Æsthetic as science of expression and general linguistic — John Shaqi
Æsthetic as science of expression and general linguisticCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Æsthetic as science of expression and general linguistic
Croce, Benedetto
Aesthetics; Language and languages -- Philosophy; Philosophy
Another corollary of the conception of expression as activity is the
_indivisibility_ of the work of art. Every expression is a single
expression. Activity is a fusion of the impressions in an organic
whole. A desire to express this has always prompted the affirmation
that the work of art should have _unity,_ or, what amounts to the same
thing, _unity in variety._ Expression is a synthesis of the various, or
multiple, in the one.
The fact that we divide a work of art into parts, a poem into scenes,
episodes, similes, sentences, or a picture into single figures and
objects, background, foreground, etc., may seem opposed to this
affirmation. But such division annihilates the work, as dividing the
organism into heart, brain, nerves, muscles and so on, turns the living
being into a corpse. It is true that there exist organisms in which
division gives rise to other living beings, but in such a case we must
conclude, maintaining the analogy between the organism and the work of
art, that in the latter case too there are numerous germs of life each
ready to grow, in a moment, into a single complete expression.
It may be said that expression sometimes arises from other expressions.
There are simple and there are _compound_ expressions. One must surely
admit some difference between the _eureka,_ with which Archimedes
expressed all his joy at his discovery, and the expressive act (indeed
all the five acts) of a regular tragedy.--Not in the least: expression
always arises directly from impressions. He who conceives a tragedy
puts into a crucible a great quantity, so to say, of impressions:
expressions themselves, conceived on other occasions, are fused
together with the new in a single mass, in the same way as we can
cast into a melting furnace formless pieces of bronze and choicest
statuettes. Those choicest statuettes must be melted just like the
pieces of bronze, before there can be a new statue. The old expressions
must descend again to the level of impressions, in order to be
synthesized in a new single expression.
[Sidenote: _Art as liberator._]
By elaborating his impressions, man _frees_ himself from them. By
objectifying them, he removes them from him and makes himself their
superior. The liberating and purifying function of art is another
aspect and another formula of its character as activity. Activity is
the deliverer, just because it drives away passivity.
This also explains why it is usual to attribute to artists both the
maximum of sensibility or _passion_, and the maximum of insensibility
or Olympian _serenity._ The two characters are compatible, for they do
not refer to the same object. The sensibility or passion relates to
the rich material which the artist absorbs into his psychic organism;
the insensibility or serenity to the form with which he subdues and
dominates the tumult of the sensations and passions.
III
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
[Sidenote: _Inseparability of intellectual from intuitive knowledge._]
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