DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0028
INTRODUCTION
his aesthetic. But to Fry the word came to denote a trick of style by
which the artist sought to make his work effective, while shirking the
main issue of art, the creation of plastic sequences. And effectiveness
cheaply won by the sacrifice of truth was the quality which he most
disliked. One whiff of it—Gudea’s eyebrows for example (see p. 67)—
would taint his whole pleasure in a work of art, however sublime, and
when this style was freely used, as in the Assur-bani-pal reliefs, he
was blind to other qualities.
It is worth emphasizing the influence of Fry’s moral ideas upon his
critical judgments, because his theory of pure aesthetic reactions might
give those who did not know him a very false notion of his writings. It
conjures up a picture of a robot critic—cold, passionless, remote—which
is ludicrously far from the truth. Though he often achieved intellectual
detachment, he never succeeded in banishing his sense of right and
wrong. He was easily moved to pity and indignation, and his criticism,
far from being the graph of an aesthetic recording-machine, is the
revelation of a rich and lovable personality.
I have called these lectures an intellectual adventure, and I do not
think Fry would have objected to this expression, though he might have
preferred ‘experiment’, a word to which his early training as a scientist
had given a slightly magical potency. The importance of an experi-
mental attitude is, indeed, the theme of his inaugural lecture. He begins
by showing how the attempt to lay down fixed objective standards of
beauty is futile, and would, if it could succeed, be disastrous. ‘When we
ask for objective validity in aesthetic judgments, we are somewhat like
the Frogs in the fable. We have an excellent King Log who lies there
quite imposingly in our pond, and each of us is convinced that if the King
ever spoke it would be to establish the truth of his own judgments. If,
however, Jupiter were ever to answer our prayers for King Stork we
should find ourselves. . .in a very different posture.’ He goes on to show
that even an experimental approach, through the comparison of our
responses to works of art, is made almost impossible by the extreme
< xxii >
his aesthetic. But to Fry the word came to denote a trick of style by
which the artist sought to make his work effective, while shirking the
main issue of art, the creation of plastic sequences. And effectiveness
cheaply won by the sacrifice of truth was the quality which he most
disliked. One whiff of it—Gudea’s eyebrows for example (see p. 67)—
would taint his whole pleasure in a work of art, however sublime, and
when this style was freely used, as in the Assur-bani-pal reliefs, he
was blind to other qualities.
It is worth emphasizing the influence of Fry’s moral ideas upon his
critical judgments, because his theory of pure aesthetic reactions might
give those who did not know him a very false notion of his writings. It
conjures up a picture of a robot critic—cold, passionless, remote—which
is ludicrously far from the truth. Though he often achieved intellectual
detachment, he never succeeded in banishing his sense of right and
wrong. He was easily moved to pity and indignation, and his criticism,
far from being the graph of an aesthetic recording-machine, is the
revelation of a rich and lovable personality.
I have called these lectures an intellectual adventure, and I do not
think Fry would have objected to this expression, though he might have
preferred ‘experiment’, a word to which his early training as a scientist
had given a slightly magical potency. The importance of an experi-
mental attitude is, indeed, the theme of his inaugural lecture. He begins
by showing how the attempt to lay down fixed objective standards of
beauty is futile, and would, if it could succeed, be disastrous. ‘When we
ask for objective validity in aesthetic judgments, we are somewhat like
the Frogs in the fable. We have an excellent King Log who lies there
quite imposingly in our pond, and each of us is convinced that if the King
ever spoke it would be to establish the truth of his own judgments. If,
however, Jupiter were ever to answer our prayers for King Stork we
should find ourselves. . .in a very different posture.’ He goes on to show
that even an experimental approach, through the comparison of our
responses to works of art, is made almost impossible by the extreme
< xxii >