DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0180
160 The Work of Art as Significant part ii
There is nothing therefore in this new theory which need
prevent us in the meantime from maintaining the statement
with which we started—to the effect that though at times we
receive from a work of art an impression of delight that seems
as direct and simple as the taste of a sweet substance to the
palate, yet in most cases the impression is of a complex
kind, and depends upon the association of ideas or upon
a process of reflection rapidly gone through. The word
‘ beautiful ’ applies properly to those impressions that are of
a more formal order, while we may use the term ‘ significant ’
for those that have a larger element of association and
reflection.
§ 100. The Architectural Monument as a significant
Work of Art.
In considering now the work of art, first, as significant
and, next, as beautiful, it will be convenient to separate the
impression produced by the artistic unity in itself in its
broadest and most general aspect, from that due to the
Composition of the parts that make it up. It is in archi-
tecture that this distinction is most clearly apparent, for in
architecture the monument as a whole possesses an artistic
character quite independent of the relation of its parts. As
a type, therefore, of the single, strong and immediate im-
pression which can be conveyed by a work of art as a
whole, let us take that of a vast and beautiful building, into
the presence of which we are suddenly brought. The
writer well remembers his first sight of the Western fagade
of Rheims Cathedral. Arriving late, he had been driven
to his Hotel without any idea of its situation, and far on in
the night, throwing back the Venetian shutters had gazed
unsuspectingly forth across the moonlit street. There, in
front, beyond the little Place, buttressed with gloom but
There is nothing therefore in this new theory which need
prevent us in the meantime from maintaining the statement
with which we started—to the effect that though at times we
receive from a work of art an impression of delight that seems
as direct and simple as the taste of a sweet substance to the
palate, yet in most cases the impression is of a complex
kind, and depends upon the association of ideas or upon
a process of reflection rapidly gone through. The word
‘ beautiful ’ applies properly to those impressions that are of
a more formal order, while we may use the term ‘ significant ’
for those that have a larger element of association and
reflection.
§ 100. The Architectural Monument as a significant
Work of Art.
In considering now the work of art, first, as significant
and, next, as beautiful, it will be convenient to separate the
impression produced by the artistic unity in itself in its
broadest and most general aspect, from that due to the
Composition of the parts that make it up. It is in archi-
tecture that this distinction is most clearly apparent, for in
architecture the monument as a whole possesses an artistic
character quite independent of the relation of its parts. As
a type, therefore, of the single, strong and immediate im-
pression which can be conveyed by a work of art as a
whole, let us take that of a vast and beautiful building, into
the presence of which we are suddenly brought. The
writer well remembers his first sight of the Western fagade
of Rheims Cathedral. Arriving late, he had been driven
to his Hotel without any idea of its situation, and far on in
the night, throwing back the Venetian shutters had gazed
unsuspectingly forth across the moonlit street. There, in
front, beyond the little Place, buttressed with gloom but