DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0076
VITALITY
expression of his own sensibility is significant and may even be content
to pass as a clumsy craftsman rather than obliterate it. But the pride of
the craftsman as such will always urge the suppression of sensibility in an
art-object.
We have now got some idea of the number of factors which may be
discerned when we consider the surface texture of an art-object.
(1) A spiritual need for order.
(2) The luxury effect.
(3) The craftsman’s pride in his skill.
All, or any, of these may intervene in varying degrees to bring about the
result we see.
To-day I want to consider another quality of works of art which is
very distinct, one about the presence or absence of which I think it is
easy to agree, and yet one which it is impossible to define. It is the
quality of vitality in artistic images. Some images give us a strong
illusion that they possess a life of their own, others may appear to us
exact likenesses of living things and are yet themselves devoid of life.
Now let me confess at once that I know very little about this quality.
It seems to me very mysterious, and I find it difficult to allege any
explanations of why it occurs when it does, by what exact processes the
artist gives the illusion; and yet further I do not know quite what
value we ought to attach to the quality, or what its relations are to other
aesthetic qualities. I must confess that I have the habit, perhaps rather
reprehensible in a Professor, of lecturing about subjects of which I
know very little in the hope of gaining some clearer notions of them.
I dare say we shall not get very far to-day, but we shall at least have
looked inquisitively at a number of works of art, and we may note some
rather strange facts, and with luck arrive at some suggestions of corre-
lated ideas.
At all events we will take a series of examples which I have chosen
from the point of view of comparative contrast in regard to vitality.
The Egyptian fresco at Mai Dun (15) gives an admirably true de-
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expression of his own sensibility is significant and may even be content
to pass as a clumsy craftsman rather than obliterate it. But the pride of
the craftsman as such will always urge the suppression of sensibility in an
art-object.
We have now got some idea of the number of factors which may be
discerned when we consider the surface texture of an art-object.
(1) A spiritual need for order.
(2) The luxury effect.
(3) The craftsman’s pride in his skill.
All, or any, of these may intervene in varying degrees to bring about the
result we see.
To-day I want to consider another quality of works of art which is
very distinct, one about the presence or absence of which I think it is
easy to agree, and yet one which it is impossible to define. It is the
quality of vitality in artistic images. Some images give us a strong
illusion that they possess a life of their own, others may appear to us
exact likenesses of living things and are yet themselves devoid of life.
Now let me confess at once that I know very little about this quality.
It seems to me very mysterious, and I find it difficult to allege any
explanations of why it occurs when it does, by what exact processes the
artist gives the illusion; and yet further I do not know quite what
value we ought to attach to the quality, or what its relations are to other
aesthetic qualities. I must confess that I have the habit, perhaps rather
reprehensible in a Professor, of lecturing about subjects of which I
know very little in the hope of gaining some clearer notions of them.
I dare say we shall not get very far to-day, but we shall at least have
looked inquisitively at a number of works of art, and we may note some
rather strange facts, and with luck arrive at some suggestions of corre-
lated ideas.
At all events we will take a series of examples which I have chosen
from the point of view of comparative contrast in regard to vitality.
The Egyptian fresco at Mai Dun (15) gives an admirably true de-
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