Marmions, serves for amus.e.m.e.nt in leisure hours, and become poetical by contrast with our daily lives.
Thus, also, is it with extinct creeds. Stonehenge, which in the hands of the Druids had a governmental influence over men, is in our day a place for antiquarian excursions; and its attendant priests are worked up into an opera. Greek sculptures, preserved for their beauty in our galleries of art, and copied for the decoration of pleasure grounds and entrance halls, once lived in men's minds as G.o.ds demanding obedience; as did also the grotesque idols that now amuse the visitors to our museums.
Equally marked is this change of function in the case of minor superst.i.tions. The fairy lore, which in past times was matter of grave belief, and held sway over people's conduct, has since been transformed into ornament for _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, _The Tempest_, _The Fairy Queen_, and endless small tales and poems; and still affords subjects for children's story-books, themes for ballets, and plots for Planche's burlesques. Gnomes, and genii, and afrits, losing all their terrors, give piquancy to the woodcuts in our ill.u.s.trated edition of the _Arabian Nights_. While ghost-stories, and tales of magic and witchcraft, after serving to amuse boys and girls in their leisure hours, become matter for jocose allusions that enliven tea-table conversation.
Even our serious literature and our speeches are very generally relieved by ornaments drawn from such sources. A Greek myth is often used as a parallel by which to vary the monotony of some grave argument. The lecturer breaks the dead level of his practical discourse by ill.u.s.trations drawn from bygone customs, events, or beliefs. And metaphors, similarly derived, give brilliancy to political orations, and to _Times_ leading articles.
Indeed, on careful inquiry, I think it will be found that we turn to purposes of beauty most bygone phenomena that are at all conspicuous. The busts of great men in our libraries, and their tombs in our churches; the once useful but now purely ornamental heraldic symbols; the monks, nuns, and convents, that give interest to a certain cla.s.s of novels; the bronze mediaeval soldiers used for embellis.h.i.+ng drawing-rooms; the gilt Apollos that recline on time-pieces; the narratives that serve as plots for our great dramas; and the events that afford subjects for historical pictures;--these and such like ill.u.s.trations of the metamorphosis of the useful into the beautiful, are so numerous as to suggest that, did we search diligently enough, we should find that in some place, or under some circ.u.mstances, nearly every notable product of the past has a.s.sumed a decorative character.
And here the mention of historical pictures reminds me that an inference may be drawn from all this, bearing directly on the practice of art. It has of late years been a frequent criticism upon our historical painters, that they err in choosing their subjects from the past; and that, would they found a genuine and vital school, they must render on canvas the life and deeds and aims of our own time. If, however, there be any significance in the foregoing facts, it seems doubtful whether this criticism is a just one. For if it be the process of things, that what has performed some practical function in society during one era, becomes available for ornament in a subsequent one; it almost follows that, conversely, whatever is performing some practical function now, or has very recently performed one, does not possess the ornamental character; and is, consequently, inapplicable to any purpose of which beauty is the aim, or of which it is a needful ingredient.
Still more reasonable will this conclusion appear, when we consider the nature of this process by which the useful is changed into the ornamental.
An essential pre-requisite to all beauty is _contrast_. To obtain artistic effect, light must be put in juxtaposition with shade, bright colours with dull colours, a fretted surface with a plain one. _Forte_ pa.s.sages in music must have _piano_ pa.s.sages to relieve them; concerted pieces need interspersing with solos; and rich chords must not be continuously repeated. In the drama we demand contrast of characters, of scenes, of sentiment, of style. In prose composition an eloquent pa.s.sage should have a comparatively plain setting; and in poems great effect is obtained by occasional change of versification. This general principle will, I think, explain the transformation of the bygone useful into the present beautiful.
It is by virtue of their contrast with our present modes of life, that past modes of life look interesting and romantic. Just as a picnic, which is a temporary return to an aboriginal condition, derives, from its unfamiliarity, a certain poetry which it would not have were it habitual; so, everything ancient gains, from its relative novelty to us, an element of interest. Gradually as, by the growth of society, we leave behind the customs, manners, arrangements, and all the products, material and mental, of a bygone age--gradually as we recede from these so far that there arises a conspicuous difference between them and those we are familiar with; so gradually do they begin to a.s.sume to us a poetical aspect, and become applicable for ornament. And hence it follows that things and events which are close to us, and which are accompanied by a.s.sociations of ideas not markedly contrasted with our ordinary a.s.sociations are relatively inappropriate for purposes of art.
XII. THE SOURCES OF ARCHITECTURAL TYPES.
When lately looking through the gallery of the Old Water-Colour Society, I was struck with the incongruity produced by putting regular architecture into irregular scenery. In one case, where the artist had introduced a perfectly symmetrical Grecian edifice into a mountainous and somewhat wild landscape, the discordant effect was particularly marked. ”How very unpicturesque,” said a lady to her friend, as they pa.s.sed; showing that I was not alone in my opinion. Her phrase, however, set me speculating. Why unpicturesque? Picturesque means, like a picture--like what men choose for pictures. Why then should this be not fit for a picture?
Thinking the matter over, it seemed to me that the artist had sinned against that unity which is essential to a good picture. When the other const.i.tuents of a landscape have irregular forms, any artificial structure introduced must have an irregular form, that it may seem _part_ of the landscape. The same general character must pervade it and surrounding objects; otherwise it, and the scene amid which it stands, become not _one_ thing but _two_ things; and we say it looks out of place. Or, speaking psychologically, the a.s.sociated ideas called up by a building with its wings, windows, and all its parts symmetrically disposed, differ widely from the ideas a.s.sociated with an entirely irregular landscape; and the one set of ideas tends to banish the other.
Pursuing the train of thought, sundry ill.u.s.trative facts came to my mind. I remembered that a castle, which is more irregular in outline than any other kind of building, pleases us most when seated amid crags and precipices; while a castle on a plain seems an incongruity. The partly-regular and partly-irregular forms of our old farm-houses, and our gabled gothic manors and abbeys, appear quite in harmony with an undulating, wooded country. In towns we prefer symmetrical architecture; and in towns it produces in us no feeling of incongruity, because all surrounding things--men, horses, vehicles--are symmetrical also.
And here I was reminded of a notion that has frequently recurred to me; namely, that there is some relations.h.i.+p between the several kinds of architecture and the several cla.s.ses of natural objects. Buildings in the Greek and Roman styles seem, in virtue of their symmetry, to take their type from animal life. In the partly-irregular Gothic, ideas derived from the vegetable world appear to predominate. And wholly irregular buildings, such as castles, may be considered as having inorganic forms for their basis.
Whimsical as this speculation looks at first sight, it is countenanced by numerous facts. The connexion between symmetrical architecture and animal forms, may be inferred from the _kind_ of symmetry we expect, and are satisfied with, in regular buildings. Thus in a Greek temple we require that the front shall be symmetrical in itself, and that the two flanks shall be alike; but we do not look for uniformity between the flanks and the front, nor between the front and the back. The ident.i.ty of this symmetry with that found in animals is obvious. Again, why is it that a building making any pretension to symmetry displeases us if not quite symmetrical? Probably the reply will be--Because we see that the designer's idea is not fully carried out; and that hence our love of completeness is offended. But then there come the further questions--How do we know that the architect's conception was symmetrical? Whence comes this notion of symmetry which we have, and which we attribute to him? Unless we fall back upon the old doctrine of innate ideas, we must admit that the idea of bilateral symmetry is derived from without; and to admit this is to admit that it is derived from the higher animals.
That there is some relations.h.i.+p between Gothic architecture and vegetable forms is a position generally admitted. The often-remarked a.n.a.logy between a groined nave and an avenue of trees with interlacing branches, shows that the fact has forced itself on men's observation. It is not only in this a.n.a.logy, however, that the kins.h.i.+p is seen. It is seen still better in the essential characteristic of Gothic; namely, what is termed its _aspiring_ tendency. That predominance of vertical lines which so strongly distinguishes Gothic from other styles, is the most marked peculiarity of trees, when compared with animals or rocks. To persons of active imagination, a tall Gothic tower, with its elongated apertures and cl.u.s.ters of thin projections running from bottom to top, suggests a vague notion of growth.
Of the alleged connexion between inorganic forms and the wholly irregular and the castellated styles of building, we have, I think, some proof in the fact that when an edifice is irregular, the _more_ irregular it is the more it pleases us. I see no way of accounting for this fact, save by supposing that the greater the irregularity the more strongly are we reminded of the inorganic forms typified, and the more vividly are aroused the agreeable ideas of rugged and romantic scenery a.s.sociated with those forms.
Further evidence of these several relations.h.i.+ps of styles of architecture to cla.s.ses of natural objects, is supplied by the kinds of decoration they respectively represent. The public buildings of Greece, while characterized in their outlines by the bilateral symmetry seen in the higher animals, have their pediments and entablatures covered with sculptured men and beasts. Egyptian temples and a.s.syrian palaces, while similarly symmetrical in their general plan, are similarly ornamented on their walls and at their doors. In Gothic, again, with its grove-like ranges of cl.u.s.tered columns, we find rich foliated ornaments abundantly employed. And accompanying the totally irregular, inorganic outlines of old castles, we see neither vegetable nor animal decorations. The bare, rock-like walls are surmounted by battlements, consisting of almost plain blocks, which remind us of the projections on the edge of a rugged cliff.
But perhaps the most significant fact is the harmony that may be observed between each type of architecture and the scenes in which it is indigenous.