THE REPRESENTATION OF CHARAC TER IN ART. IN the preceding chapter I sought to define those features of actual human character which, by right of their pleasurable impression on the mind of a disinterested spectator, acquire the rank of æsthetic objects. In this analysis I aimed at supplying a psychological basis for a scientific theory of those departments of art which are principally engaged in the construction of ideal human character. With this foundation securely laid, it ought not to be a difficult task to trace out the manifold sources of pleasurable effect which give their æsthetic value to these products of artistic imagination. Thus It is to be observed that the charming and impressive aspects of character with which our attention has been engaged, although a main ingredient of pleasurable effect in these character-arts, are not the sole means at their disposal. Hence, the selection of these aspects will always be limited to some extent by other artistic requirements. Again, one must remember that all art impresses a certain form on the pleasurable materials of which it makes use. it will be found that the charm residing in human character becomes transformed into a slightly different emotional force when it is taken up into the airy region of imaginative creation. Finally, it may be remarked that the sensuous medium which a particular art employs will always have an influence on the aesthetic quality of any pleasurable object which it seeks to represent. For example, the impression conveyed by an utterance of a noble impulse will not be precisely the same when the medium is the visible expression of a picture, and the audible expression of a poem. In examining these transformed embodiments of character in the several arts it may be sufficient to consider the literary and poetic varieties, more especially the drama and the romance or novel. Painting, and even sculpture, are no doubt employed to some extent in illustrating character. Yet their function in this respect is comparatively limited. This is to be explained in part by the fact that they have to pourtray a momentary phase of an individual mind, and further, that they lack the grand instrument of verbal expression. Again, as Lessing so well showed in the Laokoon, these arts, as employing the visible and immediately present, are greatly circumscribed by requirements of the physically beautiful, and have much less scope for depicting varieties of emotional mood.* In one respect indeed, as Lessing has also remarked, the painter or sculptor who wishes to embody character requires a deeper knowledge of human nature than the novelist himself, since he has to seize and to render permanent the most characteristic and pregnant among the momentary manifestations of a given type of disposition. Yet this peculiar excellence, which owes its existence to the very limitations of the arts, scarcely compensates for the disadvantages just enumerated. Accordingly we may appropriately omit any further consideration of these departments of art from our present inquiry, and confine our observations to the arts of character par excellence, namely, Dramatic Poetry and Fiction. In considering the aesthetic effects of character as represented in these species of art, it is possible, in the first place, to regard their embodiments of human feelings and dispositions as a simple reproduction of actual nature. Our inquiry would thus be limited to the question: By what means are these arts able to afford us the proper impressions of real, living character? This point may well appear sufficiently self-evident; yet it is possible that a brief discussion of it may serve to render clearer our comprehension of the whole subject. In actual life we observe the play of a person's inner impulses through his expressive movements, his language, and his voluntary action. In contrast with these wide avenues of knowledge, the scope for observing character in a novel or an unacted drama appears scanty enough. The immediate impressions of these works of art are nothing but verbal signs; and these have to suggest to the reader's mind, not only the spoken words of the several persons represented-which is a tolerably easy matter-but also an intricate series of visual and other impressions, such as those conveyed by the person's figure, dress and outward carriage, by the varying cadences of his voice, and so on. Yet though this medium of suggestion may Lessing here treats of sculpture and painting together under the term "die Malerei." It is no doubt true, as Dr. Max Schasler observes, that the great critic, by not sufficiently distinguishing between the two species, failed to do justice to the power of painting in the representation of the characteristic, the grotesque, etc. Yet though there is this difference, Lessing's canon applies to all forms of visible art, quâ visible and immediately presentative. at first sight appear very inadequate, we find that by help of it we may partake in the vivid interest of a present reality. The audible and visible word is so closely bound by links of association with other impressions of the senses, that it instantaneously calls up groups of ideas scarcely less distinct, if less vivid, than the corresponding sensations. As a proof of the efficiency of these verbal links of suggestion, we have the fact that when they are skilfully arranged in precise agreement with the order of actual experience, the whole series of conceptions called up acquires such a clearness, solidity, and persistence, that the mind is powerfully inclined to believe in a corresponding outward reality. In the production of this conviction of reality, every successive touch of ideal imitation has an appreciable effect, serving to render the whole conception, say of a distinct personality, more complete, life-like, and durable. All reflective readers must have been conscious of this gradual development of conception and of belief during the perusal of an able novel. One is, perhaps, most distinctly aware of this intense confidence in reading the last chapters of a good novel; and this assurance one finds to remain after the fictitious nature of the whole has had time to betray itself again and again. In the visible spectacle of an acted drama, the presentations of character are, of course, more immediate, and belief in the reality becomes more instantaneous. At the same time, the distracting theatrical surroundings are very apt to check this delusion, and to make our belief in the reality of a stage-action much more fitful and evanescent than the confidence which slowly deepens during the absorbing perusal of a well-constructed story. It may be well to add that the drama and the novel do not possess precisely the same appliances for illustrating human character. Whereas the acted play supplies the large and unspeakably valuable instrument of visible and audible expression, which the novel can only suggest imperfectly by description, this inequality is more than made good by the freedom which the latter possesses in describing the invisible and even inaudible thoughts and impulses. The dramatic poet who wishes to supply the inner clue to the outer action, has to resort to the somewhat unnatural expedient of making his heroes betray their emotions and purposes in monologue. The novelist, on the contrary, who is conceived to be a kind of omniscient witness of the persons and actions he describes, may lead the reader into the private recesses of a life, and disclose to him the subtle, silent processes which precede its external manifestations. Thus far we have regarded the effect of imaginary character, as the same in kind as that of the corresponding reality. The ideal representations of fiction tend to be received as the equivalents of objective facts; and so far, of course, art may supply us with just those species of gratification which we have found to belong to the several æsthetic aspects of living character. It must now be added that the whole impression conveyed by such an imaginary character is not precisely the same as that of the corresponding reality. When, for example, we meet with an amiable character in actual society, the feeling awakened nearly always contains an ingredient of private or personal interest. We experience a desire to know the agreeable person in some intimate relation of friendship, and we begin to imagine a number of possible events which may in the future supply us with the wished-for intercourse. On the other hand, in contemplating an ideal form of character, this disturbing and anti-æsthetic element is wanting. The observer is thus able to view his object in a more purely contemplative attitude of mind. In this respect, the observation of a fictitious character resembles that of a historical one. Indeed fiction makes use of a quasi-historical mode of representation, by speaking of its persons and events as things of the far-off past, having no immediate bearing on the reader's personal interests. Even in the case of an impressive dramatic spectacle, which seems to bring the reality so much nearer the observer, the element of personal consideration finds little if any room. However affected the spectator may be by a stage display of hero or villain, he scarcely falls into the delusion of conceiving any possible personal advantage or disadvantage from the existence of such a being. Hence the contemplation of fictitious character is more pure than that of real, from those elements of private desire which, as Kant said, are inimical to the aesthetic sentiment of beauty.* The critical or discerning consciousness which is nascent in this perfectly calm contemplation, shows itself much more distinctly in the added pleasure which the mind derives from a sense of Truth to nature in artistic representation. This gratification appears, as I hope to show in another essay, to spring from a very primitive impulse, the activities of which one may easily observe in the mimetic play of young children. The interest of all imitation, which does not actually deceive, appears to arise from an agreeable tension of * The indirect suggestions of personal bane or benefit conveyed by dramatic spectacle, which Aristotle recognized in his definition of Tragedy, will be spoken of in another place. mind, under an impulse of belief in the represented reality and of wonder at its partial transformation. In the mature mind this feeling of mystery is exchanged for an intelligent appreciation of artistic truth. This riper sentiment contributes a perfectly new ingredient of pleasure to the contemplation of character in fiction. The critical and sceptical impulse to view the object as an artistic semblance comes into play again and again during the most absorbed contemplation of the artistic object. It appears most conspicuously, however, when the deeper interest of the subject itself has been exhausted, assuming the form of an after-play of intellect upon the subsidence of emotional excitement. This feeling of truth to nature may become so acute and quick as to supply of itself a considerable æsthetic gratification. It is to be remarked, however, that the feeling is much more intense as a pain than as a pleasure, and that a fictitious character which simply appears truthful and natural, and does not attract us through its inherent qualities, scarcely attains a high æsthetic value. In this manner, then, the representation of human character in fiction appears sufficiently real to awaken just the same species of feelings which would be excited by the presentation of a similar type of character in real life. The intellectual activity which co-operates in the contemplation, resulting in a recognition of the imaginary nature of the object, while it adds a new and very distinct mode of pleasure to the enjoyment of the work, has scarcely an appreciable effect on the proper aesthetic gratification which accompanies the perception of the beautiful, the sublime, and the interesting in actual human nature. Accordingly, we need not enter again on a full consideration of these several features, but may pass to a closer examination of the added artistic effect in the perception of ideal character, namely, the pleasure which attends a sense of truthfulness. In the last essay we discussed the peculiar gratification afforded by consistency of character and its conformity to general laws of human nature. The sense of truthfulness in ideal pictures of character includes this gratification and something more. When a person begins to look at these creations as works of art he acquires a feeling of appreciation and admiration for intelligent and faithful portraiture. It may possibly be objected that the appreciation of this side of art is a feeling, not so much for the result aimed at, as for the technical method employed. But this is scarcely an exact account of the matter, since all art, as distinguished from delusive artifice, owes an integral part of its pleasurable effect to a conscious discernment of the imitative. At the same time it is obvious that the full |