HAY'S SCIENCE OF BEAUTY. * Ma. HAY professes in this work
to give a summary of those. theories on the principles of beauty of form and colour which he has developed at length and with laborious detail in numerous publications, which we have noticed from time to time. His general principle is, that as melody consists in a succession, and harmony in a consonance, of sounds so related to each other. that the vibrations or pulsations which produce them are in definite numerical ratios, the simplicity of nature may be expected to display itself in determining grace and harmony of forms and. colours by a similar law : assuming, therefore, the existence of such a law, he analyzes well-known instances to ascertain whether they yield results accordant with the assumption, and finds it justified.
We cannot congratulate Mr. Hay on having succeeded in combining brevity with clearness in his summary. To persons who are unacquainted with his previous works the present volume will be very unattractive and nearly unintelligible. The portion that treats of colours is particularly defective ; and in the other see-• tions the author disfigures what ought to be a plain statement of facts with very questionable learning, and a strange philosophical jargon that cannot add either to the pleasure or the profit of his readers. This, however, is a common fault of manner. A: more serious objection lies against his whole method of exposition, as distinguished from the truth or falsehood of his theories. He does not proceed by due gradations, but rushes at once from the somewhat vague statement of a supposed analogy between musical beauty and beauty of form,—founded on the fact that sound and. light are both due to pulsations of an ethereal fluid,—to test this. analogy and the law which is deduced from it by applying it to such highly complex instances as the Parthenon, the front of Lincoln Cathedral, and the human face and. figure. Now any physical philosopher would tell Mr. Hay of the danger of testing a law by highly complex cases. And there would have been no difficulty in finding instances of any required'. degree of simplicity. For, certain angular relations being once assumed to be the essential element of beauty of farm, the chief requisite was to find those angular relations unmodified by the presence of other known causes of (esthetic pleasure. In other words simple geometrical diagrams, showing the scale of relations which, Mr. Hay assumes on the analogy of the musical scale,': would have answered the purpose. So fas as mere contour is the cause of resthetie pleasure, simple diagrams would cause it in the same degree as the musical scale played. in succession or in harmony. Perhaps, however, Mr. Hay might be puzzled, if he proceeded in this simple way, to get over his first step. A musical • note gives pleasure to the mind, by itself, and can be distinguished from a noise : would Mr. Hay assert that the right angle, from which he starts as his fundamental note, gives any. analogous pleasure, and, is distinguished from other angles except as larger or smaller ? We are not in the least inclined to dispute the doctrine that symmetry of parts is an important element in many of the forms we consider beautiful, if not in all; and that wherever it is so,it must as a matter of course be capable of a numerical expression : but we do very strongly dispute the doctrine that numerical ratios' are ultimate principles of beauty, or that by learning numerical ra-= tios the eye and hand will acquire any fresh power of perceiving or creating the beautiful In fact, the word beaeuty is an improper word.. to use of mere form, and ought to be reserved for what is called. beauty of expression. If Mr. Hay would enable the public generally to test his theory, he should write a catechism of iesthetic geometry ; first ascertaining by his own experience and that of others what simple forms give pleasure and what do not, what combinations of these forms also give pleasure, and so on by degrees to objects as complex as vases and other pieces of decorative art, then ascertaining the numerical ratios their angles and curves bear to each other. The investigation would at least be curious, and to arrive at any constant element of grace of form would be suggestive to artists and to physiologists.
• The Science of Beauty as developed in Nature and applied in Art. By D. B. Hay, F.B.S.B. Published by Blackwood and Sons.
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