342 



IS MUSIC THE TYPE 



be tempted to select not music but poetry as his type and 

 measure. Thus it is manifest that critics who refer to the 

 standard of poetry, and critics who refer to the standard of 

 music, differ in this mainly that they hold divergent theories 

 regarding the function of art in general. 



The debatable point for consideration is whether either the 

 popular critic rebuked by Mr. Pater or Mr. Pater himself can 

 legitimately choose one of the arts as the ' type and measure ' 

 for the rest. I maintain that both are expressing certain 

 personal predilections, whereby the abiding relations of the 

 arts run some risk of being overlooked. What the matter 

 really comes to is this : while the one proclaims his preference 

 for sensuous results, the other proclaims a preference for 

 denned intelligible content. Each does violence by his selec- 

 tion to one or other of the arts. The critic who demands a 

 meaning at any cost, will find it hard to account for his 

 appreciation of music or of architecture. Mr. Pater, in order 

 to complete his theory, is forced to depreciate the most 

 sublime and powerful masterpieces of poetry. In his view 

 drama and epic doff their caps before a song, in which verbal 

 melody and the communication of a mood usurp upon 

 invention, passion, cerebration, definite meaning. 



Just as the subjectivity of any age or nation erects one art 

 into the measure of the rest, so the subjectivity of a particular 

 critic will induce him to choose poetry or music, or it may be 

 sculpture, as his standard. The fact remains that each art 

 possesses its own strength and its own weakness, and that no 

 one of the arts, singly and by itself, achieves the whole purpose 

 of art. That purpose is to express the content of human 

 thought and feeling in sensuously beautiful form by means of 

 various vehicles, imposing various restrictions, and implying 

 various methods of employment. If we seek the maximum 

 of intelligibility, we find it in poetry ; but at the same time 

 we have here the minimum of immediate effect upon the 

 senses. If we seek the maximum of sensuous effect, we find 

 it in music ; but at the same time we have here the minimum 

 of appeal to intelligence. Architecture, in its inability to 

 express definite ideas, stands next to music ; but its sensuous 



