BEAUTY UNDER SIGHT. 217 true artistic kind, and the additional circumstance of Harmony is alone wanting. The sense of Sight supplies a variety of pleasures, all of them worthy to become part of the æsthetic circle of enjoyments. They are not affected by any of the disqualifying conditions laid down at the outset, and they possess in a high degree the attribute of ideal persistence, which recommends them still farther for the same end. Mere light, colour, and lustre, are the three optical sources of pleasure. The combination of the optical with the muscular, gives the pleasures of moving spectacle, of form and outline, including the peculiar effect of the curved line, which, although a simple element, ranks high among the sources of aesthetic charm. There is also the sensation of great magnitude corresponding to the voluminous in sound, and lying at the foundation of what we term sublimity. Objects that are capable of giving any one of those impressions in considerable amount, are important means of exciting human interest. The solar radiance, the rich hues of colour, the lustrous and brilliant surface, are prized even when standing alone, and may be still more effective when joined in Harmony, by the colour Artist.* The first ideas of beauty formed by the mind are, in all probability, derived from colours. Long before infants receive any pleasures from the beauties of form or of motion (both of which require, for their preception, a certain effort of attention and of thought), their eye may be caught and delighted with brilliant colouring, or with splendid illumination. I am inclined, too, to suspect that, in the judgment of a peasant, this ingredient of beauty predominates over every other, even in his estimate of the perfections of the female form; and, in the inanimate creation, there seems to be little else which he beholds with any rapture. It is accordingly, from the effect produced by the rich painting of clouds, when gilded by a setting sun, that Akenside infers the existence of the seeds of Taste, when it is impossible to trace them to any hand but that of nature. 8. Next as to the co-operation of the Intellect, in giving birth to the fitting materials of aesthetic emotion. I have already hinted, that sensations of an inferior rank are capable of being elevated into ideal pleasures. Thus, when muscular exercise, repose, or fatigue, are merely suggested to the mind, as when we look on at gymnastic feats, dancing, skating, &c., they become sources of a more refined interest. Losing altogether their egotistic nature, they may affect any number of persons alike, so that they have the feature of liberality, so essential to art. The sensations of organic life are exalted in the same way. While they are confined to our actual experience, or even our recollected, or anticipated, experience, they are excluded from the present domain, but when viewed in such a manner as to be no one person's property, they are fit subjects for the artist. Thus, the interest that we take in the nutrition and subsistence of animal life, is an unexclusive interest. The circumstances suggestive of the free and fresh air, bringing to the mind the idea of exhilarating respiration, are highly interesting, and are yet sufficiently elevated for the artist's pencil. Indeed, a painter could have no more striking success, than in contriving scenes and touches, so as to make this feeling powerfully present from the sight of his picture. The actual enjoyment of warmth or coolness is, so to speak, sensual, but the suggestion of those effects to the mind of beholders at large by associated circumstances, as by colour, light, and shade, is refined and artistical. The taking of our O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween, The form of Beauty smiling at his heart." Among the several kinds of beauty," says Mr. Addison, "the eye takes most delight in colours. We nowhere meet with a more glorious or pleasing show in nature, than what appears in the heavens, at the rising or setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different stains of light that show themselves in clouds of a different situation. For this reason we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic.'-Stewart On the Beautiful, page 275. CO-OPERATION OF THE INTELLECT. 219 own food, and our own states of hunger, are an inferior kind of interest, although perhaps to us individually among our most intense experiences; our contemplation of Sancho Panza losing his dinner by the physician's orders, belongs to the elevated sphere of an unexclusive interest. Disinterested sympathy transforms the character of all those purely sensual elements, by giving them an ideal existence, in which shape no one is debarred from the pleasure that they may thereby afford. The appearances that indicate cleanliness, or the absence of whatever causes loathing or disgust, are agreeable associations of deliverance from a serious organic misery. Sweet odours, in picturesque allusion, rise into the region we are now discussing. The fragrant bosom of Andromachê, and of Aphroditê, finds a place in Homer's poetry. Intellectual suggestion is peculiarly operative in giving an æsthetic character to sensations of Touch. A warm, delicately soft contact, may be ideally reproduced by representations made to the eye, as in a picture, and is then a purely æsthetic pleasure.' The objects of hearing and sight, in their own nature, able to constitute liberal and common pleasures, may be still more 'That the smoothness of many objects is one constituent of their beauty, cannot be disputed. In consequence of that intimate association which is formed in the mind between the perceptions of sight and those of touch, it is reasonable to expect that those qualities which give pleasure to the latter sense, should also be agreeable to the former. Hence the agreeable impression which the eye receives from all those smooth objects about which the sense of touch is habitually conversant; and hence, in such instances, the unple sant appearance of ruggedness or of asperity. The agreeable effect, too, of smoothness, is often heightened by its reflection so copiously in the rays of light; as in the surface of water, in polished mirrors, and in the fine kinds of wood employed in ornamental furniture. In some instances, besides, as in the last now mentioned, smoothness derives an additional recommendation from its being considered as a mark of finished work, and of a skilful artist. To all this we may add, that the ideas of beauty formed by our sex are warped, not a little, by the notions we are led to entertain concerning the charms of the other. That in female beauty a smooth skin is an essential ingredient, must be granted in favour of Mr. Burke's theory. Nor is it at all difficult to conceive how this association may influence our taste in various other instances.'-Stewart, p. 296. elevated and refined upon by ideal suggestion, as when the word-artist steps in to bring before the mind scenes of natural beauty. Whatever gives a more intellectual character to the objects of delight, provided they are still within the range of easy comprehension by the many, is said to elevate their character by more widely diffusing them. This is the superiority of the literary, over all the other, fine arts. 9. We can easily judge, by means of the criteria already made use of, how far the different simple Emotions of the foregoing chapters can be of avail in the sphere of artistic recreation. We commenced with Harmony and Conflict; and it has been seen already, and will appear more and more as we proceed, that Harmony is the soul of Art. In the next place, Novelty, Variety, and Wonder, are all earnestly sought by the artist. Indeed, those effects have been commonly included in every enumeration of the emotions of taste. The Tender feeling is eminently susceptible of artistic employment, from the large hold that it takes of most minds, and the quantity and quality of the pleasure accruing from it. The only thing demanded of the artist is to give it an ideal presentation, so far as to remove the attribute of monopoly from the picture. The love of a parent for his or her own child is exclusive; while the interest in the Laocoon is unexclusive and aesthetical. All the various objects of tender emotion, inanimate and animate, are freely made use of in the present class of compositions, and are indeed not unfrequently looked upon as synonymous with the beautiful.* The delicate and tender flower, the dependence of infancy, the protectorship of the powerful, and the sentiment of chivalry, are fountains of perennial human interest. The Irascible emotion is also, in some of its phases, a fit subject. When we approve of the occasion of an outburst of wrath, it is pleasing to us to accompany it with our own feelings; and the display of anger may be brought upon the stage, or enter into the epic plot, with See Burke On the Connexion of Delicacy with Beauty; Essay on the SUBLIME and BEAUTIFUL, Part III. Sec. 16. THE EMOTIONS OF SCIENCE. 221 powerful effects. The passion of Fear may be so handled as to yield æsthetic pleasure, although in itself a painful and debilitating manifestation of human nature. Egotism, as we have seen, is made of universal acceptance by admiration and worship of the object; the self-complacency and cherished importance of our idols give us pleasure; while real power, dignity, and possessions, are a spectacle to inspire fascination and awe. The mere idea or contemplation of superior greatness is a fund of delight. The exercise of actual power is a monopolist pleasure, but Ideal Power is open and free. The judgments and criticism that we pass freely upon our fellowcreatures, and their ways and performances, are a common gratification, partaking of the freedom of thought itself. We have also seen that the emotions of activity give rise to a rich crop of unexclusive pleasures; for, granting actual Pursuit to be purely an individual gratification, spectatorial, or ideal, pursuit, is open and free. The plot-interest of events about us, of history and romance, is the right hand of the narrative artist. 10. A special observation is needed on the last of the simple emotions, as I have enumerated them, those of the Intellect. The feelings of truth and consistency, and the love of knowledge and science, might be conceived as preeminently deserving of being ranked with æsthetic sentiments, if these court an alliance with dignity and refinement. And it is freely admitted that nothing could be more liberalizing, or more open, than such objects. Unfortunately, however, they labour under two special disqualifications of their own, by which they are prevented from sharing in the artistic circle, as men are at present constituted. In the first place, they demand a painful preparatory training, such as only a small number of persons can ever be got to pass through. And, secondly, truth is not the cause of unmingled delight, any more than surgery or discipline; and pleasure is not its im mediate end. Any classes of truths that do not fall under the ban of these two conditions are made welcome by the artist, and by the caterer of our amusements. The more |