Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Fenton, Edward" to "Finistere" / Volume 10, Slice 3

by Various

Architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry are by common consent, as has been said at the outset, the five principal or greater fine arts practised among developed communities of men. It is possible in thought to group Modes in which the five greater arts have been classified. these five arts in as many different orders as there are among them different kinds of relation or affinity. One thinker fixes his attention upon one kind of relations as the most important, and arranges his group accordingly; another upon another; and each, when he has done so, is very prone to claim for his arrangement the virtue of being the sole essentially and fundamentally true. For example, we may ascertain one kind of relations between the arts by inquiring which is the simplest or most limited in its effects, which next simplest, which another degree less simple, which least simple or most complex of them all. This, the relation of progressive complexity or comprehensiveness between the fine arts, is the relation upon which Auguste Comte fixed his attention, and it yields in his judgment the following order:—Architecture lowest in complexity, because both of the kinds of effects which it produces and of the material conditions and limitations under which it works; sculpture next; painting third; then music; and poetry highest, as the most complex or comprehensive art of all, both in its own special effects and in its resources for ideally calling up the effects of all the other arts as well as all the phenomena of nature and experiences of life. A somewhat similar grouping was adopted, though from the consideration of a wholly different set of relations, by Hegel. Hegel fixed his attention on the varying relations borne by the idea, or spiritual element, to the embodiment of the idea, or material element, in each art. Leaving aside that part of his doctrine which concerns, not the phenomena of the arts themselves, but their place in the dialectical world-plan or scheme of the universe, Hegel said in effect something like this. In certain ages and among certain races, as in Egypt and Assyria, and again in the Gothic age of Europe, mankind has only dim ideas for art to express, ideas insufficiently disengaged and realized, of which the expression cannot be complete or lucid, but only adumbrated and imperfect; the characteristic art of those ages is a symbolic art, with its material element predominating over and keeping down its spiritual; and such a symbolic art is architecture. In other ages, as in the Greek age, the ideas of men have come to be definite, disengaged, and clear; the characteristic art of such an age will be one in which the spiritual and material elements are in equilibrium, and neither predominates over nor keeps down the other, but a thoroughly realized idea is expressed in a thoroughly adequate and lucid form; this is the mode of expression called classic, and the classic art is sculpture. In other ages, again, and such are the modern ages of Europe, the idea grows in power and becomes importunate; the spiritual and material elements are no longer in equilibrium, but the spiritual element predominates; the characteristic arts of such an age will be those in which thought, passion, sentiment, aspiration, emotion, emerge in freedom, dealing with material form as masters or declining its shackles altogether; this is the romantic mode of expression, and the romantic arts are painting, music and poetry. A later systematizer, Lotze, fixed his attention on the relative degrees of freedom or independence which the several arts enjoy—their freedom, that is, from the necessity of either imitating given facts of nature or ministering, as part of their task, to given practical uses. In his grouping, instead of the order architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, music comes first, because it has neither to imitate any natural facts nor to serve any practical end; architecture next, because, though it is tied to useful ends and material conditions, yet it is free from the task of imitation, and pleases the eye in its degree, by pure form, light and shade, and the rest, as music pleases the ear by pure sound; then, as arts all tied to the task of imitation, sculpture, painting and poetry, taken in progressive order according to the progressing comprehensiveness of their several resources.

The thinker on these subjects has, moreover, to consider the enumeration and classification of the lesser or subordinate fine arts. Whole clusters or families of these occur to the mind at once; such as dancing, an art subordinate Place of the minor or subordinate fine arts. to music, but quite different in kind; acting, an art auxiliary to poetry, from which in kind it differs no less; eloquence in all kinds, so far as it is studied and not merely spontaneous; and among the arts which fashion or dispose material objects, embroidery and the weaving of patterns, pottery, glassmaking, goldsmith’s work and jewelry, joiner’s work, gardening (according to the claim of some), and a score of other dexterities and industries which are more than mere dexterities and industries because they add elements of beauty and pleasure to elements of serviceableness and use. To decide whether any given one of these has a right to the title of fine art, and, if so, to which of the greater fine arts it should be thought of as appended and subordinate, or between which two of them intermediate, is often no easy task.

The weak point of all classifications of the kind of which we have above given examples is that each is intended to be final, and to serve instead of any other. The truth is, that the relations between the several fine arts are No one classification final or sufficient. much too complex for any single classification to bear this character. Every classification of the fine arts must necessarily be provisional, according to the particular class of relations which it keeps in view. And for practical purposes it is requisite to bear in mind not one classification but several. Fixing our attention, not upon complicated or problematical relations between the various arts, but only upon their simple and undisputed relations, and giving the first place in our consideration to the five greater arts of architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry, we shall find at least three principal modes in which every fine art either resembles or differs from the rest.

1. The Shaping and the Speaking Arts (or Arts of Form and Arts of Utterance, or Arts of Space and Arts of Time).—Each of the greater arts either makes something or not which can be seen and handled. The arts which make something which can be First classification: the shaping and the speaking arts. seen and handled are architecture, sculpture and painting. In the products or results of all these arts external matter is in some way or another manually put together, fashioned or disposed. But music and poetry do not produce any results of this kind. What music produces is something that can be heard, and what poetry produces is something that can be either heard or read—which last is a kind of ideal hearing, having for its avenue the eye instead of the ear, and for its material, written signs for words instead of the spoken words themselves. Now what the eye sees from any one point of view, it sees all at once; in other words, the parts of anything we see fill or occupy not time but space, and reach us from various points in space at a single simultaneous perception. If we are at the proper distance we see at one glance a house from the ground to the chimneys, a statue from head to foot, and in a picture at once the foreground and background, and everything that is within the four corners of the frame. There is, indeed, this distinction to be drawn, that in walking round or through a temple, church, house or any other building, new parts and proportions of the building unfold themselves to view; and the same thing happens in walking round a statue or turning it on a turntable: so that the spectator, by his own motions and the time it takes to effect them, can impart to architecture and sculpture something of the character of time arts. But their products, as contemplated from any one point of view, are in themselves solid, stationary and permanent in space. Whereas the parts of anything we hear, or, reading, can imagine that we hear, fill or occupy not space at all but time, and can only reach us from various points in time through a continuous series of perceptions, or, in the case of reading, of images raised by words in the mind. We have to wait, in music, while one note follows another in a theme, and one theme another in a movement; and in poetry, while one line with its images follows another in a stanza, and one stanza another in a canto, and so on. It is a convenient form of expressing both aspects of this difference between the two groups of arts, to say that architecture, sculpture and painting are arts which give shape to things in space, or, more briefly, shaping arts; and music and poetry arts which give utterance to things in time, or, more briefly, speaking arts. These simple terms of the shaping and the speaking arts (the equivalent of the Ger. bildende und redende Künste) are not usual in English; but they seem appropriate and clear; the simplest alternatives for their use is to speak of the manual and the vocal arts, or the arts of space and the arts of time. This is practically, if not logically, the most substantial and vital distinction upon which a classification of the fine arts can be based. The arts which surround us in space with stationary effects for the eye, as the house we live in, the pictures on the walls, the marble figure in the vestibule, are stationary, hold a different kind of place in our experience—not a greater or a higher place, but essentially a different place—from the arts which provide us with transitory effects in time, effects capable of being awakened for the ear or mind at any moment, as a symphony is awakened by playing and an ode by reading, but lying in abeyance until we bid that moment come, and passing away when the performance or the reading is over. Such, indeed, is the practical force of the distinction that in modern usage the expression fine art, or even art, is often used by itself in a sense which tacitly excludes music and poetry, and signifies the group of manual or shaping arts alone.

As between three of the five greater arts and the other two, the distinction on which we are now dwelling is complete. Buildings, statues, pictures, belong strictly to sight and space; to time and to hearing, real through the ear, or ideal through Intermediate class of arts of motion. the mind in reading, belong music and poetry. Among the lesser or subordinate arts, however, there are several in which this distinction finds no place, and which produce, in space and time at once, effects midway between the stationary or stable, and the transitory or fleeting. Such is the dramatic art, in which the actor makes with his actions and gestures, or several actors make with the combination of their different actions and gestures, a kind of shifting picture, which appeals to the eyes of the witnesses while the sung or spoken words of the drama appeal to their ears; thus making of them spectators and auditors at once, and associating with the pure time art of words the mixed time-and-space art of bodily movements. As all movement whatsoever is necessarily movement through space, and takes time to happen, so every other fine art which is wholly or in part an act of movement partakes in like manner of this double character. Along with acting thus comes dancing. Dancing, when it is of the mimic character, may itself be a kind of acting; historically, indeed, the dancer’s art was the parent of the actor’s; whether apart from or in conjunction with the mimic element, dancing is an art in which bodily movements obey, accompany, and, as it were, express or accentuate in space the time effects of music. Eloquence or oratory in like manner, so far as its power depends on studied and premeditated gesture, is also an art which to some extent enforces its primary appeal through the ear in time by a secondary appeal through the eye in space. So much for the first distinction, that between the shaping or space arts and the speaking or time arts, with the intermediate and subordinate class of arts which, like acting, dancing, oratory, add to the pure time element a mixed time-and-space element. These last can hardly be called shaping arts, because it is his own person, and not anything outside himself, which the actor, the dancer, the orator disposes or adjusts; they may perhaps best be called arts of motion, or moving arts.

2. The Imitative and the Non-Imitative Arts.—Each art either does or does not represent or imitate something which exists already in Second classification: the imitative and non-imitative arts. nature. Of the five greater fine arts, those which thus represent objects existing in nature are sculpture, painting and poetry. Those which do not represent anything so existing are music and architecture. On this principle we get a new grouping. Two shaping or space arts and one speaking or time art now form the imitative group of sculpture, painting and poetry; while one space art and one time art form the non-imitative group of music and architecture. The mixed space-and-time arts of the actor, and of the dancer, so far as he or she is also a mimic, belong, of course, by their very name and nature, to the imitative class.

It was the imitative character of the fine arts which chiefly occupied the attention of Aristotle. But in order to understand the art theories of Aristotle it is necessary to bear in mind the very different meanings which the idea of imitation The imitative functions of art according to Aristotle. bore to his mind and bears to ours. For Aristotle the idea of imitation or representation (mimēsis) was extended so as to denote the expressing, evoking or making manifest of anything whatever, whether material objects or ideas or feelings. Music and dancing, by which utterance or expression is given to emotions that may be quite detached from all definite ideas or images, are thus for him varieties of imitation. He says, indeed, most music and dancing, as if he was aware that there were exceptions, but he does not indicate what the exceptions are; and under the head of imitative music, he distinctly reckons some kinds of instrumental music without words. But in our own more restricted usage, to imitate means to copy, mimic or represent some existing phenomenon, some definite reality of experience; and we can only call those imitative arts which bring before us such things, either directly by showing us their actual likeness, as sculpture does in solid form, and as painting does by means of lines and colours on a plane surface, or else indirectly, by calling up ideas or images of them in the mind, as poetry and literature do by means of words. It is by a stretch of ordinary usage that we apply the word imitation even to this last way of representing things; since words are no true likeness of, but only customary signs for, the thing they represent. And those arts we cannot call imitative at all, which by combinations of abstract sound or form express and arouse emotions unattended by the recognizable likeness, idea or image of any definite thing.

Now the emotions of music when music goes along with words, whether in the shape of actual song or even of the instrumental accompaniment of song, are no doubt in a certain sense attended with definite ideas; those, namely, which are Non-imitative character of music. expressed by the words themselves. But the same ideas would be conveyed to the mind equally well by the same words if they were simply spoken. What the music contributes is a special element of its own, an element of pure emotion, aroused through the sense of hearing, which heightens the effect of the words upon the feelings without helping to elucidate them for the understanding. Nay, it is well known that a song well sung produces its intended effect upon the feelings almost as fully though we fail to catch the words or are ignorant of the language to which they belong. Thus the view of Aristotle cannot be defended on the ground that he was familiar with music only in an elementary form, and principally as the direct accompaniment of words, and that in his day the modern development of the art, as an art for building up constructions of independent sound, vast and intricate fabrics of melody and harmony detached from words, was a thing not yet imagined. That is perfectly true; the immense technical and intellectual development of music, both in its resources and its capacities, is an achievement of the modern world; but the essential character of musical sound is the same in its most elementary as in its most complicated stage. Its privilege is to give delight, not by communicating definite ideas, or calling up particular images, but by appealing to certain organic sensibilities in our nerves of hearing, and through such appeal expressing on the one part and arousing on the other a unique kind of emotion. The emotion caused by music may be altogether independent of any ideas conveyable by words. Or it may serve to intensify and enforce other emotions arising at the same time in connexion with the ideas conveyed by words; and it was one of the contentions of Richard Wagner that in the former phase the art is now exhausted, and that only in the latter are new conquests in store for it. But in either case the music is the music, and is like nothing else; it is no representation or similitude of anything whatsoever.

But does not instrumental music, it will be said, sometimes really imitate the sounds of nature, as the piping of birds, the whispering of woods, the moaning of storms or explosion of thunder; or does it not, at any rate, suggest these things by resemblances An objection and its answer. so close that they almost amount in the strict sense to imitation? Occasionally, it is true, music does allow itself these playful excursions into a region of quasi-imitation or mimicry. It modifies the character of its abstract sounds into something, so to speak, more concrete, and, instead of sensations which are like nothing else, affords us sensations which recognizably resemble those we receive from some of the sounds of nature. But such excursions are hazardous, and to make them often is the surest proof of vulgarity in a musician. Neither are the successful effects of the great composers in evoking ideas of particular natural phenomena generally in the nature of real imitations or representations; although passages such as the notes of the dove and nightingale in Haydn’s Creation, and of the cuckoo in Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, the bleating of the sheep in the Don Quixote symphony of Richard Strauss, must be acknowledged to be exceptions. Again, it is a recognized fact concerning the effect of instrumental music on those of its hearers who try to translate such effect into words, that they will all find themselves in tolerable agreement as to the meaning of any passage so long as they only attempt to describe it in terms of vague emotion, and to say such and such a passage expresses, as the case may be, dejection or triumph, effort or the relaxation of effort, eagerness or languor, suspense or fruition, anguish or glee. But their agreement comes to an end the moment they begin to associate, in their interpretation, definite ideas with these vague emotions; then we find that what suggests in idea to one hearer the vicissitudes of war will suggest to another, or to the same at another time, the vicissitudes of love, to another those of spiritual yearning and aspiration, to another, it may be, those of changeful travel by forest, field and ocean, to another those of life’s practical struggle and ambition. The infinite variety of ideas which may thus be called up in different minds by the same strain of music is proof enough that the music is not like any particular thing. The torrent of varied and entrancing emotion which it pours along the heart, emotion latent and undivined until the spell of sound begins, that is music’s achievement and its secret. It is this effect, whether coupled or not with a trained intellectual recognition of the highly abstract and elaborate nature of the laws of the relation, succession and combinations of sounds on which the effect depends, that has caused some thinkers, with Schopenhauer at their head, to find in music the nearest approach we have to a voice from behind the veil, a universal voice expressing the central purpose and deepest essence of things, unconfused by fleeting actualities or by the distracting duty of calling up images of particular and perishable phenomena. “Music,” in Schopenhauer’s own words, “reveals the innermost essential being of the world, and expresses the highest wisdom in a language the reason does not understand.”

Aristotle endeavoured to frame a classification of the arts, in their several applications and developments, on two grounds—the nature of the objects imitated by each, and the means or instruments employed in the imitation. But in the case of Definition of music. music, as it exists in the modern world, the first part of this endeavour falls to the ground, because the object imitated has, in the sense in which we now use the word imitation, no existence. The means employed by music are successions and combinations of vocal or instrumental sounds regulated according to the three conditions of time and pitch (which together make up melody) and harmony, or the relations of different strains of time and tone cooperant but not parallel. With these means, music either creates her independent constructions, or else accompanies, adorns, enforces the imitative art of speech—but herself imitates not; and may be best defined simply as a speaking or time art, of which the business is to express and arouse emotion by successions and combinations of regulated sound.