CHAPTER XIV.

ART-COMPOSITION.

Imagination Necessary in Elaborating as well as in Originating Representative Forms of Expression-Methods of Composing Music-PoetryPainting, Sculpture, and Architecture-Mental Methods in Art-Composition Analogous to Other Mental Methods-To that in Classification-How Art-Classification Differs from Ordinary ClassificationThe Method of Classification not Inconsistent with Representing the Artist's Thoughts and Emotions—Or with Representing Nature—Explanation-Artists Influenced by Mental and Material ConsiderationsMethods of Art-Composition Are Methods of Obtaining Unity of Effect-Obtained in Each Art by Comparison, or Putting Like with Like-Variety in Nature Necessitating Contrast-Contrast in Each Art-Also Complexity-Complement-Order and Group-Form-Confusion and Counteraction-Principality and Subordination-BalanceDistinguished from Complement and Counteraction-Principality in Music and Poetry-Subordination and Balance in the Same-Principality in Painting and Sculpture-In Architecture-Organic Form— In Music-In Poetry-In Painting and Sculpture-In Architecture.

CHAPTERS XII. and XIII. have shown us that certain

audible or visible effects traceable to material or to human nature have, either by way of comparison, as in imitation, or of association, as in conventional usage, a recognised meaning. This meaning enables the mind to employ them in representing its conceptions. But what has been said applies to the use of these effects so far only as they exist in the condition in which they manifest themselves in nature. Art-composition involves an elaboration and often an extensive combination of them.

How can they be elaborated and combined in such a way as to cause them to continue to represent the same conceptions that they represented before art had begun its work upon them? Evidently this result can be attained in the degree alone in which all that is added to the natural sound or sight representing the original conception continues to repeat the same representative effect. In other words, the imagination, which, by way of comparison or of association, connected together the original mental conception and the form representing it, must continue, in the same way to connect together this form and all the forms added to it by way of elaboration or combination. Other methods of expression-religious or scientific-may use imagination in only its initial work of formulating words or other symbols, but art must use it to the very end. It matters not whether its first conception be an image of a whole, as of an entire poem or palace, or whether it be an image of a part, as of a certain form of metre or of arch, the imagination, in dividing the image of the whole into parts, or in building up the whole from its parts, must always, in successful art, continue to carry on its work by way of comparison or association.

To illustrate this in music. How is a song or a symphony that is expressive of any given feeling, composed? Always thus: A certain duration, force, pitch, or quality of voice, varied two or three times, is recognised to be a natural form of expression for a certain state of mind,satisfaction, grief, ecstasy, fright, as the case may be. A musician takes this form of sound, and adds to it other forms that in rhythm or in modulation, or in both, can be compared or associated with it, varying it in only such. subordinate ways as constantly to suggest it; and thus he elaborates a song expressive of satisfaction, grief, ecstasy,

or fright. Or if it be a symphony, the method is the same. The whole, intricate as it may appear, is developed by recurrences of the same or very similar effects, varied almost infinitely but in such ways as constantly to suggest a few notes or chords which form the theme or themes. A similar fact is true with reference to poetic elaboration. What are the following but series of comparisons, reiterations of the same particular or general idea in different phraseology or figures?

And what is music then? Then music is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch; such it is,
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear.
And summon him to marriage.

Merchant of Venice, iii., 2: Shakespeare.

Brutus and Cæsar : what should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them,
"Brutus" will start a spirit as soon as "Cæsar.”

Julius Cæsar, i., 2: Idem.

What do we have in the poetic treatment of a subject considered as a whole, as in an epic or a drama? Nothing but repeated delineations of the same general conceptions or characters as manifested or developed amid different surroundings of time or of place.

So with the forms of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Every one knows that, as a rule, certain like lines, arches, or angles are repeated in the columns, cornices, doors, windows, and roofs of buildings. Few, perhaps, without instruction, recognise that the same

principle is true as applied to both the outlines and colours through which art delineates the scenery of land or water or the limbs of living creatures. But one thing almost all recognise: This is that, in the highest works of art, every special effect repeats, as a rule, the general effect. In the picture of a storm, for instance, every cloud, wave, leaf, bough, repeats, as a rule, the storm's effect; in the statue of a sufferer, every muscle in the face or form repeats, as a rule, the suffering's effect; in the architecture of a building,-if of a single style,—every window, door, and dome repeats, as a rule, the style's effect.

It is important to notice now that this method of artcomposition which has been indicated is in analogy with methods which the mind employs with reference to many other subjects besides those which concern art. The appearances of nature which the artist has to study are the same as those which every man has to study. They confront the child the moment that eye or ear is fairly opened to apprehend the world about him. As soon as he begins to observe and think and act, these furnish him with his materials-with facts to know, with subjects to understand, with implements to use. Always, however, before he can avail himself of them, he must do what is expressed in the old saying, "Classify and conquer." When the child first observes the world, everything is a maze; but anon, out of this maze objects emerge which he contrasts with other objects and distinguishes from them. After a little, he sees that two or three of these objects, thus distinguished, are alike; and pursuing a process of comparison he is able, by himself, or with the help of others, to unite and to classify them, and to give to each class a

name.

As soon as, in this way, he has learned to separate certain animals,-horses, say, from sheep,-and to unite and classify and name them, he begins to know something of zoölogy; and all his future knowledge of that branch will be acquired by further employment of the same method. So all his knowledge, and not only this, but his understanding and application of the laws of botany, mineralogy, psychology, or theology will depend on the degree in which he learns to separate from others, and thus to unite and classify and name certain plants, rocks, mental activities, or religious dogmas. Without classification to begin with, there can be no knowledge, no understanding, no efficient use of the materials which nature furnishes. The physicist is able to recognise, relate, and reproduce effects in only the degree in which he is able to classify the appearances and laws, the facts and forces of material nature. The metaphysician is able to know and prove and guide to right action in only the degree in which he is able to classify feelings, conceptions, and volitions with their motives and tendencies as they arise in mental consciousness and manifest themselves in action.

Why should not the same principle apply in the arts? It undoubtedly does. Just as the physicist classifies effects conditioned upon laws operating underneath phenomena of a physical nature, and the psychologist classifies effects conditioned upon laws operating underneath. phenomena of a psychical nature, so the artist classifies effects conditioned upon laws operating underneath phenomena of an artistic nature. It is true that what has been called classification does not in art result merely in mental conceptions of classes, as of horses or oaks in science, or as of materialists or idealists in philosophy. The first result is a mental conception; but afterwards, through