Is there anything of its own nature<b> beautiful or not beautiful? The beauty of a thing is even that by which it shineth.
Painting is mute poetry, and poetry is blind painting, and both imitate nature to the best of their powers, and both can demonstrate moral principles, as Apelles did in his Calumny. And since painting ministers to the most noble of the senses, the eye, a harmonious proportion ensues from it, that is to say, that just as from the concord of many diverse voices at the same moment there ensues a well-proportioned harmony which will please the sense of hearing to such an extent that the listeners in dizzy admiration are like men half ravished of their senses, still greater will be the effect of the beautiful proportions of a celestial face in a picture from whose proportions a harmonious concord will ensue, which delights the eye in one moment, just as music delights the ear. And if this harmonious beauty is shown to one who is the lover of the woman from whom such great beauty has been copied, he will most certainly be struck dizzy with admiration and incomparable joy superior to that afforded by all the other senses.
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp.
Radically wrong is the procedure of some masters who are in the habit of repeating the same themes in the same episodes, and whose types of beauty are likewise the same, for in nature they are never repeated, so that if all the beauties of equal excellence were to come to life again they would compose a larger population than that now existing in our century, and since in the present century no one person is precisely similar to another, so would it be among the beauties mentioned above.
With Nature as the symbol of all of harmony and beauty that is known to man, must we still talk of the supernatural, not as a convenient word, but as a different order of world, . . . where the Reign of Mystery supersedes the Reign of Law? Natural Law, Introduction, p. 6.
Man is a moral animal, and can, and ought to, arrive at great natural >beauty of character. But this is simply to obey the law of his nature--the law of his flesh; and no progress along that line can project him into the spiritual sphere. Natural Law, p. 382.
Electricity is often called wonderful, beautiful; but it is so only in common with the other forces of nature. The beauty of electricity or of any other force is not that the power is mysterious, and unexpected, touching every sense at unawares in turn, but that it is under law, and that the taught intellect can even now govern it largely. The human mind is placed above, and not beneath it, and it is in such a point of view that the mental education afforded by science is rendered super-eminent in dignity, in practical application and utility; for by enabling the mind to apply the natural power through law, it conveys the gifts of God to man.
It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had surprised him--his arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white--a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses--all advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart. Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.
"That's what's so strange," I said. "For I ought to have owned my fault as soon as I got here, before he had fired a shot, before leading him into a great and deadly sin; but we have made our life so grotesque, that to act in that way would have been almost impossible, for only after I have faced his shot at the distance of twelve paces could my words have any significance for him, and if I had spoken before, he would have said, 'He is a coward, the sight of the pistols has frightened him, no use to listen to him.' Gentlemen," I cried suddenly, speaking straight from my heart, "look around you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds; nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and we don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep."
The decline of dramatic composition of the higher class, perceptible in the history of the English theatre about the beginning of the 19th century, was justly attributed by Sir Walter Scott to the wearing out of the French model that had been so long wrought upon; but when he asserted that the new impulse which was sought in the dramatic literature of Germany was derived from some of its worst, instead of from its noblest, productions--from Kotzebue rather than from Lessing, Schiller and Goethe--he showed a very imperfect acquaintance with a complicated literary movement which was obliquely reflected in the stage-plays of Iffland and his contemporaries. The change which was coming over English literature was in truth of a wider and deeper nature than it was possible for even one of its chief representatives to perceive. As that literature freed itself from the fetters so long worn by it as indispensable ornaments, and threw aside the veil which had so long obscured both the full glory of its past and the lofty capabilities of its future, it could not resort except tentatively to a form which like the dramatic is bound by a hundred bonds to the life of the age itself. Soon, the poems with which Scott and Byron, and the unrivalled prose fictions with which Scott, both satisfied and stimulated the imaginative demands of the public, diverted the attention of the cultivated classes from dramatic literature, which was unable to escape, with the light foot of verse or prose fiction, into "the new, the romantic land." New themes, new ideas, new forms occupied a new generation of writers and readers; nor did the drama readily lend itself as a vessel into which to pour so many fermenting elements. In Byron the impressions produced upon a mind not less open to impulses from without than subjective in its way of recasting them, called forth a series of dramatic attempts betraying a more or less wilful ignorance of the demands of dramatic compositions; his beautiful _Manfred_, partly suggested by Goethe's _Faust_, and his powerful _Cain_, have but the form of plays; his tragedies on Italian historical subjects show some resemblance in their political rhetoric to the contemporary works of Alfieri; his _Sardanapalus_, autobiographically interesting, fails to meet the demands of the stage; his _Werner_ (of which the authorship has been ascribed to the duchess of Devonshire) is a hastily dramatized sensation novel. To Coleridge (1772-1834), who gave to English literature a splendidly loose translation of Schiller's _Wallenstein_, the same poet's _Robbers_ (to which Wordsworth's only dramatic attempt, the _Borderers_, is likewise indebted) had probably suggested the subject of his tragedy of _Osorio_, afterwards acted under the title of _Remorse_. Far superior to this is his later drama of _Zapolya_, a genuine homage to Shakespeare, out of the themes of two of whose plays it is gracefully woven. Scott, who in his earlier days had translated Goethe's _Götz von Berlichingen_, gained no reputation by his own dramatic compositions. W. S. Landor, apart from those _Imaginary Conversations_ upon which he best loved to expend powers of observation and characterization such as have been given to few playwrights, cast in a formally dramatic mould studies of character of which the value is far from being confined to their wealth in beauties of detail. Of these the magnificent, but in construction altogether undramatic, _Count Julian_, is the most noteworthy. Shelley's _The Cenci_, on the other hand, is not only a poem of great beauty, but a drama of true power, abnormally revolting indeed in theme, but singularly pure and delicate in treatment. A humbler niche in the temple of dramatic literature belongs to some of the plays of C. R. Maturin,[261] Sir T. N. Talfourd,[262] and Dean Milman.[263] Entry: P
FIELD, JOHN (1782-1837), English musical composer and pianist, was born at Dublin in 1782. He came of a musical family, his father being a violinist, and his grandfather the organist in one of the churches of Dublin. From the latter the boy received his first musical education. When a few years later the family settled in London, Field became the favourite pupil of the celebrated Clementi, whom he accompanied to Paris, and later, in 1802, on his great concert tour through France, Germany and Russia. Under the auspices of his master Field appeared in public in most of the great European capitals, especially in St Petersburg, and in that city he remained when Clementi returned to England. During his stay with the great pianist Field had to suffer many privations owing to Clementi's all but unexampled parsimony; but when the latter left Russia his splendid connexion amongst the highest circles of the capital became Field's inheritance. His marriage with a French lady of the name of Charpentier was anything but happy, and had soon to be dissolved. Field made frequent concert tours to the chief cities of Russia, and in 1820 settled permanently in Moscow. In 1831 he came to England for a short time, and for the next four years led a migratory life in France, Germany and Italy, exciting the admiration of amateurs wherever he appeared in public. In Naples he fell seriously ill, and lay several months in the hospital, till a Russian family discovered him and brought him back to Moscow. There he lingered for several years till his death on the 11th of January 1837. Field's training and the cast of his genius were not of a kind to enable him to excel in the larger forms of instrumental music, and his seven concerti for the pianoforte are now forgotten. Neither do his quartets for strings and pianoforte hold their own by the side of those of the great masters. But his "nocturnes," a form of music highly developed if not actually created by him, remain all but unrivalled for their tenderness and dreaminess of conception, combined with a continuous flow of beautiful melody. They were indeed Chopin's models. Field's execution on the pianoforte was nearly allied to the nature of his compositions, beauty and poetical charm of touch being one of the chief characteristics of his style. Moscheles, who heard Field in 1831, speaks of his "enchanting legato, his tenderness and elegance and his beautiful touch." Entry: FIELD
The distinctive excellence of the Indian drama is to be sought in the poetic robe which envelops it as flowers overspread the bosom of the earth in the season of spring. In its nobler productions, at least, it is never untrue to its half religious, half rural origin; it weaves the wreaths of idyllic fancies in an unbroken chain, adding to its favourite and familiar blossoms ever fresh beauties from an inexhaustible garden. Nor is it unequal to depicting the grander aspects of nature in her mighty forests and on the shores of the ocean. A close familiarity with its native literature can here alone follow its diction through a ceaseless flow of phrase and figure, listen with understanding to the hum of the bee as it hangs over the lotus, and contemplate with S[=a]kuntal[=a]'s pious sympathy the creeper as it winds round the mango tree. But the poetic beauty of the Indian drama reveals itself in the mysterious charm of its outline, if not in its full glow, even to the untrained; nor should the study of it--for which the materials seem continually on the increase--be left aside by any lover of literature. Entry: III
_Flora._--The flora of Japan has been carefully studied by many scientific men from Siebold downwards. Foreigners visiting Japan are immediately struck by the affection of the people for flowers, trees and natural<b> beauties of every kind. In actual wealth of blossom or dimensions of forest trees the Japanese islands cannot claim any special distinction. The spectacles most admired by all classes are the tints of the foliage in autumn and the glory of flowering trees in the spring. In beauty and variety of pattern and colour the autumnal tints are unsurpassed. The colours pass from deep brown through purple to yellow and white, thrown into relief by the dark green of non-deciduous shrubs and trees. Oaks and wild prunus, wild vines and sumachs, various kinds of maple, the dodan (_Enkianthus Japonicus_ Hook.)--a wonderful bush which in autumn develops a hue of ruddy red--birches and other trees, all add multitudinous colours to the brilliancy of a spectacle which is further enriched by masses of feathery bamboo. The one defect is lack of green sward. The grass used for Japanese lawns loses its verdure in autumn and remains from November to March a greyish-brown blot upon the scene. Spring is supposed to begin in February when, according to the old calendar, the new year sets in, but the only flowers then in bloom are the _camellia japonica_ and some kinds of daphne. The former--called by the Japanese _tsubaki_--may often be seen glowing fiery red amid snow, but the pink (_otome tsubaki_), white (_shiro-tsubaki_) and variegated (_shibori-no-tsubaki_) kinds do not bloom until March or April. Neither the camellia nor the daphne is regarded as a refined flower: their manner of shedding their blossoms is too unsightly. Queen of spring flowers is the plum (_ume_). The tree lends itself with peculiar readiness to the skilful manipulation of the gardener, and is by him trained into shapes of remarkable grace. Its pure white or rose-red blossoms, heralding the first approach of genial weather, are regarded with special favour and are accounted the symbol of unassuming hardihood. The cherry (_sakura_) is even more esteemed. It will not suffer any training, nor does it, like the plum, improve by pruning, but the sunshine that attends its brief period of bloom in April, the magnificence of its flower-laden boughs and the picturesque flutter of its falling petals, inspired an ancient poet to liken it to the "soul of Yamato" (Japan), and it has ever since been thus regarded. The wild peach (_momo_) blooms at the same time, but attracts little attention. All these trees--the plum, the cherry and the peach--bear no fruit worthy of the name, nor do they excel their Occidental representatives in wealth of blossom, but the admiring affection they inspire in Japan is unique. Scarcely has the cherry season passed when that of the wistaria (_fuji_) comes, followed by the azalea (_tsutsuji_) and the iris (_shobu_), the last being almost contemporaneous with the peony (_botan_), which is regarded by many Japanese as the king of flowers and is cultivated assiduously. A species of weeping maple (_shidare-momiji_) dresses itself in peachy-red foliage and is trained into many picturesque shapes, though not without detriment to its longevity. Summer sees the lotus (_renge_) convert wide expanses of lake and river into sheets of white and red blossoms; a comparatively flowerless interval ensues until, in October and November, the chrysanthemum arrives to furnish an excuse for fashionable gatherings. With the exception of the dog-days and the dead of winter, there is no season when flowers cease to be an object of attention to the Japanese, nor does any class fail to participate in the sentiment. There is similar enthusiasm in the matter of gardens. From the 10th century onwards the art of landscape gardening steadily grew into a science, with esoteric as well as exoteric aspects, and with a special vocabulary. The underlying principle is to reproduce nature's scenic beauties, all the features being drawn to scale, so that however restricted the space, there shall be no violation of proportion. Thus the artificial lakes and hills, the stones forming rockeries or simulating solitary crags, the trees and even the bushes are all selected or manipulated so as to fall congruously into the general scheme. If, on the one hand, huge stones are transported hundreds of miles from seashore or river-bed where, in the lapse of long centuries, waves and cataracts have hammered them into strange shapes, and if the harmonizing of their various colours and the adjustment of their forms to environment are studied with profound subtlety, so the training and tending of the trees and shrubs that keep them company require much taste and much toil. Thus the red pine (_aka-matsu_ or _pinus densiflora_), which is the favourite garden tree, has to be subjected twice a year to a process of spray-dressing which involves the careful removal of every weak or aged needle. One tree occupies the whole time of a gardener for about ten days. The details are endless, the results delightful. But it has to be clearly understood that there is here no mention of a flower-garden in the Occidental sense of the term. Flowers are cultivated, but for their own sakes, not as a feature of the landscape garden. If they are present, it is only as an incident. This of course does not apply to shrubs which blossom at their seasons and fall always into the general scheme of the landscape. Forests of cherry-trees, plum-trees, magnolia trees, or _hiyaku-jikko_ (_Lagerstroemia indica_), banks of azalea, clumps of hydrangea, groups of camellia--such have their permanent places and their foliage adds notes of colour when their flowers have fallen. But chrysanthemums, peonies, roses and so forth, are treated as special shows, and are removed or hidden when out of bloom. There is another remarkable feature of the Japanese gardener's art. He dwarfs trees so that they remain measurable only by inches after their age has reached scores, even hundreds, of years, and the proportions of leaf, branch and stem are preserved with fidelity. The pots in which these wonders of patient skill are grown have to be themselves fine specimens of the ceramist's craft, and as much as £200 is sometimes paid for a notably well trained tree. Entry: F
It has been seen that the Flemish school of illumination in the 13th and 14th centuries followed the French model. In the 15th century, while the old tradition continued in force for a while, the art developed on an independent line; and in the second half of the century it exercised a widespread influence on the neighbouring countries, on France, on Holland and on Germany. This development was one of the results of the industrial and artistic activity of the Low Countries at this period, when the school of the Van Eycks and their followers, and of other artists of the great and wealthy cities, such as Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent, were so prolific. The Flemish miniatures naturally followed on the lines of painting. The new style was essentially modern, freeing itself from the traditions of medieval illumination and copying nature. Under the hand of the Flemish artist the landscape attained to great perfection, softness and depth of colouring, the leading attribute of the school, lending a particular charm and sense of reality to his out-door scenes. His closer observation of nature is testified also in the purely decorative part of his work. Flowers, insects, birds and other natural objects now frequent the border, the origin of which is finally forgotten. It ceases to be a connected growth wandering round the page; it becomes a flat frame of dull gold or colour, over which isolated objects, flowers, fruits, insects, butterflies, are strewn, painted with naturalistic accuracy and often made, by means of strong shadows, to stand out in relief against the background. This practice was soon carried to florid excess, and all kinds of objects, including jewels and personal ornaments, were pressed into the service of the border, in addition to the details copied from nature. The soft beauty of the later Flemish style proved very attractive to the taste of the day, with the result that it maintained a high standard well on into the 16th century, the only rivals being the MSS. of Italian art. The names of celebrated miniaturists, such as Memlinc, Simon Bening of Ghent, Gerard of Bruges, are associated with its productions; and many famous extant examples bear witness to the excellence to which it attained. The Grimani Breviary at Venice is one of the best known MSS. of the school; but almost every national library has specimens to boast of. Among those in the British Museum may be mentioned the breviary of Queen Isabella of Spain (Add. MS. 18,851); the Book of Hours of Juana of Castille (Add. MS. 18,852); a very beautiful Book of Hours executed at Bruges (Egerton MS. 2125); another exquisite but fragmentary MS. of the same type (Add. MS. 24,098) and cuttings from a calendar of the finest execution (Add. MS. 18,855) ascribed to Bening of Ghent; a series of large sheets of genealogies of the royal houses of Portugal and Spain (Add. MS. 12,531) by the same master and others; and late additions to the Sforza Book of Hours (Add. MS. 34,294). Entry: VALERIUS
BATTEUX, CHARLES (1713-1780), French philosopher and writer on aesthetics, was born near Vouziers (Ardennes), and studied theology at Reims. In 1739 he came to Paris, and after teaching in the colleges of Lisieux and Navarre, was appointed to the chair of Greek and Roman philosophy in the Collège de France. In 1746 he published his treatise _Les Beaux-Arts réduits à un même principe_, an attempt to find a unity among the various theories of beauty and taste, and his views were widely accepted. The reputation thus gained, confirmed by his translation of Horace (1750), led to his becoming a member of the Académie des Inscriptions (1754) and of the French Academy (1761). His _Cours de belles lettres_ (1765) was afterwards included with some minor writings in the large treatise, _Principes de la liltérature_ (1774). The rules for composition there laid down are, perhaps, somewhat pedantic. His philosophical writings were _La Morale d'Épicure tirée de ses propres écrits_ (1758), and the _Histoire des causes premières_ (1769). In consequence of the freedom with which in this work he attacked the abuse of authority in philosophy, he lost his professorial chair. His last and most extensive work was a _Cours d'études à l'usage des élèves de l'école militaire_ (45 vols.). In the _Beaux-Arts_, Batteux developed a theory which is derived from Locke through Voltaire's sceptical sensualism. He held that Art consists in the faithful imitation of the beautiful in nature. Applying this principle to the art of poetry, and analysing, line by line and even word by word, the works of great poets, he deduced the law that the beauty of poetry consists in the accuracy, beauty and harmony of individual expression. This narrow and pedantic theory had at least the merit of insisting on propriety of expression. His _Histoire des causes premières_ was among the first attempts at a history of philosophy, and in his work on Epicurus, following on Gassendi, he defended Epicureanism against the general attacks made against it. Entry: BATTEUX