Arthur James Balfour

“ Does such a judgement condemn either writer or reader? Surely not. The writer, to be sure, may be something less than Homer: but the spirit of the reader, simple, credulous, enjoying, is the spirit in which, of old, before criticism was born, some Greek king and his high-born guests listened to the tale of Troy and the wanderings of Ulysses.
I do not, of course, either say or think that the pleasures of Art diminish as the knowledge of Art augments. Some loss there commonly is, as men grow old and learned, yet we may hope that in most cases it is compensated a hundred-fold. ”

“ It has, as we have seen, its parallel in the region of aesthetics. But love in its intensest quality does not go by deserts, any more than aesthetic feeling in its intensest quality depends on any measurable excellence. That is for every man most loveable which he most dearly loves. That is for every man most beautiful which he most deeply admires. Nor is this merely a reiteration of the old adage that there is no disputing about tastes. It goes far deeper; for it implies that, in the most important cases of all, a dispute about either love or beauty would not merely be useless ”

“ On the contrary, while the architect was counted as little better than a skilled artisan, the musician ranked with the poet. Music itself they put high among the arts. They devoted endless labour to its theory, and their accounts of its emotional effect would seem exaggerated in the mouths of those familiar with the most impassioned strains of modern composers, aided by all the resources of a modern orchestra. That any tunes, rendered in unison by voice or lyre or pipe, or all three together, should be thought by grave philosophers so moving as to be a danger to society appears incredible. ”

“ Do men of 'trained sensibility' feel alike in the presence of the same masterpiece? I do not believe it. The mood of admiration aroused by style, by technical skill, by the command of material and instruments, may well form a common ground where competent critics will find themselves in decent agreement. But as the quality of aesthetic emotion rises, as we approach the level where the sentiment of beauty becomes intense, and the passion of admiration incommunicable, there is not—and, I believe, cannot be—any real unanimity of personal valuation. ”

“ From the endless controversies about Realism, Idealism, and Impressionism, with which the criticism of other arts have been encumbered, musical criticism is thus happily free: while the immense changes which have revolutionized both the artistic methods and the material resources of the musician—changes without a parallel either in literature, in painting, in sculpture, or even in architecture—have hindered the growth of an orthodox tradition. Music thus occupies in some respects a place apart: but its theoretic importance cannot on that account be ignored. ”

“ This singular view, which suggests the inference that artistic education is an instrument for making men fastidious and preventing them being happy, derives, it may be, some faint support from facts. Are there not persons to be found who have sharpened the delicacy of their aesthetic discrimination to the finest edge, yet take but small pleasure in beauty,—who are the oracles of artistic societies, the terror (or perhaps the Providence) of rich collectors, whom no copy can deceive, nor any original delight? ”

“ But some emotions there are belonging to the active class which possess the highest intrinsic value of which we have any knowledge. Such is love—love of God, of country, of family, of friends. These emotions, like those of fear or appetite, will, on fit occasions, inevitably result in deeds; nor can they be considered genuine, if in this respect they fail. But they have an inherent value apart from their practical effects. We cannot measure their worth solely by their external consequences: if we attempt it, we fall inevitably into the gravest error. ”

“ Basing his estimate, not on feeling but on knowledge, he can measure aesthetic qualities by a scale which is not the less 'objective' because it may often be uncertain in its application.
Here, then, are aesthetic qualities (I have taken artistic workmanship as an example) which have a known reality apart from aesthetic feeling, and which can be independently measured. Of these it is possible, in a certain loose sense, to say that the man who admires them is right, and the man who does not admire them is wrong: that the one sees excellence when it is there, while the other does not. ”

“ Now, in looking back, either on revolutions like these, or on other less abrupt but equally important changes, of which the history of Literature and Art shows so many examples, we must not, for the purposes of the present argument, take up the position of the eclectic critic who, calmly appreciative and coldly just, sees merits in every school and is impassioned over none. All that my argument requires is proof that the judgements of great writers and artists, especially when they are untamed by the orthodoxies of tradition, show none of that agreement of which we are in search. ”

“ The splendours of a tempestuous sunset seen from a sheltered balcony give contemplative delight of a high order. The same spectacle, seen by a footsore traveller across a naked moor, may be only a spur to painful effort. A trumpet heard in a concert-room merely heightens an orchestral effect; heard in camp, it imperiously calls to arms. And (to give one more illustration) wars and revolutions, the struggles of nations and of creeds, are one thing to a man who shares them, quite another to the man who reads of them in history. ”

“ To what objective test can judgement about beauty be made amenable? If a picture or a poem stirs my admiration, can there be any meaning in the statements that my taste is bad, and that if I felt rightly I should feel differently? ”

“ It may, however, be admitted that if there were a general agreement about things that are beautiful, only philosophers would disquiet themselves in order to discover in what precisely their beauty consisted. But notoriously there is no such agreement. Difference of race, difference of age, different degrees of culture among men of the same race and the same age, individual idiosyncrasy and collective fashion occasion, or accompany, the widest possible divergence of aesthetic feeling. The same work of art which moves one man to admiration, moves another to disgust ”

“ At the lowest he must supply 'a criticism of life'. In much of Ruskin's work aesthetics, theology, and morals are inextricably intertwined. In the criticisms by smaller men, the same thing has been done in a smaller way; and obiter dicta based on the view that good art is always something more than art, that it not only creates beauty, but symbolically teaches philosophy, religion, ethics, even science, are constantly to be found in the purple passages of enthusiastic commentators on poetry, music, and painting. ”

“ What title has the opinion of experts to authority in matters aesthetic? Even if it showed that agreement in which it is so conspicuously lacking, why should men endeavour to mould their feelings into the patterns it prescribes? In the practical affairs of life we follow those who have made a special study of some particular problem, only because they have greater knowledge than ourselves of the relevant facts. ”

“ The modern commentator is concerned rather to point out beauties than to theorize about them. He does not measure merit by rule, nor crowd his pages with judgements based on precedent. His procedure is very different. He takes his reader, as it were by the hand, wanders with him through some chosen field of Literature or Art, guides him to its fairest scenes, dwells on what he deems to be its beauties, indicates its defects, and invites him to share his pleasures. His commentary on Art is often itself a work of art; he deals with literature in what is in itself literature. ”

“ Who shall deny that the schoolboy, absorbed in some tale of impossible adventure, incurious about its author, indifferent to its style, interested only in the breathless succession of heroic endeavours and perilous escapes, is happy in the enjoyment of what is Art, and nothing but Art? ”

“ If there be no objective standard of merit, and the degree of aesthetic emotion which a work of Art produces be the only measure of its excellence, how are the elements which make up that emotion to be compared? ”

“ The criticism of music and painting shows the same weaknesses as the criticism of literature. Theory has lagged behind practice; and the procedure of the dead has too often been embodied in rules which serve no other purpose than to embarrass the living.
Criticism, however, of this kind has had its day. It is no longer in demand. The attempt to limit aesthetic expression by rules is seen to be futile. The attempt to find formulae for the creation of new works of beauty by taking old works of beauty to pieces and noting how they were made is seen to be more futile still. ”

“ And we must own that, if, defeated in the attempt to base our judgements on authority, we endeavour to base them on general experience; if we say that that is the greatest aesthetic performance which gives to mankind the greatest aesthetic delight, we are brought face to face with countless difficulties; among which not the least is the difficulty of saying what is the greatest aesthetic delight, when the greatness which has to be measured is a value dependent on the 'quality' of the delight, as well as on its 'quantity'. ”

“ However this may be, my contention is that the pleasure given by the contemplation of technical dexterity is aesthetic, and that technical dexterity itself is capable of objective estimation. In games of pure skill it is certainly so. He plays best who wins. The scorer is an infallible critic; and his standard of excellence is as 'objective' as any man could desire. In other cases, no doubt, the measure of technical merit may not be so precise. ”

“ But, in fact, these general propositions only summarize a multitude of separate valuations of aesthetic merit, each of which is either self-sustaining, or is worthless.
Many critics, it is true, would be slow to admit this. They are not content with historical and descriptive accounts of art and artists. They long for immutable principles of judgement, based on the essential nature of beauty. It does not suffice them to rejoice over what, in their eyes at least, is beautiful; nor yet to make others rejoice with them. ”

“ In particular I can find no justification in experience for associating great art with penetrating insight, or good art with good morals. Optimism and pessimism; materialism and spiritualism; theism, pantheism, atheism; morality and immorality; religion and irreligion; lofty resignation and passionate revolt—each and all have inspired or helped to inspire the creators of artistic beauty. ”

“ They do not pretend to catalogue the external attributes by which the objective presence of the higher kinds of beauty can be securely established, which are never present when it is absent, or absent when it is present. They are always reduced in the last resort to ask, 'Does this work of art convey aesthetic pleasure?'—a test which, on the face of it, is subjective, not objective. ”

“ On the contrary, each succeeding school has built its share of work in its own style. The fourteenth-century architect does nothing as it would have been done could the twelfth-century architect have had his way; and the fifteenth century treats the fourteenth, as the fourteenth treated its predecessors. We praise the mixed result, and doubtless we do well. But we make, I believe, a great mistake if we attribute to the mediaeval artists our own mood of universal, if somewhat ineffectual, admiration. ”

“ For in proportion as criticism has endeavoured to establish principles of composition, to lay down laws of Beauty, to fix criterions of excellence, so it seems to me to have failed: its triumphs, and they are great, have been won on a different field. The critics who have dealt most successfully with theory have dealt with it destructively. ”

“ No one willingly believes that what he greatly admires is admirable only for him. We all instinctively lean to the opinion that beauty has 'objective' worth, and that its expression, whether in nature or in art, possesses, as of right, significance for the world at large. ”

“ The theme of this paper is Beauty and the criticism of Beauty; aesthetic excellence and its analysis. From prehistoric times men have occupied themselves in producing works of Art: since the time of Aristotle they have spent learned energy in commenting on them. How much are we the wiser? What real insight do the commentaries give us into the qualities which produce aesthetic pleasure, or into the marks which distinguish good art from bad? ”

“ We must recognize that, while training is necessary to the comprehension, and therefore to the full enjoyment, of many works of art—while, in particular, the sympathetic delight in masterly workmanship can hardly be obtained without it—few aesthetic emotions exceed in intensity the simple raptures aroused in naïf souls by works which instructed criticism would often refuse to admire. ”

“ Beyond doubt, there are real distinctions, corresponding to such words as 'higher' and 'lower', 'refined' and 'commonplace'; beyond doubt, we cannot regard aesthetic emotion as a homogeneous entity, undifferentiated in quality, simply to be measured as 'more' or 'less'. This makes it hard enough for a man to determine a scale of values which shall honestly represent his own aesthetic experience. But does it not make it absolutely hopeless to find a scale which shall represent, even in the roughest approximation, the experiences of mankind? The task is inherently impossible ”

“ But in the region of aesthetics conditions are very different. There association of ideas plays so important a part in the creation of taste, the feeling of beauty springs from psychological causes so complex and so subtle, that we need feel no surprise at its being occasioned in different people by different objects. In the pleasures of sense we never get very far from the innate physiological qualities in which men are most alike. In the pleasures of aesthetics we are very largely concerned with the qualities in which men most vary—education, experience, beliefs, traditions, customs. ”