428 .ESTHETICS 



The arts of greatest importance in our time may well be divided 

 into the arts of hearing (that is, literature, poetry, music), and the 

 arts of sight (that is, architecture, sculpture, painting, and the 

 graphic arts). 



These diverse groups of arts were differentiated long before any 

 age of which we have a shadow of record. But many animals display 

 what seem to be rudimentary art instincts, in which rhythmical move- 

 ment (which is to be classed as an art of sight) and tonal accompani- 

 ment are invariably combined as they are also in the dance and 

 song of the savage; and this fact would seem to indicate that in the 

 earliest times of man's rise from savagery the differentiation between 

 the arts of sight and the arts of hearing was at least very incom- 

 plete. 



But leaving such surmises, we may consider the arts of sight and 

 the arts of hearing in themselves. We see them still in a measure 

 bound together; for many an artist, for instance, devotes his life 

 to the making of paintings which "tell a story," and many a poet 

 to the production of "word-pictures." 



In general, however, it may be said that the arts of hearing and 

 the arts of sight express themselves in totally different languages, 

 so to speak, and they have thus differentiated because each can give 

 a special form of aesthetic delight. 



Turning to the consideration of each great group, we note that 

 the arts of sight have become clearly differentiated on lines which 

 enable us to group them broadly as the graphic arts, painting, 

 sculpture, and architecture. Each of these latter has become im- 

 portant in itself, and has separated itself from the others, just so 

 far as it has shown that it can arouse the sense of beauty in a man- 

 ner which its kindred arts of sight cannot approach. It is true that 

 all the arts of sight hold together more closely than do the arts of 

 sight, as such, with the arts of hearing, as such. But it is equally 

 clear that the bond between the several arts of sight was closer 

 in earlier times than it is to-day, in the fact that modeled paint- 

 ing, and colored sculpture, were common media of artistic expres- 

 sion among the ancients, the latter being still conventional even so 

 late as in the times of the greatest development of art among the 

 Greeks. 



But the modern has learned that in painting and graphics the 

 artist can gain a special source of beauty of color and line which he 

 is able to gain with less distinctness when he models the surface upon 

 which he works : and the experience of the ages has gradually taught 

 the sculptor once for all that he in his own special medium is able 

 to gain a special source of beauty of pure form which no other arts 

 can reach, and that this special type of beauty cannot be brought 

 into as great emphasis when he colors his modeled forms. 



