Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci
Lectorum delectando pariterque monendo—
"He carries all votes who has interfused the useful and the pleasant, by at the same time charming and instructing his reader." This is no better than copybook headings such as "Stay where you are and earn an honest sixpence"—which are good enough as generalization, but are defective in the concrete determinacy upon which action depends. An interest of another kind deducible from this type of artistic study does not so much consist in the expressed object to promote the production of genuine works of art: the intention appears to be rather that of influencing the judgment of others upon artistic works by such theories, creating, in short, a standard of taste. It is for an object of this kind that Horne's "Elements of Criticism," the writings of Batteux, and Ramler's "Introduction to the Fine Arts" have found many readers in their day. Taste, in this sense, has to do with co-ordination and artistic treatment, the thing in its right place, and all that concerns the finish of that which belongs to the external embodiment of a work of art. Add to this that to the principles of such a taste views were attached which belonged to the psychology in fashion at the time, views which had been discovered by empirical observations of capacities and activities of the soul, or of passions and their potential aggrandizement, succession, and so forth. It is, however, an invariable fact that every one forms his opinion of works of art, or characters, actions and events according to the measure of his insight and his perceptive temperament; and inasmuch as the formation of taste to which we have referred merely touched what was external and therefore jejune, and apart from this deduced its prescriptions entirely from a limited circle of artistic works and an intellectual culture and emotional discipline equally restricted, its sphere of influence was ineffective, and it had neither the power to comprehend the profounder significance[24] and the true, nor to make the vision more keen for their apprehension.
Such theories proceed through generalization as do the rest of the non-philosophic sciences. The content which they submit to examination is accepted from ordinary ideas as something final and received as such. Questions are then asked about the constitution of such a concept, the need for more distinct specification making itself apparent, and this too is borrowed from current ideas, and forthwith finally established from it in definitions. But in such a procedure we at once find ourselves on an insecure basis exposed to controversy. It might in the first instance no doubt appear that the beautiful was quite a simple idea. But we soon discover it combines several aspects; one writer will emphasize one of these, another some other one; or, even assuming the same points of view are considered, the question for dispute still remains which aspect is to be regarded as essential.
With regard to such questions it is generally reckoned as inseparable from scientific completeness, that the various definitions of the beautiful should be enumerated and criticized. For ourselves we do not propose to attempt this with such historical exhaustiveness as would unfold all the many refinements of such essays at definition, nor indeed on account of their historical interest. We simply, by way of illustration, shall offer a few specimens of the more recent and more interesting ways of regarding the matter which do in fact hit off pretty nearly what is actually implied in the idea of the beautiful. With this in view it is of first importance to recall Goethe's definition of the beautiful, which Meyer has incorporated in his "History of the Creative Arts in Greece," in which work he also brings forward the views of Hirt, though he does not actually mention his name. Hirt, one of the greatest among connoisseurs of the first class in our time, in his "Essay upon Fine Art" (Horen, [179]7, seventh number), after considering the beautiful in the several arts, summarizes his conclusions in the statement that the basis of a just criticism of fine art and cultivation of taste is the idea of the Characteristic. In other words he defines the beautiful ultimately as the "Consummate[25] which is or can be an object of eye, ear, or imagination." He then proceeds to define this "consummate" as "that which is adequate to its aim, which nature or art aimed at producing in the constitution of the object—after its generic kind and specific type." For which reason it is necessary that, in order to instruct our critical sense of beauty, we should direct our attention, so far as possible, to the specific indications of the object's essential constitution. It is, in fact, these insignia of individuality which are its characteristic. Consequently under the term character as a principle of art he understands "that definite individual characterization[26], whereby forms, movement and gesture, mien and expression, local colouring, light and shadow, chiaroscuro and pose are severally distinguished in due relation of course to the requirements of the object previously selected." This formula is more significant in its actual terms than other definitions in vogue. If we proceed to ask what the "characteristic" is we find that it implies, first, a content, as, for instance, a definite emotion, situation, event, action, individual person or thing; secondly, the specific manner in accordance with which such a content is represented. It is to this mode or manner of presentation that the artistic principle of the "characteristic" is related. It requires that every aspect of detail in the mode of expression shall subserve the clearer definition of that expression's content, and become a vital member of such expression.
The abstract determination of the characteristic emphasizes therefore the pertinency with which particular detail ought to bring into prominence the content which it is intended to reproduce. Attempting an elucidation of this conception apart from technical phrase we may state the limitation implied in it as follows: In the drama, for instance, it is an action which constitutes the content. That is to say, the drama has to represent how this or that action takes place. Now men do all kinds of different things. They speak to each other, take their meals, sleep, put on their clothes, say this and that, and all the rest of it. But in all this business of life what does not lie in immediate relation with the particular action selected as the real dramatic content, must be excluded in order that relatively to it everything shall be significant. In the same way in a picture which only includes one moment of that action, and it is possible to accumulate—such are the countless vistas into which the objective world draws us—a mass of circumstances, persons, situations or other occurrences, which stand in no relation to the specific action as it actually occurs, nor subserve in any way the clearer characterization of the same. But according to the definition given of the characteristic only that ought to enter into a work of art, which is appertinent to the manifestation and essential expression of precisely this one content and no other. Nothing must declare itself as idle or superfluous.
This definition is no doubt of real importance, and from a certain point of view admits of justification. Meyer, however, in the work cited, is of opinion that the view propounded has vanished, every vestige of it, and in his opinion only to the advantage of art. Such a conception he thinks would in all probability lead to caricature. This judgment is based on the previous idea that an attempt of this kind to define the beautiful once and for all is associated with the notion of prescription. The philosophy of art has absolutely nothing to do with precepts for artists. The object is to unfold the essential nature of the beautiful, and—apart from any intention to propound rules for the executant—how it is illustrated in actual work, that is works of art. To such a criticism we may observe that the definition of Hirt no doubt includes what is capable of being caricature, for caricature may also be characteristic. The obvious point to make, however, against it is this, that in caricature character in its definition is emphasized to the point of exaggeration and is, if we may say so, a superfluity of the characteristic. But a surfeit of this kind is no longer appropriate to the characteristic, but a burdensome reiteration whereby the characteristic may itself be ousted from what it ought to be. Moreover, what is of the nature of caricature is displayed as the characteristic presentment of what is ugly, which is of course a mode of distortion. Ugliness is in its own right in this way more closely related to the content[27], so that it may be actually asserted that the principle of the characteristic includes also ugliness and the presentment of the same as a part of its essential determination. The definition of Hirt, of course, gives us no further account of the content of the beautiful. It merely supplies us in this respect with a purely formal statement, which, however, contains real truth in it although formulated in abstract terms.
There is, however, the further question—what Meyer would substitute for the artistic principle of Hirt, what he proposes himself? He deals in the first instance exclusively with the principle as we have it in ancient works of art, which, however, must contain in the widest connotation of the term the essential determinant[28] of beauty[29]. In doing so he finds occasion to refer to Mengs and to Winckelmann's definition of the Ideal, and expresses himself to the effect that he does not wish either to reject or wholly to accept this principle of beauty, but on the other hand that he feels no hesitation in subscribing to the opinion of an enlightened judge of art (that is Goethe), inasmuch as its meaning is distinct and it appears to solve the problem with more accuracy. Now what Goethe says is this: "The highest principle of the ancients was the significant; the highest result of successful artistic handling is the beautiful."
If we look more closely at what this dictum implies we have again once more two aspects, that is to say a content or subject matter, and the mode of its presentation. In our consideration of a work of art we begin with that which is directly presented to us, and after seeing it we proceed to inquire what its significance or content is. That external husk possesses no value to us simply as such. We assume that there is an inward, an ideality or a significance behind it, in virtue of which the external appearance is made alive with mind or spirit. It is to this, its soul, that the external appearance points and attests. For an appearance which is significant of something does not present itself to us, and merely that which it is quâ externality, but something other than this; as also does the symbol for example and with yet more clarity the fable, the significance of which is simply the moral and teaching of the same. In fact there is no word which does not point to a meaning, possessing no value by itself. In the same way the human eye, the face, flesh, skin, the entire presence are a revelation of spirit, intelligence and soul; and in such a case the significance is without exception something beyond that which is offered in the bare appearance. In this way too the work of art must possess significance; it must not appear to have told its tale simply in the fact of particular lines, curves, surfaces, indentations, reliefs of stone-work, in particular colours, tones, sounds of words, whatever medium in fact art may employ. Its function is to unveil an inward or ideal vitality, emotion, soul, a content and mind, which is precisely what we mean by the significance of a work of art.
This demand, therefore, for significance in a work of art is to all intents, and in its embrace much the same thing as Hirt's principle of the characteristic.
According to this conception we find as characteristic constituents of the beautiful an inward somewhat, a content, and an external rind which possesses that content as its significance. The inner or ideal constituent appears in the external and thus enables itself to be recognized, that which is external pointing away from itself to the inward.