The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Naville - La beauté organique
A doctrine very generally admitted is that all beauty is 'expressive.' What is meant by this may be true, but the word is not a happy one. Æsthetics in general needs a new terminology. (N. acknowledges his obligations to M. Boutmy for certain of his own views.) Man has two kinds of representations: (1) representations of material objects and phenomena; (2) representations of psychic states and events. Both have an aesthetic role. Against the doctrine of universal expression it is necessary first to maintain the reality of purely sensible or material beauty. This is the first requisite of the aesthetic value of a work. To this category belong sensible qualities thought by association. But one also speaks of a beautiful thought, a beautiful sentiment, etc. Here one is concerned, not with direct perception or even association, but with imagination. The 'expressive' phenomena form a very important group of these facts, but there are others. N. defines 'expressive' phenomena as certain traits or motions of animal or human bodies, which are the effects of the spiritual life, and which manifest it, voluntarily or involuntarily. An angry flash of the eye or a cry of terror would be an example. Thesis: there are corporeal structures and motions which are not 'expressive,' and of which the aesthetic effect consists especially in this, that they make us imagine and reproduce sympathetically in ourselves sentiments and thoughts which we attribute to others; e.g., we imagine what must be the feelings of freedom and power of an eagle that we see soaring through the sky. It is in effects of this order that the greater part of the beauty of animal life resides. We should not think animals so beautiful, if we regarded them as automata without feeling. It is the same with man, except that here the 'expressive' phenomena play a much more important part. The three principal aesthetic elements, then, are: (1) sensible beauty, (2) 'expressive' beauty, (3) 'organic' beauty, which comes from the sympathetic reproduction of feelings which we attribute to others. All of these may, and usually should, concur in the total effect. Morality may sometimes look askance at sensible beauty, but should welcome 'organic' beauty. It is the presence of this latter and the comparative neglect of the former which so clearly distinguish the works of Michel Angelo from much of Greek sculpture.