41 



BEAUTY. 



BEAUTY. 



All incongruous combinations in animate beings are contrary to 

 beauty : for example, the pink and white complexion, which suits the 

 delicacy and weakness of the female form and character, is less 

 becoming to man, than the dark-red and brown, which characterise the 

 sun-burnt cheek of a person accustomed to rural labours, to athletic 

 exercises, to field-sports, and to a military or naval life. Somewhat 

 feminine forms and colours are occasionally admired in very young 

 men ; and in women, as in the natives of the South of Europe, a dark 

 complexion is often extremely beautiful : but an effeminate appearance 

 is not more approved in men than an effeminate mind ; and muscular or 

 athletic forms in women are commonly considered coarse and clumsy, a 

 judgment confirmed by the taste of the Greek artists, who, in repre- 

 senting Diana as a huntress, with her dogs, her arrows, and her garments 

 girded up for running, never give her a masculine form ; as, in their 

 representations of Apollo, though they avoid muscularity, they care- 

 fully guard against the roundness and softness of limbs which are 

 proper to female beauty. [APOLLO.] 



Hence the middle form in the different species of animals is the 

 most beautiful ; that is to say, it is that abstract form at which the 

 painter or sculptor 'arrives by rejecting all the faulty extremes, and 

 which he takes as the type from which the varieties of individuals 

 diverge in different directions. Thus the most beautiful size in man 

 is between a giant and a dwarf ; or, to take an instance in a single 

 feature, the most beautiful form of the nose is when the outline is 

 straight ; any deviation from this form on either side, so as to make it 

 like that of the fauns in Greek sculpture, or to give it a protuberance, 

 is injurious to the beauty of the human countenance. (See Muller, 

 ' Archseol. der Kunst.' 329, n. 5.) And as it is with the general form 

 of the human race, or of the several limbs and features, so is it with 

 particular classes. Thus, "though the forms of childhood and age 

 differ exceedingly, there is a common form in childhood and a com- 

 mon form in age, which is the more perfect as it is the more remote 

 from all peculiarities." (Reynolds' Discourse 3.) Reynolds, however, 

 is mistaken when he says that the middle form is beautiful because it 

 is the most common (see ' Idler,' No. 82) ; for, as has been truly 

 remarked, there are many forms of frequent and ordinary occurrence, 

 which are by no means beautiful. The beauty of the middle form 

 arises from its being that which is the most suited to the purposes and 

 wants of the animal : thus, if a nose, a mouth, or an eye was very much 

 above, or very much below the average size, it would either be incon- 

 venient from ite magnitude, or incapable of performing ita functions on 

 account of its smallness. Having once established this maxim in our 

 minds, we forget, as in many other instances, the principle on which it 

 is founded ; and although a nose, for example, would be equally fitted 

 for its purposes if it deviated slightly from the straight line, yet we 

 r. 'ii-ider that line alone as the standard of ideal beauty. 



The reason why we are gratified by the perception of congruity or 

 fitness in the general structure of an animate body and of its several 

 component parts, by the appearance of ease and grace in the move- 

 ments of animals, and universally by all the marks of activity, vigour, 

 energy, and health, is that we are gratified by the absence of suffering, 

 as we are pained by its presence; as when a person not hardened by 

 custom to such sights witnesses an execution, a surgical operation, the 

 slaughter of animals, a field of battle covered with the dead and dying, 

 a hospital, Ac. Hence all those objects which suggest the notion of 

 pain, discomfort, or decay, are devoid of beauty. Such is the case with 

 animals, as the elephant or the hippopotamus, which are heavy and 

 cninlirous in their shape, and appear to drag their limbs with difficulty 

 and effort; suggesting none of those impressions of joy and satis- 

 faction in the animal, exulting in its strength and agility, which are 

 occasioned by the unshackled movements of the horse, the antelope, or 

 the Btag. (See the comparison of the horse at the end of the 6th 

 Iliad.) Hence, likewise, all deformity in animals is inconsistent with 

 beauty, and is ugly in proportion as the shape of the limb or body 

 deviates from the standard form, and is unfitted for the purposes for 

 which it ia intended. 



For the same reason that deformity in animals is inconsistent with 

 beauty, all appearance of disease, decay, and death is loathsome and 

 hideous : as the ghastly look of a bleeding wound, the convulsive 

 movements of agony, the pale, livid, or emaciated countenance of a 

 person expiring under the rapid progress of a pestilential disease, or 

 wasting away with famine, atrophy or consumption, the mouldering 

 remains of a dead body, or the empty frame of a skeleton. Hence 

 when Romeo is described by Shakspere as descending into the vault 

 in order to see Juliet's corpse, he says, on discovering that the bloom 

 had not faded from her face, 



" O my love ! my wife ! 



Death, that hath snck'd the honey of thy breath, 

 I lath had no power yet upon thy beauty. 



Thou art not conquered : beauty's ensign yet 

 Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, 

 And death's pale flag ia not advanced there." 



The same feelings are transferred by us to the vegetable kingdom 

 though with a great dimunition of their intensity : thus the yellow or 

 brown colour of the faded leaf is for the most part less beautiful than 

 the brilliant and vivid gri-un of spring and summer vegetation ; never 

 theless, there is probably no person at all alive to the beauties o 



ixternal nature who has not admired the rich and varied tints of an 

 lutumn landscape, produced by the irregular discoloration of the leaf. 



Vhen, however, decay has completed its work, all beauty vanishes ; 

 and a tree quite bared of its leaves has nothing more to recommend it 

 the eye than if it were actually dead. And when a tree has through 

 ige or by accident undergone a partial decay, its beauty is impaired, 



hough its wreck may still suggest agreeable notions of power and 

 grandeur, the memory of former vigour, of resistance' to time and the 

 elements, or to the destructive agents of nature. Such are in part the 



eelings excited by the sublime picture of Milton : 



" As when heaven's fire 



Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, 

 With singed top their stately growth, though bare, 

 Stands on the blasted heath." 



In general, however, all appearance of poverty, meagreness, or decline 

 of vegetation is, unless compensated by countervailing circumstances, 

 unfavourable to beauty. (See Price's ' Essay on Beauty," p. 29.) 



The beauty derived from a perception of utility is not confined to 

 .he works of nature, but is common to the works of constructive 

 art, in which the adaptation of means to ends is equally observable, 

 and in which there is a similar correspondence of the constituent parts. 

 Thus in buildings each different part has a manifest and visible 

 purpose as the column to support a weight on the ground, the arch 

 ;o support a weight over an opening, the windows to admit light and 

 air, the projection of the roof to throw the rain-water from the walls, 

 fee. Every part of a building has therefore its peculiar form and 

 Beauty, dependent on its destination. And the same is the case with 

 different kinds of building : the disposition of parts which would be 

 beautiful in a church or a palace, would be displeasing and absurd in a 

 cottage or a fortified castle. " Grecian temples, Gothic abbeys ,and 

 feudal castles," says Mr. Payne Knight, " were all well adapted to their 

 respective uses, circumstances, and situations : the distribution of the 

 parts subservient to the purposes of the whole ; and the ornaments and 

 decorations suited to the character of the parts, and to the manners, 

 habits, and employments of the persons who were to occupy them ; but 

 the house of an English nobleman of the 18th or 19th century is 

 neither a Grecian temple, a Gothic abbey, nor a feudal castle ; and if 

 the style or distribution, or decoration of either be employed in it, 

 such changes and modifications should be admitted as may adapt it to 

 existing circumstances ; otherwise the scale of its exactitude becomes 

 that of its incongruity, and the deviation from principle proportioned 

 to the fidelity of imitation." (' On Taste,' part ii. ch. 2. 54 ; see also 

 Lord Aberdeen on ' Grecian Architecture,' p. 26-35.) 



For a similar reason, all ornament in architecture should be subordi- 

 nate to use, and should grow out of and be suggested by it ; whence 

 professed architects, with whom the idea of decoration is predominant, 

 often fail hi then- attempts to produce beauty, and in many eases seem 

 rather to adapt the building to the ornaments than the ornaments to 

 the building. Accordingly, it may be observed, that engineers whose 

 attention is solely directed to the use of that which they plan, often con- 

 struct more beautiful buildings than persons with whom beauty is the 

 chief consideration. And generally, it may be observed, that all orna- 

 ment, if accumulated to an excessive degree, either from a love of 

 gaudy magnificence, or for the sake of ostentation, is devoid of 

 beauty. 



For the same reason that neatness, freshness, and regularity are 

 pleasing to us in buildings, as being associated with the ideas of com- 

 fort and enjoyment, " we require," as Mr. Knight has observed, " that 

 immediately adjoining the dwellings of opulence and luxury, every- 

 thing should assume its character, and not only be, but appear to be, 

 dressed and cultivated. In such situations, neat gravel walks, mown 

 turf, and flowering plants and shrubs, trained and distributed by art, 

 are perfectly in character " (ii. 2. 29). In laying out the direction of 

 roads or walks, the beauty of the line is likewise determined by its fit- 

 ness. Thus, in an open and level plain a straight line is most agreeable 

 to the eye; in broken and irregular ground, the line which adapts 

 itself to the shape of the country, by constantly keeping the same 

 level, is to be preferred. The pleasure which is felt in following the 

 windings of a road carried through a mountain-pass, and creeping 

 round the declivities of the rocks, is enhanced by a sense of skill in the 

 contriver and executor, and of difficulty successfully overcome. 



The beauty of furniture and dress is likewise in a great measure 

 derived from their fitness ; though, with regard to dress in particular, 

 our taste is liable to be determined by many independent, and often 

 conflicting considerations, as novelty, fashion, &c., some of which will 

 be mentioned below. Symmetry of parts, which the eye often so 

 rigidly exacts in architecture, in gardening, in the internal decoration 

 of a house, in dress, &c., arises in great measure from a sense of utility : 

 thus, for example, in the construction of a house, the entrance is 

 obviously best placed in the centre of the wall, as it affords the easiest 

 communication to the various parts of the building ; the windows are 

 most convenient if they are at nearly equal distances from each other, 

 and are not crowded together in some places and separated by wide 

 intervals in others ; the columns best perform their work if they are 

 separated by equal spaces, and therefore support equal weights. The 

 pleasure derived from symmetry in works of art is however not con- 

 fined to its beauty, but in part arises from the evidence which it affords 



