Melodious Beauty in Art

by Daniel Gallagher, appearing in Volume 19

Although beauty has held the interest of philosophers ever since Plato acceded to it a place of privilege among the Forms, the field of “aesthetics”, at least in the sense used by professional philosophers today, is a rather late development. It was born in the eighteenth century as an attempt to explain why we are disposed to “look” at things simply for the pleasure to be had in looking at them. When I look at Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, I desire neither to analyze it scientifically nor manipulate it for some practical purpose. The end of my contemplation lies in the contemplation itself. For eighteenth-century aestheticians, this raised a further question as to why we attend to such objects. There seems to be some property or combination of properties that make these objects worth pondering. Broadly speaking, the property or set of properties that makes them worth pondering is what professional aestheticians call “beauty.”

Yet a further difficulty arises. The eighteenth century was a time when the “fine arts” were rapidly proliferating, and aestheticians were keen on arranging them in some kind of coherent way.¹ If the seemingly disparate fields of literature, music, painting, and sculpture can be grouped together under the common designation “fine arts,” is beauty a univocal, equivocal, or analogical concept? Is that which makes a symphony beautiful the same as that which makes a painting beautiful? Critics do not hesitate to borrow terms proper to one art form and apply them to another. John Hale, for example, praises the “melodious beauty” of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus.² Artists themselves routinely title their works with terms taken from other art forms: T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” Robert Schumann’s “Arabesque,” Mussorgsky’s “Pictures from an Exhibition,” and the list goes on. The fact that we continually describe our experience of one artistic medium in terms of another suggests that the notion of beauty is at least analogous.

In Painting and Reality, the neo-Thomist Etienne Gilson remarked that higher literary and art criticism has long held it artistically lawful to look for musical analogies in poetry, poetic analogies in painting, and pictorial analogies in both poetry and music. Gilson ardently hoped that philosophy would one day discover the reasons why, in their own order, such speculations are not only legitimate, but indeed “sources of the highest among the joys accessible to understanding.”³ In other words, the pleasure of experiencing musical qualities in painting, or of pictorial qualities in music, does not simply consist in seeing “melody” in pictures or hearing “colors” in music, but in recognizing that such properties belong to some other medium even though they capture something really “there” in the medium at hand. Philosophers wish to understand not only how such predication is possible, but why we feel compelled to describe painting in terms of music and music in terms of painting. This search for an explanation entails an investigation of the similarities and differences involved in the temporal and spatial dimensions of our experience of painting and music.

Le Mont Sainte-Victoire by Cezanne. Photo: wikimedia.org

Roughly speaking, we “see” a painting all at once. Only subsequently do we allow our eyes to browse at a more leisurely pace over the lines and colors to discern how they interrelate. Conversely, we cannot “hear” a symphony all at once. We attend to the individual notes, sections, and movements that develop sequentially; only then are we able to grasp the overall form and structure of the piece. We completely miss the point of viewing a painting (or at least a representational painting) if we take lines and colors as more fundamental than the picture itself. We similarly miss the point of listening to a symphony (at least a symphony in sonata form) if we take form and structure as more fundamental to our enjoyment than what is happening at the given moment. That is neither to say that lines and colors are unimportant for painting nor to imply that form and structure are unimportant for music. On the contrary, they are absolutely essential. Nevertheless, even in Cezanne’s pictures of Le Mont Sainte-Victoire, where the formal qualities of structure and mass take on heightened importance, what we primarily see is a mountain, not an assemblage of lines and colors representing structure and mass. Similarly, even in a meticulously structured symphony like Beethoven’s Fifth, what we primarily hear is G, G, G, E-flat, not statement-development-recapitulation. Space for analogous predication is opened the moment we recognize that, even though we see the painting “all at once,” we nonetheless experience it fully only within the dimension of time. Similarly, even though we hear the symphony one note at a time, we nonetheless experience it as an interconnected whole over a period of time. No one would—or should—spend less than five minutes looking at Le Mont Sainte-Victoire (“oh… it’s a mountain ok, next picture”) just as no one would—or should—listen to the opening section of Beethoven’s Fifth on fast forward (“let’s skip the statement and go straight to the development”). The dimension of time is essential for the experience of both painting and music, but in different ways and with different emphases.

The dimension of space is a bit more elusive. Space is truly present in painting in both a real and an illusory way. An artist may paint one figure farther away from another in real space, or he may make a figure appear further away by an illusionary effect such as perspective or trompe d’oeil. In both cases, space is really perceived by the viewer. Things are different with music. We regularly speak about music in spatial terms (largo, etc.), but there really is no space to speak of. An interval of a third only seems “smaller” or “closer” than an interval of a fifth. Similarly, mass and structure are truly depicted in painting, but only “sensed” in music, just as pitch and tone are heard in music, but only “sensed” in painting.

One theory of analogous predication in the arts was inspired by the work of psychologist Charles E. Osgood (1916-1991), whose studies of synesthesia—i.e., the vivid and automatic association of phenomena perceptible by one sense with those perceptible by another, such as musical pitch with color—helped to explain cross-modal similarities and the idea of aesthetic “fittingness.” Using Osgood’s psychology, Nicholas Wolterstorff proposed the following list of associated properties based on the sound of a ping-pong ball to help us better understand cross-modal similarities and the idea of “fittingness:”⁴

“PING — “PONG”
Light — Heavy
Small — Large
Ice cream — Warm pea soup
Pretty girl — Matron
Trumpet sound — Cello sound
Mozart — Beethoven

It was Etienne Gilson’s hope at philosophy would also help us to understand why Mozart’s music and Matisse’s paintings should be placed in the same column, and why Mozart’s music and Beethoven’s music should be placed in different columns. The musical terminology we use to describe painting is fundamentally related to the spatial dimensions that are really present in painting but only virtually present in music. Similarly, the pictorial terminology we use to describe music is related to the temporal dimension really present in music but virtually present in painting. In reality, whereas a painting is static and immobile, music is dynamic and “moving.” Oddly enough, it is precisely this basic and radical difference between painting and music that provides the backdrop against which we not only are able to predicate characteristics proper to one analogously to the other, but indeed find great reward and pleasure in doing so.

Philosophers generally pursue two avenues to deepen our understanding of this sameness in difference: the “analogical” and the “phenomenological.” The former leads to a better understanding of the logical and linguistic nature of analogical predication across different art forms, whereas the latter leads to a better understanding of the aesthetic perception that legitimates analogical predication. St. Thomas Aquinas has something to add to this discussion. He famously articulates three elements required for beauty: wholeness (integritas), proportion or consonance (proportio), and clarity or radiance (claritas). Admittedly, these elements have been scrutinized and debated ad nauseam, often with little regard for the explicitly christological context in which they were initially raised.⁵ Be that as it may, these three characteristics carry more potential than would first appear when it comes to analogical predication. If we presume that art, including architecture, aims at beauty, then each of these three characteristics must be present somehow in a beautiful object. In analogous predication, we would have to say that if some aesthetic quality A is related to artwork B such that A enhances the clarity of B, and if some aesthetic quality C is related to artwork D such that C enhances the clarity of D, then A is to B as C is to D, and, by analogy, A is to D as C is to B (with “clarity” being the middle term). For example, whereas the name “quartet” primarily refers to the integrity of a musical piece consisting of various movements, T. S. Eliot analogously applies the term to a work of poetry in order to express how its respective “movements” comprise a whole. Furthermore, the perception of the integrity of the poem is similar to the perception of the integrity of a musical quartet (e.g., the introduction of a theme, its development, and its recapitulation).

At the same time, it is of utmost importance for the philosopher to attend not only to resemblances among the arts, but differences. Each of the arts handles a different “matter” to which it imparts a different “form:” marble is to sculpture as sound is to music as the human body is to dance as stone is to architecture. Accordingly, our knowledge of sensible beauty strongly depends upon our knowledge of the object that we recognize as beautiful. It would be odd to present you with an object and expect you to tell me whether it is beautiful (as opposed to “striking” or “dazzling”) if you have no clue as what the object is. For something to be “fitting” it must accord with some given nature. Our sense of the beauty of the human figure depends on our recognition that this is indeed a human being. Features we regard as beautiful in a gazelle—sleek haunches, a finely curved back, and so on—would rightly be regarded as ugly in a human being. Yet the beauty of a gazelle in motion is certainly analogous to the beauty of a man running swiftly, allowing us to understand perfectly well what the sacred author meant when he wrote that Asahel was “as fleet of foot as a gazelle in the open field” (2 Sam 2:18). Similarly, the characteristics that make figurative sculpture beautiful are not necessarily those which make architecture beautiful, even though it makes perfect sense to use sculptural features in a building. In any case, our perception of the beauty of an artwork requires us to be aware of the distinctive character of each art form and to refrain from transposing the aesthetic goals of one upon another.

Rodin’s Saint John the Baptist and Walking Man. Photo: wikimedia.org

Auguste Rodin is perhaps an example of someone who fell into this temptation. He was mesmerized by the way Gothic cathedrals are patterned after the symmetry of the human body. He admired how closely their balance and perfect coordination were patterned after the laws of nature. But then he tried to revert the analogy without due regard for the distinctive organic nature of the living body. He sculpted on the principle that “the human body is a temple that marches,” thus tending to exaggerate the structural features of the living body by transposing architectural qualities onto organic elements. The transgression is extremely subtle and therefore takes nothing away from Rodin’s ingenious ability to make every minute part embody the spirit of the whole. Yet his work stands as an example of how easily we can push the limits of the sameness in difference that allows for analogical predication.

One of the reasons architecture has received such unique treatment in philosophical aesthetics is that the “fittingness” it strives for is quite different from the fittingness aimed for by the other arts. A building must fit not only its natural and manmade surroundings, but also the cultural and religious values which give it its origin and purpose. This is particularly true when we consider the public nature of buildings. We can choose to enter a museum to see what’s inside, but if we live in the city where the museum located, we have little choice but to see the museum every morning on the commute to work. Hence philosophy cannot limit its interest in architecture to a set of self-enclosed aesthetic criteria isolated from the broader social context in which buildings are made and from which they derive their meaning. This is why Roger Scruton refers to architecture as “the mirror in which a civilization views itself.”⁶

Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera. Photo: wikimedia.org

“Fittingness” is no less related to Vitruvius’s venustas than to Aquinas’s integritas. Yet whereas philosophers have employed Aquinas’s principle primarily as a way of relating the internal parts that give rise to the beauty of a whole, venustas expresses the integration of the whole with its environment that gives rise to the beauty of both. Take Botticelli’s Primavera, for example. There are those who argue that we can neither understand nor appreciate this painting apart from the space for which it was originally intended. If it was meant to be hung in the antechamber of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s bedroom along with two other pictures devoted to the theme of love, then its primary reference is to nuptial joy and fertility, no matter how many other overlapping levels of interpretation it may yield. Yet for the most part, the integritas of this painting prescinds from whatever its originally intended setting may have been. It is just as beautiful in the Uffizi as it was in the country home of Lorenzo the Magnificent—the only place we know with any certainty that it was kept. If I can concentrate on it intensely enough, it would be just as beautiful hanging on the wall of my garage. A good painting retains its integritas even if removed from the place it was originally intended to hang.

Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. Photo: wikimedia.org

To take another example, we will not correctly interpret Raphael’s Sistine Madonna until we realize that it was intended to hang above an altar at the Church of San Sisto in such a way as to face a crucifix at the far end of the chancel. This explains the anxious look on the faces of mother and child as they behold the instrument of Jesus’s future passion and death. If we ignore its intended position, we could easily put a silly Freudian spin on this picture and interpret it as expressive of the oedipal complex clouding the relationship between mother and son. Its original setting is essential to understanding what it is “about.” And yet the picture is stunningly beautiful no matter where it is viewed and no matter how much or little background information you have about it. From the point of view of its internal aesthetic form, little if anything has been detracted from the painting’s integritas since it has been on display in Dresden.

The Laocoön. Photo: wikimedia.org

Finally, consider an application of integritas to a piece of sculpture like the Laocoön. Even though the left arm is missing from the main figure, the piece still exhibits a completeness supported by its internal proportion and clarity. It was precisely this extraordinary proportion and clarity that allowed Michelangelo to deduce the correct size, shape, and position of the missing arm. In short, its absence takes little if anything away from the beauty of the sculpture as a whole. In his landmark Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism, Monroe Beardsley analyzes the categories of completeness and coherence in the visual arts and their analogous use in music and literature. He concedes that a sculpture with missing limbs can nevertheless be complete in design.⁷ Similarly, in his elaborate theory of art as illusion, Ernst Gombrich developed a principle he called “ETC” (i.e., “et cetera”) to explain how what is present in the Laocoön suggests or tends toward what is absent.⁸ A phenomenological basis for the relation between imaginative reconstruction and beauty was also famously proposed by Roman Ingarden in the 1960s.⁹

Things stand differently with architecture. Venustas cannot help but refer to a building’s extended environment and intended use. Unlike the Primavera or the Sistine Madonna, Saint Peter’s Basilica would lose its venustas if transported to downtown Manhattan. Moreover, to experience the fullness of the building’s venustas, one would have to attend a high papal liturgy, ideally accompanied by a Palestrina mass. Although the plans for the basilica passed through many hands and were constantly being modified, every change was made according to the criteria of the building’s location (over the tomb of Saint Peter), its wider environment (Bernini’s eventual colonnade and environs), and its primary purpose (the sacred liturgy). Decisions on how to achieve the intended ends were far from easy. Bramante’s original idea of a Greek cross with equal transept and nave—something that would have enhanced the building’s integritas—had to be sacrificed for a longer nave to facilitate liturgical processions and increase the building’s capacity—something that enhanced its venustas.

The Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican floorplan as designed by Bramante. Photo: wikimedia.org

One of the difficulties philosophers have had in understanding venustas is generally related to their poor grasp of the classical notion of mimesis or “imitation.” Simply put, imitation does not mean copying. Mimesis was first applied to the choral arts, but it was eventually borrowed by artists, philosophers, and architects, including Vitruvius. It goes beyond a mere patterning after natural phenomena and more generally designates an essential reference to the real world—both it its n­­atural and human dimensions. Plato writes in the Laws that poetry, music, and dance imitate customs, human character, and deeds. The imitation effected by music, in turn, consists primarily in rhythm, tone, and harmony. How human customs, character, and action relate to musical rhythm, tone, and harmony is extremely difficult to articulate, but Plato and the ancient philosophers were thoroughly convinced that they were intrinsically connected. Perhaps the most important aspect of the relation is that the nature which art (including architecture) strives to imitate is not static but dynamic. Nature at times fails to reach its inherent end or telos, so that it is the task of art to make up for such defects precisely by imitating the way nature operates (ars imitator naturam in sua operatione).

The Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican. Photo: wikimedia.org

How such dynamism is “imitated” through architecture is perhaps more difficult to articulate than how it is imitated through painting and music. Yet philosophers who see any merit to the ideas of analogy and mimesis are convinced that such dynamism is there. If so, avenues open to further exploration of how analogous predication is possible not only in painting and music, but architecture as well. Such an exploration would lead to a better understanding of what analogous predication reveals about beauty, and therefore advance our understanding of how different art forms relate to the sacred liturgy and how they interrelate to one another in the sacred liturgy. Insofar as every art is imitative, each is related to human action, through which human emotions are tempered, human virtue is formed, and human character is disclosed. The goal and cultural achievement of painting, music, and architecture is not only to express human action, emotion, and virtue, but—presuming there is any truth to analogous predication and mimesis—to infuse us with the action, emotion, and virtue most conducive to our supernatural end.