and in special works.[1] In the case of forms, still more than in that of sensuous elements, it is needful to determine the extent to which the value of the formal aspect is modified by experience and the acquisition of meaning. This is pretty certainly the source of the aesthetic value claimed for certain proportions, whether in the human figure or other organic forms or in the freer constructions of form in art.[2] Another problem is to determine the influence of the feeling-tones of the combining elements on the pleasing character of the whole. It is probable that a particular combination of colours owes something of its pleasure-value to a harmony of the feeling-tones of the elements. This is pretty certainly the case where the feeling-tones of the elements are closely akin, as in the case of a number of low tones of colours, or of architectural or other forms where one formal element—say, a vertical line, a rectangle of a certain proportion or a particular variety of arch—repeats itself and becomes a dominating feature of the whole.
(C) The imaginative factor—which corresponds with what Fechner calls the “indirect”—includes all that imaginative activity adds to our enjoyment when we contemplate an aesthetic object. It may consist first of all in recalling concrete experiences firmly associated with the The imaginative factor.object, as when the sight of wild-flowers in a London street calls up an image of fields and lanes. In order that these images may add to the aesthetic value of the object they must correspond to our common associations, as distinguished from accidental individual ones. A large increase of aesthetic enjoyment comes to us through such suggested images. Although in general it is images of concrete objects which are called up, ideas of a more abstract character may take part though they tend in this case to assume a concrete aspect. This is illustrated in the appreciation of “typical beauty” in which a concrete form represents in an exceptional way the common form of a species, and in that of symbolic representation. An important part of this work of association is to render objects expressive of mental states, as when we read off the particular shade of feeling expressed by a natural scene.[3]
In the poetic contemplation of nature, her forces, her gladness and other moods, this imaginative activity, though still deriving its material from association, takes a freer form, leading to an investment of natural objects with a new and more fanciful meaning, as when we Freer play of imagination.“apperceive” a willow drooping over a pond or the front of an old cottage under a quasi-human form, endowing it with something akin to our own feelings and memories. What, it may be asked, is the whole range of this freer play of a life-giving fancy in our aesthetic enjoyment? Some recent theorists have attempted to answer this question by saying that it constitutes a vital element in all aesthetic contemplation. Th. Lipps and others who follow him seek to show that this vitalizing activity of the fancy, which produces a new and illusory object, is the essential ingredient in the aesthetic enjoyment of the forms of material objects. According to this theory, when in the aesthetic mood I enjoy the form of a tree, of a church steeple or of the front of a Greek temple, I am not only ascribing life and feeling to it, but am projecting myself in fancy into the object thus constructed, feeling for the moment that I am the tree or the steeple. The process of vivification is carried out as follows. Lines represent certain movements, and in the aesthetic mood we translate all lines and so all forms back into the corresponding movements, which may be merely imagined (as Lipps himself thinks) or may be realized in part by sensuous elements, viz. motor sensations; which again may be regarded either as concomitants of eye movements, or as arising from an organically connected impulse to move the hand along the lines followed by the eye.[4] Thus the columns of a temple represent upward movement, and are apperceived as striving upwards so as to resist the downward pressure of the entablature. Since movements are the great means of expression in man, this imaginative reading of movement into motionless and even massive and stable forms enables us to endow them with quasi-human feelings. In looking, for example, at the weighty masses of a building we enter sympathetically into the successful strivings of the supporting structures to resist the downward thrust of gravity in the supported masses. The theory here briefly indicated[5] is interesting as illustrating an attempt from the psychological side to find a scientific support for philosophic idealism or expressionalism. It is already beginning to be recognized in Germany as an exaggeration. It may be enough to say that as applied to forms generally, including those of sculpture and architecture, the theory is opposed by our ordinary way of speaking, which implies quite another point of view in the aesthetic contemplation of form, namely, that of a spectator external to the object contemplated. When our eye glides over the beauties of a statue, our imaginative activity so far from transporting us within the object carries us as tactual feelers outside the surface. Similarly, when we delight in the divided spaces of a Gothic roof, so far from being imaginatively engaged in taking part in the efforts and strains of pillar, arch and the rest, we move in fancy along the pathways defined by the designer, tactually feeling and appreciating each dimension, each detail of form. The attempt to force a theory fitted for poetry on sculpture and architecture would rob these of their distinctive aesthetic values; in the one case, of the plastic beauty of finely moulded marble surfaces as realized by imaginative excursions of the hand; and in the other case, of the perfect stillness and stability which give to great structures their solemn and quieting aspect.[6]
The theory of a vitalizing play of imagination (Einfühlung) running through all modes of aesthetic contemplation is an exaggeration of the element of illusion which certainly characterizes this contemplation. As suggested above, by blotting out for the moment the perception of all Aesthetic Illusion.save that which pleases it substitutes a new for the more solid reality of our practical mood. Moreover, as a state of perceptual absorption in which one loses consciousness of the ordinary self and its world, it has a certain resemblance to the state of ecstasy and of the hypnotic trance.[7] It is favourable to the play-like indulgence in a fanciful transformation of what is seen or heard, which may be described as a “willing self-deception,” more or less complete. Yet as we have seen, something of the real everyday world survives even in our freer aesthetic contemplation of form. Hence there is much to be said for the idea that we have in aesthetic illusion to do with a kind of double consciousness, a tendency to an illusory acceptance of the product of our fancy as the reality, restrained by a subconscious recognition of the everyday tangible reality behind.[8]
It is evident that both in the more confined and in the freer form the element of imaginative activity in aesthetic experience will vary greatly among individuals and among peoples. Differences in past experience leading to diverse habits of association,
- ↑ On the later investigations into musical consonance and harmony, harmony of colours, rhythmic and pleasing spatial forms, see Wundt, op.cit. Bd. ii. pp. 419 ff., and iii. 135 ff., 140 ff., 147 ff. and 154 ff. Time-form in music is specially discussed by E. Gurney, The Power of Sound, v.
- ↑ K. Lange, who recognizes the influence of nature and custom here denies that proportion is an aesthetic principle (Das Wesen der Kunst, 11ᵉˢ Kap.).
- ↑ Alison and other English Associationists have emphasized the aesthetic importance of the principle of association. Among more recent advocates of it is G. T. Fechner. Vorschule der Ästhetik, and O. Külpe, “Über den associativ. Factor des ästhet. Eindrucks”, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissensch. Philosophie, xxiii. pp. 145 ff.
- ↑ This idea of imitative hand-movement in contemplating form is supported by K. Groos, Der ästh. Genuss, pp. 49 ff.
- ↑ It is commonly spoken of as “feeling oneself into” Einfühlen), or as “sympathetic feeling” (Mitempfinden.)
- ↑ Lipps’ theory is developed in a number of works, the chief of which is Ästhetik: Psychologie des Schönen und der Kunst, see esp. 1ᵉʳ Theil, 1ᵉʳ to 3ᵉʳ Abschnitt; cf. Paul Stern, Einfühlung und Association, in which is to be found an historical sketch of the theory, and A. Hildebrand, Form in der bildenden Kunst. The play of imagination in the contemplation of form is discussed also by P. Souriau, L’Esthetique du mouvement, 3ème part., and La Suggestion dans l’art, pp. 300 ff. Cf. works of Karl Groos and K. Lange named below (Bibliography).
- ↑ See P. Souriau, La Suggestion dans l’art (1ère partie).
- ↑ Cf. K. Lange, op. cit. Bd. i. p. 208.
