There is one more objection which may be urged against the aesthetic
character of the expression of practical purpose, namely, that the
appreciation of it is an affair of intellect, not of feeling. This
would indeed be fatal if it were necessarily true; but all men who
love their work know that they put into admiration for their tools as
much of warm emotion as of mind. There remains, however, the genuine
difficulty of communicating this emotional perception of useful objects,
of making it universal. It must be admitted that the attitude of the
average beholder towards a useful object is usually practical, not
contemplative, or else purely intellectual, an effort to understand
its structure, with the idea of eventual use. Most works of industrial
art produce no aesthetic experience whatever. But to be a genuine and
complete work of fine art, an object must be so made that it will
immediately impel the spectator to regard it aesthetically.
From what we have already established, we know how this requirement
can be met: by elaborating the outer aspects of the object in the
direction of pleasure and expression. By this means the beauty of mere
appearance will strike and occupy the mind, inducing the aesthetic
attitude towards the outside, from which it may then spread and embrace
the inner, purposive meaning. The obviously disinterested and warmly
emotional admiration of the shape will prevent the admiration for the
purposive adaptation from being cold and abstract.
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