'I‘V"'v‘I.o.--...

'Jvuuwnuotausr Luna-u -- on 1

--:i‘

O

;

NATURE

CERN

C

IR‘Y

,l‘~

\
v

m

 

mu}

ARTISTEC msmm

., A,

A M

IGAN STATE COL

WCH

.n

D

is. k;

  

Donna Lauise Parsons

1955

 

. .
u.
.0
.ll .1
. I.
.t‘
1‘!
0‘ .n
. a.
10 u .

 

TH Lipl 3

IM W“ WWW

3 1293 01059 7353

 

=1

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

An Inquiry Concerning the Nature
of Artistic Insgiration

presented by

Donna Louise Parsons

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

.t .. A , degree tummy

_ '/
Date n" 7 F

0-169

AN III-QUIRY

II€.;PIRATI"N

I C

\

A

ARI‘IS“

v -'..CERl§Ii.G 1‘51.

by

Donna Louise Parsons

Submlzted to the Seuocl of Graduane tudies of richigan
State College of Airiculture and lppllei Science
in partial fulfillment of tne rec _uirements
for the degree of

EASTER OF ART:

Department of PhiIOSOphy

1955

TL"
.Laib

Ah AESTRACT

This study concerning inepiration, tne psycholoEical
phenomenon unierlding artistic creation, was undertaken for
the purpose of Laininfi some insight into the creative activity
of the artist. The method employed, while essentially that of
a pspcholoLiail survey, “as not aimed at the formulation of
StatiStiCDl iata, tut rather at a meaningful synthesis of wide~

13 Varpiné intersretatiohs of the subject here under consider-
atiOn --- theories prOposed bu pnilOSOphers. psycholoEists, and
artists in the different meiia. The necessity of this approach
lies partly in the recalcitrance of the subject matter to admit
of any purely 'objective' solution, as ts shall see during the
course of the inquirp; furthermore, it was believed that only
through such a multiple-aspect approach could a just evaluation
of the various positions be attained.

The inquiry and be iiviiei into two sections: (l)historica1~
philosopnic.l, and (£)analgtical-psvcnolo;ical. In the first
pnrt we saall consiier the views of inspiration prevalent in the
different periois of history: the view of inspiration as of super-
natural oriéin, triniina with it a revelation of the Divine, as
Plato and the ancients believed; the view of inspiration as in-
eSSential, a fanciful flight of the imatination detrimental to
the proiuction of art worns bJ rational means, as Sir Joshua

Reanolds and the goaienists heli; the theory of inspiration as

insitht into truth, generally having some philOSOphical import,
--- the positiOn held by Immanuel Kant and his idealistic suc-
cessors; the view of inspiration as an intuitive grasp of the
inner essence of an ob3e3t or issue, as Benedetto Croce and
Fenri BergSOn thought; all these theories, eacn in its own time,
has been influential in the histor; of aesthetics.

in the seconi section the psgcnOanal‘tic theories retariing

F1
71
a

the wotiVation behind artistic cr,ation, glenb with reud's
study of Leonario da Vinci, will receive sone attention. This
will be followei by an examination of artists' own descriptions
of their sta‘es of 'insniration', 0nd of the iegree of 'method-
icalness' or 'spOntaneitJ' peculiar to certain iniividual artists,
such as Veethoven, Leonario, TchaixovsaJ, hozart, and others.
FinallJ, an attempt W111 be saie to formulate some tentative con—
clusiOns, ani to saLCest sore further implicazicns of the View

of in piration supportei by this thesis.

 

‘ll‘lllllllllllll‘llll [I‘ll‘llll'lllllll‘ll

r ‘1" "' “nu "'-'
.‘iulu.CnLa21./U. :1...

I would line to express my deep gratitude to Professor
Tohn F. A. Taylor, under whose guidance this study was carried
out. lithout his constant encouragement and many valuable
subéestions, both as to form and c0ntent, this thesis could
not nave been completed.

I would line also to eXpress nJ sincere appreciation to
Professor John M. Dehaan, whose lectures on Aesthetics, the
first philOSOphical lectures I attended, were truly an inepir-
ation in themselves.

Ani I want to thanx Professor Henry 8. Leonard for his

fine assistance in the later stages of preparation of this

thesis.

ll‘llllll‘f'll’llllllll'llull‘ll [Illi‘lllllllt‘ll‘llllll‘l‘ll

I4
F)
2
'3
J
)
H

II TdE IEDIAICAl iCLh T? TfE aifISI 12
III .‘f “13 REaBCn 24
IV 3R? aLD IDE$LI3Tt KANT AID HEGEL 34
V ART AnD InEnLISK: GQEIVE, SCHILLER, AND
SCHOPENHAUER 53
II 43? nLD IJTUI”ICN 65

VII ARI A141) Pbfi'JHCr‘JL—LLE'LSIS '75

nl‘ELOCICAL VERS'JS Si’Cill‘AJECUS .JXRI‘ISI‘IC
T ..o«71. P‘T -‘.
‘

,.
Av --- 3.31; V‘U‘U‘ 87

IX f EI'TODIlaL Vile-'33 SEQT‘ “”73 A3131 SIIC
JREnllch --- 3PTJTAXECUS 105
X EXCEnDED ICELATT IRSPIRATICN 117

XI SC‘TCE PE’ILCSOPVICI’U II..T?LIZAI‘ICI?S 136

CHAPTER I

OH TETHOD

The study of the psychological aspect of Aesthetics
is as enthralling as it is difficult. Lying within the
domains of both psychology and aXiOIOgy, it is to some
extent a part of neither, but as it were, an alien territory,
a formidable wilderness between the two. and here in this
labyrinth of darKness, the Mini in its age-old 'quest for
certainty' is confronted with seemingly insuperable obstacles
which forbode the premature end of its inquiry. And the
Mind once again is a stranger outside the gates of what
should be its own province --- the Realm of Truth.

And yet this strange predicament in which the search
seems to terminate is paradoxically its point of origin; ---
Just as one who is lost in a forest at night during a storm
may, if he does not despair, witness a manifestation of
power and majesty of overwhelming intensity such as would
have been withheld from him had he passed through the woods
on a sunlit afternoon, following a series of familiar land-
marxs leading to his destination. In the latter instance
he would have been largely oblivious of the nature that
fleetingly surrounded him; in the former, he is, in the

moment of becoming acutely aware of that nature, one with

 

illll'llllf‘ll.ll

it --- one with the night and the storm and the roaring crescendo
of blind fury that resounds about him.

In line manner, the quest for truth must have its initial
impetus and continuing motiVation in what is essentially an
emotional eXperience --- the fervent desire lg‘gggw. Disinter-
ested speculation lacns the power to overcome the obstacles
that present themselves along the way; intellectual apathy
ends in either nonchalant agnosticism or what is worse, degmatic
snepticism.

On the other hand, it should be acxnowledged at the outset
of an inquiry of this nature that no method yet devised is
without specific limitations. The emotional element, if allowed
to run rampant, would result in a naive subjectivism, which even
if true, would, line the mystical eXperience, remain forever
incommunicable; the intellectual factor, with its predilection
for scientific formulae capable of IOgical or empirical demon-
stration, would lihewise be at a loss to deal with certain phases
of the subject which lie beyond the scope of scientific psychology
prOper.

For example, how would one set out to determine a psycho-
logical measurement of artistic inspiration? By the value of
the worn of art it creates? But this could be validated from
a psychological point of View only if we should assume the

equivalence of widely-varying standards of taste; but such a

shifting of the artistic standard would tend to refute the
possibility of any standard of excellence and thus nullify the
results purported to have been attained by measurement. But if
on the otLer hand, we postulate the existence of objective
criteria as determinants of artistic worth, and of an absolute
standard in no way dependent upon individual tastes, we have
tanen recourse to a branch of study that belongs not within the
sphere of PsychOIOgy at all, but within that of PhilosOphy.

And yet despite this inapplicability of psychological
measurement to artistic inspiration and insight, the fact
remains that the creative activity of the artist is essentially
a mental phenomenon. That is, the whole act of creation from
the inception of the idea through its develoPment into an
artistically expressive form (excluding the manipulation of its
purely material structure, which often consists of here trained
technical facility) is from its beginning to its culmination a
continuous psychological process.

Hence we are faced with the necessity of admitting to our
inquiry two seemingly contradictory approaches --- the objective
and the suLJective; and liKe those medieval phiIOSOphers who
refused to assert the primacy of either reason or revelation,
but firmly held to both, we are presented the tasx of somehow

resolving the apparent inconsistencies involved in these two

sources of authority. It may be that human finitude is the

cause of our reading into their claims for validity a certain
discrepancy....we cannot perceive the point at which the chasm
between the two is bridged. Truth may indeed be One, but perhaps
there are several parallel roads leading to that unity.

having begun our investigation with an examination of the
difficulties to be encountered in the study of the nature of
artistic insyiration, it would be well to consider next the
method of procedure and to note the further limitations which
may be imposed on and by the prOCedure. From that vantage point
we shall be better able to recOgnize and define the aims we may
reasonably hope to attain in this present course of inquiry.

The question of method evoxes a number of problems which
are not to be disregarded. First, there is the danger that one
of the various interpretations concerning the nature of the
subject may come to the fore defending its position with such
vehemence as to detract from the import of any views to the
contrary that the others have prOposed or may later venture to
suggest. In extreme cases this can result in the complete
annihilation of all Opposition. Tyranny is ever prevalent in
tne war of ideas. This is particularly true in those instances
where the subject is of a type that exhibits both highly con-
troversial possibilities and no comnon frane of reference by
which to Judge the arguments that arise. Even in science, the

most 'objective' branch of Knowledge (indeed, the whole 'tree',

[ullllllll'lli ‘[“I!III|‘I I‘ll

some may insist) there is still a certain amount of disputation
going on as to the comparative reliability of different methods
of hypothesis-Verification. And if this be the case in science,
what may we hOpe to achieve in the way of unanimous agreement
in such 'non-scientific' fields as human values? The problem
is a very real one, of which the twentieth century is bringing
an ever more deepening awareness. we witness not only a war

of ideas, but a war of ideals as well. As to what will event-
ually emerge from this conflict, we may only speculate. and
hOpe....

So much for the first problem involved in the method of
procedure. The second, very closely related to it, perhaps
even a part of it, is the difficulty posed by the personal or
'individualistic' element. For just as every worh of art is,
as Zola writes, "nature seen through a temperament", so too
every man becomes imbued with the eloquence of a dramatic actor
wnen called upon to defend a position that is both near and
dear to his heart. this 'individualistic' element is an inevit-
able Stumbling-DIOCK. The best we can do is to seem to partially
circumvent it by presenting with greater forcefulness those

arguments which run alien to our own orientation. This intel—

 

lectual ambivalence, while disconcerting at first, yields a rich
harvest in the end, and its value both intrinsic and extrinsic

may well be inestimiLle.

A third problem is created by man's innate tendency toward
what might be termed “the construction of bridges out into
space". In nis quest for understanding --— that is, for passing
from the shown to the unsnown, man invariably seens to erect
some structure, by means of which he might easily go from the
one OVer to the other. In scientific terminology this is Known
as the process of hypothesis-formation; in everyday life it is
the following-up of a “hunch”; in philosOphy it is phiIOSOphical
speculation --- hence the age-old love of metaphysics, which
would illumine our minds to the ultimate end of all cuests --—
the Absolute.

These are but three of the more obvious difficulties With
which we shall have to contend; no doubt, many more will come
to light during the course of the inquiry.

As for the method itself, we shall approach the problem of
artisnic creation first of all from the historical-philosophical
viewpoint and secondly from its analytical-psychological aSpect,
taxing as our guide not statistical data, but rather the theories
of genius and inspiration that have emerged in the course of
time -4- conceived by philOSOphers, psycholoLists, and artists
themselves. The necessity of such an approach lies partly in
the recalcitrance of the subject matter to admit of psychOIOgical
measurement --- hence, of any "purely objective” treatment. It

is true that in recent years nuzh investigation and GXperiment-

ation have been Carried on in psychological aesthetics, and
tests have been devised Wd13h endeavor to determine one's
aptitude for achievement in the various artistic media. Certain—
ly one ought not to underestimate the great cOntributions such
studies have made to aesthetic inquiry; nor should one evaluate
them solely on the basis of what they ave accomplished up to
the present, without t sin; into consideration their potential-
ities for further contributions in the future, as their methods
and measuring devices are improved.

No derogatory implication is intended therefore when we
state that these psycholoeical tests of artistic ability beg
the question which is here at issue. They cannot do otherwise;
for procress in any science is possible only within the frame-
worx of a siVen set of presuppositiohs that form a coherent
SJStcmo he may demand of any science that it be not inconsistent
with other sciences accepted as valid areas of inquiry; its
Status as a science demands that it be consistent with itself.
We perceive a new difficulty in the moment we realize that a
prOposei solution to a problem in any field of study, such as
pSJCAOlogical aesthetics, for example, may exhibit both these
characteristics, i.e. self-consistency and lack of inconsistency
with previously accepted data, without necessarily providiggpus
with ax adequate explanatiOn of a given subject matter. For

just as a dictionary is circuitous in that it defines terms by

means of other terms which in turn require still further defin-
ition in the same lafliUiee, so too each science forms a system
within itself; and in this essential feature lies both its
strength and its weanness.

The limitation (if such it may be called) of the psycholog-
ical tests here referred to is that they presuppose that which
they set out to prove. For example, in relegating the concept
of genius to a statistical position on a curve of distribution
of intelligence (which in itself has been based on earlier
measurements) the psycholoiical statistician defines genius in
terms of precisely this statistical position. Should one
question the validity of the measuring device used to obtain
the curve of distributiOn, further investigation could decide
the issue as to whether or not it nad been accurately established
oriéinally; should one, however, undertase to doubt the concept
of genius employed by the statistician, he would immediately be
obliged to formulate one of his own, which in its turn would
recuire its own corroboration by observable, relevant data. In
the sane way, tests of artistic aptitude such as the Seashore
measures of musical talent, for example, rest upon certain
fundamental assumptions as to what constitutes aptitude in a
part'cular art medium. If capacity for achievement in music is
equivalent to one's power of aural discrimination --- the acuity

of which may be objectively determined by means of finely grad-

uated tonal differences scientifically produced --- then beyond

a doubt such talent is ”measurable" in the strictest sense of the
word. But let it be suggested that the relationship between the
two is one of correlation rather than equiValence, that factors
other than the aural must in the last analysis enter in to deter~
mine muSicality, and at once a problem arises --- that of ascer-
taining the significance of the 'results' obtained. The test

is subject to "proof"; that wnicn is tested submits itself only
to judpment.

This is not to Say that all judgments are equally reliable;
it is but to say that the Validity of a test lies in its ability
to measure what it purports to measure and in this alone. More
we cannoc require of it. Herein lies its hypothetical character:
If its initial assumptions be true, and if its method be both
accurate and adequate, then the conclusions must be assumed to
be reliable, since they follow from these premises.

he have already noted the inapplicability of any such
direct mode of measurement to the subject of artistic inspiration.
The closest approach to an objective evaluation of the creative
power of any given artist is to be gained only indirectly ---
through a study of those art worKs of which that particular
creativity was productive. And having entered into the Sphere

:- , ,. + ~' '
Oi cieS-eue v10 J

udbnent we no longer tread on strictly psycholoEi-

cal ground. For ne are inmeiiately faced with the need to state

10

and substantiate the cri.eria of our judgment, and this of
necessity involves certain non-psycholoéical factors. Our method
is no lonter "purely” objective, but has passed over into that
relative objeCtivity to xhicn eVery scientific inquiry is subject
by reason of its ultimate foundation upon a set of postulates
that must remain 'unproved'.

And yet despite this reCaluitrance of the subject matter to
admit of psycnologiCal measurement, one iiscovers the indiSpens-
ableness of a psycholOgical approach --— or we might qualify it
thus, a psycholo;ical-phiIOSOphical approach --- for we have
seen how aesthetic judgment must play an important role. For
artistic ideas do not exist in isolation, but only in the mind
of the artistically-inclined individual and later in the mind of
the sensitive critic who observes the finisned product; such
ideas can be understooi and evaluated only in context with their
psycholobical import. Po eliminate this element, 'subjective"
thoubh it be, is to render void not only the particular aesthetic
iieas themselves, but the whole concept of artistic creation, and
to remove them from that fabric in which alone they can find
meaninb.

Thus, while this approach would appear, at least theoretically
to result in the denial of the sucjective element, in actuality
(fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon one's point of View)

it does no such thinb. In the first place, the psycholotical and

ll

philosoph'cal theories to be discussed here were at their times
of formulation excellent examples of "bridges out into space";
sone of then, construCted 9y such master architects as Immanuel
Kant, Siegmund Freud, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, have
endured deepite tne periodical or even incessant avalanche of
criticism hurled abaiust then. These brilliant monumental
structures bear testimony to the fact that tne subjective
element in nnowledbe (i.e. that Wnich defies 'proof') need not

be, indeed, i_ not merely an ingenious device based on man's

finitude, but rather, a mirror reflecting his inherent nobility.

et us therefore beiin our inquiry with a study of the

("1

major historical theories of artistic inspiration.

12

CHAPTER II

HI
fl}
F)
M
U
H
;.

TORY ROLE OF THE ARTIST

InSpiration, the psychOIOgical phenomenon underlying
artistic creation, may well be called 'tie aesthetic mystery
of the 8588'. Ever since men first began to contemplate
beauty in art and to Speculate on its essence and origin,
the compelling force behind its coming into being has been a
subject shrouded in darnness.

There is in man a sense sympathetically responsive to
that which he is unable to comprehend. He is alternately
drawn to and repulsed by what he cannot understand. At times
his primitive instinct to fear the unknown has led him to
avoid it at all costs --- we witness this in the morbid dread
of objects of taboo among modern primitives who will risk
death rather than cOme into centact with 'the fOrbidden'; more
often, however, this peculiar ambivalence has resulted in a
form of religious awe or deification of the uncomprehended.

It became invested wi;h various supernatural powers which man
might invone for succour in times of trouble or danger. The
object during this prOCess generally underwent personification
as well as deification, and there evolved those attitudes today
referred to as animism, totemism, and the so-called 'mana

reaCLion'.

I‘l‘tlt‘t

13

Hence, it Was almost inevitable that man with his peculi:r
tendency toward 'antnrOpOmorphization' should ascribe to the
force behind artistic activity a certain super-human divinity ---
a genie who was said to inepire or 'breathe into' a few chosen
ones the sacred mysteries, the secrets of the gods. This idea
was prevalent as late in manhind's history as the Golden Age of
Greece, when we find Plato speahing of the ”divine madness of
posts": "The poet is a light and winbed and holy thing, and
there is no invention in him until he has been inspired....

”1 and

For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine;
elsewhere in the Egg we read: "The gift which you possess of
Speadiug excellently about homer is not an art, but an inspir-
ation: there is a divinity moving in you.'2

By the time of Plato the concept of the 'genie' had underc
gone a transformation, which may perhaps have consisted of little
more than a change of terminoloby. Here in the days of ancient
Greece, mention is made of the Muses as divine instigators of
creative activity. There is however at least one fundamental
distinction between the two concepts --- that whereas the genie
was envisaged as a largely personal guardian or tutelary divinity
of the individual poet, the Euses were reSponsible for the larger
Spheres of the arts themselves. The actual process, however,

remained the same --~ the Divine Sp0he to men through a human

mediator, the artist.

14

This attitude tOWard inSpiration as an animating force or
power transcending any mere human faculty, in which the artist
fulfilled the role of passive mediator, was largely responsible
for the veneration of the poet, Homer. True, he ascribed to
the gods certain qualities which in man would appear contemptibly
base, but nevertheless his words were not to be questioned, nor
to be taxen lightly. For when he spoke as an oracle of the gods,
he spoxe with divine authority, and his statements were therefore
infallible, regardless of how corrupt such views might appear to
the “Just man“ who sought temperance in all things.

homer is here mentioned because there is in the Greek
attitude toward him an unmistanable incongruity. It is true that
the Greens conceived of the Lode of ht. Olympus as titans, or
“human beings writ large“, who were to some extent subject to the
same Judgments of fate as men. But nevertheless, that mankind
was exhorted to seeK wisdom, justice, and the 'golden mean' is
somewhat inconsistent with the notion of its gods as sinning
a,ainst this mean. They could hardly be regarded as exemplary
figures. It is not difficult in the libht of this to understand
the wisdom of the Green doctrine of 'man, the measure of all
things'.

There is, of course, something not to be overlooned in the
attempt to resolve this incongruity in the Green attitude, and
that is the Variety of religious trends. The uneducated masses

had their Lionysian rites and oréies; but aside from this, there

l llall: III‘ III. I‘ll lull 'Illl III-I'll ‘l'ljll llII' 1'1 |l|ull||l

15

are to be found in the writian of certain of the phiIOSOphers
and 'wise men”, notably Plato himself, traces of a religious view
of a suspiciously monotheistic cast. Thus, in the Timaeus we see
references to a Demiurge or Divine Architect who fashioned the
world after the pattern of the ideal Forms, hampered by the prin-
ciple of matter. Fletinus too, in certain mystical treatises
ascribed to him, SpeuKS of tne Divine, implying a singularity
rather than a multiplicity of forms of divinity. It may be that
these and others amOng the ancient Greens who had looxed into
'the nature of things" were filled with a conviction of the
reality of only monotheimn orpolytheism, but were forced for
various reasons --- perhaps to render their outlook consistent,
or perhaps to remain in Keeping with the predominant epirit of
their tine, to give at least 'lip-service‘ to the other.

Plato's well-Known reminiSCence theory, which conceives of
the soul as in a previous existence having witnessed the beautiful
world of Ideals, bears a resemblance to the poetic insight into
the beautiful and the true. We note this particularly in the
SimEOSABEJ which so eloquently describes the mystical ascent of
tne soul through the various states of tne perception of, and
love for, the beautiful. "He who has been instructed thus far
in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful
in due order and succession, wnen he cones toward the end will

suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty...a nature not

16

fair in one point of view and foul in another...but beauty,
absolute, separate, simple and everlasting, which is... imparted
to tne ever erowing and perisning beauties of all other things.'3

There is, to be sure, a sense in which Plato did not intend
this ascent to be interpreted as applicable to poetic vision.
Plato is .orn betWeen scorn for the artist on the one hand and
extreme a miration of him on the other. His own artistic nature
enables hhnto arbue with fiery eloquence from either point of
view, paradoxically. He seldom completely abandons himself to
unqualified euloties of the poet, and in those rare instances
where he does so, he cannot refrain from maxing references to
the poet’s patholoéical character. Poetic madness may indeed
be divine, he says in effect, but it is none the less madness.
The progressive ascent to ideal beauty 'in due order and succes-
sion" is more the Journey of the phi1050pher, who leads a con-
templative life, than of the frenzied poet who in a moment of
intense emotion eXpounds truths beyond his own comprehension.

We encounter in Plato as well as so frequently elsewhere
a segreéation of the emotions and the intellect, with the asser-
tion or at least implication that these two polarities can never
be reconciled. The one always appears virtually to exclude the
ether. Of the two, the former is by far the more to be guarded
aéainst. Emotion constitutes the uninhibited side of man's

nature --- “the many—headed monster“, which would mass of him a

17

slave and then consume him. The poet in the state of emotional
exaltation generally associated with 'inspiration' comes under
the sway of the passions to the utmost degree. The impulse to
create casts over his a Spell, and under its influence his
intellect and will are powerless to tame the reins; as Shelley
writes in his "Defence of Poetry":

Poetry is not line reasoning a power to be

excited according to the determination of the

will. A man cannot say, 'I will compose poetry.‘

The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the

mind in creation is as a fading coal which some

invisible influence awanens to transitory bright-

ness; this power arises from within; like the

color of a flower which fades and changes as it

is develOped, and the conscious portions of our

nature are unprephetic either of its approach or

its departure.

The element of spontaneity, the apparent lack of conscious
deliberation, is almost universally ascribed to the process of
insyiration. We shall consider some apparent exceptions to this
later on,in a discussion of methodical versus spontaneous artistic
creation; but even there we shall find no actual contradiction of
this principle, since so-called 'methodical' artistic creation,
if it be the work of genius, is capable of explanation according
to the theory of "extended lormant inspiration". Suffice it for
no" to conclude that a certain detree of Spontaneity is a primary

factor in all artistic 'inSpiration'.

It has been shown that inepiration in antiquity was set in a

18

supernatural perspective. It had about it the Character of a
revelatiOn or a prOphecy, the poet being the vessel or instrument.
This View was influential ani quite commonly accepted up until
tne latter half of the eighteenth century, when man's newly-
discoverei instrument of knoeledge, Science, began to assert
itself. here recently, the advent of 'depth psychOIOgy' with its
theory of the eutecnscious has ione much to diSplace, and all but
overthrow,tne View of inspiration as revelation. Some still cling
to a version of this theme at tne present time, interSpersed with
scientific variatiOns. Evidence, however, is to be found which
substantiates the existence of a relatively pure form of it even
as late as the time then Nietzsche was writing:

If one had the least vestige of superstition

one could hardly refrain from supposing himself

to be merely the incarnation, merely the mouth-

piece, merely the me;ium of higher forces. It

merely states the facts to say that one has

revelation in the Sense that suddenly with

ineffable certainty and precision something

becoaes visible and audible that shakes one's

soul to its foundations. One hears, one does

not search; one receives, one does not ask who

gives; line lightning an idea flashes out,

appearing as something necessary, without any hes-

itation as to form —-- “I never had a choice.“

But one need not subscribe to the theory of inepiration as

divine revelation to realize that there is that quality in it

Which seems to defy eXplanation by the peycnolOgical laws assumed

to be Operative in 'ordinary' thought processes. The principle

‘19

of causality is applicable to the mental plane as well as to the
physical. Every idea tends to call forth another, which by reason
of Sone prOperty of relateiness directly follows it in the train
of association.
hut what are we to Say of artistic inspiration, which often

appears to Le Without any suc 'preparatory' series of ideas --—
and which generally departs all too soon, taking with it the
clarity of insight that betoxened its presence? Here even any
mental preliminaries or expectation seem unnecessary. The bio-
E__rap‘nies of artists are filled with narratives of instances when
in the coarse of in evening's stroll a sudien flash from out of
hnowhere strucn them, carrying with it the conviction that if it
could but finl expression, it would immortalize that moment.
Cf such an occurrence A. E. Housman, for example, writes,

As I went along, thinning of nothing in

particular, there would flow into my mind

with sudien and unaccountable emotion, some-

times a line or two of verse, sometimes a

whole stanza at once, accompanied, notflpre-

ceded by, a vague notion of the whole.b

Cut besides this apldfsnt isolation of 'inSpired' ideas,

there is to be found in the worms of art created under their
influence an unusual degree of comprehensive relatedness. The

artist in giving concrete form to these ideas perceives minute

connections ani relations among the individual parts, so that

20

the eXpression of the whole in some way illuminates each of its
constituents. Relations heretofore passed unnoticed suddenly

tane on great meaning, and it is this bond of meaning that unites

artistic fragments, making of them a complete work of art --- a
true eXpression of artistic inspiration.

Since there is a peculiar ambiguity in popular parlance
over the different meanings of inspiration, let us now attempt
to ilStihéuiSh between two of the more common uses of the word.
There is the connotatiOn employed in the discussion of the
'revelation theory' --- namely, insight; and this is in accord
with the modern concept of artistic inepiration, where it is
believed to be a neceSSary fa0tor, a prime requisite behind the
production of works of art. The two theories differ, however, in
one very important respect: that whereas the former is a passive
insight impartei to the consciousness of the artist, senkrecht
vgn_gpgg, so to speed, the latter is an active insight wherein
the artist is no mere mediatory instrument but contains within
himself the source of that insiLnt.

There is another usage of the word 'inspiration' --- the
sense in which a person, place, or object is said to evoke an
emotional or intellectual inclination in the artistic individual
to comremora.e it in art. Thus, the composer writes for his

bilOVL‘d,

21

O danne nicht fur iiese Lieder,

Kir ziemt es dannbar Dir zu sein;

Du gabst sie mir, ich gebe wieder

Was jetct und einst uni swig Dein.

Dein sind sie alle ja gewesen.

nus Deiner lieben Augen Licht

Hab' ich sie treulich abgelesen,

Kennst Du die eiénen Lieder nicht?’
It is in this same sense that Napoleon Bonaparte may be said to
have been tne inspiration of tne groic- 55mphony. This type of
'insyir tion‘ may endure unto the Lrive, or may Vanish when
'tne pale grey dawn of reason' once again appears on the horizon,
or wnen the conflicts of life interfere. We do not know whether
the tender sentiment that called forth the composer's 'Widmung"
lasted or not --- we line to think so; but we do know that in
the case of the Eroica, Beethoven, with his faith in Napoleon
Snattered and nis adtiration for him gone, is said to have torn
out the title page bearing the dediCation and to have written on
the score the inscription, 'In memory of a great man“ --- with
the funeral march of the second movement providing an ironic
touch of humor not originally intended.

This form of inspiration has beyond doubt exerted a tremen-
dous influence on the creation of many great works of art, and it
would be interesting to undertane a survey with the purpose of
gaining some insight i..to its scow.

Kevertheless, tne present inquiry will be confined to the
first meaning ascribed to inspiration, which may be called
'general' or 'alstract' insgiration, in as much as it is deriv-

ative from the total psychical beinb of the artist, both past and

22

present, since it involves memory as well as association and
integration. In the uniting of these three by means of artistic
insight there is formed in the present consciousness of the
artist a mood or momentary state of intuitive creativity wherein

certain elements from past uerception and introspection are called

forth, or 'abstracted' from his psychical history in order to find
eXpression in a work of art.

The other type of inSpiration, of which Napoleon in the case
of the Eroica is an extmple, might be called 'particular' or
'concrete' inspiration --- a Source of an artistic idea embodied
in a particular feature of the objective or imaginary world. The
inclesicn of 'imaginary' is important, for great works of art have
been produced that were based on non-existent entities --- as for
example, the ancient sculpturing of centaurs, and the various
mythiCal beings and monsters inhabiting many literary productions.
Modern art too may have 'concrete inspiration' deprived of actual
existence in the uorld of fact --- namely, certain shapes and
colors lacking an organiZation corresgonding to an occurrence in
'the uorli of objective reality'.

Perhaps the best means of distinguishing the one from the
other is to say simply that 'concrete inspiration‘ refers to
the object that inspires, while 'abstract inSpiration' refers
to the psychological state or_process itself. It is with this
latter as defined at the beginning of the introduction --- "the

psycholotiCal pnenOnenon underlying artistic creation", that we

snail be cencarned in the following inquiry into the nature

of artistic inSpiration.

23

24

CHAPTER III

ART AfiD REASON

Aesthetics, the philosophy of the fine arts, is not a new
branch of philoso;hical inquir'; nor is the psychOIOgiCal
investigation of beauty in art and nature a study to be regarded
as an outgrowth of that comparatively young science known as
depth psycnOlOgg. For in Aristotle's Poetics one finds in the
brief discussion of the 'catharsis theory' a chord of strikingly
similar timbre to the Freudian view of art as an outlet for
repressed desires. The drama in ancient Greece, particularly
the tragedy 'with incidents of pity and fear, wherewith to
accomplish its catharsis of such emotions'1 had in comron with
all artistic media the ability to produce a desired psychOIOgical
state in the sensitive observer. And it was not without reason
that the ancient Greek phiIOSOphers Spoke against the use of
those musical modes which tend to instill fear or passivity in
the liStener. The well-known 'doctrine of ethos' received a
more complete elaooration and compelled stricter adherence then
than a: any time since. Even Plato recognized the extreme
importance of the Dorian mode as a power capable of evoking
valor and every manly virtue.

Nevertheless, while the study of Aesthetics goes back at

least as far as the Golden Age of Greece, it was left to the

25

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to bring it forth from its
sntoatment in the hedieVal Period, and to formulate most of the
problems Wth which the aesthetic inquiry was to concern itself.
and it was particularly in the writings of the German idealists
that the phiICSOphy of art has to have its re-awakening and first
to attain the status of a scientific Sphere of investigation.
Alexander Gottlieb Eaunbarten (1714-1762) is sometimes con-
sidered tne founder of this new aesthetics; actually, however,
he did little more than give it its name. He was not a romanti-
cist, nor even an idealist, who might see in art a revelation of
the Absolute but rather, he was a rationalist who in the cold
9

light of reason foresaw the value of art as an exemplar of order
and preportiOn.

Shat reason shovei him was that there is a

specific and honorable kind of order and

perfection, as also a separate field, in

poetry and the like; that this order and

perfection may be less glorious than the

virtues of reason, but that they are sui

genegis, that they require interpretation

by an independent discipline, that they can

Le methodically connected into a logical

uncle Whi3h is entitled to a freehold in

the general community of philos0phy.2

This association or art with reason Was to enjoy great

pOpularity durinb the has of Classic'sm, "articularly among the
Academists on the cohtinent. It was also to find eXpression in

England in the precepts of the Royal Academy, whose principles

are foruulated in the Eiscourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds. hith

 

26

the coming of the Romantic Era and an adventurous spirit that
refused to be bound by rules, the 'rational' trend in artistic
production and criticism was to suffer a temporary eclipse.

In the meantime, however, the classicist eXperienced no
uncertainty in setting up reason as a faculty superior to
imagination in artistic creation --- indeed, some went so far
as to claim that it Was the sgle requisite in the production of
works of art. We see this reflected in Reynolds' advice to
young students, “You must have no dependence on your own genius.
If you have great tdlents, industry will improve them; if you
have but moderate abilities, industry will supily their defic-
iency."3

And in wiat did this 'industr3"consist? In diligent

prautice of, and patient attention to, those art works of merit

which a neOphyte artist might cOpy with profit. He was, of course
to be seleCtive, and not imitate those crude idiosyncrasies of
taste and mannerism from which even the paintings of the masters
are not always exempt. Thus, for eXample, Reynolds cautions
acainst portrayal of strong emo;ion, since this destroys the
poised dicnity and classic equilibrium of a figure: 'If you mean
to preserve the most perfect beauty in its most perfect state,

you can not eXpress the passions, all of which produce distortion

. . _ . 4
and deformity, more or less in the most beautiful faces." He

cites Bernini's statue of David as a case in point where the

27

heroic iieality of tgis sculpturing is narred by a facial eXpres-
sion representinL agitation.

Nature is nOt perfeCL, and for this reason a slavish aging
of her multituiihous details, among which some defects abound, is
never to be sought. It is an ideal beauty --- a beauty to be
created accorfinb to certain eStaLlished 'rules' that will char—
aCterize a éreut worn of art. And a Knowledge of how to attain
this per ection is to we gained not through perception of nature,
as Leonardo thought, for nature cannot supply us with that which
it itself lacns, i.e. perfect beeuty, but only through reason.
Reason guides tne talented artist in his choice of valuable
precepts in the works of his predecessors, and also aids in the
production of formal symmetry and perfection of line and detail.

And yet this employment of reason is not in Opposition to
the study of nature as a basis of art, but contributory to it,
or perhaps eVen anin to it. As Alexander POpe writes in his
‘gssaypon Criticism:

Those rules of old discovered, not devis'd,

Are Nature still, but Nature methodiz‘d;

Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd

By the same laws wnich firSt herself ordain'd.5
and also:

Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;

s .r._ - L .. L
io cepy nature is to cepy them.

According to the teachincs of the Academy, the artist must

28

from the very beginning of his study concentrate on those prin-
ciples that the greatest artists of history have Spent their
lives testing and iaprovinb. Io comflence without such a back-
ground, in the hepe that innate talent or ‘oribinality' will
suffice is to sow the seeds of deterioration in a style whose
roots are not yet strong enough to support such ”originality",
the Value of which is even dubious in Reynolds' Opinion.

Sut what of the genius? Is he not privileged to enjoy
artistic freedom?

No, says Reynolds, the genius must likewise conform to
the precepts of the maSters, for otherwise his genius is worth
nothing. Rules do not fetter genius, he tells us, but on the

. . . 7
contrary, “Even genius...is the Child of imitation." Therefore
what applies to artists in general applies equally to those of
geniUS:

I would chiefly recommend that an implicit
obedience to the Rules of Art as established
by the practice of the great tasters, should
be exacted from the young Students. That
those models Whicn have passed through the
approbation of abes snould be censidered by
them as perfect and infallible guides.
The same thought found eXpression in POpe's Essay, however in
a more poetic form, where he wrote:
Be Homer's uorhs your study and delight,
Read them by day, and meditate by night;
Thence form your judgment, thence your

maxims brine,
. . Q
And trace the buses upward to their spring.“

29

Such rule-bound crea*ivity would appear to leave little
room for the phenomenon of inSpiratiOh; for the products of an
imagination wherein free association holds sway are rarely
characterized by tracings of a rationally constructed set of pre-
cepts. For this reason, 'inSpiration' is held suspect by the
most rigorous classicists wno regard it as a creator of that
which would overthrow the older artistic traditions. '...He who
would have you believe that he is waiting for the inspirations of
Genius is in reality at a loss how to bebin; and is at last
delivered of his monsters with difficulty and pain.'10 And else-
where he Speaks of that imitation "which alone is sufficient to
diSpel this phantom of inepiration".ll

And even the Romanticist would aéree with this latter asser-
tion, although certainly not with the deregatory implication in
rebard to his 'inspired' creativity. He wno sets up imitation
as the conditio sine gua non of artistic proiuCtion must disregard
the possibility of inspiration having aesthetic merit; likewise,
in affirming the value of 'flashes' of artistic intuition, one is
denying, implicitly or eXplicitly, the intrinsic worth of any
'mere' imitative faculty. For 'inspiration‘ is characterized by
originality, in that it derives its being from a psychical history
that is absolutely unicue in its Way, and distinct from any and
every other totality of past experience. The 'inSpiratiOhs' of

a Schumann differ from those of a Wagner, just as those of a

30

Heine differ from a heats, or a Titian from a Goya, precisely
because of the different intellectual and enOtional temperaments
from which they spring. To compose a "Death and Transfiguration”
such as that of Richard Strauss, one must bg_Richard Strauss.
Furthermore, it is neceSSary that he be Strauss at exactly that
period in his life Which «as productive of this type of work.

Had he written this composition either earlier or later than he
did, it would not be quite as it is. This assumption, controver-
sial though it be, is validated by the admissions of many artists,
and we shall consider this view later on, and attempt to demon-
strate how it is supported by much relevant evidence.

For the moment, in due fairness to the Opposition, let us
turn to some arguments which seek to refute any such concept as
'inspiration ' .

One writer Speaks of the “mythological period of aesthetics"
--- when people view éenius as above rules.l‘2 And he tells us
that "If art implies selectivity, skill and organisation, ascer-
tainable principles must underlie it. Once such principles are
discovered and formulated, works of art may be produced by scient-
ific synthesis.'13 And a little further on in his eXposition he
makes a sugcestion in cOnformity with the materialistic outlook,
"Perhaps in the near future, we may learn that creative eXper-

iences are merely geometrical projections of the electro-chemical

patterns of thought on various materials having sensory effects

31

4
upon us."1

Now while there may be a correlation :etween so-called
Staies of inspiration and "electro-chenical patterns" in the

erebrum or even in the neuro-spinal system, there is as 5st

0

at least no evidence warranting the conclusion that there is
anything more than a correlation between the two. To postulate

an equivalence or even a causal connection betw:en the physical

 

and psychical spheres is to fall back upon a particular meta-
physics. Some may even olject to the division into 'physical'
and 'psycnical', claiming that such a distinction may not exist.
The question here at issue is of course that of the mind-body
relationsnip --- a problem which aoiern psycholoey and physiOIOgy
find cenfrontiné them --- a lebacy of seventeenth century Cartes-
ian dualism. The "bifurcation of nature“ once effected, it
remains an enigma how the two are ever to be re-united.

And the failure of science to find a solution for it during
tne past three centuries somewhat dims the h0pefu1 optimism
reflected in the phrase, I'in the near future'. There 2222 appear
to be a conneCtion, but whether it be eciprocal or uni-directional
is at present an unsolved riddle.

Let us therefore go on to consider an argument that may be
advanced in an attempt to annul the possibility of 'Spontaneity'
in art. "the ariument of spontaneous creation must be repudiated,

particularly since works of art generally conceded to be among the

32

greatest, have not been produced s:>ontaneously....'I (And to which
is added the rather interesting suggestionz) “A Spontaneous
creation in the field of architecture would probably result in
nochina more complex than a log cabin."15

It is evident from the illustration employed that the writer
here ouoted considers magnitude to be an important, (although
surely not essential) element of "greatness'. But in order not to
be deterred at this preliminary Stage of the argument, let us con-
cede this point and co on to consider the main issue here at stake,
naaely, whether it is true that tne greatest works of art "have not
been produced spontaneously".

For one thinb, there is the testimony of many artists to the
contrary, and most of them nave rated tneir creations in moments
of a 'flash' of insight as far superior to the products of “plodding
laboriousness". Are the artists then the victims of a self-decep-
tion when they believe thenselves to have eXperienced such instan-
taneous insitht?

It hardly appears likely; for ne who seeks an understanding
of the meaning of life must ultimately return to his own inner
nature, otherwise he has no frame of reference by which to ascer-
tain the full measure of What he has discovered. Without this
self-knowledbe, true intuitive insight is too rare and also too
faint in its manifestations to produce many great art works.

Spontaneous artiStic creation tnus seems to be real. How is

it possible in the larger art forms? It is possible by means of
“successive” inspirations. When, for example, a composer is
writing a symphony or a novelist is writing a Look, the whole must
somehow be retained in memory if the finished creation is not to
suffer from discontinuity. In this way, though a work of art
snould be many years in preparition, it will retain its unity, with
each part growing 'inevitably' out of what preceded it. And what
is it that impresses this oneness upon it? One would eXpect that
numerous "fresh starts" would turn it into a series of isolated
episodes; and so they would. But in a very real sense such 'fresh
starts" are nowhere found in the creation of a great art work. for
from bdaihhlué to end it embodies the evolution of an aesthetic
idea; and it is the development of this idea that determines the
Course of the tocal eVOIVlnL scheme. The work of art but represents
the culmination of a long series of spontanecus appearances of
'inSpiration'.

And

I'('1
(Y)

\~rnaps it is here in the complex sequence of aesthetic
inpressions where InSpiration might lose its foundation, that
Reason --- not imitative, but creative, finds its unique role in

Art-

34

CHAPTER IV

ART AHD IDEALISH: KANT AND EEGEL

Imnanuel Kant and Georb Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel are the
first two major pnilos0phers of the modern age to consider the
problems of Aesthetics. In their systematic studies of art
Value, creation, and criticism, they go far beyond the limited
inquiry initiated by Saumg rten, and in so doing bequeathe to
philosoghy a new study, to tens its place alongside of meta-
physics, epistemOIOgy, lotic, and ethics.

There had been in Baumgarten's aesthetics an unmistakably
apologetic tone. According to his view, there are two levels or
'apprehensions' in the mind. Of these the “upper apprehension"
is deVOted to the practical and rational, the scientific and the
philosogh'ca , as contrasted with the 'lower', which concerns
itself with fanciful spheres such as poetry. But despite the
obscure, unanalgsable character of this 'lower' part of the soul,
a Study dealing with it still possesses a certain value. The
lover of Knowledée loves the whole of his object, Plato once said,
and this appears to be Bauméarten's attitude when he writes, ”It
can be obJected to our science that it is beneath the dignity of
philos0phers, and that deliverances of the senses, fancies, fables,
and stirrings of the passions are below the philOSOphical horizon.

I answer: A phiIOSOpher is a man anong men. Indeed he does not

35

think alien to himself so great a portion of human knowledge.“1
Baumgarten's definition of aesthetics did not restrict it
to the fine arts, but includei the 'art of analogical reasoning',
the 'a t of thinning beautifully', and whatever might come under
the heaiing of "the science of sensuous knowledge”. Later its
scepe was to be narrowei somewhat, and its components were to

undergo more rigid and intense eXanination in the 'critical

m

id-alism' of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). If Baumgarten gave
Aesthetics its nape, then Kant gave it its meaning.

Referring to the Critigue of Aesthetic Judgement, Hegel once

 

said, ”Kant spoke the first rational word on aesthetics.'2 (And
we might add that Hegel himself spoke the second such word in his

PhiIOSOphy of Fine Art.) Recently there has been doubt cast upon

 

this claim for Kent's originality --- he is much indebted to some
of his predecessors, We are told -—- Addison, Hutcheson, and Baum-
girten, to name but three. One writer says that if we believe
that 'what Kant did to Hume's epistemology was to systematize
rather than to annihilate, there would be more truth in holding
that Kent's phiIOSOphy of beauty owes nearly everything but its
systenatic form to English writers.... There are few original
ideas in Kent's aesthetic.... He has systematized and hardened
distinctions and Oppositions current in Englisn for the preceding
eighty years, and this exaggeration results in a reductio a;

absurdumflr5

36

In evaluating the views just eXpressed, Gilbert and Kuhn

in their History of Esthetics answer:

 

But what a systematic form was that! With a
little dramatic emphasis one might say that
Kant and the idea of system are interchange-
able terms: so that to leave him originality
at this point is to leave him originality in
all. Kent's mere system was in germ this
world-shattering thing: the proof that
esthetic enjoyment, while retaining its
unique and characteristic quality (a-moral,
a-10gical, a-real), is more serious and
philosophical than physical science.

80 Kant, while perhaps indebted to earlier aestheticians.
surpassed then all by his introduction of the element of sys-
tematization, which permeates not only his aesthetic theory,
but his ethical, epistemological and metaphysical Views as well.

that then, did Kant, the philosOpher, have to say concerning
the psychological factor in artistic creation? To begin with, he
reserved the title 'genius' for the artistic genius alone. In
this reapect he holds a position strikingly dissimilar to that of
most writers who discuss the concept of genius --- a position
that cannot go unchallenged. It is possible, of course, to define
the term in any one of several different ways; Kant's exclusive
sense of this word is JuStified only if we acnnowledge the equality
of the narrower with the broader definition --- an equality of
validity, not of meaning. For tahen in the more general sense of
extraordinary Capacity for achievement in an intellectural or

cultural sphere of endeavor, the concept of 'genius' is not equiv-

alent in ienotation to the term 'artistic genius'. The latter is

37

included in the former not as its sole member, but as one among
Uhally .

Kant, however, does not employ the term in this general
sense, but in its more restricted meaning, as the innate ability
to produce original artistic ideas, referring to the derivation
of 'genius' from 'genie' --- an inepiring divinity. Now, there
can be little doubt that if there is such a thing as 'inspiration',
the artiSLic genius is characterized by his possession of it to a
nigh degree in moments of intense creativity. But what are we to
szy of the religious genius, the mystic, and of the scientific
genius, the theorist, who linenise are subject to these eXalted
states to no minor extent? Are they not 'inspired' also? Should
one then claim that to the extent that the mystic and theorist
are 'inspired' they are geniuses? Perhaps; for it may be that the
most exquisite definition of a genius is, as someone once said,

'an insgired virtuoso"; and virtuosity as supreme accomplishment
is to be found in every aSpect of life. The adroit craftsman, the
shilled tec.nioian, is in his way a virtuoso. He may be nothing
more, out this he is certainly.

And yet while efficiency and dexterity are fairly common,
genius is a rare phenomenon. This is so because that 'inspiration'
that transforms 'a mere virtuoso' into "something more“ does not
pervade every area of human activity. The sentimentalist who would
have us believe otherwise is laboring under a delusion, for genius
is notoriously unconcerned with the purely prestiCal and instrumen-

ta]. ill life.

38

Inspiration may, and often does, flourish amid simplicity,
but it is not an unhixed or Shallow simplicity. Always it is a
simplicity concealing a greater complexity underneath --- in
snort, a Simplicity that is merely on the surface. For the
so-called 'simple' joys of life are in reality the most complex
that one may eXperience. The response to the beautiful in art
and in nature is by no neans an elementary one --- a sort of
reflex mechanism produced autOmatically upon the appearance of
a certain stimulus; on the contrary, the reSponse springs out
of the wnole past of the individual perceiving that beauty,

1

conditioned, reinforced, and enriched oy the overtones that have
found resonance tnere.

And what could appear more simple than love --- the love of
one's friends or the love of one's God? And yet the whole galaxy
of human emotions finds its heart here: Where is the harmony of
life and toe dissonance, where is the jealousy and reassurance,
the turbulence and tranquillity, the hepe and the fear, the joy
and the pathos, if not here?

Perhaps they are right who say that one Spends his whole life
in preparation for death. For all are at last forced to abandon
those things they have devoted a lifetime to learning to love. It
would be ironic were it less pathetic.

In tnis sense it 155¥n the 'simpler' aSpects of life that the

artist, line the philosopher, finds meaning. And it is 'meaning'

39

the; constitutes the essence of inepiration. For while an
'inSjired' idea may dhpegf amid humble surroundings, and even in
the presence of eVil, it is forever a stranger to chaos. Chaos
is the absence of meaning.

The intellectual fervor and emotional intensity that invar-
iably accompany inSpiration are due precisely to this factor of
meaning. Any man, whether he be an artist, scientist, phiIOSOpher,
or something else, who feels he has caught a glimpse, however frag-
mentary and transitory it may have been, into the inner meaning of
life, is filled with a sudien inexplicable joy; for that one bright
vision may cause a multitude of life's vicissitudes to fade into
oblivion.

What then shall me Say of Kent's concept of genius? We must
acknowledge that it is not specifically incorrect but only inadeg:
2333. It is right as far as it goes; it does not go far enough.
For inspiration does not alwavs have as its end realization in a
concrete artistic medium. f0 assume thus is to restrict its Scope,
Which in turn is to falsify and distort it.

InSpiration £21 contain its end within itself, for the influx
of meaningful impressions that accompanies it is capable of impart-
ing a rare psychical harmony wnich not only possesses intrinsic
Value, but which may be in its cost eXalted form the highest good
attainable by man.

In this sense 'inspiration' is not the unique preperty of the

4O

artistic genius, nor even of genius in general. But that vision
into the essence of things WJiCh is a rare phenomenon in the lives
of most peeple manifests itself with greater frequency and inten-
sity in the genius, as though it perceived a possibility of further
realization in him that it could not find elsewhere.

The 'realization' may be a painting of sunlight filtering
through the trees on an early April morning; or it may be a math-
ematical fornul; expressing the constancy of the velocity of light
rays that penetrate that forest blade --- a law applicable to the
most distant reLions of inter-stellar space yet observable.

Thus, artiStic and scientific genius haVe a common origin in
the inspiration that gives birth to the greatest achievements in
both their Spheres --- Art and Science. They constitute the two
most 'pure' or 'original' forms of genius --- the creative and the
synthetic; and these forms in turn :orrespond to the two faculties
01 man's self-consciousness --- imacination and reason. In con-
scioushess, perceptual vision is turned outward; in that self-
consciousness which is man's exclusive possession, his vision,
conceptual as well as perceptual is turned inward, and he views
the processes and creations of his own mind. Hence, genius is
an uniquely hunan poss-ssion beCause of the self—consciousness it
necessitates.

Rut these two powers --- of rational thought and creative

imagery, are not in Opposition; for as soon as reason ventures

41

beyond the sore mechanical forms of 1051c, a 'creative' element
enters in to direct its course; and ween imagery ceases to flow
Spontaneously, 'rational tnought' appears on the scene to bind
its fraying strands toéether --- as we shall see later on in a
discussion of methodical artistic creation.

But SOme may question the possibility of a distinction
between 'creative' and 'syntnetic' processes. Can there pg,any
new mental "cheation'l --- one whose components have nowhere pre-
viously existed? Interpreting this in the Lockeian sense as to
whether or not one may frame a new simple idea not found in exper-
ience, we must agree with the empiricist; if, then, 'creative'
ideas are always complex abbreeates compounded out of elements
received through sensation, then all creation necessarily involves
synthesis. Of this there can be no doubt.

And yet he w.o forms an inabe within his mind apart from any
present sense awareness is the creator of something new nonetheless.
The objection that he but reproduces a past perception is nullified
by the recobnition that while the mind Egy_§g passive in sensation,
it is active in perception. Even in synaesthesia where the applic-
ation of one type of sensory stimulus is said to call forth or evoke
reSponse in another sense, the mind is active in its judgment of the
preliminary datum that occasional such reSponse. As for example in
the pnenOmenon Known as chronaesthesia, where tonal impressions

tend to produce visual itaees of a certain color, the activity of

42

the percipient consists in ascertaining first of all what tone
has been sounded, and insalecting its visual correlate. The
fact that this discriminating function may be carried out uncon-
sciously does not deprive it of its ‘active' character.

This activity alone would suffice to entitle the mind's role
in image-forming to the designation ‘creative'. But in regard to
the assertion that imagination is merely 'reproductive', let it be
said that this could h.ld true Only if the image were identical
£2,411 respects with the grevious perception. For in the moment
that a single new element enters in, the image appears in a strange,
often more radiant light. Even a slight modification of internal
structure or content alters the wnole by setting up a different set
of relationships among its parts.

The image in recolleCtion is the image of perception in reflec-

tion plus sonething acre. Even so-called after-images and eidetic

 

images are nOt faithful reproductions of tne original: the former
generally appear in complementzry colors and the latter usually
suffer from being more elacorately detailed in that aspect to which
attention was most persistently drawn in the original perception.
And even when they appear in their 'true' color or timbre with
details evenly distributed, their quality is altered by reason of
their necessary tranSposition ag;inst a dimensional background.

Ani how much legs perfect are those images, visual or auditory,

which find no such 'external' projection but are wholly contained

43

within the narrow confines of the imagination proper}

But even if one should grant the possibility of a recalled
image bein6 the same in every way, there would remain one insur-
mountable barrier to the assumption of equivalence --- that which
psycholobists refer to as its "affective tone." For the stream
of consciousness, which is by nature dynamic, renders it impossible
for the mind to ever perceive a thing twice in exactly the same
light. Even if the form should remain the same, the psychical
state tnrouph whicn we graSp its interpretative content must vary.

By means of the infusion of associative elements not present
in the original perception, a 'new' idea is created, and it is this
idea that is impressed in a work of art, thus stamping it with the
individuality of its creator. Genius is nature transcending itself
in order that it might more fully realize itself.

Kant, usinb similar terns, proceeds to define the concept
thus: ”Genius is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the
rule to art.. Since talent, as an innate productive faculty of
the artist, belongs itself to nature, we may put it this way:
Genius is the innate mental aptitude through wnich nature gives
the rule to art."5 In this way, Kant's aesthetic theory is directly
bound up with his epistemology and the "Cepernican Revolution" he
effected --- namely, that the :lhd prescribes its laws to nature.

According to Kant, the artistic genius differs from the emin-
ent man of science chiefly by eason of the former's primary prOp-
erty, originality. The performing of a scientific eXperiment or

the worning—out of a mathematical formula, howeVer much ingenuity

44

it may require, he clains, is nevertheless based upon that which

, i.e. scientific or mathematical knowledge. And

L):

can be acquire
once a problem of sucn a nature has been satisfactorily solved,

its reSults are apparent to all those with an adecuate understand-
ine of the subject involved. :ut this is not the case in art,
Where no amount of scrutiny or analyzation will enable one to paint
line iicnelangelo or compose like Bach if he lacks that type of

innate anility. hence the prime Characteristic of genius is origin-

Kant, honever, overloons the fact that knowledge, artistic as
well as scientific, is a thing to be acquired; oricinality, artis-
tic 2£_scientific, is not. Contrary to Loch Reynolds and Kant,
one becomes ncither a great scientist nor a great artist by mere
conformity to Irules".

But this is not to say that any and every kind of originality
is productive of brsat horns of art. Indeed, many pseudo-artistic
creations hate nothing more to recomreni them trsn a certain forcej
ori Bi nali ty .

Kant seems to uphold the 'Spontaneous' view of artistic
creation, ani nouli perhaps rule out I'plodding l boriousness" as
a vital factor in the creation of any true work of art. The artist
worns in darnness, sc that his ripht hand verily knoweth nought of
What his left hand doeth. hor can he perceive the source of his

ins‘sir-.;ion; as Kant s:-.3,s,

45

Hence, there an author owes a product to his
genius, he does not himself know how the ideas
for it have entered into his head, nor has he
it in his {oner ;o iHVent the like at pleasure,
or methodically, and comnunicate the same to
others in such precepts as would put them in a
position to produce similar products. (Hence,
presumably, our word genie is derived from
genius, as the peculiar guardian and guiding
spirit given to a man at his birth, by the
inSpiration of which those original ideas were
obtainedJP

Because of the quality of originality that characterizes
genius, the Spirit of imitation is completely alien to his
nature. In szience, Kant believes, the difference of capacity
or azcomplishment between master and pupil is one of degree,
that is to say, it is quantitative; in art, the apprentice, as
long as he remains a student, is separated from the mature
artist by a gap of qualitative difference. This is so because
in the learning process the faculty of imitation is usually pre-
doninent. The pupil, if he possess the innate endowment of a
potential artist, may pregress out of the ranks of imitation and
at;ain his latent originality.

Does originality then exclude atherence to rules? Having
shown why this quality must be the primary preperty of genius,
Kant goes on to say that the fine arts do possess something of
the mechanical in them, something based on industry and learning.
Since art has (or should have) some definite and in View, the

artisc must at the outset give due cOgnizance to those rules that

will best enaole him to attain this end; and these academic

I‘-

. . 1
restraints "we cannot venture to dispense with.‘ And he adds
that ,

Originality of talent is one (though not the

sole} essential factor that goes to make up

the character of genius.... Genius can do no

more than furnish rich material for products

of fine art; its elaboration and its form

require a talent academically trained, so that

it may be employed in sucn a way as to stand

the test of Judgment."5

that faculties then Other than originality characterize
the artistic genius? One of the most important ones is perhaps
'Geist' or what is sometimes translated as 'soul', sometimes as
'spirit', and which for Kant signifies "the animating principle
in the mind." It is this that arouses the 'Seele' or psychic
substance to a State that is favorable for the flow of artistic
imagery. He also refers to this principle as "the faculty of
presenting aesthetic ideas.“

Ihe thought tnus induced is not of a conceptual nature,
but is intuitive --- a representation of the imagination. Con-
cerning the immense importance of this faculty in the artist,
Kantxufltes:

The imagination (as a productive faculty of
COgnition) is a powerful agent for creating,

as it were, a second nature out of the material
supplied to it by actual nature. It affords us
entertainment where eXperience proves too common-
place; and me even use it to remodel eXperience,
always following, no doubt, laws that are based

0n analOgy, but still also following principles
which have a higher seat in reason.... The material

47

can be borrowed by us frOm nature in accordance
with that law but Le norhed up by us into something
else ~-- namely, what surpasses nature.'“
It is the imaLination that provides the aesthetic ideas that are
essential to a Lord of art.

Kant believes that imagination and understanding carefully
balanced constitute genius. This perfect equilibrium cannot be’
acquired either by learning or practice, but must exist in the
soul from its very beLinning. ”Genius,' he tells us, ”according
to these presuppositions, is ghe exemplary originality of the
natural GHjOHEQQtS of an individual in the free employment of
his cognitive faculties.'10 And this definition would seem to
re-adnit the non-artistic genius.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was, as we have
seen, a great admirer of Kant. he shared the latter's verve for
systematization, and he shared his ability to intecrate aesthetics
with the studies of epistemOIOgy and metaphysics as he interpreted
them.

Tegel, while a philosopher of strong convictions almost
approximating doématism, approaches the subject of the artist and
the psycnoIOgy of artistic creation with a certain degree of hes-
itation. For he says,

he have...to raise the question how it comes

about that this product of men's inner world
is not the direct and native growth of that

48

worli, but receives its due form through the
creative impulse of particular men, in other
words, by virtue of the genius and talent of
the artist. At the same time we must admit
that the question is only raised that we may
be able to add the statement that it really
is excluied from the Sphere of scientific
investiggtion, or, at the most, we can only
furnish a few general remarks toward its
solution.11

 

A Kantian influence is to be found in Hegel's summary of
the attributes of artistic genius. For Kant the 'primary prOperty'
had been originality --- that is, in the imatination's capacity to
represent oriEinal aesthetic ideas; Hegel broadens this definition,
saying that the faculty of imatination itself is the most important
single characteristic of genius. But he cautions against miscon-
struing that power from which a worn of art Springs as similar to
tne passive meandering of fancy. Unlike the psychoanalysts whom
he preceded by about a century, Hepel would draw a sharp line of
demarcation between the Spheres of phantasy ani art.

In his notion of the storing-up of sensory perceptions ---
visual, auditory, tactile impressions, etc., and their subsequent
emerience in an artis.ic form, he anticipates to some extent the
later theory of memory-tracings in the subconscious that find an
outlet, alone titn inhibitions in a product of artiStic creation.
Here in Hetelian aeStnetics, however, one encounters no reference
to the more intense repressions of the artist; rather the emphasis

is upon his increased acuity of perceptual vision and insight into

49
the heart of things.

The creative activity carries with it in

possession and endowment a peculiar power of

EraSpiné reality ani the forms it presents,

all that through the Channels of alert eyes and

ears imprints pietures of infinite variety

Caught from the external world upon the mind,

and further implies an exceptionally retentive mem-

ory wnerein to storehup this varied world of innum-
- A 6

eraule re;lections.

He agrees with Kant that the abstract process of concept-
formation plays no role in artistic activity. 'For what the-
imxpination uniertanes to do and only to do is not to bring to
consciousness this inner core of reason in the form of general
prOpositions and conceptions, but to apprehend it clothed in
the concrete form of actual existence and individuality.'1“

Hegel departs from the formalists who claim that the major
siénificunce of a work of art lies in its external aspec ---
its physiCal structure. According to him tne various artistic
media are just that --- media of eXpression. Their concrete
structure can but serve to represent the Idea which the artist
seeds to convey. The very 'objectivity' of the art medium is
indeed an impeniment to the realization of its purpose --- i.e.
the transference of an aesthetic ilea --- even while it is a
necessarz_mediator between the artist and the appreciator of art.

It tends to place us 'outside' the Sphere it pervades, so that we

can only with some amount of exertion --- that is, intellectually

50

and emotionally aCtive perception, reSpond to the emotional
energy it eXpresses, and enjoy affinity with it.

Hegel disagrees with Kant's emphasis on the principle of
Spontaneity in artistic creation. He was probably not referring
to this oversight on Kent's part, LoueVer, when he said, 'Only
fools are of the opinion that the genuine artist does not in the
least know what his hunds and senses are about."14

He differs from Kent too in his differentiation of genius and
talent. Kant had not arrayed the two under opposing banners, but
claimed talent to be that natural endowment which genius possesses.
Talent was not synOnymous tith genius, but neither was it a thing
apart from it; it Was one of its essential constituents. It is
true that Kant Speans of the creations of the genius as providing
exemplary models for others to follow. But the 'others' here
mentioned are likewise men of genius, whose innate disposition
or capacity enables them to assimilate the styles of their predec—
essors, and then to erect on them their own unique forms, the
standards of which will in turn serve to govern the initial pro-
ductions of later geniuses. K0, the 'man of talent' as he is
generally envisioned, would find no place of importance in Kantian
aesthetics --- he is a mere imitator who builds upon the efforts
of the masters who have cone before him, making no significant
innovation or contribution to entitle him to merit or honor.

Hegel defines'talent' not as the 'native endOWment' of genius,

51

but rather as "a form of executive verSatility." In contrasting
talent with genius he says that it (talent) 'recuires for its
true perfection something of more universal art-capacity, as
also that soul-animation, so;ething more wnich is essentially
the hall-marx of genius. falent, in short, without that vital
Spars of genius, never gets much beyond a purely mechanical

f.-.-_cility."15

And here Hegel's view corresponds with the notion
of genius as "inspired virtuosity.‘

Genius is innate; is talent so? Hegel answers in effect
'yes and no'. fo be sure, a certain inclination or 'feeling for'
correctness of preportion or for rhythm may be inborn, and these
will be of vital ail if such a tendency is to be deveIOped. But
there is a Vaso difference between such isolated segnents of
ability or snill and the wider capacity for orientation in a
particular Sphere of endeavor that is to be found in the artistic
genius, Hegel believes. The difference is both a quantitative and
a qualitative one. The genius has the power of technical execution,
but so much more beSides. Genuine inspiration, according to Hegel,
will not appear among those'semi-artistic' individuals who lack
the power of aesthetic imagery; as he says, "The activity of the
imagination then and the power of technical execution taking both
tOgether as the inseparable antecedents of a real artist are com—
monly understood as inSpiration.“16

Thus, in the aesthe.ic theories of these two great philo-

52

SOphers of the school of German Idealism, we find a considerable
divergence of Opinion. Neither of them posed ELL the problems
nor suggested all the solutions with Which later philosophies of
art were to be concerned; but each of them clearly foreshadowed
what aesthetics was ng£_to deal with. The scepe of Baumgarten's
definition had been too wide; not only that, but certain elements
of it were unessential or irrelevant to aesthetic inquiry.

To Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was given
the honor of laying the foundation stones upon which subsequent
philOSOPiiSS of art and beauty would be erected. Beyond doubt,

they are the founders of tne newly-awahened Science of Aesthetics.

53

CHAPTER V

()

ARI AK IDEaLISH: GCETH-, S KILLER, AND

SO}? OPE NEIAUER

”Gebt ihr eucn einnal fuer Poeten, so commandirt die Poesie."l
This statement by Goethe (1749-1632) would seem to place him among
those wno believe like Josnua Reynolds that "even works of Genius,
like every other effect, as they must have their cause, must like-

wise have their rules."2

Hence, if one knows what the rules of
poetry are, he should be able to apply them at will and thus create
poetry. This is further substahgiated by Goethe's advice to those
who would be poets:

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute,

what‘you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Courage has Genius, Power, and [agic in it.

Only engage and then the mind grows heated.

Begin it and the work will be completed.”

And yet elsewhere he speaks of Ithat glowing inspiration
wnich alOne makes true poetry." What then is his position in
regard to the queStion of methodical and Spontaneous artistic
creation? To ascertain this, it will be well to consider Goethe's
works themselves and his place in the history of aesthetics.

First of all, he, like Schiller, scnelling, and Hegel, was
greatly influenced by Kent's aeStnetic theory. He did not, how—

ever, snare Kent's purely intellectual anproach; as he says seme-

54

where, "Ich habe nie fiber das Denken gedacht' --— 'I have never

r:
u

thought about thinking.’ Metaphysical speculation as to the
nature of the Ultimate is not a favorite preoccupation of those
who are much concerned with the world of appearances, unless
like Goethe, they believe such an ultimate to be reflected in
that world. "About the Absolute in the theoretical sense I dare
not talk: yet I maintain that he wno has recognized it in appear-
ance and keeps his eye constantly fixed On it, will derive a
. , 1 - .- s . .6
great beneiit irom it.
Like the later Romanticists, Goethe found much satisfaction

in a Study of the natural world. Io be sure, there is something
'more', something that transcends this world of appearances, but
ought we on that account to turn away from that which can be known
and lose ourselves in morbid introspection? No, answers Goethe,
both from the standpoint of an artist and from that of a theorist
--- and in this double capacity, incidentally, lies the uniqueness
of his position in the history of aesthetics. As one writer says,

In his person, peeple felt the creative imag-

ination dwelt among them, and aestheticians looked

upon the working of his spirit as the living model

from whicn they abstracted their theories. But

they viewed creative imagination not as the mere

play of a natural force to be analyzed like any

other phenomenon in nature. Their search for a

definitiOn of beauty was bound up with the quest

for a beautiful life.“

So we see that Goethe was more of a humanist than a meta-

physician. His th2 von gerlichingen and even his Faust do not

 

set out to solve a metaphysical problem. Both are reflections
upon life, and perhaps each is to some extent a self-revelation.
But it is not an intimate kind of cenfession such as one finds
among certain other writers. One here feels that Goethe himself
is on the outside looking in, so to speak. He reflects upon
those situations he presents, but never participates or wholly
enters into them. The truth eXpressed in them, while of a rational
or even intuitive nature, is never the 'ultimate truth‘ so persis-
tently sought by the metaphysioian. Whatever 'truth' may emerge
is due to the imagination's ability to 'anticipate' reality. Speak-
ing of the Gétz he says,

I wrote my Gdtz von Berlichingen as a young

man of twenty-two, and ten years later I

marvelled at the truth of my representation.

As a matter of fact I had not eXperienced

or seen anything of the sort, and consequent-

1; I must have possessed the knowledge of
manifold human conditions by anticipation."8

 

Thus, imagination is shown to play an important role in
artistic creation as an anticipator of knowledge. "If imagination
did not give birth to things which for ever will remain enigmatic
to reason, then imagination would be altogether bat of small
account."9

It is so often the case when either imavination or reason is
exalted, the other suffers an immediate rejection. It is so in
Goethe. but Goethe is unwilling to let either predominate for
Very long. The artist in him sets up imagination as of higher
importance; the theorist pleads the case for reason. In the drama
of Faust the spirit of criticism claims the fore, as Croce in his

been on Goethe states:

(n
O)

In Faust the crisis of modern thoucht is very
clearly reflected, when, having snaaen off
traditiOnal reliLious beliefs, it began to
perceive the emptiness of rationalistic philo—
SOphy, wni:h had tanen its place; there is
also reflected in Feast an eternal moment of
the human spirit, the moment in which thought
criticizes itself and ov:r30mes its own ab-'
strictions."10

 

erhaps Faust, along Wlth farther ha“ the value of a cathar-
$18 for Goethe. maybe he, like Plato, felt the strain of two eun-
filctlng tendencies warring within him --- love of beauty and love
of reason --- a c0nflict between art and science. why such a Cun—
fiiCt snouli exist is hard to see. For the love of beauty is not
'irrationzl' --- unless me here limit reason to its purely loticai
function. On the contrary, the love of beauty is intensely ration-
al -—- for this rational element enacles One to perceive symmetry
and perfection of line and detail, Consenance, and rhythmic and
melodic patterns, She Heart that loves sees not with the eyes,
but with the kind, and the heart that loves Beauty is no exception
to this. Faith gal Reason need not Contradict one another; there
is so nucn faith in bash of qun the most abstract Operations of
the fleason; uni there is so nuch that is reasOnaLle in even the
bliniest Faith. There is both an Art of Science and a Science of
nrt; “hi there is an art of Philosophy as well as a PhilosOphy of
nrt.

"hat then has GOetne's position 0n the issue of methodical-

s;untanccus “rtlSvlJ creation, as may b; symbolized by reason and

57

imagination in art? He appears to be of the Opinion that they
are equally essential: ‘The gods taught us new to imitate their
work; yet we Know only what we g2, ignorant of that which we

imitate.'ll

So the artist has been 'taught' or inspired by some-
thing Demonic or Divine, something beyond himself; but he does not
work in darnness --- he Knows what he does to achieve a desired
artistic effect, and can call forth this Knowledge or ability ---
this 'method' at will.

Let us now turn to Friedrich Schiller (1709-1805) to whom it
was left .'to fuse Goethe's unique intuition with the powerful cur-
rent of phiIOSOpnicll thought initiated by Kant.'12 Schiller him—
self tells us in his 'Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man“
that his aSSertions rest primarily upon Kantian principles. In
Speaking of creatiVe genius, he Strixes a peculiarly Kantian and
yet un-Kantian tone when he calls it "that great and patient temper
wnich is required to impress the ideal on the dumb marble, or to
Spread it over a page of cold, sober letters, and then intrust it
to the faithful hands of time.'13 Here as with Kant, the artist
by virtue of some natural endownent imparts artistic form to that
wnich previously had but meaningless form or no form at all; in
Kant the important instrument in artisgic creation was originality,
wnile in Schiller it is a certain Kind of temper, or temperament,
characterized by patience ahl greatness.

But Schiller as an aesthetician is a descendant of Goethe as

58

well as of Kant, althoubh probably to a lesser extent. He differed
from Goethe in being less interested in 'appearances' and more
aware of the 'transcendental' element in aesthetics. He was a
moralist and a critic as well as a writer. of this moralistic and
critical side of his nature it may be said that,

In the functioning of his intellectual life

abstract reasoning played a role exactly the

reverse of that of reflection in Goethe's

creative process. For Goethe reflection

stemmed from a surplus of conscious energy.

It was creation carried beyond the limits of

poetical representation. Schiller, on the

contrary, arrived at poetry through philo-

SOphical thougnt.'14

Schiller is not alone in this reSpect --- for other poets

have done lixewise --- nor does he fully realize in his works the
immense potentialities of a 'philos0phical art'. His art remains
too conscious of itself, too critical and searching to ever attain
that freedom so essential to true philOSOphical art. And yet this
is not to say that PhiIOSOphy is devoid of restraint --- for a
certain restraint is necessary if it is not to dissolve into pur-
poseless speculation or 'metaphysiCal meandering'. But it is
precisely this restraint that liberates phiIOSOphy, and different-
iates it from the other sciences. The restraint of phi1050phy is
self-imposed, guided by the end in view --- Harmony through know-
ledge. All the diverse factors which enter into knowledge must be

shown to be intebral components of a Unity --- which is Truth ---

59

and each part must be related to every other as well as to the
whole. {ere in PhilQSOphy is tne zenith of that 'unity in
diVsrsity' of which aescheticians are so fond of speaking. Every
great pnilOSOphical system is in itself a work of art.

The other arts and other sciences (for Philoso;hy is both)
must have some ends in view, but they can never possess this com-
prehensiveness. For those ends Which any art or science determines
to be irrelevant to its particular pursuit or inquiry are forever
excluded from, and denied fulfillment within, its narrowly circum-
scribed Spnere. PhiIOSOphy is unique in that nothing is irrelevant
to it.

Schiller firmly believed in the capacity of art to reflect
truth of a philOSOphical order. In his 'Letters Upon the Aesthetic
Eiuca.ion of Kan“, for eXample, he writes:

Humanity has lost its dignity, but art has saved it,
and preserves it in marbles full of meaning; truth
continues to live in illusion, and the cepy will
serve to re-estaclish the model. If the nobility
of art has survived the nobility of nature, it also
goes before it like an inspiring genius, forming
and awakening minds. Before truth causes her tri-
umphant light to penetrate into the depth of the
heart, poetry intercepts her rays, and the summits
of humanity shine in a bright light, While a dark
and humid night still hangs over the valleys."15
bor Sahiller, artistic inepiration provided a revelation of

truth --- but truth in its philos09hical rather than in its super-

natural sense.

60

Arthur SonOpenhauer (l7EB-lé60) like Schiller, was greatly
influencei by the Kantian system. Here, hant's criticism of the
intellect as an inadequate instrument in the search for the ultim-
ate reality, is made the basis cf a philosophy of pessimism. This
world in which we find ourselves enmeshed is 521 the best of all
possible worlds; we are all our lives subject to the insatiable,
primordial hill, and free ourselves only by means of asceticism.

In a state of comp ete self—denial, the Hill within us soon withers
and dies. jut aeSLnetic contemplation, being a form of disinter-
eSted Knouledge and hence independent of the will to live, makes
life in this 'worst of all possible torlds' much more tolerable
than it would otherwise be.

But, Says SchOpenhauer, not everyone is capable of engaging
in this wholly disinteres.ed contemplation which may alleviate one's
misery. Most men pursue the fulfillment of the Will all their lives
and seen only that practical Knonledge that enables them more fully
to 003.1?1‘} With the demands of this .3111.

fne genius differs from other men, by virtue of his capacity
for disinterested contemplation --- as Soho enheuer writes:

The man of genius...whose excessive power of
Knowledge frees it at times from the service
of will, dwells on the consideration of life
itself, strives to comprehend the Idea of each
thing, not its relations to Other things; and
in doing this he often forgets to consider his
own path in life, and therefore for the most

part pursues it awuwardly enough. while to the
ordinary man his faculty of Knonledge is a lamp

61

to lighten his path, to the man of genius
it is the sun which reveals the world.'15

How does SchOpenhauer define "genius"? In his essay on
"Genius and Virtue' he Speans of it as 'a Kind of nnowledge, name—
ly, of ideas", and as a nnowledge ”which is unconcerned with any
principle of causation. For him, Knowledge is an end in itself,
apart from any human des1re it nay help satisfy; in this way he
differs from the saint for whom contemplation is centered around
the hope for salVation.'l7 Thus, chOpenhauer Speans of the
essence of genius as lying in "a measure of intellectual power
far beyond that which is required to serve the individual's will."18

fie see in Schopenhauer's theory of genius a drifting-away frum
the popular emphasis upon the highly emotional nature of the artis—
tic genius; Schopenhauer believes such an individual to be consider-
ably freer from the strivings of will and human desire than the
average man. His intellect dominates the whole self --- which
domination results in a greater freedom than his more common brethn
ren can ever ho;e to attain.

The difference between the genius and the 'ordinary man' is
both a quantitative and a qualitative one --- of degree and of hind.
The former not only sees EEEE of the truth of life, but also sees
it from a totally dissimilar perSpective. As Schopenhauer writes:

A genius is a man in whose mind the world is

presented as an object is presented in a mirror,
but with a degree more of clearness and a greater

62

distinction of ou‘line than is attained by
ordinary peOple. It is from him that human—
ity may 100x for most instruction; for the
deepest insight into the most important mat-
ters is to be acquired, not by an observant
attention to details, but by a close study
of things as a whole.... Thus, genius may be
defined as an eninently clear consciousness
of thian in general, and therefore, also of
that which is cppOSed to them, namely, one's
O
own self."1“

Kant had seen originality as the 'primary prOperty' of
genius; Schopenhauer too believes that it is essential, but
not sufficient in itself to entitle a man to be classed as a
genius. If anyone will but estrange himself from the world for
a short while, he will begin to envision even those things that
were formerly very familiar in a strange, new light. His
thoughts and the eXpression of them will acquire a startlingly
original quality.

But most men cannot thus |'lose" themselves in disinterested
contemplation for very long at a ti e. Solitude and isolation
find little favor with any except the genius and the ascetic.
The majority of mannind cannot sever itself from the Will to which
it is subject without eXperiencing a Lreat loss --- a terrifying
alienation or estrangement. Hot for the masses is the genius'
"lonely existence in a world with which he has nothing in common
and no sympathies.'ao

SchOpenhauer then, believes that originality of temperament

as well as of style is ;n important constituent of the artistic

63

genius --- as Ariosto once said, "N tura lg {egg 3 pg; rupee lg
stance" --- 'Af er hature stamps a man of genius, she breaks the
die.'21
but one who is highly endowed in one respect may be quite
deficient in some other way --- there is often a weakness in one

area to compensate for greatness in another. Kant lacAs that

whicn manes Goethe great, and vice-versa.

 

Here, as in the philOSOphy of Hegel, a distinction may be
drawn between talent and genius in art --- but a distinction based
on the nature of the end pursued in artiStic activity; for whereas,
tne man of talent creates for the purpose of fame or material gain
he may thereby achieve, the genius' motivation is much more diffic-
ult to determine, for it lies deeper....

It seems as though...the will to live, which
is the spirit of the human species, were con—
scious of having, by some rare chance, and for
a brief period, attained a greater clearness
of vision, and were now trying to secure it,
or at least the outline of it, for the whole
Species, to which the individual genius in his
inmost being belongs; so that the light which
he sheds about him may pierce the darxness and
dullness of ordinary human consciousness and
there produce some good effect."

The source of inepiration, for SchOpenhauer, would probably
116 in this "greater clearness of vision" of which he speans.

How often in a study of artistic inepiration one encounters ex-
preSSions that bear a sharp resemblance to this! Kozart once com~

pared his musical imagery With "a beautiful strong dream'. that

came not in temporal succession, but, as_it were, "all at once."

64

And many other artists have testified to the unique clarity and
Vividness with which such a 'vision of the whole' is presented.

SchOpenhauer too Speaas of the integral relatedness of the
whole of existence wnich is accomplished through memory and which
emerges in a great worn of art --- that is, in the creation of
genius; --- as he says, "Genius might have its root in a certain
perfection and Vividness of the memory as it stretches bacn over
the events of past life. For it is only by dint of memory, which
manes our life in the strict sense a complete whole, that we attain
a more profound and comprehenSive underStanding of it.'23

In this aspect of his theory, as well as in his distinguishing
between two types of anowledge, one of which is the rightful domain
of art, SchOpenhauer almost anticipates a later view that was to be
very influential in shaping the course of modern aesthetics ~--

the theory of art as intuition.

65

CHAPFER VI

ART ALB IITTITICN

The assenetic theory of Benedetto Croce, the foremost
eXpuhent of art as intuition, is closely interwoven with his
epistemology. An idealist, he believes that the 'uhreality' of
the phySicai world has been "proved in an indisputable manner
and is admitted by all philosophers (who are not crass material-
ists and are not involved in the strident contradictions of mat-
erialiam)."1

Hence Croce disagrees with the formalists who hold that the
essence of art lies in its concrete structure. Art is not a mere
phySical fact; --- a collection of colors or tones is not a worn
of art, regardless of the degree of symmetry or numerical beauty
it may possess; --- for he says, "If it be ashed why art cannot
be a physical fact, we must reply, in the first place, that phys—

ical facts do not possess realit , and that art, to which so man
Y

 

devote their whole lives and nnich fills all with a divine joy,

is sppremely real;_thus it cannot be a physical fact, which is

 

Something unreal.“

The things commonly called "physical facts” are for Croce
but useful constructs of the intellect. tithout these constructs
derived from perception we would not have science. He argues that
art, unline these “physical facts“, cannot be constructed physical-

1y. For in the moment one permits his intellect to break into his

eXperience of art, in or er to uO;e a harmOnic progression, or
to measure a Statue, or to count the words in a poem, the true
aesthetic experience is gohe. Thus, Croce would consider futile
the attempts to systematically worn out a "mathematical basis of
tne arts."
but if art is not a physical fact, then what is it? "As to
what is art --- I will say at once, in tne simplest manner that
'7‘ v 0 - ' I o J.
art is vision or intuition."° And that is intuition? It is not
sensation, for sensation is passive, while intuition is active;
nor is i; perception (which is somewhat different from sensation)
since although every perception is an intuition, not every intuit-
ion is a perception. It is not the knowledge of concepts, for
their formulation is a function of the intellect, not of the imag-
ination. w.at is intdition?
And to this Croce answers:
Every true intuitiOn or representation is also
expression. That which does not objectify it-
self in eXpression is not intuition or represent-
ation, but sensation and mere natural fac . The
Spirit only intuites in maxing, forming, express-
ing. Fe wno separates intuition from eXpression
Lever succeeds in reuniting them. Intuitive

activity possesses intuitions to the extent that
it eXpresses them."ti

 

Thus, he would find no sense in the phrase "mute, inglorious
fiiltons;” one who has not the power to eXpress artistic intuit-
ions has no such intuitions. This is not to say that his ex-

pression must be of a verb 1 nature, for color, line, and sound

67

may likewise be ‘manifestations of the man', hence valid media

of expression. And expression is also present in pure contem-
platiOn: 'It is impossible to distinguish intuition from express-
ion in this cognitive process. The one appears with the other at
the Same inStant, because they are not tto, but one."5

Art then has its oribin in the imagination; and this faculty ‘/
is greater in the artist than in other men. The inspiration or
'ntuitive imdte in the mind of Raphael when he painted his 'Sistine
Radonna' was net one that he mibht share with hundreds of other
peOple, but was his alone. They argue erroneously who claim that
many others might view Raphael's intuition of the 'Madonna' and be
unable to create it simply because they lack the technical ability.
no One excapt the painter himself could put on canvas that vision
tnat has his unique possessiOn.

The artiSt differs from other men by reason of the greater
clarity and Strength with whisn his vision presents itself to him.
One is accustomed to EraSping at a fleeting impression, feeling he
has perceived a thing thorouthly When ne has done no more than
observed this or that trait of the object under consideration, a
fee details out of a complex mass. The artist in contemplation
sees more than this superficial array of isolated data. His gift
is the 'vision of the whole' whicn he intuites, and in so doing
Lives eXpression thereto. "To intuite is to eXpress, and nothing

else nothinu more, but nothin~ less‘ than to exoress."°
‘ e __.___..

68

The difference between genius and non-genius is purely a
quantita.ive one, Croce claims. Were the artistic genius gualitai-
ively distinct from those Who do not create, but only appreciate
art, he would find no reception for his works of art. To fully
appreciate art, one's imagination must be of the same nature as
that of its creator, he argues, and therefore, since art surely is
appreciated, tne difference Letween Benius anl non-genius can be
only one of quantity. To assume Otherwise is to adOpt a super-
natural view of genius.

while Croce is certainly not an Hegelian, he sides with
HeLel in opposing Kant's notion that the genius works in darkness,
unaware of the means and ends of his artistic creative process.
Intuition is not blind; nor is intuitive activity a blind mechanism.
Consciousness of what he eXpresses is indeed present in the artist,

even though it be not .he reflective consciousness of the critic.

 

A little earlier we claimed Croce's aeSthetic theory to be in
opposition to those of the 'formalists'. This is so only in regard
to the latters' assertion that art is a physical fact. Croce does
not deny the important role of form and impression in artistic
activity, for tne“ are as esstntiil as content: Art is neither pure
for; nor pure content, but both —-- impression plus expression.
decause of this, art is not mere appearance £g£_mere feeling, but
rather, a kind of knowledce --- i.e. intuitive.

Kant had reserved the title, 'genius' for the artistic genius

69

alone; Croce recoenizes the existence of four types of genius,
which correSpond to the four forms of human activity: genius in
artistic, scientific, military, and economic pursuits. And
“to dispute as to Whether the cord 'Eenius' should be applied
only to creators of aes.hetic eXpression or also to men of sci-
entific research and of action mould be 4 here queSLion of words.
To ocserve, on the Other hand, that 'penius' of unatever kind it
be, is alwads a quantitative conceptiOn and in empirical dis-
tinction, would be to repeat wnat has already been explained as
reéards artistic genius."7

In evdluatina Croce's cOncept of genius, one may question
118 assertion that it is a dere matter of nerds. Not lexicog-
raph3 but the structural LUEIJSiS of a phenomenon is at issue
here .

3e have sugoested that there may be two species, or types of
genius --- the synthetic and the creative, according to whether
the faculty of reason tr imagination predominates. It may occur
that these tao peters are found in approxiniate equality in a
given individual --- each Lf nnisn is intense enough to entitle
i.s possessor to tne designation 'Lenius'; it may also happen
that among Leniuses in a sinble field £232_t;pes are to be found
in different exemplars. This is most liieiy to oc ur in the
spheres of religion and philos0phy, which by nature partake of

the characteristics of both science and art. In religion the

7O

'syntnetis' genius (that is, one in whom the faculty of reason

is dominant} will appear as a theologian (e.g. St. Thomas
Acpzinas); the 'creative' genius (i.e. one in uhom the faculty

of instinction is unusually strong) uill be a mystic (e.g. St.
Thomas a Kempis). (Lest it to thought we are here assuming the
mystiCul eXperience to Le a product of imagination, let it be
said that this is not intended; rather, as mean to say that that
attitude or temperament conducive to the steady flow of intuitive
imagery is quite apt to be a suitable nature for enveIOpment of
the m;stic aura.)

In philosophy as in religion one finds loth synthetic and
creative genius to manifest itself. In the ancient world, Aris-
totle and Plato correSpond to these two types reSpectively; in
more modern tines we witness Kant hiuself and Schopenhauer as
exemplu s of the 'rational' and 'imaginative' forms of genius.

In regard to Croce's mention of 'nilitary' and ‘economic'
genius, it why he questioned wnetner such do in fact exist. Kil-
itarg leaders such as Alexander the Great, Dismarck, and even
Napoleon do not scrine one as being ”geniuses", but more as "heroes",
as men she became great partly through tne circumstances brought
about by destiny and partly through their possession of character-
istics other than those requirite to genius, such as strength of
will, desire for domination, ungrounded sense of self-importance,

etc. The sine is to be s.id of tne so-3alled 'economic' genius.

71

It is true that there 2212 been geniuses in the military,
political, and economic Spheres, but their genius lay not in
their prowess aloha these lines, but rather in that innate abil-
ity that under different circunstcnces would nave produced a
scientist or an artist. Lilitary strateeen involves the use of
reason --- not the general or 'pure. reasoning empIOyed by the
scientist in his formulation of a theory, out 'applied' reason
c0ncentrated into one territory. In the sane way, the military
or political.leader of creatiVe genius will capture the hearts of
those he hepes to lead by means of artful devices; by appefling

n

to their sense OI hero-worship, their desire to idolize an incarn-
ate symbol of valor or trust, by skillful persuasion and the art
of SUQEeStiOL at nnich he is adept, such a leader with a slight
dramatic flourish and a touch cf the traiically ennobling in his
character will bring a ”hole pOpulace to its knees in reverence

or send quh racing acainst one another, impelled by a blind craze
for battle and conquest.

But to return to Croce: Croce, unlike the psychoanalysts,
whom we shall consiier in a subsequent section, differentiates
between phantasy ani artistic activity. Phantasy and the dream
are anin to sensation in being passive forms of imagery-construct-
ion; art is aCBiVe, and requires for its creatiOn as for its
appreciation (which for Croce is essentially 're-creation') the

employment of the active faculty of the instination. A capric-

72

ious succession of iaages does not constitute an aesthetic intui-
tion, for a horn of art requires that there be an integration of

elements and a unification of the whole --- a unity in diversity.

fhe intuition is truly artis.ic, it is truly
intuition, uni not a enactic mess of images
tel principle that anim-

only when it has a vi
ates it, 1'..‘.r.i<in5D it all one uitn itself. 8

hhat is this principle? The 'feeling' that mahes of the intuition

a single unified entity.

Tot the idea, but the feeling, is what confers
upon art the airy lightness of the symbol: an
aspiration enclosed in the circle of a repres-
entation --- that is art; and in it the aspira-
tiOn alone stands for the representation and the
representztion alOne for the aspiration. 9

Henri Bergson, the second great eXponent of the theory of
intuitionism, agrees with the Crocean idea that in ordinary per-
ception tne individuality of perceptual objects escapes us. we

isolate certain of their more obvious features and this facilitates

practical recocnition of them. But it is not from only these ex-

ternal thihbs that we are cut off, but also frOm our own states

of consciouSness, except in moments of artistic insight.

Between nature and ourselves, nay, between
ourselves and our own consciousness a veil is
interposed: a veil that is dense and Opaque
for the common herd --- thin, almost trans-
parent, for the artist and the poet.10

‘ecause of the utilitarian function pf perception, one tends

LL”

73

to come to Know only those data that are of 'practical' import-
ance to him; the remninier is only Llossed over. The heavy veil
thus cast over tnincs is lifted for the artist, enabling him to
perceive sore clearly those visual or auditory iipressions for
wni:h he will find expression in his art. Accoriing to the Berg-
sonian view, therefore,“rhe loftiest anbition of art...consists
in revealing to us nature." 'Nature' here may be taken to mean
'reality‘, for he goes on to say that,

Art, whether it be paintiné or sculpture,

poetry or music, has no other object than

to brush aside the utilitarian svmbols, the

conventional and socially accepted general-

ities, in short, everything that veils

reality from us, in order to bring us face

to face with reality itself.... Art is

certainly onlJ a more direct vision of reality.11

Every visiOn viewed thus is unigue --- therefore one finds

in art not that which is univerSul, but that which is individual.
rne mood, tne emotiOn represented in a painting, a poem, or a
mUSlCul composition may perhaps never recur; but the artist who
has succeeded in lifting the veil for even a short while, can
create a worn of art eXpressine his vision, his intuition, such
that others may to sene extent partaae cf the brightness of that
visiOn an} see, although with less vividness than he, that which
otherwise the; might never have seen at all.

The impressiOns sf tne artist io not remain sealed up within,

but are 'realized' in an artiStic meiiun; and from this, the artist

74

as well as the appreciator benefits --- as Croce writes:

:y elaborating his impressions, mun frees
himself from them. By obd'ectifyina them,
he removes they- fron: him and makes him self
their superior. The liberating and purify-
in6 function of art is another aSpect and
another formula of its character of activity.12

It was this 'liberating and purifying function“ of art

that was to form the basis Lf

the psychoanalytic theories of

artissic creation and appreciation.

75

CHAPInR VII

“3 AnD PSYCHOHNALYSIS

The advent of de tn psychology, and in particular its
psychoanalytic interpretation of art based upon the theories
of Sigmund Freud and to a lesser eXLent on those of Jung and
Adler, has opened up a ugole new vista of research in psycho-
logical aesthetics. Still a comparatively new science, psycho-

analysis ”as initiated a trend of inves iLation into the deeper

(.1

mental processes such a was heretofore impossible.

A

The relationsnip ct art to tne dream has of course long

been recognized. Pluto himself referred to art as a “waking
dream", and many since his time have noted the similarity.
Schopenhauer, for instance, once wrote, "A great poet, a great
inabinatiVe writer such as ShaKeSpeare is One who in his waning
life can do what we all do in dreams."1

Jut it was left to Freud and the psychoanalysts to find the
common frame c1 reference of art, the dream, prantasy, and other
forms of imaginative aCLiVitJ. while Freud was no aesthetician
and evolvei no 'system' of art, Vein; prinarily a psychOIOgist,
or more Specifically a psychotherapist, he nevertheless left some
papers which subgerted certain lines tlong which a psychoanalytic
eXploration tf art might be Curried out. And his most notable

contribution to art theory was of course his emphasis on the

'division‘ of the mind into v riogs levels of awareness --- the
'conscioas', the 'foreconscious', and the 'subConscious' ---
the last tno neing sometimes referred to as the 'pre-ccnscious'
and the 'unconsciogs'.

irtis;ic creition, as well as appreciation, is thus seen
to be, line phantasy, a leans of nish-fulfillment, or an outlet
for repressed ieSires. Even the infantile desires of the first
three years of life, thish are soon releiited to oblivion, rem;in
deeply emLed ed in the networx of the subconscious. Thus, one
may truly say that nothing that enters into consciousness is ever
forgotten. It may lie so deep or be so intricately surrounded
by inhibition as to be forever beyond the possibility of volun-
tary ecollection, but it is not ”gone" by any means.

Hoffa: Once e il, "No fact has challenged the psychologist

9

as nuCn as the fact that we have a rexcry.'” And it is indeed a
mys;ery --- whish perhaps taudsley and others who write treatises
on th' 'physiology of mind' can unravel only to the satisfaction
of their fellow nechanists and materialists.

tut regardless of gg§_perceptions are retained, the ability
to re—capture ani re—create past eXperience is one of the most
enriching constituents of human life. were all "flux and flow”
as Some anoient philosophers of change maintained, there would
be no possibility of Lan's ever riSing much above the plane of a

automaton. aithout the hantian "transcendental unity of apper—

77

ception' all eXperience would involve but a 'modification of
states of consciousness' with no bond of continuity to clasp
them toaether.

But just as chaos would be the lot of an existence devoid
of memory, so too the continuous presence in consciousness of
everything ever perceived would result in confusion and would
render intelliiible thought impossible. Therefore, by some
mind providence the mental anatomy has been so constructed that
those ideas which nave no bearing on our present situation are
relegated to tne LaCnground, while those of immediate pertinence
come to the fore and brean through into consciousness. Freud's
analoey of this with a watchman standing guard before the occu—
pants of an antechamber is an apt one. The "watchman' here
signifies a sort of 'endopsychic censor' who prohibits the pas-
sage of objectionable desires into consciousness. When the cen—
ter of awareness is switched to a different stratum, as for exam~
ple during sleep, the watchman relaxes his guard a little, and
the desires that have been repressed emerge from their prison and
find expression. The 'dream content' represents these repressed
desires, usually in disguised form, while the 'latent dream' con-
sists of the desires themselves, that seen refuge behind certain
significant dream symbols.

The mechanism behind phantasy or day-dreaming is much the

same as that of the dream prOper. It too is an indulgence of

78

wish—fulfillment --- but here it is consciously inVOAQd, in
Contrast with the night-dream wnich is a form of involuntary
meandering in imagery. But while phantasy is a conscious process,
we eXperience only a mild degree of shame or guilt. Concerning
this weanening of the sense of guilt, one author writes:

The privileges of fantasy are manifold.

when fantasy has tanen us far afield we

do not as a rule eXperience shame or guilt

-—- name, for instance, for having arrog-

ated some of the properties of infantile

Omnipotence, guilt because the fantasy may

have been ruthless or antisocial.... There

is a feeling of not being responsible for

one's fantaSies.... In preoccupation with

fantasy the ego withdraws cathexis with

some functions of the superego.3

and as in phantasy, so it is in artistic creation. The
artist may linger amid scenes he will never revisit;‘the poet
may Sing of a love that can never be; the composer may impart
to his music a thousand fearful meanings that his lips would
never dare to utter. For where the heart beCAons, there the
artist must go, even though his Painting, Poetry, or Music be
the only portal....
Surely the phiIOSopher Nietzsche was right when he said,

“Art is with us in order that we may not perish through truth....
The essential feature in art is its power of perfecting existence,

its production of perfection and plenitude; art is essentially

the affirmation, the blessing, and deification of existence.'4

79

Art, then, is seen to be an outlet for repressed desires
according to the Freudian theory. The artist differs from
others in that he has a means of self-expression which they
can partaae of only through artistic appreciation. But he differs
from them in another reSpect also --- namely, in the intensity
With which his desires assert thenselves and demand rather than
beg eXpression. Because of the extreme complexity and depth of
the emotional fabric of the artis;'s mind --- falsely named the
'artis:ic temperament", he is regarded with suspicion by some cf
his less sensitiVe brethren, and classed as a 'neurotic' or even
as a 'degenerate'.

This is not to say that the appellation of 'neurotic' or
'psycnotic' often attacned to the artist is entirely a misnomer.
Beyond doubt, many creative artists, particularly those of the
stature of 'genius' have exhibited certain traits of character
that were of a decidedly pathological cast. But such artists
are as far above their fellow—neurotics as genius is itself
superior to the average. The pOpular question as to whether a
genius may be 'norma];~ is absurd and rests upon a misconception
Concerning tne nature of Lenius and normality. Of course the
genius is not 'normal' --- he is a genius precisely to the degree
that he is abnormal}

This does not mean that abnormality pg; s2 is the essence of
genius. Th re are perhaps thousands of deviations from the norm,

but only one of them is Genius; there may be countless aberraticns

80

in the Sphere of the emotions, but only one of them constitutes
the soul of the Artist.

Xevertheless, the high emotionalism mentioned earlier as
characteristic of the artistic genius and of artists in general
ma" warrant the assumption that while artists are by no means
always neurotics, there is ever a tendency toward neurosis
luraing about them. Acute senSitivity hovers on the verge of
insenSibility; it contains within itself the germ of its own
OVertnrow. Ine danger is ever present tnat.1n its all-consuming
passion it may censume itself, and flicner out line a candle that
is left to burn through the night.

In finding eXpression, emotion is momentarily mitigated; as
Freud says,

If the individual who is displeased with
reality is in pOSScsslon of that artistic
talent which is still a psychological riddle,
he can transform his phantasies into artistic
creations. So he escapes the fate of a neur—
osis and wins baCn his connection by this
roundabout way.

Thus, Freud envisages art as a pOSSible preventative measure,
or where a neurosis has already deve10ped, as possessing thera-
peutic prOperties. Some other psychoanalysts, on the contrary,
notably Adler, see artistic genius as being based on a psychic
disturbance already present: "Genius is the overcoming of a marned

psychic inferiority, often physical in its genesis, by unusual

81

application either in the line that originally generated the

. A . .,l , H ,'6
inferiority (Demosthenes) or in an Unllne field (Byron).

Adler, in associating genius with "a marned psychic infer—
iority", views the goal of superiority as the objective of the
psyche. In his Individual Psychology he writes that this is so
"whether a person desires to be an artist, the first in his pro-
fession, or a tyrant in his home, to hold converse with God, or
humiliate other peeple; Whether he regards his suffering as the
most important thing in the world to which everyone must show
obeisance.... he is guided and Spurred on by his longing for
superiority, the thought of his godliheness, the belief in his
speCiul matical power."7

Che of tne foremOSt eVidences of superiority has ever been
thought to be the quantity and quality of one's possessions --—
material or spiritual. Speaning of this in regard to artistic
actiVity, HaveloCh Ellis says:

In creation we have not really put aside
the possessive instinct, we may have even
intensified it. For it has been reasonably
argued that it is precisely the deep urgency
of the impulse to possess which stirs the
creative artist. He creates because that
is the best way, or the only way of gratify-
ing his paSSionate desire to possess.8

Freud, in his study of Leonardo da Vinci, shows how a

vague deSire for possession reaching been to infancy may so

dominate the unconscious life of an artist as to color all his

82

artistic creatiOns, or even give life to some which lashing its
animating influence, might never have found expression at all.
Joncerning the recurrence of this complex into conscious—

ness by means of an artistic medium one biographer writes:

Very early in his career as an artist
Leonardo formed the habit, an almost
unconscious habit, of tracing on the
paper the cOntrasted profiles of a stern
warrior, and a pretty youth. No doubt
these types corresponded to some deep—
seated longing of Leenarlo's; perhaps he
thought of himself in the character of
Caesar laying a conquered world at the
feet of his lover, the beautiful youth.
both types persist ainost to the end,
modified from time to time.9

Freud believes that Leonardo himself very clearly defined
the origin of his Complex without being aware of its implications
for the later theory of psychoanalysis when he wrote:

It seems that it had been destined before
that I should occupy myself so thoroughly
nith the vulture, for it comes to my mind
as a very early memory, when I was still

in the cradle, a vulture came down to me,

Opened my mouth with his tail and struCn

me many times with his tail against my lips.10

Freud aCnnowleices that while memory reaching as far bacn
as infancy is unlineiy, it is not impossible. But what discredits
Leonardo's account, in his Opinion, is the absurdity of a vulture
Opening a child's mouth and strining its face. It is far more

plauSible that the vulture is a symbol,formed later in phantasy

83

and transferred baCA into his childhood --- Leonardo himself
remaining unaware of either the symbolization or transference,
and quite sincere in his belief that this event with the vulture
actually occurred.

Da Vinci was no doubt familiar with the ancient Egyptian
myth Concerning Kut, the vulture-headed goddess. Since according
to mytholoby vultures were always feminine, he perhaps thought of
himself as a vulture-child, because he lived alone with his mother
for the first five “ears of his life. Like the young vultures,
he appeared to nave Onlg, one parent.

Freud assumes tnat LeOnardo's mother laViShed much attention
on this, her onl; son, to compensate her ego for the loss of his
father, who had married a noblewoman. Leonardo in turn probably
cared so much for his mother that love for another woman even
after he hud become an adult would have seemed an injustice to
her. Being around his mother excluSively during his formative
dears he came to identif; hinself with her, and thus toon delight
in bein: hind and éentle to JOUthS, WhOm he now identified with
hinself as a boy. Quite early in life he often half—consciously
saetched heads of laughing women and beautiful children; perhaps
they represented his mother and himself.

Freud believes that the sudden upsurge of artistic creation
after tne "Mona Lisa“ was because there was something about La

Giaconda, probably her smile, that haunted Leonardo and re—awas—

84

ened in him memories of the one ideal love he had anown --- that
for Caterina, nis mother, during his boyhood. After the I'Mona
Lisa” that stranLe smile which critics lime to call 'enigmatic'
plays over the features of almost all his portraits and paintings
of heads. The "Kona Lisa' appears to have had as profound an
effect on its creator as it has ha: on most art-lovers ever since.
Freud quotes Luntz as callina it "the very essence of femininity;

tne tenderness and coauetry, tne modesty and quiet voluptuousness,

the tnole mystery of tne heart WAlCh holds itself aloof, of a

W

brain wnich reflec;s, and of personality who watches itself and

. . . . . .. 1
yields notninb from nerself except radiance.” 1
What then shall we say of Leonardo? That he was a great
artist? But wno will deny that? How shall we classify his psycho-
logical constitution? Surely not as a vicious psychOpath, for his
abnormality was a paSSive abnormality that found sublimation in

the creation of magnificent paintings.

Freud Concludes that,
According to the slight indications in
Leonardo's personality, we would place
him near the neurotic type which we des-
ignate as tne 'obsessive type' and we would
compare his investigations with the 'reason-
in& mania' of neurotics, and his inhibitions
with the so-called 'abulias' of the same."12

Eere in psychoanalytic terminology we find a means of alas:-

ifying Leonardo da Vinci.

And yet Freud himself would no doubt be &n0h5 the first to

85

canowledée that such a psychoanalytic investigation as he under-
toon in his study of this artist by no means suffices to eXplain
his greatness, or his extraordinary artistic dexterity. Here
even 'deptn psycholoey' does not delve deep enough to unearth

tne source of that “psycholouical riddle“ Known as Inspiration.

To say that a poet writes nostalgic lyrics because he has
loved and lost does not reveal the ultiiate origin of his sonnet,
nor does it tell us why its mood of wistfulness should so stir
the heart of one who has never loved at all.

Ihe Freudian theory of the subc0nscious does not explain
ins iration; it merely pushes the mystery further bacx. And yet
One feels that he has here touched upon a chord sympathetically
attuned to the true nature of artistic creation. Depth psycho-
logy cannot tane us to our des;ination; but perhaps it can suggest
the course our quest mipht tane.

That which we call 'inSpiration' appease to spring from deep
Within the well of the subconscious. There is perhaps in those
reLions of the mind most distant from cOnsciousness an unusual
power of luteiratloa --- a harmonizing factor that brings tOgether
diverse, isolated elements encountered in experience, maxing a
systehatic unity of them. To that extent this power of unconscious
integration can cone under the influence of conscious volition is
uncertain. he are not even capable sf Lraspiné wherein the oun-

nection between the different Spheres of awareness lies. The

problem Descartes posed in regard to the mind-body relationship
finds its purely psycholo;ical Correlate in depth psych010gy.

By what means does the subconscious act upon the conscious. and
how does an idea pass from the level of tne foreconscious into
consciousness itself? And What is the linx between these three?
Xibht there not be other planes into which they merge? And what
is to be found at tne extreme polarities? light there not be a
'creater consciousness" which transcends normal awareness to the
same extent or perhaps to even a higher depree than 'normal'
awareness is removed from the foreconscious? Night this not
account for the mystic's "heightened sense of reality", as well
as for certain exalted states of 'inspiration'?

But before COHSllorihé the poss1ble metaphySical implications
of tnic theory, let us turn to sore exclanations of the creative
process that have been Civen by artists themselves; in so doing
we may gain new inSlsht into a problem which while distinctly
psychological, touches upon many different studies, culminating

perhaps in Philos0phy.

87

CKAEIER VIII

EHODICAL VERSUS SECS?¢EEO?S ARTISMIC CREATION:
--- METHODICAL

"Aus weihen Eroszen Schmerzen
Iach' ich die kleinen Lieder....'

So erte Heinrich Heine, in simple but beautiful language
eXpressing an equally simple and yet profound truth concerning
artistic creation --- that it is an outpouring from the depths
of the human soul. The great masterpieces and even the humbler
worxs of all aees of mannind's history are rich in overtones of

ecstas; and of ahtuish that echo from the recesses of the hearts

of hen. Herein lies the spontaneity of all true inspiration;'
herein lies the hey to the AeSLhetic Experience.

But inspiration improvises; art systemizes.

The instantaneous appearance of an artistic idea in the
artist's awareness has about it the character of an improvis-
ation. It may brinE with it all the brilliancy of an unpremed-
itated rhapsody, a brightness which may perhaps momentarily blind
its possessor to a lach of structural congruence. At such times
it is not a deficiency of intuitive ihsi;ht that distracts the
artist and renders hi; incapable of noting the merits and iefects
of the art work he is creatihg, so that he might form an accurate
eValuation of it; rather, it is the superfluity of the ideas pro-

duced by iHSpiration, the great velocity with which successive

88

ideas, often contradictory, inVade his consciousness and pursue
one another in an almost dialectical fashion. He is then con-
frOnted with the exhausting tasK of choosing which of two or
more possibilities will best fulfill his purpose; and here,
aesthetic taste may supplement or even replace altogether a
'rational' mode of selection. This need not be in any way in-
ferior to the criterion of rationality --- for as Pascal once
said, "The heart has its reasons wnich the reason does not know,"
--- but beyond a doubt the worn of art so produced will differ
greatly from One that has undergone a series of conceptual exam-
inations under tne scrutinizing eye of reason. The “art“ of the
artist lies partly in this ratiocinatiOn, but even more in his
aesthetic judgment as to what constitutes beauty and perfection.
It is this bilateral power of judgment, rational and aesthetic,
that is reSponsible for the 'systematizing' of the content
Snppliei by the original insyiration into a work of art.

Inapiration seens an end; art disaovers the way.

It is in this sense that One may sneah of methodical and
Spontaneous artistic creation. The two, however, must not be
thought of as being mutually exclusive. In the creation of any
great work of art an element of both is present. Alone, the
former yields technicians; alone, the latter remains forever
mute.

hence, any attempt to claSSify particular artists as belong-

89

ill;

to one or the other category must to some extent rest on

a purely arbitrary delimitation. One may say only, for example,
that Beethoven's artistic creation differs from that of Mozart
by being relatively nearer to the OngSlte extreme --- the meth-
oiical.

Let it be noted tnat tne quality of inepiration is not here

being considered. Ineviration in its every manifestation is

spontaneous. But its roai to eXpression, to fulfillment in an

 

aesthetic form is perhaps never aLsolutely so. The following
description of ChOpin's manner of composing clarifies this dis-
ti nctiom

His creaLing was syOntaneous and miraculous.
He found it without seexinb it, without
foreseeing it. It came on his piano suddenly,
complete, subline, or it Sang in his head dur-
ing a walx, and he was impatient to play it
for hinsalf. But then began the most heart-
rending labor I ever saw. It was a series of
efforts, of irresolutions and of frettings to
seize again certain details of the theme he
had heard; what he nad conceived as a whole

he analyeed too much when wishing to write it,
and his regret at not finding it again in his
opiniOn clearly defined, threw him into a Kind
of despair. He shut hisself up in his room
for wnole days, weepini, walking, breaking his
pens, repeatine and altering a bar a hundred
times, writint and effacinp it as many times,
and recommencing the next day with a minute and
deeperate perseverance. He Spent six weeks over
a sincle page to wri;e it at last as he had
noted it down at the Very first.1

A work of art produced under such conditions may exhibit

90

the characteristics peculiar to both the 'spontaneous' and
'methodical' types of artistic creatiOn. In the compositions

of ChOpin, as in those of most romanticists, the element of
Spontaneity a,pears to overshadow all else. In listening to a
Chopin scant: or nocturne one is impressed first of all with

the pure lyricism of the m;loiic line, constru ted with a facil-
ity reminiscent of kOZart; but the rich harmonic texture, the
subtle ;et typicall; rosintic modulations into remote Keys is
not that of a Eozart. Here too the A-B-A form of the classical
sonata hls lost some of its ri;iiity; one senses no necessity
for a reguru to the tonic keJ, nor for a repetition of the theme
in the reCuyitulazion; iu listening to a sonata by Mozart or to
one of seethoven's earlier sonatas, conformity to this fixed
structural procedure Strines one as essential if the whole is to
bn traS)ei as a coherent entity; put the 'souata' of rOmanticism
partaxes of a sheer exuberance thgt is alnost fantasy-like in
its lion of rigiditg.

And get while the creatiOns of a rovanticist in music, art,
or literature m,y appear at first to b; devoid of any purposive
formal structure, one discovers upon closer examination that
this inpression cf 'formlessness' is false; the traiitional mouli
has Leen replacei by a he. one. An artis:ic content does not
derive its being from this mould, but this would is none the less

essential to its expression in an art meiium. It is of course

91

possible to overeuphasize tho formal element. One may question
Clive Bell's definition of art as "significait form! or Hanslick's
description of music as "form moving in Sounds.' A chair has
'sibnifieant fcrn', a siLnificance closely bound up with its util-
ity, but one would hesit L: to claim that for that reason every
chair is a nork of art; just so, one may drOp pebbles into a
stream in a rhythmic suCcession such that the recurring sounds
demonstra,e a certain fornal unity, but this is not what we gener-
ally under'st--.nd by tne tern] 'music'.

Lo, form is no; enoubh: the greater classicists recognized
this; but §2£2_formal structure is essential: the greater roman-
ticists recoénized this, A work of art those components exist
in isolation, noo bound t05ether by a proeressive and 'inevitable'
evolution toward some finality of expression is actually not a
worn of :rt at all, but merely a production in an artistic medium.

A FOLauLlC composer such as ChOpin is not content to create
worxs CChSlStihé of discrete fragments. A series of ideas must
be drawn together in a manner so that it may be classified as a

eries only by easOn of its temporal succession. It must be a
unity anii diversity.

But 'inSpiration' is frequently fragmentary, as we have
already noted. It may illunine all of life, but not every aspect
of life with equal clarity and intensity at once. Chopin, along

With most artists, felt the necessity of'“eorxing out' the details

92

of a plan he had in mind. The improvisatory character, however,
never is absent, and it is this quality that lends to his com-
positions a Charming freshness, a facility of eXpression rivalled
by few of his Contemporaries even in that period when the romantic
Spirit was dominant.

Facility is One element in the spontaneity of an art worn;
immediacy is another. The composition or poem or painting should
involve no unneceSSary circumlocution, no mere complexity for the
sane of complexity.

but the methodical factor has its own unique Contribution
to mane to an art creation --- its power to convey the impression
of a purposive evolution toward an end. This 'end' is inextric-
ably bound up with all that has preceded it; it represents a
culminating point, and yet it carries its whole past with it.

This evolution is a complex process; it may be called I'simple"
only in regard to its mode of deveIOpment --- each idea springs
'naturally' and as it were, inevitably out of its entire history.

Art may be great because of the element of spontaneity it
eXnibits; and Art may be great because of the complexity of design,
the profound intricacy of pattern it reveals. Artistry lies in

the harmonious synthesis of the two.

In the music of Beethoven, as in the paintings of Leonardo,

we find a strong proclivity to the 'methodical' factor in artistic

creation.

93

Concerning Beethoven, one author writes:

Beethoven's method was the reverse of that
employed by other composers, say by Mozart.
With Mozart as with most composers, the
themes came to him first, and attention
was then centered on morning them out....
with Beethoven it seems that the entire
movement came as a whole, but vaguely. the
themes were not well-determined, and he
had to find ideas that_would fit into the
incomplete conception.2

There is, however, strong evidence to the contrary.

This is solved by reversing the names in the above quotation,

which is done easily enough. It was Beethoven whose preoccup-

ation with themes resulted in the Notebooxs, which have been

preserved and to which we may turn for inSight into the evolu-

tion of his worxs of art; the vision of ”the whole at once'

is attributed to Mozart, whom we shall consider later.

Of the influence of Beethoven's sheer force of will upon

his Composing, it is said:

he felt, he anew, that his was a creative
power to which all Opposition in the matter
with which he dealt must succumb; he formed
it after his will, and filled it with the
contents of his soul. Thus was born a
peculiar music, music that was the incarn-
ation of strength and integrity. There is in
these sounds nothing of the dreamy weaving of
sentiments which casts such a spell over the
musical lyricism of the romanticists; the
emotions in them are sired by great and fully
conscious intentions, governed by ideas,
hence their unheard-of unity. The main im-
pression they create is of greatness. No

94

other musician has ever approached this
bigantic, never-slacnening will power;
no one has ever coerced so impetuous,
demonic a nature into followin: the dic-

Lu

tates of his will under all circumstances,
c0nverting its energies into sheer creative
power.

It was perhaps this element of will so pervasive in
Beethoven's music, particularly in his symphonies, that caused
Goethe to Spean of it as “grandiose, great, and mad music.”4
And we are told that "She demonic frenzy to which his symphonic
deveIOpnents lead frightened some of his more sensitive contem-
poraries, and as fine a musician as Carl Karia vcn ieber heard
the violent torrent of tones and rhythms of the Seventh Symphony
as if listening to the worn of a madman."5

But in contrast to this emotional intensity, one also sees
in Beethoven traces of a quieter nature, and of an intellectual
Spirituality. here is a man who loved the tranquillity and
solitude of the woods -—- 'All my mornings I pass with the Muses,
and they mane me so happy during the walx;"6 a man devoid of
worldly ambition --- “I have never thought of writing for fame
and honour. chat I have in my heart must Cume out, and therefore
I write;"7 here too is a man who despite his self-affirmed verbal
inaptitude could utter wish fervent sincerity sentiments and con—
victions verging on both poetry and philosophy: I"Truth exists for
tne wise, beauty for a senSitive heart. rhe two are destined for

eacn other,'8and "Display your pOWcr, Fate: Re are not masters

of ourselves; what is fated must happen, and so Amen:"9
We “now much about Beethoven’s method of composition, not

it

only from his motebocns, but also from the various references
he names to it in letters and diaries that have been preserved.
Both tne ClaOSicist and the Ronanticist in his nature find ex-
pression there, as well as in his musical creations. Because
of this "dualisn.fl ,.ere arises at times a certain incongruity
between some views he eXpresses --— as for example, in the fol-
lowing wnere he Speans of his regard for the performability of
his worns:

my 'Fidelio' has not been understood by

tne public, but I nnow it will yet be

appreciated; but still, although I anow

quite well what my 'Fidelio' is worth,

I am a: the Same time equally cOnscious

that the symphony is my actual element.

If it sounds in me then I hear always

tne full orchestra; instrumentalists I

can trust everything to; with vocal com-

positions I have constantly to asn myself,

_ 1

'Is it Sinbable?'-
And on another occasion, he writes to the eminent violinist,
Scnuppanzieh, who had protested concernint the difficulties of
a passa‘e: ”Do you really believe that I thins of your wretched
violin waen the Spirit Speads to me?"11 -

Another view on wnicn he appears to oscillate is revision

of his compositiOns. At one tine we find him saying? "I carry

my ideas for a lonb time with me before I write them down; with

96

this my memory remains so alive that I am sure of a theme that
I have tanen up unto myself; even after years I shall not for—
get it. I alter one thing and another, discard and try again
. . . .12
until I am satisfied....
tut to a publisher who requested some alterations he answered:
”I am not accustomed to revise my compositions. I have never
done it because I am convinced that every partial alteration
, .. ~ m . . .13
changes tne Cnaracter of tne whole.
Perhaps, dowever, there is no real contradiction here;
perhapc Beethoven employed an artful excuse to be relieved of
the indignity of the disheartening tasn of maxing changes that
he felt were unnecessary or even injurious to the worn of art
he had already so painstaningly perfected.
There is a Vacillating emphasis between the methodical

and the Spontaneous modes of composing. In giving advice to the
Archiune Rudolph from Vienna, he says:

Accustom yourself to note down at once

when at the pianoforte any ideas that

may come to you.... By such means not

only will imagination be strengthened,

but one learns also now to fix at the
moment the most out-of-way ideas.14

But also:

You will asn me how I come by my ideas?
That I cannot say with certainty; they
come unsought, indirect, in a direct
way, I could seize them with my hand in
free nature, in the forest, on walns, in
the silence of the night, in the early

morning, aroused by mools, wnich with a

poet are transfornei into words, with me

into tones, souniing, foaming, streaming,
until at last they stand before me as notes.15

3nd elsewhere he says:

So far as I am concerned, yes, good heavens,
my Kingdom is in the air; just line the wind,
the tones often whirl around, and so often it
eddies in my soul.16

:ne "dualism“ in Beethoven's nature is perhaps one of the
factors behind that inner conflict that produced worms that
appeal to widely varying types of musical taste; music, and the
fine arts in general can supply diverse needs and may evoxe many
different Kinds of aesthetic response. The scepe of Qeethoven's
appeal is larger than that of certain other composers whose
cnarm lies in one particular aSpect of their art.

In Leonardo da Vinci we perceive an analogous case in the
Sphere of painting. Line ieethoven, Leonardo, while fulfilling
the possibilities of existing forms, was sufficiently imbued with
the Spirit of a visionary to seen out new vistas of expression.
Concerning his role in the history of painting one author writes:

Great artists contain but also overleap

the period in which they worn.... Leonardo
ia Vinci belongs both to the Renaissance

and the following baroque period. Early
Renaissance artists with some notable
exceptions, had been obsessed with one
element of painting to the neglect of others.

In the field of painting, Leonardo's impor-
tance lies in the fact that he was able to

98

encompass all of the diverse eXperiments
that he had made and fuse them in a single
worn. In this, he is a summation of the
Early RenaissanCe. Simultaneously, he was
to delve into the field of psychology and
suggest accents and stresses that were to

find eXpression OnlJ in subsequent periods.l7

She psycholOgical effects of certain devices he employed

--- notably Chiaroscuro, which Rembrandt was to later mane use

 

of in his portraits --- huve probably never been fully exploited.
This is due not to a misconception of their value such as would
discourage endeavors along such lines, but rather to the immensely
rich potentialities inherent in them.

There is also another way in which Beethoven and Leonardo
may be said to be 'nindred spirits' --- and that is in their
methodical mode of creation. Vasari relates how Leonardo would
stand for long interVals of time gazing up at the ceiling or wall

on which he was to paint. Yis notebooxs contain snatches of many

)

art morns never compl-ted. Here too we find a parallel with Beet—

hoven. Among those that were eventually to be wormed out there

are far more plans of total scnemes than of details. The "Battle

of Angniari", for eXample, has about eight small composition

Snetches with three detailed studies of heads. It appears that

he made these preliminary snatches very rapidly, but toon much

time concentratinL on the best means of develOping details.
Leonardo, while in many ways a typical man of the Renaissance,

departs from its principles in certain very important respects.

For one, he deplored the common praztice of imitation of other art

99

worms which leads to artistic atrOphy and decline of prOgress.
”A painter will produce worns of but poor quality who taxes for
his Euide the piifitiUES of others; but if he will learn from
natural objects he will bring forth good fruit. This we may see
exemplified in the later Rowan painters, who by continually copy-
inb the worn of others from age to age hastened the decay of their
art.“18
The pedaLOgiCal Value of observation of nature here referred
to is of course a theme familiar to the Renaissance, Just as it
was tater to be a vital constituent of the Romantic attitude.
The first was based on the attempt to emerge from the stifling
iarnness of the Kiddie Ages into the fresh air and sunlight of
the Llorious world men had forgotten was a divine creation; the
second 'diSCOVsry of nature' consisted of a breaning away from
the restraint of Classical rules and 'laws', and an increasing
awareness of the ineXplicable wonder and mystery behind even the
more 'simcle' phenomena of the universe.
The inestimable worth of nature as 'a school for the artist"

is referred to by Leonardo in his hotebooxs where he writes:

The mind of the painter must be lime unto

a mirror which ever taxes the color of the

object it reflects, and contains as many

images as there are objects before it.

Therefore realize, O Painter, that thou

canst not succeed unless thou art the univ-

ersal master of imitating by thy art every

variety of nature's form.... His mind will

by this method be like a mirror, reflecting

truly every object placed before it, and
become, as it were, a sec0nd nature.19

100

Leonardo once Called beauty “arrested grace"; and perhaps
no eXpression more aptly defines the charm of his own art.

Among painters, as among creative artists in general, one
finds fervent eXponents of both the methodical and Spontaneous
types of artiStic activity. is find those who stress method
saying, "When the first idea is transferred to paper or canvas,
the second Kiui cf ViSion begins to tans charge, and the actual
deveIOpment of the worn suggests criticisms and modifications
unforeseen in the mental image.... During the growth of a worn
on canvas or paper one sees combinations and suggestions that
themselves become a fresh inspiration and so lead to the comple-
tion of the worn.'20

On the other hand, there are those who believe that such
criticisms and modifications need not be 'unforeseen in the mental
image'. 411 the pl;nning and preparation should tame place in
the mind of the artist before any attempt is made to render ideas
concrete in a physical medium: --- as Reynolds writes, ”The painter
who h;s a genius first manes himself master of the subject he is
to represent, by reading or otherwise; then worms up his imagina—
tiOn into a mind of enthusiasm 'til in a degree he perceives the
vhole event before his eyes when quicn as lightning he gives his
rough snatch On paper or canvas. ?y these means his worn has the
air of genius stamped upon it."21

However, the chasm between the two views just expressed is

101

not as great as mipht at first appear. eoth are to a large
extent 'metnodical' --- the first of course more than the second.

The main difference lies in the shift of emphasis from physical
to mental systematization.

Among poets and authors a diveréence of a similar nature is
to be found. Although the methodical element may be said to have
a small margin in its favor here, there are many voices raised
acclaiuing the superiority of the spontaneous. This is especially
so among the ROnanticists, when we shall consider in the next
section --- on spontaneity in artistic creation.

In defence of ‘metnod", hipliné offers this advice:

Read your final iraft and consl‘er faith-
fully every parapraph, Sentence, and word,
blaCniné out where requisite. Let it lie
by to drain as long as possible. At the
end of that time, re-read, and you should
find that it should bear a second shorten-
ing. Finally, read it aloud alone and at
leisure.... I have had tales by me for
three or five years which shortened them-
selves almost yearly.2b
Burns said too that he always composed hastily and corrected
at leisure. And even Poe in his Philosophy of Composition speaxs
of "the painfil erasure", "interpolations", and "blacn patches”.
An examination of poetic first drafts reveals that although
the words s0ueti es fall into place as though some force external

to the poet had put them there, this is perhaps the exception

rather than tne rule among most poets. The evidence on this point,

102

»-- that is, favoring one or the other mode, in a particular
poet's creations, is not always adequate, however, and is often
purely circumstantial. Jertain first drafts, as for example
those of Tennyson, are locned in a library vault, safely hidden
from the eyes of the curious. fhen too, these 'first attempts'
are often destroyed by tneir author as soon as a perfect COpy
has been made --- for Various reasons, not always merely to safe-
guard vanity. Even where a first draft may be found intact, there
remains the difficulty of deciphering a pate 'smothered with alter—
native words and phrases crowded into every available space ---
around the sites upside down, wedged between the lines."‘33

A psycholobist, worming on a problem in the field of the

creative imaLination, provides this account:

I was reading a volume of the Russian poet,
Lermontov. It contained two facsimile
reproductions of his manuscripts. One was
the usual 0 ean-copied page that embellishes
fine editions. The other facsimile was of a
first draft, very different in appearance
from the clean c0py: scratched up, scored,
and interlined at places to the point of
illegibility. hnile I was trying to decipher
LermOntov's script, the idea occurred to me
that this scarcely legible pabe was a virt-
ual laboratory record of the poet's eXper-
ience, in which one word replaced another
and whole lines were altered, crossed out,
and sonetimes restored.

If we could only trace and establish the
precise order in union pen-strone followed
pen-strone, should we not be in a position sim-
ilar to that of the pSJChOIOdiCCI eXperimenter
wno reads on the smoned drum the zigzag record
of his subgect's reactiOns? A poem's first

103

draft is an objective record of a Spon—
taneous yrocess. The snOoth or the stormy
or turbid current of imaées, tne driving
ideas or the emotional charge that dominate
the poet's mind and dictate his choice of

. words, step by step the process has in-
scribed itself Oh the scored page. Even
the inpatient scratches, the idle snetching
on the uznrciu, than some smooth-running
stanza, all rebister the Ongoing course,
colorinb, and tone of the poet's conscious-
ness.24

Ehere is, besides this difficulty to be encountered in
iCZipherihe and &U&1JZin€ from a psychological point of view,
tne antipathg elreadj suigested --- the poet's unwillingness
to submit his horns to the critical, impersonal eye of the
research investigator. 3m; Lowell gave eXpression to this in
her poem called, "Io a Gentleman “ho Wanted to See the First
Drafts of l) Poems in the Interest of Psycholoiical Research
into the Uornints of the Creative Kindz'

So you want to see my papers, loos what
I have written down,
'Ewixt an eCSt&SJ and heartbrean, ooh them
over with a frown;
You would watch m, thoaehts' green sprouting
ere a single blosson's b10wn.25

It is not difficult to understand the poet's attitude,
nor is it strange that he should seen to avoid any cooly detached
analJSis of his pOems.

A deeper enigma remains, however, the solution of which we

have not get ventured upon. to what extent can the presence of

104

so rationallg-stte‘atired a method be rendered consistent
with genuine Inspiration, the animazing principle of which is
Spontaneity? Does inSpiration in seexing expression in artistic
creation at times violate its own constitution and seen to im-
prove ueon itself? If this be So, then it deprives itself of
ts raiSOn d'etre, and in so doing, destroys itself.
Eefore attempting to solve this problem, it will be necessary

to grasp the nature of 'spontaneous' artistic creation; and it is

to this we shall now turn our attention.

105

CHAPTER IX

'ETHODICAL VE“?”S ‘IOJTINEUVS AQTISTIC CREA-ION:
--- SPONTLNEOUS

In the preceding seccion we cautioned against interpreting
'method' and 'soontaneity' as two discrete elements in artistic
creation. They should not be viewed as isolated territories;
rather, one should speaa of pOints on the scale of methodical-
Spontaneous artistic actiVity. [he distinction between Beet—
hoven's and Lozart's modes of composing has already been mentioned.

fhe peculiarity about the admittedly arbitrary differentiation
thus set up is that it brings to light a problem that might other—
wise pass unnoticed, or even if hinted at might meet with uncrit-
ical reflection. This problem is the one referred to at the con-
clusion of the last chapter.

She truth is, one does not ordinarily thinn of inspired

 

artistic creation as involving any question at all as to method.
It is 'inspired' to the extent that it is free from all such ob-
jective, 'rational' intrusiOns. Should the slightest indication
of plodding laboriousness appear on the scene, one night immed-
iate l; dismiss the pOESiUilitJ that the end-product of it could
be the result of an "inspiratiOn.' But to disturb such compla-
cence, it is necessary only to turn to Leonardo's "Last Supper"
or to the setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy" in the choral move—

ment of the Ninth Symphony, to mention but two of numberless

106

examples that filth» be cited. Here is great art ——— great art
that did not have its oriiin in a half-hour of casual reverie.
Should we set up the criterion of spentaneity as tne determining
factor, we should be com elled to admit that the "Ode to Joy"
falls far short of the Standard of excellence to be found in some
of Schubert's lesser songs, while "She Last Supper' could probably
be surpassed quite easily by an amateur artist setting out on a
Spring morning to paint a picture of the countryside.

It is obvious that such a criteriOn is somewhat inadequate,
to say the least. "It does not tell the whole story,“ one might
be tempted to suspect.

Paving brought Spontaneity "down a peg”, let us now rescue
it from these depths and proceed to extol it for a while, in the
hepe of attaining in the end a more comprehensive notion of its
nature and value, uni of its relatiOnship to 'method'.

:3 ii It

In any discussion of the spontaneous type of artistic
creation, the subject of Rozart inevitably comes up. Here is a
composer of tremendous artistic stature who apparently produced
great musical masterpieces at a very short notice with a maximum
of case and facility. Soncerhing him, Goethe once said, 'Nozart
is and remains a wonder that cannot be further eXplained."1 And
Eeethoven too paid tribute to him, saying, ”I have always recnoned
myself amon; the greatest venerators of MOZart, and I shall remain

so until my latest breath.'2

107

While some accounts of prodigious feats accomplished by
him are no doubt Spurious, there remains a considerable amount

of reliable information concernizrC lozart and his manner of com-

o
posing. as have, in fact, Loz:rt's own account of his composing.
It is an introspective account, rich in imagery, bare of any

pSJCROIOgiCfil tertin010gy, and quite obviously sincere. William

James, in his Principles of PsychOIOgy, renders it thus:

First bits and crumbs of the piece come and
gradually join tOgether in his mind; then

the soul getting warmed to the worn, the

thing groas more and more, 'And I spread it
out broader and clearer, and at last it gets
almost finished in m, head, even when it is

a long piece, so that I can see the whole of
it at a single glance in my mind, as if it
were a beautiful painting or a handsome human
being, in which Way I do not hear it in my
imagination at all as a succession --— the

way it must come later --- but all at once, as
it were. It is a rare feast: All the invent-
ing and maxing goes on in me as in a beautiful
strong dream. Fut the best of all is the hear-
ing of it all at once.’3

But it must not be thought that this type of composing is
peculiar tu tozart alone. were this the case, we might speax of
rozartean and non-Rosartean composition. nozart is but one of
the more illustrious examples of this type, or to put it other—
wise, 'he exhibits a strong tendency toward the polarity of spon-
taneity in artistic creation', just as Beethoven exhibits a ten-
dency toward tne polarity of method. We find in certain other

SOEJOSSFS, such as Tchaixowsxd, for example, these two tendencies

A

108

in relatively equal prOportiOns, drawing tne artist first one
way and then the other. Tchaixowsxy presents this description

of his sensations during artiSLic activity:

It would be vain to try to put into words
that immeasursble sense of bliss which

comes OVer me iirectly a new idea awaxens

in me, and begins to assume a definite form.
I forget everything, and behave line a mad-
tan. Everything within me starts pulsing

and quivering; hardly have I begun the sxetch
ere one thought follows anotner. In the
midst of this magic process it frequently
happens that some external interruption waxes
me from my somnambulistic state. Dreadful,
indeed are sucn interruptions. sometimes
they brean the thread of Inspiration for a
considerable time, so that I have to seen it
again --- often in Vain.4

But in COntrast to this, he also writes concerning inspiration:

This quest does not always reSpond to the
first invitation. Lie must always worn, and

a self-respecting artist must not foli his
hands on the pretext that he is not in the
mood. If we wait for the mood, without
endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily
become inlolent and apathetic. he must be
patient and believe that inspiration will

come to those wno can master their disinclina-
tion.5

Hence, he seems to be saying that while 'pure' inspiration
may at times suffice to produce the general idea of the worn, an
unfailing persistence may be necessary for the achievement of the

completed product as a fine composition. "What has been set down

in a moment of ardor must now be critically examined, improvei,

109

extended, or condensed as the form requires."6

Franz Schubert provides another interesting example on the
scale of methodical-spontaneous composition --- perhaps midway
betmeen LOZart and Tchaihowsay. He was a prolific song writer,
at times writing twelve songs in one day. Not without foundation
did Schumann say of him, "Everything that he touched turned into
muSic;"7 and Schindler tells us that Beethoven on his deathbed
exclaimed, “fruly he has the diVine sparh!"8

Ihere is in fact a certain similarity between Beethoven and
Schubert --- not so much in regard to musiCal style as in regard
to Spirit. Speahing of the latter, Lang says, '...Schubert was
the unique early roaanticist whose inspiration had its roots in
Leethoven, who came nearest to Beethoven, and who at the same time
was the createst individual personality next to him. There he
stood with the archclassicist in that peculiar period in which
classicism and romanticism converked, at times called the class-
icist of romanticism, at others the romanticist of classicism,
sharing to a certain extent the ambiguity that surrounded Beet-
hoven."g And Schubert‘s last wish --- to be buried near Beet-
hoven --- was fulfilled.

He has been called by some ”The Father of the Song,‘ which
While an erroneous title, nevertheless cOnveys the general accept-
ance of his vast Contribution to the German Lied literature. His

tremendous output of vocal compositions attests to the spontaneity

110

of his musical creation. Yet even here the 'methodical' element
is not entirely absent --- the "Erlxénig' is supposed to have
been partially revised several times before it satisfied him.

And while he wrote "Harn, Uarx, the Larx' on the been of some
menu cards at an inn during a 'flash of inspiration', the fact
that he had earlier memorized the poem indicates that he probably
had intended for some time to set it to music. This might seem
to suggest that some inner faculty of which he was unaware had
been at worn seeming a musical eXpression of the poem, and in the
moment of discovering it forced it out the pathway to conscious-
ness, in order that the “inspiration" might find realization there.

that? An uncenscious aesthetic idea? WhJ. that is absurd:

 

But is it?

How often we hear someone advise a friend who is worrying
over a problem, to 'sleep on it'! Sleep, which I"Knits up the
ravelled sleeve of care,‘ often acts as a charm; the mind, moment-
arily freed from the exieencies of its life of awareness, may

.
continue to scrutinize, analyze, criticize, and go through its
other processes for the most part undistracted by externalities.
Xe tithess this in dreams which are often presented to us in truly
amazing clarity and vividness, and the 'normal' concepts of Space
and time are all but obliterated. How many scenes we have thus

viSited, how many different lives we have lived in one short hour!

The analoby of art and the dream has long been emphasized;

lll

ever since Plato referred to art as a "waning dream," and perhaps
even prior to his time, the Similarity has been rec0gnized. You
will remember how lozart compared his mental vision of the whole
of a Composition to "a beautiful strong dream;” and another Cem-
poser, max Bruch, has said, ”my most beautiful melodies come to
me in dreams."10

Artistic actiVity, line the dream, appears to involve a
certain degree of dissociation. The poet lives for the moment
in he world of his poem, the painter is a part of the landscape
on his canvas, the composer dwells in a thirling current of ex—
press1ve sound. Reality is to be found not in physical nature
--- "this world of space and time in uniih things rise and perish,”Li
but Reality is here tithin....

The artist seens to express that reality, and in expressing
it, he paradoxically enters i:39_the sphere it pervades. Fe im-
parts lcrm to that reality of whicn he himself becomes a part.

Every true artist Journeys down the same read up to this
point; inspiration, while Varying in intensity and in aesthetic
profundity and north, retains its essential nature in the midst
of a wide course of possible Variations; but in realizing itself
in the fullness of censciousness and later in concrete form, it
invariably passes through a series of stages wherein it may easily
become transformed or even 'lost' altOgether. Tchainowsny SpOne

for a multitude of artists When he decried its vagueness and erratic

112

quality. Then too, even when the inepiration is complete, it

may require revision so as to be adaptable to the particular

art medium. A composer may hear in his imagination a brilliant
finale of a SymphOnic movement only to discover upon a critica'
eXaLinatiOn tnat it is impossible, at least in that Key and at

that tempo, for certain passages in it far transcend the possibil-
ities of the instruments. Hence Beethoven mused, 'Is it singable?"
Occasionally, he concluded that perhaps it stretched capaCities

to very near their utmost --- and went ahead and wrote it the way
he heard it anyway --— as in the choral movement.

30 we see that while the artistic idea often has its source
in the unconscious, it does not manifest itself as inepiratlon
until it has reached consciouSness. And on this plane it is apt
to a pear in a guise somewhat alien to it in order to accommodate
itself to the inclinations of the individual artist; --- just as
in dreams, repressed desires that might disturb the sleeper if
revealed for what they truly are, assume intricate disguises and
fin-i an outlet in that way.

But there is in the dream no thigi stage such as is to be
found in art. For art is not a sere imitation of an imitation,
but, to paraphrase Plato, "an eXpression of an expression'. The
ideas that find an outlet to censciousness must then find an out-
let into a cencrete medium. And here, still further alterations

may occur. In this way the quality of the art creation is, while

113

de;endent u50n the quality of the oriéinal inspiration, not
synonymous With it. It may be only a shadow, the original idea
transfiéured.

how the artist in giving exwression to the idea that animates
him, strives to mane it as nearly perfect a replica of the original
artistic idea as possible. 3nd in so doing, he taxes recourse to
'method'. The 'methodical element' in artistic creation is this
light of introspection cast about here and there to illumine some
of the derner recesses of the mind, in a search for a fragment of
the inspirational c0ntent that may have guhe astray.

It “I IS:

Spontaneous artistic creation then, is seen to entail less
of this 'searching' element. In the case of students in the art
media it ma; be due to a deficiency in rebard to the critical
faculty or to an undeveloped discriminatory sense; among artists
such as KOZart and SCnubert it is due to the clarity and "inevit-
ability" with which the psychOIOgioal impressions attain fullness
in Consciousness, renderinb further analdtical introspection un-
necessary.

At times those artists who employ 'method' regularly and
most extensively (and perhaps most artists fall within this class—
ification) find that an occasional impression is of such unusual
clarity and intensity that the methodical approach is scarcely
neceSSary, when, as Lamartine said, "It is not I who thinx. It

is my ideas that thing for me,'14 or as Stevenson said, it appears

114

as though tne real norm is done by "some unseen collaborator.”

Ihe cause of this chanbe of inspirational intensity may
sometimes be a uOVClCJ in the life of the artist or an altered
attitude toward a common occurrence, such that his emotional
life underioes a transformation, tnerein ne sees things in a
different perspective. Burns writes, “I never had the least
tflOUéht or inclination of turning poet till I once got heartily
in love, and then rhyme and son; were, in a ranner the Spontaneous
languaae of my heart.'13 And Beethoven (to whom we Keep reverting
because of the wealth ani scope of ideas he left in written form)
once said: 'A musician is also a poet; he can feel himself sudden-
ly removed by a pair of eyes to a more beauteous world, where
Creater spirits plabue him and give him much to do.'14

Ehus, any rich emotional eXperience may result in a deepening
of the artist's inner life, and in an increase of his capacity to
perceive artiStic concepts as they appear in moments of inspiration.
At such tines he may experience ''the aching tremor of a poetic idea
to find an: recoénize itself and achieve finality or perfect utter—
ance.‘15 3nd heats, in eXpTQSSiu5 the indesndbdfle ielight of this
state, wrote, "Then felt I line some watcher of tne saies when a
new planet swims into his hen."15

heats, along With most of the poets of romanticism, created
artistic worms in a highly spontaneous way --- the way of Nozart
and Scnubert.

The sudden upsurue of enotion that is an almost Constant

115

accompaniment of true inspiration may tane the form of elation

describe} by Shelley:

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;

I shriened, and clasped my hands in ecstasy117

Or it may create a VaLUG but none the less intense melancholy,
as it did upon occasiOn with heats:

ty heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

my sense, as though of hemlocn I had drunK,

Or emptied some dull Opia;e to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had suns.18
Almost always it brings with it what Uilliam James would call
“a heightened sense of reality.‘ It may tane on also a rather
relibious tone:

Poetry redeems from decay the visitations

of the divinity in man.... It is as though

it were the interpenetration of a diviner

nature throubh our own; but its footsteps

are llne those of a wind over the sea, which

the coming calm erases, and whose traces

remain only as on the wrinnlei sand which

paves it.19

At times this period of emotional exaltation up to the

heights of ecstasy or entombment in the depths of despair is
followed by a state of extreme physical exhaustion, as well as

emotiOnal strain. This was sepeCially noticeable in ChOpin.

Concerninb it, one author writes,

116

If that condition of mind and soul which
te czll InSpiration lasted lonC without
interruption, no artist could survive it.
The strings would brean and the instrument
be shattered to fragments. It is already
a great th'ng if the main idea and general
Outline Come Without any racning of brains,
as the result of that supernatural and in-
eXplicable force we call Inspiration.20
In conclusion, what shall we say of the problem of
methodiCal Versus Spontaneous Artistic Creation? Perhaps only
that the 'versus' should be omitted; and also perhaps we may
conclude that an eXaninaticn of both ferns has tended to impress
more deeply upon us the truth earlier stated:
Art may be areat because of the element of spontaneity it
exhibits; and Art may be great because of the complexity of

design, the profound intricacy of pattern it reveals. Artistry

lies in the harmonious synthesis of the two.

117

SHAPTER X

EX’I‘E; .DE 3 3331.". mt I NSPI HAITI C'N

A study of various theories concerning the nature of
artiszio inepiration in both its philosophical and psycho-

lohical aspects reveals a higher degree of consistency among

1

L

even the more radical views th-n one might at first expect
to attain On an issue admitting of diverse interpretations.

The positions supplement one another, wnile each retains its

 

own facet of exploration. The pniIOSOpher SBBnS to find a
place for the artisaic genius and his creations within a part-
icular metaphysical frameworn; the psychologist looks not be—
yond but rather within the fabric of the creative mind for an
eXplanatiOn; the artisc endeavors to render intelligible to
himself and to others a phenomenon of which he has xnowledge
by acquaintance. If he be gifted in the art of intrOSpection,
he may erusp intuitively that which the psyChOIOéiSt comes to
understand by means of obserVation.

thile the methods employed by the artist and the psycho-
logist differ in reSpect to the data considered for elucidation
of the subject, (the one analyzes moods, impressions, and psy—
chical elements in Eeneral, while tne other examines empirical

evidences of such inner states), the two nevertheless demon-

116

')

strate a rvuurnhtle sinilhritg in their 30nclusions. The philo-

(

PI

sepher or' tu

(D

ent of philoscynd, hJCQUCF ne accept these con-
clusions in their entirety or in p rt, is not primarily inter-
ested in then for themselves, but onl; as the; ray provide a
steppinL-s30ne in the progressive c0nfirnation of an ontoloiical

v-

or epi?t€H010biC¢l incur“. :e is, in short, concerned with their
philosophical itplloctiODSo

In this present discussion it is preposed that we concen-

trate

0

ur attenticn on the psgcholzaieal aspect of inspiration,
reservinb a censideration of its pniloso;hical implications until
later.

45 me have seen, Freud and his immediate disciples have

11

(I'

ale to Sat about 'inSpiration' in the usage here involved ---
Freud ninself referrinc to it as "a psacholoLiCal riddle." He
and the ySJCUOhHJljtiS school are here cOncerned with the ther-
apeutic possibilities cf art. The whole notiVation behind artis-
tic production and appreciation, as L811 as plaJ and the dream,
is viCarious wish—fulfillment, the unattainment of which would
result in a neurosis or even in a psychosis. Let us go on, how-
ever, to discuss inspiration in the non-patholoaical sense.
‘InSpirntion in its eVery nanifestation is spontaneous.‘
In nanin, this assertiOn one is confronted with the necessity of

explaining that is here meant by 'iuSgirgtion'. Neither of the

119

two definitions prev1ously presentedl would seem to suffice

when placed in this context. The "concrete“ form need not be
'spontanecus', indeed probably rarely is so. Only a few of the
poets who write of love refer to 'love at first sight'. Hence
the poet's query, ‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?“
has as its underlgihé assumption a sweeping generalization which
lachs the uniVersal validity it claims. "Concrete“ inspiration
seldom appears so suddenly; what then of the 'abstract‘ type ---
"the psychological state or process?‘ hut we perceive‘lts lacn
of snontaneity too, for the very terms used to define it (i.e.
'state‘ or 'process') nave temporality or extension in time as
an essentigl constituent:

It is apparent the ueaning of insyiration as used in con—
nection titn the concept of spontaneity must be still more limit-
91 --- it can be only a culminating mOnent in the 'state' or 'pro-
cess' of abstract inspiration prOper.2 Let us define it as 'that
menent of the inception of the aesthetic idea.‘

But ideas ever flow nto one anotner --- hence William James'
delightful little &U:1053, "the stream of thought." Each thought
or idea, by means of association echoes its predecessor and then
Calls forth its own successor. This continuum of personal ident—
ity is “CVuT bronen (except perhaps in death --- but maybe we
shall never know whether or not it is broxen then); in dreams,

as in 'ntervals of dissociation and unconsciousness, it is not

severed, but rather, transferred to a different stratum of aware-
ness, which at risn of a verbal contradiction we may call the
'uncon cious'.

ievertneless, despite the inevitably temporal nature of the
series of associative ideas, each idea is an indissoluble entity,
gloryinL in its moment, absolutely unique and supreme in itself.

An idea does not, line the v=ryinL colors of a chameleon, Chang

 

into its successor, but rather, Lives place to it.

The phiIOSOpher David Hume in his Enquiry ConcerningfiHumen

 

Understandipg discusses three different ways in which ideas may

 

be related in an associative secuence: resemblance, contiguity
in space or time, and as cause and effect; some psychologists
would reduce the nunber to two, maintaining that causal relations
are nowhere discerned, but only temporal succession; they would
apply Hume's sxepticism in regard to the causal principle not
Only to jhysical phenomena, but to mental events as well.
Contrary to this, soae other psychologists contend that
these three fundamental means of relating ideas, besides being
irreducible, also fail to account for certain mental phenomena
that recent scientific ichSQitatlon is tending more and more to
demonstrate to be legitimate areas of inquiry that demand explan—
ation. The field of psychical research is only beginning to be
explored, having been neglected and left to lat behind while

great strides of pregress were being made in the physical sciences.

121

Once tne barriers of crudely unscientific distortion of its data
by Some misguided enthusiasts and uncritical rejection of its
suppositions by biased antaéonists have been overcome, it may
perhaps be free to advance as a science in its own right, unfet-
tered by tne chains of barbarous superStition on the one hand and
nihilistio sneptiCism on the other.

And when psychical research shall have attained the status
of a science, it will be confrOnted with the necessity of provid—
inC eXplanations for proslems that have hitherto eluded the older
introspective and benavioristic psycholo;ies. It probably W111
not supplant them, Just as behaviorism cannot omit introspection
as a method without dissolving into a warpedly one-sided inter-
pretation of a complex subject. Here empirical observation of
external states and of 00nduct does not yield the secret of their
motiVatinL force; in seeming to answer the question 'How?', it
fails to do justice to the query "Why?" If man is but a machine,
a very cleverly wrought machine to he sure, but a machine never-
theless, the purely mecnanical element in his thought and action

is the Only one that may be considered, for it is all there 1

 

but if there be a 'non-mechanical' factor in his nature, a free-
dom of choice, a purposive evolution tending toward ever higher
stages of development and c0nsequently toward progressively great-
er peter of self—determination, then any empirical attempt to

acquire an adequate comprehension of the problems of psychOIOgy

122

and SOCiOlOEJ, alOng with those of etnical and political theory,
must prove futile because of a general misconception regarding
the nature of tne determination of behavior. But this issue is
one that night more prOperly and advantageously e dealt with
in the subsequent chapter, after a consideration of the causative
sequence behind one particular Sphere of human activity --- the
creation of worns cf art.

he have seen how even artists thenselves are not infrequently
baffled by the sudden appearance and equally abrupt departure of
artistic ideas. Those of us who are not artists but only lovers
of art may marvel at the remarnably consistent explanations of
this state even among artists of widely Varying temperaments;
unfortunately, however, we may also become perplexed by their
liberal employment of cliches, which wnile intended to convey
something of the "feeling" of inspiration tend rather to obscure
its meaning. :his difficulty is not peculiar to these attempts
at explication of the phenomenon of artistic insight; it occurs
whenever one endeavors to set in a conceptual frameworn that which
is by nature non-conceptual. he who has a 'nnowledge by acquain-
tance' of the fragrance of lilacs on a cool evening in early Spring
will try in vain to render this perceptiOn in vivid form and will
fail to provide a 'nnowledee by description' for one who has never

partahen of this intuitive eXperience.

Thus, what might appear at first to be our most reliable

123

source of inSight into the process of artistic creation, namely,
the reports of the artists themselves, is seen to fall short of
our expectations. The artist is not aware, except under rare
circumstances, of the source of his ideas, nor of the causal
element involved in their sequential development. It is to the
psychologist te muSt turn for possible solutiOns to these quest-
ions. jhe artists' comments are invaluable in as much as they
furnish the groundworn, the starting-point, for an investigation
of the phenomenon of inspiration; and yet it being the case that
it is a psychological phenomenon that we are here dealing with,
as Was stressed esrlier, we can perceive the import of artists'
descriptions only by subsuming them under certain psychological
laws assumed to be valid; where an eXplanation appears highly
plausible and cannot as yet be grasped as in accordance with any
nhown law, the gap Can be bridged only by speculative hypotheses,
psychological or philosthical. Such speculation is subject to
the rules of cone ence and consistency --- the solutions it pro—
poses snould not contradict any 'law' or theory to which we as-
"Z
cribe validity.”

This being the Case, let us first of all determine how much
of tne phenomenon here being considered is explanable according
to previously accepted 'laws', and how much, if any, remains
unanswered by modern psychology.

Ihe three primary faculties involved in the creation of a

124

worn of art appear to be memory, association, and integration.
(It is tne psycnical process that is here referred to, rather
than the physiCal manipulation of materials in any particular
art medium, and for that reason tne following remarns are ap-
plicable to all domains of art; and perhaps it might not be too
radical to suppose that these three elements are influential in
such purely "utilitarian“ constructions as the preliminary form-
ulation of a simple sentence in theoretical discourse or even

in s031a1 conversationz)

?aving named these three, memory, association, and integra-
tion (and in a somewhat dosmatic fashion) as being the constit-
uents of 'inspiratiun', it is necessary to examine them closely
if we seem to substantiate an assumption which is, on the surface
at least, highly c0ntestable.

Every artisaic idea must spring from the psychical past of
the individual becoming introspectively aware of that idea;
stated more simply, it must have its roots in memory, and in that
alone. He who would assume a point of origin other than this is
immediately impelled to 'invent' a new faculty or new terminology
for an old faculty if he is net to fall prey to the ancient myth-
ical concept of inepiration as supernatural revelation. And even
this View, if carried out consistently, might well culminate in
a position similar to Plato's reminiscence theory, which is act-

ually nothing but memory once again --- memory reaching into the

125

remote past. Furthermore, even apart from acceptance of the
Platonic theory, tne individual supposed to be in rapport with
tne Divine is enmeshed in a relationship wherein he discerns
not merely that segment of history encompassing his life span
--- but universal history, and here too we encounter a form of
'memory'. Thus, he who rejects the notion of past experience
as the well-spring of inspiration is actually straining at the
proverbial gnat while being compelled to swallow a camel:

The possession of memory is a remarnable asset in life;
indeed, we might go further and say that without it life would
be imppssitle. what a precarious existence we should lead if
we were forced to learn over and over again that fire burns us
when we approach it, that our bodies tend to fall when unsuppor-
ted, or that certain plants are e ible while otners are poisonous:
Thus, some degree of memory, rudimentary though it be in lower
organisms, seems essential for survival over any considerable
period of time.

But it is not with this purely practical aSpect of memory
that we are here concerned, but rather, with its power to enrich
eXistence and to transform it into a continuous and meaningful
whole.

How, it is generally Conceded that every recollection is
based on an initial impression derived from eXperience --- extro-

Spective or introspective; and because the mind on which these

126

Various images and ideas are imprinted is one and the same entity
throughout its whole course of existence, there is no reason to
suppose that anything that H18 entered our purview of conscious-
ness as an object of extrOSpective or intrOSpective awareness
should ever be really forgotten. Moreover, there is much evid-
ence to corroborate the view that something may be discriminated
in memory that was never presented to consciousness at all. But
how can this be? Does it not contradict the assertion made prior
to it --- that every mental image has its ultimate origin in exper-
ience? ho; for in any act of perception, whether of an external
event or of an internal state, there is, besides the 'given' datum
or conglomerate of data upon which the attention is focussed, a
'fringe" of perceptual elements; the latter do not manifest them-
selves (except in rare instances) as discriminated elements of
the immeiiate perceptiOn. Unlixe these peripheral relationships,
which usually pass unobserved, the relationsnips obtaining among
the Various parts of the perceptual 'obyect' ('object' taxen in
the epistemological rather than ont010gical sense) mg§t_be dis-
cerned if it is to be graSped 2i 2 determinate object: as for
example, in my perception of a chair, I may note br0wnness, hard-
ness, solidity, and so on, but these isolated qualities do not
Convey the idea of a chair; it is only by conjoining them in a
series of reciprocal relations, that is, by an act of intuition

--- in which no 10gical necessity is entailed,incidentally ---

127

that I ever do in fact judge it to be a chair. The intuitive
mental process may inter-relate the 'series' of sensuous ideas
with such rapidity that the discrimination of them §§_parts g:
a series never tunes place and tne interVal of time that elapses
during tne process is for all practical purposes neglivible.
For example, upon hearinb ‘a' above 'niddle c' sounded, the aural
impression conveyed is a singular one, seemingly possessing great
unity; and Jet we nnow that about 440 double vibrations per second
are strining our ear, carrying with them a host of harmonics.
Thus, Whether we perceive a visual image such as the chair
or an auiitory image such as the musical tone, it is not by means
of a 'breaning up' of the constituents of the perceptual object
that we grasp its siQnificance; on the contrary, the elements
originally present themselves lg_tnis vegy isolation, and if per-
ception of an object as an object is to be gained, it is only
tnroubh this intuitive process of inter-relating discrete factors.
In Vlehlnc tne chair, one may consciously and quite voluntarily
conjure up novel relatiOns amena its qualities by abstracting them
from their original context, and uni tine them in a new intuition.
here the mind is Very versatile. In the case of the Single tone
One may do linemise: by isolating certain tonal prOperties, its
timbre and intensity, for example, he may relate these to a tone
of a different pitch, and then retainint this new pitch may in-

crease or diminish its volume, or alter its quality by imagining

128

it produced by a different instrument.
This conscious discriminative undertaning is in its earlier
stapes exactly the reverse of the perceptual process, in that it

abstrac.s frOm

I”

preCOnceived uncle certain of its attributes

 

susceptible of a men formulation; in its later phases, however,
in the re-groupiné of these elements into a complex psychical
entity, it is directly correlative to the synthesizing act of
the perceptive faculty in its re-presentation to awareness of
presentational data supplied by sensation. Of this we shall have
more to say in a subsequent iiscussion of the philOSOphical im-
plications of this view of creative ac;ivity in the fine arts.

how the artist possesses this power of inventing novel means
of relating data sup lied by pas; eXperience and of incorporating
them in a 'new' idea to a Lreater extent than do those of us who
are not artists. But he possesses another ability mentioned a
little earlier, ani this is perhaps of still greater importance
to him --- the unconscious assimilation into memory of perceptual
elements Wnich belch; to the "frinie" of the given data. A painter,
attemptin; to express his intuition of a landscape by giving it
concrete form on a canVas, cannot divorce those colors and shapes
he views at a distance, from their peripheral relationships. The
landscape can never be seen as a painting of it will appear to the

obJective eye of a critic later on, when such a painting will be

129

surrounded by a frame and hung in a museum amid a group of

other paintings dealing with various subjects. It can never be
truly 'recaptured', precisely because its "peripheral relation-
ships" must of necessity undergo change. The artist, in per-
ceiving the rolling hills, the shall farmhouse off to one side,
the trees in bacn of it, tne Llue shy and white clouds beyond
that, is part of the nature that is the object of his perception.
His 'aesthetic contemplation' is less 'detacned' than it will
ever be again. However vivid his memory, it will not bring bacn
to him in later years the diverse interrelationships among the
sights, sounds, fragrances, tactile and xinesthetic sensations
in which he is presently immersed. Of even greater import in'
the determination of an eXperience by peripheral relations is
the psychical state or frame of mind in which the “totality of
the eXperience,” the intuition is grounded. And every psych'ca
state is in some sense unique; it will never recur.

It is this multiplicity of peripheral elements and their
interrelationships that differentiates aesthetic contemplation
from 'practical' perception. Contrary to pOpular opinion, aes-
thetic contemplation varies ig_erselg with the degree of detach-
ment of the percipient from the object of his awareness. Sen-
sitive criticism or appreciation of art requires that the per—
cipient relate the artistic content to something in his own past

eXperience, and that he view this latest manifestation of aes—

thetic beauty and meaning as complementary to that of past per-
ceptual objects that hsve entered his Sphere of awareness; but
even this is not enough; to be truly a worm of art it should
seem to surpass them all in one way or another or to provide
senethinL that was leaning in all previous perceptions. It is
only by goinb beyond past observations that it may complement
then by broadeninL the s00pe uf their o;n ueat-Arm. Thus, ideally
not only aesthetic cOntemplation but the whole of life would
become more rich and meaninbful the lOchr one lives; disenchant-
ment would find an abiding place only in tne hearts of those who
created their ideals from fracnents of the transient and illusory
aspects of life.

But some may find nothin5_in life that is not transient and

illusory. Yeiia in vita 13:10rte sumus. And they may be right.

 

 

Perhaps the artist is deluded nnen he believes himself to have
discoverel meaning somewhere nnl when he seems to recapture and
eXpress that insight; and even Eli periods of intuitive under-
standing may all too often alternate with intervals of despondence
wherein the totality of eXperience is viewed as a meaningless
phantasmaéoria --- a mere succession of appearances and strivings,
tne futility of wnich joy Can but temporarily mitigate and only
death can terminate.

Be that as it may; the fact remains that artists and non-

artists aline g2_profess at times to discern harmony amid this

131

whirlpool of chaos. Even dissonance may intensify the harmony.
The problem of evil is an old one, and us need not concern our-
selves with it here; let us rather devote our attention to the
query, "thence comes this impressiOn, illusory or net, of having
gained inSight into the meaning of existence?" And setting
aSide for the moment the philOSOph'cal issues that might aid in
its solution, let us return to the psychOIOgical aspect of the
problem.

For an image or event to have meaning ascribed to it, it
must be envisaged in a larger context than that of the present
moment of awareness. Jhat hilliam J mes called the "blooming,
buzzinb Confusion“ into which the infant is born must be sup-
planted by an array of colors, sounds, odors, etc. that possess
significance for him. Eacn successive impression of a given
datum W111 ender it more intelligible up to a certain point
which might be called 'tne pla;eau of acuity of perceptual aware-
ness”. Beyond this, impressiOns have no 10nger the capacity to
present themselves to our aWareness with any increa§e_of clarity.
In the perception of a Single tOne one may be dra:n to analyze its
preperties as an aural datum --- frequency, intensity, timbre;
if the analysis enis here \lth the attributes of the tone, one
will shortly lose all interest in the sound stimulus, and if he
be compelled to endure it over a fairly long period of time, he

may become irritable; if it is acntinued still more he may succeed

132

in shutting it out of his Sphere of consciousness to such an
extent as to be unaware of its presence.

how, the aonnowledgement of what we have been referring to
as 'peripheral interrelationsnips' greatly heightens the ”plateau
of acuity of perceptual awareness." What holds true in the case
of constant or continuous stimuli such as in the example stated
above holds true of successive stimuli, although the degree of
irritability and subsequent inurement may be altered by the inter-
vening span of time, and in many cases will never appear at all.
30nsider again our hypothetical victim of a single tone sounding
throughout a seeming eternity: If his power of analyzing the
sound stimulus be not confined to a scrutiny of its attributes
(that is, those prOperties whion it possesses 'in itself' ---
pitcn, timbre, etc.) but is eXpaniei so as to include so-called
peripheral elements, the irritation and inurement may be consider—
ably delayed or even postponed indefinitely. He may transform
the object of extrOSpection (the sound) into an idea that is
colored by intrOSpective elements, while none the less retaining
these 'objective' features. He may by so willing combine it in
inagery xith wo other tOnes encountered in past eXperience and
which are suggested by tne harmonics of this particular manifest-
ation, and in that way he may form a chord. His Knowledge of
harmony, or if “e be lacning that, the capricious character of

his in Linative uniertaninC may further suggest a possible direc-

tion of movement for the chord; tnis sequence may create in him
a certain mooi, of frivolity, restlessness, or anticipation, for
example, that W111 incline him toward a particular type of se-
quential deveIOpLent. In this way, tne tern. of a sonata or sym-
phony may sprout in the adjunction of a single tonal impression,
a receptive aesthetic faculty, and a complex process of imagin-
ative evolutiOn.

She art of tne artistic individual lies in his capacity for
discrimination of tnese intricate 'peripheral relationships'.
Since these are not attriLutes of tne “given" in itself, but Come
into existence only as prOperties of tne prycniCal apparition,
the process is truly a creative one, and not a mere syntheSis of
elements perceived. For that reason any attempt to produce a
worn of art by purely 'mechanical' or 'methenatical' devices will
be in Vain, in so far as it fails to taxe account of that intro—
Spection by gcans of union an insignt into such relationships is
to be attained.

In tnat psych010gica state or process wn ch we have been
referring to as inspiration during the course of this inquiry,
the introSpecting mini revives elements derived from past sens-
uous intgitions, Tnich intuitions, as we nave seen, contain un-
c0nscious as well as conscious components. The unconscious frag-
ments may be Sensuous, as in the case of the "fringe' perceptions

of the artist painting tne landscape; or they may be non-sensuous

purely psychical preperties such as we have been discussing.
All extrospection involves the former, since no empirical ob-
serVation can a: any moment discriminate a;__sensuously observ-
able elements within the rarse of perception; and all intro-

‘0

S}cC$lOu involves tne latt

(T1

r (3.0. assoc1ative prOperties)
because oi our possessiOn of memorJ. In the absence of memory
ever; lmchSSiOu and idea moali retreat irrevocably into the

h c-
I

V5

(0

t. Thus, nanory is essential to the unfolding of any psycho-
locicwl process, incluiinL the evolution of an artistic idea,
which creative process we deSlLque by tne term 'ins;iration'.

Association is but tne means by which impressions and ideas
bur'ed in memory energe into consciousness. Integration is the
combining of tnese psycniCal fragments recovered by the associa-
tive tendency into an aeSLLetic whole.

In this nag, every 'ihS-ifelJlL.', however instantaneous its
appearance, is only the last linn in a Chain of a causal psychical
sequence. ho worn of art is created in temporal isolation; the
seeds of its origin are abstracted from the totality of the art—
ists past eXperience; recardless of the 'methodicalness' or 'spon-
With Wnict an idea is impressed upon a physical art med-
ium, the process of seguential evolution that underlies its psy-
chical creation is spread out over a Considerable period of time.
In this sense gll_'inspir d' ideas are the products of extended

dormant ins;iretion, and serve to nanifest its existence. ‘nd

.61

135

without this extended dormant inspiration and its three compon-
ents, memory, association, and integration, an aesthetic idea

couli find no eXp ession in a uorx of art.

136

ClE IKILOSCTfICLL ILPLICAPICNS

An inquiry concerning the nature of a psychological pheno-
menon such as he have been inVestigatin¢ has about it this
rather curious fate: that nhile its approacn nust of necessity
be the method of an empiriCal science, it nevertheless touches
ufion spheres of study whose hypotheses and theories admit of no
exact scientific formulation, at least according to our present
means of empirical verification. and yet its prinCiples, could
they be discovered, uouli be of such fa -reaching import, not
only for psychology, Lut for philos0phy as well, that we cannot
afford to ignore the consequences of any potentially valid
(although non—validated) theory prOposed toward the solution of
the problem.

Since in any inquiry there is, or should be, a continuous
line of develOpment from its presuppositions through to its im-
pliciziOns, ani since a cleaVaoe in this continuum would demon-
strate a Icon of consistency tnut is fatal to the 'scientific'
status of any investigation, it mibht be well to bebin our philo—
SOphical consideration of the subject With an exanination of its
presuppositiOns. Since the latter may be placed into three

catetories, psychological, epistemological, and metaphysica , let

137

us examine them in this order.

First of all, we find among the major psychological presup—

 

tOSlClonS a 'depth' View of mind. n order that the evolutionary
process of an artisaic intuition taxe place by means of the
phenomenon we have been calling inepiration, it is necessary that
the various strands of its unfoliinb revert to a banground of

perceptual impressions, not all of which :re ecuidistant from the

 

cente; of a areness. Ihe degrees of distinctness with which mnem-

Onic elements derived from past eXperience emerge into conscious-
ness sutéest a Varying density of psychical being which a theory
of mind hen-coénizant of the 'depth' factor cannot adequately
account for.

Tner appears to be in nan a hierarchy of consciousness;

(D

whether or not this is so in the case of lower organisms (of which
we may postulate the possession of rudisentary 'minds') is uncer-
tain. Not all liViua beings are conscious; some are conscious,

but no more; in tne human mind alone is self-consciousness or
reflective tnouiht attained. The activation behind behavior is

no loncer purely a hatter of reflex or instinct; any given impulse,
even that of self—preserVation, which seems the most closely bound
up with man's instinctive nature, may oe modified, conditioned,

or even thwarted altobether by the influence of his intellect, the
two constituents of which are reason and imagination. Thus, artis-

t1

0

creation is not instinct subliznat;ed, an innate tendency div-

138

J

'rted from its normal course of fulfillment, as some contempor—

ry schools of psacnology would naxe us believe.

[\1

"hile an artistic creation derives its being from the
'higher' aculties of man's awareness, reasOn and inasination,
tnere is in it an umtistanacly “primitive” quality nevertheless.
Inspiration reacnes bacn into the more distant spheres of con-
sciousness, unearthing phantom-line images and vague nostalgias
lonb since forgotten. These fracments of past perception may be
so intricately ensnarei in a maze of repressions and so concealed
by the elapsing of time that all sense of their mnemonic character
is lost. In View of this, is it any wonier that the artist in an
inepired state often attributes to his revelatory ideas an REJEET
2113 source? They possess a certain "given" quality similar to
tait union is encountered in sensuous presentations.

This apparent 'obgectiVity' of the ideational sequence in
the creative process may thus have releVnnce for epistemolotical
inquiry, in as much as it suhbests the possibility of unconscious
psychical action upon a cnain of impressions. The objection that
that which me Call a sensory datum presents itself with an immed-
iacy that permits no preliminary activity on the part of the mind
would perhaps seem to nullify this suggestion of relevance. hut
a little further consideration of the matter shows it to be not
so easily refutable. thetner or not it be refutable at all is

‘-

dependent uton the distinction between 'sensation' and 'perception'

139

and upon the scOpe we are willinb to ascribe to each. Re are
not here denying the temporal contiguity of the two in extro-
Spective experience; we are only asserting that such contiguity

does not destroy the essentially interpretative factor in eXper-

The claim that the immediacy characteristic of a series of
sensuous perceptions renders it something wholly 'other' than a
series of purely psychical images, cannot be substantiated, for
this impression of immediacy is derived not from sensation, but
from perception. In saying that something is immediate, we are

but interiretinh its relation tg_us.

 

flow sensa.ion, Lbiub merely passive receptivity of sensuous
properties, dOes not prov1de us with a nnowledte of the inter—
relationsnips existing amonb those properties, or of their re-
lation to us. Bhis is the function of the interpretative percept-
ual faculty, and the attainment of such fine ledge is through an
aciive process analobous to that involved in artistic creation.
Because 'inmediacy' is not grasped sensuously, but only percept-
ually, a purely 'intros:ective' eXperience may in this respect

equal or even exceed (as it often does) an 'extrOSpective' eXper—

that then of the temporal c0ntiguity of sensation and per-
ception in an eXperience of an 'e ternal' sequence of events as

contraste. M13“ the absence of 'sensation' in an internal sequence

140

of imaLes? Does this not preclude the possibility of any inter-
Vuhiné psychical activity in perception as is to be found in
'purely' nental creation? No; for in such phenomena as illusions
and hallucinations anich scrine one as 'external‘ there is evid-
ence of genuine psychical activity. Ihe former consists in mis-

irterpretin; a sensa.ion: me say that the perception is non-

 

veridical even though the sense data proceed frOm an 'objective'
source. Consider the eXperience of One who is half-asleep, and
uno believes he hears a flute playing in the listance; in a moment
he awauens to find nis alarm clocn sounding. Here the physical

occurrence that occasioned ;he aural illusion is real; real too

H-
(D

tne senSntion of sound waves striking the ear of the sleeper;
the misinterpretation of the iatum is attribu;ed to erroneous
perception. The mind's activity is demonstrated by its judgment,
in this Case a false one, of tne initial stimulus.

In the ease of an hallucination the mini is yet more active
in pe‘ception. In an illusion, the data of the eXperience are
misjugieg; in a C>enuine hallucination the data are created. There
is in an n llucinative image no external basis for either sen-
sation or perception, for nere is a pure mental construct. The
same holds true of after-images an: eidetic inaies: tne sensuous
qualities we perceive are unmistanably 'out there," and yet we
say the“ are not ‘real', for they do not issue from a present ex-

ternal source of sensation.

141

Cut some may object tnat this argument in support of the
mind's crea.ive role in perception is invalid, in as much as
the phenOmena alluded to are not 'external' in the real sense,
(with tne exception of the illusion, which has such a basis)
but are merely "externalized." They need not be directly occas-
ioned by any sensation, and Since they are therefore mental con-
structs ratner than veridical perceptions, there is no reason to
$331 the mind's creativity in their production. And they will

I“

0)

-state their assertion that the mind is purely passive in the
perception of those spatio—temporal eyents nnown by means of
scnsa lion.

Sow in View of tne theory of extended dormant inspiration,
as outlined in the preceding chapter, which theory attempts to
eXplain one particular type of psychical activity, namely artistic
creation, it is difficult to conceive of such passivity on the
part of the mind. here no; tne mind active in its acquisition of
perceptual impressions and in their ordering, sheer chaos would
result; that mind, nowever crea.ive, could construct a meaningful
worn of art amid such a debris of unsyntnesized fragments? In
order that the psychical impression be realized in.a concrete
medium, or even that it n.ve any existence at all, it is necessary
that it be composed out of elements in some way associated. 3nd
lnwdufi.means do we asscc1ate them? Only by abstracting them from

the moulds in which they were originally perceived and by conJOin—

142

ing them in a new associative sequence. But in the very recog-
nition of such an 'original mould' with the various interrela-
tionships anohg its parts providing material for association,
one returns to a Concept of mind as an active 'interpreter' and
”orderer' of that w icn is given by Sensation. If the mould is
to be c0nceived as a whole at all, the reciprocal relations of
its parts among themselves and to such a greater whole must be
perceived.

This brings us bacn to an issue we were discussing a little
earlier --- that of peripheral interrelationships. We saw how
these might be physical (as in the case of the painter's "fringe"
perceptions) or psychical (as in the associative Conjunction of
mnemonic elements). 30th types exist in the mind of the percip—
ient as influential fac;ors in all perception and imaginative
construction even if they should never reach the level of his
conscious awareness.

The physical "fringe" seldom concerns us except in moments
of aestnetic contemplatiOn when we seen an 'intuition of the
whole'. thile a true "viSion of the whole at once" is an impos-
sibility due to the interrelatedness of all things (any number
of perceptions being neceSSarily finite}, we can nevertheless
considerably broaden our SCOpe of awareness by attending to it
until it tends in the direction of this ideal.

It is net this, however, that is of primary Concern to us

143

here, hut rather tne penumbra of psychical elements. The former
are of imtortance chiefly to the artist and to the aesthetician;
the latter leave their marn upon the lives of ELL men.

is have asserted that due to the self-identity of the mind
through its diverse eXperiences, there is no reason why it should
not retain its wnol- past in memory. How then are we to account
for the pnenOmenon Known as 'forgetting?‘ Only by assuming that
the mind is selective in the process of recollection. The mind

1

cannot remember oecause it has chosen to forget. The whole past
is there ready to be brought forts, but tnere are some things it
would prefer to leave concealed in those murny depths. Psycho-

analytic psychOIOgy regards all such 'intentional' (although

note, unconscious) forgetting as being of a 'censorial' nature,

 

with its roots in inhibition; certain psychologists of other

scnools of thought (e.g. William James) believe all recollection

to be in part selective. The distinction, while not a weighty

one (since what one chooses to forget i§_"censored') is yet worth

mentioning because of the different degrees of importance placed

on inhibition in the psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic systems.
So it is seen that the mind is active in remembering; and

this is a more problenatic issue in the controversy of the passive—

active status of the hind, than we encounter in either its assoc-

iative or integrative role. It is true that many modern psycho-

logies, especially those that are an outgrowth of the mechanistic-

materielistic concept of the universe, will lo:n with diszrust

upon the notion of mind as an actiVe agent, and are even rather

144

sheptic l in regard to tne existence of such a thing as 'Nind',
at least with a capital 'M'. This circumstance once led some-
one to remarn that “First psycholoLy lost its soul, then it
lost its nind, then it lost consciousness; it still has behav—
ior, of a hind.“l

Regardless of tne tern employel (and I see no reason for
qualms of uneasiness over the usage of ‘mind' with or uithout
a capital 'M', although I would object to the concept of a
“thinning substance”) --- something appears to be active in the
three phases of artistic creation, i.e. memory, association,
and i .Ltegra ti on.

Is it active in perception? It would seem so; that is both
a presupposition and an implication of the thesis of "extended
dormant inspiration' which we are here seeking to defend. The
mind in perception is as a painter standing before his canVas;
the colors of tne palette indeed are given, but who can discern
acid those hues tne worn of art, eXpressive of beauty and truth,
tnat as ;et but hovers about tne artist's brush? The value of

an artistic creation lies in its power of transcending the phy-

 

sical medium upon which it is impressed.
Perhaps the Value of mind, indeed its entire role, lies in
its power of transcending this or that particular manifestation

of being which is giVen in sensation and which is to be under-

stood only in perception. Because of the incomplete nature of

145

all experience and its fleeting appearance in awareness, an
immediate apprehension of it is rendered possible only through
an interpretatiVe synthesis that encompasses the totality of a
psychical past. Thus, not artis;ic inspiration alone, but 31351
intuition, represents the culmination of a creative process.

3nd perhaps it is only through a series of intuitive syn-

theses that the mind may attain to an awareness of the varying

p.
(11

nurses of Reality; in a world where change is ultimate and
becoming alOne is continuous, there is need of a relativistic
On tol 093' .

but here we pass beyond epistemologiCal inquiry to the
realm of metaphysics; and it is here the: we should pause for a
moment and retrace our steps. We have noted how the artist per—
ceived a certain 'passivity' on his part in regard to the succes-
sion of artistic ideas, their unpremeditated schematic develop—
ment. The possibilities once presented, he is free to choose
among them; but their immediate presentation in his awareness
seems to be an instantaneous occurrence prior to, and independent
of, volition. The ideas emerge in a sequence devoid of any rat-
ional Control, often apparently without any connection according
to the laws of associatiOn. If such a chain be associative, the
“gaps" Can be explained Only as concealed linhs which remain below
the level of awareness, thile neVertheless affecting the causal

sequence deveIOping in consciousness. These ideas, for one reason

146

or another, are rejected before reaching the conscious level:

The acceptance of this premiSe (which is actually little'
more than the Freudian 'endOpsychic censor") necessitates one
of two possible conclusions: one must either admit the existence
of unconscious volition (since selection and rejection involve
the acsivity of tne will), or he must assert the presence of a
conscious faculty (hunt may be Called Ithe inner attenuation of
the Self') in tne loeer depths of awareness, as well as its
capacity for movement throughout the varying planes.

Now actually, I believe one Egy_accept £323 these hypotheses,
in as much as there is no inconsistency thereby entailed. In
selecting only the latter for discussion, therefore, I am guided
not by a metaphysical predilection in its favor, but by its more
fruitful inpliCations for the subject here under consideration.

That which he have been referring to as inspiration and
which he defined at the outset of our study as 'the psych010gical
phenOmenon underlying artistic creation" was seen to involve a
highly complex psychical process, the three main stages of which
were memory, association, and integration. By means of 'extended
dormant inspiration,“ the gradual evolving of an aesthetic idea
carried it through a progressiVe development to concrete embod-
inent in an artistic meiium. {It has a purposive scheme wherein
each phase'grew 'inevitahly' out of the one that preceded it.

This process, often unconsciously pursued in its preliminary phases

147

(hence, I'dorzrnant") consisted in tne abstraction of elements
out of a psychical history, a .totality of past experience."

how, nnile the theory of extended dormant inspiration
presupposes a 'depth' view of mind, it poses problems which
depth psychology as it is Lenerally conceived cannot answer
Without the aiiition of same new assumptions. It may be that
the psychological 'division' of the hind into the levels of
the conscious, foreconscious (preconscious), and subconscious
(unconscious) is based upon a purely arbitrary delimitation of
their boundaries; but line the older 'faculty' psychOIOgy, this
distinction into "levels of awareness‘ has a certain pragmatic
merit and prov1des us with a very convenient terminOIOgy which
for all practical purposes we ought not to dispense with.

That all psychical bein6 of which we have any Knowledge
~exists only Within a temporal fr ueworn is an assumption that
no one can seriously undertane to doubt, for the very act of
doubting tanes place in time. Furthermore, all eXperience,
booh extrospective and introspective, occurs within such a tem—
poral order; because all sensory impressions are given as a
.emi§§_of rapid stimuli, extension in time is requisite to all
sensuous perception.

To the extent that the mind, unlixe matter, is not subject
to the spatial dimension, it is free; to the extent that the

mind is sutject to the temporal dimension, its freedom is finite.

148

The Xind's extension in time is analogous to a horizontal
movement (e.;. a "stream of consciousness”); its intension as
being is comparable to a vertical equilibrium. The former is
dynamic; tne latter is dynam'c within a static frame.

One may view the 'stream of consciousness' as flowing
through a continuum of Present instants; or one may View it at
any Liven moment as being halfway between the immediate past and
the immediate future --- always at some vague, theoretical point
Called 'present'. while tne concepts of 'past' and 'future'
acouire fledflius only in relation to the present, they paradox-
ically remain irreconcilably apart from it.

And Just as time is in some sense relative to the 'horizon-
tal movement' of a consciousness throubh it, so too, consciousness
itself as a 'vertical equilibrium' may be relative. What the
iepth psycholobists designate by the terms 'foreconscious' and

ut lesser deorees of 'consciousness'. We

C"

'subconscious' had be
might even go beyond this anl assert that there is no basis for

the assumption that that which we call 'consciousness' is the
highest plane of anareness attainable Ly Lind. So too, there is
only circumstantial evidence based upon empirical observation of
behavior for the belief that the degree of 'consciousness' among
members of any given species is a constant, rather than a variable.
w

tor there may be not Only a relativity of consciousness within any

given mind, but also a relativity in retard to variations of Con—

149

scious acuity and intenSity among different Hinds.
She phenomenon of inspiration, along With certain other
States of heightened suggestitility, as for example those pro-
duced by hypnosis, would seem to iniicate that in moments of
intense concentration accompanied by high Sensitivity, the mind
is capable of exhibiting extraordinary mnemonic, associative,
and integrative po.ers that far surpass its meagre attainments
in states of 'normal' sensitivity. It would appear in such in-
stances that the aind-of-the-present, or what we have referred
to as "the inner attenuation of the self‘ is living momentarily
at a hither level of awareness; it is £2£g_'conscious', ani more
acltel; susceptible to respOnse to a particular line of psychical
stimuli; and yet paradoxically, it appears to be in touch with
elements frow its whole psychical past, which, as it were, erupt
from the depths of the so-called subconscious. How can this be?
In sleep, iissociative insanity, and periods of unconscious—
ness, tnere is a shifting of the inner attenuation to a lower
stratum of awareness; daring states of heightened sensitivity,
such as the manifeStations of insuiration we have been consider-
ing, this inner attenuation appears to move erratically from one
level to ano;her.
It may be that consciousness is circular: If one traces the
line of a clOSed curve far enoubh, he returns to the point from

whence he came . . . .

150

row, intuitive ins Lht such as the artist experiences in
moments of insyiration involves a widened perspective if the
. _.‘

diverse elenents encountered are to be interpreted as parts of
a greater totality. The present moment of awareness, or even
what is sometimes called the ”specious present", affords no
such comprehensive view. Imapes are presented to the various
senses in a hiehly irreLular, and often disconcerting fashion.
All experience is at best transient and fraémentary; we would
linger nhli these scenes and flee from those, but time pays no
heed to our requests. As tne poet wrote,

Iou linger your litt e hour and are gone,

And still the woods sweep leafily on,

Not even missing the coral root flower

You toox as a trOphy of the hour.
Thus, Ereat art may represent Fan's defiance, often an ironic
one, an» his protest, all too often an anguished one, against
that time that enshrouds his brief existence, or it may express
his faith in ideals thought to transcend time.

u I v
And so a study of the psycholobical process underlying

artistic creation has shown it to involve the complex evolution
of an aestnetic idea through the phases of recollection, assoc-
iation, and integration, to culminate in an aesthetic whole we
Call a worn of art. The quest for cencrete embodiment of a

series of meaningful impressions is to be attained only through

an immediate, intuitive grasp of that greater totality.

In this role, at once synthetic and creative,

essence of artistic inepiration.

lies the

151

BIdLICGinPHY 152

this bibliography is not meant to be a complete

list of worns dealing with the subject; it con-

sists, rather, of those horns I found especially
helpful.

Bosanquet, 3., A history of Aesthetic, George Allen and Unwin
Ltd. 0 LO‘A1050’ ICE; 0

 

Darritt, E. F., Lhilos0phies of Zeaufig. foord Univ. Press,
new Yorn, 1931.

 

Chanbers, F. P., The History of Paste, Solumbia Univ. Press,
(7'5"

:eW YOI‘K, wk“.

 

‘
L.

Shandler, A. 3., Beauty and Punan Iature, 3. Appleton-Century Co.,
flew lorK, 1934.

 

Croce, 3., aesthetic, (trans. by D. Ainslie), Eacmillan and Co.
Ltd., London, 1922.

Freud, 8., A General Introduction to PsychoanalySis, H. Liveright
30., hen Eorn, 1920.

 

 

?reud, 3., Leonardo da Vinci, Random House, new Torn, 1947.

Gilbert, n., and Kuhn, H., A History of Esthetics, Indiana Univ. /’
Press, Bloomington, 1953.

 

Goethe, J. A., Literary Essa”s, (trans. by J. E. Spingarn), Har-
court, Brace and 30., Kew York, 1921.

 

Griswold, 3., Greative rower, David McKay 30., Dhiladelphia,

’9.

 

(fl 0

L1

m
1‘

Gubgenneimer, 3., Creative Vision, Earper and Bros., New Yorn,
1950.

 

harding, R. E. K., nn Anatomy of Inspiration, 3. Heffer, Cam—
bridge, England, 1948.

 

Easel. G. 3. F.. lhilosuphy of Fine grt, (ed. by p. P. B. Osmas_
ton). G. tell and Sons Ltd., London,1920,

 

Virsch, N. D. X., Genius and Creative Intelligence, Sci-Art Pub-
lishers, Cambridge, 1931-

 

hant, I., Critioue of Aesthetic Judgement,(ed. by J. C. Heredith},
Exford at the Clarendon Press, 1911.

 

153

hris, 3., Isycno;nalytic Exploration§_in nrt, International
Universities frees, Inc., Xew york, 952.

 

hrusenan, 3., ;eetnoven's Cnn tcrds, TinriCnsen Edition Ltd.,
Londtni, 1947.

 

T

n n9e~fiichoaum, a., Tne rroblem of fienius, Lacmillan Co., New

Torn, 1932.

 

Lones, J. L., The dead to Xanadu, Xouahton Yifflin 00., Boston,

 

Parnhurst, H. 3., Seautyx An Interpretation of the Imagi§§31y§_
Life, *arcourt, Brace and 00., Kew Yorn, 1930.

rcpe, A., The foetica. torus of Alexander Pooe, Macmillan and
‘30. Lt‘i. , LOLliU‘l’ 1927.

 

Radar, fi., é_Lodern ?oon of gesthetics, Henry Holt and 00.,
new iorn, 1952.

Keynolis, Sir J., Life and Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
2 wyer, Ingersoll and 30., Mudson, Chio, 1853.

Schiller, J. C. F. von, "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education
of Ian,‘ The Harvard Classics, (ed. by C. W. Eliot),

Vol. 32, P. P. Collier and Sons 30., New Yorh.

schillinaer, J., The tathenatical Basis of the Arts, PhiloSOph-
ical Liorary, Kev iorn, 1945.

Shelley, P. 3., Litercry and Philoso;hical Criticism, E. Frowde
11.1511 309 ’ LOLL'iOli’ 19090

schOpennauer, 3., Essays, (trans. by T. a. Saunders), Willey
Been 30., New Kora, 1942.

Tsanoff, R. A., The ways of Genius, Furper Eros., New yorh, 1949.

 

‘v n-wc
‘31:...)

1. Plato, Ion (Jowett translation), maréinal p. 534.
20 Iblio , [Largiihlal p0 5330
3. Plato, Cluéosium (Jowett translation), marginal pp. 210-311.

4. SnelleJ, P. i., Liter:ry and ThiIOSOphical Criticism, P.
Frowde and Co., London, 1909, p. 153.

5. Nietzsche, F., Introduction to Also Sprach Zarathustra, Serge,
VII, xxv, Leipzig, ICUd.

6. Housman, 3. Bo, The Lam and E tare Cf POQCFX. Cambridge
Univ. Press, London and canbriiLe, 1953, p. 49.

)LI

7. #01fedfle galler's "giinunb‘, which Robert Franz set to music.

CIIAITER I I I
l. Aristotle, Poetics, (Oxford translation), marginal p. 1449b.

2. Gilbert, K., ani Kuhn, H., A History of Esthetics, Indiana
Univ. Press, Bloomintton, 1953, p. 221.

of Sir Joshua Rejnolds,

son, Ohio, 1853, p. 30.

7.

3. Reynolds, Sir J., Life and Discourses
Sawyer, IUCBTSOll, and 30., :ui
4. 1.1.3110. p. 70.

5. 90pe, 4., The Ioetical ZorKs of Alexander Poge, Nacmillan

 

0")
o
H
(-4
H.
5.).
o
O

’0
O
H
(V)
o

 

«w
0
i-‘l
(ad
H

In
0

.
Ci
O
(I!
C
O

11.

155

Reynolds, on. cit., p. 34.

1:11:10, p- 690

m

l“.
:90

13.

14.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Scnillinber, J., The haLAenatical Basis of the Arts, Philo-
soyhical Library, Iew 10rd, 1996, n. 10.

f’

 

Ibid., p. 3.

 

P4

_§ii., p. 10.

 

' J
[*1

«J
0-!
<7,

Baumearten, A. 0., nestnetica, Vol. I, vi, Franxfurt, 1750.

 

 

Vegel, G. R. F., Samtliche terse, Stuttgart, 1927, Vol. 19,
7:10 601.

A

Carritt, E. F., 'fhe Sources and Effects in England of Kant's
PhiIOsOphy of Eeauty", The Tonist, 1925, Vol. XXXV,
pp. 315, 323.

Gilbert and Kuhn, Op. cit., p. 323.

Rant, 1., Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, (ed. by J. C.
Keredith), Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1911, p. 168.

Ibii., p. 169.

 

Ibid., p. 171.

 

Ibido’ p. 171-172.

’4

Lid., p. 176.

 

Ibii., p. 181.

 

Hegel, G. a. F., EniloSOPhy of Fine Art, (ed. by F. P. B.
Csmaston), ”. :ell and Sons Ltd., London, 1920, pp.

379-360.

 

 

f‘ 9.7 I
a -141

l.

(0

LO
0

10.

11.

 

 

156

Ibid., p. 3&5.
Ibid., p“. sea—see.

PEER V

Goethe, J. A., Faust, “Prelude on the Stage,“ lines 220-221.

§egnolis,
p.

Sir J.,
84.

Discourses, Kacmillan and Co., London, 1924,

 

Griswold, F. F., Creative Power, David mcfiay Co., Philadelphia,
1939, p. 168.

Goethe, J. 5., Literary Essays, (trans. by J. E. Spingrrn),
Harcourt, Brace and Co., New YorK, 1921, p. 199.

 

ioetne, J. 1., 'Zahne Kenien," 7. Series, quoted in Gilbert
and Kuhn, op. cit., p. 345.

Goethe, J. 'Laximen und Reflexionen fiber Literatur und
Etnix," fierne, Grosgherzoiin Sovhie Ausaabe, XXXXII,

£50 ’

142.

Tilbert and Kuhn, on. cit., p. 346.

e, 1824.

7C.

Goethe, J. A., Gesprflche mit Ecnermznn, Feb.

 

Ibid., July 5, 182?.

gm
:3
Q.

Croce, 3., Goethe, Alfred A. KnOpf,
p. 56.

Co., New York, 1923,

n
u

oethe, J. A., ”Aus Yanarie s grchiv," GrossherzoEin Seph e
gusgabe, ””"TT 185.

'17
_ 1154535- ‘ ,

 

Gilbert and Kuhn, on. cit., p. 358.
Schiller, J. Co
of man,"

V01 0

F. von, "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education
The "arvard Classics, (ed. by C. W. Eliot),
32, P. P. Collier and Sons 00., New York, p. 246.

 

14. Gilbert and nuhn, on.

‘CLtO, p. 355,.

1:. :Cniillér’ on. Cit-JO, p. 245.

15. Schopenhauer, 3., The Korli as Kill and Idea, (trans. by

 

I :1) (I

a

. 1. Paldane and J. Kemp),

Charles Scribner's Sons,

7‘

17. 3ch00enhauer, A., Essays, (trans. by T. s. Saunders), Willey
300“ 00., New Yorn, 194:, p. 89.

 

 

 

SHAPIER VI

1. Croce,

 

4. Eroce, 3., 2est‘netic,

by

and EXpression,' A modern 200K of
Baler), Fenry Holt and Co.,

 

(n o

m?

Y‘
[JO 0

(trans. by D. Ainslie), Nacmillan and

CO. Ltio, 1,011.10“, 1922, p. 80

 

60 Ibido, p. 110

 

7o Ibiio, pp. 61-020

 

8. Croce, 3., “Intuition
Esthetics, (ed.

" ‘~' .. . [I
new 101“, 1932,

90 ILido, :10 106.

10. Zercson, 3., "The Individual anl

Lsthetics, (ed.

iorx, 19¢ , p.

 

 

he Type,“ A Yodern 300a of
, Penr) bolt and Co., New

 

;
ll
be ?' (Hf: -‘ \
J 1.. O _.C'. -lbr /

114.

11. 1:11., p. 118.

12. Sroce, aesthetic, p. 21.

C {IAPTER VI I

1. See Lange-Eichbaum, u., The Profilem of Genius, Hacmillan Co.,
flew Yorn, 1932, p. 82.

 

2. hoffna, h., Principles of Cestalt PsychOIOgy, Harcourt, Erace,
and Co., Sew YorK, 1935.

. Kris, 3., Psychoanalytic Explorztions in Art, International
Universities Press, Inc., flew Yorn, 1952, p. 314.

4. Hietzsche, Lprne, XIV, 134.

5. tee Virsch, K. D. K., Genius and Creati n elligence, Sci—
C

Art rublishers, Cambridbe, 1‘

6. Ibid., p. 266.

 

7. Adler, Individual Fsychology, p. 8.

 

8. See firson, Op. Cit.

9. Pephan, A. 3., The Draminbs of Leonardo da Vinci, Reynal and
Iitcacocx, fiew Iorn, 1945, p. 39.

10. Freud, 3., Leonardo da Vinci, Random douse, New Yorn, 1947,
p. 52.

 

1. Sand, 0., Autobiohranhy, quoted in Griswold, gp. cit., pp. 130-
'2

2. Griswold, Op. Cit., p. 125.

10.

11.

13.

15.

21.

LIL-Lille" PO TO, 11181: 1.5 “€55:

and Co., Jew iorx, 1941, p.
I‘LiJO, p. 75]..
Ibid., pp 773-774.

 

‘rn Cigiligatian, g. h.

 

H
(n
H“.

Norton
750.

.. \ ”_ \ ,‘i ,_, -._ "' . V' ‘.
aruSeaan, 1., (el.), EeetnOVeh's Own “oxds, hinriCnsen

3'11 ti on Ltd. ,

 

 

 

 

 

Ibil., p.

See Griswold,

nruseman,

 

37.
16.
54.

25.

C)
k. D

24.

0-"). Cit.’

p.

0“,. 311.0, 250

LCLLiOLl '

1947,

7A
.20.

p. 41.

Ia"lor J. F. 1. and others An Introduction to Literature
J t o o

saé__t_iss__F_i_ae..=lr.ts. "the High
'Cul V. Love, liChigan State

1
1950’ D. 79.

2'11 t\:Lli (18011 ’

of

‘
“USLC

" '\'1 T'T

_ .A-J“ .s .I. ’

L

‘a Vinci, lfoteboons,
‘A’. p. 276.

P. I., No.
and
Part

5, ,-
IHLJC ,

Lendon.

Reynolds,

Iavies,

Sir JO,

III in
Painting , "

July,

 

Renaissance in Italy," by
3011959 Press, East Lan51ng,

Empire State 300K 00., New Yorn,

“The Symposium on the Psycholoéy
Critish Journal of PSYCholo-v,

 

Literary_;ornn,

 

1797,

1942, Cambridbe Univ. tress,

V01. 1, T. Cadell and J.

pp. 116-117, (fror P. W. 2ecchey's Femoir).

160

g, 3., Something of Nyself, Yacmillan Co., London, 1937,
pp. 205—20;.

r.r v-- - -v1 _\ \ h ‘1
‘45. QllALL‘11Ji., 15.. i0, (b101, {.10-
ticnenion, 1945, p. x11.

ri’
d)
O
H:
‘T
’4
0
i:
R
2
’U
0
(U
E
m
13
E]
p.
.__D
H

24. Tsanof R. 3., The Rays of Gen us, Harper Bros., New Yorn,

f.
1949, pp. $2.53.

-,a

II

we. See leanoff, o“. cit., p. 80.

i

'IER 1X

7

1.
whit.
1. ECACeruu, Gee“riche lit Goethe, (ed. by Bartels), Vol. I, p. 49.
2. hrusenan, on. 013., p. -6.

3. James, u., Principles

1‘1‘30. 1950’ p. 2!

sycnology, Soon 1, Dover Publications

4. Tchainovsxy, N., The Life and Letters of Peter Il;itch Tchaix—
ovsny, Eodley Head Ltd., London, 1906, pp. 274-275.

5. Ibid., p. 251.

 

e. Ibil., 95. 311—312.

-

7. Uartholcnew, E. F., Relation of PSJCEOIOLJ to fiusic, New Era
Publishing 00., Room Island, 111., 1599, p. 228.

£30 Lbs-Ilia, 000 Cit... p. 7760
9. Ibid., p. 776.
10. See Griswold, Op. cit., p. 136.

ll. Ta,lor, J. F. 3., and others, on. cit., ”Hedieval Christianity,"

by J. F. A. Taylor, p. 37.

13. See Griswold, op. cit., p. 137.

 

13. Allen, F. 3., (ed.), The Letters of Robert Burns, 192?, Vol. I,
p. 248.

14. Kruseuan, on. cit., p. 15.

150 Tsahorf, 0". Cit... p. 8:...

fl.
V--A‘-

“V? r
J.

l.

r p

:4“

161

heats, ‘Cn First Looxina into Chapman's Homer.‘
LLQCS, “HJmn to Intellectual Beauty.‘
nests, “Oie to a Eightineale.‘

Snelleg, or. cit., n. 134.

 

:ChaiAOVSKy, op. cit., p. Lie-275.

H ._ ‘7
N .7 ~
Luis JL

See clove, pp. 20-;10

Lax Scnoen, in his analysis of the creative process (human
is;ure, Iarper ani Yros., New Torn, 1930, pp. 324-?s6), re—
serves the term 'inspiration' for the “flashline aspect“ of
artistic scti l ,. It is precedei by the periods of prepar-
a,ion and inc , uni succeeded Ly a period of verifica-
tion. Ye ref Beethoven's and Coleridge's note boons

as eviience Oi the t importance of the preparatory stage.

ed Beethoven's 'metnodicalness'; in the
teeming imaLination cf Coleriice one finds 'spontaneity n th

a methodical bacnground'. John Livingstone Lowes, in his clas-
sic study of Coleridge's creative process (The Road to Xanadu,
Houihton hifflin Co., Doston, 1927) shows how the rich store-
house of tne artist's memory provides more than ample material
for his art worns. In regari to Coleridge's Note 200K, Lanes
writes that it is "a repository of waifs and strays of verse,
sene destined to find a lodament later in the poems, others
lginL ab nionei unere tne, fell, line drifted leaves. It is

a mirror of tne fitful and naleidoscopic moods, and a record

of the terminal ideas of one of the most gifted and utterly
incalculahle spirits ever let loose upon the planet. And it

is line nCLLiuL else in the world so much as a jungle, illum-
inated eeril, with patches of pHO‘pnorescent light, and peepled
with uncann; life and stranbe exotic flowers. Rut it is teem-
ing and fecund soil, ani out of it later rose, like exhalations,
gleaming and aerial snapes.“ (p. 6). What Schoen calls the per-
iod of incubation, of unconscious elaboration, is likewise dom-
inant in COIBFidée'S artistic creation. The ”period of verif-
ication“, the final staLe, consists in a critical eXamination
of that which insoiration Has produced.

3 ("

 

F‘ ‘r 7
at)"; \‘uUV'L‘. D. o

J

.11?! }'I
.5—‘1‘5 t

l

Jooiworth, R. 3., Pslchs10g,, Henry Holt and Co., New Yorn,

r") 4.“
lJ-V ’ p. ‘40

W 35.5"” 5 8
“1 5 8

Cf»? '
3 g

N‘ ‘ ‘ ""- =:-.~.-
’fi- ‘52....“

MAH- 8 "195 0‘“

A‘JGII-sr 395033;.

 

-(—é]9v

 

 

 

 

HICHIGQN STQTE UNIV LIBRQRI IES

lllllllill lllllll llllllHll WIN HI

31293010597353