Part 39

“Gradation is so inseparable a quality of all natural shade and colour that the eye refuses in art to understand anything as either which appears without it; while, on the other hand, nearly all the gradations of nature are so subtile, and between degrees of tint so slightly separated, that no human hand can in any wise equal, or do anything more than suggest the idea of them.”

The following remarks which the same writer makes in another place concerning Gradation show at the same time how asinine it is for a savage or any other person of uncultivated taste to set himself up as a judge of Personal Beauty, as good as any one else, on the plea that it is all “a matter of taste” and _de gustibus non est disputandum_:—

“When the eye is quite uncultivated, it sees that a man is a man, and a face is a face, but has no idea what shadows or lights fall upon the form or features. Cultivate it to some degree of artistic power, and it will then see shadows distinctly, but only the more vigorous of them. Cultivate it still further, and it will see light within light, and shadow within shadow, and will continually refuse to rest in what it has already discovered, that it may pursue what is more removed and more subtle, until at last it comes to give its chief attention and display its chief power on _gradations which to an untrained faculty are partly matters of indifference and partly imperceptible_.”

The words italicised enable us to appreciate what Sokrates must have had in his mind when he distinguished between that which _is_ beautiful and that which only _appears_ beautiful. Æsthetic training enables us to see things as they are, instead of as they appear through inattention, through ignorance, or through clouds of national prejudice, or individual utilitarianism.

The way in which æsthetic training enables us to see gradations of beauty previously imperceptible can be most strikingly illustrated in the case of music. There are thousands of intelligent folks who cannot tell the difference between a superb Steinway Grand, just timed for a concert, and a harsh, clangy, mountain-hotel piano that has not been tuned for two years. But give these persons a thorough musical education, and they will soon be able to smile at Jeffrey’s notion that the tone of the hotel-piano was quite as beautiful as that of the Steinway, because it _seemed_ so to them. It is not only the imagination but the senses themselves that require training. A Hottentot or any unmusical person cannot tell the difference between two consecutive tones on the piano, whereas a skilled musician can detect all the gradations from one tone to another, down to the sixty-fourth part of a semitone!

“It is all a matter of taste!” Precisely. Of good taste and bad taste.

Examples of gradation in the human form are the gradual tapering of the limbs and the fingers, the exquisite line from the female neck to the shoulders and the bosom, the blushes on the cheeks, so long as they do not assume the form of a hectic flush, and the delicate tints of the complexion in general, varying with emotional states, according as the veins and arteries are more or less filled with the vital fluid.

Is it then “entirely owing to their associations” with health or disease that we prefer the complexion of a youthful face to the hideous daubs of red which Knight refers to as the “richly fretted and variegated countenance of a pimpled drunkard”? Is it owing to such associations that we prefer the delicately gradated blushes of coloured marble to the richly bedaubed countenance of a pimpled brickbat? But it would be a waste of time to refer again to the crude anti-æsthetic notions of Messrs. Knight, Alison, and Jeffrey.

One more exquisite illustration of subtle gradation in the human form divine may be cited from Winckelmann:—

“The soul, though a simple existence, brings forth at once, and in an instant, many different ideas; so it is with the beautiful youthful outline, which appears simple, and yet at the same time has infinitely different variations, and that soft tapering which is difficult of attainment in a column, is still more so in the diverse forms of the youthful body. Among the innumerable kinds of columns in Rome some appear pre-eminently elegant on account of this very tapering; of these I have particularly noted two of granite, which I am always studying anew: just so rare is a perfect form, even in the most beautiful youth, which has a stationary point in our sex still less than in the female.”

(_c_) _Curvature._—"That all forms of acknowledged beauty are composed exclusively of curves will," Mr. Ruskin believes, “be at once allowed; but that which there will be need more especially to prove, is the subtility and constancy of curvature in all natural forms whatsoever. I believe that, except in crystals, in certain mountain forms admitted for the sake of sublimity or contrast (as in the slope of debris), in rays of light, in the levels of calm water and alluvial land, and in some few organic developments, there are no lines or surfaces of nature without curvature, though, as we before saw in clouds, more especially in their under lines towards the horizon, and in vast and extended plains, right lines are often suggested which are not actual. Without these we should not be sensible of the value of contrasting curves; and while, therefore, for the most part, the eye is fed in natural forms with a grace of curvature which no hand nor instrument can follow, other means are provided to give beauty to those surfaces which are admitted for contrast, _as in water by its reflection of the gradations which it possesses not itself_.”

In a footnote to the last edition of the _Modern Painters_ he adds regarding the apparent exceptions named: “Crystals are indeed subject to rectilinear limitations, but their real surfaces are continually curved; the level of calm water is only right lined when it is shoreless.”

On the other hand, “Generally in all ruin and disease, and interference of one order of being with another (as in the cattle line of park trees), the curves vanish, and violently opposed or broken and unmeaning lines take their place.” I feel tempted to cite another most admirable passage on curvature throughout Nature—even where it is least looked for, and the untrained eye cannot see it—in the shattered walls and crests of mountains which “seem to rise in a gloomy contrast with the soft waves of bank and wood beneath.” But it is too long to quote, and I can only advise the reader most earnestly to look it up in chapter xiv. vol. iv.

“Straight lines,” Professor Bain observes, “are rendered artistic only by associations of power, regularity, fitness, etc.” “In some situations straight lines are æsthetic.... In the human figure there underlies the curved outline a certain element of rigidity and straightness, indicating strength in the supporting limbs and spine. Whenever firmness is required, there must be a solid structure, and straightness of form is a frequent accompaniment of solidity. The straight nose and the flat brow are subsidiary to the movement and the stability of the face.”

Yet even our straight limbs follow in their motions the law of curvature. And to this fact that they move more easily and naturally in a curved than in a straight line, which requires laborious adjustment, Bain traces part of our superior pleasure in rounded lines.

What infinite subtlety and variety Curvature is capable of is vividly brought before the eyes by Winckelmann: “The forms of a beautiful body are determined by lines the centre of which is constantly changing, and which, if continued, would never describe circles. They are, consequently, more simple, but also more complex, than a circle, which, however large or small it may be, always has the same centre, and either includes others or is included in others. This diversity was sought after by the Greeks in works of all kinds; and their discernment of its beauty led them to introduce the same system even into the form of their utensils and vases, whose easy and elegant outline is drawn after the same rule, that is, by a line which must be found by means of several circles, for all these works have an elliptical figure, and herein consists their beauty. The greater unity there is in the junction of the forms, and in the flowing of one out of another, so much the greater is the beauty of the whole.”

_Masculine and Feminine Beauty._—The universality of curvature as a form of beautiful objects throughout nature and art is of importance in helping us to determine the question which is the more beautiful form, a perfect man or a perfect woman—an Apollo or a Venus? A Venus, no doubt. In those qualities which are subsumed under the terms of the sublime or the characteristic—in strength, manly dignity, intellectual power, majesty—the masculine type, no doubt, is superior to the feminine. But in Beauty proper—in the roundness and delicacy of contours, in the smoothness of complexion and its subtle gradations of colour, in the symmetrical roundness and lustrous expressiveness of the eyes—the feminine type is pre-eminent.

“Woman,” says Professor Kollmann, “is smaller, more delicate, but also softer and more graceful (_schwungvoller_) in form, in her breasts, hips, thighs, and calves. No line on her body is short and sharply angular; they all swell, or vault themselves in a gentle curve.... The neck and the rounded shoulders are connected by gracefully curved lines, whereas a man’s neck is placed more at a right angle to the more straight and angular shoulders.... The hair is softer, the skin more tender and transparent. All the forms are more covered over with adipose tissue, and connected by those gradual transitions which produce the gently rounded outlines; whereas in a man everything—muscles, sinews, blood-vessels, bones—is more conspicuous.”

Schopenhauer, accordingly, was clearly in the wrong when he endeavoured to make out that man is vastly superior to woman in physical beauty,—a notion which Professor Huxley, too, does not appear to disapprove of very violently. At the same time it is, no doubt, true that there are more good specimens of masculine beauty in most countries than of feminine beauty; true also that man’s beauty lasts much longer than woman’s. A boy is more beautiful than a girl under sixteen, for the very reason that his form is more like that of an adult woman than a girl’s is. From eighteen to twenty-five woman is more beautiful than man; while after thirty, owing to the almost universal neglect of the laws of health—women are apt to become either too rotund, which ruins their grace and delicacy, or too angular—more angular than a man under fifty.

(_d_) _Delicacy and Grace._—The difference between masculine and feminine beauty and the superiority of the latter is also indirectly brought out in Burke’s remarks on Delicacy, which, though open to criticism in one or two points, are on the whole admirable and exhaustive:—

"An air of robustness and strength is very prejudicial to beauty. An appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to it. Whoever examines the vegetable or animal creation will find this observation to be founded in nature. It is not the oak, the ash, or the elm, or any of the robust trees of the forest which we consider as beautiful; they are awful and majestic, they inspire a sort of reverence. It is the delicate myrtle, it is the orange, it is the almond, it is the jasmine, it is the vine, which we look on as vegetable beauties. It is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance. Among animals the greyhound is more beautiful than the mastiff, and the delicacy of a jennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse is much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or carriage.

“I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the point will be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is considerably owing to their weakness or delicacy, and is even enhanced by their timidity, a quality of mind analogous to it. I would not here be understood to say that weakness betraying very bad health has any share in beauty; but the ill effect of this is not because it is weakness, but because the ill state of health, which produces such weakness, alters the other conditions of beauty; the parts in such a case collapse, the bright colour, the _lumen purpureum juventæ_ is gone, and the fine variation is lost in wrinkles, sudden breaks, and right lines.”

Delicacy is a quality closely related to grace, or beauty in motion and attitude. “Grace,” says Dr. J. A. Symonds, “is a striking illustration of the union of the two principles of similarity and variety. For the secret of graceful action is that the symmetry is preserved through all the varieties of position.” This is well put; but the _first_ condition and essence of grace is that there must be an exact correspondence between the work done and the limb which does it. The attitude of an oak-trunk, with nothing on the top but a geranium bush, however symmetrical, would always be ungraceful, owing to the ludicrous disproportion between the support and the thing supported. Conversely, a weak fern-stalk, trying to support a branch of heavy cactus leaves, would be equally ungraceful; for there must be neither a waste of energy nor a sense of effort. Part of this feeling may perhaps be traced to sympathy—thus showing how various emotions enter into our æsthetic judgments, sometimes weakening, sometimes strengthening them. As Professor Bain remarks, _à propos_: “We love to have removed from our sight every aspect of suffering, and none more so than the suffering of toil.”

Grace is almost as powerful to inspire Love as Beauty itself. Women know this instinctively, and in order to acquire the Delicacy which leads to grace, they deprive their bodies of air and sunshine and strengthening sleep, hoping thereby to acquire artificially, through ill-health, what Nature has denied them. Fortunately such violations of the laws of health always frustrate their object. Delicacy conjoined with Health inspires Love, but delicacy born of disease inspires only pity—a feeling which may inspire in a woman what she imagines is Love, but in a man _never_.

(_e_) _Smoothness_ is another attribute of Beauty on which Burke was the first to place proper emphasis: It is, he says, “a quality so essential to beauty that I do not recollect anything beautiful that is not smooth. In trees and flowers, smooth leaves are beautiful; smooth slopes of earth in gardens; smooth streams in the landscape; smooth coats of birds and beasts in animal beauties; in fine women, smooth skins; and in several sorts of ornamental furniture, smooth and polished surfaces.... Any ruggedness, any sudden projection, any sharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to the idea of beauty.”

Though there are exceptions to this rule of smoothness—including such a marvel of beauty as the moss-rose, as well as various leaves covered with down, etc.—yet, on the whole, Burke is right. Certainly the smooth white hand of a delicate lady is more beautiful than the rough, horny “paws” of a bricklayer; and the inferior beauty of a man’s arm is owing as much to its rough scattered hairs as to the prominence of the muscles, in contrast to the smooth and rounded arm of woman. In animals, however, hairs on the limbs are not unbeautiful, because they are dense enough to overlap, and thus form a hairy surface admirable alike for its soft smoothness, its gloss, and its colour.

(_f_) _Lustre and Colour._—Lustrous, sparkling eyes, glossy hair, pearly teeth,—where would human beauty be without them without the delicate tints and blushes of the skin, the brown or blue iris, the golden or chestnut locks, the ebony eyebrows and lashes?

Yet the greatest art-critics incline to the opinion that, on the whole, colour is a less essential ingredient of beauty than form. “Colour assists beauty,” says Winckelmann, but “the essence of beauty consists not in colour but in shape.” “A negro might be called handsome when the conformation of his face is handsome.” “The colour of bronze and of the black and greenish basalt does not detract from the beauty of the antique heads,” hence “we possess a knowledge of the beautiful, although in an unreal dress and of a disagreeable colour.”

Similarly Mr. Ruskin, who remarks of colour that it “is richly bestowed on the highest works of creation, and the eminent _sign and seal of perfection in them_; being associated with _life_ in the human form, with _light_ in the sky, with purity and hardness in the earth,—death, night, and pollution of all kinds being colourless. And although if form and colour be brought into complete opposition, so that it should be put to us as a stern choice whether we should have a work of art all of form, without colour (as an Albert Dürer’s engraving), or all of colour, without form (as an imitation of mother-of-pearl), form is beyond all comparison the more precious of the two ... yet if colour be introduced at all, it is necessary that, whatever else may be wrong, _that_ should be right,” etc.

Again: “An oak is an oak, whether green with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be yellow or crimson; and if some monster-hunting botanist should ever frighten the flower blue, still it will be a dahlia; but let one curve of the petals—one groove of the stamens—be wanting, and the flower ceases to be the same. Let the roughness of the bark and the angles of the boughs be smoothed or diminished, and the oak ceases to be an oak; but let it retain its inward structure and outward form, and though its leaves grew white, or pink, or blue, or tricolour, it would be a white oak, or a pink oak, or a republican oak, but an oak still.”

“If we look at Nature carefully, we shall find that her colours are in a state of perpetual confusion and indistinctness, while her forms, as told by light and shade, are invariably clear, distinct, and speaking. The stones and gravel of the bank catch green reflections from the boughs above; the bushes receive grays and yellows from the ground; every hairbreadth of polished surface gives a little bit of the blue of the sky, or the gold of the sun, like a star upon the local colour; this local colour, changeful and uncertain in itself, is again disguised and modified by the hue of the light or quenched in the gray of the shadow; and the confusion and blending of tint is altogether so great that were we left to find out what objects were by their colours only, we would scarcely in place distinguish the boughs of a tree from the air beyond them or the ground beneath them. I know that people unpractised in art will not believe this at first; but if they have accurate powers of observation, they may soon ascertain it for themselves; they will find that, while they can scarcely ever determine the _exact_ hue of anything, except when it occurs in large masses, as in a green field or the blue sky, the form, as told by light and shade, is always decided and evident, and the source of the chief character of every object.”

Professor Bain remarks on this topic that “Among the several kinds of beauty, the eye takes most delight in colour.... For this reason we find the poets borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic.”

This view seems to be confirmed by the fact that lovers in expatiating on the beauty of their Dulcineas seem to have much more to say about their brown or golden locks, their light or dark complexion, their blue or black eyes, than about the shape of their features. This, however, partly finds its explanation in the fact that colour, being a sensuous quality, is more easily and more directly appreciated than form, the perception of which is a much more complicated matter, being a translation into intellectual terms of remembered impressions of touch, associated with certain colours, lights, and shades which recall them; and partly in the greater ease with which peculiarities of colour are referred to than peculiarities of form. In the days of ancient Greece the nomenclature of colours was equally undeveloped, and is so vague in Homer that Gladstone and Geiger actually set up the theory that Homer’s colour-sense was imperfect, and that that sense has been gradually developed within historic times,—a theory which I have confuted on anatomical grounds in _Macmillan’s Magazine_, Dec. 1879.

That as regards human beauty colour is of less importance than form is shown, moreover, in this, that a girl with regular features and a freckled complexion will much sooner find a lover than one with the most delicately-coloured complexion, conjoined with a big mouth, irregular nose, or sunken cheeks. And a beautifully-shaped eye is sure to be admired by all, no matter whether blue, gray, or brown; whereas an eye that is too small or otherwise defective in form can never be redeemed by the most beautiful colour or brilliancy.

On the other hand, there are several things to be said in favour of colour that will mitigate our judgment on this point. In the first place, colour is more perfect in its way than form, so that it is impossible ever to improve on it by idealising, as it is often with form. As Mr. Ruskin remarks, “Form may be attained in perfection by painters, who, in their course of study, are continually altering or idealising it; but only the sternest fidelity will reach colouring. Idealise or alter in that, and you are lost. Whether you alter by debasing or exaggerating, by glare or by decline, one fate is for you—ruin.... Colour is sacred in that you must keep to facts. Hence the apparent anomaly that the only schools of colour are the schools of realism.”

Again, looking at Nature with an artist’s eye, Ruskin discovered and frequently alludes to the “apparent connection of brilliancy of colour with vigour of life,” and Mr. Wallace, looking at Nature with a naturalist’s eye, established this “apparent connection” as a scientific fact. The passage in which he sums up his views has been once already quoted; but it is of such extreme importance in enforcing the lesson that beauty is impossible without health, that it may be quoted again:—

“The colours of an animal usually fade during disease or weakness, while robust health and vigour adds to its intensity.... In all quadrupeds a ‘dull coat’ is indicative of ill-health or low condition; while a glossy coat and sparkling eye are the invariable accompaniments of health and energy. The same rule applies to the feathers of birds, whose colours are only seen in their purity during perfect health; and a similar phenomenon occurs even among insects, for the bright hues of caterpillars begin to fade as soon as they become inactive, preparatory to their undergoing transformation. Even in the Vegetable Kingdom we see the same thing; for the tints of foliage are deepest, and the colours of flowers and fruits richest, on those plants which are in the most healthy and vigorous condition.”

(_g_) _Expression, Variety, Individuality._—Besides the circumstances that colour is more uniformly perfect in Nature than form, and that it is always associated with Health, without which Beauty is impossible, another peculiarity may be mentioned in its favour. The complexion is a kaleidoscope whose delicate blushes and constant changes of tint, from the ashen pallor of despair to the rosy flush of delight, are the fascinating signs of emotional expression. And herein lies the superior beauty of the human complexion over all other tinted objects: it reflects not only the hues of surrounding external bodies, but all the moods of the soul within.