Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
It is not incumbent on us to inquire how far the beauty of form
may be traceable to the sensation of touch;--a very small portion
of it we suspect. In the human countenance, and in sculpture,
the beauty of form is almost resolvable into expression; though
possibly the soft and rounded outline may in some measure be
associated with the sense of smoothness to the touch. All that we
are concerned to show is, that there is here in colour, diffused
as it is over the whole world, and perpetually varied, a _beauty_
at once showered upon the visible object. We hear it said, if you
resolve all into association, where will you begin? You have but a
circle of feelings. If moral sentiment, for instance, be not itself
the beautiful, why should it become so by association. There must
be something else that is _the beautiful_, by association with
which it passes for such. We answer, that we do not resolve _all_
into association; that we have in this one gift of colour, shed so
bountifully over the whole world, an original beauty, a delight
which makes the external object pleasant and beloved; for how can we
fail, in some sort, to love what produces so much pleasure?
We are at a loss to understand how any one can speak with
disparagement of colour as a source of the beautiful. The sculptor
may, perhaps, by his peculiar education, grow comparatively
indifferent to it: we know not how this may be; but let any man,
of the most refined taste imaginable, think what he owes to this
source, when he walks out at evening, and sees the sun set amongst
the hills. The same concave sky, the same scene, so far as its form
is concerned, was there a few hours before, and saddened him with
its gloom; one leaden hue prevailed over all; and now in a clear sky
the sun is setting, and the hills are purple, and the clouds are
radiant with every colour that can be extracted from the sunbeam. He
can hardly believe that it is the same scene, or he the same man.
Here the grown-up man and the child stand always on the same level.
As to the infant, note how its eye feeds upon a brilliant colour, or
the living flame. If it had wings, it would assuredly do as the moth
does. And take the most untutored rustic, let him be old, and dull,
and stupid, yet, as long as the eye has vitality in it, will he look
up with long untiring gaze at this blue vault of the sky, traversed
by its glittering clouds, and pierced by the tall green trees around
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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