CHAPTER V. OF THE ACT OF GENERALIZING IN THE WORKS OF THE ARTS OF DESIGN. AND IN THE IMITATION OF THE HUMAN BODY. THE act of generalizing considered as an operation of the understanding, is very much of the same nature with those, to analyse the elements and develope the notions of which, is the part of metaphysics. Metaphysical science is chiefly the science of the operations of the mind: there is therefore nothing to be wondered at, when we find it appealed to as a necessary and definitive judge, in a number of questions that arise, both on the conception, and on the means of execution, of those works of art where the imitation is especially addressed to the mind. But where the question concerns those arts in which the forms of bodies and matter are employed, many persons seem to think that because their impressions are received by the senses, such arts may be exempted from the tribunal of metaphysics, as though the impressions of the senses could be explained, even materially, without recourse to the moral sciences. Y I admit that the investigation of the operations of the understanding in generalizing, has hitherto been but little attended to in the theory of the arts of design.* But it is because that theory has been itself but little generalized. Critical observations are usually confined to the isolated circle of each of the fine arts separately. By a more comprehensive study, including them all, we come to perceive that they have a common principle, and certain general laws, whence, in each separate mode of imitation, a similar action arises, differing only according as the organs to which they are addressed, are different. We see then clearly that the generalizing action is the same in the works of the arts of design, as in those of the arts of poetry. Without question it belongs to the same operation of the understanding to generalize forms as ideas, the images of bodies as the conceptions of the mind, the representation of material objects as the expression of thoughts and the relations of the moral world. 9 Bring from NATIN Ewent lizing In a periodical work+ (les Archives Litteraires) eighteen years ago we gave, in a series of articles, an essay on this theory, which we maintained that the ideal consisted mainly in the of generalizing †The present matured and all-comprehensive theory is the result of the mental labour and experience of more than eighteen years. In the articles above alluded to we have the rough materials and model of what is here built up and elaborated into a perfect and finished edifice. Some of the chapters of this essay either contain the substance or are verbatim transcripts of those papers.-Translator. The act of generalizing proceeds from one of the innate or instinctive faculties of our minds, and we scarcely utter a sentence without having recourse to it. Language exists only in abstractions, that is, in generalized ideas. The artist also, of necessity, and frequently without being aware of it, brings into play, in his language expressed by forms, a process which is as much that of instinct as of the understanding; and it has been already remarked (Part II. Chap. x.) that, in the earliest period of art, imitation by signs was a species of ideal, in as much as it had to do with images of a most abstracted kind. Consequently while we have an ideal in poetry, there is also an ideal which may be termed that of writing, whether by words or emblems. The latter has been here mentioned only with a view the better to characterize the former. We have also deemed it needless to remark that if, in the fine arts, all poetical ideality results from the act of generalizing, every operation that generalizes does not reciprocally produce the ideal, according to the meaning of the word poetical as applied to the fine arts. Be it as it may, the act of generalizing, applied to the arts of design, is concerned as well in the composition of subjects, as in the representation of the human body. As regards composition, the end to be kept in view, equally as in the conceptions of the poet, is to reduce the most extensive and intricate subjects to the simplest, and, at the same time, most forcible expression they will admit of. Force and simplicity must not here be separated. The true value of every thought lies no doubt in its simplicity; but be it understood that it is this very simplicity that renders the thought more forcible. Painting, like language, is capable of expressing, by a small number of figures, what many would only serve to weaken. It has, moreover, its laconicism of form, as the poetry of language, that of words in those celebrated axioms deemed to be epitomies of the wisdom of ages. What but a summary of a theological treatise in painting, is that composition of Raffaello, in which religion, elevated above the clouds, is seen pointing towards the earth, and indicating that the book which she holds closed in her hand, being that of the knowledge of divine things, is sealed from the curiosity of mortals? If the property of reducing all things to the fewest terms, and by the most simple means, is one of the springs of that poetical action which generalizes the conceptions of the writer, it will in the same sense appertain to the compositions of the painter, and will produce in them the same effects. It is not meant that the manner adopted. by the poet in generalizing his conception, can be followed by the painter desirous of treating the same subject. The parity here spoken of con condensation sists in means, force, and effect, and must be considered as part of a system, and not in respect to particular applications. We shall hereafter show more at length, that as the act of generalizing is allied to that of transforming, every art has a class of abstractions and metaphors inherent to its own mechanism, and which can in no wise be transferred to another. What we maintain is, that this operation, by means of which the painter is enabled to concentrate in the smallest number of traits, for the eye, what the poet condenses into the smallest number of ideas for the mind, is used in every art after its own peculiar manner, and is under such circumstances rightly so used. If the infinite power of the Creator is aptly rendered by the sublime conciseness of the words, fiat lux, which generalize the idea of it, the painter who has represented the Almighty dispersing chaos, has repeated the same thought to the eye in another manner; and the simplicity of that composition serves to display with the same energy of expression, the omnipotence evinced in the creation. Many similar instances might be adduced, but the reader will find no difficulty in supplying them for himself. These few hints are I think sufficient to characterize the operation of the mind which is essential in almost every composition, apart from the more or less successful result dependent on the degree of talent or genius in the |