THE FANTASTIC, THE GROTESQUE 161 



sensual functions have come to be regarded with sensitive 

 modesty. In other words, it defines the essence of obscenity 

 to be some cynical or voluptuous isolation of what is animal 

 in man, for special contemplation by the mind. Savages 

 recognise nothing indecent in things which we consider highly 

 improper. Our ancestors spoke without a blush about matters 

 which could not now be mentioned before a polite company. 

 This is because savages and people of the Elizabethan age 

 were naive, where we have become self-conscious. Thus 

 Shelley's crimen las majestatis varies with the age and the 

 conditions of civility in which men live. Much that is 

 treasonable here and now against the spiritual nature of 

 humanity was unassailable two hundred years ago, and is still 

 respectable in the tropics. The point at issue is to decide 

 what constitutes a violation of local and temporal decorum 

 in this respect. Such violation is obscenity ; and the con- 

 ditions vary almost imperceptibly with the growth of society, 

 but always in favour of decorum. 



There are many things allowable, nay laudable, in act, 

 which it is unpermissible to represent in figurative art or to 

 dwell upon in poetry. Yet these things imply nothing ugly. 

 On the contrary, they are compatible with the highest degree 

 of natural beauty. Even Aretino's famous postures, if painted 

 with the passion of Giorgione, could not be pronounced 

 unbeautiful. Such motives abound in juxtapositions of forms 

 and in contrasts of physical types, which yield everything the 

 painter most desires for achieving his most ambitious triumphs. 

 The delineation of these things, however, though they are 

 allowable and laudable in act, though they are plastically 

 beautiful, offends our taste and is intolerable. If we ask why 

 this is so, the answer, I think, must be that civilisation only 

 accepts art under the condition of its making for the nobler 

 tendencies of human nature. In truth, I have approached 

 the present topic, in spite of its difficulty, mainly because it 

 confirms the views I hold regarding the dependence of the 

 arts on ethics. 



There are acts necessary to the preservation of the species, 

 functions important in the economy of man; but these, by 



M 



