1. Definition of

⚫ful."

CHAPTER VI.

OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY.

ANY material object which can give us pleasure in the simple contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct and definite exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, or in some degree, beautiful. Why we receive pleasure the term "beauti- from some forms and colors, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. The utmost subtilty of investigation will only lead us to ultimate instincts and principles of human nature, for which no farther reason can be given than the simple will of the Deity that we should be so created. We may, indeed, perceive, as far as we are acquainted with His nature, that we have been so constructed as, when in a healthy and cultivated state of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever things are illustrative of that nature; but we do not receive pleasure from them because they are illustrative of it, nor from any perception that they are illustrative of it, but instinctively and necessarily, as we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of

a rose.

On these primary principles of our nature, education and accident operate to an unlimited extent; they may be cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted by right guidance with the most acute and faultless sense, or subjected by neglect to every phase of error and disease. He who has followed up these natural laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more authoritative by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always from that which God originally intended should give him pleasure, and who derives the greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object, is a man of taste.

This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed § 2. Definition of word. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the term "taste." the greatest possible pleasure from those material

which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity ection. He who receives little pleasure from these wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other as false or bad taste.

tion

And it is thus that the term "taste" is to be and distinguished from that of "judgment," with

which it is constantly confounded. Judgment is a erm, expressing definite action of the intellect, and e to every kind of subject which can be submitted to e may be judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, t of justice, and judgment of difficulty and excellence. hese exertions of the intellect are totally distinct from perly so called, which is the instinctive and instant g of one material object to another without any obvious xcept that it is proper to human nature in its perfec› do.

Observe, however, I do not mean by excluding ae in- direct exertion of the intellect from ideas of beauty,

beau

to assert that beauty has no effect upon nor conwith the intellect. All our moral feelings are so inith our intellectual powers, that we cannot affect the out in some degree addressing the other; and in all s of beauty, it is more than probable that much of the depends on delicate and untraceable perceptions of ropriety, and relation, which are purely intellectual, ough which we arrive at our noblest ideas of what is y and rightly called "intellectual beauty.' But there immediate exertion of the intellect; that is to say, if receiving even the noblest ideas of simple beauty be y he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able ny distinct reason, nor to trace in his mind any formed to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. He that the thing gratifies, fills, hallows, exalts his mind, vill not be able to say why, or how. If he can, and if how that he perceives in the object any expression of thought, he has received more than an idea of beautydea of relation.

of beauty are among the noblest which can be presented uman mind, invariably exalting and purifying it ac

§ 5. The high rank

ideas of beauty.

cording to their degree; and it would appear that we are intended by the Deity to be constantly under their influence, because there is not one single object in nature which and function of is not capable of conveying them, and which, to the rightly perceiving mind, does not present an incalculably greater number of beautiful than of deformed parts; there being in fact scarcely anything, in pure, undiseased nature, like positive deformity, but only degrees of beauty, or such slight and rare points of permitted contrast as may render all around them more valuable by their opposition, spots of blackness in creation, to make its colors felt.

But although everything in nature is more or $6. Meaning of the term "ideal less beautiful, every species of object has its own beauty." kind and degree of beauty; some being in their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any, individuals possessing the utmost degree of beauty of which the species is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily coexistent with the utmost perfection of the object in other respects, is the ideal of the object.

Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral, but not of intellectual perception. By the investigation of them we shall be led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art.

I USE th quately expr comprehend

11 General meaning of the term.

of the name tion of intel relation infer not incorrect

(2 What ideas are to be comprebended under it.

as much defin

lar thoughts ture,) everyt the congruity each other's

tion, but as particular a

or to enjoy: palling light, particular to pression of 1

CHAPTER VII.

D

ean

-m.

OF IDEAS OF RELATION.

this term rather as one of convenience than as adexpressive of the vast class of ideas which I wish to be ended under it, namely, all those conveyable by art, which are the subjects of distinct intellectual perception and action, and which are therefore worthy me of thoughts. But as every thought, or definite exerntellect, implies two subjects, and some connection or nferred between them, the term "ideas of relation" is rect, though it is inexpressive.

deas

er it.

Under this head must be arranged everything pre- productive of expression, sentiment, and character, whether in figures or landscapes, (for there may be definite expression and marked carrying out of particghts in the treatment of inanimate as of animate naerything relating to the conception of the subject and to ruity and relation of its parts; not as they enhance er's beauty by known and constant laws of composias they give each other expression and meaning, by r application, requiring distinct thought to discover oy: the choice, for instance, of a particular lurid or apght, to illustrate an incident in itself terrible, or of a r tone of pure color to prepare the mind for the exof refined and delicate feeling; and, in a still higher e invention of such incidents and thoughts as can be 1 in words as well as on canvas, and are totally indeof any means of art but such as may serve for the bare on of them. The principal object in the foreground of "Building of Carthage" is a group of children sailing 3. The exquisite choice of this incident, as expressive of g passion, which was to be the source of future great

ness, in preference to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is seen,-it has nothing to do with the technicalities of painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the idea and spoken. to the intellect as much as the elaborate realizations of color. Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order. Claude, in subjects of the same kind, commonly introduces people carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and dwells, with infantine delight, on the lustre of the leather and the ornaments of the iron. The intellect can have no occupation here; we must look to the imitation or to nothing. Consequently, Turner rises above Claude in the very first instant of the conception of his picture, and acquires an intellectual superiority which no powers of the draughtsman or the artist (supposing that such existed in his antagonist). could ever wrest from him.

$3. The exceeding nobility of these ideas.

Such are the function and force of ideas of relation. They are what I have asserted in the second chapter of this section to be the noblest subjects of art. Dependent upon it only for expression, they cause all the rest of its complicated sources of pleasure to take, in comparison with them, the place of mere language or decoration; nay, even the noblest ideas of beauty sink at once beside these into subordination and subjection. It would add little to the influence of Landseer's picture above instanced, Chap. II., § 4, that the form of the dog should be conceived with every perfection of curve and color which its nature was capable of, and that the ideal lines should be carried out with the science of a Praxiteles; nay, the instant that the beauty so obtained interfered with the impression of agony and desolation, and drew the mind away from the feeling of the animal to its outward form, that instant would the picture become monstrous and degraded. The utmost glory of the human body is a mean subject of contemplation, compared to the emotion, exertion and character of that which animates it; the lustre of the limbs of the Aphrodite is faint beside that of the brow of the Madonna; and the divine form of the Greek god, except as it is the incarnation and expression of divine mind, is degraded beside the passion and the prophecy of the vaults of the Sistine.

the most

94 Why no st divison of so

Hove a class

decessary.

ment. Bu ras withou we shall b concerned therefore 1

artists, wil knowledge

By the express all at the inst lectual pow