Art Principles with Special Reference to Painting: Together with Notes on the Illusions Produced by the PainterGovett, Ernest
Philosophy
Art Principles with Special Reference to Painting: Together with Notes on the Illusions Produced by the Painter
Govett, Ernest
Art; Painting
The musician in producing his art proceeds in precisely the same way as
the poet or painter. He takes natural signs and rearranges them in a new
order, producing a combination which is not to be found complete in
nature, but every sign therein is natural and must necessarily be so.
The higher the flight of the poet, or musician, or painter, or sculptor,
the farther is the result from nature, but nevertheless the whole aim of
the musician, as of the poet, is to represent emotional effects or
natural phenomena beyond experience in life, as the great sculptor
represents form and expression, and the great poet besides these things,
every abstract quality, passion, and emotional effect, above this
experience; but he cannot do more; he cannot represent something outside
of nature, and so must imitate, that is, in the sense of representation.
Darwin notes that even a perfect musical scale can be found in nature.
He says[b]:
It is a remarkable fact that an ape, a species of the gibbon
family, produces an exact octave of musical sounds, ascending and
descending the scale by half tones. From this fact, and from the
analogy of other animals, I have been led to infer that the
progenitors of man probably uttered musical tones, and that
consequently, when the voice is used under any strong emotion, it
tends to assume, through the principle of association, a musical
character.
It has been further demonstrated that the strength of the sensory
impressions from certain sounds is due to the structure of the ear, and
that generally a particular kind of sound produces a similar kind of
emotional effect in animals as in man. Obviously the musician is
powerless to do more than widen or deepen this effect. Colvin admits
that the musician sometimes directly imitates, as when he produces the
notes of birds or the sounds of natural forces, or when he represents
particular emotions; but he regards the former instances as hazardous
and exceptional, and indicates that a particular emotional harmony may
affect the hearers differently. True, but the hazard of the first
condition is the result of the limitations of the artist, and the second
condition is the consequence of the limitations of the art. The effect
of music being purely sensorial must vary with the emotional conditions
surrounding the hearer. The musician does what he can, but he is unable
to go so far as the poet and produce an emotional effect which will with
certainty be recognized by every person affected, at all times, as
having the same particular bearing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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