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

by David Ramsay Hay

The basis of the science of beauty must thus be founded upon fixed principles, and when these principles are evolved with the same care which has characterised the labours of investigators in natural science, and are applied in the fine arts as the natural sciences have been in the useful arts, a solid foundation will be laid, not only for correct practice, but also for a just appreciation of productions in every branch of the arts of design.

We know that the mind receives pleasure through the sense of hearing, not only from the music of nature, but from the euphony of prosaic composition, the rhythm of poetic measure, the artistic composition of successive harmony in simple melody, and the combined harmony of counterpoint in the more complex works of that art. We know, also, that the mind is similarly gratified through the sense of seeing, not only by the visible beauties of nature, but by those of art, whether in symmetrical or picturesque compositions of forms, or in harmonious arrangements of gay or sombre colouring.

Now, in respect to the first of these modes of sensation, we know, that from the time of Pythagoras, the fact has been established, that in whatever manner nature or art may address the ear, the degree of obedience paid to the fundamental law of harmony will determine the presence and degree of that beauty with which a perfect organ can impress a well-constituted mind; and it is my object in this, as it has been in former attempts, to prove it consistent with scientific truth, that that beauty which is addressed to the mind by objects of nature and art, through the eye, is similarly governed. In short, to shew that, as in compositions of sounds, there can be no true beauty in the absence of a strict obedience to this great law of nature, neither can there exist, in compositions of forms or colours, that principle of unity in variety which constitutes beauty, unless such compositions are governed by the same law.

Although in the songs of birds, the gurgling of brooks, the sighing of the gentle summer winds, and all the other beautiful music of nature, no analysis might be able to detect the operation of any precise system of harmony, yet the pleasure thus afforded to the human mind we know to arise from its responding to every development of an obedience to this law. When, in like manner, we find even in those compositions of forms and colours which constitute the wildest and most rugged of Nature’s scenery, a species of picturesque grandeur and beauty to which the mind as readily responds as to her more mild and pleasing aspects, or to her sweetest music, we may rest assured that this beauty is simply another development of, and response to, the same harmonic law, although the precise nature of its operation may be too subtle to be easily detected.

The résumé of the various works I have already published upon the subject, along with the additional illustrations I am about to lay before my readers, will, I trust, point out a system of harmony, which, in formative art, as well as in that of colouring, will rise superior to the idiosyncracies of different artists, and bring back to one common type the sensations of the eye and the ear, thereby improving that knowledge of the laws of the universe which it is as much the business of science to combine with the ornamental as with the useful arts.

In attempting this, however, I beg it may be understood, that I do not believe any system, based even upon the laws of nature, capable of forming a royal road to the perfection of art, or of “mapping the mighty maze of a creative mind.” At the same time, however, I must continue to reiterate the fact, that the diffusion of a general knowledge of the science of visible beauty will afford latent artistic genius just such a vantage ground as that which the general knowledge of philology diffused throughout this country affords its latent literary genius. Although mere learning and true genius differ as much in the practice of art as they do in the practice of literature, yet a precise and systematic education in the true science of beauty must certainly be as useful in promoting the practice and appreciation of the one, as a precise and systematic education in the science of philology is in promoting the practice and appreciation of the other.

As all beauty is the result of harmony, it will be requisite here to remark, that harmony is not a simple quality, but, as Aristotle defines it, “the union of contrary principles having a ratio to each other.” Harmony thus operates in the production of all that is beautiful in nature, whether in the combinations, in the motions, or in the affinities of the elements of matter.

The contrary principles to which Aristotle alludes, are those of uniformity and variety; for, according to the predominance of the one or the other of these principles, every kind of beauty is characterised. Hence the difference between symmetrical and picturesque beauty:—the first allied to the principle of uniformity, in being based upon precise laws that may be taught so as to enable men of ordinary capacity to produce it in their works—the second allied to the principle of variety often to so great a degree that they yield an obedience to the precise principles of harmony so subtilely, that they cannot be detected in its constitution, but are only felt in the response by which true genius acknowledges their presence. The generality of mankind may be capable of perceiving this latter kind of beauty, and of feeling its effects upon the mind, but men of genius, only, can impart it to works of art, whether addressed to the eye or the ear. Throughout the sounds, forms, and colours of nature, these two kinds of beauty are found not only in distinct developments, but in every degree of amalgamation. We find in the songs of some birds, such as those of the chaffinch, thrush, &c., a rhythmical division, resembling in some measure the symmetrically precise arrangements of parts which characterises all artistic musical composition; while in the songs of other birds, and in the other numerous melodies with which nature charms and soothes the mind, there is no distinct regularity in the division of their parts. In the forms of nature, too, we find amongst the innumerable flowers with which the surface of the earth is so profusely decorated, an almost endless variety of systematic arrangements of beautiful figures, often so perfectly symmetrical in their combination, that the most careful application of the angleometer could scarcely detect the slightest deviation from geometrical precision; while, amongst the masses of foliage by which the forms of many trees are divided and subdivided into parts, as also amongst the hills and valleys, the mountains and ravines, which divide the earth’s surface, we find in every possible variety of aspect the beauty produced by that irregular species of symmetry which characterises the picturesque.

In like manner, we find in wild as well as cultivated flowers the most symmetrical distributions of colours accompanying an equally precise species of harmony in their various kinds of contrasts, often as mathematically regular as the geometric diagrams by which writers upon colour sometimes illustrate their works; while in the general colouring of the picturesque beauties of nature, there is an endless variety in its distributions, its blendings, and its modifications. In the forms and colouring of animals, too, the same endless variety of regular and irregular symmetry is to be found. But the highest degree of beauty in nature is the result of an equal balance of uniformity with variety. Of this the human figure is an example; because, when it is of those proportions universally acknowledged to be the most perfect, its uniformity bears to its variety an apparently equal ratio. The harmony of combination in the normal proportions of its parts, and the beautifully simple harmony of succession in the normal melody of its softly undulating outline, are the perfection of symmetrical beauty, while the innumerable changes upon the contour which arise from the actions and attitudes occasioned by the various emotions of the mind, are calculated to produce every species of picturesque beauty, from the softest and most pleasing to the grandest and most sublime.

Amongst the purely picturesque objects of inanimate nature, I may, as in a former work, instance an ancient oak tree, for its beauty is enhanced by want of apparent symmetry. Thus, the more fantastically crooked its branches, and the greater the dissimilarity and variety it exhibits in its masses of foliage, the more beautiful it appears to the artist and the amateur; and, as in the human figure, any attempt to produce variety in the proportions of its lateral halves would be destructive of its symmetrical beauty, so in the oak tree any attempt to produce palpable similarity between any of its opposite sides would equally deteriorate its picturesque beauty. But picturesque beauty is not the result of the total absence of symmetry; for, as none of the irregularly constructed music of nature could be pleasing to the ear unless there existed in the arrangement of its notes an obedience, however subtle, to the great harmonic law of Nature, so neither could any object be picturesquely beautiful, unless the arrangement of its parts yields, although it may be obscurely, an obedience to the same law.