Lectures on Art by Washington Allston
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Washington Allston >> Lectures on Art
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For, among the many impossibilities, it is not the least to look upon
a living human form as a thing; in its pictured copies, as already
shown in a former discourse, it may be a thing, and a beautiful thing;
but the moment we conceive of it as living, if it show not a soul, we
give it one by a moral necessity; and according to the outward will be
the spirit with which we endow it. No poetic being, supposed of our
species, ever lived to the imagination without some indication of the
moral; it is the breath of its life: and this is also true in the
converse; if there be but a hint of it, it will instantly clothe
itself in a human shape; for the mind cannot separate them. In the
whole range of the poetic creations of the great master of truth,--we
need hardly say Shakspeare,--not an instance can be found where this
condition of life is ever wanting; his men and women all have souls.
So, too, when he peoples the air, though he describe no form, he never
leaves these creatures of the brain without a shape, for he will
sometimes, by a single touch of the moral, enable us to supply one.
Of this we have a striking instance in one of his most unsubstantial
creations, the "delicate Ariel." Not an allusion to its shape or
figure is made throughout the play; yet we assign it a form on its
very first entrance, as soon as Prospero speaks of its refusing to
comply with the" abhorred commands" of the witch, Sycorax. And again,
in the fifth act, when Ariel, after recounting the sufferings of the
wretched usurper and his followers, gently adds,--
"Your charm so strongly works them,
That, if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender."
On which Prospero remarks,--
"Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions?"
Now, whether Shakspeare intended it or not, it is not possible after
this for the reader to think of Ariel but in a human form; for slight
as these hints are, if they do not indicate the moral affections, they
at least imply something akin to them, which in a manner compels us to
invest the gentle Spirit with a general likeness to our own physical
exterior, though, perhaps, as indistinct as the emotion that called
for it.
We have thus considered the human being in his complex condition, of
body and spirit, or physical and moral; showing the impossibility of
even thinking of him in the one, to the exclusion of the other. We
may, indeed, successively think first of the form, and then of
the moral character, as we may think of any one part of either
analytically; but we cannot think of the _human being_ except
as a _whole_. It follows, therefore, as a consequence, that no
imitation of man can be true which is not addressed to us in this
double condition. And here it may be observed, that in Art there is
this additional requirement, that there be no discrepancy between the
form and the character intended,--or rather, that the form _must_
express the character, or it expresses nothing: a necessity which is
far from being general in actual nature. But of this hereafter.
Let us now endeavour to form some general notion of Man in his various
aspects, as presented by the myriads which people the earth. But whose
imagination is equal to the task,--to the setting in array before it
the countless multitudes, each individual in his proper form, his
proper character? Were this possible, we should stand amazed at the
interminable differences, the hideous variety; and that, too, no less
in the moral, than in the physical; nay, so opposite and appalling in
the former as hardly to be figured by a chain of animals, taking for
the extremes the fierce and filthy hyena and the inoffensive lamb.
This is man in the concrete,--to which, according to some, is to be
applied the _abstract Ideal!_
Now let us attempt to conceive of a being that shall represent all the
diversities of mind, affections, and dispositions, that fleck this
heterogeneous mass of humanity, and then to conceive of a Form that
shall be in such perfect affinity with it as to indicate them all. The
bare statement of the proposition shows its absurdity. Yet this must
be the office of a Standard Form; and this it must do, or it will be
a falsehood. Nor should we find it easier with any given number, with
twenty, fifty, nay, an hundred (so called) generic forms. We do not
hesitate to affirm, that, were it possible, it would be quite as easy
with one as with a thousand.
But to this it may be replied, that the Standard Form was never
intended to represent the vicious or degraded, but man in his most
perfect developement of mind, affections, and body. This is certainly
narrowing its office, and, unfortunately, to the representing of but
_one_ man; consequently, of no possible use beyond to the Painter
or Sculptor of Humanity, since every repetition of this perfect form
would be as the reflection of one multiplied by mirrors. But such
repetitions, it may be further answered, were never contemplated, that
Form being given only as an exemplar of the highest, to serve as a
guide in our approach to excellence; as we could not else know to a
certainty to what degree of elevation our conceptions might rise.
Still, in that case its use would be limited to a single object, that
is, to itself, its own perfectness; it would not aid the Artist in the
intermediate ascent to it,--unless it contained within itself all the
gradations of human character; which no one will pretend.
But let us see how far it is possible to _realize_ the Idea of a
_perfect_ Human Form.
We have already seen that the mere physical structure is not man, but
only a part; the Idea of man including also an internal moral being.
The external, then, in an _actually disjoined_ state, cannot,
strictly speaking, be the human form, but only a diagram of it. It is,
in fact, but a partial condition, becoming human only when united with
the internal moral; which, in proof of the union, it must of necessity
indicate. If we would have a true Idea of it, therefore, it must be as
a whole; consequently, the perfect physical exterior must have, as an
essential part, the perfect moral. Now come two important questions.
First, In what consists Moral Perfection? We use the word _moral_
here (from a want in our language) in its most comprehensive sense,
as including the spiritual and the intellectual. With respect to that
part of our moral being which pertains to the affections, in all their
high relations to God and man, we have, it is true, a sure and holy
guide. In a Christian land, the humblest individual may answer as
readily as the most profound scholar, and express its perfection in
the single word, Holiness. But what will be the reply in regard to the
Intellect? For what is a perfect Intellect? Is it the Dialectic, the
Speculative, or the Imaginative? Or, rather, would it not include them
all?
We proceed next to the Physical. What, then, constitutes its
Perfection? Here, it might seem, there can be no difficulty, and the
reply will probably be in naming all the excellent qualities in our
animal nature, such as strength, agility, fleetness, with every other
that can be thought of. The bare enumeration of these few qualities
may serve to show the nature of the task; yet a physically perfect
form requires them all; none must be omitted; it would else be
imperfect; nay, they must not only be there, but all be developed in
their highest degrees. We might here exclaim with Hamlet, though in a
very different sense,
"A combination and a form indeed!"
And yet there is no other way to express physical perfection. But
can it be so expressed? The reader must reply for himself. We will,
however, suppose it possible; still the task is incomplete without the
adjustment of these to the perfect Moral, in the highest known degrees
of its several elements. To those who can imagine _such_ a form
as shall be the sure exponent of _such_ a moral being,--and such
it must be, or it will be nothing,--we leave the task of constructing
this universal exemplar for multitudinous man. We may add, however,
one remark; that, supposing it possible thus to concentrate, and
with equal prominence, all the qualities of the species into one
individual, it can only be done by supplanting Providence, in other
words, by virtually overruling the great principle of subordination
so visibly impressed on all created life. For although, as we have
elswhere observed, there can be no sound mind (and the like may be
affirmed of the whole man), which is deficient in any one essential,
it does not therefore follow, that each of these essentials may not be
almost indefinitely differenced in the degrees of their developement
without impairing the human integrity. And such is the fact in actual
nature; nor does this in any wise affect the individual unity,--as
will be noticed hereafter.
We will now briefly examine the pretensions of what are called the
Generic Forms. And here we are met by another important characteristic
of the human being, namely, his essential individuality.
It is true that the human family, so called, is divided into many
distinct races, having each its peculiar conformation, color, and so
forth, which together constitute essential differences; but it is
to be remembered that these essentials are all physical; and _so
far_ they are properly generic, as implying a difference in kind.
But, though a striking difference is also observable in their moral
being, it is by no means of the same nature with that which marks
their physical condition, the difference in the moral being only of
degree; for, however fierce, brutal, stupid, or cunning, or gentle,
generous, or heroic, the same characteristics may each be paralleled
among ourselves; nay, we could hardly name a vice, a passion, or
a virtue, in Asia, Africa, or America, that has not its echo in
civilized Europe. And what is the inference? That climate and
circumstance, if such are the causes of the physical variety, have no
controlling power, except in degree, over the Moral. Does not this
undeniable fact, then, bring us to the fair conclusion, that the moral
being has no genera? To affirm otherwise would be virtually to
deny its responsible condition; since the law of its genus must be
paramount to all other laws,--to education, government, religion. Nor
can the result be evaded, except by the absurd supposition of generic
responsibilities! To us, therefore, it seems conclusive that a moral
being, as a free agent, cannot be subject to a generic law; nor
could he now be--what every man feels himself to be, in spite of
his theory--the fearful architect of his own destiny. In one sense,
indeed, we may admit a human genus,--such as every man must be in his
individual entireness.
Man has been called a microcosm, or little world. And such, however
mean and contemptible to others, is man to himself; nay, such he must
ever be, whether he wills it or not. He may hate, he may despise, yet
he cannot but cling to that without which he is not; he is the centre
and the circle, be it of pleasure or of pain; nor can he be other.
Touch him with misery, and he becomes paramount to the whole
world,--to a thousand worlds; for the beauty and the glory of the
universe are as nothing to him who is all darkness. Then it is that he
will _feel_, should he have before doubted, that he is not a mere
part, a fraction, of his kind, but indeed a world; and though little
in one sense, yet a world of awful magnitude in its capacity of
suffering. In one word, Man is a whole, _an Individual_.
If the preceding argument be admitted, it will be found to have
relieved the student of two delusive dogmas,--and the more delusive,
as carrying with them a plausible show of science.
As to the flowery declamations about Beauty, they would not here be
noticed, were they not occasionally met with in works of high merit,
and not unfrequently mixed up with philosophic truth. If they have
any definite meaning, it amounts to this,--that the Beautiful is the
summit of every possible excellence! The extravagance, not to say
absurdity, of such a proposition, confounding, as it does, all
received distinctions, both in the moral and the natural world, needs
no comment. It is hardly to be believed, however, that the writers in
question could have deliberately intended this. It is more probable,
that, in so expressing themselves, they were only giving vent to an
enthusiastic feeling, which we all know is generally most vague when
associated with admiration; it is not therefore strange that the
ardent expression of it should partake of its vagueness. Among the
few critical works of authority in which the word is so used, we may
mention the (in many respects admirable) Discourses of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, where we find the following sentence:--"The _beauty_ of
the Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo another;
which, of course, would present three different Ideas of Beauty." If
this had been said of various animals, differing in _kind_, the
term so applied might, perhaps, have been appropriate. But the same
term is here applied to objects of the same kind, differing not
essentially even in age; we say _age_, inasmuch as in the three
great divisions, or periods, of human life, namely, childhood,
youth, and maturity, the characteristic conditions of each are so
_essentially_ distinct, as virtually to separate them into
positive kinds.
But it is no less idle than invidious to employ our time in
overturning the errors of others; if we establish Truth, they will
fall of themselves. There cannot be two right sides to any question;
and, if we are right, what is opposed to us must of necessity he
wrong. Whether we are so or not must be determined by those who admit
or reject what has already been advanced on the subject of Beauty, in
the first Discourse. It will be remembered, that, in the course of our
argument there, we were brought to the conclusion, that Beauty was
the Idea of a certain physical _condition_, both general and
ultimate; general, as presiding over objects of many kinds, and
ultimate, as being the _perfection_ of that peculiar condition in
each, and therefore not applicable to, or representing, its degrees
in any; which, as approximations only to the one supreme Idea, should
truly be distinguished by other terms. Accordingly, we cannot,
strictly speaking, say of two persons of the same age and sex,
differing from each other, that they are equally beautiful. We hear
this, indeed, almost daily; it is nevertheless not the true expression
of the actual impression made on the speaker, though he may not take
the trouble to examine and compare them. But let him do so, and we
doubt not that he would find the one to rise (in however slight a
degree) above the other; and, if he did not assign a different term
to the lower, it would be only because he was not in the habit of
marking, or did not think it worth his while to note, such nice
distinctions.
If there is a _first_ and a _last_ to any thing, the
intermediates can be neither one nor the other; and, if we so name
them, we speak falsely. It is no less so with Beauty, which, being at
the head, or first in a series, admits no transference of its title.
We mean, if speaking strictly; which, however, we freely acknowledge,
no one can; but that is owing to the insufficiency of language, which
in no dialect could supply a hundredth part of the terms needed to
mark every minute shade of difference. Perhaps no subject requiring a
wider nomenclature has one so contracted; and the consequence is,
that no subject is more obscured by vague expressions. But it is the
business of the Artist, if he cannot form to himself the corresponding
terms, to be prepared at least to perceive and to note these various
shades. We do not say, that an actual acquaintance with all the nice
distinctions is an essential requisite, but only that it will not be
altogether useless to be aware of their existence; at any rate, it
may serve to shield him from the annoyance of false criticism, when
censured for wanting beauty where its presence would have been an
impertinence.
Before we quit the subject, it may not be amiss to observe, that, in
the preceding remarks, our object has been not so much to insist on
correct speaking as correct thinking. The poverty of language,
as already admitted, has made the former impossible; but, though
constrained in this, as in many other cases where a subordinate is put
for its principal, to apply the term Beautiful to its various degrees,
yet a right apprehension of what Beauty _is_ may certainly
prevent its misapplication as to other objects having no relation to
it. Nor is this a small matter where the avoiding of confusion is an
object desirable; and there is clearly some difference between an
approach to precision and utter vagueness.
We have now to consider how far the Correspondence between the
outward form and the inward being, which is assumed by the Artist, is
supported by fact.
In a fair statement, then, of facts, it cannot be denied that with
the mass of men the outward intimation of character is certainly very
faint, with many obscure, and with some ambiguous, while with others
it has often seemed to express the very reverse of the truth. Perhaps
a stronger instance of the latter could hardly occur than that cited
in a former discourse in illustration of the physical relation of
Beauty; where it was shown that the first and natural impression from
a beautiful form was not only displaced, but completely reversed, by
the revolting discovery of a moral discrepancy. But while we admit, on
the threshold, that the Correspondence in question cannot be sustained
as universally obvious, it is, nevertheless, not apprehended that this
admission can affect our argument, which, though in part grounded
on special cases of actual coincidence, is yet supported by other
evidences, which lead us to regard all such discrepancies rather as
exceptions, and as so many deviations from the original law of our
nature, nay, which lead us also rationally to infer at least a future,
potential correspondence in every individual. To the past, indeed, we
cannot appeal; neither can the past be cited against us, since little
is known of the early history of our race but a chronicle of their
actions; of their outward appearance scarcely any thing, certainly not
enough to warrant a decision one way or the other. Should we assume,
then, the Correspondence as a primeval law, who shall gainsay it? It
is not, however, so asserted. We may nevertheless hold it as a matter
of _faith_; and simply as such it is here submitted. But faith of
any kind must have some ground to rest on, either real or supposed,
either that of authority or of inference. Our ground of faith, then,
in the present instance, is in the universal desire amongst men to
_realize_ the Correspondence. Nothing is more common than,
on hearing or reading of any remarkable character, to find this
instinctive craving, if we may so term it, instantly awakened, and
actively employed in picturing to the imagination some corresponding
form; nor is any disappointment more general, than that which follows
the detection of a discrepancy on actual acquaintance. Indeed, we can
hardly deem it rash, should we rest the validity of this universal
desire on the common experience of any individual, taken at
random,--provided only that he has a particle of imagination. Nor
is its action dependent on our caprice or will. Ask any person of
ordinary cultivation, not to say refinement, how it is with him,
when, his imagination has not been forestalled by some definite fact;
whether he has never found himself _involuntarily_ associating
the good with the beautiful, the energetic with the strong, the
dignified with the ample, or the majestic with the lofty; the refined
with the delicate, the modest with the comely; the base with the
ugly, the brutal with the misshapen, the fierce with the coarse and
muscular, and so on; there being scarcely a shade of character to
which the imagination does not affix some corresponding form.
In a still more striking form may we find the evidence of the law
supposed, if we turn to the young, and especially to those of a poetic
temperament,--to the sanguine, the open, and confiding, the creatures
of impulse, who reason best when trusting only to the spontaneous
suggestions of feeling. What is more common than implicit faith in
their youthful day-dreams,--a faith that lives, though dream after
dream vanish into common air when the sorcerer Fact touches their
eyes? And whence this pertinacious faith that _will_ not die, but
from a spring of life, that neither custom nor the dry understanding
can destroy? Look at the same Youth at a more advanced age, when the
refining intellect has mixed with his affections, adding thought and
sentiment to every thing attractive, converting all things fair to
things also of good report. Let us turn, at the same time, to one
still more advanced,--even so far as to have entered into the
conventional valley of dry bones,--one whom the world is preparing,
by its daily practical lessons, to enlighten with unbelief. If we see
them together, perhaps we shall hear the senior scoff at his younger
companion as a poetic dreamer, as a hunter after phantoms that never
were, nor could be, in nature: then may follow a homily on the virtues
of experience, as the only security against disappointment. But there
are some hearts that never suffer the mind to grow old. And such we
may suppose that of the dreamer. If he is one, too, who is accustomed
to look into himself,--not as a reasoner,--but with an abiding faith
in his nature,--we shall, perhaps, hear him reply,--Experience, it is
true, has often brought me disappointment; yet I cannot distrust those
dreams, as you call them, bitterly as I have felt their passing off;
for I feel the truth of the source whence they come. They could not
have been so responded to by my living nature, were they but phantoms;
they could not have taken such forms of truth, but from a possible
ground.
By the word _poetic_ here, we do not mean the visionary or
fanciful,--for there may be much fancy where there is no poetic
feeling,--but that sensibility to _harmony_ which marks the
temperament of the Artist, and which is often most active in his
earlier years. And we refer to such natures, not only as being more
peculiarly alive to all existing affinities, but as never satisfied
with those merely which fall within their experience; ever striving,
on the contrary, as if impelled by instinct, to supply the deficiency
wherever it is felt. From such minds proceed what are called romantic
imaginings, but what we would call--without intending a paradox--the
romance of Truth. For it is impossible that the mind should ever have
this perpetual craving for the False.
But the desire in question is not confined to any particular age or
temperament, though it is, doubtless, more ardent in some than in
others. Perhaps it is only denied to the habitually vicious. For who,
not hardened by vice, has ever looked upon a sleeping child in its
first bloom of beauty, and seen its pure, fresh hues, its ever
varying, yet according lines, moulding and suffusing, in their playful
harmony, its delicate features,--who, not callous, has ever looked
upon this exquisite creature, (so like what a poet might fancy of
visible music, or embodied odors,) and has not felt himself carried,
as it were, out of this present world, in quest of its moral
counterpart? It seems to us perfect; we desire no change,--not a line
or a hue but as it is; and yet we have a paradoxical feeling of a
want,--for it is all _physical_; and we supply that want by
endowing the child with some angelic attribute. Why do we this? To
make it a _whole_,--not to the eye, but to the mind.
Nor is this general disposition to find a coincidence between a fair
exterior and moral excellence altogether unsupported by facts of, at
least, a partial realization. For, though a perfect correspondence
cannot be looked for in a state where all else is imperfect, he
is most unfortunate who has never met with many, and very near,
approximations to the desired union. But we have a still stronger
assurance of their predetermined affinity in the peculiar activity of
this desire where there is no such approximation. For example, when we
meet with an instance of the higher virtues in an unattractive form,
how natural the wish that that form were beautiful! So, too, on
beholding a beautiful person, how common the wish that the mind
it clothed were also good! What are these wishes but unconscious
retrospects to our primitive nature? And why have we them, if they be
not the workings of that universal law, which gathers to itself all
scattered affinities, bodying them forth in the never-ending forms of
harmony,--in the flower, in the tree, in the bird, and the animal,--if
they be not the evidence of its continuous, though fruitless, effort
to evolve too in _man_ its last consummate work, by the perfect
confluence of the body and the spirit? In this universal yearning (for
it seems to us no less) to connect the physical with its appropriate
moral,--to say nothing of the mysterious intuition that points to
the appropriate,--is there not something like a clew to what was
originally natural? And, again, in the never-ceasing strivings of the
two great elements of our being, each to supply the deficiencies of
the other, have we not also an intimation of something that _once
was_, that is now lost, and would be recovered? Surely there must
be more in this than a mere concernment of Art;--if, indeed, there be
not in Art more of the prophetic than we are now aware of. To us
it seems that this irrepressible desire to find the good in the
beautiful, and the beautiful in the good, implies an end, both
beyond and above the trifling present; pointing to deep and dark
questions,--to no less than where the mysteries which surround us will
meet their solution. One great mystery we see in part resolving itself
here. We see the deformities of the body sometimes giving place to
its glorious tenant. Some of us may have witnessed this, and felt
the spiritual presence gaining daily upon us, till the outward shape
seemed lost in its brightness, leaving no trace in the memory.
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