Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/417

Rh us; and any picture which has once gained wide repute, thereby gains popular esteem, gives much pleasure, and seems to serve a proper purpose by virtue simply of being in the fashion, even though it have little to commend it to the wise critic. The word fashion carries often an implication of censure. Such censure is not intended in this case. To wish to see what others have seen is natural and proper. The mistake would lie in assuming that this kind of pleasure from picture-gazing is not present with all of us, and is not a proper element in esthetic emotion.

To see old friends again after a time of separation always gives us pleasure. The emotions which go with the act of recognition are so generally agreeable that we greet with considerable warmth of feeling even those old acquaintances we have never much cared for if we meet them after long separation or at a distance from the scenes where we once knew them. This recognition-element among the factors of pleasurable emotion lies at the bottom of much of our joy in the familiar quotation, of our admiration for the classic in literature and the familiar in art. A picture often spoken of, often alluded to in print, seen occasionally, even in the simplest or crudest reproduction, is at once recognized, and at once gives us the pleasure of recognition, when seen again. This manner of picture-appreciation lies, of course, close to the pleasures of memory, to the indulgence of habit, and to the complacence of conservatism; just as the pleasures aroused by the picture which it is the fashion to admire lie close to the self-satisfaction born of conformity to the prevailing moral code. These fashionably-born and habit-bred emotions form a large part, a very large part, of the delight we find in picture-gazing. Art galleries are full of people who gain little from their visits there beyond these simple and familiar emotions. Yet in the discussion of esthetics they are commonly almost ignored. The origins of the feelings which are aroused by works of art are assumed to be complex, peculiar and quite remote from everyday life; whereas the most dominant of them lie close at hand, in conformity and habit. In the field of literature we see this truth very clearly illustrated. The classics of one's native tongue are chiefly enjoyed because they are familiar. Often, probably commonly, they have a power to move us which is due to their content, or to our knowledge of the peculiar circumstances under which they were produced, or to their relation to a widespread creed, or to the personality of their writers, or to the influence of their promoters or expositors, or to their particular aptness of phrase, or to the peculiar sensitiveness of a few of their many readers to the spell wrought by special arrangements of words. But, once having become imbedded in the popular mind, once having become the accustomed reading of a generation or two, they hold their power very largely through the fact that they are easily