From this point of view the justification of the metaphor of
mechanical balance is quite clear. Given two lines, the most
pleasing arrangement makes the larger nearer the centre, and
the smaller far from it. This is balanced because the spontaneous
impulse of attention to the near, large line equals in amount
the involuntary expenditure to apprehend the small, farther one.
We may thus think of a space to be composed as a kind of target,
in which certain spots or territories count more or less, both
according to their distance from the centre and according to what
fills them. Every element of a picture, in whatever way it gains
power to excite motor impulses, is felt as expressing that power
in the flat pattern. A noble vista is understood and enjoyed as
a vista, but it is COUNTED in the motor equation, our "balance,"
as a spot of so much intrinsic value at such and such a distance
from the centre. The skillful artist will fill his target in the
way to give the maximum of motor impulses with the perfection of
balance between them.
It is thus in a kind of substitutional symmetry, or balance, that
we have the objective condition or counterpart of aesthetic
repose, or unity. From this point of view it is clearly seen in
what respect the unity of Hildebrand fails. He demands in the
statue, especially, but also in the picture, the flat surface as
a unity for the three dimensions. But it is only with the flat
space, won, if you will, by Hildebrand's method, that the problem
begins. Every point in the third dimension counts, as has been
said, in the flat. The Fernbild is the beginning of beauty, but
within the Fernbild favorable stimulation and repose must still
be sought. And repose or unity is given by symmetry, subjectively
the balance of attention, inasmuch as this balance is a tension
of antagonistic impulses, an equilibrium, and thus an inhibition
of movement.
From this point of view, we are in a position to refute Souriau's
interesting analysis<1> of form as the condition for the
appreciation of content. He says that form, in a picture for
instance, has its value in its power to produce (through its
fixation and concentration of the eye) a mild hypnosis, in which,
as is well known, all suggestions come to us with bewildering
vividness. This is, then, just the state in which the contents
of the picture can most vividly impress themselves. Form, then,
as the means to content, by giving the conditions for suggestion,
is Sourieau's account of it. In so far as form--in the sense
of unity--gives, through balance and equilibrium of impulses,
the arrest of the personality, it may indeed be compared with
hypnotism. But this arrest is not only a means, but an end in
itself; that aesthetic repose, which, as the unity of the
personality, is an essential element of the aesthetic emotion
as we have described it.
<1> _La Suggestion en l'Art_.
VI
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