BOOKS.

THE SPIRIT OF ART.

Tau number of books which issue from the press on the principles and practice of art, attest the growing interest which is taken in the subject, and the strong impulse to arrive at the truth. The three works named in the margin* well illustrate the variety of directions in which this search is now pursued.

Mrs. Merrifield's two thick octavo volumes may be considered as sup- plementary to Mr. Eastlake's " Materials " for a History of Painting. It appears that the authoress was sent by Government, in 1845, to Italy, "for the purpose of collecting manuscripts relative to the technical part of painting, with a view principally of ascertaining the processes and me- thods of oil-painting adopted by the Italians"; also "traditional informa- tion " ; and she further collected " information " and " views," not un- mixed with twaddle, from living artists in Italy—their notions of the modes used by the old masters. Our remarks on Mr. Eastlake's volume apply to this work : it consists of " materials" which may be useful to the curious student, but undigested, and uninformed by any guiding principle. Mr. Hundertpfund has struggled beyond our English inquirers.f In a handsome quarto, Mr. Hay seeks the key to the ideal beauty of the Greeks in the exact proportions of mathematics. He bases his doc- trine of proportion upon the simplest ratios of numbers divisible only by the unit ; as 1 to 1, 1 to 2, 1 to 3, 2 to 3, &c. The simplest sym- metrical figures are angles, and it is from the angles of the most element- ary triangles that he derives the numbers which he employs in his scale of harmonic proportions. The triangles are the rectangular isosceles triangle formed by the diametrical bisection of the square, (whose angles are 45°, 4,5°, and 900); the equilateral triangle, (60°, 60°, and 600); and the scalene triangle formed by the bisection of the equilateral triangle through one angle and the opposite side, (60°, 90°, and 30°) ; and the pentagon, which, being bisected through one of its angles and the oppo- site side, gives a scalene triangle formed by the bisecting line and the half side, with angles in the ratio of 18°, 72°, and 90°.

"The following are therefore the numerical ratios found in the angles of those three triangles.

1 to 2 in 45° to 900 5 to 6 in 600 to 72° 2 — 3 — 60° — 90° 5 — 8 — 45° — 72° 3 — 4 — 45° — 60° 1 — 3 — 30° — 90°

3 — 5 — 18° — 30° 1 — 4 — 18° — 72°

4 — 5 — 72° — 90° 1 — 5 — 18° — 90°

"And these ratios correspond exactly o those of the rapidity in the pulsations of the atmosphere, which, according to the well-established laws of the science of acoustics, produce the most perfect consonances of sound upon the ear. This analogy, I may add, is in no way forced, but arises naturally and necessarily from these simple elements of plane geometry."

"Every regular rectilineal plane figure has a curvilineal figure which exclu- sively belongs to it. For instance, if we take one of the equal sides of the pri- mary isosceles triangle, which is half of the square, as a radius of a curvilineal figure, of which the right angle of the triangle is the centre, a circle will be de- scribed whose circumference will necessarily pass through both its other angles. The circle is, therefore, the curvilineal figure that exclusively belongs to the pri- mary isosceles triangle.

"11, in like manner, we take the two unequal sides of the primary scalene triangle, which is half of the equilateral triangle, as the semi-diameters of a cur- vilineal figure, of which the right angle of the triangle is the centre, an ellipse will be described, the circumference of which will necessarily pass through each of the other two angles. As the revolution of the circle upon its diameter will produce a sphere, so the revolution of the ellipse upon its transverse diameter will produce a prolate spheroid; and these two bodies are, consequently, the curvilineal solids arising from the elementary figures in which the principles of geometric harmony have been found to exist."

In applying this principle, Mr. Hay's process is as follows. It is to be premised that he takes each figure at the dimensions which it would exhibit as reflected on a plane; the vertical height of the head, for ex- ample, from the highest point of the skull to the lowest point of the chin at its junction with the throat. Taking one-third of that vertical height, construct with the line so fixed, at one of the sides, an equilateral triangle ; and then, with the point at the lowest angle for a centre, draw the circle proper to that figure. On the vertical diameter of that circle, construct the scalene triangle of the form already named; the larger side coinciding with the vertical diameter of the circle, the smallest angle coinciding with the circumference of the circle at top, the other acute angle with the circumference of the circle towards the lower part : with the sides of that scalene triangle as semi-diameters construct an ellipse. The circle and the ellipse thus combined form the oval of the head as seen in a front view. Bisect the short semi-diameter of the ellipse on each side, and on the line between the two points thus fixed construct an equilateral triangle with its apex downwards : at each point of this triangle as a centre, draw a circle whoze diameter is one quarter of the short diameter of the ellipse. Each of the upper circles will coincide with the length of the eye (minus the inner angle of the eye) ; at the centre of the lower circle will be the point of the nose ; the circum- ference at the side will coincide with the wing of the nose; the lower cir- cumference with the aperture of the mouth. For the profile, arrange the circle so that its circumference passes through the centre of the ellipse; the circle and the ellipse being deemed to generate a sphere and

• Original Treatises, dating from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Centuries, on the Arts of Painting in Oil, Miniature, Mosaic, and on Glass ; of Gilding. Dyeing, and the Preparation of Colours and Artificial Gems. Preceded by a General Introduction ; with Translations, Prefaces, and Notes. By Mrs. Merrifield, Honorary Member of the Aca- demy of Fine Arts at Bologna, Translator of the "Treatise on Painting" of Cennino Cennini, and Authoress of the Art of Fresco Painting. In two volumes. Published by Murray.

On the Science of those Proportions by which the Haman Head and Countenance as

represented in Works of Ancient Greek Art are distinguished from those of Ordinary Nature. By D. R. Hay, F.B.S.E., Author of "First Principles of Symmetrical Beauty," Ste. Published by Blackwood and Sons.

An Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty In Art, more especially with reference to Architecture. By James Fergusson, Esq., Architect ; Author of an Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusalem, Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Archi- tecture in HIndostan, &c. Part the First. Published by Longman and Co.

t See Spectator, 10th February ; page 137.

oblate spheroid combined for face and bead ; the line of the jaw coinciding with the circumference of the spheroid in its lower half. We need not pursue the details further. We have now obtained a head which Mr. Hay considers as the one typical of elegance, But it won't do. We have indeed pleasing geometrical forma, and a diagram teased into a re- markably close resemblance to a beautiful female head of the Greek pat- tern ; but some serious defects are observable. The cerebellum is too small for a just balance ; the ear is extravagantly thrown back, with a corresponding excess of breadth between the eyebrow and the ear ; and the arc formed by the top of the head is depressed out of all artistic rule. Our geometric Frankenstein has produced a pretty monster, which no ingenuity can coax into a real " type " of human beauty.

Mr. Fergusson aims at catching the true principle of art, by a process like that of an elephant hunt—embracing a very wide sphere at the com- mencement., and gradually converging to the point at which, it is to be hoped, the lurking fugitive will be detected. His present goodly folio consists of an introduction on general principles ; with an historical ac- count of art among the Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, and some cognate races, as exemplifying the general principles ; the whole being illustrated by excellent drawings done to uniform scales, which greatly help the text. Both author and reader labour under one disadvantage—that Mr. Fer- gusson's forte lies among Eastern architecture, which would furnish his favourite illustrations, but which is postponed for a later volume. And much does that beautiful region of architectural art invite elucidation by competent and reverent hands. In this first volume, he commences with a glance at a plan ofscientific classification,--setting in their proper order the " universal sciences," applicable to the whole creation and including religion ; the " physical sciences," and "anthropics," or sciences relating to man, his condition and functions. The purpose is to show the true position of art in relation to the whole round of human knowledge; which to be complete should take in the highest knowledge of all, and be animated by the spirit of the most exalted conceptions; so that all human art may harmonize with the great ends of existence. Although we can but glance at this portion of the author's book, we may say that it is far from un- deserving of attention. He appears to us to be hovering about and above the true principle, but to miss it, because, with a very pardonable desire to be comprehensive and yet to make progress in his argument, he is guilty of two kinds of neglect—he lets in the universal bane of all ar- gument and scientific investigation, assumption ; and he neglects to push his analysis far enough. The assumption, we think, misleads him as to the true function of art; the want of searching penetration in his ana- lysis makes him miss the true principle of beauty. In art he recognizes three elements,—the technic, or purely constructive and useful applica- tion of man's tool-making faculties in supplying his material wants ; the :esthetic, or that which administers to his sensuous gratification,—a deri- vative use of the term differing from the usual and more philosophic ac- ceptation; and the phonetic, or the faculty of expressing intellectual ideas, as by language. These elements may be blended in various pro- portions; but excellence, according to Mr. Fergusson, is to be found in the fulness of the third element. He admits beauty of a purely material or constructive kind, and expatiates on the " technic " merits of Egyp- tian architecture ; he does not deny merits in "aesthetio " beauty, but handles that part of his subject with a sort of hesitating doubt betwixt a refined Epicureanism, a moral prudery which fears it, and an intellec- tual pride which despises it. Thus he regrets, very justly, that the art of costume is not animated by a true spirit of art ; and almost admits perfumery and even cookery among the fine arts,—the converse of Bry- done's contediptuous classification of music with dancing and perfumery. But he seeks fbr the real beauty and force of art, the other elements being sufficient, in the "phonetic," or that which speaks to the intellect. "The highest aim of all is always an appeal to the intellect." Thus he vindi- cates the art of the Egyptian picture-records ; which was rude and de- ficient in the "aesthetic" element, but answered its set "phonetic" pur- poses by dint of informing the spectator.

This is not very satisfactory : it is like wading in search of truth. We take the cardinal passages from the special section "On Beauty in Art."

"Beauty, in the first place, means perfection ; for whatever is perfect is beau- tiful in the eyes of those who understand it. A sailor sees beauties in a class of ships, a jockey in a race of horses ; while to the common observer these look only like the common every-day forms of these objects. A mechanician is enchanted with the ingenuity of some new machine; an astronomer is enraptured by the beauty of some new instrument, in which most men would see only unintelligible complexity ; an anatomist searches for and finds beauty amidst death and putre- faction, from which most men would shrink in horror and disgust All these are beauties; but in most cases perfection can only be called technic or mere mechanical beauty, admirable in itself, and the highest class of beauty to which a mere useful, or, as 1 have called it, a mere technic art can rise: but in no instance can it be said to elevate the object out of the class of useful into that of the fine arts.

"A second class of beauties are the sesthetic or sensuous beauties, which do ef- fect this whenever they are properly employed, and, when combined with technic perfection, constitute a very large and noble class of fine aria. They are, however, as I before remarked, capable of beauty without this combination: as, for in- stance, an arrangement of colour may be hideously ugly; the same differently ar- ranged, eminently beautiful. One arrangement of the notes of music produces a frightful discord, another the most exquisite harmony; and this without our being able to say that the one is more perfect than the other—merely that the one is harmonious, or so arranged as to give pleasure to the senses, while the other is not.

"A third and the highest class is phonetic or intellectual beauty, which may be presented to the mind by mere words or conventional signs, without enlisting either the esthetic or technic arts to assist it; but the most perfect work of art will be one that combines all three classes; but it must rank higher as an utter- ance of fine or high art in the ratio in which the phonetic predominates over the

sesthetic ingredient, or that over the technic one." • • *

"Though these may be the principal sources of beauty, there are, no doubt, many smaller ones which arise when we come to analyze closely our particular emotions. in speaking, for instance, of the beauty of the human form, three- fourths of it, I am convinced, arise from the perfection we perceive in the adapta- tion of the means to the end, whether for bodily strength or intellectual power ; but there is also harmony of colour and of form, there being no rude and bard outlines, but a gradation and blending together of all the parts, and also a har. mony of purpose: for in nature we do not see the head of an Apollo on the shoul- ders of a Hercules, nor the reverse; and any attempt to mix such discordances to- gether would offend in art even the most uninstructed eye. Besides these, how- ever, there is a certain sexual instinct which makes man look on and admire wo- man, and woman see beauty in man, which is not referable to either of these sources, but to a separate feeling, which, like many others, either heightens or interferes with our perception of beauty derived from other sources." Mr. Hay would tell his brother investigator that we should be very well able to say that the beautiful combination of colours is "more per- fect than the other," and that the writer who overlooks the reason of the greater beauty cannot have discovered the true principle of beauty in art.

Here, then, we have three inquirers seeking for the true art. Mrs. Merrifield carries her sharp eyes into the pigments and receipt-books of the old masters, as if the spirit of the departed lurked among the frag- ments of the dead body; and she produces a sort of artistical cookery- book. Mr. Hay sets out on his quest in the fresh fields and pastures new of plane trigonometry, and finds that there are more things in Euclid's Elements than were dreamt of in our philosophy ; but the beauty that he conjures into existence is no more than a Flathead after all, signifi- cantly wanting the animal force which balances the intellectual in the typical beauty of the Greeks. Mr. Fergusson more rationally, and more artistically, wanders in search of the overruling spirit into the higher regions of natural theology and social philosophy ; yet he comes down to earth again with no more credible dictum from the oracle than the pro- position, revolting to our instinct, that high " beauty " is a didactic faculty, and that art is only a subsidiary branch in the diffusion of useful know- ledge or moral instruction.

Yet no shame to these diligent investigators. They have searched in good faith, and their researches have thrown up much valuable matter, which may aid the progress towards the truth. If modern searches after truth have "seemed," as Mr. Fergusson finely expresses it, "like men fishing for stars whose reflection they see in the stagnant waters of a former world," the uninformed search has perchance drawn up some true relics which may guide um better hereafter. Those who have been groping among the pigments and canvasses of the old masters at last seem to be approaching the elimination of a principle for the practice of colouring which already dawns upon the eager eyes of Mr. Hundertpfund. Although Mr. Hay has proved more than he meant in showing that even proportional beauty is not to be perfectly drawn out by geometrical pro- cesses, yet he shows that the principles of corporal beauty may derive clearness and precision from the illustrations of geometry. Mr. Fergus- son explores a wider but we think a more hopeful field, which might yield the highest truth if it were traversed with a still stronger faith than his, to accept whatever might therein be found. He assumes too readily that man is developed and taught alone, or most chiefly, through that section of his faculties which we call the intellect. A man who writes in so religious a spirit might have remembered that love is above wisdom. But setting aside factitious notions of rank in what is " higher " or" lower," it is quite plain that art appeals to something different from the reason, standing between the exercise of the physical and the intellectual facul- ties. It is to the affections what knowledge is to the perceptive faculties ; although intellect and reason may be concerned in the elimination of its principles and the conduct of its processes, its appeal is direct to the feel- ings. The " phonetic " uses of art are very imperfect and circuitous ; but restheties are a branch of human arts by no means so low or poor as Mr. Ferguson imagines. They develop, regulate, and exalt the affections, not by precept, but by a directly formative and stimulative process. On the other hand, excellence in art is not to be attained by didactic means, but only by a strong sense of the feelings of which art is the expression. Mr. Fergasson is right in contending that any future excellence must be sought by an onward progress, that it cannot be retrospective, and that it mast be animated by the real spirit of the time ; but the spirit must still be one which has its vitality in the sensuous perceptions and the affections, how- ever refined and exalted. The principle of" beauty," which Mr. Hay seeks in geometric proportion and Mr. Fergusson in "perfection," is probably to be found in the intense sense of perfect existence which we derive sympathetically from contemplating an outward sign of it ; but it is a sense as it comes to us with bodies and hearts, not heads only. It. is by a very gross assumption that we hold the intellectual as "higher" than the physical or sensuous ; or we adopt the conventional phrase, be- cause it is convenient for certain purposes : but the mysteries of existence are not to be disposed of thus summarily by a classification and order of precedence, any more than art can be elaborated by rule and recipe. It has flourished at times and in countries where sensuous enjoyment or the affections have exercised a powerful sway ; its influence over us is still potent, although we cannot reproduce great works, but lose ourselves in perplexing efforts to account for the influence, which we want to make out to be something "higher" according to our limited and didactic view. The truth, however, can only be found by the unbiassed analysis of art Itself as it has existed, and of the human faculties to which it directly applies.