The science of beauty, as developed in nature and applied in art

by David Ramsay Hay

Such, then, was the state of art as connected with science twelve years ago. But although the causes which then placed science and the fine arts at variance have since been gradually diminishing, yet they are still far from being removed. In proof of this I may refer to what took place at the annual distribution of the prizes to the students attending our Scottish Metropolitan School of Design, in 1854, the pupils in which amount to upwards of two hundred. The meeting on that occasion included, besides the pupils, a numerous and highly respectable assemblage of artists and men of science. The chairman, a Professor in our University, and editor of one of the most voluminous works on art, science, and literature ever produced in this country, after extolling the general progress of the pupils, so far as evinced by the drawings exhibited on the occasion, drew the attention of the meeting to a discovery made by the head master of the architectural and ornamental department of the school, viz.—That the ground-plan of the Parthenon at Athens had been constructed by the application of the mysterious ovoid or Vesica Piscis of the middle ages, subdivided by the mythic numbers 3 and 7, and their intermediate odd number 5. Now, it may be remarked, that the figure thus referred to is not an ovoid, neither is it in any way of a mysterious nature, being produced simply by two equal circles cutting each other in their centres. Neither can it be shewn that the numbers 3 and 7 are in any way more mythic than other numbers. In fact, the terms mysterious and mythic so applied, can only be regarded as a remnant of an ancient terminology, calculated to obscure the simplicity of scientific truth, and when used by those employed to teach—for doubtless the chairman only gave the description he received—must tend to retard the connexion of that truth with the arts of design. I shall now give a specimen of the manner in which a knowledge of the philosophy of the fine arts is at present inculcated upon the public mind generally. In the same metropolis there has likewise existed for upwards of ten years a Philosophical Institution of great importance and utility, whose members amount to nearly three thousand, embracing a large proportion of the higher classes of society, both in respect to talent and wealth. At the close of the session of this Institution, in 1854, a learned and eloquent philologus, who occasionally lectures upon beauty, was appointed to deliver the closing address, and touching upon the subject of the beautiful, he thus concluded—

“In the worship of the beautiful, and in that alone, we are inferior to the Greeks. Let us therefore be glad to borrow from them; not slavishly, but with a wise adaptation—not exclusively, but with a cunning selection; in art, as in religion, let us learn to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good—not merely one thing which is good, but all good things—Classicalism, Mediævalism, Modernism—let us have and hold them all in one wide and lusty embrace. Why should the world of art be more narrow, more monotonous, than the world of nature? Did God make all the flowers of one pattern, to please the devotees of the rose or the lily; and did He make all the hills, with the green folds of their queenly mantles, all at one slope, to suit the angleometer of the most mathematical of decorators? I trow not. Let us go and do likewise.”

I here take for granted, that what the lecturer meant by “the worship of the beautiful,” is the production and appreciation of works of art in which beauty should be a primary element; and judging from the remains which we possess of such works as were produced by the ancient Grecians, our inferiority to them in these respects cannot certainly be denied. But I must reiterate what I have often before asserted, that it is not by borrowing from them, however cunning our selection, or however wise our adaptations, that this inferiority is to be removed, but by a re-discovery of the science which these ancient artists must have employed in the production of that symmetrical beauty and chaste elegance which pervaded all their works for a period of nearly three hundred years. And I hold, that as in religion, so in art, there is only one truth, a grain of which is worth any amount of philological eloquence.

I also take for granted, that what is meant by Classicalism in the above quotation, is the ancient Grecian style of art; by Mediævalism, the semi-barbaric style of the middle ages; and by Modernism, that chaotic jumble of all previous styles and fashions of art, which is the peculiar characteristic of our present school, and which is, doubtless, the result of a system of education based upon plagiarism and mere imitation. Therefore a recommendation to embrace with equal fervour “as good things,” these very opposite articisms must be a doctrine as mischievous in art as it would be in religion to recommend as equally good things the various isms into which it has also been split in modern times.

Now, “the world of nature” and “the world of art” have not that equality of scope which this lecturer on beauty ascribes to them, but differ very decidedly in that particular. Neither will it be difficult to shew why “the world of art should be more narrow than the world of nature”—that it should be thereby rendered more monotonous does not follow.

It is well known, that the “world of nature” consists of productions, including objects of every degree of beauty from the very lowest to the highest, and calculated to suit not only the tastes arising from various degrees of intellect, but those arising from the natural instincts of the lower animals. On the other hand, “the world of art,” being devoted to the gratification and improvement of intelligent minds only, is therefore narrowed in its scope by the exclusion from its productions of the lower degrees of beauty—even mediocrity is inadmissible; and we know that the science of the ancient Greek artists enabled them to excel the highest individual productions of nature in the perfection of symmetrical beauty. Consequently, all objects in nature are not equally well adapted for artistic study, and it therefore requires, on the part of the artist, besides true genius, much experience and care to enable him to choose proper subjects from nature; and it is in the choice of such subjects, and not in plagiarism from the ancients, that he should select with knowledge and adapt with wisdom. Hence, all such latitudinarian doctrines as those I have quoted must act as a check upon the progress of knowledge in the scientific truth of art. I have observed in some of my works, that in this country a course had been followed in our search for the true science of beauty not differing from that by which the alchymists of the middle ages conducted their investigations; for our ideas of visible beauty are still undefined, and our attempts to produce it in the various branches of art are left dependant, in a great measure, upon chance. Our schools are conducted without reference to any first principles or definite laws of beauty, and from the drawing of a simple architectural moulding to the intricate combinations of form in the human figure, the pupils trust to their hands and eyes alone, servilely and mechanically copying the works of the ancients, instead of being instructed in the unerring principles of science, upon which the beauty of those works normally depends. The instruction they receive is imparted without reference to the judgment or understanding, and they are thereby led to imitate effects without investigating causes. Doubtless, men of great genius sometimes arrive at excellence in the arts of design without a knowledge of the principles upon which beauty of form is based; but it should be kept in mind, that true genius includes an intuitive perception of those principles along with its creative power. It is, therefore, to the generality of mankind that instruction in the definite laws of beauty will be of most service, not only in improving the practice of those who follow the arts professionally, but in enabling all of us to distinguish the true from the false, and to exercise a sound and discriminating taste in forming our judgment upon artistic productions. Æsthetic culture should consequently supersede servile copying, as the basis of instruction in our schools of art. Many teachers of drawing, however, still assert, that, by copying the great works of the ancients, the mind of the pupil will become imbued with ideas similar to theirs—that he will imbibe their feeling for the beautiful, and thereby become inspired with their genius, and think as they thought. To study carefully and to investigate the principles which constitute the excellence of the works of the ancients, is no doubt of much benefit to the student; but it would be as unreasonable to suppose that he should become inspired with artistic genius by merely copying them, as it would be to imagine, that, in literature, poetic inspiration could be created by making boys transcribe or repeat the works of the ancient poets. Sir Joshua Reynolds considered copying as a delusive kind of industry, and has observed, that “Nature herself is not to be too closely copied,” asserting that “there are excellences in the art of painting beyond what is commonly called the imitation of nature,” and that “a mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great.” Proclus, an eminent philosopher and mathematician of the later Platonist school (A.D. 485), says, that “he who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of these, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of beauty.”

It is remarked by Mr. J. C. Daniel, in the introduction to his translation of M. Victor Cousin’s “Philosophy of the Beautiful,” that “the English writers have advocated no theory which allows the beautiful to be universal and absolute; nor have they professedly founded their views on original and ultimate principles. Thus the doctrine of the English school has for the most part been, that beauty is mutable and special, and the inference that has been drawn from this teaching is, that all tastes are equally just, provided that each man speaks of what he feels.” He then observes, that the German, and some of the French writers, have thought far differently; for with them the beautiful is “simple, immutable, absolute, though its forms are manifold.”

So far back as the year 1725, the same truths advanced by the modern German and French writers, and so eloquently illustrated by M. Cousin, were given to the world by Hutchison in his “Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.” This author says—“We, by absolute beauty, understand only that beauty which we perceive in objects, without comparison to any thing external, of which the object is supposed an imitation or picture, such as the beauty perceived from the works of nature, artificial forms, figures, theorems. Comparative or relative beauty is that which we perceive in objects commonly considered as imitations or resemblances of something else.”

Dr. Reid also, in his “Intellectual Powers of Man,” says—“That taste, which we may call rational, is that part of our constitution by which we are made to receive pleasure from the contemplation of what we conceive to be excellent in its kind, the pleasure being annexed to this judgment, and regulated by it. This taste may be true or false, according as it is founded on a true or false judgment. And if it may be true or false, it must have first principles.”

M. Victor Cousin’s opinion upon this subject is, however, still more conclusive. He observes—“If the idea of the beautiful is not absolute, like the idea of the true—if it is nothing more than the expression of individual sentiment, the rebound of a changing sensation, or the result of each person’s fancy—then the discussions on the fine arts waver without support, and will never end. For a theory of the fine arts to be possible, there must be something absolute in beauty, just as there must be something absolute in the idea of goodness, to render morals a possible science.”