The Principles of AestheticsParker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Philosophy
The Principles of Aesthetics
Parker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Aesthetics
The, necessity in art for the expression of value is, I think, the
principal difference between art and science, rather than, as Croce
[Footnote: _Estetica_, quarta edizione, p.27; English translation.
p.36.] supposes, the limitation of art to the expression of the
individual and of Science to the expression of the concept. For, on
the one hand, science may express the individual; and, on the other
hand, art may express the concept. The geographer, for example,
describes and makes maps of particular regions of the earth's surface;
the astronomer studies the individual sun and moon. Poets like Dante,
Lucretius, Shakespeare, and Goethe express the most universal concepts
of ethics or metaphysics. But what makes men poets rather than men of
science is precisely that they never limit themselves to the mere clear
statement of the concept, but always express its human significance
as well. A theory of human destiny is expressed in Prospero's lines--
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep;
but with overtones of feeling at the core. Or consider the passion
with which Lucretius argues for a naturalistic conception of the
universe. And the reason why poets clothe their philosophical
expressions in concrete images is not because of any shame of the
concept, but just in order the more easily and vividly to attach and
communicate their emotion. Their general preference for the concrete
has the same motive; for there are only a few abstractions capable of
arousing and fixing emotion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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