[Footnote: Compare Santayana: The Sense of Beauty, p. 11.]
More important to the average man is the help which aesthetic theory
may render to appreciation itself. If to the basal interest in beauty
be added an interest in understanding beauty, the former is quickened
and fortified and the total measure of enjoyment increased. Even the
love of beauty, strong as it commonly is, may well find support through
connection with an equally powerful and enduring affection. The
aesthetic interest is no exception to the general truth that each part
of the mind gains in stability and intensity if connected with the
others; isolated, it runs the risk of gradual decay in satiety or
through the crowding out of other competing interests, which if joined
with it, would have kept it alive instead. Moreover, the understanding
of art may increase the appreciation of particular works of art. For
the analysis and constant attention to the subtler details demanded
by theory may bring to notice aspects of a work of art which do not
exist for an unthinking appreciation. As a rule, the appreciations of
the average man are very inadequate to the total possibilities offered,
extending only to the more obvious features. Often enough besides,
through a mere lack of understanding of the purpose of art in general
and of the more special aims of the particular arts, people expect to
find what cannot be given, and hence are prejudiced against what they
might otherwise enjoy. The following pages will afford, I hope, abundant
illustrations of this truth.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28