The Principles of AestheticsParker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Philosophy
The Principles of Aesthetics
Parker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Aesthetics
But in order fully to explain the phenomena of aesthetic expression,
it is not sufficient to show how the connection between feeling and
sensation and idea takes place; it is necessary, in addition, to explain
the nature of this connection. The feeling is not experienced by us
as what it is--our reaction to the sensations or represented
objects--but rather as an objective quality of them. The sounds are
sad, the curve tender, the sea placid and reposeful. Why is this?
The explanation is, I think, as follows. Despite their usual
subjectivity, feelings tend to be located in the objective world
whenever they are in conflict with or not directly rooted in the
personal life or character of the individual. In listening to music,
for example, feelings of despair and terror may be aroused in me who
am perhaps secure and happy; and even if the feelings are joyous, they
are not occasioned by any piece of personal good fortune--my situation
in life is the same now as before. Hence, finding no lodgment in the
ego, and having to exist somewhere, they seek a domicile in the sounds
evoking them. And, in general, works of art arouse but offer no personal
occasions for feeling, and therefore absorb it into themselves.
The process of objectification may, however, go further. It often
happens in the aesthetic experience that feelings are not objectified
alone, but carry with them the idea of the self--I come to feel
_myself_ as joyous or despairing in the sounds. The extent to which the
idea of the self thus follows the objectified feelings depends largely
upon the amount of their reverberation throughout the organism. When
this is small, and the feelings are vague and tenuous, as in color
appreciation, there is little or no definite projection of the idea
of the self; when, on the other hand, it is large and the emotions are
strong, as oftentimes in music, where breathing, circulation, hand and
foot are affected, then I myself seem to be there,--striving, pursuing,
struggling, in the sounds. I am where my body is. The projection of
the idea of the self is facilitated for the same reason when the body
is actually employed in the creation of the work of art, as in singing
and acting. It also occurs more readily when the life expressed in the
work of art is akin to the spectator's. Thus, an emotional and
suggestible woman, in watching a fine performance of "Magda," inevitably
puts herself in the place of the heroine if she has herself lived
through a similar experience. But when the life expressed is strikingly
foreign to our own, the projection of the idea of self is more
difficult; the duality between subject and object tends to remain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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