MUSEUM IDEALS I ON THE NATURE AND PLACE OF FINE ART I LEARNED to read from a book called "Reading without Tears." A single page remains in my memory. Two children are playing in a nursery. One calls to the other: "Come quickly to the window and see the queen go by!" At the corner of the page appeared a captivating picture of the queen in all her state. Such a child is every artist. The window is his art. The playmate is his public. The queen is his vision. FINE ART AND BEAUTY The root meaning of the word "art" is that of construction, or the purposed combination of things. A passing remark of Aristotle's 1 divides the arts of mankind into the arts of our Necessities (avaykaîa) and the arts of Pastime (Staywyn); the distinction being that the arts of our Necessities are followed for their use (xpñois), the arts of Pastime for their own sake. This dichotomy of the arts has been current in Europe since. Our English adjective “fine” applied to art means that the purpose of the artist is fulfilled as soon as his work exists. It satisfies him simply by being. The adjective "useful" means that the purpose of the artist is not fulfilled until his work brings something else to pass. It satisfies him only by doing. Art consists in rearranging our surroundings nearer our desires, and is fine art or useful art according as the rearrangement ful1 Metaphysics, I. fils its aim immediately and by itself, or indirectly and by proxy. In Continental languages the arts, called in English "fine" are called the "arts of Beauty" (Belle Arti, Beaux Arts, Schoene Kuenste, etc.). The usage adheres to the only immemorial and authoritative conception of beauty: that of a value inherent in the beautiful thing, to be felt as soon as it exists. According to the Taoist books in China (deriving from Lao-Tse, 600 B.C.) beauty is "the usefulness of the useless." It is a certain merit which things may still possess, although they are of no avail to bring anything else worth while to pass. Although good for nothing, a thing need not be worthless. It may be good in itself; and this is what is called its beauty. The Asiatic conception was reached independently in Africa a millennium later. St. Augustine writes in his "Confessions"1 of discovering, after long thought, the distinction between the Beautiful and the Fit (Pulchrum et Aptum). The one he defines as that which is complete in itself; the other as that whose value lies in its adjustment to other things. More than a millennium later a similar idea reappears in Europe. To Immanuel Kant beauty was "Purposiveness without purpose." Unclear as this utterance remains in spite of the context and the commentators, the likeness to the Taoist phrase is striking, and its kinship to St. Augustine's conclusion apparent. A thing may be suited to nothing else, and yet may suit us. In this event, although useless, it is beautiful. The production of things having such an internal worth is the object of Aristotle's arts of Pastime, our fine arts; and they are properly called the beautiful arts. The inquiry may be pushed further. When a thing is good in itself, what is it that makes it so? Of what nature 1 Book IV, 13. |