Art | Page 3

199
II. SIMPLIFICATION AND DESIGN 215
III. THE PATHETIC FALLACY 239
V. THE FUTURE

I. SOCIETY AND ART 251
II. ART AND SOCIETY 276

ILLUSTRATIONS
I. WEI FIGURE FRONTISPIECE
II. PERSIAN DISH 3
III. PERUVIAN POT 75
IV. BYZANTINE MOSAIC 121
V. CÉZANNE 199
VI. PICASSO 251

I
WHAT IS ART?
I. THE AESTHETIC HYPOTHESIS
II. AESTHETICS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM
III. THE METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESIS
[Illustration: PERSIAN DISH, ELEVENTH CENTURY (?) _By
permission of Mr. Kevorkian of the Persian Art Gallery_]

I
THE AESTHETIC HYPOTHESIS

It is improbable that more nonsense has been written about aesthetics
than about anything else: the literature of the subject is not large
enough for that. It is certain, however, that about no subject with which
I am acquainted has so little been said that is at all to the purpose. The
explanation is discoverable. He who would elaborate a plausible theory
of aesthetics must possess two qualities--artistic sensibility and a turn
for clear thinking. Without sensibility a man can have no aesthetic
experience, and, obviously, theories not based on broad and deep
aesthetic experience are worthless. Only those for whom art is a
constant source of passionate emotion can possess the data from which
profitable theories may be deduced; but to deduce profitable theories
even from accurate data involves a certain amount of brain-work, and,
unfortunately, robust intellects and delicate sensibilities are not
inseparable. As often as not, the hardest thinkers have had no aesthetic
experience whatever. I have a friend blessed with an intellect as keen as
a drill, who, though he takes an interest in aesthetics, has never during a
life of almost forty years been guilty of an aesthetic emotion. So,
having no faculty for distinguishing a work of art from a handsaw, he is
apt to rear up a pyramid of irrefragable argument on the hypothesis that
a handsaw is a work of art. This defect robs his perspicuous and subtle
reasoning of much of its value; for it has ever been a maxim that
faultless logic can win but little credit for conclusions that are based on
premises notoriously false. Every cloud, however, has its silver lining,
and this insensibility, though unlucky in that it makes my friend
incapable of choosing a sound basis for his argument, mercifully blinds
him to the absurdity of his conclusions while leaving him in full
enjoyment of his masterly dialectic. People who set out from the
hypothesis that Sir Edwin Landseer was the finest painter that ever
lived will feel no uneasiness about an aesthetic which proves that
Giotto was the worst. So, my friend, when he arrives very logically at
the conclusion that a work of art should be small or round or smooth, or
that to appreciate fully a picture you should pace smartly before it or set
it spinning like a top, cannot guess why I ask him whether he has lately
been to Cambridge, a place he sometimes visits.
On the other hand, people who respond immediately and surely to
works of art, though, in my judgment, more enviable than men of

massive intellect but slight sensibility, are often quite as incapable of
talking sense about aesthetics. Their heads are not always very clear.
They possess the data on which any system must be based; but,
generally, they want the power that draws correct inferences from true
data. Having received aesthetic emotions from works of art, they are in
a position to seek out the quality common to all that have moved them,
but, in fact, they do nothing of the sort. I do not blame them. Why
should they bother to examine their feelings when for them to feel is
enough? Why should they stop to think when they are not very good at
thinking? Why should they hunt for a common quality in all objects
that move them in a particular way when they can linger over the many
delicious and peculiar charms of each as it comes? So, if they write
criticism and call it aesthetics, if they imagine that they are talking
about Art when they are talking about particular works of art or even
about the technique of painting, if, loving particular works they find
tedious the consideration of art in general, perhaps they have chosen
the better part. If they are not curious about the nature of their emotion,
nor about the quality common to all objects that provoke it, they have
my sympathy, and, as what they say is often charming and suggestive,
my admiration too. Only let no one suppose that what they write and
talk is aesthetics; it is criticism, or just "shop."
The starting-point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal
experience of a peculiar emotion. The objects that provoke this emotion
we call works of art. All sensitive