The Psychology of Beauty by Ethel D. Puffer

same. In fact, it might be said that, within this realm, the two conceptions are identical. The true aesthetic repose is just that perfect rest in the beautiful object which is the essence of the loss of the sense of personality.

Subtler and rarer, again, than the raptures of mysticism and of beauty worship is the ecstasy of intellectual production; yet the “clean, clear joy of creation,” as Kipling names it, is not less to be grouped with those precious experiences in which the self is sloughed away, and the soul at one with its content. I speak, of course, of intellectual production in full swing, in the momentum of success. The travail of soul over apparently hopeless difficulties or in the working out of indifferent details takes place not only in full self- consciousness, but in self-disgust; there we can take Carlyle to witness. But in the higher stages the fixation of truth and the appreciation of beauty are accompanied by the same extinction of the feeling of individuality. Of testimony we have enough and to spare. I need not fill these pages with confessions and anecdotes of the ecstatical state in which all great deeds of art and science are done. The question is rather to understand and explain it on the basis of the formal scheme to which we have found the religious and the aesthetic attitudes to conform.

Jean Paul says somewhere that, however laborious the completion of a great work, its conception came as a whole,–in one flash. We remember the dreams of Schiller in front of his red curtain and the resulting musikalische Stimmung,–formless, undirected, out of which his poem shaped itself; the half-somnambulic state of Goethe and his frantic haste in fixation of the vision, in which he dared not even stop to put his paper straight, but wrote over the corners quite ruthlessly. Henner once said to a painter who mourned that he had done nothing on his picture for the Salon, though he saw it before him, “What! You see your picture! Then it is done. You can paint it in an hour.” If all these traditions be true, they are significant; and the necessary conditions of such composition seem to be highly analogous to those of the aesthetic emotion. We have, first of all, a lack of outward stimulation, and therefore possible disappearance of the background. How much better have most poets written in a garret than in a boudoir! Goethe’s bare little room in the garden house at Weimar testifies to the severe conditions his genius found necessary. Tranquillity of the background is the condition of self-absorption, or– and this point seems to me worth emphasizing–a closed circle of outer activities. I have never believed, for instance, in the case of the old tale of Walter Scott and the button, that it was the surprise of his loss that tied the tongue of the future author’s rival. The poor head scholar had simply made for himself a transitionless experience with that twirling button, and could then sink his consciousness in its object,– at that moment the master’s questions. It is with many of us a familiar experience, that of not being able to think unless in constant motion. Translated into our psychological scheme, the efficiency of these movements would be explained thus: Given the “whirling circles,”–the background of continuous movement sensations, which finally dropped out of consciousness, and the foreground of continuous thought,–the first protected, so to speak, the second, since they were mutually exclusive, and what broke the one destroyed the other.

But to return from this digression, a background fading into nothingness, either as rest or as a closed circle of automatic movements, is the first condition of the ecstasy of mental production. The second is given in the character of its object. The object of high intellectual creation is a unity,– a perfect whole, revealed, as Jean Paul says, in a single movement of genius. Within the enchanted circle of his creation, the thinker is absorbed, because here too all his impulses are turned to one end, in relation to which nothing else exists.

I am aware that many will see a sharp distinction here between the work of the creator or discoverer in science and the artist. They may maintain, in Schopenhauer’s phrase, that the aim and end of science is just the connection of objects in the service of the will of the individual, and hence transition between the various terms is constant; while art, on the other hand, indeed isolates its object, and so drops transitions. But I think where we speak of “connection” thus, we mean the larger sweep of law. If the thinker looks beyond his special problem at all, it is, like Buddha, to “fix his eyes upon the chain of causation.” The scientist of imagination sees his work under the form of eternity, as one link of that endless chain, one atom in that vortex of almighty purposes, which science will need all time to reveal. For him it is either one question, closed within itself by its own answer, or it is the Infinite Law of the Universe,–the point or the circle. From all points of view, then, the object of creation in art or science is a girdle of impulses from which the mind may not stray. The two conditions of our formal scheme are given: a term which disappears, and one which is a perfect whole. Transition between background and foreground has dropped. Between the objects of attention in the foreground it has no meaning, because the foreground is an indissoluble unity. With that object the self must feel itself one, since the distinctive self-feeling has disappeared with the opportunity for transition.

We have thus swung around the circle of mystical, aesthetic, and creative emotion, and we have found a single formula to apply, and a single explanation to avail for the loss of personality. The conditions of such experiences bring about the disappearance of one term, and the impregnable unity of the other. Without transition between two terms in consciousness, two objects of attention, the loss of the feeling of personality takes place according to natural psychological laws. It is no longer a mystery that in intense experience the feeling of personality dissolves.

One point, however, does remain still unexplained,–the bliss of self-abandonment. Whence are the definiteness and intensity of the religious and aesthetic emotions? The surrender of the sense of personality, it seems, is based on purely formal relations of the elements of consciousness, common to all three groups of the analyzed emotions. Yet it is precisely with a fading of self-feeling that intensity and definiteness deepen. But how can different and emotionally significant feelings arise from a single formal process? How can the worship of God become ecstatic joy through the loss of personality? The solution of this apparent paradox is demanded not only in logic, but also by those who would wish to see the religious trance distinguished also in its origin from those of baser content.

But it is, after all, the formal nature of the phenomenon that gives us light. If variation in the degree of self-feeling is the common factor, and the disappearance of the transition- feeling its cause, then the lowest member of the scale, in which the loss of self-feeling takes place with mathematical completeness, must be included. That is the hypnotic trance. It is not necessary at this place to emphasize the fact that our theory, if accepted, would constitute a theory and a definition also of hypnotism. Of interest to our inquiry is merely a characteristic mark of the hypnotic state,–its tremendous suggestibility. Why is this? Our theory would answer that all impulses are held in equilibrium, and that an external suggestion has thus no rivals. Whatever the cause, this last is at any rate the fact. All suggestions seem to double in emotional value. Tell the hypnotic subject that he is sailing up the Rhine, and the most vivid admiration is in his aspect; he gazes in heart-felt devotion if it is a pretty girl he is bid to look at; he quaffs a glass of water with livelier delight than he would show for the draught of Chateau Yquem of which he is led to think.

Now in religious and aesthetic experience there is brought about the same equilibrium or unity of impulses, resulting in analogous loss of self-feeling. But it is a most interesting fact that the FORM of the contemplated object is the cause of this arrest and repose. God, the circle of the Infinite, the Eternal One, enter into play as “unity” alone. What, then, of the content? After the analogy of the extreme case, the content–that is, emotional value and definite emotional tone–takes the place of the external suggestion. Under just the conditions of the religious trance, the element of reverence, of joyous sentiment, is able suddenly to take on a more vivid aspect. It may not be that the emotion itself is greater, but it now holds the field. It may not be that it is more intense, but the intensity of concentration which takes on its color makes it seem so. The “rapture” is just the sense of being caught up into union with the highest; the joy of the rapture is the joy of every thought of God, here left free to brighten into ecstasy; and its “revelation-value” is again the sense of immediate union with a Being the intellectual concept of whom is immensely vivified.

So may be analyzed the aesthetic ecstasy. The tension of those mutually antagonistic impulses which make balance, and so unity, and so the conditions for loss of sense of self, clears the way for tasting the full savor of pleasure in bright color, flowing line, exquisite tone-sequence, moving thought. Many a commonplace experience, says M. Souriau, suddenly takes on a charm when seen in the arrested aesthetic vision. “Every one can have observed that an object in itself agreeable to look on, like a bouquet of flowers, or the fresh face of a young girl, takes on a sort of magic and supernatural beauty if we regard it mechanically while listening to music.”<1> The intensity of concentration caused by the unity of form fuses with this suggested vividness of feeling from content and material, and the whole is felt as intensity of aesthetic emotion. The Sistine Madonna would not strike so deep in feeling were it less crystalline in its unity, less trance-like in its repose, and so less enchanting in its suggestion.

<1> P. Souriau, _La Suggestion en l’Art._

So it is not only the man of achievement who sees but one thing at a time. To enter intensely into any ideal experience means to be blind to all others. One must lose one’s own soul to gain the world, and none who enter and return from the paradise of selfless ecstasy will question that it is gained. It may be that personality is a hindrance and a barrier, and that we are only truly in harmony with the secret of our own existence when we cease to set ourselves over against the world. Nevertheless, the sense of individuality is a possession for which the most of mankind would pay the price, if it must be paid, even of eternal suffering. The delicious hour of fusion with the universe is precious, so it seems to us now, just because we can return from it to our own nest, and, close and warm there, count up our happiness. The fragmentariness and multiplicity of life are, then, the saving of the sense of selfhood, and we must indeed

“Rejoice that man is hurled
From change to change unceasingly, His soul’s wings never furled.”

IV
THE BEAUTY OF FINE ART

IV
A. THE BEAUTY OF VISUAL FORM

IN what consists the Beauty of Visual Form? The older writers on what we now know as the science of art did not ask themselves this question. Although we are accustomed to hear that order, symmetry, unity in variety, was the Greek, and in particular the Platonic, formula for beauty, we observe, on examining the passages cited in evidence, that it is rather the moral quality appertaining to these characteristics that determines them as beautiful; symmetry is beautiful, because harmonious, and inducing order and self-restraint. Aristotle’s single pronouncement in the sense of our question is the dictum: there is no beauty without a certain magnitude. Lessing, in his “Laocoon,” really the first modern treatise in aesthetics, discusses the excellences of painting and poetry, but deals with visible beauty as if it were a fixed quality, understood when referred to, like color. This is undoubtedly due to his unconscious reference of beauty to the human form alone; a reference which he would have denied, but which influences his whole aesthetic theory. In speaking of a beautiful picture, for instance, he would have meant first of all the representation of beautiful persons in it, hardly at all that essential beauty of the picture as painting, to which every inch of the canvas is alike precious. It is clear to us now, however, that the beauty of the human form is the most obscure of all possible cases, complex in itself, and overlaid and involved as it is with innumerable interests and motives of extra-aesthetic character. Beauty in simple forms must be our first study; and great credit is due to Hogarth for having propounded in his “Analysis of Beauty” the simple question,–what makes the quality of beauty to the eye?

But in visible beauty, the aesthetic value of pure form is not the only element involved: or at least is must be settled whether or not it is the only element involved. If in a work of art, as we believe, what belongs to its excellence belongs to its beauty, we may not applaud one painter, for instance, for his marvelous color-schemes, another for his expression of emotion, another for his delineation of character, without acknowledging that expression of character and emotion come within our concept of visible beauty. Franz von Lenbach was once asked what he thought likely to be the fate of his own work. “As for that,” he replied, “I think I may possibly have a chance of living; but ONLY if Individualization or Characterization be deemed to constitute a quality of permanent value in a picture. This, however, I shall never know, for it can only be adjudged by posterity. If that verdict should prove unfavorable, then my work, too, will perish with the rest,–for it cannot compare on their lines with the great masters of the past.” That this is indeed an issue is shown by the contrasting opinion of the critic who exclaimed before a portrait, “Think away the head and face, and you will have a wonderful effect of color!” The analysis of visible beauty accordingly resolves itself into the explanation of the beauty of form (including shape and color) and the fixing in relation thereto of other factors.

The most difficult part of our task is indeed behind us. We have already defined Beauty in general: we have outlined in a preceding essay the abstract aesthetic demands, and we have now only to ask through what psychological means these demands can be and are in fact met. In other words we have to show that what we intensely feel as Beauty can and does exemplify these principles, and through them is explained and accounted for. Beauty has been defined as that combination of qualities in the object which brings about a union of stimulation and repose in the enjoyer. How must this be interpreted with reference to the particular facts of visual form?

The most immediate reference is naturally to the sense organ itself; and the first question is therefore as to the favorable stimulations of the eye. What, in general, does the eye demand of its object?

The simplest element of visual experience is of course found in light and color, the sensation of the eye as such. Yet there is no branch of aesthetic which is so incomplete. We know that the sensation of light or color, if not too weak or too violent, is in itself pleasing. The bright, the glittering, shining object, so long as it is not painful, is pleasantly stimulating. Gems, tinsel, lacquer, polish, testify to this taste, from the most primitive to the most civilized man. Color, too, if distinct, not over-bright, nor too much extended in field, is in itself pleasing. The single colors have been the object of comparatively little study. Experiment seems to show that the colors containing most brightness–white, red, and yellow–are preferred. Baldwin, in his “dynamogenic” experiments,<1> based on “the view that the infant’s hand movements in reaching or grasping are the best index of the kind and intensity of its sensory experiences,” finds that the colors range themselves in order of attractiveness, blue, white, red, green, brown. Further corrections lay more emphasis upon the white. Yellow was not included in the experiments. Cohn’s results, which show a relative dislike of yellow, are contradicted by other observers, notably Major and Baker,<2> and (unpublished) experiments of my own, including the aesthetic preferences of seven or eight different sets of students at Radcliffe and Wellesley colleges. Experiments of this kind are particularly difficult, inasmuch as the material, usually colored paper, varies considerably from the spectral color, and differences in saturation, hue, and brightness make great differences in the results, while the feeling-tone of association, individual or racial, very often intrudes. But other things being equal, the bright, the clear, the saturated color is relatively more pleasing, and white, red, and yellow seem especially preferred.

<1> _Mental Development in the Child and the Race_, 1895, pp. 39, 50, ff.
<2> E. S. Baker, _Univ. of Toronto Studies, Psychol. Series_, No. 4; J. Cohn, _Philos. Studien_, vol. X; Major, _Amer. Jour. of Psychol._, vol. vii.

Now, according to the Hering theory of color, white, red, and yellow are the so-called “dissimilating” colors in the three pairs, white-black, red-green, and yellow-blue, corresponding to three hypothetical visual substances in the retina. These substances, that is, in undergoing a kind of chemical disintegration under the action of light-rays, are supposed to give the sensations white, red, or yellow respectively, and in renewing themselves again to give the sensations of black, green, and blue. The dissimilating process seems to bring about stronger reactions on the physiological side, as if it were a more exciting process. Thus it is found<1> that as measured by the increase in strength of the hand grip under the stimulation of the respective colors, red has particularly exciting qualities, but the other colors have an analogous effect, lessening, however, with the descent from red to violet. The pleasure in bright red, or yellow, for instance, may thus well be the feeling-tone arising in the purely physiological effect of the color. If red works like a trumpet call, while blue calms and cools, and if red is preferred to blue, it is because a sharp stimulation is so felt, and so preferred.

<1> Ch. Fere, _Sensation et Mouvement_, 1887, p. 80.

The question of the demands of the eye in color combination is still more complicated. It has been traditional to consider the complementaries black-white, red-green, blue-yellow, and the other pairs resulting from the mixtures of these as the best combinations. The physiological explanation is of course found in the relief and refreshment to the organs in successive alternation of the processes of assimilation and dissimilation, and objectively in the reinforcement, through this stronger functioning of the retina, of the complementary colors themselves. This tendency to mutual aid is shown in the familiar experiment of fixating for some moments a colored object, say red, and then transferring the gaze to a white or gray expanse. The image of the object appears thereon in the complementary green. Per contra, the most complete lack of contrast makes the most unpleasing combination, because instead of a refreshing alternation of processes in the retina, a fatiguing repetition results. Red and orange (red-yellow), or red and purple (red-blue), successively stimulate the red- process with most evil effect.

This contrast theory should, however, not be interpreted too narrowly. There are pairs of so-called complementaries which make a very crude, harsh, even painful impression. The theory is happily supplemented by showing<1> that the ideal combination involves all three contrast factors, hue, saturation, and brightness. Contrast of saturation or brightness within the same hue is also pleasant. For any two qualities of the color circle, in fact, there can be found degrees of saturation and brightness in which they will form an agreeable combination, and this pleasing effect will be based on some form of contrast. But the absolute and relative extension and the space-form of the components have also a great influence on the pleasurableness of combinations.

<1> A. Kirschmann, “Die psychol.-aesthet. Bedeutung des Licht und Farbencontrastes,” _Philos. Studien_, vol. vii.

Further rules can hardly be given; but the results of various observers<1> seem to show that the best combinations lie, as already said, among the complementaries, or among those pairs nearer together in the color circle than complementaries, which are “warmer.” The reason for this last is that, in Chevreul’s phraseology, combinations of cold colors change each other’s peculiar hue the most, and of warm colors the least; because the complementaries of these cold colors are “warm,” i.e. bright, and each, appearing on the field of the neighboring cold color, seems to fade it out; while the complementaries of the juxtaposed warm colors are not bright, and do not have sufficient strength to affect their neighbors at all. With a combination of blue and green for instance, a yellow shade would appear in the green and a red in the blue. Such a result fails to satisfy the demand, already touched on, for purity and homogeneity of color,–that is, for unimpeded seeing of color.

<1> Chevreul, _De la Loi du Contraste Simultane des Couleurs_. E.S. Banker, op. Cit.

What significance have these abstract principles of beauty in the combination of colors for representative art? In the choice of objects with a definite local color, of course, these laws will be found operative. A scheme of blues and yellows is likely to be more effective than one of reds and violets. If we analyze the masterpiece of coloring, we shall find that what we at first supposed to be the wonderful single effects of color is really the result of juxtapositions which bring out each color to its highest power.

III

While all this may be true, however, the most important question has not yet been asked. Is truth of color in representative art the same thing as beauty of color? It might be said that the whole procedure of the so-called Impressionist school, in fact the whole trend of the modern treatment of color, took their identity for granted. Yet we must discriminate. Truth of color may be truth to the local color of the given objects, alone or together; in this case we should have to say that beauty did or did not exist in the picture, according as it did or did not exist in the original combination. A red hat on a purple chair would set one’s teeth on edge, in model or picture. Secondly, truth of color may be truth to the modifications of the enveloping light, and in this case truth would make for beauty. For the colors of any given scene are in general not colors which the objects themselves, if isolated, would have, but the colors which the eye itself is forced to see. The bluish shadow of an object in bright sunlight (yellowish light) is only an expression of the law that in the neighborhood of a colored object we see its complementary color. If such an effect is reproduced in a picture, it gives the same relief to the eye which the original effect showed the need of. The eye fatigued with yellow sees blue; so if the blue is really supplied in the picture, it is not only true, but on the road to beauty, because meting the eye’s demand. The older methods of painting gave the local color of an object, with an admixture of white for the lights, and a warm dark for the shadows; the modern–which had been touched on, indeed, sporadically, by Perugino and Vermeer, for instance,–gives in the shadow the complementary color of the object combined with that of the light falling upon it–all conditions of favorable stimulation.

Further favorable stimulation of the eye is given in the method of the Impressionists in treating “values,” that is, comparative relations of light and shade. The real tones of objects including the sky, light, etc., can never be reproduced. The older schools, conscious of this, were satisfied to paint in a scale of correspondence, in which the relative values were fairly kept. But even by that means, the great differences of intensity could not be given, for the brightest spot of any painting is never more than sixty-six times brighter than the darkest, while the gray sky on a dull rainy day is four hundred and twenty times brighter than a white painted cross-bar of a window seen against the sky as background.<1> There were various ways of combating this difficulty. Rembrandt, for instance, as Kirschmann tells us, chose the sombre brown tone, “not out of caprice or an inclination for mystic dreaming (Fromentin), but because the yellow and orange side of the color-manifold admits of the greatest number of intervals between full saturation and the darkest shade.” The precursors of the Impressionists, on the other hand, succeeded in painting absolute values, confining themselves to a very limited gamut; for this reason the first landscapes of the school were all gray-green, dull, cloudy. But Monet did not stop there. He painted the ABSOLUTE VALUES of objects IN SHADE on a sunny day, which of course demands the brightest possibilities of the palette, and got the lighted objects themselves as nearly as he could,–thus destroying the relative values, but getting an extraordinary joyous and glowing effect; and one, too, of unexpected verisimilitude, for it would seem that in a sunlit scene we are really attentive to the shaded objects alone, and what becomes of the others does not so much matter. This effect was made still more possible by the so-called dissociation of colors,–i.e. the juxtaposing of tints, the blending of which by the eye gives the desired color, without the loss of brightness which a mixing of pigments would involve. Thus by putting touches of black and white side by side, for instance, a gray results much brighter than could have been otherwise reached by mixing; or blue and red spots are blended by the eye to an extraordinarily vivid purple. Thus, by these methods, using the truth of color in the sense of following the nature of retinal functioning, Monet and his followers raised the color scale many degrees in brightness. Now we have seen that the eye loves light, warmth, strong color-effects, related to each other in the way that the eye must see them. Impressionism, as the name of the method just described, makes it more possible than it had been before to meet the demands of the eye for light and color, to recover “the innocence of the eye,” in Ruskin’s phrase. Truth to the local color of objects is relatively indifferent, unless that color is beautiful in itself; truth to the reciprocal relations and changes of hue is beauty, because it allows for the eye’s own adaptations of its surroundings in the interest of its own functioning. Thus in this case, and to sum up, truth is synonymous with beauty, in so far as beauty is constituted by favorable stimulation of an organ. The further question, how far this vivid treatment of light is of importance for the realization of depth and distance, is not here entered on.

<1> Kirschmann, _Univ. of Toronto Studies, Psychol. Series_ No. 4, p. 20.

The moment we touch upon line-form we are already, in strictness, beyond the elements. For with form enters the motor factor, which cannot be separated from the motor innervations of the whole body. It is possible, however, to abstract for the moment from the form as a unit, and to consider here only what may be called the quality of line. A line may be straight or broken, and if curved, curving continuously or brokenly, etc. That this quality of line is distinct from form may be shown by the simple experiment of turning a spiral–a logarithmic spiral, let us say–in different ways about its focus. The aesthetic effect of the figure is absolutely different in the different positions, and yet the feeling about the character of the line itself seems to remain the same. In what sense, and for what reasons, does this curved line satisfy the demands of the eye? The discussion of this question precipitates us at once into one of the burning controversies of aesthetics, which may perhaps best be dealt with at this point.

An early answer to the question would have been, that the eye is so hung in its muscles as to move most easily in curved lines, and this easy action in following the curve is felt as favorable stimulation. But recent experiment<1> has shown that the eye in fact moves by most irregular, angular leaps from point to point of the figure. The theory is therefore remodeled by substituting for the movement sensations of the eye, the tendencies corresponding to those early movements of touching imitative of the form, by which we learned to know a form for what it is, and the reproduction of feeling-tones belonging to the character of such movement. The movements of touching and feeling for a smooth continuous curved object are themselves pleasant. This complex of psychical factors makes a pleasurably stimulating experience. The greater the tendency to complete reproduction of these movements, that is, the stronger the “bodily resonance,” the more vivid the pleasure. Whether we (with Groos) designate this as sympathetic reproduction, or (with Lipps) attribute to the figure the movements and the feelings which resound in us after this fashion, or even (with Witasek) insist on the purely ideal character of the reproduction, seems to me not essential to the explanation of the pleasing character of the experience, and hence of the beauty of the object. Not THAT we sympathetically reproduce (“Miterleben”), or “feel ourselves into” a form (“Einfuhlen”), but HOW we do so, is the question.

<1> G.M. Stratton, _Philos. Studies_, xx.

All that Hogarth says of the beauty of the serpentine line, as “leading the eye a kind of chase,” is fully in harmony with this view, if we add to the exploiting movements of the eyes those other more important motor innervations of the body. But we should still have to ask, WHAT kind of chase? Sharp, broken, starting lines might be the basis of a much more vivid experience, –but it would be aesthetically negative. “The complete sensuous experience of the spatial” is not enough, unless that experience is positively, that is, favorably toned. Clear or vivid seeing made possible by the form of the object is not enough. Only as FAVORABLY stimulating, that is, only as calling up ideal reproductions, or physical imitations, of movements which in themselves were suited to the functions of the organs involved, can forms be found positively aesthetic, that is, beautiful.

Moreover, we have to note here, and to emphasize, that the organs involved are more than the eye, as has already been made plain. We cannot separate eye innvervations from bodily innervations in general. And therefore “the demands of the eye” can never alone decide the question of the beauty of visual form. If it were not so, the favorable stimulation combined with repose of the eye would alone make the conditions of beauty. The “demands of the eye” must be interpreted as the demands of the eye plus the demands of the motor system,–the whole psychophysical personality, in short.

It is in these two principles,–“bodily resonance,” and favorable as opposed to energetic functioning,–and these alone, that we have a complete refutation of the claim made by many artists to-day, that the phrase “demands of the eye” embodies a complete aesthetic theory. The sculptor Adolph Hildebrand, in his “Problem of Form in the Plastic Art” first set it forth as the task of the artist “to find a form which appears to have arisen only from the demands of the eye;”<1> and this doctrine is to-day so widely held, that it must here be considered at some length.

<1> _Das Proablem der form in d. bildenden Kunst_, 1897.

It is the space-form, all that is seen, and not the object itself, that is the object of vision. Now in viewing a plastic object near at hand, the focus of the eye must be constantly changed between the nearer and further points. In a more distant view, on the other hand (Hildebrand’s “Fernbild”), the contour is denoted by differences of light and shadow, but it is nevertheless perceived in a single act of accommodation. Moreover, being distant, the muscles of accommodation are relaxed; the eye acts at rest. The “Fernbild” thus gives the only unified picture of the three-dimensional complex, and hence the only unity of space- values. In the perception of this unity, the author holds, consists the essential pleasure which the work of art gives us. Hildebrand’s treatment is difficult, and lends itself to varying interpretations, which have laid stress now on unity as the essential of art,<1> now on “the joy in the complete sensuous experience of the spatial.”<2> The latter seems in harmony with the passage in which Hildebrand says “all pleasure in Form is pleasure in our not being obliged to create this clearness for ourselves, in its being created for us, nay, even forced upon us, by the form itself.”

<1> A. Riehl, _Vierteljahrschr. f. wissenensch. Philos._, xxi, xxii.
<2> K. Groos, _Der Aesthetische Genuss_, 1902, p. 17.

But supposing the first interpretation correct: supposing space-unity, conditioned by the unified and reposeful act of seeing, to be the beauty we seek–it is at once clear that the reduction of three dimensions to two does not constitute unity even for the eye alone; how much less for the motor system of the whole body, which we have seen must be involved. Hildebrand’s “demands of the eye” resolves itself into the stimulation plus repose of the ciliary muscle,–the organ of accommodation. A real unity even for the eye alone would have to include not only space relations in the third dimension, but relations of line and mass and color in the flat. As for the “complete sensuous experience of the spatial” (which would seem to be equivalent to Berenson’s “tactile values”), the “clearness” of Hildebrand’s sentence above quoted, it is evident that completeness of the experience does not necessarily involve the positive or pleasurable toning of the experience. The distinction is that between a beautiful and a completely realistic picture.

A further extension or restatement of this theory, in a recent article,<1> seems to me to express it in the most favorable way. Beauty is again connected with the functioning of our organs of perception (Auffassungorgane). “We wish to be put into a fresh, lively, energetic and yet at the same time effortless activity…. The pleasure in form is a pleasure in this, that the conformation of the object makes possible or rather compels a natural purposeful functioning of our apprehending organs.” But purposeful for what? For visual form, evidently to the end of seeing clearly. The element of repose, of unity, hinted at in the “effortless” of the first sentence, disappears in the second. The organs of apprehension are evidently limited to the eye alone. It is not the perfect moment of stimulation and repose for the whole organism which is aimed at, but the complete sensuous experience of the spatial, again.

<1> Th. A. Meyer, “Das Formprinzip des Schouen,” _Archiv. f. Phil._, Bd. x.

Hildebrand, to return to the more famous theorist, was writing primarily of sculpture, and would naturally confine himself to consideration of the plastic, which is an additional reason against making this interesting brochure, as some have done, the foundation of an aesthetics. It is rather the foundation of the sculptor’s, perhaps even of the painter’s technique, with reference to plastic elements alone. What it contains of universal significance, the demand for space-unity, based on the state of the eye in a union of rest and action, ignores all but one of the possible sources of rest and action for the eye, that of accommodation, and all the allied activities completely.

On the basis of the favorable stimulations of all these activities taken together, must we judge as pleasing the so- called quality of line. But it is clear that we cannot really separate the question of quality of line from that of form, figure, and arrangement in space. The motor innervations enter with the first, and the moment we have form at all, we have space-composition also. But space-composition means unity, and unity is the objective quality which must be translated, in our investigations, into aesthetic repose. It is thus with the study of composition that we pass from the study of the elements as favorably stimulating, to the study of the beauty of visual form.

We may begin by asking what, as a matter of fact, has been the arrangement of spaces to give aesthetic pleasure. The primitive art of all nations shows that it has taken the direction of symmetry about a vertical line. It might be said that this is the result of non-aesthetic influences, such as convenience of construction, technique, etc. <1>It is clear that much of the symmetry appearing in primitive art is due (1) to the conditions of construction, as in the form of dwellings, binding patterns, weaving and textile patterns generally; (2) to convenience in use, as in the shapes of spears, arrows, knives, two-handled baskets or jars; (3) to the imitation of animal forms, as in the shapes of pottery, etc. On the other hand, (1) a very great deal of symmetrical ornament maintains itself AGAINST the suggestions of the shape to which it is applied, as the ornaments of baskets, pottery, and all rounded objects; and (2) all distortion, disintegration, degradation of pattern- motives, often so marked as all but to destroy their meaning, is in the direction of geometrical symmetry. The early art of all civilized nations shows the same characteristic. Now it might be said that, as there exists an instinctive tendency to imitate visual forms by motor impulses, the impulses suggested by the symmetrical form are in harmony with the system of energies of our bilateral organism, which is a system of double motor innervations, and thus fulfill our demand for a set of reactions corresponding to the organism as a whole. But we should then expect that all space arrangements which deviate from complete symmetry, and thus suggest motor impulses which do not correspond to the natural bilateral type, would fail to give aesthetic pleasure. Such, however, is not the case. Non-symmetrical arrangements of space are often extremely pleasing.
<1> The following is adapted from the author’s _Studies in Symmetry, Harvard Psych. Studies_, vol i, 1902.

This contradiction disappears if we are able to show that the apparently non-symmetrical arrangement contains a hidden symmetry, and that all the elements of that arrangement contribute to bring about just that bilateral type of motor impulses which is characteristic of geometrical symmetry.

A series of experiments was arranged, in which one of two unequal lines of white on a black background being fixed in an upright position a certain distance from the centre, the other was shifted until the arrangement was felt to be pleasing. It was found that when two lines of different sizes were opposed, their relative positions corresponded to the relation of the arms of a balance, that is, a small line far from the centre was opposed by a large one near the centre. A line pointing out from the centre fitted this formula if taken as “heavy,” and pointing in, if taken as “light.” Similarly, objects of intrinsic interest and objects suggesting depth in the third dimension were “heavy” in the same interpretation. All this, however, did not go beyond the proof that all pleasing space- arrangements can be described in terms of mechanical balance. But what was this mechanical balance? A metaphor explains nothing, and no one will maintain that the visual representation of a long line weights more than a short one. Moreover, the elements in the balance were so far heterogeneous. The movement suggested by an idea had been treated as if equivalent to the movement actually made by the eye in following a long line; the intrinsic interest–that is, the ideal interest–of an object insignificant in form was equated to the attractive power of a perspective, which has, presumably, a merely physiological effect on the visual mechanism.

I believe, however, that the justification of this apparent heterogeneity, and the basis for explanation, is given in the reduction of all elements to their lowest term,–as objects for the expenditure of attention. A large object and an “interesting” object are “heavy” for the same reason, because they call out the attention. And expenditure of effort is expenditure of attention; thus, if an object on the outskirts of the field of vision requires a wide sweep of the eye to take it in, it demands the expenditure of attention, and so is felt as “heavy.” But what is “the expenditure of attention” in physiological terms? It is nothing more than the measure of the motor impulses directed to the object of attention. And whether the motor impulse appears as the tendency to follow out the suggestions of motion in the object, all reduces to the same physiological basis.

It may here be objected that our motor impulses are, nevertheless, still heterogeneous, inasmuch as some are toward the object of interest, and some along the line of movement. But it must be said, first, that these are not felt in the body, but transferred as values of weight to points in the picture,–it is the amount and not the direction of excitement that is counted; and secondly, that even if it were not so, the suggested movement along a line is felt as “weight” at a particular point.

From this point of view the justification of the metaphor of mechanical balance is quite clear. Given two lines, the most pleasing arrangement makes the larger nearer the centre, and the smaller far from it. This is balanced because the spontaneous impulse of attention to the near, large line equals in amount the involuntary expenditure to apprehend the small, farther one.

We may thus think of a space to be composed as a kind of target, in which certain spots or territories count more or less, both according to their distance from the centre and according to what fills them. Every element of a picture, in whatever way it gains power to excite motor impulses, is felt as expressing that 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 from the centre. The skillful artist will fill his target 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 method, that the problem begins. 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 stimulation and repose must still be sought. And repose or unity is given by symmetry, subjectively the balance of attention, inasmuch as this balance is a tension of antagonistic impulses, an equilibrium, and thus an inhibition of movement.

From this point of view, we 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 mild hypnosis, in which, as is well known, all suggestions come to us with bewildering vividness. This is, then, just the state in which the contents of the picture can most vividly impress themselves. Form, then, as the means to content, by giving the conditions for suggestion, is Sourieau’s account of it. In so far as form–in the sense of unity–gives, through 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 emotion as we have described it.

<1> _La Suggestion en l’Art_.

There is no point of light or color, no contour, no line, no depth, that does not contribute to the infinite complex which gives the maximum of experience with the minimum of effort and which we call beauty of form. But yet there is another way of viewing the beautiful object, on which we touched in the introduction to this chapter. So far, what we see is only another name for HOW we see; and the way of seeing has proved to contain enough to bring to stimulation and repose the psychophysical mechanism. But now we must ask, what relation has meaning to beauty? Is it an element, coordinate with others, or something 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 mean when we speak of Sargent as a psychologist? Is it a virtue to be a poet in stone? If it is, we must somehow include in our concept of Beauty the element of expression, by showing how it serves the infinite complex. Or is it not an aesthetic virtue, and Rodin is great artist and poet combined, and not great 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 importance has been made clear. The gold-embroidered gauntlet 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 seems so heterogeneous in its relation to form, does not undergo 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 dream, and it is the dream of an autumn morning 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 view which makes the element of form for the eye alone, in the strictest sense, is erroneous, because there is no form for the eye alone. The very process of apprehending 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 impression of the line involves expression, a meaning which we cannot escape. The forms of things 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 means, and must mean, to us, the expression of internal energy through those very impulses it causes. “We ourselves are contracting our muscles, but we feel as if the lines were pulling and piercing, bending and lifting, pressing down and pushing 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 forms and lines.”<1> So the idea belonging to the object, and the psychophysical effect of the object are only obverse and inverse of the same phenomenon. And our pleasure in the form of the column is rather our appreciation of energy than our feeling of favorable stimulation. Admitting this reasoning, the meaning 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 simplicity and suffering of labor.

<1> H. Munsterberg, _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 impression are parallel and mutually corresponding 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 modify each other. Can we say that there is a “meaning,” like the energy of the column, corresponding to that complex? It is at least not energy itself. Ask the same as regards the lines and masses of a picture by Corot. In the sense in which we have taken “meaning,” the only psychologically possible one, our reactions could be interpreted only by some mood. If the column means energy 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 mist, can “mean” only a repose lightened by a grave 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 extremely limited sense. When we see broad sweeping lines we interpret them by sympathetic reproduction as strength, energy. When those sweeping lines are made part of a Titan’s frame, we get the same effect plus the associations which belong to distinctively muscular energy. Those same lines might define the sweep of a drapery, or the curve of an infant’s limbs. Now all that part of the meaning which belongs to the lines themselves remains constant under whatever circumstances; and it is quite true that a certain feeling-tone, a certain moral quality, as it were, belongs, say, to Raphael’s pictures, in which this kind of outline is to be found. But as belonging to a Titan, the additional elements of understanding are not due to sympathetic reproduction. They are not parallel with the motor suggestions; 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 form, we have a right 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 make this “meaning,” 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 summer dawn. We cannot separate our pleasure in the sight from our pleasure in the understanding; yet it is the visual complex that gives us the mood, and the meaning 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 a most extended upbuilding of 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 may be in conflict with what we may call the feeling-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 form independent of the ideal element, this theory can no longer stand. If there is a conflict, the palm must be given to the direct, rather than the indirect, factor. Indeed, when there is such a conflict, the primacy must always be with the medium suited to the organ, the sensuous factor. For if it were not so, and expression WERE beauty, then that would have to be most beautiful which was most expressive. And even if we disregard the extraordinary conclusions to which this would lead,–the story pictures preferred to those without a story, the photographic reproductions preferred to the symphonies of color and form,–we should be obliged to admit something still more incendiary. Expression is always of an ideal content, is of something 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 most expressive, would be the highest 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 material, not on that common quality of imaginative thought 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 example, already referred to, of the gold-embroidered gauntlet, or the jeweled chalice,–say the Holy Grail in Abbey’s pictures,–which counts more or less, in the spatial balance, according to 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 stimulation of the whole, a raising of the whole harmony one tone, as it were. Now the further ideal content of the picture may so closely belong to this basis that it helps it along. Thus all that we know about dawn–not only of a summer morning–helps us to see, and seeing to rejoice, in Corot’s silvery mist or Monet’s iridescent shimmers. All that we know and feel about the patient majesty of labor in the fields, next the earth, helps us to get the slow, large rhythm, the rich gloom of Millet’s pictures. But it is the rhythm and the gloom 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 some lions in the path of our theory. The greatest 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 work without being at once in the grip of the emotion or fact he has chosen to depict. A great 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 emotions that are never found save in music or in psychological and lyric literature.”<1>

<1> C. Mauclair, “The Decorative Sculpture of August Rodin,” _International Monthly_, vol iii.

Now while 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 system of tormented form is one way of referring the body to the geometry of an imagined rectangular block inclosing the whole.

<1>”The ordinary Greek composition of the body, he puts it, depends on a rhythm of four lines, four volumes, four planes. If the line of the shoulders and pectorals slopes from right to left (the man resting on his right leg) the line across the hips takes the reverse slope, and is followed by that of the knees, while the line of the first echoes that of the shoulders. Thus we get the rhythm ABBA, and the balancing volumes set up a corresponding play of planes. Michael Angelo so turns the body on itself that he reduces the four to two big planes, one facing, the other swept round to the side of the block.” That is, he gets geometrical enveloping lines for his design. And, in fact, there is no sculpture which is more wonderful in design than Rodin’s. I quote Mr. MacColl again. “It has been said that the ‘Bourgeois de Calais’ is a group of single figures, possessing no unity of design, or at best affording only a single point of view. Those who say so have never examined it with attention. The way in which these figures move among themselves, as the spectator walks round, so as to produce from every fresh angle sweeping commanding lines, each of them thus playing a dozen parts at once, is surely one of the most astounding feats of the genius of design. Nothing in the history of art is exactly comparable with it.”

<1> D. S. MacColl, _Nineteenth Century Art_, 1902, p. 101.

In short, it is the design, for all his words, that Rodin cares for. He calls it Nature, because he sees, and can see Nature only that way. But as he said to some one who suggested that there might be a danger in too close devotion to Nature, “Yes, for a mediocre artist!” It is for the sake of the strange new beauty, “the unedited poses,” “the odd beautiful huddle<1> of lines,” in a stopping or squatting form, that all these wild and subtle moments are portrayed. The limbs must be adjusted or surprised in some pattern beyond their own. The ideas are the occasion and the excuse for new outlines,–that is all.

<1> Said of Degas. MacColl.

This is all scarcely less true of Millet, whom we have known above all as the painter who has shown the simple common lot of labor as divine. But he, too, is artist for the sake of beauty first. He sees two peasant women, one laden with grass, the other with fagots. “From far off, they are superb, they balance their shoulders under the weight of fatigue, the twilight swallows their forms. It is beautiful, it is great as a myster.”<1>

<1> Sensier, _Vie et Oeuvre de J.-F. Millet_.

The idea is, as I said, from this point of view, a means to new beauty; and the stranger and subtler the idea, the more original the forms. The more unrestrained the expression of emotion in the figures, the more chance to surprise them in some new lovely pattern. It is thus, I believe, that we may interpret the seeming trend of modern sculpture, and so much, indeed, of all modern art, to the “expressive beauty” path. “The mediocre artist” will lose beauty in seeking expression, the great artist will pursue his idea for the sake of the new beauty it will yield.

Thus it seems that the stumbling blocks in the way of our theory are not insurmountable after all. From every point of view, it is seen to be possible to transmute the idea into a helpmeet to the form. Visual beauty is first beauty to the eye and to the frame, and the mind cherishes and enriches this beauty with all its own stored treasures. The stimulation and repose of the psychophysical organism alone can make one thrill to visual form; but the thrill is deeper and more satisfying if it engage the whole man, and be reinforced from all sources.

VII

But we ought to note a borderland in which the concern is professedly not with beauty, but with ideas of life. Aristotle’s lover of knowledge, who rejoiced to say of a picture “This is that man,” is the inspirer of drawing as opposed to the art of visual form.

It is not beauty we seek from the Rembrandt and Durer of the etchings and woodcuts, from Hogarth, Goya, Klinger, down to Leech and Keene and Du Maurier; it is not beauty, but ideas,– information, irony, satire, life-philosophy. Where there is a conflict, beauty, as we have defined it, goes to the wall. We may trace, perhaps, the ground of this in the highly increased amount of symbolic, associative power given, and required, in the black and white. Even to understand such a picture demands such an enormous amount of unconscious mental supplementation that it is natural to find the aesthetic centre of gravity in that element.

The first conditions of the work, that is, determine its trend and aim. The part played by imagination in our vision of an etching is and must be so important, that it is, after all, the imaginative part which outweighs the given. Nor do we desire the given to infringe upon the ideal field. Thus do we understand that for most drawings a background vague and formless is the desideratum. “Such a tone is the foil for psychological moments, as they are handled by Goya, for instance, with barbarically magnificent nakedness. On a background which is scarcely indicated, with few strokes, which barely suggest space, he impales like a butterfly the human type, mostly in a moment of folly or wickedness…. The least definition of surrounding would blunt his (the artist’s) keenness, and make his vehemence absurd.”<1>

<1> Max Klinger, _Malerei u. Zeichnung_, 1903, p. 42.

This theory of the aim of black and white is confirmed by the fact that while a painting is composed for the size in which it is painted, and becomes another picture if reproduced in another measure, the size of drawings is relatively indifferent; reduced or enlarged, the effect is approximately the same, because what is given to the eye is such a small proportion of the whole experience. The picture is only the cue for a complete structure of ideas.

Here is a true case of Anders-Streben, that “partial alienation from its own limitations, by which the arts are able, not indeed to supply the place of each other, but reciprocally to lend each other new forces.”<1> It is by its success as representation that the art of the burin and needle–Griffelkunst, as Klinger names it–ought first to be judged. This is not saying that it may not also possess beauty of form to a high degree,–only that this beauty of form is not its characteristic excellence.

<1> W. Pater, _The Renaissance: Essay on Giorgione_.

In what consists the beauty of visual form? If this question could be answered in a sentence our whole discussion of the abstract formula for beauty would have been unnecessary. But since we know what the elements of visual form must do to bring about the aesthetic experience, it has been the aim of the preceding pages to show how those elements must be determined and related. The eye, the psychophysical organism, must be favorably stimulated; these, and such colors, combinations, lines as we have described, are fitted to do it. It must be brought to repose; these, and such relations between lines and colors as we have set forth, are fitted to do it, for reasons we have given. It is to the eye and all that waits upon it that the first and the last appeal of fine art must be made; and in so far as the emotion or the idea belonging to a picture or a statue waits upon the eye, in so far does it enter into the characteristic excellence, that is, the beauty of visual form.

B. SPACE COMPOSITION AMONG THE OLD MASTERS

THE preceding pages have set forth the concrete facts of visible beauty, and the explanation of our feelings about it. It is also interesting, however, to see how these principles are illustrated and confirmed in the masterpieces of art. A statistical study, undertaken some years ago with the purpose of dealing thus with the hypothesis of substitutional symmetry in pictorial composition, has given abundance of material, which I shall set forth, at otherwise disproportionate length, as to a certain extent illustrative of the methods of such study. It is clear that this is but one of many possible investigations in which the preceding psychological theories may be further illuminated. The text confines itself to pictures; but the functions of the elements of visual form are valid as well for all visual art destined to fill a bounded area. The discussion will then be seen to be only ostensibly limited in its reference. For picture might always be read space arrangement within a frame.

In the original experimental study of space arrangements, the results of which were given at length on page 111, the elements of form in a picture were reduced to SIZE or MASS, DEPTH in the third dimension, DIRECTION, and INTEREST. Direction was further analyzed into direction of MOTION or ATTENTION (of persons or objects in the picture), an ideal element, that is; and direction of LINE. For the statistical study, a given picture was then divided in half by an imaginary vertical line, and the elements appearing on each side of this line were set off against each other to see how far they lent themselves to description by substitutional symmetry. Thus: in B. van der Helst’s “Portrait of Paul Potter,” the head of the subject is entirely to left of the central line, as also his full face and frontward glance. His easel is right, his body turned sharply to right, and both hands, one holding palette and brushes, are stretched down to right. Thus the greater mass is to the left, and the general direction of line is to the right; elements of interest in the head, left; in implements, right. This may be schematized in the equation (Lt.)M.+I.=(Rt.)I.+L.

Pieter de Hooch, “The Card-Players,” in Buckingham Palace, portrays a group completely on the right of the central line, all facing in to the table between them. Directly behind them is a high light window, screened, and high on the wall to the extreme right are a picture and hanging cloaks. All goes to emphasize the height, mass, and interest of the right side. On the left, which is otherwise empty, is a door half the height of the window, giving on a brightly lighted courtyard, from which is entering a woman, also in light clothing. The light streams in diagonally across the floor. Thus, with all the “weight” on the right, the effect of this deep vista on the left and of its brightness is to give a complete balance, while the suggestion of line from doorway and light makes, together with the central figure, a roughly outlined V, which serves to bind together all the elements. Equation, (Lt.)V.+I. =(Rt.)M.+I.

The thousand pictures on which the study was based<1> were classified for convenience into groups,–Religious, Portrait, Genre, and Landscape. It was found on analysis that the functions of the elements came out clearly, somewhat as follows.

<1> One thousand reproductions of old masters from F. Bruckmann’s _Classischer Bilderschatz_, Munich, omitting frescoes and pictures of which less than the whole was given.

Of the religious pictures, only the “Madonnas Enthroned” and other altar-pieces are considered at this point as presenting a simple type, in which it is easy to show the variations from symmetry. In all these pictures the balance comes in between the interest in the Infant Christ, sometimes together with direction of attention to him, on one side, and other elements on the other. When the first side is especially “heavy” the number of opposing elements increases, and especially takes the form of vista and line, which have been experimentally found to be powerful in attracting attention. Where there are no surrounding worshipers, we notice remarkable frequency in the use of vista and line, and, in general, balance is brought about through the disposition of form rather than of interests. The reason for this would appear to be that the lack of accessories in the persons of saints, worshipers, etc., and the consequent increase in the size of Madonna and Child in the picture, heightens the effect of any given outline, and so makes the variations from symmetry greater. This being the case, the compensations would be stronger; and as we have learned that vista and line are of this character, we see why they are needed.

The portrait class is an especially interesting object for study, inasmuch as while its general type is very simple and constant, for this very reason the slightest variations are sharply felt, and have their very strongest characteristic effect. The general type of the portrait composition is, of course, the triangle with the head at the apex, and this point is also generally in the central line; nevertheless, great richness of effect is brought about by emphasizing variations. For instance, the body and head are, in the great majority of cases, turned in the same way, giving the strongest possible emphasis to the direction of attention,–especially powerful, of course, where all the interest is in the personality. But it is to be observed that the very strongest suggestion of direction is given by the direction of the glance; and in no case, when most of the other elements are directed in one way, does the glance fail to come backward. With the head on one side of the central line, of course the greatest interest is removed to one side, and the element of direction is brought in to balance. Again, with this decrease in symmetry, we see a significant increase in the use of the especially effective elements, vista and line. In fact, the use of the small deep vista is almost confined to the class with heads not in the middle. The direction of the glance also plays an important part. Very often the direction of movement alone is not sufficient to balance the powerful M.+I. of the other side, and the eye has to be attracted by a definite object of interest. This is usually the hand, with or without an implement,–like the palette, etc., of our first examples,–or a jewel, vase, or bit of embroidery. This is very characteristic of the portraits of Rembrandt and Van Dyck.

In general, it may be said that (1) portraits with the head in the centre of the frame show a balance between the direction of suggested movement on one side, and mass or direction of attention, or both together, on the other; while (2) portraits with the head not in the centre show a balance between mass and interest on one side, and direction of attention, or of line, or vista, or combinations of these, on the other.

Still more unsymmetrical in their framework than portraits, in fact the most unfettered type of all, are the genre pictures. As these are pictures with a human interest, and full of action and particular points of interest, it was to be expected that interest would be the element most frequently appearing. In compositions showing great variations from geometrical symmetry, it was also to be expected that vista and line, elements which have been noted comparatively seldom up to this point, should suddenly appear strongly; for, as being the most strikingly “heavy” of the elements, they serve to compensate for other variations combined.

The landscape is another type of unfettered composition. It was of course to be expected that in pictures without action there should be little suggestion of attention or of direction of movement. But the most remarkable point is the presence of vista in practically every example. It is, of course, natural that somewhere in almost every picture there should be a break to show the horizon line, for the sake of variety, if for nothing else; but what is significant is the part played by this break in the balancing of the picture. In about two thirds of the examples the vista is inclosed by lines, or masses, and when near the centre, as being at the same time the “heaviest” part of the picture, it serves as a fulcrum or centre to bind the parts–always harder to bring together than in the other types of pictures–into a close unity. The most frequent form of this arrangement is a diagonal, which just saves itself by turning up at its far end. Thus the mass, and hence usually the special interest of the picture, is on the one side, on the other the vista and the sloping line of the diagonal. In very few cases is the vista behind an attractive or noticeable part of the picture, the fact showing that it acts in opposition to the latter, leading the eye away from it, and thus serving at once the variety and richness of the picture, and its unity. A complete diagonal would have line and vista both working at the extreme outer edge of the picture, and thus too strongly,– unless, indeed, balanced by very striking elements near the outer edge.

This function of the vista as a unifying element is of interest in connection with the theory of Hildebrand,<1> that the landscape should have a narrow foreground and wide background, since that is most in conformity with our experience. He adduces Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love” as an example. But of the general principle it may be said that not the reproduction of nature, but the production of beauty, is the aim of composition, and that this aim is best reached by focusing the eye by a narrow background, i.e. vista. No matter how much it wanders, it returns to that central spot and is held there, keeping hold on all the other elements. Of Hildebrand’s example it may be said that the pyramidal composition, with the dark and tall tree in the centre, effectually accomplishes the binding together of the two figures, so that a vista is not needed. A wide background without that tree would leave them rather disjointed.

<1> Op cit., p. 55.

In general, it may be said that balance in landscape is effected between mass and interest on one side and vista and line on the other; and that union is given especially by the use of vista.

The experimental treatment of the isolated elements detected the particular function of each in distributing attention in the field of view. But while all are possibly operative in a given picture, some are given, as we have seen, much more importance than others, and in pictures of different types different elements predominate. In those classes with a general symmetrical framework, such as the altar and Madonna pieces, the elements of interest and direction of attention determine the balance, for they appear as variations in a symmetry which has already, so to speak, disposed of mass and line. They give what action there is, and where they are very strongly operative, they are opposed by salient lines and deep vistas, which act more strongly on the attention than does mass. Interest keeps its predominance throughout the types, except in the portraits, where the head is usually in the central line. But even among the portraits it has a respectable representation, as jewels, embroideries, beautiful hands, etc., count largely too in composition.

The direction of attention is most operative among the portraits. Since these pictures represent no action, it must be given by those elements which move and distribute the attention; in accordance with which principle we find line also unusually influential. As remarked above, altar-pieces and Madonna pictures, also largely without action, depend largely for it on the direction of attention.

The vista, as said above, rivets and confines the attention. We can, therefore, understand how it is that in the genre pictures it appears very numerous. The active character of these pictures naturally requires to be modified, and the vista introduces a powerful balancing element, which is yet quiet; or, it might be said, inasmuch as energy is certainly expended in plunging down the third dimension, the vista introduces an element of action of counterbalancing character. In the landscape it introduces the principal element of variety. It is always to be found in those parts of the picture which are opposed to other powerful elements, and the “heavier” the other side, the deeper the vista. Also in pictures with two groups it serves as a kind of fulcrum, or unifying element, inasmuch as it rivets the attention between the two detached sides.

The direction of suggestion by means of the indication of a line, quite naturally is more frequent in the Madonna picture and portrait classes. Both these types are of large simple outline, so that line would be expected to tell. In a decided majority of cases, combined with vista–the shape being more or less a diagonal slope–it is clear that it acts as a kind of bond between the two sides, carrying the attention without a break from one to the other.

The element of mass requires less comment. It appears in greatest number in those pictures which have little action, i.e. portraits and landscapes, and which are not yet symmetrical,– in which last case mass is, of course, already balanced. In fact, it must of necessity exert a certain influence in every unsymmetrical picture, and so its percentage, even for genre pictures, is large.

Thus we may regard the elements as both attracting attention to a certain spot and dispersing it over a field. Those types which are of a static character (landscapes, altar-pieces) abound in elements which disperse the attention; those which are of a dynamic character (genre picture), in those which make it stable. The ideal composition seems to combine the dynamic and static elements,–to animate, in short, the whole field of view, but in a generally bilateral fashion. The elements, in substitutional symmetry, are then simply means of introducing variety and action. As a dance in which there are complicated steps gives the actor and beholder a varied and thus vivified “balance,” and is thus more beautiful than the simple walk, so a picture composed in substitutional symmetry is more rich in its suggestions of motor impulse, and thus more beautiful, than an example of geometrical symmetry.

III

The particular functions of the elements which are substituted for geometrical symmetry have been made clear; their presence lends variety and richness to the balance of motor impulses. But this quality of repose, or unity, given by balance, is also enriched by a unity for intuition,–a large outline in which all the elements are held together. Now this way of holding together varies; and I believe that it bears a very close relation to the subject and purpose of the picture.

Examples of these types of composition may best be found by analyzing a few well-known pictures. We may begin with the class first studied, the Altar-piece, choosing a picture by Botticelli, in the Florence Academy. Under an arch is draped a canopy held up by angels; under this, again, sits the Madonna with the Child on her lap, on a throne, at the foot of which, on each side, stand three saints. The outline of the whole is markedly pyramidal; in fact, there are, broadly speaking, three pyramids, –of the arch, the canopy, and the grouping. A second, much less symmetrical example of this type, is given by another Botticelli in the Academy,–“Spring.” Here the central female figure, topped by the floating Cupid, is slightly raised above the others, which, however, bend slightly inward, so that a triangle, or pyramid with very obtuse angle at the apex, is suggested; and the whole, which at first glance seems a little scattered, is at once felt, when this is grasped, as closely bound together.

Closely allied to this is the type of the Holbein “Madonna of Burgomaster Meyer,” in the Grand Ducal Castle, Darmstadt. It is true that the same pyramid is given by the head of the Madonna against the shell-like background, and her spreading cloak which envelops the kneeling donors. But still more salient is the diamond form given by the descending rows of these worshiping figures, especially against the dark background of the Madonna’s dress. A second example, without the pyramid backing, is found in Rubens’s “Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus,” in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. Here the diamond shape formed by the horses and struggling figures is most remarkable,–an effect of lightness which will be discussed later in interpreting the types.

A third type, the diagonal, is given in an “Evening Landscape” by Cuyp, in the Buckingham Palace, London. High trees and cliffs, horsemen and others, occupy one side, and the mountains in the background, the ground and the clouds, all slope gradually down to the other side.

It is a natural transition from this type to the V-shape of the landscapes by Aart van der Neer, “Dutch Villages,” in the London National Gallery and in the Rudolphinum at Prague, respectively. Here are trees and houses on each side, gradually sloping to the centre to show an open sky and deep vista. Other examples, of course, show the opening not exactly in the centre.

In the “Concert” by Giorgione, in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, is seen the less frequent type of the square. The three figures turned toward each other with heads on the same level make almost a square space-shape, although it might be said that the central player gives a pyramidal foundation. This last may also be said of Verrocchio’s “Tobias and the Archangels” in the Florence Academy, for the square, or other rectangle, is again lengthened by the pyramidal shape of the two central figures. The unrelieved square, it may here be interpolated, is not often found except in somewhat primitive examples. Still less often observed is the oval type of “Samson’s Wedding Feast,” Rembrandt, in the Royal Gallery, Dresden. Here one might, by pressing the interpretation, see an obtuse-angled double-pyramid with the figure of Delilah for an apex, but a few very irregular pictures seem to fall best under the given classification.

Last of all, it must be remarked that the great majority of pictures show a combination of two or even three types; but these are usually subordinated to one dominant type. Such, for instance, is the case with many portraits, which are markedly pyramidal, with the double-pyramid suggested by the position of the arms, and the inverted pyramid, or V, in the landscape background. The diagonal sometimes just passes over into the V-shape, or into the pyramid; or the square is combined with both.

What types are characteristic of the different kinds of pictures? In order to answer this question we must ask first, What are the different kinds of pictures? One answer, at least, is at once suggested to the student on a comparison of the pictures with their groupings according to subjects. All those which represent the Madonna enthroned, with all variations, with or without saints, shepherds, or Holy Family, are very quiet in their action; that is, it is not really an action at all which they represent, but an attitude,–the attitude of contemplation. This is no less true of the pictures we may call “Adorations,” in which, indeed, the contemplative attitude is still more marked. On the other hand, such pictures as the “Descents,” the “Annunciations,” and very many of the miscellaneous religious, allegorical, and genre pictures, portray a definite action or event. Now the pyramid type is characteristic of the “contemplative” pictures in a much higher degree. A class which might be supposed to suggest the same treatment in composition is that of the portraits, –absolute lack of action being the rule. And we find, indeed, that no single type is represented within it except the pyramid and double-pyramid, with eighty-six per cent. of the former. Thus it is evident that for the type of picture which expresses the highest degree of quietude, contemplation, concentration, the pyramid is the characteristic type of composition. Among the so-called “active” pictures, the diagonal and V-shaped types are most numerous.

The landscape picture presents a somewhat different problem. It cannot be described as either “active” or “passive,” inasmuch as it does not express either an attitude or an event. There is no definite idea to be set forth, no point of concentration, as with the altar-pieces and the portraits, for instance; and yet a unity is demanded. An examination of the proportions of the types shows at once the characteristic type to be here also the diagonal and V-shaped.

It is now necessary to ask what must be the interpretation of the use of these types of composition. Must we consider the pyramid the expression of passivity, the diagonal or V-shape, of activity? But the greatly predominating use of the second for landscapes would remain unexplained, for at least nothing can be more reposeful than the latter. It may aid the solution of the problem to remember that the composition taken as a whole has to meet the demand for unity, at the same time that it allows free play to the natural expression of the subject. The altar-piece has to bring about a concentration of attention to express or induce a feeling of reverence. This is evidently accomplished by the suggestion of the converging lines to the fixation of the high point in the picture,–the small area occupied by the Madonna and Child,–and by the subordination of the free play of other elements. The contrast between the broad base and the apex gives a feeling of solidity, of repose; and it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the tendency to rest the eyes above the centre of the picture directly induces the associated mood of reverence or worship. Thus the pyramidal form serves two ends; primarily that of giving unity, and secondarily, by the peculiarity of its shape, that of inducing the feeling-tone appropriate to the subject of the picture.

Applying this principle to the so-called “active” pictures, we see that the natural movement of attention between the different “actors” in the picture must be allowed for, while yet unity is secured. And it is clear that the diagonal type is just fitted for this. The attention sweeps down from the high side to the low, from which it returns through some backward suggestion of lines or interest in the objects of the high side. Action and reaction–movement and return of attention–is inevitable under the conditions of this type; and this it is which allows the free play,–which, indeed, CONSTITUTES and expresses the activity belonging to the subject, just as the fixation of the pyramid constitutes the quietude of the religious picture. Thus it is that the diagonal composition is particularly suited to portray scenes of grandeur, and to induce a feeling of awe in the spectator, because only here can the eye rove in one large sweep from side to side of the picture, recalled by the mass and interest of the side from which it moves. The swing of the pendulum is here widest, so to speak, and all the feeling-tones which belong to wide, free movement are called into play. If, at the same time, the element of the deep vista is introduced, we have the extreme of concentration combined with the extreme of movement; and the result is a picture in the “grand style” –comparable to high tragedy–in which all the feeling-tones which wait on motor impulses are, as it were, while yet in the same reciprocal relation, tuned to the highest pitch. Such a picture is the “Finding of the Ring,” Paris Bordone, in the Venice Academy. All the mass and the interest and the suggestion of the downward lines and of the magnificent perspective toward the left, and the effect of the whole space composition is of superb largeness of life and feeling. Compare Titian’s “Presentation of the Virgin,” also the two great compositions by Veronese, “Martyrdom of St. Mark,” etc., in the Doge’s Palace, Venice, and “Esther before Ahaseurus,” in the Uffizi, Florence. In these last two, the mass, direction of interest, movement, and attention are toward the left, while all the lines tend diagonally to the right, where a vista is also suggested,–the diagonal making a V just at the end. Here, too, the effect is of magnificence and vigor.

If, then, the pyramid belongs to contemplation, the diagonal to action, what ca be said of landscape? It is without action, it is true, and yet does not express that positive quality, that WILL not to act, of the rapt contemplation. The landscape uncomposed is negative, and it demands unity. Its type of composition, then, must give it something positive besides unity. It lacks both concentration and action; but it can gain them both from a space composition which shall combine unity with a tendency to movement. And this is given by the diagonal and V-shaped type. This type merely allows free play to the natural tendency of the “active” picture; but it constrains the neutral, inanimate landscape. The shape itself imparts motion to the picture: the sweep of line, the concentration of the vista, the unifying power of the inverted triangle between two masses, act, as it were, externally to the suggestion of the object itself. There is always enough quiet in a landscape,– the overwhelming suggestion of the horizontal suffices for that; it is movement that is needed for richness of effect, and, as I have shown, no type imparts the feeling of movement so strongly as the diagonal and V-shaped type of composition. Landscapes need energy to produce “stimulation,” not repression, and so the diagonal type is proportionately more numerous.

The rigid square is found only at an early stage in the development of composition. Moreover, all the examples are “story” pictures, for the most part scenes from the lives of the saints, etc. Many of them are double-centre,–square, that is, with a slight break in the middle, the grouping purely logical, to bring out the relations of the characters. Thus, in the “Dream of Saint Martin,” Simone Martini, a fresco at Assisi, the saint lies straight across the picture with his head in one corner. Behind him on one side stand the Christ and angels, grouped closely together, their heads on the same level. These are all, of course, in one sense symmetrical,– in the weight of interest, at least,–but they are completely amorphous from an aesthetic point of view. The forms, that is, do not count at all,–only the meanings. The story is told by a clear separation of the parts, and as, in most stories, there are two principal actors, it merely happens that they fall into the two sides of the picture. On the other hand, a rigid geometrical symmetry is also characteristic of early composition, and these two facts seem to contradict each other. But it is to be noted, first, that the rigid geometrical symmetry belongs only to the “Madonna Enthroned,” and general “Adoration” pieces; and secondly, that this very rigidity of symmetry in details can coexist with variations which destroy balance. Thus, in a “Madonna Enthroned” of Giotto, where absolute symmetry in detail is kept, the Child sits far out on the right knee of the Madonna.

It would seem that the symmetry of these early pictures was not dictated by a conscious demand for symmetrical arrangement, or rather for real balance, else such failures would hardly occur. The presence of geometrical symmetry is more easily explained as the product, in large part, of technical conditions: of the fact that these pictures were painted as altar-pieces to fill a space definitely symmetrical in character–often, indeed, with architectural elements intruding into it. We may even connect the Madonna pictures with the temple images of the classic period, to explain why it was natural to paint the object of worship seated exactly facing the worshiper. Thus we may separate the two classes of pictures, the one giving an object of worship, and thus taking naturally, as has been said, the pyramidal, symmetrical shape, and being moulded to symmetry by all other suggestions of technique; the other aiming at nothing except logical clearness. This antithesis of the symbol and the story has a most interesting parallel in the two great classes of primitive art–the one symbolic, merely suggestive, shaped by the space it had to fill, and so degenerating into the slavishly symmetrical; the other descriptive, “story-telling,” and without a trace of space composition. On neither side is there evidence of direct aesthetic feeling. Only in the course of artistic development do we find the rigid, yet often unbalanced, symmetry relaxing into a free substitutional symmetry, and the formless narrative crystallizing into a really unified and balanced space-form. The two antitheses approach each other in the “balance” of the masterpieces of civilized art–in which, for the first time, a real feeling for space composition makes itself felt.

V
THE BEAUTY OF MUSIC

THERE is a story, in Max Muller’s amusing reminiscences, of how Mendelssohn and David once played, in his hearing, Beethoven’s later sonatas for piano and violin, and of how they shrugged their shoulders, and opined the old man had not been quite himself when he wrote them. In the history of music it seems to be a rule almost without exceptions, that the works of genius are greeted with contumely. The same is no doubt true, though to a much less degree, of other arts, but in music it seems that the critics proposed also excellent reasons for their vehemence. And it is instructive to observe that the objections, and the reasons for the objections, recur, after the original object of wrath has passed into acceptance, nay, into dominance of the musical world. One may also descry one basic controversy running through all these utterances, even when not explicitly set forth.

It was made a reproach to Beethoven, as it has been made a reproach to Richard Strauss, that he sacrificed the beauty of form to expression; and it was rejoined, perhaps less in the old time than now, that expression was itself the end and meaning of music. Now the works of genius, as we have seen, after all take care of themselves. But it is of greatest significance for the theory of music, as of all art, that in the circle of the years, the same contrasting views, grown to ever sharper opposition, still greet the appearance of new work. It was with Wagner, as all the world knows, that the question came first to complete formulation. His invention of the music-drama rested on his famous theory of music as the heightened medium of expression, glorified speech, which accordingly demands freedom to follow all the varying nuances of feeling and emotion. Music has always been called the language of the emotions, but Wagner based his views not only on the popular notion, but on the metaphysical theories of Schopenhauer; in particular, on the view that music is the objectification of the will. Herbert Spencer followed with the thesis that music has its essential source in the cadences of emotional speech. In opposition primarily to Wagner, the so-called formalists were represented by Hanslick, who wrote his well-known “The Beautiful in Music” to show that though music ha a limited capacity of expression, its aim is formal or logical perfection alone. The expressionist school could not contradict the undoubted fact that chords and intervals which are harmonious show certain definite physical and mathematical relationships, that, in other words, our musical preferences appear to be closely related to, if not determined by, these relationships. Thus each school seemed to be backed by science. The emotional-speech theory has been held in a vague way, indeed, by most of those theorists whose natural conservatism would have drawn them in the other direction, and is doubtless responsible for the attempts at mediation, first made by Ambros,<1> and now met in almost all musical literature. Music may be, and is, expressive, it is said, so long as each detail allows itself to be entirely derived from and justified by the mere formal element. The “centre of gravity” lies in the formal relations.

<1> _The Boundaries of Music and Poetry._

To this, after all, Hanslick himself might subscribe. Other writers seek to balance form and expression, insisting on “the dual nature of music,” while resting ultimately on the emotional-speech theory. “The most universal composers, recognizing the interdependence of the two elements, produce the highest type of pure music, music in which beauty is based upon expression, and expression transfigured by beauty.”<1>

<1> D.G. Mason, _From Grieg to Brahms_, 1902, p. 30.

This usual type of reconciliation, however, is a perfectly mechanical binding together of two possibly conflicting aesthetic demands. The question is of the essential nature of music, not whether music may be, but whether it must be, expressive; not whether is has expressive power, but whether it is, in its essence, expression,–a question which is only obscured by insisting on the interdependence of the two elements. If music has its essential source in the cadences of speech, then it must develop and must be judged accordingly. Herbert Spencer is perfectly logical in saying “It may be shown that music is but an idealization of the natural language of emotion, and that, consequently, music must be good or bad according as it conforms to the laws of this natural language.”<1> But what, then, of music which, according to Ambros, is justified by its formal relations? Is music good because it is very expressive, and bad because it is too little expressive? or is its goodness and badness independent of its expressiveness? Such a question is not to be answered by recognizing two kinds of goodness. Only by an attempt to decide the fundamental nature of the musical experience, and an adjustment of the other factors in strict subordination to it, can the general principle be settled.

<1> _On Educaiton_, p. 41.

The excuse for this artificial yoking together of two opposing principles is apparent when it is seen that form and expression are taken as addressing themselves to two different mental faculties. It seems to be the view of most musical theorists that the experience of musical form is a perception, while the experience of musical expression, disregarding for the moment the suggestion of facts and ideas, is an emotion. Thus Mr. Mason: “In music we are capable of learning, and knowledge of the principles of musical effect can help us to learn, that the balance and proportion and symmetry of the whole is far more essential than any poignancy, however great, in the parts. He best appreciates music…who understands it intellectually as well as feels it emotionally;”<1> and again, “We feel in the music of Haydn its lack of emotional depth, and its lack of intellectual subtlety.”

<1> Op. Cit., p. 6.

It is just this contrast and parallelism of structure as balance, proportion, symmetry, addressed to the mind, with expression as emotional content, that a true view of the aesthetic experience would lead us to challenge. If there is one thing that our study of the general nature of aesthetic experience has shown, it is that aesthetic emotion is unique– neither a perception nor an intellectual grasp of relations, nor an emotion within the accepted rubric–joy, desire, triumph, etc. Whether or not music is an exception to this principle, remains to be seen; but the presumption is at least in favor of a direct, immediate, unique emotion aroused by the true beauty of music, whatever that may prove to be.

With a great literature in the form of special studies, we must yet, on the whole, admit that we possess no general formula in the philosophy or psychology of music which covers the whole ground. Schopenhauer has said that music is the objectification of the will–not a copy or a picture of it, but the will itself; a doctrine which however illuminating when it is modified in various ways is obviously no explanation of our experience. Hanslick has but shown what music is not; Edmund Gurney’s eloquent book, “The Power of Sound,” is completely agnostic in its conclusion that music is a unique, indefinable, indescribable phenomenon, which possesses, indeed, certain analogues with other physical and psychical facts, but is coextensive with none. Spencer’s theory of music as glorified speech is not only in a yet unexplained conflict with many facts, but has never been formulated so that it could apply to concrete cases. The same is true of Wagner’s “music as the utterance of feeling.”

But there is a body of scientific facts respecting the elements of music, in which we may well seek for clues. As facts alone they are of no value. They must be explained as completely as possible; and it is probable that if we are able to reach the ultimate nature and origin of these elements of music they will prove significant, and a way will be opened to a theory of the whole musical experience. The need of such intensive understanding must excuse the more or less technical discussions in the following pages, without which no firm foundation for a theory of music could be attained.

The two great factors of music are rhythm and tone-sensation, of which rhythm appears to be the more fundamental.

Rhythm is defined in general as a repeating series of time intervals. Events which occur in such a series are said to have rhythm. In aesthetics, it is the periodic recurrence of stress, emphasis, or accent in the movements of dancing, the sounds of music, the language of poetry. Subjectively it is the quality of stimulation due to a succession of impressions (tactual and auditory are most favorable) which vary regularly in objective intensity. We desire to understand the nature, and the source of the pleasing quality, of this phenomenon.

It is only by a complete psychological description, however, even a physiological explanation, that we can hope to fathom the tremendous significance of rhythm in music and poetry. Those treatments which expose its development in the dance and song really beg the question; they assume the very fact for which we have to find the ground, namely, the natural impulse to rhythm. Even those theories which explain it as a helpful social phenomenon, as regulating work, etc., fail to account for its peculiar psychological character–that compelling, intimate force, the “Zwang” of which Nietszche speaks, which we all feel, and which makes it helpful. This compelling quality of rhythm would lead us to look behind the sociological influences, for the explanation in some fundamental condition of consciousness, some “demand” of the organism. For this reason we must find superficial the views which connect rhythm with the symmetry of the body as making rhythmical gesture necessary; or more particularly with the conditions of work, which, if it is skilled and well carried out, proceeds in equal recurring periods, like the swinging of a hammer or an axe. But it appears that primitive effort is not carried on in this way, and proceeds, not from regularity to rhythm, but rather, through, by means of rhythm, which is made a help, to regularity. Again, it is said that work can be well carried out by a large number of people, only in unison, only by simultaneous action, and that rhythm is a condition of this. The work in the cotton fields, the work of sailors, etc. requires something to give notice of the moment for beginning action. Rhythm would then have arisen as a social function. Against this it may be said that signals of this kind might assist common action without recurring at regular intervals, while periodicity is the fundamental quality of rhythm. Thus this theory would explain a natural tendency by its effect.

Looking then, in accordance with the principle stated above, for deeper conditions, we find rhythm explained in connection with such rhythmical events as the heart beat and pulse, the double rhythm of the breath; but these are, for the most part, unfelt; and moreover, they would hardly explain the predominance of rhythms quite other than the physiological ones. Another theory, closely allied, connects rhythm with the conditions of activity in general, but attaches itself rather to the effect of rhythm than to its cause. Thus we are reminded of the “heightened sense of expansion, or life, connected with the augmentation of muscular movements induced by the more extensive nervous discharges following rhythmic stimulation.”<1> But why should it be just rhythmic stimulation that produces this effect? We are finally thrown back on physiology for the answer that in rhythmical stimulation there are involved recurrent activities of organs refreshed by immediately preceding periods of repose. Here again, however, we must ask, why on this hypothesis the periods themselves must be exactly equal. For within the periods the greatest variety obtains. One measure of a single note may be succeeded by another containing eight; within the periods, that is, the minor moments of activity and repose are quite unequal.

<1> H.R. Marshall, _Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics._

Last of all, we must note the view of rhythm as a phenomenon of expectation (Wundt). But while we can undoubtedly describe rhythm in terms of expectation and its satisfaction, rhythm is rhythm just through its difference from other kinds of expectation.

All these explanations seem either merely to describe the facts we seek to explain, or to fail to notice the peculiar intimate nature of the rhythmical experience. But if it could be shown not only that in all stimulation there must be involved an alternation of activity and repose, but also that an equality of such periods was highly favorable to the organism, we should have the conditions for a physiological theory of rhythm. Now the important psychological facts of so-called subjective rhythmizing seem to supply just this need.

It has been shown<1> that we can neither receive objectively equal sense-stimuli, nor produce regular movements, without injecting into these a rhythmical element. A series of objectively equal sound-stimuli–the ticking of a clock, for instance–is heard in groups, within each of which one element is of greater intensity. A series of movements are never objectively equal, but grouped in the same way. Now this subjective rhythm, sensory and motor, is explained as follows from the general physiological basis of attention.

<1> T.L. Bolton, _Amer. Jour. Of Psychol._, vol. vi. The classical historical study of theories of rhythm remains that of Meumann,

The Psychology of Beauty by Ethel D. Puffer (page 2)