HELMHOLTZ ON ESTHETICS 



the restraint of arbitrary rules, as if it came from 

 nature. 



' No doubt,' he says in summing up the results of 

 the volume on Sensations of Tone, c is now entertained 

 that beauty is subject to laws and rules dependent on 

 the nature of human intelligence. The difficulty 

 consists in the fact that these laws and rules, on 

 whose fulfilment beauty depends, and by which it 

 must be judged, are not consciously present to the 

 mind, either of the artist who creates the work, or 

 the observer who contemplates it. Art works with 

 design, but the work of art ought to have the appear- 

 ance of being undesigned, and must be judged on 

 that ground. Art creates as imagination pictures, 

 regularly without conscious law, -designedly without 

 conscious aim. A work, known and acknowledged 

 as the product of mere intelligence, will never be 

 accepted as a work of art, however perfect be its 

 adaptation to its end. . . . And yet we require 

 every work of art to be reasonable, and we show 

 this by subjecting it to a critical examination. . . . 

 The more we succeed in revealing the harmony and 

 beauty of all its parts, the richer we find it, and we 

 even regard it as the principal characteristic of a great 

 work of art that deeper thought, reiterated observa- 

 tion, and continued reflection show us more and 

 more clearly the reasonableness of all its individual 

 parts.' I 



1 Sensations of Tone, p. 569. 

 269 



