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CHAPTER VI.

OF THE TWO CUSTOMARY PHRASES CHOICE OF FORMS AND UNION OF SCATTERED BEAUTIES. AN ANALYSIS OF THOSE TWO NOTIONS.

WE have already had occasion to speak of the mistakes that arise in the employment of the word ideal, (see Part II. Chap. v.) more especially when applied to works of art. One of those mistakes consists in restricting the notion of it to corporeal beauty. The generality of persons commit another by considering the ideal as exclusively related to the works of the arts of design and the forms of the human body. Hence certain restrictive systems tending to explain the ideal style, the operations on which it is dependent, and the effects that result from it, by means apparently subordinate to the senses and by notions of absolute, and, in some measure, practical processes.

The inadequacy of these explanations cannot be better evinced than by showing that the ideal belongs as much to the conceptions of the art of the poet as to the inventions of the arts of design.

The definition of the operations of which it is the result must then be rendered capable of application to works wholly dependent on mind as well as to those in which art is exercised on matter or bodies.

This I have endeavoured to render intelligible in the two preceding chapters, where I have shown that the same effect is produced in both kinds of art, by the same faculty of the mind, by the same act of generalizing.

All that is requisite to complete the proof is, to show that the two ways above alluded to, of explaining the operation of the ideal, as some are accustomed to conceive and express it with regard to the arts of design, are nothing more than an interpretation of the act of generalizing, or a circumlocutory mode of expressing that intellectual process. If in the sequel I am enabled to prove that the two modes of procedure proposed to be substituted for it are of necessity employed by the poet equally with the painter, it must be acknowledged that the operation of the ideal in the imitation of bodies is very far from being subject, as the explanation given of it would lead one to understand, to the power of the senses alone, to the sole action of absolute and physical labour.

These two modes of procedure by which some have imagined that they could explain in a more sensible, and in some sort, materialized manner, the operation of the ideal in the works of art,

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consist, say they, in the act of choosing on the one hand, and in that of uniting on the other; and this they term a choice of forms and union of scattered beauties.

We will now endeavour to give some account of what is meant by these two terms.

As regards the term choice of forms, it is certain that when all the parts of a figure in the ideal style are duly estimated and it is compared with a figure executed in the style of individual imitation, that the notion of chosen forms is sufficiently expressive of the effect of the former. With regard to the latter, however, there evidently can have been no room for the choice spoken of.

Thus the idea that is given rise to by the ideal style in a figure, is well enough represented by the words choice of forms. This phrase is only a metaphorical way of expressing an act which is far less sensible and material than it is usually thought to be. In fact, what is here called choosing, which would appear as though it were a simple and easy operation, when it comes to be analysed compels us to refer the idea of it to that of comparing, and the act which succeeds it to that of judging. Of a certainty to choose is to judge which among several things is the best or the worst.

But in order to judge what is the best, it is necessary first of all to possess a knowledge of it. Now, if in order to select the beautiful, it is ne

cessary to have already found it, (for to know it is to have found it,) how are we to understand an operation which, in order to choose, that is to judge of, what is the best, requires a previous operation that has already made known to the artist what he is in search of.

It is evident that this notion when taken in its absolute sense revolves in a circle, because as already stated, (Part II. Chap. vii.) in order to judge, some rule or law is necessary as a point of comparison. Now since to choose is to judge, where, we ask, is the rule by which the artist decides, which among the forms of the human body are good, which the best, and which the worst?

We have already explained, (see Part II. Chapters vi. and x.,) how in ancient times this rule came to be formed, what were the causes that induced its being sought out, and the means that led to its discovery; we have also shown that this law or rule of judgment in the act of choosing was a knowledge of the principles of the organization of the human body, an acquaintance with the general laws of nature.

It seems to follow as a result of what we have unfolded in our theoretical and historical disquisitions on this subject that the above mentioned choice of forms, whether understood generally or in its partial application to the execution of some stated work, was not formerly, any more

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than it can be now-a-days, the isolated production of a single artist, the result of individual labour. Mere common sense tells us that this choice, by which the means and the effect of the ideal are attempted to be explained, did not depend, in every separate figure, on the chance whether the artist was more or less fortunate in his survey of the models within his reach, nor on that of the judgments he might form in comparing the numerous parts required to compose a whole.

The idea of choice as necessarily belonging to a system, evidently comes within the operation of taste, intellect, and genius, and this operation which is sought to be withdrawn from the moral principle, rejects on the contrary, far more than is believed, all practical explanation, more especially when attempted in particulars.

What indeed is meant by this choice, which in the habitual practice of the art ought to be the result arrived at by the artist from an actual confrontation of all descriptions of bodies, and forms and parts of bodies?

Is it meant that the artist can neither produce nor even conceive the figure he has to execute, but by actually confronting as many models or individuals as would be necessary, in order that he may be certain that he has found enough from which to complete his choice of excellence in every part and detail? If we for a moment assume it thus, and are willing to allow that such

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