themselves. Puvis de Chavannes paints with muted color forms that move in stately rhythm through a land of alwaysafternoon. The lotos-land of sense is depicted by A. B. Davies, with figures of Botticellian line and Maeterlinckian mystery; his hinted symbolism has the distraction of idea, yet tantalizes with intellectual fatuity. Ryder, mystical but sturdy, simplifies and synthesizes, frankly speaks in parable, yet sends his fated ship upon a palpable sea, builds a solid earth under lovers' feet. Sargent clothes patrician and parvenu alike with splendid and dashing color, yet somehow leaves their mean or complacent or reckless souls to shiver along the bleak shores of life. Maxfield Parrish, asking no place among the great, amazingly achieves the double end of illustrative decoration, as does Abbey in more dramatic fashion. Finally, one should record that the Russian painter, Nicholas Roerich, now exhibiting in America, has achieved the goal of many men's desire: his canvases are of the most moving sensuous beauty, yet full of meaning for those who must think. His are often story-telling pictures, yet their plot is wrought out in ravishing colors that make the figures forgotten. He has so fused subject with imagination, so simplified and synthesized material detail, so revealed kokoro through even cubistic forms-in short, so beautifully transcended actuality—as to offer us the aesthetically astounding. To summarize, in our attempt to plumb a picture we should inquire whether color, drawing, or composition is the first concern. Color1 will be felt as fresh or dull, rich or thin, of high or of low key. The various colors should be attuned or toned to the dominant note; light should be apportioned among them so as to secure proper values. Local colors found in nature are not to be rendered as the mind knows them, but as modified by light and atmosphere and adapted to the painter's purpose. Representation of reality is the natural aim of drawing,2 yet line is a convention and as an aesthetic element should have a charm of its own, as in Botticelli and Ingres. Composition in two dimen Pictorial elements For notes 1 and 2 see p. 395. sions involves the principality of a dominant object, repetition of motifs, balance of masses, proportion. Structural or tridimensional composition should attain to tactile and movement values, yielding a sense as of construction out of solid substance and existence in a palpable though fluid medium, all parts related as in a living organism, not as in an assembled machine. The painter's brushwork will be seen as decisive or groping, delicate or energetic, graceful or broad. His personality will be revealed in every stroke, and in the whole conception. If representation is an evident purpose, as it must be in portraiture, the degree of success or failure in mirroring nature will be justly noted. But whether representative or not, the painting should prove fundamentally a rhythmic design in color delightful to every open eye. ""Color, in art, is a subject not well understood as yet," is the somewhat astonishing admission of an artist-teacher, "and there are violent differences of opinion among artists, teachers, and critics, as to what constitutes good color-instruction.” “Color, however complicated, may be reduced to three simple elements: Hue-as yellow, blue-green; Notan (or Value)-as dark red, light red; Intensity (or Bright-to-grayness)—as intense blue, dull blue. Color harmony depends upon adjustments in this three-fold nature. If a color scheme is discordant, the fault may be discovered in wrong selection of hues, or weak values, or ill-matched intensities, or all three." Arthur W. Dow, Composition, 1913, pp. 100-101. Red, green, and violet-blue are now, continues Professor Dow, regarded as the primary colors, with yellow and purple as secondaries-five hues in all, making the basis of all color expression. The complementary or contrasting color for a primary is that obtained by combining the other two (the three totaling to white light). Thus on the larger five-color basis orange, made by combining red and yellow, would be the complementary of blue; and purple, from blue and red, the complementary of yellow, etc. Modern painters have made much of the discovery that in a picture a color surrounded by its complementary yields a new effect near the line of contact. Complementary colors side by side heighten each other; non-complementary colors thus placed diminish each other. Colors have been found recently to have a peculiar psychological effect that is spoken of as movement, light colors seeming to approach the eye and dark colors to recede. Yellow masses appear to come toward one from the picture, blue or purple to withdraw. The Synchromists study to give to their forms and the shadows of them such hues as will keep them in the planes conceived or will evoke the physical and hence the psychological effects desired. "A form is badly drawn when it does not correspond with a part of an emotional conception," says Clive Bell (Art, pp. 232-4). "The shape of every form in a work of art should be imposed on the artist by his inspiration." Again: "No critic is so stupid as to mean by 'bad drawing,' drawing that does not represent the model correctly [except where the artist indicates that representation is his purpose-and then Mr. Bell would say he might be a wax-figure maker, but not an artist]. The gods of the art schools, Michelangelo, Mantegna, Raffael, etc., played the oddest tricks with anatomy. Everyone knows that Giotto's figures are less accurately drawn than those of Sir Edward Poynter; no one supposes that they are not drawn better." The skilful draughtsman is naturally inclined to realistic illustration. The modern Japanese are unbelievably expert in drawing and could easily accomplish deceiving realism. But they seek decorative value first; they conventionalize, and, though less than the ancient Chinese masters from whom they learned, they idealize. DEFINITION OF ART By DeWITT H. PARKER Since it is our purpose to develop an adequate idea of art, it might seem as if a definition were rather our goal than our starting point; yet we must identify the field of our investigations and mark it off from other regions; and this we can do only by means of a preliminary definition, which the rest of our study may then enrich and complete. A working We shall find it fruitful to begin with the definition recently revived by Croce: art is expression; and expression we may describe, for our own ends, as the putting forth of purpose, feeling, or thought into a sensuous medium, where they can be experienced again by the one who expresses himself and communicated to others. Thus, in this sense, a lyric poem is an expression-a bit of a poet's intimate experience put into words; epic and dramatic poetry are expressions-visions of a larger life made manifest in the same medium. Pictures and statues are also expressions; for they are embodiments in color and space-forms of the artists' ideas of visible nature and man. Works of architecture and the other industrial arts are embodiments of purpose and the well-being that comes from purpose fulfilled. This definition, good as far as it goes, is, however, too inclusive; for plainly, although every work of art is an expression, not every expression is a work of art. Automatic expressions, instinctive overflowings of emotion into motor channels, like the cry of pain or the shout of joy, are not æsthetic. Practical expressions also, all such as are only From The Principles of Aesthetics, by DeWitt H. Parker, 1920. By permission of and by special arrangement with Silver, Burdett and Company. 'Benedetto_Croce: Estetica, translated into English by Douglas Ainslie, under title Esthetic, chap. i. "At the end of his next chaptér Professor Parker reaches a corrected definition. "Art is expression, not of mere things or ideas, but of concrete experience with its values, and for its own sake. It is experience held in a delightful, highly organized sensuous medium, and objectified there for communication and reflection."-Editor. means or instruments for the realization of ulterior purposesthe command of the officer, the conversation of the market place, a saw-are not æsthetic. Works of art-the Ninth Symphony, the Ode to the West Wind-are not of this character. No matter what further purposes artistic expressions may Works of art are ends in themselves serve, they are produced and valued for themselves; we linger in them; we neither merely execute them mechanically, as we do automatic expressions, nor hasten through them, our minds fixed upon some future end to be gained by them, as is the case with practical expressions. Both for the artist and the appreciator, they are ends in themselves. Compare, for example, a love poem with a declaration of love.1 The poem is esteemed for the rhythmic emotional experience it gives the writer or reader; the declaration, even when enjoyed by the suitor, has its prime value in its consequences, and the quicker it is over and done with and its end attained the better. The one, since it has its purpose within itself, is returned to and repeated; the other, being chiefly a means to an end, would be senseless if repeated, once the end that called it forth is accomplished. The value of the love poem, although written to persuade a lady, cannot be measured in terms of its mere success; for if beautiful, it remains of worth after the lady has yielded, nay, even if it fails to win her. Any sort of practical purpose may be one motive in the creation of a work of art, but its significance is broader than the success or failure of that motive. The Russian novel is still significant, even now, after the revolution. As beautiful, it is of perennial worth and stands out by itself. But practical expressions are only transient links in the endless chain of means, disappearing as the wheel of effort revolves. Art is indeed expression, but free or autonomous expression. Expression in general The freedom of æsthetic expression is, however, only an intensification of a quality that may belong to any expression. For, in its native charac'Contrast Croce's use of the same illustration: Esthetic, p. 22, English translation. |