No matter how exact and complete, the botanist's
or zoologist's descriptions of plant and animal life are not works of
art. They may be satisfactory as knowledge, but they are not beautiful.
There is an important difference between a poet's description of a
flower and a botanist's, or between an artistic sketch and a photograph,
conferring beauty upon the former, and withholding it from the latter.
The central difference is this. The former are descriptions not of
things only, but of the artist's reactions to things, his mood or
emotion in their presence. They are expressions of total, concrete
experiences, which include the self of the observer as well as the
things he observes. Scientific descriptions, on the other hand, render
objects only; the feelings of the observer toward them are carefully
excluded. Science is intentionally objective,--from the point of view
of the artistic temperament, dry and cold. Even the realistic novel
and play, while seeking to present a faithful picture of human life
and to eliminate all private comment and emotion, cannot dispense with
the elementary dramatic feelings of sympathy, suspense, and wonder.
sthetic expression is always integral, embodying a total state of
mind, the core of which is some feeling; scientific expression is
fragmentary or abstract, limiting itself to thought. Art, no less than
science, may contain truthful images of things and abstract ideas, but
never these alone; it always includes their life, their feeling tones,
or values.
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