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- §43 Art in general.
- §44. Fine art.
- §45. Fine art is an art, so far as it has at the same
time the appearance of being nature.
- §46. Fine art is the art of genius.
- §47. Elucidation of the explanation of genius.
- §48. The relation of genius to taste.
- §49. The faculties of the mind which constitute genius.
- §50. The combination of taste and genius in fine
art.
- §51. The division of the fine arts.
- §52. The combination of the fine arts in one and
the same product.
- §53. Comparative estimate of the fine arts.
§ 43. Art in general.
(1.) Art is distinguished from nature as making (facere) is from
acting or operating in general (agere), and the product or the
result of the former is distinguished from that of the latter as work
(opus) from operation (effectus).
By right it is only production through freedom, i.e., through an act
of will that places reason at the basis of its action, that should
be termed art. . . . But where anything is called absolutely a work of
art, to distinguish it from a natural product, then some work of man is
always understood.
(2.) Art, as human skill, is distinguished also from science (as
ability from knowledge), as a practical from a theoretical faculty, as
technique from theory (as the art of surveying from geometry). . .
.
(3.) Art is further distinguished from handicraft. The first is
called free, the other may be called industrial art. We look on the
former as something which could only prove final (be a success) as
play, i.e., an occupation which is agreeable on its own account; but
on the second as labor, i.e., a business, which on its own account is
disagreeable (drudgery), and is only attractive by means of what it
results in (e.g., the pay), and which is consequently capable of being
a compulsory imposition. Whether in the list of arts and crafts we are
to rank watchmakers as artists, and smiths on the contrary as
craftsmen, requires a standpoint different from that here adopted-one,
that is to say, taking account of the proposition of the talents which
the business undertaken in either case must necessarily involve. .
. .
§44. Fine art
. . .Where art, merely seeking to actualize a possible object to the
cognition of which it is adequate, does whatever acts are required
for that purpose. then it is mechanical. But should the feeling of
pleasure be what it has immediately in view, it is then termed
aesthetic art. As such it may be either agreeable or fine art. The
description "agreeable art" applies where the end of the art is that
the pleasure should accompany the representations considered as
mere sensations, the description "fine art" where it is to accompany
them considered as modes of cognition.
Agreeable arts are those which have mere enjoyment for their object.
Such are all the charms that can gratify a dinner party:
entertaining narrative, the art of starting the whole table in
unrestrained and sprightly conversation, or with jest and laughter
inducing a certain air of gaiety. Here, as the saying goes, there
may be much loose talk over the glasses, without a person wishing to
be brought to book for all he utters, because it is only given out for
the entertainment of the moment, and not as a lasting matter to be
made the subject of reflection or repetition. (Of the same sort is
also the art of arranging the table for enjoyment, or, at large
banquets, the music of the orchestra-a quaint idea intended to act
on the mind merely as an agreeable noise fostering a genial spirit,
which, without any one paying the smallest attention to the
composition, promotes the free flow of conversation between guest
and guest.) In addition must be included play of every kind which is
attended with no further interest than that of making the time pass by
unheeded.
Fine art, on the other hand, is a mode of representation which is
intrinsically final, and which, although devoid of an end, has the
effect of advancing the culture of the mental powers in the
interests of social communication.
The universal communicability of a pleasure involves in its very
concept that the pleasure is not one of enjoyment arising out of
mere sensation, but must be one of reflection. Hence aesthetic art,
as art which is beautiful, is one having for its standard the
reflective judgment and not organic sensation.
§45. Fine art is an art, so far as it has at the same
time the appearance of being nature.
A product of fine art must be recognized to be art and not
nature. Nevertheless the finality in its form must appear just as free
from the constraint of arbitrary rules as if it were a product of mere
nature. Upon this feeling of freedom in the play of our cognitive
faculties-which play has at the same time to be final rests that
pleasure which alone is universally communicable without being based
on concepts. Nature proved beautiful when it wore the appearance of
art; and art can only be termed beautiful, where we are conscious of
its being art, while yet it has the appearance of nature. . . .
Hence the finality in the product of fine art, intentional though it
be, must not have the appearance of being intentional; i.e., fine
art must be clothed with the aspect of nature, although we recognize
it to be art. But the way in which a product of art seems like
nature is by the presence of perfect exactness in the agreement with
rules prescribing how alone the product can be what it is intended
to be, but with an absence of labored effect (without academic form
betraying itself), i.e., without a trace appearing of the artist
having always had the rule present to him and of its having fettered
his mental powers.
§46. Fine art is the art of genius.
Genius is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the rule to
art. Since talent, as an innate productive faculty of the artist,
belongs itself to nature, we may put it this way: Genius is the innate
mental aptitude (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.
Whatever may be the merits of this definition, and whether it is
merely arbitrary, or whether it is adequate or not to the concept
usually associated with the word genius (a point which the following
sections have to clear up), it may still be shown at the outset
that, according to this acceptation of the word, fine arts must
necessarily be regarded as arts of genius.
For every art presupposes rules which are laid down as the
foundation which first enables a product, if it is to be called one of
art, to be represented as possible. The concept of fine art,
however, does not permit of the judgment upon the beauty of its
product being derived from any rule that has a concept for its
determining ground, and that depends, consequently, on a concept of
the way in which the product is possible. Consequently fine art cannot
of its own self exclude the rule according to which it is to effectuate
its product. But since, for all that, a product can never be
called art
unless there is a preceding rule, it follows that nature in the individual
(and by virtue of the harmony of his faculties) must give the rule to art,
i.e., fine art is only possible as a product of genius.
From this it may be seen that genius (1) is a talent for producing
that for which no definite rule can be given, and not an aptitude in
the way of cleverness for what can be learned according to some
rule; and that consequently originality must be its primary
property. (2) Since there may also be original nonsense, its
products must at the same time be models, i.e., be exemplary; and,
consequently, though not themselves derived from imitation, they
must serve that purpose for others, i.e., as a standard or rule of
estimating. (3) It cannot indicate scientifically how it brings
about its product, but rather gives the rule as nature. Hence, where
an author owes a product to his genius, he does not himself know
how the ideas for it have entered into his head, nor has he it in his
power to invent the like at pleasure, or methodically, and communicate
the same to others in such precepts as would put them in a position to
produce similar products. . . .
§47. Elucidation and confirmation of the above
explanation of genius.
Every one is agreed on the point of the complete opposition
between genius and the spirit of imitation. Now since learning is
nothing but imitation, the greatest ability, or aptness as a pupil
(capacity), is still, as such, not equivalent to genius. . . .
Seeing, then, that the natural endowment of art (as fine art) must
furnish the rule, what kind of rule must this be? It cannot be one set
down in a formula and serving as a precept-for then the judgment upon
the beautiful would be determinable according to concepts. Rather
must the rule be gathered from the performance, i.e., from the product,
which others may use to put their own talent to the test, so as to let
it serve as a model, not for imitation, but for following. The possibility
of this is difficult to explain. The artist's ideas arouse like ideas on
the
part of his pupil, presuming nature to have visited him with a like
proportion of the mental Powers. For this reason, the models of
fine art are the only means of handing down this art to posterity.
This is something which cannot be done by mere descriptions
(especially not in the line of the arts of speech), and in these arts,
furthermore, only those models can become classical of which the
ancient, dead languages, preserved as learned, are the medium.
Despite the marked difference that distinguishes mechanical art,
as an art merely depending upon industry and learning, from fine
art, as that of genius, there is still no fine art in which something
mechanical, capable of being at once comprehended and
followed in obedience to rules, and consequently something academic,
does not constitute the essential condition of the art. . . . Now, seeing
that originality of talent is one (though not the sole) essential factor
that goes to make up the character of genius, shallow minds fancy that
the best evidence they can give of their being full-blown geniuses
is by emancipating themselves from all academic constraint of rules,
in the belief that one cuts a finer figure on the back of an
ill-tempered than of a trained horse. Genius can do no more than
furnish rich material for products of fine art; its elaboration and
its form require a talent academically trained, so that it may be
employed in such a way as to stand the test of judgment. But, for a
person to hold forth and pass sentence like a genius in matters that
fall to the province of the most patient rational investigation, is
ridiculous in the extreme. One is at a loss to know whether to
laugh more at the impostor who envelops himself in such a cloud--in
which we are given fuller scope to our imagination at the expense of
all use of our critical faculty--or at the simple-minded public which
imagines that its inability clearly to cognize and comprehend this
masterpiece of penetration is due to its being invaded by new truths
en masse, in comparison with which, detail, due to carefully weighed
exposition and an academic examination of root principles, seems to it
only the work of a beginner.
§48. The relation of genius to taste.
For estimating beautiful objects, as such, what is required is taste;
but for fine art, i.e., the production of such objects, one needs
genius. . . . A beauty of nature is a beautiful thing; beauty of art is
a beautiful representation of a thing. . . .
Where fine art evidences its superiority is in the beautiful
descriptions it gives of things that in nature would be ugly or
displeasing. The Furies, diseases, devastations of war, and the
like, can (as evils) be very beautifully described, nay even
represented in pictures. . . . The art of sculpture, again, since in its
products art is almost confused with nature, has excluded from its
creations the direct representation of
ugly objects, and, instead, only
sanctions, for example, the representation of death (in a beautiful
genius), or of the warlike spirit
(in Mars), by means of an allegory, or
attributes which wear a pleasant guise, and so only indirectly, through
an interpretation on the part of reason, and not for the pure aesthetic
judgment.
So much for the beautiful representation of an object, which is
properly only the form of the presentation of a concept and the
means by which the latter is universally communicated. To give this
form, however, to the product of fine art, taste merely is required.
By this the artist, having practiced and corrected his taste by a
variety of examples from nature or art, controls his work and, after
many, and often laborious, attempts to satisfy taste, finds the form
which commends itself to him. Hence this form is not, as it were, a
matter of inspiration, or of a free swing of the mental powers, but
rather of a slow and even painful process of improvement, directed
to making the form adequate to his thought without prejudice to the
freedom in the play of those powers.
Taste is, however, merely a critical, not a productive faculty;
and what conforms to it is not, merely on that account, a work of fine
art. It may belong to useful and mechanical art, or even to science,
as a product following definite rules which are capable of being
learned and which must be closely followed. But the pleasing form
imparted to the work is only the vehicle of communication and a
mode, as it were, of execution, in respect of which one remains to a
certain extent free, notwithstanding being otherwise tied down to a
definite end. So we demand that table appointments, or even a moral
dissertation, and, indeed, a sermon, must bear this form of fine
art, yet without its appearing studied. But one would not call them on
this account works of fine art. A poem, a musical composition, a
picture-gallery, and so forth, would, however, be placed under this
head; and so in a would-be work of fine art we may frequently
recognize genius without taste, and in another taste without genius.
§49. The faculties of the mind which constitute genius.
Of certain products which are expected, partly at least, to stand on
the footing of fine art, we say they are soulless; and this,
although we find nothing to censure in them as far as taste goes. A
poem may be very pretty and elegant, but is soulless. A narrative
has precision and method, but is soulless. A speech on some festive
occasion may be good in substance and ornate withal, but may be
soulless. Conversation frequently is not devoid of entertainment,
but yet soulless. Even of a woman we may well say, she is pretty,
affable, and refined, but soulless. Now what do we here mean by
"soul"?
Soul (Geist) in an aesthetical sense, signifies the animating
principle in the mind. But that whereby this principle animates the soul
--the material which it employs for that purpose--is that which sets the
mental powers into a swing that is final, i.e., into a play which is
self-maintaining and which strengthens those powers for such activity.
Now my proposition is that this principle is nothing else than the
faculty of presenting aesthetic ideas. But, by an aesthetic idea I
mean that representation of the imagination which induces much
thought, yet without the possibility of any definite thought whatever,
i.e., concept, being adequate to it, and which language, consequently,
can never get quite on level terms with or render completely
intelligible. It is easily seen, that an aesthetic idea is the counterpart
(pendant) of a rational idea, which, conversely, is a
concept,
to which no intuition (representation of the imagination) can be
adequate. . . .
Such representations of the imagination may be termed ideas. This is
partly because they at least strain after something lying out beyond
the confines of experience, and so seek to approximate to a
presentation of rational concepts (i.e., intellectual ideas), thus
giving to these concepts the semblance of an objective reality. But,
on the other hand, there is this most important reason, that no
concept can be wholly adequate to them as internal intuitions. The
poet essays the task of interpreting to sense the rational ideas of
invisible beings, the kingdom of the blessed, hell, eternity,
creation, etc. Or, again, as to things of which examples occur in
experience, e.g., death, envy, and all vices, as also love, fame,
and the like, transgressing the limits of experience he attempts
with the aid of an imagination which emulates the display of reason in
its attainment of a maximum, to body them forth to sense with a
completeness of which nature affords no parallel; and it is in' fact
precisely in the poetic art that the faculty of aesthetic ideas can
show itself to full advantage. This faculty, however, regarded
solely on its own account, is properly no more than a talent' (of
the imagination). . . .
In this way Jupiter's
eagle, with the lightning in its claws, is an attribute
of the mighty king of heaven, and the peacock of its stately queen. They
do not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of the
sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else-something
that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a
whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than
admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish
an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute
for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of
animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of
kindred representations stretching beyond its ken. But it is not
alone
in the arts of painting or sculpture, where the name of attribute is
customarily employed, that fine art acts in this way; poetry and
rhetoric also drive the soul that animates their work wholly from
the aesthetic attributes of the objects-attributes which go hand in
hand with the logical, and give the imagination an impetus to bring
more thought into: play in the matter, though in an undeveloped
manner, than allows of being brought within the embrace of a
concept, or, therefore, of being definitely formulated in language. .
. .
In a word, the aesthetic idea is a representation of the
imagination, annexed to a given concept, with which, in the free
employment of imagination, such a multiplicity of partial
representations are bound up, that no expression indicating a definite
concept can be found for it one which on that account allows a concept
to be supplemented in thought by much that is indefinable in words,
and the feeling of which quickens the cognitive faculties, and with
language, as a mere thing of the letter, binds up the spirit (soul)
also.
The mental powers whose union in a certain relation constitutes
genius are imagination and understanding. Now, since the
imagination, in its employment on behalf of cognition, is subjected to
the constraint of the understanding and the restriction of having to
be conformable to the concept belonging' thereto, whereas
aesthetically it is free to furnish of its own accord, over and
above that agreement with the concept, a wealth of undeveloped
material for the understanding, to which the latter paid no regard
in its concept, but which it can make use of, not so much
objectively for cognition, as subjectively for quickening the
cognitive faculties, and hence also indirectly for cognitions, it
may be seen that genius properly consists in the happy relation, which
science cannot teach nor industry learn, enabling one to find out
ideas for a given concept, and, besides, to hit upon the expression
for them-the expression by means of which the subjective mental
condition induced by the ideas as the concomitant of a concept may
be communicated to others. This latter talent is properly that which
is termed soul. For to get an expression for what is indefinable in
the mental state accompanying a particular representation and to
make it universally communicable-be the expression in language or
painting or statuary-is a "thing requiring a faculty for laying hold
of the rapid and transient play of the imagination, and for unifying
it in a concept (which for that very reason is original, and reveals a
new rule which could not have been inferred from any preceding
principles or examples) that admits of communication without any
constraint of rules.
If, after this analysis, we cast a glance back upon the above
definition of what is called genius, we find: First, that it is a
talent for art-not one for science, in which clearly known rules
must take the lead and determine the procedure. Secondly, being a
talent in the line of art, it presupposes a definite concept of the
product-as its end. Hence it presupposes understanding, but, in
addition, a representation, indefinite though it be, of the
material, i.e., of the intuition, required for the presentation of
that concept, and so a relation of the imagination to the
understanding. Thirdly, it displays itself, not so much in the working
out of the projected end in the presentation of a definite concept, as
rather in the portrayal, or expression of aesthetic ideas containing a
wealth of material for effecting that intention. Consequently the
imagination is represented by it in its freedom from all guidance of
rules, but still as final for the presentation of the given concept.
Fourthly, and lastly, the unsought and undesigned subjective
finality in the free harmonizing of the imagination with the
understanding's conformity to law presupposes a proportion and
accord between these faculties such as cannot be brought about by
any observance of rules, whether of science or mechanical imitation,
but can only be produced by the nature of the individual.
Genius, according to these presuppositions, is the exemplary
originality of the natural endowments of an individual in the free
employment of his cognitive faculties. On this showing, the product
of a genius (in respect of so much in this product as is attributable
to genius, and not to possible learning or academic instruction) is an
example, not for imitation (for that would mean the loss of the
element of genius, and just the very soul of the work), but to be
followed by another genius-one whom it arouses to a sense of his
own originality in putting freedom from the constraint of rules so into
force in his art that for art itself a new rule is won-which is what
shows a talent to be exemplary. Yet, since the genius is one of
nature's elect-a type that must be regarded as but a rare
phenomenon-for other clever minds his example gives rise to a
school, that is to say a methodical instruction according to rules,
collected, so far as the circumstances admit, from such products of
genius and their peculiarities. And, to that extent, fine art is for
such persons a matter of imitation, for which nature, through the
medium of a genius gave the rule.
But this imitation becomes aping when the pupil copies everything
down to the deformities which the genius only of necessity suffered to
remain, because they could hardly be removed without loss of force
to the idea. This courage has merit only in the case of a genius. A
certain boldness of expression and, in general, many a deviation
from the common rule becomes him well, but in no sense is it a thing
worthy of imitation. On the contrary it remains all through
intrinsically a blemish, which one is bound to try to remove, but
for which the genius is, as it were, allowed to plead a privilege,
on the ground that a scrupulous carefulness would spoil what is
inimitable in the impetuous ardor of his soul. Mannerism is another
kind of aping-an aping of peculiarity (originality) in general, for
the sake of removing oneself as far as possible from imitators,
while the talent requisite to enable one to be at the same time
exemplary is absent. . . .
§50. The combination of taste and genius in
products of fine art.
To ask whether more stress should be laid in matters of fine art
upon the presence of genius or upon that of taste, is equivalent to
asking whether more turns upon imagination or upon judgment.
Now, imagination rather entitles an art to be called an inspired
(geistreiche) than a fine art. It is only in respect of judgment that
the name of fine art is deserved. Hence it follows that judgment,
being the indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non), is at least
what one must look to as of capital importance in forming an
estimate of art as fine art. So far as beauty is concerned, to be
fertile and original in ideas is not such an imperative requirement as
it is that the imagination in its freedom should be in accordance with
the understanding's conformity to law. For, in lawless freedom,
imagination, with all its wealth, produces nothing but nonsense; the
power of judgment, on the other hand, is the faculty that makes it
consonant with understanding.
Taste, like judgment in general, is the discipline (or corrective) of
genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it orderly or polished;
but at the same time it gives it guidance directing and controlling its
flight, so that it may preserve its character of finality. It introduces a
clearness and order into the plenitude of thought, and in so doing
gives stability to the ideas, and qualifies them at once for permanent
and universal approval, for being followed by others, and for a
continually progressive culture. And so, where the interests of both
these qualities clash in a product, and there has to be a sacrifice of
something, then it should rather be on the side of genius; and judgment,
which in matters of fine art bases its decision on its own proper
principles, will more readily endure an abatement of the freedom and
wealth of the imagination than that the understanding should be
compromised.
The requisites for fine art are, therefore, imagination, understanding,
soul, and taste.*
*The first three faculties are first brought into union by means
of the fourth. Hume, in his history, informs the English that although
they are second in their works to no other people in the world in
respect the evidences they afford of the three first qualities separately
considered, still in what unites them they must yield to their neighbors,
the French.
§51. The division of the fine arts.
Beauty (whether it be of nature or of art) may in general be
termed the expression of aesthetic ideas. But the provision must be
added that with beauty of art this idea must be excited through the
medium of a concept of the object, whereas with beauty of nature the
bare reflection upon a given intuition, apart from any concept of what
the object is intended to be, is sufficient for awakening and
communicating the idea of which that object is regarded as the
expression.
Accordingly, if we wish to make a division of the fine arts, we
can choose for that purpose, tentatively at least, no more
convenient principle than the analogy which art bears to the mode of
expression of which men avail themselves in speech with a view to
communicating themselves to one another as completely as possible,
i.e., not merely in respect of their concepts but in respect of
their
sensations also. Such expression consists in word, gesture, and tone
(articulation, gesticulation, and modulation). It is the combination of
these three modes of expression which alone constitutes a complete
communication of the speaker. For thought, intuition, and sensation
are in this way conveyed to others simultaneously and in conjunction.
Hence there are only three kinds of fine art: the art of speech,
formative [visual] art, and the art of the play of sensations (as external
sense impressions). This division might also be arranged as a
dichotomy, so that fine art would be divided into that of the
expression of thoughts or intuitions, the latter being subdivided
according to the distinction between the form and the matter
(sensation). It would, however, in that case appear too abstract,
and less in line with popular conceptions.
(1) The arts of speech are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art
of transacting a serious business of the understanding as if it were
a free play of the imagination; poetry that of conducting a free play
of
the imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding.
Thus the orator announces a serious business, and for the purpose of
entertaining his audience conducts it as if it were a mere play with
ideas. The poet promises merely an entertaining play with ideas, and
yet for the understanding there enures as much as if the promotion
of its business had been his one intention. The combination and
harmony of the two faculties of cognition, sensibility and
understanding, which, though doubtless indispensable to one another,
do not readily permit of being united without compulsion and
reciprocal abatement, must have the appearance of being undesigned
and a spontaneous occurrence-otherwise it is not fine art. For this
reason what is studied and labored must be here avoided. For fine art
must be free art in a double sense: i.e., not alone in a sense opposed to
contract work, as not being a work the magnitude of which may be
estimated, exacted, or paid for, according to a definite standard, but
free also in the sense that, while the mind, no doubt, occupies
itself, still it does so without ulterior regard to any other end, and
yet with a feeling of satisfaction and stimulation (independent of
reward).
The orator, therefore, gives something which he does not promise,
viz., an entertaining play of the imagination. On the other hand,
there is something in which he fails to come up to his promise, and
a thing, too, which is his avowed business, namely, the engagement
of the understanding to some end. The poet's promise, on the contrary,
is a modest one, and a mere play with ideas is all he holds out to us,
but he accomplishes something worthy of being made a serious
business, namely, the using of play to provide food for the
understanding, and the giving of life to its concepts by means of the
imagination. Hence the orator in reality performs less than he
promises, the poet more.
(2) The formative [visual] arts, or those for the expression of ideas in
sensory intuition (not by means of representations of mere
imagination that are excited by words) are arts either of sensuous
truth or of sensuous semblance. The first is called plastic art, the
second painting. Both use figures in space for the expression of
ideas: the former makes figures discernible to two senses, sight and
touch (though, so far as the latter sense is concerned, without regard
to beauty), the latter makes them so to the former sense alone. The
aesthetic idea (archetype, original) is the fundamental basis of
both in the imagination. . . .
To plastic art, as the first kind of formative [visual] fine art, belong
sculpture and architecture. The first is that which presents
concepts of things corporeally, as they might exist in nature
(though as fine art it directs its attention to aesthetic finality).
The second is the art of presenting concepts of things which are
possible only through art, and the determining ground of whose form
is not nature but an arbitrary end-and of presenting them both with a
view to this purpose and yet, at the same time, with aesthetic
finality. In architecture the chief point is a certain use of the
artistic object to which, as the condition, the aesthetic ideas are
limited. In sculpture the mere expression of aesthetic ideas is the
main intention. Thus statues of men, gods, animals, etc., belong to
sculpture; but temples, splendid buildings for public concourse, or
even dwelling-houses, triumphal arches, columns, mausoleums, etc.,
erected as monuments, belong to architecture, and in fact all
household furniture (the work of cabinetmakers, and so forth-things
meant to be used) may be added to the list, on the ground that
adaptation of the product to a particular use is the essential element
in a work of architecture. On the other hand, a mere piece of
sculpture is made simply to be looked at and intended to please on
its own account, . . .
Painting, as the second kind of formative art, which presents the
sensory semblance in artful combination with ideas, I would divide
into that of the beautiful Portrayal of nature, and that of the
beautiful arrangement of its products. The first is painting proper,
the second landscape gardening. Painting gives only the semblance
of bodily extension; whereas
landscape gardening, giving this, no
doubt, according to its truth, gives only the semblance of utility and
employment for ends other than the play of the imagination in the
contemplation of its forms. The latter consists in no more than
decking out the ground with the same manifold variety (grasses,
flowers, shrubs, and trees, and even water, hills, and dales) as
that with which nature presents it to our view, only arranged
differently and in obedience to certain ideas. The beautiful
arrangement of corporeal things, however, is also a thing for the
eye only, just like painting-the sense of touch can form no intuitable
representation of such a form, In addition I would place under the
head of painting, in the wide sense, the decoration of rooms by
means of hangings, ornamental accessories, and all beautiful furniture
the sole function of which is to be looked at; and in the same way the
art of tasteful dressing (with rings, snuffboxes, etc.). For a
parterre of various flowers, a room with a variety of ornaments
(including even the ladies' attire), go to make at a festal
gathering a sort of picture which, like pictures in the true sense
of the word (those which are not intended to teach history or
natural science), has no business beyond appealing to the eye, in
order to entertain the imagination in free play with ideas, and to
engage actively the aesthetic judgment independently of any
definite end. No matter how heterogeneous, on the mechanical side,
may be the craft involved in all this decoration, and no matter what a
variety of artists may be required, still the judgment of taste, so
far as it is one upon what is beautiful in this art, is determined in
one and the same way: namely, as a judgment only upon the forms
(without regard to any end) as they present themselves to the eye,
singly or in combination, according to their effect upon the
imagination. The justification, however, of bringing [visual] art (by
analogy) under a common head with gesture in a speech, lies in the
fact that through these figures the soul of the artists furnishes a
bodily expression for the substance and character of his thought,
and makes the thing itself speak, as it were, in mimic language--a
very common play of our fancy, that attributes to lifeless things a soul
suitable to their form, and that uses them as its mouthpiece.
(3) The art of the beautiful play of sensations (sensations that
arise from external stimulation), which is a play of sensations that
has nevertheless to permit of universal communication, can only be
concerned with the proportion of the different degrees of tension in
the sense to which the sensation belongs, i.e., with its tone. In this
comprehensive sense of the word, it may be divided into the artificial
play of sensations of hearing and of sight, consequently into music
and the art of color. It is of note that these two senses, over and
above such susceptibility for impressions as is required to obtain
concepts of external objects by means of these impressions, also admit
of a peculiar associated sensation of which we cannot well determine
whether it is based on sense or reflection; and that this
sensibility may at times be wanting, although the sense, in other
respects, and in what concerns its employment for the cognition of
objects, is by no means deficient but particularly keen. In other
words, we cannot confidently assert whether a color or a tone (sound)
is merely an agreeable sensation, or whether they are in themselves
a beautiful play of sensations, and in being estimated aesthetically,
convey, as such, a delight in their form. . . . According to the
interpretation [that music involves the play of forms], alone, would
music be represented out and out as a fine art, whereas according to
the other
[that music is a play of agreeable sensations] it would be
represented as (in part at least) an agreeable art.
§52. The combination of the fine arts in one and
the same product.
Rhetoric may in a drama be combined with a pictorial presentation
as well of its subjects as of objects; as may poetry with music in a
song; and this again with a pictorial (theatrical) presentation in
an opera; and so may the play of sensations in a piece of music with
the play of figures in a dance, and so on. Even the presentation of
the sublime, so far as it belongs to fine art, may be brought into
union with beauty in a tragedy in verse, a didactic poem or an
oratorio, and in this combination fine art is even more artistic.
Whether it is also more beautiful (having regard to the multiplicity
of different kinds of delight which cross one another) may in some
of these instances be doubted. Still in all fine art the essential
element consists in the form which is final for observation and for
estimating. Here the pleasure is at the same time culture, and
disposes the soul to ideas, making it thus susceptible of such
pleasure and entertainment in greater abundance. The matter of
sensation (charm or emotion) is not essential. Here the aim is
merely enjoyment, which leaves nothing behind it in the idea, and
renders the soul dull, the object in the course of time distasteful,
and the mind dissatisfied with itself and ill-humored, owing to a
consciousness that in the judgment of reason its disposition is
perverse.
Where fine arts are not, either proximately or remotely, brought
into combination with moral ideas, which alone are attended with a
self-sufficing delight, the above is the fate that ultimately awaits
them. They then only serve for a diversion, of which one continually
feels an increasing need in proportion as one has availed oneself of
it as a means of dispelling the discontent of one's mind, with the
result that one makes oneself ever more-and more unprofitable and
dissatisfied with oneself. With a view to the purpose first named, the
beauties of nature are in general the most beneficial, if one is early
habituated to observe, estimate, and admire them.
§53. Comparative estimate of the aesthetic worth
of the fine arts.
Poetry (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and is least
willing to be led by precepts or example) holds the first rank among
all the arts. It expands the mind by giving freedom to the imagination
and by offering, from among the boundless multiplicity of possible
forms accordant with a given concept, to whose bounds it is
restricted, that one which couples with the presentation of the
concept a wealth of thought to which no verbal expression is
completely adequate, and by thus rising aesthetically to ideas. It
invigorates the mind by letting it feel its faculty-free, spontaneous,
and independent of determination by nature of regarding and estimating
nature as phenomenon in the light of aspects which nature of itself
does not afford us in experience, either for sense or understanding,
and of employing it accordingly in behalf of, and as a sort of
schema for, the supersensible. It plays with semblance, which it
produces at will, but not as an instrument of deception; for its
avowed pursuit is merely one of play, which, however, understanding
may turn to good account and employ for its own purpose. Rhetoric,
so far as this is taken to mean the art of persuasion, i.e., the art
of deluding by means of a fair semblance (as ars oratoria), and not
merely excellence of speech (eloquence and style), is a dialectic,
which borrows from poetry only so much as is necessary to win over
men's minds to the side of the speaker before they have weighed the
matter, and to rob their verdict of its freedom. Hence it can be
recommended neither for the bar nor the pulpit. . . . the machinery of
persuasion, which, being equally available for the purpose of
putting a fine gloss or a cloak upon vice-and error, fails to rid
one completely of the lurking suspicion that one is being artfully
hoodwinked. In poetry everything is straight and above board. It
shows its hand: it desires to carry on a mere entertaining play with the
imagination, and one consonant, in respect of form, with the laws of
understanding, and it does not seek to steal upon and ensnare the
understanding with a sensuous presentation.*
*I confess to the pure delight which I have ever been afforded by
a beautiful poem; whereas the reading of the best speech of a Roman
forensic orator, a modern parliamentary debater, or a preacher, has
invariably been mingled with an unpleasant sense of disapproval of
an insidious art that knows how, in matters of moment, to move men
like machines to a judgment that must lose all its weight with them
upon calm reflection. Force and elegance of speech (which together
constitute rhetoric) belong to fine art; but oratory (ars oratoria),
being the art of playing for one's own purpose up-the weaknesses of
men (let this purpose be ever so good in intention or even in fact)
merits no respect whatever. Besides, both at Athens and at Rome, it
only attained its greatest height at a time when the state was hastening
to its decay, and genuine patriotic sentiment was a thing of the past.
One who sees the issue clearly, and who has a command of language
in its wealth and its purity, and who is possessed of an imagination
that is fertile and effective in presenting his ideas, and whose heart,
withal, turns with lively sympathy to what is truly good--he is the
vir bonus dicendi peritus, the orator without art, but of great
impressiveness, Cicero would have him, though he may not himself
always always remained faithful to this ideal.
After poetry, if we take charm and mental stimulation into account,
I would give the next place to that art which comes nearer to it
than to any other art of speech, and admits of very natural union
with it, namely the art of tone. For though it speaks by means of mere
sensations without concepts, and so does not, like poetry, leave
behind it any food for reflection, still it moves the mind more
diversely, and, although with transient, still with intenser effect.
It is certainly, however, more a matter of enjoyment than of
culture--the play of thought incidentally excited by it being merely
the effect of a more or less mechanical association--and it possesses
less worth in the eyes of reason than any other of the fine arts.
Hence, like all enjoyment, it calls for constant change, and does
not stand frequent repetition without inducing weariness. Its charm,
which admits of such universal communication, appears to rest on the
following facts. Every expression in language has an associated tone
suited to its sense. This tone indicates, more or less, a mode in
which the speaker is affected, and in turn evokes it in the hearer
also, in whom conversely it then also excites the idea which in
language is expressed with such a tone. Further, just as modulation
is, as it were, a universal language of sensations intelligible to
every man, so the art of tone wields the full force of this language
wholly on its own account, namely, as a language of the affections,
and in this way, according to the law of association, universally
communicates the aesthetic ideas that are naturally combined
therewith. But, further, inasmuch as those aesthetic ideas are not
concepts or determinate thoughts, the form of the arrangement of these
sensations (harmony and melody), taking the place of the place of
the form of a language, only serves the purpose of giving an
expression to the aesthetic idea of an integral whole of an
unutterable wealth of thought that fills the measure of a certain
theme forming the dominant affection in the piece. . . .
If, on the other hand, we estimate the worth of the fine arts by the
culture they supply to the mind, and adopt for our standard the
expansion of the faculties whose confluence, in judgment, is
necessary for cognition, music, then, since it plays merely with
sensations, 'has the lowest place among the fine arts-just as it has
perhaps the highest among those valued at the same time for their
agreeableness. Looked at in this light, it is far excelled by the [visual]
formative arts. For, in putting the imagination into a play which is
at once free and adapted to the understanding, they all the while
carry on a serious business, since they execute a product which serves
the Concepts of understanding as a vehicle, permanent and appealing
to us on its own account, for effectuating their union with
sensibility, and thus for promoting, as it were, the urbanity of the
higher powers of cognition. The two kinds of art pursue completely
different courses. Music advances from sensations to indefinite ideas:
formative [visual] art from definite ideas to sensations. The latter gives
a lasting impression, the former one that is only fleeting. The former
sensations imagination can recall and agreeably entertain itself with,
while the latter either vanish entirely, or else, if involuntarily
repeated by the imagination, are more annoying to us than agreeable.
Over and above all this, music has a certain lack of urbanity about
it. For owing chiefly to the character of its instruments, it scatters
its influence abroad to an uncalled-for extent (through the
neighborhood), and thus, as it were, becomes obtrusive and deprives
others, outside the musical circle, of their freedom. This is a
thing that the arts that address themselves to the eye do not do,
for if one is not disposed to give admittance to their impressions,
one has only to look the other way. The case is almost on a par with
the practice of regaling oneself with a perfume that exhales its
odors far and wide. The man who pulls his perfumed handkerchief
from his pocket gives a treat to all around whether they like it or
not, and compels them, if they want to breathe at all, to be parties
to the enjoyment, and so the habit has gone out of fashion.*
*Those who have recommended the singing of hymns at family prayers
have forgotten the amount of annoyance which they give to the
general public by such noisy (and, as a rule, for that very reason,
pharisaical) worship, for they compel their neighbors either to
join in the singing or else abandon their meditations.
Among the formative [visual] arts I would give the palm to painting:
partly because it is the art of design and, as such, the groundwork of
all the other formative arts; partly because it can penetrate much
further into the region of ideas, and in conformity with them give a
greater extension to the field of intuition than it is open to the others
to do.
END OF KANT SELECTION
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