The Principles of AestheticsParker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Philosophy
The Principles of Aesthetics
Parker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Aesthetics
This same transference of value to the image, with the consequent
freeing of the image from the model, can be observed even in
commemorative art. A king desires, perhaps, to perpetuate his memory;
how better than through some enduring likeness in stone or paint? While
he is alive and after his death this image will remind his subjects
of him and his valorous deeds. The relation to the model seems to be
fundamental; but in proportion to the success of the artist in making
a likeness, the stone or paint will be made to seem all alive, and for
those who cannot come into direct relations with the monarch, he will
be effectively present in the statue or picture, even when, through
death, he is removed from all social and practical relations. Who does
not feel that Philip the Fourth is present on the Velasquez canvas;
where else could one find him so alive? If the work is artistic, the
spectator's interest will center in feeling the life in the color and
line or sculptured form; that it happens to be an imitation of something
else will become of secondary importance. This is clearest when the
name of the subject is not known; then surely it is the life before
us that can alone concern us. Any feeble copy would serve as a reminder,
but a living drawing or statue brings the man or woman into our
presence. The aesthetic interest in the work as living supervenes upon
the interest in it as a mere reminder of life.
This freedom from the model and attainment of intrinsic worth in the
work of art itself is furthered through the realization of beauty in
the medium of expression. The colors, lines, and shapes which the
artist uses have a direct appeal to the eye and through the eye to
feeling; hence arise preferences for the most agreeable and expressive.
The artist discovered that he could express his emotion not only through
representing its object, but through the very colors or lines or shapes
used in the delineation. These effects, found by chance perhaps in the
first instance, would later be striven for consciously. In this way,
through some grace of line, or symmetry of form, or harmony of color,
the statue or picture would acquire a power to please quite independent
of any ulterior use or purpose; once more, it would become alive and
of value on its own account.
We shall begin our study of the representative arts with drawing and
painting--representation in two dimensions--not because they preceded
sculpture historically, but because, being more complex arts, a solution
of the problems which they raise makes a subsequent survey of the
similar problems of the simpler art relatively easy.
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