(Go to Summary of review of Modern Painters I and II, Ecclesiastic Review, April 1847, pp. 212-22.)
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We will first let the author explain for himself his definition of the term 'beautiful.'
ANY material object which can give us pleasure in the simple Con-
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
templation
of its outward qualities without any direct and definite
exertion of
the intellect, I call in some way, or in some degree,
beautiful. Why
we receive pleasure from some forms and colours,
and not from others,
is no more to be asked or answered than why
we like sugar and dislike
wormwood. The utmost subtlety of in
vestigation will only lead us to
ultimate instincts and principles of
human nature, for which no farther
reason can be given than the
simple will of the Deity that we should
be so created. We may, in
deed, perceive, as far as we are acquainted
with His nature, that we
have been so constructed as, when in a healthy
and cultivated state
of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever things
are illustrative of
that nature; but we do not receive pleasure from
them because they
are illustrative of it, nor from any perception that
they are illustrative
of it, but instinctively and necessarily, as we
derive sensual pleasure
from the scent of a rose. On these primary principles
of our nature,
education and accident operate to an unlimited extent;
they may be
cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted by right
guidance
with the most acute and faultless sense, or subjected by neglect
to
every phase of error and disease. He who has followed up these
natural
laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more
authoritative
by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always
from that which
God originally intended should give him pleasure,
and who derives the
greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given
object, is a man of
taste.
This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect
taste
is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from
those
material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its
purity
and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these
sources, wants
taste ; he who receives pleasure from any other
sources, has false or
bad taste.
And it is thus that the term " taste" is to be distinguished
from
that of "judgment," with which it is constantly confounded. Judg-
ment
is a general term, expressing definite action of the intellect,
and applicable
to every kind of subject which can be submitted to
it. There may be
judgment of congruity, judgment of truth,
judgment of justice, and judgment
of difficulty and excellence.
But all these exertions of the intellect
are totally distinct from
taste, properly so called, which is the instinctive
and instant pre
ferring of one material object to another without any
obvious rea
son, except that it is proper to human nature in its perfection
so
to do.
Observe, however, I do not mean by excluding direct exertion
of
the intellect from ideas of beauty, to assert that beauty has no effect
upon,
nor connection with the intellect. All our moral feelings are
so inwoven
with our intellectual powers, that we cannot affect the
one without in
some degree addressing the other; and in all high
ideas of beauty, it
is more than probable that much of the plea
sure depends on delicate
and untraceable perceptions of fitness, pro
priety, and relation, which
are purely intellectual, and through which
we arrive at our noblest ideas
of what is commonly and rightly
called "intellectual beauty." But there
is yet no immediate exertion
of the intellect; that is to say, if a person
receiving even the noblest
ideas of simple beauty be asked why he likes
the object exciting
them, he will not be able to give any distinct reason,
nor to trace
in his mind any formed thought, to which he can appeal as
a source
of pleasure. He will say that the thing gratifies, fills, hallows,
exalts
his mind, but he will not be able to say why, or how. If he can,
and
if he can show that he perceives in the object any expression
of distinct
thought, he has received more than an idea of beauty
it is an idea of
relation[.]
Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral,
Go to
the passage in Modern Painters I
but
not of intellectual perception. By the investigation of them we
shall
be led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art[.]
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