Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851

by Various

With Mr Ruskin we are of opinion that, in a discussion of this kind, the term Beauty ought to be limited to the impression derived, mediately or immediately, from the visible object. It would be useless affectation to attempt to restrict the use of the word, in general, to this application. We can have no objection to the term Beautiful being applied to a piece of music, or to an eloquent composition, prose or verse, or even to our moral feelings and heroic actions; the word has received this general application, and there is, at basis, a great deal in common between all these and the sentiment of beauty attendant on the visible object. For music, or sweet sounds, and poetry, and our moral feelings, have much to do (through the law of association) with our sentiment of the Beautiful. It is quite enough if, speaking of the subject of our analysis, we limit it to those impressions, however originated, which attend upon the visible object.

One preliminary word on this association of ideas. It is from its very nature, and the nature of human life, of all degrees of intimacy—from the casual suggestion, or the case where the two ideas are at all times felt to be distinct, to those close combinations where the two ideas have apparently coalesced into one, or require an attentive analysis to separate them. You see a mass of iron; you may be said to see its weight, the impression of its weight is so intimately combined with its form. The light of the sun, and the heat of the sun are learnt from different senses, yet we never see the one without thinking of the other, and the reflection of the sunbeam seen upon a bank immediately suggests the idea of warmth. But it is not necessary that the combination should be always so perfect as in this instance, in order to produce the effect we speak of under the name of Association of Ideas. It is hardly possible for us to abstract the glow of the sunbeam from its light; but the fertility which follows upon the presence of the sun, though a suggestion which habitually occurs to reflective minds, is an association of a far less intimate nature. It is sufficiently intimate, however, to blend with that feeling of admiration we have when we speak of the beauty of the sun. There is the golden harvest in its summer beams. Again, the contemplative spirit in all ages has formed an association between the sun and the Deity, whether as the fittest symbol of God, or as being His greatest gift to man. Here we have an association still more refined, and of a somewhat less frequent character, but one which will be found to enter, in a very subtle manner, into that impression we receive from the great luminary.

And thus it is that, in different minds, the same materials of thought may be combined in a closer or laxer relationship. This should be borne in mind by the candid inquirer. That in many instances ideas from different sources do coalesce, in the manner we have been describing, he cannot for an instant doubt. He seems to see the coolness of that river; he seems to see the warmth on that sunny bank. In many instances, however, he must make allowance for the different habitudes of life. The same illustration will not always have the same force to all men. Those who have cultivated their minds by different pursuits, or lived amongst scenery of a different character, cannot have formed exactly the same moral association with external nature.

These preliminaries being adjusted, what, we ask, is that first original charm of the visible object which serves as the foundation for this wonderful superstructure of the Beautiful, to which almost every department of feeling and of thought will be found to bring its contribution? What is it so pleasurable that the eye at once receives from the external world, that round it should have gathered all these tributary pleasures? Light—colour—form; but, in reference to our discussion, pre-eminently the exquisite pleasure derived from the sense of light, pure or coloured. Colour, from infancy to old age, is one original, universal, perpetual source of delight, the first and constant element of the Beautiful.

We are far from thinking that the eye does not at once take cognisance of form as well as colour. Some ingenious analysts have supposed that the sensation of colour is, in its origin, a mere mental affection, having no reference to space or external objects, and that it obtains this reference through the contemporaneous acquisition of the sense of touch. But there can be no more reason for supposing that the sense of touch informs us immediately of an external world than that the sense of colour does. If we do not allow to all the senses an intuitive reference to the external world, we shall get it from none of them. Dr Brown, who paid particular attention to this subject, and who was desirous to limit the first intimation of the sense of sight to an abstract sensation of unlocalised colour, failed entirely in his attempt to obtain from any other source the idea of space or outness; Kant would have given him certain subjective forms of the sensitive faculty, space and time. These he did not like: he saw that, if he denied to the eye an immediate perception of the external world, he must also deny it to the touch; he therefore prayed in aid certain muscular sensations from which the idea of resistance would be obtained. But it seems to us evident that not till after we have acquired a knowledge of the external world can we connect volition with muscular movement, and that, until that connection is made, the muscular sensations stand in the same predicament as other sensations, and could give him no aid in solving his problem. We cannot go further into this matter at present.[6] The mere flash of light which follows the touch upon the optic nerve represents itself as something without; nor was colour, we imagine, ever felt, but under some form more or less distinct; although in the human being the eye seems to depend on the touch far more than in other animals, for its further instruction.

But although the eye is cognisant of form as well as colour, it is in the sensation of colour that we must seek the primitive pleasure derived from this organ. And probably the first reason why form pleases is this, that the boundaries of form are also the lines of contrast of colour. It is a general law of all sensation that, if it be continued, our susceptibility to it declines. It was necessary that the eye should be always open. Its susceptibility is sustained by the perpetual contrast of colours. Whether the contrast is sudden, or whether one hue shades gradually into another, we see here an original and primary source of pleasure. A constant variety, in some way produced, is essential to the maintenance of the pleasure derived from colour.

It is not incumbent on us to inquire how far the beauty of form may be traceable to the sensation of touch;—a very small portion of it we suspect. In the human countenance, and in sculpture, the beauty of form is almost resolvable into expression; though possibly the soft and rounded outline may in some measure be associated with the sense of smoothness to the touch. All that we are concerned to show is, that there is here in colour, diffused as it is over the whole world, and perpetually varied, a beauty at once showered upon the visible object. We hear it said, if you resolve all into association, where will you begin? You have but a circle of feelings. If moral sentiment, for instance, be not itself the beautiful, why should it become so by association. There must be something else that is the beautiful, by association with which it passes for such. We answer, that we do not resolve all into association; that we have in this one gift of colour, shed so bountifully over the whole world, an original beauty, a delight which makes the external object pleasant and beloved; for how can we fail, in some sort, to love what produces so much pleasure?

We are at a loss to understand how any one can speak with disparagement of colour as a source of the beautiful. The sculptor may, perhaps, by his peculiar education, grow comparatively indifferent to it: we know not how this may be; but let any man, of the most refined taste imaginable, think what he owes to this source, when he walks out at evening, and sees the sun set amongst the hills. The same concave sky, the same scene, so far as its form is concerned, was there a few hours before, and saddened him with its gloom; one leaden hue prevailed over all; and now in a clear sky the sun is setting, and the hills are purple, and the clouds are radiant with every colour that can be extracted from the sunbeam. He can hardly believe that it is the same scene, or he the same man. Here the grown-up man and the child stand always on the same level. As to the infant, note how its eye feeds upon a brilliant colour, or the living flame. If it had wings, it would assuredly do as the moth does. And take the most untutored rustic, let him be old, and dull, and stupid, yet, as long as the eye has vitality in it, will he look up with long untiring gaze at this blue vault of the sky, traversed by its glittering clouds, and pierced by the tall green trees around him.

Is it any marvel now that round the visible object should associate tributary feelings of pleasure? How many pleasing and tender sentiments gather round the rose! Yet the rose is beautiful in itself. It was beautiful to the child by its colour, its texture, its softly-shaded leaf, and the contrast between the flower and the foliage. Love, and poetry, and the tender regrets of advanced life, have contributed a second dower of beauty. The rose is more to the youth and to the old man than it was to the child; but still to the last they both feel the pleasure of the child.

The more commonplace the illustration, the more suited it is to our purpose. If any one will reflect on the many ideas that cluster round this beautiful flower, he will not fail to see how numerous and subtle may be the association formed with the visible object. Even an idea painful in itself may, by way of contrast, serve to heighten the pleasure of others with which it is associated. Here the thought of decay and fragility, like a discord amongst harmonies, increases our sentiment of tenderness. We express, we believe, the prevailing taste when we say that there is nothing, in the shape of art, so disagreeable and repulsive as artificial flowers. The waxen flower may be an admirable imitation, but it is a detestable thing. This partly results from the nature of the imitation; a vulgar deception is often practised upon us: what is not a flower is intended to pass for one. But it is owing still more, we think, to the contradiction that is immediately afterwards felt between this preserved and imperishable waxen flower, and the transitory and perishable rose. It is the nature of the rose to bud, and blossom, and decay; it gives its beauty to the breeze and to the shower; it is mortal; it is ours; it bears our hopes, our loves, our regrets. This waxen substitute, that cannot change or decay, is a contradiction and a disgust.