It may here be objected that our motor impulses are, nevertheless, still heterogeneous, inasmuch as some are toward the object of interest, and some along the line of movement. But it must be said, first, that these are not felt in the body, but transferred as values of weight to points in the picture,—it is the amount and not the direction of excitement that is counted; and secondly, that even if it were not so, the suggested movement along a line is felt as "weight" at a particular point.
From this point of view the justification of the metaphor of mechanical balance is quite clear. Given two lines, the most pleasing arrangement makes the larger nearer the centre, and the smaller far from it. This is balanced because the spontaneous impulse of attention to the near, large line equals in amount the involuntary expenditure to apprehend the small, farther one.
We may thus think of a space to be composed as a kind of target, in which certain spots or territories count more or less, both according to their distance from the centre and according to what fills them. Every element of a picture, in whatever way it gains power to excite motor impulses, is felt as expressing that power in the flat pattern. A noble vista is understood and enjoyed as a vista, but it is COUNTED in the motor equation, our "balance," as a spot of so much intrinsic value at such and such a distance from the centre. The skillful artist will fill his target in the way to give the maximum of motor impulses with the perfection of balance between them.
It is thus in a kind of substitutional symmetry, or balance, that we have the objective condition or counterpart of aesthetic repose, or unity. From this point of view it is clearly seen in what respect the unity of Hildebrand fails. He demands in the statue, especially, but also in the picture, the flat surface as a unity for the three dimensions. But it is only with the flat space, won, if you will, by Hildebrand's method, that the problem begins. Every point in the third dimension counts, as has been said, in the flat. The Fernbild is the beginning of beauty, but within the Fernbild favorable stimulation and repose must still be sought. And repose or unity is given by symmetry, subjectively the balance of attention, inasmuch as this balance is a tension of antagonistic impulses, an equilibrium, and thus an inhibition of movement.
From this point of view, we are in a position to refute Souriau's interesting analysis<1> of form as the condition for the appreciation of content. He says that form, in a picture for instance, has its value in its power to produce (through its fixation and concentration of the eye) a mild hypnosis, in which, as is well known, all suggestions come to us with bewildering vividness. This is, then, just the state in which the contents of the picture can most vividly impress themselves. Form, then, as the means to content, by giving the conditions for suggestion, is Sourieau's account of it. In so far as form—in the sense of unity—gives, through balance and equilibrium of impulses, the arrest of the personality, it may indeed be compared with hypnotism. But this arrest is not only a means, but an end in itself; that aesthetic repose, which, as the unity of the personality, is an essential element of the aesthetic emotion as we have described it.
<1>La Suggestion en l'Art.
There is no point of light or color, no contour, no line, no depth, that does not contribute to the infinite complex which gives the maximum of experience with the minimum of effort and which we call beauty of form. But yet there is another way of viewing the beautiful object, on which we touched in the introduction to this chapter. So far, what we see is only another name for HOW we see; and the way of seeing has proved to contain enough to bring to stimulation and repose the psychophysical mechanism. But now we must ask, what relation has meaning to beauty? Is it an element, coordinate with others, or something superposed? or is it an end in itself, the supreme end? What relation to the beauty of form has that quality of their works by virtue of which Rembrandt is called a dreamer, and Rodin a poet in stone? What do we mean when we speak of Sargent as a psychologist? Is it a virtue to be a poet in stone? If it is, we must somehow include in our concept of Beauty the element of expression, by showing how it serves the infinite complex. Or is it not an aesthetic virtue, and Rodin is great artist and poet combined, and not great artist because poet, as some would say? What is the relation of the objective content to beauty of form? In short, what place has the idea in Beauty?
In the preceding the place of separate objects which have only an ideal importance has been made clear. The gold-embroidered gauntlet in a picture counts as a patch of light, a trend of line, in a certain spot; but it counts more there, because it is of interest for itself, and by thus counting more, the idea has entered into the spatial balance,—the idea has become itself form. Now it is the question whether all "idea," which seems so heterogeneous in its relation to form, does not undergo this transmutation. It is at least of interest to see whether the facts can be so interpreted.
We have spoken of ideas a parts of an aesthetic whole. What of the idea of the whole? Corot used to say he painted a dream, and it is the dream of an autumn morning we see in his pictures. Millet portrays the sad majesty and sweetness of the life near the soil. How must we relate these facts to the views already won?
It has often been said that the view which makes the element of form for the eye alone, in the strictest sense, is erroneous, because there is no form for the eye alone. The very process of apprehending a line involves not only motor memories and impulses, but numberless ideal associations, and these associations constitute the line as truly as do the others. The impression of the line involves expression, a meaning which we cannot escape. The forms of things constitute a kind of dialect of life,—and thus it is that the theory of Einfuhlung in its deepest sense is grounded. The Doric column causes in us, no doubt, motor impulses, but it means, and must mean, to us, the expression of internal energy through those very impulses it causes. "We ourselves are contracting our muscles, but we feel as if the lines were pulling and piercing, bending and lifting, pressing down and pushing up; in short, as soon as the visual impression is really isolated, and all other ideas really excluded, then the motor impulses do not awake actions which are taken as actions of ourselves, but feelings of energy which are taken as energies of the visual forms and lines."<1> So the idea belonging to the object, and the psychophysical effect of the object are only obverse and inverse of the same phenomenon. And our pleasure in the form of the column is rather our appreciation of energy than our feeling of favorable stimulation. Admitting this reasoning, the meaning of a picture would be the same as its beauty, it is said. The heroic art of J.-F. Millet, for example, would be beautiful because it is the perfect expression of the simplicity and suffering of labor.
<1> H. Munsterberg,The Principles of Art Education, p. 87.
Let us examine this apparently reasonable theory. It is true that every visual element is understood as expression too. It is not true, however, that expression and impression are parallel and mutually corresponding beyond the elements. Suppose a concourse of columns covered by a roof,—the Parthenon. Those psychophysical changes induced by the sight now mutually check and modify each other. Can we say that there is a "meaning," like the energy of the column, corresponding to that complex? It is at least not energy itself. Ask the same as regards the lines and masses of a picture by Corot. In the sense in which we have taken "meaning," the only psychologically possible one, our reactions could be interpreted only by some mood. If the column means energy because it makes us tower, then the picture must mean what it makes us do. That is, a combination of feathery fronds and horizontal lines of water, bathed in a gray- green silvery mist, can "mean" only a repose lightened by a grave yet cheerful spirit. In short, this theory of expressiveness cannot go beyond the mood or moral quality. In the sense of INFORMATION, the theory of Einfuhlung contributes nothing. Now, in this limited sense, we have indeed no reason to contradict it, but simply to point out that it holds only in this extremely limited sense. When we see broad sweeping lines we interpret them by sympathetic reproduction as strength, energy. When those sweeping lines are made part of a Titan's frame, we get the same effect plus the associations which belong to distinctively muscular energy. Those same lines might define the sweep of a drapery, or the curve of an infant's limbs. Now all that part of the meaning which belongs to the lines themselves remains constant under whatever circumstances; and it is quite true that a certain feeling-tone, a certain moral quality, as it were, belongs, say, to Raphael's pictures, in which this kind of outline is to be found. But as belonging to a Titan, the additional elements of understanding are not due to sympathetic reproduction. They are not parallel with the motor suggestions; they are simply an associational addition, due to our information about the power of men with muscles like that. That there are secondary motor elements as a reverberation of these ideal elements need not be denied. But they are not directly due to the form. Now such part of our response to a picture as is directly induced by the form, we have a right to include in the aesthetic experience. It will, however, in every work of art of even the least complexity, be expressible only as a mood, very indefinite, often indescribable. To make this "meaning," then, the essential aim of a picture seems unreasonable.
It is evident that in experience we do not, as a matter of fact, separate the mood which is due to sympathy from the ideal content of the picture. Corot paint a summer dawn. We cannot separate our pleasure in the sight from our pleasure in the understanding; yet it is the visual complex that gives us the mood, and the meaning of the scene is due to factors of association. The "serene and happy dream," the "conviction of a solemn and radiant Arcadia," are not "expression" in that inevitable sense in which we agreed to take it, but the result of a most extended upbuilding of ideal (that is, associational) elements.
The "idea," then, as we have propounded it, is not, as was thought possible, an integral and essential part, but an addition to the visual form, and we have still to ask what is its value. But in so far as it is an addition, its effect may be in conflict with what we may call the feeling-tone produced by sympathetic reproduction. In that case, one must yield to the other. Now it is not probably that even the most convinced adherents of the expression theory would hold that if expression or beauty MUST go, expression should be kept. They only say that expression IS beauty. But the moment it is admitted that there is a beauty of form independent of the ideal element, this theory can no longer stand. If there is a conflict, the palm must be given to the direct, rather than the indirect, factor. Indeed, when there is such a conflict, the primacy must always be with the medium suited to the organ, the sensuous factor. For if it were not so, and expression WERE beauty, then that would have to be most beautiful which was most expressive. And even if we disregard the extraordinary conclusions to which this would lead,—the story pictures preferred to those without a story, the photographic reproductions preferred to the symphonies of color and form,—we should be obliged to admit something still more incendiary. Expression is always of an ideal content, is of something to express; and it is unquestioned that in words, and in words alone, can we get nearest to the inexpressible. Then literature, as being the most expressive, would be the highest art, and we should be confronted with a hierarchy of arts, from that down.
Now, in truth, the real lover of beauty knows that no one art is superior to another. "Each in his separate star," they reign alone. In order to be equal, they must depend on their material, not on that common quality of imaginative thought which each has in a differing degree, and all less than literature.
The idea, we conclude, is then indeed subordinate,—a by-product, unless by chance it can enter into, melt into, the form. This case we have clearest in the example, already referred to, of the gold-embroidered gauntlet, or the jeweled chalice,—say the Holy Grail in Abbey's pictures,—which counts more or less, in the spatial balance, according to its intrinsic interest.
We have seen that through sympathetic reproduction a certain mood is produced, which becomes a kind of emotional envelope for the picture,—a favorable stimulation of the whole, a raising of the whole harmony one tone, as it were. Now the further ideal content of the picture may so closely belong to this basis that it helps it along. Thus all that we know about dawn—not only of a summer morning—helps us to see, and seeing to rejoice, in Corot's silvery mist or Monet's iridescent shimmers. All that we know and feel about the patient majesty of labor in the fields, next the earth, helps us to get the slow, large rhythm, the rich gloom of Millet's pictures. But it is the rhythm and the gloom that are the beauty, and the idea reinforces our consciousness thereof. The idea is a sounding-board for the beauty, and so can be truly said to enter into the form.
But there are still some lions in the path of our theory. The greatest of modern sculptors is reputed to have reached his present altitude by the passionate pursuance of Nature, and of the expressions of Nature. And few can see Rodin's work without being at once in the grip of the emotion or fact he has chosen to depict. A great deal of contemporary criticism on modern tendencies in art rests on the intention of expression, and expression alone, attributed to him. It is said of him: "The solicitude for ardent expression overmasters every aesthetic consideration…. He is a poet with stone as his instrument of expression. He makes it express emotions that are never found save in music or in psychological and lyric literature."<1>
<1> C. Mauclair, "The Decorative Sculpture of August Rodin,"International Monthly, vol iii.
Now while the last is undoubtedly true, I believe that the first is not only not true, but that it is proved to be so by Rodin's own procedure and utterances, and that, if we understand his case aright, it is for beauty alone that he lives. He has related his search for the secret of Michael Angelo's design, and how he found it in the rhythm of two planes rather than four, the Greek composition. This system of tormented form is one way of referring the body to the geometry of an imagined rectangular block inclosing the whole.
<1>"The ordinary Greek composition of the body, he puts it, depends on a rhythm of four lines, four volumes, four planes. If the line of the shoulders and pectorals slopes from right to left (the man resting on his right leg) the line across the hips takes the reverse slope, and is followed by that of the knees, while the line of the first echoes that of the shoulders. Thus we get the rhythm ABBA, and the balancing volumes set up a corresponding play of planes. Michael Angelo so turns the body on itself that he reduces the four to two big planes, one facing, the other swept round to the side of the block." That is, he gets geometrical enveloping lines for his design. And, in fact, there is no sculpture which is more wonderful in design than Rodin's. I quote Mr. MacColl again. "It has been said that the 'Bourgeois de Calais' is a group of single figures, possessing no unity of design, or at best affording only a single point of view. Those who say so have never examined it with attention. The way in which these figures move among themselves, as the spectator walks round, so as to produce from every fresh angle sweeping commanding lines, each of them thus playing a dozen parts at once, is surely one of the most astounding feats of the genius of design. Nothing in the history of art is exactly comparable with it."
<1> D. S. MacColl,Nineteenth Century Art, 1902, p. 101.
In short, it is the design, for all his words, that Rodin cares for. He calls it Nature, because he sees, and can see Nature only that way. But as he said to some one who suggested that there might be a danger in too close devotion to Nature, "Yes, for a mediocre artist!" It is for the sake of the strange new beauty, "the unedited poses," "the odd beautiful huddle<1> of lines," in a stopping or squatting form, that all these wild and subtle moments are portrayed. The limbs must be adjusted or surprised in some pattern beyond their own. The ideas are the occasion and the excuse for new outlines,—that is all.
<1> Said of Degas. MacColl.
This is all scarcely less true of Millet, whom we have known above all as the painter who has shown the simple common lot of labor as divine. But he, too, is artist for the sake of beauty first. He sees two peasant women, one laden with grass, the other with fagots. "From far off, they are superb, they balance their shoulders under the weight of fatigue, the twilight swallows their forms. It is beautiful, it is great as a myster."<1>
<1> Sensier,Vie et Oeuvre de J.-F. Millet.
The idea is, as I said, from this point of view, a means to new beauty; and the stranger and subtler the idea, the more original the forms. The more unrestrained the expression of emotion in the figures, the more chance to surprise them in some new lovely pattern. It is thus, I believe, that we may interpret the seeming trend of modern sculpture, and so much, indeed, of all modern art, to the "expressive beauty" path. "The mediocre artist" will lose beauty in seeking expression, the great artist will pursue his idea for the sake of the new beauty it will yield.
Thus it seems that the stumbling blocks in the way of our theory are not insurmountable after all. From every point of view, it is seen to be possible to transmute the idea into a helpmeet to the form. Visual beauty is first beauty to the eye and to the frame, and the mind cherishes and enriches this beauty with all its own stored treasures. The stimulation and repose of the psychophysical organism alone can make one thrill to visual form; but the thrill is deeper and more satisfying if it engage the whole man, and be reinforced from all sources.
But we ought to note a borderland in which the concern is professedly not with beauty, but with ideas of life. Aristotle's lover of knowledge, who rejoiced to say of a picture "This is that man," is the inspirer of drawing as opposed to the art of visual form.
It is not beauty we seek from the Rembrandt and Durer of the etchings and woodcuts, from Hogarth, Goya, Klinger, down to Leech and Keene and Du Maurier; it is not beauty, but ideas,— information, irony, satire, life-philosophy. Where there is a conflict, beauty, as we have defined it, goes to the wall. We may trace, perhaps, the ground of this in the highly increased amount of symbolic, associative power given, and required, in the black and white. Even to understand such a picture demands such an enormous amount of unconscious mental supplementation that it is natural to find the aesthetic centre of gravity in that element.
The first conditions of the work, that is, determine its trend and aim. The part played by imagination in our vision of an etching is and must be so important, that it is, after all, the imaginative part which outweighs the given. Nor do we desire the given to infringe upon the ideal field. Thus do we understand that for most drawings a background vague and formless is the desideratum. "Such a tone is the foil for psychological moments, as they are handled by Goya, for instance, with barbarically magnificent nakedness. On a background which is scarcely indicated, with few strokes, which barely suggest space, he impales like a butterfly the human type, mostly in a moment of folly or wickedness…. The least definition of surrounding would blunt his (the artist's) keenness, and make his vehemence absurd."<1>
<1> Max Klinger,Malerei u. Zeichnung, 1903, p. 42.
This theory of the aim of black and white is confirmed by the fact that while a painting is composed for the size in which it is painted, and becomes another picture if reproduced in another measure, the size of drawings is relatively indifferent; reduced or enlarged, the effect is approximately the same, because what is given to the eye is such a small proportion of the whole experience. The picture is only the cue for a complete structure of ideas.
Here is a true case of Anders-Streben, that "partial alienation from its own limitations, by which the arts are able, not indeed to supply the place of each other, but reciprocally to lend each other new forces."<1> It is by its success as representation that the art of the burin and needle—Griffelkunst, as Klinger names it—ought first to be judged. This is not saying that it may not also possess beauty of form to a high degree,—only that this beauty of form is not its characteristic excellence.
<1> W. Pater,The Renaissance: Essay on Giorgione.
In what consists the beauty of visual form? If this question could be answered in a sentence our whole discussion of the abstract formula for beauty would have been unnecessary. But since we know what the elements of visual form must do to bring about the aesthetic experience, it has been the aim of the preceding pages to show how those elements must be determined and related. The eye, the psychophysical organism, must be favorably stimulated; these, and such colors, combinations, lines as we have described, are fitted to do it. It must be brought to repose; these, and such relations between lines and colors as we have set forth, are fitted to do it, for reasons we have given. It is to the eye and all that waits upon it that the first and the last appeal of fine art must be made; and in so far as the emotion or the idea belonging to a picture or a statue waits upon the eye, in so far does it enter into the characteristic excellence, that is, the beauty of visual form.
THE preceding pages have set forth the concrete facts of visible beauty, and the explanation of our feelings about it. It is also interesting, however, to see how these principles are illustrated and confirmed in the masterpieces of art. A statistical study, undertaken some years ago with the purpose of dealing thus with the hypothesis of substitutional symmetry in pictorial composition, has given abundance of material, which I shall set forth, at otherwise disproportionate length, as to a certain extent illustrative of the methods of such study. It is clear that this is but one of many possible investigations in which the preceding psychological theories may be further illuminated. The text confines itself to pictures; but the functions of the elements of visual form are valid as well for all visual art destined to fill a bounded area. The discussion will then be seen to be only ostensibly limited in its reference. For picture might always be read space arrangement within a frame.
In the original experimental study of space arrangements, the results of which were given at length on page 111, the elements of form in a picture were reduced to SIZE or MASS, DEPTH in the third dimension, DIRECTION, and INTEREST. Direction was further analyzed into direction of MOTION or ATTENTION (of persons or objects in the picture), an ideal element, that is; and direction of LINE. For the statistical study, a given picture was then divided in half by an imaginary vertical line, and the elements appearing on each side of this line were set off against each other to see how far they lent themselves to description by substitutional symmetry. Thus: in B. van der Helst's "Portrait of Paul Potter," the head of the subject is entirely to left of the central line, as also his full face and frontward glance. His easel is right, his body turned sharply to right, and both hands, one holding palette and brushes, are stretched down to right. Thus the greater mass is to the left, and the general direction of line is to the right; elements of interest in the head, left; in implements, right. This may be schematized in the equation (Lt.)M.+I.=(Rt.)I.+L.
Pieter de Hooch, "The Card-Players," in Buckingham Palace, portrays a group completely on the right of the central line, all facing in to the table between them. Directly behind them is a high light window, screened, and high on the wall to the extreme right are a picture and hanging cloaks. All goes to emphasize the height, mass, and interest of the right side. On the left, which is otherwise empty, is a door half the height of the window, giving on a brightly lighted courtyard, from which is entering a woman, also in light clothing. The light streams in diagonally across the floor. Thus, with all the "weight" on the right, the effect of this deep vista on the left and of its brightness is to give a complete balance, while the suggestion of line from doorway and light makes, together with the central figure, a roughly outlined V, which serves to bind together all the elements. Equation, (Lt.)V.+I. =(Rt.)M.+I.
The thousand pictures on which the study was based<1> were classified for convenience into groups,—Religious, Portrait, Genre, and Landscape. It was found on analysis that the functions of the elements came out clearly, somewhat as follows.
<1> One thousand reproductions of old masters from F. Bruckmann'sClassischer Bilderschatz, Munich, omitting frescoes and pictures of which less than the whole was given.
Of the religious pictures, only the "Madonnas Enthroned" and other altar-pieces are considered at this point as presenting a simple type, in which it is easy to show the variations from symmetry. In all these pictures the balance comes in between the interest in the Infant Christ, sometimes together with direction of attention to him, on one side, and other elements on the other. When the first side is especially "heavy" the number of opposing elements increases, and especially takes the form of vista and line, which have been experimentally found to be powerful in attracting attention. Where there are no surrounding worshipers, we notice remarkable frequency in the use of vista and line, and, in general, balance is brought about through the disposition of form rather than of interests. The reason for this would appear to be that the lack of accessories in the persons of saints, worshipers, etc., and the consequent increase in the size of Madonna and Child in the picture, heightens the effect of any given outline, and so makes the variations from symmetry greater. This being the case, the compensations would be stronger; and as we have learned that vista and line are of this character, we see why they are needed.
The portrait class is an especially interesting object for study, inasmuch as while its general type is very simple and constant, for this very reason the slightest variations are sharply felt, and have their very strongest characteristic effect. The general type of the portrait composition is, of course, the triangle with the head at the apex, and this point is also generally in the central line; nevertheless, great richness of effect is brought about by emphasizing variations. For instance, the body and head are, in the great majority of cases, turned in the same way, giving the strongest possible emphasis to the direction of attention,—especially powerful, of course, where all the interest is in the personality. But it is to be observed that the very strongest suggestion of direction is given by the direction of the glance; and in no case, when most of the other elements are directed in one way, does the glance fail to come backward. With the head on one side of the central line, of course the greatest interest is removed to one side, and the element of direction is brought in to balance. Again, with this decrease in symmetry, we see a significant increase in the use of the especially effective elements, vista and line. In fact, the use of the small deep vista is almost confined to the class with heads not in the middle. The direction of the glance also plays an important part. Very often the direction of movement alone is not sufficient to balance the powerful M.+I. of the other side, and the eye has to be attracted by a definite object of interest. This is usually the hand, with or without an implement,—like the palette, etc., of our first examples,—or a jewel, vase, or bit of embroidery. This is very characteristic of the portraits of Rembrandt and Van Dyck.
In general, it may be said that (1) portraits with the head in the centre of the frame show a balance between the direction of suggested movement on one side, and mass or direction of attention, or both together, on the other; while (2) portraits with the head not in the centre show a balance between mass and interest on one side, and direction of attention, or of line, or vista, or combinations of these, on the other.
Still more unsymmetrical in their framework than portraits, in fact the most unfettered type of all, are the genre pictures. As these are pictures with a human interest, and full of action and particular points of interest, it was to be expected that interest would be the element most frequently appearing. In compositions showing great variations from geometrical symmetry, it was also to be expected that vista and line, elements which have been noted comparatively seldom up to this point, should suddenly appear strongly; for, as being the most strikingly "heavy" of the elements, they serve to compensate for other variations combined.
The landscape is another type of unfettered composition. It was of course to be expected that in pictures without action there should be little suggestion of attention or of direction of movement. But the most remarkable point is the presence of vista in practically every example. It is, of course, natural that somewhere in almost every picture there should be a break to show the horizon line, for the sake of variety, if for nothing else; but what is significant is the part played by this break in the balancing of the picture. In about two thirds of the examples the vista is inclosed by lines, or masses, and when near the centre, as being at the same time the "heaviest" part of the picture, it serves as a fulcrum or centre to bind the parts—always harder to bring together than in the other types of pictures—into a close unity. The most frequent form of this arrangement is a diagonal, which just saves itself by turning up at its far end. Thus the mass, and hence usually the special interest of the picture, is on the one side, on the other the vista and the sloping line of the diagonal. In very few cases is the vista behind an attractive or noticeable part of the picture, the fact showing that it acts in opposition to the latter, leading the eye away from it, and thus serving at once the variety and richness of the picture, and its unity. A complete diagonal would have line and vista both working at the extreme outer edge of the picture, and thus too strongly,— unless, indeed, balanced by very striking elements near the outer edge.
This function of the vista as a unifying element is of interest in connection with the theory of Hildebrand,<1> that the landscape should have a narrow foreground and wide background, since that is most in conformity with our experience. He adduces Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love" as an example. But of the general principle it may be said that not the reproduction of nature, but the production of beauty, is the aim of composition, and that this aim is best reached by focusing the eye by a narrow background, i.e. vista. No matter how much it wanders, it returns to that central spot and is held there, keeping hold on all the other elements. Of Hildebrand's example it may be said that the pyramidal composition, with the dark and tall tree in the centre, effectually accomplishes the binding together of the two figures, so that a vista is not needed. A wide background without that tree would leave them rather disjointed.
<1> Op cit., p. 55.
In general, it may be said that balance in landscape is effected between mass and interest on one side and vista and line on the other; and that union is given especially by the use of vista.
The experimental treatment of the isolated elements detected the particular function of each in distributing attention in the field of view. But while all are possibly operative in a given picture, some are given, as we have seen, much more importance than others, and in pictures of different types different elements predominate. In those classes with a general symmetrical framework, such as the altar and Madonna pieces, the elements of interest and direction of attention determine the balance, for they appear as variations in a symmetry which has already, so to speak, disposed of mass and line. They give what action there is, and where they are very strongly operative, they are opposed by salient lines and deep vistas, which act more strongly on the attention than does mass. Interest keeps its predominance throughout the types, except in the portraits, where the head is usually in the central line. But even among the portraits it has a respectable representation, as jewels, embroideries, beautiful hands, etc., count largely too in composition.
The direction of attention is most operative among the portraits. Since these pictures represent no action, it must be given by those elements which move and distribute the attention; in accordance with which principle we find line also unusually influential. As remarked above, altar-pieces and Madonna pictures, also largely without action, depend largely for it on the direction of attention.
The vista, as said above, rivets and confines the attention. We can, therefore, understand how it is that in the genre pictures it appears very numerous. The active character of these pictures naturally requires to be modified, and the vista introduces a powerful balancing element, which is yet quiet; or, it might be said, inasmuch as energy is certainly expended in plunging down the third dimension, the vista introduces an element of action of counterbalancing character. In the landscape it introduces the principal element of variety. It is always to be found in those parts of the picture which are opposed to other powerful elements, and the "heavier" the other side, the deeper the vista. Also in pictures with two groups it serves as a kind of fulcrum, or unifying element, inasmuch as it rivets the attention between the two detached sides.
The direction of suggestion by means of the indication of a line, quite naturally is more frequent in the Madonna picture and portrait classes. Both these types are of large simple outline, so that line would be expected to tell. In a decided majority of cases, combined with vista—the shape being more or less a diagonal slope—it is clear that it acts as a kind of bond between the two sides, carrying the attention without a break from one to the other.
The element of mass requires less comment. It appears in greatest number in those pictures which have little action, i.e. portraits and landscapes, and which are not yet symmetrical,— in which last case mass is, of course, already balanced. In fact, it must of necessity exert a certain influence in every unsymmetrical picture, and so its percentage, even for genre pictures, is large.
Thus we may regard the elements as both attracting attention to a certain spot and dispersing it over a field. Those types which are of a static character (landscapes, altar-pieces) abound in elements which disperse the attention; those which are of a dynamic character (genre picture), in those which make it stable. The ideal composition seems to combine the dynamic and static elements,—to animate, in short, the whole field of view, but in a generally bilateral fashion. The elements, in substitutional symmetry, are then simply means of introducing variety and action. As a dance in which there are complicated steps gives the actor and beholder a varied and thus vivified "balance," and is thus more beautiful than the simple walk, so a picture composed in substitutional symmetry is more rich in its suggestions of motor impulse, and thus more beautiful, than an example of geometrical symmetry.
The particular functions of the elements which are substituted for geometrical symmetry have been made clear; their presence lends variety and richness to the balance of motor impulses. But this quality of repose, or unity, given by balance, is also enriched by a unity for intuition,—a large outline in which all the elements are held together. Now this way of holding together varies; and I believe that it bears a very close relation to the subject and purpose of the picture.
Examples of these types of composition may best be found by analyzing a few well-known pictures. We may begin with the class first studied, the Altar-piece, choosing a picture by Botticelli, in the Florence Academy. Under an arch is draped a canopy held up by angels; under this, again, sits the Madonna with the Child on her lap, on a throne, at the foot of which, on each side, stand three saints. The outline of the whole is markedly pyramidal; in fact, there are, broadly speaking, three pyramids, —of the arch, the canopy, and the grouping. A second, much less symmetrical example of this type, is given by another Botticelli in the Academy,—"Spring." Here the central female figure, topped by the floating Cupid, is slightly raised above the others, which, however, bend slightly inward, so that a triangle, or pyramid with very obtuse angle at the apex, is suggested; and the whole, which at first glance seems a little scattered, is at once felt, when this is grasped, as closely bound together.
Closely allied to this is the type of the Holbein "Madonna of Burgomaster Meyer," in the Grand Ducal Castle, Darmstadt. It is true that the same pyramid is given by the head of the Madonna against the shell-like background, and her spreading cloak which envelops the kneeling donors. But still more salient is the diamond form given by the descending rows of these worshiping figures, especially against the dark background of the Madonna's dress. A second example, without the pyramid backing, is found in Rubens's "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus," in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. Here the diamond shape formed by the horses and struggling figures is most remarkable,—an effect of lightness which will be discussed later in interpreting the types.
A third type, the diagonal, is given in an "Evening Landscape" by Cuyp, in the Buckingham Palace, London. High trees and cliffs, horsemen and others, occupy one side, and the mountains in the background, the ground and the clouds, all slope gradually down to the other side.
It is a natural transition from this type to the V-shape of the landscapes by Aart van der Neer, "Dutch Villages," in the London National Gallery and in the Rudolphinum at Prague, respectively. Here are trees and houses on each side, gradually sloping to the centre to show an open sky and deep vista. Other examples, of course, show the opening not exactly in the centre.
In the "Concert" by Giorgione, in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, is seen the less frequent type of the square. The three figures turned toward each other with heads on the same level make almost a square space-shape, although it might be said that the central player gives a pyramidal foundation. This last may also be said of Verrocchio's "Tobias and the Archangels" in the Florence Academy, for the square, or other rectangle, is again lengthened by the pyramidal shape of the two central figures. The unrelieved square, it may here be interpolated, is not often found except in somewhat primitive examples. Still less often observed is the oval type of "Samson's Wedding Feast," Rembrandt, in the Royal Gallery, Dresden. Here one might, by pressing the interpretation, see an obtuse-angled double-pyramid with the figure of Delilah for an apex, but a few very irregular pictures seem to fall best under the given classification.
Last of all, it must be remarked that the great majority of pictures show a combination of two or even three types; but these are usually subordinated to one dominant type. Such, for instance, is the case with many portraits, which are markedly pyramidal, with the double-pyramid suggested by the position of the arms, and the inverted pyramid, or V, in the landscape background. The diagonal sometimes just passes over into the V-shape, or into the pyramid; or the square is combined with both.
What types are characteristic of the different kinds of pictures? In order to answer this question we must ask first, What are the different kinds of pictures? One answer, at least, is at once suggested to the student on a comparison of the pictures with their groupings according to subjects. All those which represent the Madonna enthroned, with all variations, with or without saints, shepherds, or Holy Family, are very quiet in their action; that is, it is not really an action at all which they represent, but an attitude,—the attitude of contemplation. This is no less true of the pictures we may call "Adorations," in which, indeed, the contemplative attitude is still more marked. On the other hand, such pictures as the "Descents," the "Annunciations," and very many of the miscellaneous religious, allegorical, and genre pictures, portray a definite action or event. Now the pyramid type is characteristic of the "contemplative" pictures in a much higher degree. A class which might be supposed to suggest the same treatment in composition is that of the portraits, —absolute lack of action being the rule. And we find, indeed, that no single type is represented within it except the pyramid and double-pyramid, with eighty-six per cent. of the former. Thus it is evident that for the type of picture which expresses the highest degree of quietude, contemplation, concentration, the pyramid is the characteristic type of composition. Among the so-called "active" pictures, the diagonal and V-shaped types are most numerous.
The landscape picture presents a somewhat different problem. It cannot be described as either "active" or "passive," inasmuch as it does not express either an attitude or an event. There is no definite idea to be set forth, no point of concentration, as with the altar-pieces and the portraits, for instance; and yet a unity is demanded. An examination of the proportions of the types shows at once the characteristic type to be here also the diagonal and V-shaped.
It is now necessary to ask what must be the interpretation of the use of these types of composition. Must we consider the pyramid the expression of passivity, the diagonal or V-shape, of activity? But the greatly predominating use of the second for landscapes would remain unexplained, for at least nothing can be more reposeful than the latter. It may aid the solution of the problem to remember that the composition taken as a whole has to meet the demand for unity, at the same time that it allows free play to the natural expression of the subject. The altar-piece has to bring about a concentration of attention to express or induce a feeling of reverence. This is evidently accomplished by the suggestion of the converging lines to the fixation of the high point in the picture,—the small area occupied by the Madonna and Child,—and by the subordination of the free play of other elements. The contrast between the broad base and the apex gives a feeling of solidity, of repose; and it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the tendency to rest the eyes above the centre of the picture directly induces the associated mood of reverence or worship. Thus the pyramidal form serves two ends; primarily that of giving unity, and secondarily, by the peculiarity of its shape, that of inducing the feeling-tone appropriate to the subject of the picture.
Applying this principle to the so-called "active" pictures, we see that the natural movement of attention between the different "actors" in the picture must be allowed for, while yet unity is secured. And it is clear that the diagonal type is just fitted for this. The attention sweeps down from the high side to the low, from which it returns through some backward suggestion of lines or interest in the objects of the high side. Action and reaction—movement and return of attention—is inevitable under the conditions of this type; and this it is which allows the free play,—which, indeed, CONSTITUTES and expresses the activity belonging to the subject, just as the fixation of the pyramid constitutes the quietude of the religious picture. Thus it is that the diagonal composition is particularly suited to portray scenes of grandeur, and to induce a feeling of awe in the spectator, because only here can the eye rove in one large sweep from side to side of the picture, recalled by the mass and interest of the side from which it moves. The swing of the pendulum is here widest, so to speak, and all the feeling-tones which belong to wide, free movement are called into play. If, at the same time, the element of the deep vista is introduced, we have the extreme of concentration combined with the extreme of movement; and the result is a picture in the "grand style" —comparable to high tragedy—in which all the feeling-tones which wait on motor impulses are, as it were, while yet in the same reciprocal relation, tuned to the highest pitch. Such a picture is the "Finding of the Ring," Paris Bordone, in the Venice Academy. All the mass and the interest and the suggestion of the downward lines and of the magnificent perspective toward the left, and the effect of the whole space composition is of superb largeness of life and feeling. Compare Titian's "Presentation of the Virgin," also the two great compositions by Veronese, "Martyrdom of St. Mark," etc., in the Doge's Palace, Venice, and "Esther before Ahaseurus," in the Uffizi, Florence. In these last two, the mass, direction of interest, movement, and attention are toward the left, while all the lines tend diagonally to the right, where a vista is also suggested,—the diagonal making a V just at the end. Here, too, the effect is of magnificence and vigor.
If, then, the pyramid belongs to contemplation, the diagonal to action, what ca be said of landscape? It is without action, it is true, and yet does not express that positive quality, that WILL not to act, of the rapt contemplation. The landscape uncomposed is negative, and it demands unity. Its type of composition, then, must give it something positive besides unity. It lacks both concentration and action; but it can gain them both from a space composition which shall combine unity with a tendency to movement. And this is given by the diagonal and V-shaped type. This type merely allows free play to the natural tendency of the "active" picture; but it constrains the neutral, inanimate landscape. The shape itself imparts motion to the picture: the sweep of line, the concentration of the vista, the unifying power of the inverted triangle between two masses, act, as it were, externally to the suggestion of the object itself. There is always enough quiet in a landscape,— the overwhelming suggestion of the horizontal suffices for that; it is movement that is needed for richness of effect, and, as I have shown, no type imparts the feeling of movement so strongly as the diagonal and V-shaped type of composition. Landscapes need energy to produce "stimulation," not repression, and so the diagonal type is proportionately more numerous.
The rigid square is found only at an early stage in the development of composition. Moreover, all the examples are "story" pictures, for the most part scenes from the lives of the saints, etc. Many of them are double-centre,—square, that is, with a slight break in the middle, the grouping purely logical, to bring out the relations of the characters. Thus, in the "Dream of Saint Martin," Simone Martini, a fresco at Assisi, the saint lies straight across the picture with his head in one corner. Behind him on one side stand the Christ and angels, grouped closely together, their heads on the same level. These are all, of course, in one sense symmetrical,— in the weight of interest, at least,—but they are completely amorphous from an aesthetic point of view. The forms, that is, do not count at all,—only the meanings. The story is told by a clear separation of the parts, and as, in most stories, there are two principal actors, it merely happens that they fall into the two sides of the picture. On the other hand, a rigid geometrical symmetry is also characteristic of early composition, and these two facts seem to contradict each other. But it is to be noted, first, that the rigid geometrical symmetry belongs only to the "Madonna Enthroned," and general "Adoration" pieces; and secondly, that this very rigidity of symmetry in details can coexist with variations which destroy balance. Thus, in a "Madonna Enthroned" of Giotto, where absolute symmetry in detail is kept, the Child sits far out on the right knee of the Madonna.
It would seem that the symmetry of these early pictures was not dictated by a conscious demand for symmetrical arrangement, or rather for real balance, else such failures would hardly occur. The presence of geometrical symmetry is more easily explained as the product, in large part, of technical conditions: of the fact that these pictures were painted as altar-pieces to fill a space definitely symmetrical in character—often, indeed, with architectural elements intruding into it. We may even connect the Madonna pictures with the temple images of the classic period, to explain why it was natural to paint the object of worship seated exactly facing the worshiper. Thus we may separate the two classes of pictures, the one giving an object of worship, and thus taking naturally, as has been said, the pyramidal, symmetrical shape, and being moulded to symmetry by all other suggestions of technique; the other aiming at nothing except logical clearness. This antithesis of the symbol and the story has a most interesting parallel in the two great classes of primitive art—the one symbolic, merely suggestive, shaped by the space it had to fill, and so degenerating into the slavishly symmetrical; the other descriptive, "story-telling," and without a trace of space composition. On neither side is there evidence of direct aesthetic feeling. Only in the course of artistic development do we find the rigid, yet often unbalanced, symmetry relaxing into a free substitutional symmetry, and the formless narrative crystallizing into a really unified and balanced space-form. The two antitheses approach each other in the "balance" of the masterpieces of civilized art—in which, for the first time, a real feeling for space composition makes itself felt.
THERE is a story, in Max Muller's amusing reminiscences, of how Mendelssohn and David once played, in his hearing, Beethoven's later sonatas for piano and violin, and of how they shrugged their shoulders, and opined the old man had not been quite himself when he wrote them. In the history of music it seems to be a rule almost without exceptions, that the works of genius are greeted with contumely. The same is no doubt true, though to a much less degree, of other arts, but in music it seems that the critics proposed also excellent reasons for their vehemence. And it is instructive to observe that the objections, and the reasons for the objections, recur, after the original object of wrath has passed into acceptance, nay, into dominance of the musical world. One may also descry one basic controversy running through all these utterances, even when not explicitly set forth.
It was made a reproach to Beethoven, as it has been made a reproach to Richard Strauss, that he sacrificed the beauty of form to expression; and it was rejoined, perhaps less in the old time than now, that expression was itself the end and meaning of music. Now the works of genius, as we have seen, after all take care of themselves. But it is of greatest significance for the theory of music, as of all art, that in the circle of the years, the same contrasting views, grown to ever sharper opposition, still greet the appearance of new work. It was with Wagner, as all the world knows, that the question came first to complete formulation. His invention of the music-drama rested on his famous theory of music as the heightened medium of expression, glorified speech, which accordingly demands freedom to follow all the varying nuances of feeling and emotion. Music has always been called the language of the emotions, but Wagner based his views not only on the popular notion, but on the metaphysical theories of Schopenhauer; in particular, on the view that music is the objectification of the will. Herbert Spencer followed with the thesis that music has its essential source in the cadences of emotional speech. In opposition primarily to Wagner, the so-called formalists were represented by Hanslick, who wrote his well-known "The Beautiful in Music" to show that though music ha a limited capacity of expression, its aim is formal or logical perfection alone. The expressionist school could not contradict the undoubted fact that chords and intervals which are harmonious show certain definite physical and mathematical relationships, that, in other words, our musical preferences appear to be closely related to, if not determined by, these relationships. Thus each school seemed to be backed by science. The emotional-speech theory has been held in a vague way, indeed, by most of those theorists whose natural conservatism would have drawn them in the other direction, and is doubtless responsible for the attempts at mediation, first made by Ambros,<1> and now met in almost all musical literature. Music may be, and is, expressive, it is said, so long as each detail allows itself to be entirely derived from and justified by the mere formal element. The "centre of gravity" lies in the formal relations.
<1>The Boundaries of Music and Poetry.
To this, after all, Hanslick himself might subscribe. Other writers seek to balance form and expression, insisting on "the dual nature of music," while resting ultimately on the emotional-speech theory. "The most universal composers, recognizing the interdependence of the two elements, produce the highest type of pure music, music in which beauty is based upon expression, and expression transfigured by beauty."<1>
<1> D.G. Mason,From Grieg to Brahms, 1902, p. 30.
This usual type of reconciliation, however, is a perfectly mechanical binding together of two possibly conflicting aesthetic demands. The question is of the essential nature of music, not whether music may be, but whether it must be, expressive; not whether is has expressive power, but whether it is, in its essence, expression,—a question which is only obscured by insisting on the interdependence of the two elements. If music has its essential source in the cadences of speech, then it must develop and must be judged accordingly. Herbert Spencer is perfectly logical in saying "It may be shown that music is but an idealization of the natural language of emotion, and that, consequently, music must be good or bad according as it conforms to the laws of this natural language."<1> But what, then, of music which, according to Ambros, is justified by its formal relations? Is music good because it is very expressive, and bad because it is too little expressive? or is its goodness and badness independent of its expressiveness? Such a question is not to be answered by recognizing two kinds of goodness. Only by an attempt to decide the fundamental nature of the musical experience, and an adjustment of the other factors in strict subordination to it, can the general principle be settled.
<1>On Educaiton, p. 41.
The excuse for this artificial yoking together of two opposing principles is apparent when it is seen that form and expression are taken as addressing themselves to two different mental faculties. It seems to be the view of most musical theorists that the experience of musical form is a perception, while the experience of musical expression, disregarding for the moment the suggestion of facts and ideas, is an emotion. Thus Mr. Mason: "In music we are capable of learning, and knowledge of the principles of musical effect can help us to learn, that the balance and proportion and symmetry of the whole is far more essential than any poignancy, however great, in the parts. He best appreciates music…who understands it intellectually as well as feels it emotionally;"<1> and again, "We feel in the music of Haydn its lack of emotional depth, and its lack of intellectual subtlety."
<1> Op. Cit., p. 6.
It is just this contrast and parallelism of structure as balance, proportion, symmetry, addressed to the mind, with expression as emotional content, that a true view of the aesthetic experience would lead us to challenge. If there is one thing that our study of the general nature of aesthetic experience has shown, it is that aesthetic emotion is unique— neither a perception nor an intellectual grasp of relations, nor an emotion within the accepted rubric—joy, desire, triumph, etc. Whether or not music is an exception to this principle, remains to be seen; but the presumption is at least in favor of a direct, immediate, unique emotion aroused by the true beauty of music, whatever that may prove to be.
With a great literature in the form of special studies, we must yet, on the whole, admit that we possess no general formula in the philosophy or psychology of music which covers the whole ground. Schopenhauer has said that music is the objectification of the will—not a copy or a picture of it, but the will itself; a doctrine which however illuminating when it is modified in various ways is obviously no explanation of our experience. Hanslick has but shown what music is not; Edmund Gurney's eloquent book, "The Power of Sound," is completely agnostic in its conclusion that music is a unique, indefinable, indescribable phenomenon, which possesses, indeed, certain analogues with other physical and psychical facts, but is coextensive with none. Spencer's theory of music as glorified speech is not only in a yet unexplained conflict with many facts, but has never been formulated so that it could apply to concrete cases. The same is true of Wagner's "music as the utterance of feeling."
But there is a body of scientific facts respecting the elements of music, in which we may well seek for clues. As facts alone they are of no value. They must be explained as completely as possible; and it is probable that if we are able to reach the ultimate nature and origin of these elements of music they will prove significant, and a way will be opened to a theory of the whole musical experience. The need of such intensive understanding must excuse the more or less technical discussions in the following pages, without which no firm foundation for a theory of music could be attained.
The two great factors of music are rhythm and tone-sensation, of which rhythm appears to be the more fundamental.
Rhythm is defined in general as a repeating series of time intervals. Events which occur in such a series are said to have rhythm. In aesthetics, it is the periodic recurrence of stress, emphasis, or accent in the movements of dancing, the sounds of music, the language of poetry. Subjectively it is the quality of stimulation due to a succession of impressions (tactual and auditory are most favorable) which vary regularly in objective intensity. We desire to understand the nature, and the source of the pleasing quality, of this phenomenon.
It is only by a complete psychological description, however, even a physiological explanation, that we can hope to fathom the tremendous significance of rhythm in music and poetry. Those treatments which expose its development in the dance and song really beg the question; they assume the very fact for which we have to find the ground, namely, the natural impulse to rhythm. Even those theories which explain it as a helpful social phenomenon, as regulating work, etc., fail to account for its peculiar psychological character—that compelling, intimate force, the "Zwang" of which Nietszche speaks, which we all feel, and which makes it helpful. This compelling quality of rhythm would lead us to look behind the sociological influences, for the explanation in some fundamental condition of consciousness, some "demand" of the organism. For this reason we must find superficial the views which connect rhythm with the symmetry of the body as making rhythmical gesture necessary; or more particularly with the conditions of work, which, if it is skilled and well carried out, proceeds in equal recurring periods, like the swinging of a hammer or an axe. But it appears that primitive effort is not carried on in this way, and proceeds, not from regularity to rhythm, but rather, through, by means of rhythm, which is made a help, to regularity. Again, it is said that work can be well carried out by a large number of people, only in unison, only by simultaneous action, and that rhythm is a condition of this. The work in the cotton fields, the work of sailors, etc. requires something to give notice of the moment for beginning action. Rhythm would then have arisen as a social function. Against this it may be said that signals of this kind might assist common action without recurring at regular intervals, while periodicity is the fundamental quality of rhythm. Thus this theory would explain a natural tendency by its effect.
Looking then, in accordance with the principle stated above, for deeper conditions, we find rhythm explained in connection with such rhythmical events as the heart beat and pulse, the double rhythm of the breath; but these are, for the most part, unfelt; and moreover, they would hardly explain the predominance of rhythms quite other than the physiological ones. Another theory, closely allied, connects rhythm with the conditions of activity in general, but attaches itself rather to the effect of rhythm than to its cause. Thus we are reminded of the "heightened sense of expansion, or life, connected with the augmentation of muscular movements induced by the more extensive nervous discharges following rhythmic stimulation."<1> But why should it be just rhythmic stimulation that produces this effect? We are finally thrown back on physiology for the answer that in rhythmical stimulation there are involved recurrent activities of organs refreshed by immediately preceding periods of repose. Here again, however, we must ask, why on this hypothesis the periods themselves must be exactly equal. For within the periods the greatest variety obtains. One measure of a single note may be succeeded by another containing eight; within the periods, that is, the minor moments of activity and repose are quite unequal.
<1> H.R. Marshall,Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics.
Last of all, we must note the view of rhythm as a phenomenon of expectation (Wundt). But while we can undoubtedly describe rhythm in terms of expectation and its satisfaction, rhythm is rhythm just through its difference from other kinds of expectation.
All these explanations seem either merely to describe the facts we seek to explain, or to fail to notice the peculiar intimate nature of the rhythmical experience. But if it could be shown not only that in all stimulation there must be involved an alternation of activity and repose, but also that an equality of such periods was highly favorable to the organism, we should have the conditions for a physiological theory of rhythm. Now the important psychological facts of so-called subjective rhythmizing seem to supply just this need.
It has been shown<1> that we can neither receive objectively equal sense-stimuli, nor produce regular movements, without injecting into these a rhythmical element. A series of objectively equal sound-stimuli—the ticking of a clock, for instance—is heard in groups, within each of which one element is of greater intensity. A series of movements are never objectively equal, but grouped in the same way. Now this subjective rhythm, sensory and motor, is explained as follows from the general physiological basis of attention.
<1> T.L. Bolton,Amer. Jour. Of Psychol., vol. vi. The classical historical study of theories of rhythm remains that of Meumann,Phil. Studien, vol. x.
Attention itself is ultimately a motor phenomenon. Thus: the sensory aspect of attention is vividness, and vividness is explained physiologically as a brain-state of readiness for motor discharge;<1> in the case of a visual stimulus, for instance, a state of readiness to carry out movements of adjustment to the object; in short, the motor path is open. Now attention, or vividness, is found to fluctuate periodically, so that in a series of objectively equal stimuli, certain ones, regularly recurring, would be more vividly sensed. This is exemplified in the well-known facts of the fluctuation of the threshold of sensation, of the so-called retinal rivalry, and of the subjective rhythmizing of auditory stimuli, already mentioned. There is a natural rhythm of vividness. Here, therefore, in the very conditions of consciousness itself, we have the conditions of rhythm too. The case of subjective motor rhythm would be still clearer, since vividness is only the psychical side of readiness for motor discharge; in other words, increased readiness for motor discharge occurs periodically, giving motor rhythm.
<1> Munsterberg,Grundzuge d. Psychologie, 1902,. P. 525.
It has been said<1> that this periodicity of the brain-wave cannot furnish the necessary condition for rhythm, inasmuch as it is itself a constant, and could at most be applied to a series which was adapted to its own time. But this objection does not fit the facts. The "brain-wave," or "vividness," or attention period, is not a constant, but attaches itself to the contents of consciousness. In other words, it does not function without material. It is itself conditioned by its occasion. In the case of a regularly repeated stimulus, it is simply adjusted to what is there, and out of the series chooses, as it were, one at regular periods.<2>
<1> J.B. Miner, "Motor, Visual, and Applied Rhythms,"Psychol. Rev., Mon. Suppl., No. 21. <2> Facts, too technical for reproduction here, quoted by R.H. Stetson (Harvard Psychol. Studies, vol. i, 1902) from Cleghorn's and Hofbauer's experiments seem to be in harmony with this view.
Closely connected with these facts, perhaps only a somewhat different aspect of them, is the phenomenon of motor mechanization. Any movement repeated tends to become a circular reaction, as it is called; that is, the end of one repetition serves as a cue for the beginning of the next. Now, in regularly recurring stimuli, giving rise, as will be later shown, to motor reactions, which are differentiated through the natural periodicity of the attention (physiologically the tendency to motor discharge), we have the best condition for this mechanization. In other words, a rhythmical grouping once set up naturally tends to persist. The organism prepares itself for shocks at definite times, and shocks coming at those times are pleasant because they fulfill a need. Moreover, every further stimulus reinforces the original activity; so that rhythmical grouping tends not only to persist, but to grow more distinct,—as, indeed, all the facts of introspection show.
All this, however, is true of the repetition of objectively equal stimuli. It shows how an impulse to rhythm would arise and persist subjectively, but does not of itself explain the pleasure in the experience of objective rhythm. It may be said in general, however, that changes which would occur naturally in an objectively undifferentiated content give direct pleasure when they are artificially introduced,—when, that is, the natural disposition is satisfied. This we have seen to be true in the of color contrast; and it is perhaps even more valid in the realm of motor activity. Whatever in sense stimulation gives the condition for, helps, furthers, enhances the natural function, is felt both as pleasing and as furthering the particular activity in question. Now, the objective stress in rhythm is but emphasis on a stress that would be in any case to some degree subjectively supplied. Rhythm in music, abstracting from all other pleasure-giving factors, is then pleasurable because it is in every sense a favorable stimulation.
In accordance with the principle that complete explanation of psychical facts is possible only through the physiological substrate, we have so far kept rather to that field in dealing with the foundations of our pleasure in rhythm. But further description of the rhythmical experience is most natural in psychological terms. There seems, indeed, on principle no ground for the current antithesis, so much emphasized of late, of "psychical" and "motor" theories of rhythm. Attention and expectation are not "psychical" as opposed to "motor." Granting, as no doubt most psychologists would grant, that attention is the psychical analogue of the physiological tendency to motor discharge, then a motor automatism of which one is fully conscious could be described as expectation and its satisfaction. Indeed, the impossibility of a sharp distinction between ideas of movement and movement sensations confirms this view. When expectation has reference to an experience with a movement element in it, the expectation itself contains movement sensations of the kind in question.<1> To say, then, that rhythm is expectation based on the natural functioning of the attention period, is simply to clothe our physiological explanation in terms of psychological description. The usual motor theory is merely one which neglects the primary disposition to rhythm through attention variations, in favor of the sensations of muscular tension (kinaesthetic sensations) which arise IN rhythm, but do not cause it. To say that the impression of rhythm arises only in kinaesthetic sensations begs the question in the way previously noted. Undoubtedly, the period once established, the rhythmic group is held together, felt as a unit, by means of the coordinated movement sensations; but the main problem, the possibility of this first establishment, is not solved by such a motor theory. In other words, the attention theory is the real motor theory.
<1> C.M. Hitchcock, "The Psychol. Of Expectation,"Psychol. Rev., Mon. Suppl., No. 20.
Expectation is the "set" of the attention. Automatism is the set of the motor centres. Now as attention is parallel to the condition of the motor centres, we are able to equate expectation and automatic movement. Rhythm is literally embodied expectation, fulfilled. It is therefore easily to be understood that whatever other emotions connect themselves with satisfied expectation are at their ideal poignance in the case of rhythm.
It is from this point of view that we must understand the helpfulness of rhythm in work. That all definite stimulus, and especially sound stimulus, rhythmical or not, sets up a diffusive wave of energy, increasing blood circulation, dynamogenic phenomena, etc., is another matter, which has later to be discussed. But the essential is that this additional stimulus is rhythmical, and therefore a reinforcement of the nervous activity, and therefore a lightening and favorable condition of work itself. So it is, too, that we can understand the tremendous influence of rhythm just among primitive peoples, and those of a low degree of culture. Work is hard for savages, not because bodily effort is hard, but because the necessary concentration of attention is for them almost impossible; and the more, that in work they are unskilled, and without good tools, so that generally every movement has to be especially attended to. Now rhythm in work is especially directed to lighten that effort which they feel as hardest; it rests, renews, and frees the attention. Rhythm is helpful not primarily because it enables many to work together by making effort simultaneous, but rhythm rests and encourages the individual, and working together is most naturally carried out in rhythm.
To this explanation all the other facts of life-enhancement, etc., can be attached. Rhythm is undoubtedly favorable stimulation. Can it be brought under the full aesthetic formula of favorable stimulation with repose? A rhythm once established has both retrospective and prospective reference. It looks before and after, it binds together the first and the last moments of activity, and can therefore truly be said to return upon itself, so as to give a sense of equilibrium and repose.
But when we turn from the fundamental facts of simple rhythm to the phenomena of art we find straightway many other problems. It is safe to say that no single phrase of music or line of poetry is without variation; more, that a rhythm without variation would be highly disagreeable. How must we understand these facts? It is impossible within the natural limitations of this chapter to do more than glance at a few of them.
First of all, then, the most striking thing about the rhythmical experience is that the period, or group, is felt as a unit. "Of the number and relation of individual beats constituting a rhythmical sequence there is no awareness whatever on the part of the aesthetic subject….Even the quality of the organic units may lapse from distinct consciousness, and only a feeling of the form of the whole sequence remains."<1> Yet the slightest deviation from its form is remarked. Secondly, every variation creates not only a change in its own unit, but a wave of disturbance all along the line. Also, every variation from the type indicates a point of accentual stress; the syncopated measure, for instance, is always strongly accented. All these facts would seem to be connected with the view of the importance of movement sensations in building up the group feeling. The end of each rhythm period gives the cue for the beginning of the next, and the muscle tensions are coordinated within each group; so that each group is really continuous, and would naturally be "felt" as one,—but being automatic, would not be perceived in its separate elements. On the other hand, it is just automatic reaction, a deviation from which is felt most strongly. The syncopated measure has to maintain itself against pressure, as it were, and thus by making its presence in consciousness felt more strongly, it emphasizes the fundamental rhythm form.