The Beautiful: An Introduction to Psychological AestheticsLee, Vernon
Philosophy
The Beautiful: An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics
Lee, Vernon
Aesthetics; Form (Aesthetics); Psychology, Applied
which a shape undergoes, every shape, actively perceived, having its
own special _movement of lines;_ and every _movement of lines,_
or _combination of movements of lines_ existing in proportion as
we go over and over again the particular shape of which it is a
quality. The case is absolutely reversed when we perceive or think
of, the _locomotion of things._ The thought of a thing's locomotion,
whether locomotion done by itself or inflicted by something else,
necessitates our thinking away from the particular shape before us to
another shape more or less different. In other words locomotion
necessarily alters what we are looking at or thinking of. If we think
of Michel Angelo's seated Moses as getting up, we think _away_
from the approximately pyramidal shape of the statue to the
elongated oblong of a standing figure. If we think of the horse of
Marcus Aurelius as taking the next step, we think of a straightened
leg set on the ground instead of a curved leg suspended in the air.
And if we think of the Myronian Discobolus as letting go his quoit
and "recovering," we think of the matchless spiral composition as
unwinding and straightening itself into a shape as different as that of
a tree is different from that of a shell.
The pictorial representation of locomotion affords therefore the
extreme example of the difference between discursive thinking
about things and contemplation of shape. Bearing this example in
mind we cannot fail to understand that, just as the thought of
_locomotion_ is opposed to the thought of _movement of lines,_ so,
in more or less degree, the thought of the objects and actions
represented by a picture or statue, is likely to divert the mind from
the pictorial and plastic shapes which do the representing. And we
can also understand that the problem unconsciously dealt with by all
art (though by no means consciously by every artist) is to execute
the order of suggesting interesting facts about things in a manner
such as to satisfy at the same time the aesthetic demand for shapes
which shall be satisfactory to contemplate. Unless this demand for
sensorially, intellectually and empathically desirable shapes be
complied with a work of art may be interesting as a diagram, a
record or an illustration, but once the facts have been conveyed and
assimilated with the rest of our knowledge, there will remain a shape
which we shall never want to lay eyes upon. I cannot repeat too
often that the differentiating characteristic of art is that it gives its
works a value for contemplation independent of their value for
fact-transmission, their value as nerve-and-emotion-excitant and of their
value for immediate, for practical, utility. This aesthetic value,
depending upon the unchanging processes of perception and
empathy, asserts itself in answer to every act of contemplative
attention, and is as enduring and intrinsic as the other values are apt
to be momentary and relative. A Greek vase with its bottom
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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