Art Principles

test of beauty in

on of it to the brain. We know from experience that exercise of these nerves results in the removal or partial removal of natural irregularities therein, and enables a complex form of beauty to be recognized which was not before perceived. The vast majority of the pe

l activity. The human figure must be regarded as a single sign since the relation of its parts to each other is fixed and invariable; and further it is the simplest, because of all signs none is so quickly recognized by the rud

ful because it pleases, we imply that it is still more beautiful if we say that it generally pleases, and the highest of all standards of beauty is involved in the interpretation of Longinus: "That is sublim

result of complex combinations of signs. The greatest musical compositions consist of an immense variety of signs arranged in a hitherto unknown order. Thus, while the immature or uncultivated mind recognizes the higher forms of beauty

ey will prefer the interior to a landscape, and a landscape to a still-life picture. So in sculpture. Other things being equal, a figure of a man or woman will be preferred to a group, and the group to an animal or decorative ornament. An exception must however be made in respect of the sublime reaches of Grecian sculpture in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.,

Milton, because where the actions of supernatural persons are described, the sentiments and language employed are so elevated in character, and the images and literary references so numerous, that a certain superior education is required before the sense of the poems can be c

on of the greater artists. The architect is under the necessity of meeting the ends of utility, but subject to this restriction it is obvious that simplicity must be the keynote to his design, for the highest quality of beauty in his power to produce is grandeur, and this diminishes with an increase

t a variation. Only the very lowest forms of music may be used with the higher forms of poetry because the poet must have the minimum of restriction when dealing with the character and actions of the personages who constitute the principal signs in his work, but as the art descends the musical form becomes of more importance, and the substance more simple. Hence the sensorial beauty of a lyric may be appreciated more quickly than that of a poem which is, in substance, of a much higher order, though the kind of beauty recognized will differ in the two cases. But even in the greatest lyric the musical form is comparatively very simple, its beauty being

the arts of poetry, sculpture, painting, and fiction, the supreme test of the ?sthetic value of a work, is general opinion; and a c