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
Though having a widely extended general meaning, the term "Art" in
common parlance applies to the fine arts only, but the term "Arts" has
reference as well to certain industries which have utility for their
primary object. This work considers only the fine arts, and when the
writer uses the term "Art" or "Arts" he refers to one or more of these
arts, unless a particular qualification is added. The definition of
"Art" as applied to the fine arts, upon which he relies, is "The
production of beauty for the purpose of giving pleasure," or as it is
more precisely put, "The beautiful representation of nature for the
purpose of giving disinterested pleasure." This is, broadly, the
definition generally accepted, and is certainly the understanding of
art which has guided the hands of all the creators of those great works
in the various arts before which men have bowed as triumphs of human
skill.
There has been no satisfactory definition of "Beauty," nor can the term
be shortly interpreted until there is a general agreement as to what it
covers. Much of the confusion arising from the contradictory theories of
æstheticists in respect of the perception of beauty is apparently due to
the want of separate consideration of emotional beauty and beauty of
mind, that is to say, the beauty of sensorial effects and beauty of
expression respectively.[1] There are kinds of sensorial beauty which
depend for their perception upon immediately preceding sensory
experience, or particular coexistent surroundings which are not
necessarily permanent, while in other cases a certain beauty may be
recognized and subsequently appear to vanish altogether. From this it is
obvious that any æsthetic system based upon the existence of an
objectivity of beauty must fall to the ground. On the other hand,
without an objectivity there can be no system, because in its absence a
line of reasoning explaining cause and effect in the perception of
beauty, which is open to demonstration, is naturally impossible. Nor may
we properly speak of a philosophy of art.[2] We may reasonably consider
æsthetics a branch of psychology, but the emotions arising from the
recognition of beauty vary only in degree and not in kind, whether the
beauty be seen in nature or art. Consequently there can be no separate
psychological enquiry into the perception of beauty created by art as
distinguished from that observable in nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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