Beauty and the Beast: An Essay in Evolutionary Aesthetic

by Stewart Andrew McDowall

There is a yearning for something, a sense of something lacking. It is vague—so vague that the only representation of it that has ever adequately expressed at once its aspirations, its lack and its indeterminateness, is Blake’s drawing “I want—I want.” Of these three things it is compounded, of lack, of aspiration, and of self-ignorance that knows neither what it lacks nor what it desires; and these three determine its salient character—that of an impulse. That it is really an impulse becomes clear directly we examine its effects. It produces a desire to create. In the young, the uncontrolled, the illiterate, the creative impulse may be definitely sexual. Passion is undoubtedly stimulated in simple natures by the beautiful, and we shall see when we come to discuss the evolution of aesthetic sensibility that this fact is of the profoundest spiritual import. For the moment we need only note that this sex-impulse is creative. In natures artistically more developed yet not truly originative, the creative impulse is a desire to repeat the thing that has given this sense of beauty—to paint the sunset, to play the sonata, to declaim the poem. Yet even here we must note the germ of originality. The repetition is no mere reproduction. Elimination and emphasis make it in some measure a new creation. This is obvious in the less rigid arts, painting and music; but it is present even where the form is definite. Hear two different people, or the same person in two different moods, read the same poem, and see how different a thing it can be! In more artistic natures still, truly original, the desire to create is conscious, the desire to reproduce less. The thing created need not, probably will not, be of the same kind. The moon-glade on the sea enriching by contrast the blackness of the rocky headland, will inspire the musician to write, not a moonlight sonata, for true music is free from sensuous symbolism, but a pure rhythm of sound. To suggest visual symbols in sound is to prostitute music, to drive it back into the sensationalism from which it has freed itself. It is, further, to confuse the mind by attempting to combine two incompatible media of technical expression. As animal passion is to love, so is Carrier’s “La Chasse” to a Bach prelude[10].

We see, then, that the psychological effect of the beautiful is to produce a creative impulse, based on the lack and the aspiration which give rise to a sense of yearning desire. We see that it is indeterminate, for it attempts to satisfy itself in very various ways. We see that in so far as it creates successfully, it finds some satisfaction.

Now all this fits admirably with Croce’s theory of beauty. Beauty is for us the expression of that of which we have intuition. In realising the beauty of a symphony or picture we have ourselves re-created the intuition of the artist. In realising the beauty of a natural scene we have expressed an intuition of the reality that lies behind that scene; a creative act. We shall later go beyond Croce in this matter, referring our creative act to a re-creation of the intuition of God, and this will lead us to consider the aesthetic meaning of God’s creation; but for the time we need not pursue this thought.

Our next business is, clearly, to analyse the yearning which precedes the creative act. We have said that this originates in dissatisfaction. What is this dissatisfaction? One other thing produces a feeling that is not merely analogous, but absolutely identical. When you love a person intensely and are uncertain if it is reciprocated, because no sign, or no sufficient sign, is given, you experience the same dissatisfaction, the same yearning and the same creative impulse. In primitive natures the impulse may fulfil itself in sexual excitement; in higher ones it is expressed in art. It is a commonplace to say that some of the world’s greatest creative work is done under the stimulus of love. The poems of lovers furnish the most prominent example, not only their love poems, but the poems inspired by their love, like the Divina Commedia; but we need not seek far for examples in the other arts. Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony was inspired by his love for the Countess Theresa von Brunswick. Tchaikovsky found inspiration in his Platonic love for Nadejda von Meck, whom he had never seen. His sad, abnormal friendships were an inspiration to Michael Angelo.

Now in both cases, paradoxical as it may seem, the dissatisfaction is due to receiving without giving. At first sight this seems to be exactly the opposite of the truth. Surely a man is pouring out his love, and receiving no return, one is inclined to say. But a moment’s thought will convince us that the first statement is the true one. All the beauty, all the grace, all the interest and the charms of the loved one are given to us in unstinted measure, and we can give nothing in return. We may not even express our love, our desire to serve, but in the trivial services that convention allows. Yet how we prize these little services that we can render! How we seek out opportunity of rendering them! We receive; we can give no adequate return. It is that which determines our dissatisfaction. If the gift of our love is refused, dissatisfaction is most poignant. Commonly we say that the beloved refuses to give anything in such a case. Exactly the reverse is true. The beloved gives, and cannot avoid giving, but will receive nothing from us.

Now think of a perfect marriage or a perfect friendship. There is little trace of dissatisfaction there; only rest and happiness. We receive, but we give again, and our gift may be given without measure; may equal, or nearly equal what we receive; may at least be all that we can give. There is perfect reciprocity, and in reciprocity we find rest.

The creative impulse does not cease, service and gifts do not cease, but the spirit is free from longing dissatisfaction.

Turn now to the dissatisfaction produced by appreciation of the beautiful. We receive everything, we can give nothing at all (to the beautiful thing); and so dissatisfaction is at its highest. We love the thing in which we find beauty, but the love is one-sided. The cases are identical. It is no mere phrase when we speak of the love of beauty and the beauty of love. Unwittingly we express the truth of an absolute interdependence. Love is relationship, beauty the expression of relationship. In this sentence lies our thesis. Croce calls Beauty the expression of an Intuition; we shall define that intuition as the intuition of Relationship, Love being the relationship itself, intuitively known; known, that is, as Reality—as the fundamental quality of Personal Being, which is the only ultimate Reality. Because the intuition of Love is expressed, it enters immediately the domain of Aesthetic. Doubtless it is conceptualised; and hand in hand with this theoretic activity of the spirit goes the practical. Love is essentially practical, and, as Croce says, you can never separate or give priority to either the theoretic or the practical activity. The difference, then, between beauty and love that is returned lies in the fact that in the second there is reciprocity. You give, as well as receiving. In all love there is some reciprocity; the loved one cannot help being conscious of, and receiving, something of the spirit that moves out in such wise. The love of a being seen but once is purely aesthetic. Only this corresponds to the aesthetic appreciation of a scene, and even this not exactly; for the being is potentially capable of receiving, the scene is not.

It is worth noticing at this point that, though Greek thought arrived at no adequate idea of beauty, Greek Mythology did arrive at complete understanding. And this gives little cause for wonder, considering to what a level the love of the beautiful developed in ancient Greece, and considering too how myth represents the unreasoned, intuitive wishes and ideas of an infantile age[11]. We often wonder at the depths which mythology plumbs. Accepting Croce’s scheme, it is the more easy to understand. The myth of Pygmalion is subtly suggestive. Pygmalion created beauty, and longed for it to reciprocate his love, and out of his longing life and love were born. Beauty was for him one-sided love; hence his yearning and his dissatisfaction.