THE PLEASURE OF VISUAL FORM. 85 



sistibly calls up a vague consciousness of artistic finish. The peculiar 

 charm of all smaller and more delicate forms rests in part on this 

 vague feeling of fine workmanship. So, too, all perfect regularity and 

 symmetry satisfies this feeling for perfection of handicraft. And, on 

 the other side, departures from regularity, when they suggest the idea 

 of bad workmanship, are, as I have already remarked, distinctly un- 

 pleasant. 



In addition to these widespread abstract associations with form, 

 there are more circumscribed and concrete associations depending on 

 a vague resemblance to some agreeable natural form. Of these asso- 

 ciations the suggestions of human form constitute the most valuable 

 aesthetic element. The supreme interest of the human presence makes 

 us ever ready to see analogies to the human attitude and mode of 

 movement in inanimate nature, and so we fall into the habit of attrib- 

 uting a quasi-human interest to the drooping plant, the stalwart tree 

 rejoicing in its battles with the wind, and the venerable mountain 

 looking down on our lower earth with an expression of Jovian calm. 

 Art, when not distinctly imitative, owes something to these vague 

 suggestions. Thus, we are disposed to transform supporting columns 

 into caryatides before art itself transforms them for us. Next to the 

 human figure, other of the more beautiful organic forms may furnish 

 such associations to the eye. Thus, the Corinthian capital, and forms 

 frequently found in ornamental design, please the eye in part through 

 a vague feeling of their plant-like character. 



The reader may perhaps expect us to assign the relative values to 

 these various factors in agreeable form. But psychology is not yet a 

 quantitative science ; and, this being so, aesthetics must be content 

 with enumerating the elements, without seeking to measure exactly 

 their relative values. I have insisted on the presence of a direct sen- 

 suous element in visual form apart from the pleasures of light and 

 shade. In daily experience we may not be aware of the pleasure 

 which ocular movement in its real or ideal form is fitted to yield, just 

 because our eye usually attends to these movements only as signs of 

 important objective facts. But, when this significance is withdrawn, 

 as in a decorative arabesque design, we may easily become aware of 

 the pleasurable character of such movement. And it must be supposed 

 that this element enters as a very appreciable factor into the whole 

 delight which sculpture and architecture afford us. Even though not 

 a considerable pleasure in isolation from other modes of enjoyment, it 

 may contribute a valuable factor to such a compound aesthetic impres- 

 sion.* 



But, though emphasizing these elementary motor experiences of the 

 eye as a factor in agreeable form, I would not exaggerate their impor- 

 tance. It must be remembered that the experiences of touch and 



* According to Fechner's principle of aesthetic support, " Vorschule der iEsthetik," 

 p. 50, et seq. 



