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The pleasure which we take in considering an ideal character will in no way be lessened when we come to think that this character is nothing more than a poetic fiction; for it is on the poetic truth, and not on historic truth, that every aesthetic impression of the feelings rest.
Postponing descriptive or aesthetic criticism of the Sistine frescoes, I shall proceed with the narration of their gradual completion.
He enjoyed keenly the privilege of daily association with high-minded and refined women; their eager activity of intellect stimulated him, their exquisite ethereal grace and their delicately chiseled beauty satisfied his aesthetic cravings, and the responsive vivacity of their nature prepared him ever new surprises.
No one will deny that the full aesthetic experience cannot be dismissed with the treatment of formal beauty; and, although Professor Santayana's "beauty in the second term" may be rejected as a pure individual, arbitrary, interested, and hence unaesthetic element, the explicit content of a work of art cannot be ignored.
For experience conveys not only law, but also irrelevance and chaos; not only harmony but also discord. To meet this last difficulty, and at the same time better to provide for the complexity of human interests, metaphysical idealism finally assumes the aesthetic form.
Who, for example, would not rather look at a Tanagra statuette than at the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington? The Greeks, in fact, quite apart from any theories they may have held, were artists through and through; and that is a fact we must carry with us through the whole of our discussion. Section 2. Identification of the Aesthetic and Ethical Points of View.
Even Goethe in his day had to cry: "Upon my honour, we are in need of a Lessing, and woe unto all vain masters and to the whole aesthetic kingdom of heaven, when the young tiger, whose restless strength will be visible in his every distended muscle and his every glance, shall sally forth to seek his prey!"
The aesthetic communication alone unites society because it applies to what is common to all its members. We only enjoy the pleasures of sense as individuals, without the nature of the race in us sharing in it; accordingly, we cannot generalize our individual pleasures, because we cannot generalize our individuality.
The aesthetic effect of the figure is absolutely different in the different positions, and yet the feeling about the character of the line itself seems to remain the same. In what sense, and for what reasons, does this curved line satisfy the demands of the eye?
Hence, only if the beauty of the lily pond is transferred to a canvas, can it be preserved and shared. The work of art is the tool of the aesthetic life.
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