Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/206

 19C3 FINE ARTS Separa tion of the class es who produce and those who re ceive plea sures of iiiie art. type of the artificer or maker of household implements, considered in the same light, was the other savage who first took it into his head to fashion his club or spear in one way rather than in another way as good for killing, and to orna ment it with tufts or markings. In none of these cases had the primitive artist any reason for pleasing anybody but himself. Again, the original or rudimentary type of lyric song and dancing arose when the first reveller clapped hands and stamped or shouted in time, in honour of his god, in commemoration of a victory, or in mere obedience to the blind stirring of a rhythmic impulse within him ; and to such a display the presence or absence of witnesses does not signify at all. The original type of the instrumental musician is the shepherd who first notched a reed and drew sounds from it while his sheep were cropping. The father of all artists in dress and personal adornment was the first wild man who tattooed himself or bedecked himself with shells and plumes. But in both of these last instances, it may be said, the primitive artist surely had the motive of pleasing not himself only, but his mate, or the female whom he desired to be his mate 1 However that may be, it is clear that what any one can enjoy by himself, whether in the way of musical sounds or personal adornments, or in the way of mimicry, of rhythmical movements, of imitative or ornamental carving and drawing, of the disposition and adornment of dwelling places and utensils the same things, it is clear, others can also enjoy with him. For these and similar things to give pleasure, it is not essential that others should be by ; but the pleasures they give are essen tially of a kind in which others can, if they are by, partici pate. And so, with the growth of societies, it comes about that one class of persons separate themselves, and become the ministers or producers of this kind of pleasures, while the rest become the persons ministered to, the participators in or recipients of the pleasures. Artists are those members of a society who are so constituted as to feel more acutely than the rest certain classes of pleasures which all can feel in their degree. By this fact of their constitution they are impelled to devote their active powers to the production of such pleasures, to the making or doing of some of those things which they enjoy so intensely when they are made and done by others. At the same time the artist does not, by assuming these ministering or creative functions, surrender his enjoying or receptive functions. He continues to participate in the pleasures of which he is himself the cause, and remains a conscious member of his own public. The architect, sculp tor, painter, are able respectively to stand off from and appreciate the results of their own labours ; the singer enjoys the sound of his own voice, and the musician of his own instrument ; the poet, according to his temperament, furnishes the most enthusiastic or the most fastidious reader for his own stanzas. Neither, on the other hand, does the person who is a habitual recipient from others of the pleasures of fine art, forfeit the privilege of producing them according to his capabilities, and of becoming, if he has the power, an amateur or occasional artist. Nay, these oppo site functions of producing and enjoying the fruits of production, of ministering and being ministered to, are much more commonly combined in this than in other de partments of human exertion. Nearly every one is ready to be the minister, if he can, of his own higher pleasures, and therefore to be his own singer or poet, his own architect, sculptor, or painter. Few are ready to be ministers of their own lower needs, and to be their own tailors, their own butchers (except in the case of wild game, the killing of which, being superfluous, possesses an attraction of which necessary killing is devoid), their own cobblers, cooks, servants, and the rest. In spite, however, of such com bination or interchange of functions, we may, both practi cally and for the purposes of the present discussion, regard the artist as belonging generally to one category and the rest of the world to another. We may separate in our consideration those phenomena which attend the production of fine art, or exercise of the aesthetic activities, from those phenomena which attend the enjoyment of fine art, or contemplation of the results of such exercise. For the rest, of the two parts of which our preliminary Negatiro definition consisted, we shall gain most by letting alone the part of one and following out the other. If we take up the aflir- li. rs. t t1&amp;lt;;ft * mative part, in which we said that the fine arts are those &quot;efoi. 10 which minister to our love of beauty, and if we try to de- lowed up. velop and complete that, we shall have, for one thing, to explain how the love of beauty, in the wide and somewhat loose sense in which we here use the phrase, means a faculty which man possesses for taking keen and permanent delight in the contemplation and the imagination of many kinds of things, including some not strictly to be called beau tiful, such as grotesqueness, comicality, even ugliness itself, when they are presented in typical forms. For another thing, we shall be very apt to find ourselves arguing in a circle, and saying, such and such an art is fine because it produces beauty, and such and such a thing is beautiful because it is produced by fine art. But if we take up the negative part of our definition, in which we only said that the fine arts are arts which exist independently of practical necessity or utility, and if we try to follow out this, we shall find that here we have got hold of a character of the fine arts which at once presents instructive aspects and far- reaching consequences. Indeed, the greater part of those other characters, or common properties of whatever kind, which have been recognized by consent as peculiar to the group of fine arts, will appear on examination to be implied in, or deducible from, this one fundamental character. Let us take first, among such common properties, one Theplea- relating to the frame of mind, or moral attitude, so to call sures of it, which accompanies the reception as distinguished from e, ar ^ the production of aesthetic pleasure. It is an observation terested as old as Aristotle that such pleasures differ from most as well other pleasures of experience in that they are disinterested. as com * That is to say, of course not disinterested in the sense in &quot;VV 1 &quot; which that word implies the positive ethical virtue of self- abnegation, or preferring others to one s self; but disinterested in the sense that they are not such as nourish a man s body nor add to his riches; they are not such as can gratify him, when he receives them, by the sense of advantage or superi ority over his fellow creatures; they are not such as one human being can in any sense receive exclusively from the object which bestows them. We have partly learnt as much already in glancing at the origins or rudimentary stages of the several fine arts, when we saw that, whether the primi tive artist meant it or not, his operations were capable at any rate of pleasing others besides himself. To turn to their developed stages, it is evidently characteristic of a beautiful building that its beauty cannot be monopolized, but can be seen and admired by the inhabitants of a whole city and by all visitors for all generations. The same thing is true of a picture or a statue, except in so far as an indivi dual possessor may choose to keep such a possession to him self, in which case his pride of monopoly is a sentiment wholly independent of his pleasure in artistic contemplation; (and as a rule we practically find that the heir or collector who takes most pleasure in his treasures of art is also the readiest to make them accessible to others). Similarly, music is composed to be sung or played for the enjoyment I of many at a time, and for such enjoyment a hundred years hence as much as^to-day. Poetry is written to be read by all readers for ever who care for the ideas and feelings of the poet, and can apprehend the meaning and melody of his