St. Thomas thus sums up the objective conditions of the beautiful: integrity or perfection, proportion or harmony, and clarity or splendour.[205]
56. Some Definitions of the Beautiful.—An object is beautiful when its contemplation pleases us; and this takes place when the object, complete and entire in itself, possesses that order, harmony, proportion of parts, which will call forth the full and vigorous exercise of our cognitive activity. All this amounts to saying that the beauty of a thing is the revelation or manifestation of its natural perfection.[206] Perfection is thus the foundation of beauty; the showing forth of this perfection is what constitutes beauty formally. Every real being has a nature which constitutes it, and activities whereby it tends to realize the purpose of its existence. Now the perfection of any nature is manifested by the proportion of its constitutive parts and by the harmony of all its activities. Hence we see that order is essential to beauty because order shows forth the perfection of the beautiful. An object is beautiful in the degree in which the proportion of its parts and the harmony of its activities show forth the perfection of its nature.
Thus, starting with the subjective, a posteriori definition of beauty from its effect: beauty is that whose contemplation pleases us—we have passed to the objective and natural definition of beauty by its properties: beauty is the evident integrity, order, proportion and harmony, of an object—and thence to what we may call the a priori or synthetic definition, which emphasizes the perfection revealed by the static and dynamic order of the thing: the beauty of an object is the manifestation of its natural perfection by the proportion of its parts and the harmony of its activities.[207]
A few samples of the many definitions that have been set forth by various authors will not be without interest. Vallet[208] defines beauty as the splendour of perfection. Other authors define it as the splendour of order. These definitions sacrifice clearness to brevity. Beauty is the splendour of the true. This definition, commonly attributed to Plato, but without reason, is inadequate and ambiguous. Cousin[209] defines beauty as unity in variety. This leaves out an essential element, the clarity or clear manifestation of order. Kant defines beauty as the power an object possesses of giving free play to the imagination without transgressing the laws of the understanding.[210] [pg 202] This definition emphasizes the necessary harmony of the beautiful with our cognitive faculties, and the fact that the esthetic sentiment is not capricious but subject to the laws of the understanding. It is, however, inadequate, in as much as it omits all reference to the objective factors of beauty.
57. Classifications. The Beautiful in Nature.—All real beauty is either natural or artificial. Natural beauty is that which characterizes what we call the “works of Nature” or the “works of God”. Artificial beauty is the beauty of “works of art”.
Again, just as we can distinguish the real beauty of the latter from the ideal beauty which the human artist conceives in his mind as its archetype and exemplar cause, so, too, we can distinguish between the real beauty of natural things and the ideal beauty of their uncreated archetypes in the Mind of the Divine Artist.
We know that the beauty of the human artist's ideal is superior to, and never fully realized in, that of the actually achieved product of his art. Is the same true of the natural beauty of God's works? That the works of God in general are beautiful cannot be denied; His Wisdom “spreads beauty abroad” throughout His works; He arranges all things according to weight and number and measure:cum pondere, numero et mensura; His Providence disposes all things strongly and sweetly: fortiter et suaviter. But while creatures, by revealing their own beauty, reflect the Uncreated beauty of God in the precise degree which He has willed from all eternity, it cannot be said that they all realize the beauty of their Divine Exemplars according to His primary purpose and decree. Since there is physical and moral evil in the universe, since there are beings which fail to realize their ends, to attain to the perfection of their natures, it follows that these beings are not beautiful. In so far forth as they have real being, and the goodness or perfection which is identical with their reality, it may be admitted that all real beings are fundamentally beautiful; for goodness or perfection is the foundation of beauty.[211] But in so far as they fail to realize the perfection due to their natures they lack even the foundation of beauty. Furthermore, in order that a thing which has the full perfection due to its nature be formally beautiful, it must actually show forth by the clearness of its proportions [pg 203] and the harmony of its activities the fulness of its natural perfections. But there is no need to prove that this is not universally verified in nature—or in art either. And hence we must infer that formal beauty is not a transcendental attribute of reality.[212]
Real beauty may be further divided into material or sensible or physical, and intellectual or spiritual. The former reveals itself to hearing, seeing and imagination; the latter can be apprehended only by intellect; but intellect depends for all its objects on the data of the imagination. The beauty of spiritual realities is of course of a higher, nobler and more excellent order than that of the realities of sense. The spiritual beauty which falls directly within human experience is that of the human spirit itself; from the soul and its experiences we can rise to an apprehension—analogical and inadequate—of the Beauty of the Infinite Being. In the soul itself we can distinguish two sources of beauty: what we may call its natural endowments such as intellect and will, and its moral dispositions, its perfections and excellences as a free, intelligent, moral agent—its virtues. Beauty of soul, especially the moral beauty of the virtuous soul, is incomparably more precious than beauty of body. The latter, of course, like all real beauty in God's creation, has its proper dignity as an expression and revelation, however faint and inadequate, of the Uncreated Beauty of the Deity. But inasmuch as it is so inferior to the moral beauty proper to man, in itself so frail and evanescent, in its influence on human passions so dangerous to virtue, we can understand why in the Proverbs of Solomon it is proclaimed to be vain and deceitful in contrast with the moral beauty of fearing the Lord: Fallax gratia et vana est pulchritudo; mulier timens dominum ipsa laudabitur.[213]
58. The Beautiful in Art. Scope and Function of the [pg 204] Fine Arts.—The expression of beauty is the aim of the fine arts. Art in general is “the proper conception of a work to be accomplished”: “ars nihil aliud est quam recta ratio aliquorum operum faciendorum”.[214] While the mechanical arts aim at the production of things useful, the fine arts aim at the production of things beautiful, i.e. of works which by their order, symmetry, harmony, splendour, etc., will give such apt expression to human ideals of natural beauty as to elicit esthetic enjoyment in the highest possible degree. The artist, then, must be a faithful student and admirer of all natural beauty; not indeed to aim at exact reproduction or imitation of the latter; but to draw therefrom his inspiration and ideals. Even the most beautiful things of nature express only inadequately the ideal beauty which the human mind may gather from the study of them. This ideal is what the artist is ever struggling to express, with the ever-present and tormenting consciousness that the achievement of his highest effort will fall immeasurably short of giving adequate expression to it.
If each of the things of nature were so wholly simple and intelligible as to present the same ideal type of beauty to all, and leave no room for individual differences of interpretation, there would be no variety in the products of artistic genius, except indeed what would result from perfect or imperfect execution. But the things of nature are complex, and in part at least enigmatical; they present different aspects to different minds and suggest a variety of interpretations; they leave large scope to the play of the imagination both as to conception of the ideal itself and as to the arrangement and manipulation of the sensible materials in which the ideal is to find expression. By means of these two functions, conception and expression, the genius of the artist seeks to interpret and realize for us ideal types of natural beauty.