Education; Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804; Science -- Study and teaching
express an opinion on such a subject, the great majority of forms of
art are not in the sense what I just now defined them to be--pure art;
but they derive much of their quality from simultaneous and even
unconscious excitement of the intellect.
When I was a boy, I was very fond of music, and I am so now; and it so
happened that I had the opportunity of hearing much good music. Among
other things, I had abundant opportunities of hearing that great old
master, Sebastian Bach. I remember perfectly well--though I knew
nothing about music then, and, I may add, know nothing whatever about
it now--the intense satisfaction and delight which I had in listening,
by the hour together, to Bach's fugues. It is a pleasure which remains
with me, I am glad to think; but, of late years, I have tried to find
out the why and wherefore, and it has often occurred to me that the
pleasure derived from musical compositions of this kind is essentially
of the same nature as that which is derived from pursuits which are
commonly regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, that the source
of pleasure is exactly the same as in most of my problems in
morphology--that you have the theme in one of the old master's works
followed out in all its endless variations, always appearing and always
reminding you of unity in variety. So in painting; what is called
"truth to nature" is the intellectual element coming in, and truth to
nature depends entirely upon the intellectual culture of the person to
whom art is addressed. If you are in Australia, you may get credit for
being a good artist--I mean among the natives--if you can draw a
kangaroo after a fashion. But, among men of higher civilisation, the
intellectual knowledge we possess brings its criticism into our
appreciation of works of art, and we are obliged to satisfy it, as well
as the mere sense of beauty in colour and in outline. And so, the
higher the culture and information of those whom art addresses, the
more exact and precise must be what we call its "truth to nature."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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