Y. H.
Helsingfors, August 1900.
CONTENTS
| [CHAPTER I] | ||
| PAGE | ||
| The Problem stated | 1 | |
| [CHAPTER II] | ||
| The Art-Impulse | 18 | |
| [CHAPTER III] | ||
| The Feeling-Tone of Sensation | 30 | |
| [CHAPTER IV] | ||
| The Emotions | 43 | |
| [CHAPTER V] | ||
| The Enjoyment of Pain | 56 | |
| [CHAPTER VI] | ||
| Social Expression | 72 | |
| [CHAPTER VII] | ||
| Deduction of Art-Forms | 86 | |
| [CHAPTER VIII] | ||
| Art the Reliever | 102 | |
| [CHAPTER IX] | ||
| The Work of Art | 111 | |
| [CHAPTER X] | ||
| Objections and Answers | 134 | |
| [CHAPTER XI] | ||
| The Concrete Origins of Art | 143 | |
| [CHAPTER XII] | ||
| Art and Information | 149 | |
| [CHAPTER XIII] | ||
| Historical Art | 164 | |
| [CHAPTER XIV] | ||
| Animal Display | 186 | |
| [CHAPTER XV] | ||
| Art and Sexual Selection | 203 | |
| [CHAPTER XVI] | ||
| The Origins of Self-Decoration | 214 | |
| [CHAPTER XVII] | ||
| Erotic Art | 228 | |
| [CHAPTER XVIII] | ||
| Art and Work | 249 | |
| [CHAPTER XIX] | ||
| Art and War | 261 | |
| [CHAPTER XX] | ||
| Art and Magic | 278 | |
| [CHAPTER XXI] | ||
| Conclusions | 298 | |
| [LIST OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED] | 307 | |
| [INDEX OF AUTHORS] | 323 | |
| [INDEX OF SUBJECTS] | 328 | |
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM STATED
When, one hundred and fifty years ago, Baumgarten wrote the treatise to which he gave the name Aesthetica, and which he described as a “theory of liberal arts and beautiful thinking,” it seemed to him needful to apologise for attracting attention to a field of inquiry so low and sensuous as that province of philosophy to which he then affixed a name. Many, he thought, might regard art and beauty, which appeal primarily to the senses, as subjects beneath the dignity of philosophers.[2] Yet the theories and the ideas which were first brought together as an organised body of thought in Baumgarten’s short manual had so deeply influenced the speculations of his age that, a generation later, the most important questions of life came to be treated as æsthetic problems. The philosophy of art, far from needing to justify its existence, dominated all philosophy—ethics, metaphysics, and even cosmogony. Imagination was treated as the ruling faculty in all creation, and beauty was referred to as the criterion, not only in art, but in morality. Yet the importance thus given to æsthetic speculation was transitory, and the period during which philosophers were concerned, not only to find a general criterion of beauty for the arts, but also to apply that criterion far beyond the sphere of art, has been succeeded by an age which neglects speculation on art and beauty for other tasks which are regarded as far more important. Such rapid changes within a few generations appear almost incomprehensible. But they can easily be explained if we take into account the intimate connection which always exists between æsthetic speculation and prevailing currents of thought.
In Mr. Bosanquet’s History of Æsthetic it has been pointed out with great clearness to what extent the earlier prosperity of æsthetic studies was caused by the general philosophical situation. The theory of æsthetic, as set forth in Baumgarten’s chapter on cognitio sensitiva, and further developed in Kant’s Kritik der Urtheilskraft, dealt, as is well known, with a form of judgment which is neither purely rational nor purely sensual.[3] In metaphysics, for philosophers who had to struggle with what seemed to them an irreconcilable opposition between reason and the senses, this conception of a mediative faculty must have satisfied a most urgent need. Similarly we may suppose that the ethical observer felt himself emancipated from the narrow antagonism between body and spirit by looking at our actions in the æsthetic way. In proportion, however, as general science has been able to do away with the old dualism of higher and lower faculties, the judgment of taste has necessarily lost importance. In the development of monistic philosophy and monistic morals we may thus see one important factor, by the influence of which æsthetic has been ousted from its central position.
The evolution of modern art has been still more injurious to æsthetic speculation than the progress of science. In the palmy days of art-philosophy conditions were eminently favourable to universal generalisations. The great periods of art, classical antiquity and the Renaissance, were so remote that only their simplest and most salient features were discerned. Nor did the art of the period exhibit the bewildering multiplicity of a fertile age,—least of all in Germany, the home and centre of æsthetic inquiry. The formative arts were less important than ever before; music, which was so soon to eclipse all other arts, had not yet awakened the interest of philosophers. The crafts were at a low ebb; landscape-gardening is indeed the only kind of applied art that we hear about at this time. Beauty, art, the ideal—these and all other general notions must have been suggested with unsurpassable simplicity by this uniform and monotonous artistic output. It is easy to understand the eagerness and the delight with which the earlier writers on æsthetic, once the impulse given, drew conclusions, made comparisons, and laid down laws. But it is equally evident that speculative zeal was bound to fall off as soon as the province of art was enlarged and its products differentiated.
Even the more intimate knowledge of classical culture which was subsequently gained, necessitated important corrections in æsthetic dogmas. The artistic activities of savage tribes, which have been practically unknown to æsthetic writers until recent years, display many features that cannot be harmonised with the general laws. And in a yet higher degree contemporary art defies the generalisations of a uniform theory. With greater mastery over materials and technique, the different arts have been able to produce more and more specialised forms of beauty. The painter’s ideal can no longer be confused with that of the poet or the story-teller, nor the sculptor’s with that of the actor. Pure music, pure poetry, pure painting, thus develop into isolated, independent arts, of which each one establishes its own laws and conditions for itself. The critic who, in spite of this evolution, tries to apply a narrow æsthetic standard of beauty to all the various arts may indeed—according to his influence—delay the public appreciation of modern works, and thus indirectly impede artistic development. But no amount of theorising will enable him to arrest the growth of artistic forms whose very existence contradicts the generalisations of the old systems. And he is equally powerless to stop such violations of the supposed frontiers of the different arts as continually occur, for instance, in descriptive music, or in poetry like that of Gautier, which aims at producing a pictorial impression by means of words.
It is only natural that, in times so inopportune, general speculations on art and beauty have been more and more abandoned in favour of detailed studies in the technicalities of art, historical researches in which works of art are considered chiefly as documents bearing on culture, and experiments on the physiology and psychology of æsthetic perception. For art itself and its development it would perhaps be unimportant if a science which has never exercised any great positive and direct influence on artistic production should completely disappear. But from the theoretical point of view it would be matter for regret if artistic activities ceased to be considered as a whole. And so also would it be if æsthetic feelings, judgments of taste, and ideals of beauty came to be treated only in appendices to works on psychology. It is true that all these notions have irremediably lost their former metaphysical and philosophical importance. But in compensation, art and beauty have for modern thinking acquired a social and psychological significance. To determine the part which the production and the enjoyment of works of art play in their relation to the other factors of individual and social life—that is indeed a task which is momentous enough to be treated in a science of its own. Modern æsthetic, therefore, has still its own ends, which, if not so ambitious as those of the former speculative science of beauty, are nevertheless of no small importance. These ends, however, can no longer be attained by the procedure of the old æsthetic systems. As the problems have changed with changing conditions, so too the methods must be brought into line with the general scientific development. Historical and psychological investigation must replace the dialectic treatment of the subject. Art can no longer be deduced from general, philosophical, and metaphysical principles; it must be studied—by the methods of inductive psychology—as a human activity. Beauty cannot be considered as a semi-transcendental reality; it must be interpreted as an object of human longing and a source of human enjoyment. In æsthetic proper, as well as in the philosophy of art, every research must start, not from theoretical assumptions, but from the psychological and sociological data of the æsthetic life.