Beauty of the Beast. John Bascom
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12.6 × 17.2 cm
Kunsthalle, Hamburg
But no simple thing can be decompounded and explained through its parts; or can a primary thing be referred as a derivative to something back of it, and thus be explained in its cause.
Nor is the word by which such simplicity is expressed, capable of any other definition than that of a synonym. A definition must include one or more characteristic and distinguishing qualities by which the thing in hand is separated from all others.
Sea Crab
Albrecht Dürer, 1495
Watercolour, gouache, 26.3 × 35.5 cm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
But in the case of a simple thing there is but one quality, and that alone can be mentioned, and this is to name a synonym.
All knowledge, therefore, of that which is simple and primary, whether in perception or intuition, must be direct. Mind must interpret mind, and only by the interpretation of similar faculties can this class of properties be apprehended. Certain original perceptions and intuitions must be granted us as the basis of every defining and explanatory process.
Detail of The Garden of Earthly Delights (left panel: Paradise)
Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1500-1505
Oil on panel
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Explanation cannot go back of its own postulates to throw light upon starting-points. Senses and faculties directly conversant with qualities the same for all, are these postulates. All simple and primary notions and attributes are directly known through these faculties, and the language which expresses them is only explicable to those who have the key, the chart, of kindred faculties. The term beauty is susceptible, then, of no definition, and the quality beauty of no further knowledge and explanation than that which the very power by which we perceive, feel, and know it is able to give.
A Young Hare
Albrecht Dürer, 1502
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 25 × 23cm
Grafische Sammlung, Albertina, Vienna
The conditions and relations of such an attribute may still invite our attention. The simple and primary character of beauty does not exclude our second assertion, which is, that this quality is reasonable, that is, a quality for whose existence a reason can be rendered. Certain other qualities occasion it to exist and these may be pointed out. Right is a primary quality, yet all our judgments of right proceed on certain premises which sustain them, and which can be rendered as a reason why we suppose this characteristic of action present.
Rearing Horse
Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1505
Pen and ink, red chalk, 15.3 × 14.2 cm
Royal Library, Windsor Castle
Thus beauty, when present, is so through causes which can be more or less distinctly assigned, and is not, like the properties of matter, merely known to be, without any knowledge of that which occasions them to be. The proof of this is in the fact that there are questions of beauty, by the concession of all, admitting and calling forth discussion; that men not only discuss points of taste, but are persuaded by the reasoning employed. Indeed, if it were as true of intellectual as of physical tastes, that there is no dispute concerning them, our whole department would be at once annihilated and fall back among the things incapable of explanation and knowledge.
Barn Owl (Syrnium aluco)
Albrecht Dürer, 1508
19.2 × 14 cm
Grafische Sammlung, Albertina, Vienna
Our progress, and the propriety of every effort toward progress, rest on the assertion, that beauty is a subject of reasoning, and is, in its existence, reasonable. The important and pregnant nature of this assertion will appear more and more as we advance, and its truth will be involved in the very fact, that, following in the steps of all who have preceded us, we make evident that we regard beauty as a reasonable quality, by actually reasonably concerning its existence and the manner of its action.
The Heron
Albrecht Dürer, c. 1515
Watercolour on parchment, 26.7 × 34.7 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Truth as a Condition of Beauty
An important characteristic of beauty is truth. This assertion, however, is only applicable to art, since nature is our standard of truth, and all natural beauty necessarily possesses this quality. So various and vague are the notions attached to the phrase Truth in art, that we shall not be able to make satisfactory progress without carefully defining its several meanings.
Rhinoceros
Albrecht Dürer, 1515
Engraving, 21.4 × 29.8 cm
The British Museum, London
Some references of art to nature – some agreement of our conceptions with facts – is supposed to be included in the words, though the precise connection intended, of man’s creations with those of the external world is not seen.
A common meaning of the truth is that by which it is confounded with the best, the noblest, the right. In this sense, to say that truth is a characteristic of beauty, may be either to utter the truism, that that which is best or beautiful is best or beautiful; or if, proceeding more wittingly, we first define what is the best, the noblest, the true, and afterward call this beautiful, it may be to perform the work already undertaken by us in showing what that is in expression which is beautiful. Of the true, then, as employed to designate that which is correct or high-toned in expression, we have no further occasion to speak.
Lying Dog
Albrecht Dürer, 1520-1521
Silverpoint, 12.3 × 17.5 cm
The British Museum, London
A second meaning of truth is, that which excludes falsehood from art and suffers no surface work to indicate, either in structure or material, that which does not exist beneath it.
Head of a Walrus
Albrecht Dürer, 1521
Pen and ink drawing with watercolour, 21.1 × 31.2 cm
The British Museum, London
In this signification, that which is true is genuine, and is especially at war with veneering, paint, stucco, fresco, and cast ornaments; at least, so far as they purport to be other than what they are. An encouragement of these makes deception an end of art, and naked imitation its means, thus destroying the artist; gives rise to pretence, ostentation, and an ungrounded self-satisfaction in the employer of art, thus degrading him from the patron of virtuous taste to the pander of a false and foolish vanity.
Composition