Aesthetic Poetry | Page 2

problem whether it has to be
placed beside religion and philosophy as being nothing else than a
particular mode or a special form of revealing God to consciousness,
and of expressing the deepest interests of human nature and the widest
truths of the human mind.
For it is in their works of art that the nations have imprinted their
favorite thoughts and their richest intuitions, and not unfrequently the
fine arts are the only means by which we can penetrate into the secrets
of their wisdom and the mysteries of their religion.
It is made a reproach to art that it produces its effects by appearance
and illusion; but can it be established that appearance is objectionable?
The phenomena of nature and the acts of human life are nothing more
than appearances, and are yet looked upon as constituting a true reality;
for this reality must be sought for beyond the objects perceived
immediately by the sense, the substance and speech and principle
underlying all things manifesting itself in time and space through these
real existences, but preserving its absolute existence in itself. Now, the
very special object and aim of art is to represent the action and
development of this universal force. In nature this force or principle
appears confounded with particular interests and transitory
circumstances, mixed up with what is arbitrary in the passions and in
individual wills. Art sets the truth free from the illusory and
mendacious forms of this coarse, imperfect world, and clothes it in a
nobler, purer form created by the mind itself. Thus the forms of art, far
from being mere appearances, perfectly illusory, contain more reality
and truth than the phenomenal existences of the real world. The world
of art is truer than that of history or nature.
Nor is this all: the representations of art are more expressive and
transparent than the phenomena of the real world or the events of
history. The mind finds it harder to pierce through the hard envelop of
nature and common life than to penetrate into works of art.
Two more reflections appear completely to meet the objection that art
or aesthetics is not entitled to the name of science.

It will be generally admitted that the mind of man has the power of
considering itself, of making itself its own object and all that issues
from its activity; for thought constitutes the essence of the mind. Now
art and its work, as creations of the mind, are themselves of a spiritual
nature. In this respect art is much nearer to the mind than nature. In
studying the works of art the mind has to do with itself, with what
proceeds from itself, and is itself.
Thus art finds its highest confirmation in science.
Nor does art refuse a philosophical treatment because it is dependent on
caprice, and subject to no law. If its highest aim be to reveal to the
human consciousness the highest interest of the mind, it is evident that
the substance or contents of the representations are not given up to the
control of a wild and irregular imagination. It is strictly determined by
the ideas that concern our intelligence and by the laws of their
development, whatever may be the inexhaustible variety of forms in
which they are produced. Nor are these forms arbitrary, for every form
is not fitted to express every idea. The form is determined by the
substance which it has to suit.
A further consideration of the true nature of beauty, and therefore of the
vocation of the artist, will aid us still more in our endeavor to show the
high dignity of art and of aesthetics. The history of philosophy presents
us with many theories on the nature of the beautiful; but as it would
lead us too far to examine them all, we shall only consider the most
important among them. The coarsest of these theories defines the
beautiful as that which pleases the senses. This theory, issuing from the
philosophy of sensation of the school of Locke and Condillac, only
explains the idea and the feeling of the beautiful by disfiguring it. It is
entirely contradicted by facts. For it converts it into desire, but desire is
egotistical and insatiable, while admiration is respectful, and is its own
satisfaction without seeking possession.
Others have thought the beautiful consists in proportion, and no doubt
this is one of the conditions of beauty, but only one. An
ill-proportioned object cannot be beautiful, but the exact
correspondence of parts, as in geometrical figures, does not constitute

beauty.
A noted ancient theory makes beauty consist in the perfect suitableness
of means to their end. In this case the beautiful is not the useful, it is the
suitable; and the latter idea is more akin to that of beauty. But