The Principles of AestheticsParker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Philosophy
The Principles of Aesthetics
Parker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Aesthetics
It is a fact familiar in the experience of everybody that the strength
of the emotional tone of an object is a function of the clearness of
the image which we form of it on recall. We can preserve the feeling
tone of a past event or an absent object only if we can keep a vivid
image of it; as our image of it becomes vague, our interest in it
dissipates. Everywhere in our experience the image mediates between
feeling and idea. So in art. Images have no more an independent and
self-sufficient status in art than sensations have; like the latter
they are a means for the expression of feeling. In the painting of
sunlight, for example, the images of warmth carry joyousness and a
sense of ease; in the statue, the tactile images convey the emotional
response to the represented object. In literature the expressiveness
of images is perhaps even more impressive. Consider how longing is
aroused by the tactile, gustatory, and thermal images in the oft-quoted
lines of Keats:--
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth.
Examples might be multiplied indefinitely.
In literature alone of the arts, images from all departments of sense
can be aroused. Visual images play a greater role there than in painting
and sculpture, for the reason that, in the latter, visual sensations
take their place--we do not image what we can see. In sculpture, the
greater part of the imagery is of touch and motion--in the imagination,
we feel the surfaces and move with the represented motions; the
whiteness or blackness of the materials prevents the arousal of the
image of the color of the body. In painting, besides the temperature
images already mentioned, there are touch images--in still-life, for
example, when silks and furs are represented; images of odors, in
flower pieces; of motion, in pictures which depict motion, as in the
racing horses of Degas; of taste, in pictures of wine and fruit. Of
course the kind and amount of imagery depend upon the imaginal type
to which the spectator belongs and the wealth of the imaginal furnishing
of his mind. In any art, moreover, the chief and requisite thing is
expression through the sense medium, which should never be obscured
by expression through associated images. It is not the primary business
of a flower painter to arouse images of perfume, but to compose colors
and lines; nor the function of the musician to arouse the visual images
which accompany the musical experience of many people, but to compose
sounds. In sculpture, on the other hand, images of touch and movement
play an almost necessary part, for they are constituent elements in
the representation of form and motion; yet it is not indispensable to
the appreciation of sculpture that images of the sweet odor of the
human body be awakened. The image is seldom the basis of aesthetic
appreciation; it is more often its completion. But we shall go into
these matters more in detail in our special chapters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account