SECTION I.
The taste, the sense by which we distinguish the flavor of our food, has produced, in all known languages, the metaphor expressed by the word "taste"—a feeling of beauty and defects in all the arts. It is a quick perception, like that of the tongue and the palate, and in the same manner anticipates consideration. Like the mere sense, it is sensitive and luxuriant in respect to the good, and rejects the bad spontaneously; in a similar way it is often uncertain, divided, and even ignorant whether it ought to be pleased; lastly, and to conclude the resemblance, it sometimes requires to be formed and corrected by habit and experience.
To constitute taste, it is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it. Neither will it suffice to feel and be affected in a confused or ignorant manner; it is necessary to distinguish the different shades; nothing ought to escape the promptitude of its discernment; and this is another instance of the resemblance of taste, the sense, to intellectual taste; for an epicure will quickly feel and detect a mixture of two liquors, as the man of taste and connoisseur will, with a single glance, distinguish the mixture of two styles, or a defect by the side of a beauty. He will be enthusiastically moved with this verse in the Horatii:
Que voulez-vous qu'il fît contre trois?—Qu'il mourût!
What have him do 'gainst three?—Die!
He feels involuntary disgust at the following:
Ou qu'un beau désespoir alors le secourût.
—ACT iii, sc. 6.
Or, whether aided by a fine despair.
As a physical bad taste consists in being pleased only with high seasoning and curious dishes, so a bad taste in the arts is pleased only with studied ornament, and feels not the pure beauty of nature.
A depraved taste in food is gratified with that which disgusts other people: it is a species of disease. A depraved taste in the arts is to be pleased with subjects which disgust accomplished minds, and to prefer the burlesque to the noble, and the finical and the affected to the simple and natural: it is a mental disease. A taste for the arts is, however, much more a thing of formation than physical taste; for although in the latter we sometimes finish by liking those things to which we had in the first instance a repugnance, nature seldom renders it necessary for men in general to learn what is necessary to them in the way of food, whereas intellectual taste requires time to duly form it. A sensible young man may not, without science, distinguish at once the different parts of a grand choir of music; in a fine picture, his eyes at first sight may not perceive the gradation, the chiaroscuro perspective, agreement of colors, and correctness of design; but by little and little his ears will learn to hear and his eyes to see. He will be affected at the first representation of a fine tragedy, but he will not perceive the merit of the unities, nor the delicate management that allows no one to enter or depart without a sufficient reason, nor that still greater art which concentrates all the interest in a single one; nor, lastly, will he be aware of the difficulties overcome. It is only by habit and reflection, that he arrives spontaneously at that which he was not able to distinguish in the first instance. In a similar way, a national taste is gradually formed where it existed not before, because by degrees the spirit of the best artists is duly imbibed. We accustom ourselves to look at pictures with the eyes of Lebrun, Poussin, and Le Sueur. We listen to musical declamation from the scenes of Quinault with the ears of Lulli, and to the airs and accompaniments with those of Rameau. Finally, books are read in the spirit of the best authors.
If an entire nation is led, during its early culture of the arts, to admire authors abounding in the defects and errors of the age, it is because these authors possess beauties which are admired by everybody, while at the same time readers are not sufficiently instructed to detect the imperfections. Thus, Lucilius was prized by the Romans, until Horace made them forget him; and Regnier was admired by the French, until the appearance of Boileau; and if old authors who stumble at every step have, notwithstanding, attained great reputation, it is because purer writers have not arisen to open the eyes of their national admirers, as Horace did those of the Romans, and Boileau those of the French.
It is said that there is no disputation on taste, and the observation is correct in respect to physical taste, in which the repugnance felt to certain aliments, and the preference given to others, are not to be disputed, because there is no correction of a defect of the organs. It is not the same with the arts which possess actual beauties, which are discernible by a good taste, and unperceivable by a bad one; which last, however, may frequently be improved. There are also persons with a coldness of soul, as there are defective minds; and in respect to them, it is of little use to dispute concerning predilections, as they possess none.