THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF ESTHETICS 437 



II 



If we are to consider how we answer to-day the questions put for 

 scientific consideration as to the facts of aesthetic life and of art, first 

 of all we must examine the now prevailing theories of aesthetics. 

 They fall in general into aesthetic objectivism and subjectivism. 

 By the first collective name we denote the aggregate of all theories 

 which find the characteristic of their field of inquiry essentially in 

 the quality and conformation of the object, not in the attitude of 

 the enjoying subject. This quality of the aesthetically valuable is 

 most easily characterized by setting it off against reality. Of such 

 theories, which explain "the beautiful" and art from their relation 

 to what is given in nature, naturalism stands for the identity of real- 

 ity and art, while the various types of idealism set forth art as more 

 than reality, and vice versa, formalism, illusionism, sensualism make 

 it less than reality. 



Inasmuch as naturalism is still defended only by a handful of 

 artists who write, it would appear almost superfluous to consider it. 

 But the refutations of it which are still appearing indicate that it 

 must have some life. And in fact it still exists, partly as a present- 

 day phenomenon in literature and art, partly as the permanent 

 conviction of many artists. The naturalistic style testifies to revolt 

 against forms and notions which are dying out; it therefore only 

 attains a pure aesthetic interest through the theoretic ground which 

 is furnished to it. And this rests above all on the testimony of the 

 artists, who are never weary of assuring us that they immediately 

 reproduce what is given in perception. Some philosophical concep- 

 tions also play therein a certain role. The adherents of the doctrine 

 that only the sense-world is real come as a matter of course to the 

 demand that art shall hold itself strictly to the given. And what 

 optimist, who explains the real world as the best of all possible 

 worlds, can, without a logical weakening, admit a play of imagination 

 different from the reality. 



^Esthetic idealism, too, is borne on general philosophical premises. 

 However various these are, in this they all agree, that the world is 

 not exhausted by appearances, but has an ideal content and import, 

 which finds in the aesthetic and in the field of. art its expression to 

 sense. Even H. Taine sets to art the task of showing the " dominant 

 character" of things. The beautiful is therefore something higher 

 than the chance reality, the typical as over against the anomalous 

 natural objects or events. It can then be objectively determined 

 with reference to its typical and generic quality and in its various 

 kinds. 



Somewhat different is the case of formalism, which to-day scarcely 

 anywhere sets up to be a complete system of aesthetics, but points 



