Parallel Paths: A Study in Biology, Ethics, and Art

by T. W. Rolleston

The characteristics of Beauty will be further discussed in connexion with some of the individual arts, which we have now to range under our general principle.

The more deeply life is studied and felt, the more strongly do two great and cardinal principles of it come into view. These are opposed to each other, but complementary; and thus life in general appears to exhibit that singular quality of polarity which seems so intimately to pervade all its separate manifestations; everything which lives and moves appearing to do so by virtue of the action of two opposing forces. These two poles of the axis of life are, on the one hand, what we call Order, Continuity, Rhythm; and on the other, Change, Variety, Contrast. If Order were not, Change would become chaos. If Change were not, Order would become death. In neither case would growth and development be possible.

An art, therefore, however abstract, like Music or like the decorative pattern in a Celtic MS., which expressed the union of these two principles might be profoundly expressive of life. It need not set before us any definite living thing provided it expresses the cardinal principles of all life. It will do this the better the more intimately these principles are blended, as in nature, into a vital unity.

On the other hand, art does, of course, frequently represent individual objects, and probably had its first distinguishable beginnings in so doing.[180] We may, then, get a broad classification of the arts by placing on one side those which deal with objects of sense, and on the other those which convey life under forms devised by the artist himself, and not found in the external world. One is tempted to call these respectively Imitative and Creative. But, after all, what is essentially artistic in the first category is just the fact that it is not purely imitative, for, as Mr.

Whistler observed, to suppose that you can get art by copying nature is equivalent to thinking that you can get music by sitting on the piano. On the other hand, it does not seem fitting to use so exalted a word as creation with reference to the pattern which a Zuñi Indian draws on a piece of pottery, while denying it to a painting by Titian. Instead, therefore, of using the words Creative and Imitative—now that we know what we mean by them—we shall contrast those arts which are directly Presentative with those which are Representative. In the one case the artist presents us with the whole artistic product, form and substance, as devised by himself. In the other, he represents to us forms already presented by nature, but re-composed, re-presented, and harmonized by him for an æsthetic purpose.

The Presentative arts fall into two classes. In one of these Music stands alone. Here the artistic purpose is not only dominant but (I speak, of course, of music in its highest and most characteristic development) there is no other purpose whatever. The forms elaborated by combinations and sequences of sound have no object except that of art and mean nothing apart from that. Hence Music has been called ‘pure style.’ We shall recur to this subject when we have dealt with the other class, that of the Decorative arts, the essence of which it is to add an expression of rhythm, of world-harmony, to objects whose primary purpose is something different—a building, a vase, a piece of furniture, or a hanging. This class, again, can be subdivided into arts which attain this effect by the structure of the object, and those which do so by the application of ornament to its surface; both being, of course, often combined in the same object.

In structure the expression of life is gained by so arranging the lines and masses as to give an impression that power is at work—that something is being done—done triumphantly yet not without strain and effort. Every object of utility does something—art shows it to us in the act. An example may help to make clear what I mean, and may show how the principle can be applied to any kind of object which may be the subject of artistic treatment.

A Greek temple in its simplest external aspect consists of a quadrilateral group of columns surrounding a walled shrine and supporting a low-pitched roof. Nothing could well be simpler than the structural conditions thus expressed. But the artistic expression of them is not so simple. This depends in the main upon the proportion observed between the pillars and the weight, or apparent weight, above them. If the pillars are too massive or too numerous there will be no sense of strain, and if they are too slender or too few there will be no sense of security. In either case the expression of vital energy in the structure will be imperfect, and beauty, which waits on the golden moment of the perfect adaptation of means to ends, will not dwell in that structure. There is nothing more inartistic than superfluity; and there is no lesson more emphatically taught by nature than this. The avoidance of insufficiency is generally enforced in practice on utilitarian grounds, but its artistic justification is equally evident. The golden mean is what we call Just Proportion.

The kind of vitality expressed in Greek architecture is quite different from that expressed in Gothic, but the æsthetic basis of both styles is the same; the principle we have in view will justify any art in which there is the spirit of life. A Greek temple shows us power, braced and conscious, but in repose. There is nothing daring or sensational in its construction. Stress and thrust answer each other directly, simply, massively. The stately calm of such a structure might easily become dull and monotonous were it not for the delicate sense of proportion governing the relations of the parts, for the introduction of slight deviations from strict rectangularity and symmetry,[181] and for the beautiful decoration in form and colour on frieze, pediment, and capital.