Let us examine this apparently reasonable theory. It is true
that every visual element is understood as expression too. It
is not true, however, that expression and impression are parallel
and mutually corresponding beyond the elements. Suppose a
concourse of columns covered by a roof,--the Parthenon. Those
psychophysical changes induced by the sight now mutually check
and modify each other. Can we say that there is a "meaning,"
like the energy of the column, corresponding to that complex?
It is at least not energy itself. Ask the same as regards the
lines and masses of a picture by Corot. In the sense in which
we have taken "meaning," the only psychologically possible one,
our reactions could be interpreted only by some mood. If the
column means energy because it makes us tower, then the picture
must mean what it makes us do. That is, a combination of
feathery fronds and horizontal lines of water, bathed in a gray-
green silvery mist, can "mean" only a repose lightened by a
grave yet cheerful spirit. In short, this theory of
expressiveness cannot go beyond the mood or moral quality. In
the sense of INFORMATION, the theory of Einfuhlung contributes
nothing. Now, in this limited sense, we have indeed no reason
to contradict it, but simply to point out that it holds only
in this extremely limited sense. When we see broad sweeping
lines we interpret them by sympathetic reproduction as strength,
energy. When those sweeping lines are made part of a Titan's
frame, we get the same effect plus the associations which belong
to distinctively muscular energy. Those same lines might define
the sweep of a drapery, or the curve of an infant's limbs. Now
all that part of the meaning which belongs to the lines
themselves remains constant under whatever circumstances; and
it is quite true that a certain feeling-tone, a certain moral
quality, as it were, belongs, say, to Raphael's pictures, in
which this kind of outline is to be found. But as belonging to
a Titan, the additional elements of understanding are not due
to sympathetic reproduction. They are not parallel with the
motor suggestions; they are simply an associational addition,
due to our information about the power of men with muscles
like that. That there are secondary motor elements as a
reverberation of these ideal elements need not be denied. But
they are not directly due to the form. Now such part of our
response to a picture as is directly induced by the form, we
have a right to include in the aesthetic experience. It will,
however, in every work of art of even the least complexity,
be expressible only as a mood, very indefinite, often
indescribable. To make this "meaning," then, the essential
aim of a picture seems unreasonable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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