Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic by Benedetto Croce

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[Sidenote] _Critique of the beautiful as that which pleases the
higher senses._

The aesthetic-hedonistic point of view has been presented in several
forms. One of the most ancient conceives the beautiful as that which
pleases the sight and hearing, that is to say, the so-called superior
senses. When analysis of aesthetic facts first began, it was, in fact,
difficult to avoid the mistake of thinking that a picture and a piece of
music are impressions of sight or of hearing: it was and is an
indisputable fact that the blind man does not enjoy the picture, nor the
deaf man the music. To show, as we have shown, that the aesthetic fact
does not depend upon the nature of the impressions, but that all
sensible impressions can be raised to aesthetic expression and that none
need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only
when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso
imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to
the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically
to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes
cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has done, the viscerally
beautiful.

[Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of play._

The theory of _play_ is another form of aesthetic hedonism. The
conception of play has sometimes helped towards the realization of the
actifying character of the expressive fact: man (it has been said) is
not really man, save when he begins to play; that is to say, when he
frees himself from natural and mechanical causality and operates
spiritually; and his first game is art. But since the word _play_ also
means that pleasure which arises from the expenditure of the exuberant
energy of the organism (that is to say, from a practical act), the
consequence of this theory has been, that every game has been called an
aesthetic fact, and that the aesthetic function has been called a game,
in so far as it is possible to play with it, for, like science and every
other thing, Aesthetic can be made part of a game. But morality cannot
be provoked at the intention of playing, on the ground that it does not
consent; on the contrary, it dominates and regulates the act of playing
itself.

[Sidenote] _Critique of the theories of sexuality and of the triumph._

Finally, there have been some who have tried to deduce the pleasure of
art from the reaction of the sexual organs. There are some very modern
aestheticians who place the genesis of the aesthetic fact in the
pleasure of _conquering_, of _triumphing_, or, as others add, in the
desire of the male, who wishes to conquer the female. This theory is
seasoned with much anecdotal erudition, Heaven knows of what degree of
credibility! on the customs of savage peoples. But in very truth there
was no necessity for such important aid, for one often meets in ordinary
life poets who adorn themselves with their poetry, like cocks that raise
their crests, or turkeys that spread their tails. But he who does such
things, in so far as he does them, is not a poet, but a poor devil of a
cock or turkey. The conquest of woman does not suffice to explain the
art fact. It would be just as correct to term poetry _economic_, because
there have been aulic and stipendiary poets, and there are poets the
sale of whose verses helps them to gain their livelihood, if it does not
altogether provide it. However, this definition has not failed to win
over some zealous neophytes of historical materialism.

[Sidenote] _Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic. Meaning in
it of content and form._

Another less vulgar current of thought considers Aesthetic to be the
science of the _sympathetic_, of that with which we sympathize, which
attracts, rejoices, gives us pleasure and excites admiration. But the
sympathetic is nothing but the image or representation of what pleases.
And, as such, it is a complex fact, resulting from a constant element,
the aesthetic element of representation, and from a variable element,
the pleasing in its infinite forms, arising from all the various classes
of values.

In ordinary language, there is sometimes a feeling of repugnance at
calling an expression beautiful, which is not an expression of the
sympathetic. Hence the continual contrast between the point of view of
the aesthetician or of the art critic and that of the ordinary person,
who cannot succeed in persuading himself that the image of pain and of
turpitude can be beautiful, or, at least, can be beautiful with as much
right as the pleasing and the good.

The opposition could be solved by distinguishing two different sciences,
one of expression and the other of the sympathetic, if the latter could
be the object of a special science; that is to say, if it were not, as
has been shown, a complex fact. If predominance be given to the
expressive fact, it becomes a part of Aesthetic as science of
expression; if to the pleasurable content, we fall back to the study of
facts which are essentially hedonistic (utilitarian), however
complicated they may appear. The origin, also, of the connexion between
content and form is to be sought for in the Aesthetic of the
sympathetic, when this is conceived as the sum of two values.

[Sidenote] _Aesthetic hedonism and moralism._

In all the doctrines just now discussed, the art fact is posited as
merely hedonistic. But this view cannot be maintained, save by uniting
it with a philosophic hedonism that is complete and not partial, that is
to say, with a hedonism which does not admit any other form of value.
Hardly has this hedonistic conception of art been received by
philosophers, who admit one or more spiritual values, of truth or of
morality, than the following question must necessarily be asked: What
should be done with art? To what use should it be put? Should a free
course be allowed to its pleasures? And if so, to what extent? The
question of the _end of art_, which in the Aesthetic of expression would
be a contradiction of terms, here appears in place, and altogether
logical.

[Sidenote] _The rigoristic negation, and the pedagogic justification
of art._

Now it is evident that, admitting the premisses, but two solutions of
such a question can be given, the one altogether negative, the other
restrictive. The first, which we shall call _rigoristic_ or _ascetic_,
appears several times, although not frequently, in the history of ideas.
It looks upon art as an inebriation of the senses, and therefore, not
only useless, but harmful. According to this theory, then, it is
necessary to drive it with all our strength from the human soul, which
it troubles. The other solution, which we shall call _pedagogic_ or
_moralistico-utilitarian_, admits art, but only in so far as it concurs
with the end of morality; in so far as it assists with innocent pleasure
the work of him who leads to the true and the good; in so far as it
sprinkles with dulcet balm the sides of the vase of wisdom and of
morality.

It is well to observe that it would be an error to divide this second
view into intellectualist and moralistico-utilitarian, according to
whether the end of leading to the true or to what is practically good,
be assigned to art. The task of instructing, which is imposed upon it,
precisely because it is an end which is sought after and advised, is no
longer merely a theoretical fact, but a theoretical fact become the
material for practical action; it is not, therefore, intellectualism, but
pedagogism and practicism. Nor would it be more exact to subdivide the
pedagogic view into the pure utilitarian and the moralistico-utilitarian;
because those who admit only the individually useful (the desire of the
individual), precisely because they are absolute hedonists, have no
motive for seeking an ulterior justification for art.

But to enunciate these theories at the point to which we have attained
is to confute them. We therefore restrict ourselves to observing that in
the pedagogic theory of art is to be found another of the reasons why it
has been erroneously claimed that the content of art should be _chosen_
with a view to certain practical effects.

[Sidenote] _Critique of pure beauty._

The thesis, re-echoed by the artists, that art consists of _pure
beauty_, has often been brought forward against hedonistic and pedagogic
Aesthetic: "Heaven places All our joy in _pure beauty_, and the Verse is
everything." If it is wished that this should be understood in the sense
that art is not to be confounded with sensual pleasure, that is, in
fact, with utilitarian practicism, nor with moralism, then our Aesthetic
also must be permitted to adorn itself with the title of _Aesthetic of
pure beauty_. But if (as is often the case) something mystical and
transcendental be meant by this, something that is unknown to our poor
human world, or something spiritual and beatific, but not expressive, we
must reply that while applauding the conception of a beauty, free of all
that is not the spiritual form of expression, we are yet unable to
conceive a beauty altogether purified of expression, that is to say,
separated from itself.

XII

THE AESTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-AESTHETIC CONCEPTS

[Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the aesthetic of the
sympathetic._

The doctrine of the sympathetic (very often animated and seconded in
this by the capricious metaphysical and mystical Aesthetic, and by that
blind tradition which assumes an intimate connection between things by
chance treated of together by the same authors and in the same books),
has introduced and rendered familiar in systems of Aesthetic, a series
of concepts, of which one example suffices to justify our resolute
expulsion of them from our own treatise.

Their catalogue is long, not to say interminable: _tragic, comic,
sublime, pathetic, moving, sad, ridiculous, melancholy, tragi-comic,
humoristic, majestic, dignified, serious, grave, imposing, noble,
decorous, graceful, attractive, piquant, coquettish, idyllic, elegiac,
cheerful, violent, ingenuous, cruel, base, horrible, disgusting,
dreadful, nauseating_; the list can be increased at will.

Since that doctrine took as its special object the sympathetic, it was
naturally unable to neglect any of the varieties of this, or any of the
combinations or gradations which lead at last from the sympathetic to
the antipathetic. And seeing that the sympathetic content was held to be
the _beautiful_ and the antipathetic the _ugly_, the varieties (tragic,
comic, sublime, pathetic, etc.) constituted for it the shades and
gradations intervening between the beautiful and the ugly.

[Sidenote] _Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of the
ugly surmounted._

Having enumerated and defined, as well as it could, the chief among
these varieties, the Aesthetic of the sympathetic set itself the problem
of the place to be assigned to the _ugly in art_. This problem is
without meaning for us, who do not recognize any ugliness save the
anti-aesthetic or inexpressive, which can never form part of the
aesthetic fact, being, on the contrary, its antithesis. But the question
for the doctrine which we are here criticizing was to reconcile in some
way the false and defective idea of art from which it started, reduced
to the representation of the agreeable, with effective art, which
occupies a far wider field. Hence the artificial attempt to settle what
examples of the ugly (antipathetic) could be admitted in artistic
representation, and for what reasons, and in what ways.

The answer was: that the ugly is admissible, only when it can be
_overcome_, an unconquerable ugliness, such as the _disgusting_ or the
_nauseating_, being altogether excluded. Further, that the duty of the
ugly, when admitted in art, is to contribute towards heightening the
effect of the beautiful (sympathetic), by producing a series of
contrasts, from which the pleasurable shall issue more efficacious and
pleasure-giving. It is, in fact, a common observation that pleasure is
more vividly felt when It has been preceded by abstinence or by
suffering. Thus the ugly in art was looked upon as the servant of the
beautiful, its stimulant and condiment.

That special theory of hedonistic refinement, which used to be pompously
called the _surmounting of the ugly_, falls with the general theory of
the sympathetic; and with it the enumeration and the definition of the
concepts mentioned above remain completely excluded from Aesthetic. For
Aesthetic does not recognize the sympathetic or the antipathetic In
their varieties, but only the spiritual activity of the representation.

[Sidenote] _Pseudo-aesthetic concepts belong to Psychology._

However, the large space which, as we have said, those concepts have
hitherto occupied in aesthetic treatises makes opportune a rather more
copious explanation of what they are. What will be their lot? As they
are excluded from Aesthetic, in what other part of Philosophy will they
be received?

Truly, in none. All those concepts are without philosophical value. They
are nothing but a series of classes, which can be bent in the most
various ways and multiplied at pleasure, to which it is sought to reduce
the infinite complications and shadings of the values and disvalues of
life. Of those classes, there are some that have an especially positive
significance, like the beautiful, the sublime, the majestic, the solemn,
the serious, the weighty, the noble, the elevated; others have a
significance especially negative, like the ugly, the horrible, the
dreadful, the tremendous, the monstrous, the foolish, the extravagant;
in others prevails a mixed significance, as is the case with the comic,
the tender, the melancholy, the humorous, the tragi-comic. The
complications are infinite, because the individuations are infinite;
hence it is not possible to construct the concepts, save in the
arbitrary and approximate manner of the natural sciences, whose duty it
is to make as good a plan as possible of that reality which they cannot
exhaust by enumeration, nor understand and surpass speculatively. And
since _Psychology_ is the naturalistic discipline, which undertakes to
construct types and plans of the spiritual processes of man (of which,
in fact, it is always accentuating in our day the merely empirical and
descriptive character), these concepts do not appertain to Aesthetic,
nor, in general, to Philosophy. They must simply be handed over to
Psychology.

[Sidenote] _Impossibility of rigoristic definitions of them._

As is the case with all other psychological constructions, so is it with
those concepts: no rigorous definitions are possible; and consequently
the one cannot be deduced from the other and they cannot be connected in
a system, as has, nevertheless, often been attempted, at great waste of
time and without result. But it can be claimed as possible to obtain,
apart from philosophical definitions recognised as impossible, empirical
definitions, universally acceptable as true. Since there does not exist
a unique definition of a given fact, but innumerable definitions can be
given of it, according to the cases and the objects for which they are
made, so it is clear that if there were only one, and that the true one,
this would no longer be an empirical, but a rigorous and philosophical
definition. Speaking exactly, every time that one of the terms to which
we have referred has been employed, or any other of the innumerable
series, a definition of it has at the same time been given, expressed or
understood. And each one of these definitions has differed somewhat from
the others, in some particular, perhaps of very small importance, such
as tacit reference to some individual fact or other, which thus became
especially an object of attention and was raised to the position of a
general type. So it happens that not one of such definitions satisfies
him who hears it, nor does it satisfy even him who constructs it. For,
the moment after, this same individual finds himself face to face with a
new case, for which he recognizes that his definition is more or less
insufficient, ill-adapted, and in need of remodelling. It is necessary,
therefore, to leave writers and speakers free to define the sublime or
the comic, the tragic or the humoristic, on every occasion, as they
please and as may seem suitable to their purpose. And if you insist upon
obtaining an empirical definition of universal validity, we can but
submit this one:--The sublime (comic, tragic, humoristic, etc.) is
_everything_ that is or will be so _called_ by those who have employed
or shall employ this _word_.

[Sidenote] _Examples: definitions of the sublime, the comic, and
the humoristic._

What is the sublime? The unexpected affirmation of an ultra-powerful
moral force: that is one definition. But that other definition is
equally good, which also recognizes the sublime where the force which
declares itself is an ultra-powerful, but immoral and destructive will.
Both remain vague and assume no precise form, until they are applied to
a concrete case, which makes clear what is here meant by
_ultra-powerful_, and what by _unexpected_. They are quantitative
concepts, but falsely quantitative, since there is no way of measuring
them; they are, at bottom, metaphors, emphatic phrases, or logical
tautologies. The humorous will be laughter mingled with tears, bitter
laughter, the sudden passage from the comic to the tragic, and from the
tragic to the comic, the comic romantic, the inverted sublime, war
declared against every attempt at insincerity, compassion which is
ashamed to lament, the mockery not of the fact, but of the ideal itself;
and whatever else may better please, according as it is desired to get a
view of the physiognomy of this or that poet, of this or that poem,
which is, in its uniqueness, its own definition, and though momentary
and circumscribed, yet the sole adequate. The comic has been defined as
the displeasure arising from the perception of a deformity immediately
followed by a greater pleasure arising from the relaxation of our
psychical forces, which were strained in anticipation of a perception
whose importance was foreseen. While listening to a narrative, which,
for example, should describe the magnificent and heroic purpose of a
definite person, we anticipate in imagination the occurrence of an
action both heroic and magnificent, and we prepare ourselves to receive
it, by straining our psychic forces. If, however, in a moment, instead
of the magnificent and heroic action, which the premises and the tone of
the narrative had led us to expect, by an unexpected change there occur
a slight, mean, foolish action, unequal to our expectation, we have been
deceived, and the recognition of the deceit brings with it an instant of
displeasure. But this instant is as it were overcome by the one
immediately following, in which we are able to discard our strained
attention, to free ourselves from the provision of psychic energy
accumulated and, henceforth superfluous, to feel ourselves reasonable
and relieved of a burden. This is the pleasure of the comic, with its
physiological equivalent, laughter. If the unpleasant fact that has
occurred should painfully affect our interests, pleasure would not
arise, laughter would be at once choked, the psychic energy would be
strained and overstrained by other more serious perceptions. If, on the
other hand, such more serious perceptions do not arise, if the whole
loss be limited to a slight deception of our foresight, then the
supervening feeling of our psychic wealth affords ample compensation for
this very slight displeasure.--This, stated in a few words, is one of
the most accurate modern definitions of the comic. It boasts of
containing, justified or corrected, the manifold attempts to define the
comic, from Hellenic antiquity to our own day. It includes Plato's
dictum in the _Philebus_, and Aristotle's, which is more explicit. The
latter looks upon the comic as an _ugliness without pain_. It contains
the theory of Hobbes, who placed it in the feeling of _individual
superiority_; of Kant, who saw in it a _relaxation of tension_; and
those of other thinkers, for whom it was _the contrast between great and
small, between the finite and the infinite_. But on close observation,
the analysis and definition above given, although most elaborate and
rigorous in appearance, yet enunciates characteristics which are
applicable, not only to the comic, but to every spiritual process; such
as the succession of painful and agreeable moments and the satisfaction
arising from the consciousness of force and of its free development. The
differentiation here given is that of quantitative determinations, to
which limits cannot be assigned. They remain vague phrases, attaining to
some meaning from their reference to this or that single comic fact. If
such definitions be taken too seriously, there happens to them what Jean
Paul Richter said of all the definitions of the comic: namely, that
their sole merit is _to be themselves comic_ and to produce, in reality,
the fact, which they vainly try to define logically. And who will ever
determine logically the dividing line between the comic and the
non-comic, between smiles and laughter, between smiling and gravity; who
will cut into clearly divided parts that ever-varying continuity into
which life melts?

[Sidenote] _Relations between those concepts and aesthetic concepts._

The facts, classified as well as possible in the above-quoted
psychological concepts, bear no relation to the artistic fact, beyond
the generic that all of them, in so far as they designate the material
of life, can be represented by art; and the other accidental relation,
that aesthetic facts also may sometimes enter into the processes
described, as in the impression of the sublime that the work of a
Titanic artist such as Dante or Shakespeare may produce, and that of the
comic produced by the effort of a dauber or of a scribbler.

The process is external to the aesthetic fact In this case also; for the
only feeling linked with that is the feeling of aesthetic value and
disvalue, of the beautiful and of the ugly. The Dantesque Farinata is
aesthetically beautiful, and nothing but beautiful: if, in addition, the
force of will of this personage appear sublime, or the expression that
Dante gives him, by reason of his great genius, seem sublime by
comparison with that of a less energetic poet, all this is not a matter
for aesthetic consideration. This consists always and only in adequation
to truth; that is, in beauty.

XIII

THE SO-CALLED PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL IN NATURE AND ART

[Sidenote] _Aesthetic activity and physical concepts._

Aesthetic activity is distinct from practical activity but when it
expresses itself is always physical accompanied by practical activity.
Hence its utilitarian or hedonistic side, and the pleasure and pain,
which are, as it were, the practical echo of aesthetic values and
disvalues, of the beautiful and of the ugly. But this practical side of
the aesthetic activity has also, in its turn, a _physical_ or
_psychophysical_ accompaniment, which consists of sounds, tones,
movements, combinations of lines and colours, and so on.

Does it _really_ possess this side, or does it only seem to possess it,
as the result of the construction which we raise in physical science,
and of the useful and arbitrary methods, which we have shown to be
proper to the empirical and abstract sciences? Our reply cannot be
doubtful, that is, it cannot be affirmative as to the first of the two
hypotheses.

However, it will be better to leave it at this point in suspense, for it
is not at present necessary to prosecute this line of inquiry any
further. The mention already made must suffice to prevent our having
spoken of the physical element as of something objective and existing,
for reasons of simplicity and adhesion to ordinary language, from
leading to hasty conclusions as to the concepts and the connexion
between spirit and nature.

[Sidenote] _Expression in the aesthetic sense, and expression in
the naturalistic sense._

It is important to make clear that as the existence of the hedonistic
side in every spiritual activity has given rise to the confusion between
the aesthetic activity and the useful or pleasurable, so the existence,
or, better, the possibility of constructing this physical side, has
generated the confusion between _aesthetic_ expression and expression
_in the naturalistic sense_; between a spiritual fact, that is to say,
and a mechanical and passive fact (not to say, between a concrete
reality and an abstraction or fiction). In common speech, sometimes it
is the words of the poet that are called _expressions_, the notes of the
musician, or the figures of the painter; sometimes the blush which is
wont to accompany the feeling of shame, the pallor resulting from fear,
the grinding of the teeth proper to violent anger, the glittering of the
eyes, and certain movements of the muscles of the mouth, which reveal
cheerfulness. A certain degree of heat is also said to be the
_expression_ of fever, as the falling of the barometer is of rain, and
even that the height of the rate of exchange _expresses_ the discredit
of the paper-money of a State, or social discontent the approach of a
revolution. One can well imagine what sort of scientific results would
be attained by allowing oneself to be governed by linguistic usage and
placing in one sheaf facts so widely different. But there is, in fact,
an abyss between a man who is the prey of anger with all its natural
manifestations, and another man who expresses it aesthetically; between
the aspect, the cries, and the contortions of one who is tortured with
sorrow at the loss of a dear one, and the words or song with which the
same individual portrays his torture at another moment; between the
distortion of emotion and the gesture of the actor. Darwin's book on the
expression of the feelings in man and animals does not belong to
Aesthetic; because there is nothing in common between the science of
spiritual expression and a _Semiotic_, whether it be medical,
meteorological, political, physiognomic, or chiromantic.

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