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.CHAP;TER

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,Abstraction and Empathy

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work is intended as a contribution to the . aesthetics of the work of art, and especially of _ the wqrk of art belonging to the domain of the plastic arts. This clearly delimits its field from the aesthetics Qf natural beauty. A clear delimitation of this kind seems pf the utmost importance, although ., most of the works on aesthetics and art history dealing' "; with problems such as the o.ne before us disregard this' delimitation, ,ap.d unhesitatingly, carry the aesthetics. of n<\.tural beauty'.'qver into the aesthetics of artistic beauty. ", ","" Our investigations proceed from the presupposition' that the, work of art, as an autonomous qrganism, stands beside nature oq equal terms an(f, in its deep@, and innermo~tiessence, devoid of a'ny connection with, it, in so far' as by, pature' is understood the visible surface ofthings. Nat\,Lpalbeauty is on no account to be regarded as a,condition of the work of art, despite the fact that in the course of evolution it seems to have' become av&luable element in the work of art, and to some extent:irtdeed positively identical \vith it. This presupposition includes within it the inference that the specific laws of ~rt llave, in pI'inciple, nothing to do with the aesthetics of natural beauty. It is there-,
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xitml lc, i\na ysil-lg th,e ,con ler wl icll ~ \ lall(lscapc appears be ~lltiful, but Iysis of t le conditions under which the repre sentation of tl1is landscape becomes a work of art . 1 Modern aesthetjcs, which has taken t ~ le decisive step from aesthetic obectivism to aest . bectivism , , i.e. whic no longer takes t e aesthetic as the starting point of its investigations, but' prQceeds from ~he be , haviour ofthe contemplating subject; culminates, in a doctrlne that may be' charactetised by the broad general name of the theory of empathy. This theory has been clearly and comprehensively form41ated in , the writings ofTheodor Lipps. For this reason his aes ,thetic system will serve,as pars pro tolo, as the foil to the following treatise . 2 , ,: FO the basic purpose of my essay is' to show, that this modern aesthetics, which proceeds,from the con cept of empathy, 'is inapplicablt; to. wide tracts of art ' history. Its, Archimedian ,point is situated at one pole .'of human artistlc .feeling ,'alone'."'It 'willonly assume ,the shape of a comprehensive aesthet ~ c.'system 'when it ~ as iIni ~ ed 'with the lines th ~tlead: from the,opposite .po 1e ' . ' . ," ," " .' . '. " re'garq a,s this cou ~ ter ~p61~ 'an,aesthetics ~ hi'~h ,proceed ~ not from man's urge ',to ,e ~ athy, bllt from his' urge to abstraction. ]ust as' ihe urge to en pa , as ,a pre-,assumption of aesthetic experience. finds its ' 1, gratification inthe ~.) ty of theorga c,s'o the urge ~oabst ~act.iop 'finds its .jea\lt ~'. in' the ~ ',' lnorga ~ , l 'the. cry ~t ~lllne Oli" ln gen ~ra ~ terms, ln . allab ~tract' law and riecessity . , We, shall 'endeavour to, 'cas't' 'ligl t' upon t } e. al1ti,thetic, I'el~~ion ;of ,e ~ pathy ~nd, abstraction, byfirst ' characterisingthe'Goncept,of empa,tJ1Y iJ\ a few'broad ','strokes . 3 ,'; ',','., ,'"",' , . , '

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' TI e simplest [ormula that expresses this kind of aesthetic experience l'uns: Aesthetic enjoyment is ob jectified ~elf-ehjoyment. To enjoy aesthetically means to eljoy myself in a SCI SUOllS object diverse from my self, to elllpatllisemysclf into it. 'WI at 1 empathise intQ. it 1S ql ite gencralli lifc. And life is energy, inner working, Stl-lVi ~ accomplishing. In a word, life is activity,' But activity is that in which 1 experience an expcnditure of energy. By its nature, this activity is an activity of the will. 1t is endeavour or volition in motion .' Wllereasthe earlier aestl etics operated with pleasure and unpleasure, Lipps gives to both these sensations the' value of tones of sensation ol ly, in the sense that the ligl ter or darker tone qf a colour is not the colour itself, but precisely a tone of tl e. colour. The crucial factor is, therefore, rather the sensation itself, i.e. the inner rnotion, the inner life, tlle illner self-activation . . The presupposition of the act of empathy isthe gencral,apperpeptive activity: 'Every SenSl OUSobject ~ in sofarc'as it exists fpr me, is always the product of two. cotnpQnents, of that Wllich is senstlously given and of ~ y apr.er ~eptive activity . Each 'simple line demands appercep'cive activity fr?m me', in o.rder tha't 1 shal1 apprehend it as what it i5. 1 have' to expand my inner' vision t.ill it embrace ~ thewho !, line; 1 lyrve inwal-dly to delimit wl at 1 have thus appr:ehended andextract it, as an entity, from its surroundihgs. Thtl ~ every line already demands of me that inrier 'motion ,\Vl1ich includes the two impulses : e pansion ,.and delimi tation. 1 n addi tion, however , every lide, ,by virtue of its directiqn and shape, makes al1 sorts Qf special demands on me . ,' The,q ~ estion Ow arises: how do 1 behave toward these dem,apds. TheIe are two possibilities, namely that

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:r say sor'tl1at' I sa'y'no ahy'suc'h' de'rriand ~ that ~, freely exercise the' activit}'pema'tlded of me,' or that 1resist the demand; that the natuial ten:dencies , inclinations and needsfor self-activationwithin me are in unison with thedeniand, or that they'al'e not . We always have a need for self-a.ctiva.tion;,In fa,ct ,this is the fu ~ damental need of our being.' 'Btlt ~ }i~ , selfactivation dcnianded 6f nle py, a, ~enStlOus'object may be' so constittlted that, precisely qy, virtue of its con stitution, 'it cannot, be'perforrhed by ,ine without friction, without inn ~r opposition . , ,'If 1 can givemyself over to the a<;tivity demanded of me wi ~ hout inward opposition, I have a f~eling of liberty. And this isa' feeling of pleasure. The feeling of pleasure is always a feeling of free self-activatibn . ,It is the directly experiencedtonality or coloration of the sensation arisingout of'the activity that appears when ,the activity proceeds without inner friction. It , ' is the symptom 'in ", consciousness of ,the free unison between the demand for activity and my accomplish ment of it . .
In the second case" however, there arises a conflict , between my nattlralstriving for self-activation and the , . one ,that' is dema.nded of me. And the sensation of ' ,1 c()nflict is likewise a sensation of unpleasure derived ' ', fro ~ ,theobject . , ,',"""" , .. ',.',,',. , :, . , "' The'former situati ~ll Lipps ,terms ~ e em, ~ .e.'lthl ' ' . ' ancl, the second !legatIve empathy . ',', ". 1 ' '. ",' . . " In', Ithat ,tbis., general-apperceptive'"acfivity 'nrst . brings the, object ip.to my ,spiritu<il."possesslon,this . activity belongs, totb'e' object., ~ Th ~ fo'trri of an object is always i.ts being-formed" by "me, . by, my inner , activity. It is a furidamen al fact of ~II'psychology, and mos,t certain y of.'all:aesthetics, that'a ,I'senstlously '. giv ~i' object", eCiselY erstOOd~ i~ :.an urtrealitr , .

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something th,at qqe,s notl and' cannot, exist. In that it exists for 'rhe-' and 8uch objects alone come into question-it is permeated by my activity, by my inner life.' Th ~ s apperception is therefore not random and arbitrary, but necessarily bound up with the object . ~ perceptive activity becomes atsthetic enjoyment in the case'of positive empath2:2. ln the Case of the unison of' my natur:al tendencies to self-activation with the activity demanded of me by the sensuous object. In relation ,to the work of art also, it is this Ilositive empathy alone which comes into ,guestion . This is the basi ~ of the theory of empathy, in so far as it finds prG\ctic,.l applicati ~n to the work of art. From it result the definitions of the beautiful and the ugly . For example: 'Only in so far as this empathy exists , are forms beautiful. Thcir beauty is this the ideal free dom ~ ith Wllich 1live myself out in them. Conversely , form is ugly when 1 amunable to do ,this, wllen I feel myself inwardly unfree, inhibited, subjeGted to a con straint i i the form, 01' in its contelllplation' (Lipps , Aesthetik , 247 ). ' This is not the place to follow the system into its wider ramifications.It is sufficient for our purpose to . note the point of departure of this kind of aesthetic experience; its psychic ,presuppositions. For we there by reach an understanding of the formula which is " important tq"us, whic J is to serve as a foil, to the en - : suing treatisej, an ~ :wllich we shall therefore repeat here: 'Aesthetic enjoYrnen't is objectified self-enjoy ment.' The aim of th ~ ensuirg treatise is to dem'.:>nstrate that the assumption t,hatt,his process of empathy has at all ti ~ es and flt, al1 places been the pres pposition of artistic creaiion,' cannot be upllel'd. On the con trary,this th ~pry of iempathy leaves us helpless in the
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f~~e of the a ~tistic c;eatip ~~ of ~ 'any ages and peoples . , It is of no assistance to us,for 'instance, in the nder s ~andi g of that vast complex of works of art that pass , beyond the narrdw framewqrk, of Graeco-Romap. and . moderri, Occ ~ dental art. Herewe are forced to recog -' nise that quite,a different p ~ychic process is involved , ,' which explains the peculiar, 'and in' our ass ~ssr:nent , p ~rely negative, quality of,that style,.Before webegiri ,toattempt a definitiori.ofth ~ process; a.feW.words',must 'be ~aid concerningcert3..in, b f sic:~,qn<;ept~ of the scie ~<;:~ of art, since wh ~t fdllows eano r ly,be :un:derstood o,nce ' agreement has ..been rea<;hed on th ~sebasic concepts .' . Since,the flores ~ence ,of"&rt'liistory tbok, place ,in ' the' nineteenth century, 'i ~ was' only'natural that .the , th ~ories cop.cernirig ,the geriesis, ,of .the , w,ork, of', ar ~ . sho ~ldhave beenbase ~ "o'n the materialisti'way of looking at things . t is unnecessary'to mepti'on what a ,',healthy and rational eff t ct this att ~mpt to :penetrate , . the' essence of, art ,exercised'o r the spec lative, <j.es thetics and aest } etic bel, espritisrne' of, the,' eightee,nth century:' In this mariner a valuable foundation was ensured for the, young' science. A, work like 'Semper's , Stil remains one, qf the great acts of art history, which , ,like'ev ~ry ~ ntellectual edifice that has been grandly erected and thoroughly,;workedqut, stands outside, the historical valuation of 'correct' or "incorrect '. . . Nevertheless, this'bopk ~ ith its ~ aterialisti'c theory of the ,genesis of the work of,art, wl ic ~ penetrated into all circles and Wllicl1, thr9t1gh ~evera:l decades right dov.rn , to our 6wn time, has been tacitly accepted as the pre supposition for most art historical inve,stigations, is for us to-day a point of support for hostility to progress and merltallaziness. The way to any deeper penetra tion into the innermost essence of art is barred by the exaggerated valuation placed upon secondary fac ~ ors .

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MOr6'QVer, not everyone who bas ~s his approach on Semper possesses Semper's spirit . 'fhere are everywhere signs of a reaction against this jejune and indolent artistic materialism. The most consfderable breach in this system is probably that made by the prematurely deceasedViennese scholar Alois Riegl, whose deep-delving and grandly planned ' work on' the ~ ate Roma , art industry-to some ex -, tent thro ghthe difficulty f access to the publication - has unfortunatcly.not received the attention merited by its epoch -naking ,importance . 4 Riegl was the first to introduce into the method of art historical i v ~stig:ati9n the concept of' 'artistic volition'. By,,~ absolute art;stic volitl0n' is to be under stood that ,laten ~ inner demand whicll exists per se , entirely indepep.de t of the object and of the mode of creation, and ,hehaves as will to form. 1 t is the primary factor in all artistic.creation and, in its innermost essence, everY,work of art is simply an objectification of this a, prirri existent absolute artistic volition. The materialistic method, which, as must be expressly emphasised, cannot pe altogether identified with Gottfried Semper, but is partly based on a petty mis interpretation of' his book, saw in the primitive work of art a product of three factors: utilitariaE-Rurpos ~, raw material, and technics. For it the hlstory of art was, in the last analysis history of abili t The , .. ew apprqach, 911t11e,contrary, regards the history of the , evolution of, aI't', as a l or of volitiQ[l, proceeding from t11e psycl ological pl'e-assumption that ability is only a secondary consequence of volition. The stylistic peculiarities of past epochs are, therefore, not to be ex lained b lack of ability, but by a ~ directed volition. e crUCla ac or IS t us what R1egl ,terms 'the absolute, artistic volition', which is 9

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merely."mddified by:; t l:.~," Qther:,:~htee" factQrs '.of utili .:tariari ,purpose ~ ,'ra W' ,material" ,.and,teChnics. ,";rhese . three; faGtors ~te,'riQ'lo ge,r giv6n t l at"positiv'e creative . " rc;>le'assigneq. ',to," ~l1em,'-by the., materialist 'theory , . 'instead' t.h~y (are,'assun1ed ,.to: play an. inhibiting , ' negative'one: they r prese ~ t, 'as it were, thecoeffieients '<> f frittion within' ,:the : totar .product' (Spatromische
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,", Most people ,Will.fc;iil,' :to unQers.tand' wliy such' .an ,' exclusive significa ~ ce i~ 'given to" the concepi, ~ltistic volition ~ becal se they.start from the firmly-emb,edded na'ive'. preconc ~ption that artistic ..volition, i.e. the "aim-conscious, impulse that precedes the genesis f the ' work of art,' haS been the same, in all ages,' apart from certain variations which are known as stylistic ,p ~culiarities, :and as far as t l e plastic arts a e ,con ,cetned has approximatidn to ,the naturalmod ~1 as :lts goal . ' , . All our judgements on the artistic products of the past suffer from thi ~ one-sidedness. This we must admit to ourselves. But little is achiev.ed by this admis ,8ion. For the directives of judgement, ,that rerider us . 80 biased, have so entered into our flesh and'blood from long traditioh that here a re,valua'tion of values remain& .more ,or less, cerebral lilbour followed only with difficulty by the sensibilities, which, at the first nguarded moment, scurry, back, into 'their old , ' indestructible notions . ' The criterion pf.judgement tO which we cling, as 80mething axiomatic, is" as 1 have said, approxima tion to teality, approximation to organic life' itself. Our concepts ofstyle and of aesthetic beauty, whicn, in theory, declare naturalism to be a subordinate element in the work of art, are in actual fact quite inseparable from the aforesaid criterion ofvalue . 8 10
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Outside".the ~ry, 'the'situation is th ~t we concede to those. higher: elements,; which we vaguely designate with.the equivocal wo'rd 'style', only a regulative , modifying'influence on.the reproduction of the truths of organiclife . , Any approach to art history that makes a consistent . break with. this 'one-sidedness is decried as contrived , as an insult o 'sound common sense'. What else is this sound common. sense, however, than the inertia that prevents' our spiritsfrom leaving the so narrow and circumscribed orbit of our ideas ,and from recognising the possibility' of other presuppositiol1S. Thus we for ever,see the ages as they appear mirrored in our own spirits . Before going any furtl1el', let us clarify the relation of the imitation' of 11ature to aesthetics. Here it is necessary to, be ~gieed tl1at the impulse to imitation this elemental need of mal1, stands outside aesthetics proper and that, in pl'inciple, its gratification has nothing to do with art . Here, however, we must distinguish between the . irriitatio r, i,mpulse and nat\lralism as a type of art . They are by no means identical in their physical quality' and lnllst be sharply segregated from one anothyr, however difficult this may appear. Any con fusion of the two concepts in this connectiol-. is fraught with serious consequences. It is in al1 probability the cauSe of the lnistaken attitude which the majority of educa:t.ed pl?ople hav ~ ~ oward art . The rimiiive imitation impulse has prevailed at al periods, and its lstor 18 a lstory 0 manua . exterlty, "].eyoid of aesthetic significance. Precisely in the earliest times this impulse was entirely separate from tl1e art impulse pl'oper; it found satisfaction exclusively in the art of the miniature, as for instance
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in those little idols and symbolic trifles 'that wc know from early epochs of'arti andthat,are very ofien in direct contradictidn',toth ~ creations ,in,which the pure art impulse of the 'pt1oples i,n'questian manifested itse f. We peed only recall hdwil1 Egypt, for example the impulse to imi atic>ri.and tl ~ art impulse went on ,' synchronously, but separately next door to each other . Whilst 'the, so-called popular art was producing, with start ing realism, suh stattles ~s' tl1e Scribe or the Village Magistrat'e, artproper, incorrectly termed ' court art' ,exhibited 'an ,austere style' that eschewe:d all realism . hat there can be 'no question here either of inability or of rigid fixation, but that a particular psychic implllse was hcre seeking gratificatio11, \vill be discussed in the further, course of my arguments. At all times al"t ro er l1as satisfied a dee s chic need , E,ut not the pure imitation impulse, the playful ~_ light in copyin,g the natural model. The halo that envelops the concept art, all the reverent devotion it has at, al1 times enjoyed, can bepsychological1y motivated only by, the idea of an art ,which, having arisen from psychiG neeas, gratifies psychic needs . , ,~ nd in this sens ~ alQne does th,c histQry of ~rt acquire ' a significance almost equal to that of the history of religion. The for ula which, Sch n qrsGw 'ta:kes as the ~t ~l1ting-p()int for his ba ~ic concepts, ~ Art is a dispu ~tion of man wit'h nature', is 'valid if all metaphysics is . a so ~ arded as what,' at bottorn, it is-,'as a. disputa tionofman with. nature: The ~ , lowever, the simple imitation impulse would ,have as much or as little to do with this impulse to .enteril1to disputation with nature as, on tbe othe'r hand, theutilisatjon of natural forces (,-vhicl1 is, aft,erall, also a displltation with nature) has to do with the higher psychic, impulse to create god : for oneself ." ' .
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, The value of a w01"kof a1"t,wl1at we call its beauty , lies, gellcr611y spcaking, in its powcr to bestow happi n ~ss. ,Thc' :values' of tllis pOWel"naturally stand in a causal ,relatiqn to the psyc}lic lleeds wl ich they satisfy . Thus tl1e 'a:bsolute artistic volition' is tlle gauge for t}le quality of these pSyCllic needs . , ,No psychology of the need for art-in the terms of _ our 'modern standpoint: of the need for style-has yet been written ~1t woulc.l be a 11istory ofthc feeling about the world and, as such, would stand alongside the hi ~tOl"yof,religiol1 as its eql1al. By the feeling about the , world 1 mean the psychic state in wllich, at any given time, mankind fOl1nd itself jn rclation to the cosmos " I n rclation to the pllenomena of the external world ... \, Thl : psychic state is disclosed in the quality of psycliic needs, l.e. in the constitution of the absolute artistic volitioI1, and bears outward fruit in the work of art, to , , ' be exact in the style of the latter, the specific nature 9f whicll is simply tl1e specific nature of the psychic needs. Thus the various gradations of the feeling about the world can be gauged from the stylistic evolution of art, as well as from tlle tlleogony of the peoples . ' ' , " E~~ ry style represented tlle maximum bestowal of ) happiness for the humanity that created it. This must hecc>me t11esupreme dogma of all objective considera tion ,of thellistory of art. What a ~ s from' our standpoint the greatest distortion must have been at ti e;' for its cI'eator, the highest beaut:.Y and the fulfilment of his artistic volition. Th'c1Sall valuations ~ ade &oiiiOul"standpoint; fro ~ the point of view of "our, modern ,aesthetics, w}lich passes judgement ex -,' clusively in tl e sensc of the Al1ti.que or the Renais -, sance, are fl"Olll a 11igller standpoint absurdities and , platitudes . . After this neCeSSa1"y div'ersion, we s11311 return once , " l ' 13 '

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m'ore, to the 'starting poiht, na P elytq,thethesi ~ of the '., lilnited appli'cability of the theoryof enipathy ; . " , The need for empathX can be lookec!..:E.pon'as a pre .~ artistic volitib o i ly where' this artistic volition inclines toward the truths of organic life, that i'5 toward naturalism' inthehigher sense. The ensa .tion of happinessthat is .released in us by the repro duction oforganically beautiful v!tality, what moderll man dcsignates ,beauty, i8 a gratification of that inner ' needfor self-activation in .which Lipps ~ees the pre suppositio 1 . of the, pro.c ~,ss ()f empathy . l e fo: ~ s . of the work of a,rt we enJoy ourselves. Aesthetlc enJoy .ment is objectified self-enjoyment. The valuc of a line , of a form consists for usin the value of the life that it , 'lolds for us. 'It holds its b ~auty only through our own vital. feeling, which, in ~omem,ysterious marlner, we project into it . ,. " ',.. . " ~ eGollec~ i9n of.th ~ lifeless fQfp, of a pyramid or of . the suppression of.lifethat i ~ mani'fesi ~d for insta:nce , , in Byzantine' mO$aics tells us" at PIlC ~ . thci.ihere the , ' 1 ,' " need for. empathy, w l ich fO qbvioqs .ref\sons aJways '. 'tends tQward the ~rga:nic, cannbt' p.osslblyhave de term.ined a tistic'volition. Inde ~d, :theidea for<;:esi'tself upon,usthat h'ere we have ~'n'impulse irectly 0pposed to the empathy. impulse, .. which seeks t suppress pre i! cisely that .. ,in .whichth<1 need fot empathy rnds' its 'satisfaction . 7 ': ' " ". ..' ',. ".

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, . ' cernin .'tl is essayis t?' ap.a y ~~ , i5 urge andto. Sllb' stantjate the i.mportaIlce .it ..assumes . within the : evolution, ~f ~rt : . , ." '. . '.' . . , ' The' e~ t ~nt.to"' ~ hich te. urge 'tQ abstraction has dete mined artistic;yolitioIl. W ~ call gather frQ < ctual ,:iwqrks ofart,onthG J a'sis of thearg lments pt t.forward
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in,tpe ,ensuing ,pages. We shall then find that the artistic vblition of savage peoples, .in so far as they possess an ) at all, ihen tlle artisticvolition ofall primi tive epochsQf art and, finally, the artistic volition of certain cultu):ally dev ~loped Oriental peoples, exhibit t.his ab ~tract tendency. Thus the urge to abstraction stands at the beginning of every art and in the case of certain peoples at a high level of culture remains the ~ dominant tendency, whereas with the Greeks and other Occidental peoples, for example,it slowly recedes , making way for the urge to empathy. This provisional statelllent is substantiated in the practical section of the essay .. Now what, are the psychic presuppositions for the urge to abstraction? We must seek them in these peoples' feeling about the wotld,. in their psychic ' attitude toward t l e cosmos. Whereas the preconditio ~ \ forthe ur e to em ath is ha antheistic rela - . tjons lp of <;onfidence .be'tween man and the pheno - : mena <if the. external wQrld, the urge to abstraction is the outcqme ,ofa .great illner unrest inspired in man ' by the phep.omenaof the outside world,j in a religious fespect' it ;corre ~pond ~ .to a strongly trartscendental tinge to a11,notions; We'might describe this state as an immense spiiitu<;tl ~ read of space. When 1'ibullus says : primum in urdofe ~itdeus timor, this samesensation offear ' may <.I.1so , ~~ assumed as the root of artistic creation . Cqmparison with the physical dread of open places ; a pathological'condition to \Vllich certain people are prone" will'perhaps better explain what we mean by this spirit i al dread of ,space. In popular terms, this physical dread of openplacesmay be explained as a residue from, a: normal phase of man's development , at which .he was nqt yet able to trust entirely to visual impression as. a means of becor iryg familiar witha . 15

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space extended ,1efor ~:,hi ri, but, }Vas sti,11'deperident upon the' ,as~urances '< f his sense. of t.ouch. Assobn as man became a ..biped, ,an ~ as SUC11 solely,.depe;!1dent ,upon his eyes, ,a,'slight ",fee1ing' bf insecurity, was inevitably left, behirid.In the furt}ler, course, Qf his evol\1tion; '. however, ,man'freedhimself from' this rimitive fear ..of exte'hded "space by,'habituation, and lntel1ectual reflection .8 '. ,.' , , , Th < situation issi ~ i~ aras'regardsthe spiritua,l,dread f space in rela tion ,to, th'e extended, disconne'cted , bewilaerin,gworldof phen0mepa .. The rationalistic ,dev ~lopment of mankindpressed back thls instinctiv ~ . fear conditioned by man's feeling of being lost in the universe. The 'civilised peoples of th ~ East, whose more profound world-instinct o ~ posed' development in a rationaJistic direction and who 'saw in th:e world .~ lothing but the shimm'ering veil of Maya, they' alone remained conscious of the u1;lfath6mable entan'gle ment of al1 the phenomena of life, and all ,the intel lectual mastery of the, world-picture could.not deceive them as to this., Their spiritual dre ~dof space,their instinct for the relativity, of a]1 thatis, did not,stand , as 'with primitiyepeoples,. bejore cog r ition:, but .~bove cogn:ition . ". , ,,' '., :Tormented by th'e entangled j ~ ter,-:relationship' and flux of the phenomena 6f the outer 'World, such peoples were dominated byan immense n~ ed for trang\lillity . The happiness the ,sou ht frotn art did not consistin t e POSSl llt of ro'ectin themselves lnto the t ings o t e outer wOl'ld of enjoying" t emse ves ln t em , but inthe possibility'oftaking the individual thin the external world out0f its al'bitrariness and seeming iortuitousness, of eternalisin' it by ap rbximationtp abstra:ct ormsan in this manner of finding a point of tranquillit ~ anda ref ~ ppearances. Their , . , . 16

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most,powerful !lIrge was, so to speak, 'to wrest the o.Q.jectof the "ex ~ernal world out of its natural context , out of tne un ~nding flux of being, to..Eurify it of al1 its. ~ nc ~ Qon life, i.e. of everyt11ing about it that was arbitrary, to render it necessary and irrefragable , to approximate it to its absolute value. Where they were successful in this, ",they experienced that happiness and satisfaction which the beauty I of organic-vital form affords' us; 'indeed, they knew no other beauty , and therefore', yve may term it their beauty . 111his Sti(lragen Riegl writes: 'From the standpo.i11t of regU:larity' the geometric style,' which is built up strictly, accor'dihg to the supreme laws of symmetry and rhythm, is the most perfect. In our scale ofvalues , however, it occupies, the lowest position, and the listory of th ~ .evolution of the arts also shows this style to have been peculiar,to peoples stil1 at a low level of cultural development .'. If we accept this proposition, which admittedly suppres,ses the role w11ich the geometl'ic style has . played a q ongst peoples of llig]lly developed culture , we, arecon ~ ronted by the followil g fact; The style mostpe : fect in it ~ regulal'ity, the style of tl1e highest abstraction, . most stl'ict in its exclusion of life, is peculiar to the peoples at their most primitive cultural level. A' causal connection must therefore exist between primitive, cult ~ re and the highest, purest regular .art-form., Al1d the further pl'oposition may be stated: Th ~ less man ~ind has succeedc(l, by virtu ~ of its s iritual cognitio11, in entering into a relation of . frlend confi ence Wlt 1 t c appca 'ance of the outer wor d, the more forcefu IS t lC vnamic that ea s t ~ the str'iving a~ this highcst abstract beaut.x.:. - Not t]1at primitive man sought more urgently for regtl1arity in nature, or experienced regu]arity in it

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more intensely;'just the revel'se:,it is tJetal se pe stands , so lost and spirituallyl1elpless ,amidst, the things of the external world, ~ a ~ se he experiences on obscuritr 'and caprice in the int ~r-connectiOri a,nd flux Qf the , ena of the externalworld" that the ur e is , ,]1rong in him to divestthe t ln ~s,ofthe external world , oftheir caprice and obscurity in the world .. picture an.d , ..tQ impart to them a value of necessity anda value of regularity. To employ an audacious, comparison: it ' is as though the instinct for the, 'thing in itself' were most powerful i primitive man. Increasing spiritual masteryof the outside world and: habituation to it mean a blunting and, dimming 'of this ,instinct. Only after the human spirit has passed, in thousands of years ofits evoltltion, along the whole course ofration alistic cognition, doesthe feeling for the 'thing in , itself' re-awaken in it as the final resignation of know ledge. That which was previously instiqct is now the ,ultimate product of cognition. I1aving slipped down from the pride of knowle9ge,m ~n "is n w just as 'lost and helpless vis-a - ;is the' w rld ~picture a ~ ,primitive rpan, once he has recogni ~ed, that 'this visible ~ orld in '~ Ilich we are is the work of May ~, 'b,rot ght forth by magic, a transit c ry arid in itself .up.substantial sem blance, compfl.rable to tl1e' ,9Ptical ' illusion .'and the , dream, 'of which it is ~qually fals,e arid equally true to say that it is, as that it is n.ot' (SchQpenh?-uer, Kritik der '. i K antischen Fhilosophie ): , ' ,', This recognition was' fr\,litl~ss, 'however, because 'man had become an individuali;lnd broken away from the mass. Thedyna'mic force resting in an undifferen tiated mass pressed together by,<j.~ommon instinct had alone been able tocreate from out of itself those forins of the highestabst.ract b auty: T..-Eeind,i~ al on his , o\"'n was too .weak for su<;:h~bstra,ctIQn . ' '18 -

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1t v., ould be a isconstruction of the psycI ological prcconditions for tIle gel csis of tl is abstract art form , to say that a craving for regll1arity led men to reach out for geometric regularity, fOl'that would presuppose a spiritual-il1tellectual pel etl'ation of abstract form , would make lt appear the product of reflection and calculation. We. have more justification for assuming that what \ovesee hCfe is a purely instinctive creation , that the ul'ge to abstl'action created tllis form for itself with elemental necessity an(l without the inter\rention of tl1e intellect. Precisely ~ ecause intellect had not yet dimmed instinct, the disposition to regularity, which after all is already present in thc germ-cell, was able to find the appropriatc abstract expression. D 1'}lese regular abstract forms are, therefore, the only ones and the highest, in whicb man can rest in the face of the vast confusion of the world-picture. We frequently find thc, at first sight, astonishing idea put forward by modfrn art tI eoreticians that mathe matics is the l ighest ,al't torm; indeed it is significant tl\at it is prcc;isely, ,Romaritic tl eofy. which, in its , artistic programmes, ,has c,ome to tl)is seemingly para doxical verdict'l Wlli~h is i)1 such contradiction to the customary n,ebulous feeling for art. Yet no one will venture to assert that, fO instance, Novalis, the fore most cbampiQr ,of this 10ftY'vie\v of mathematics and the originator 6f ,tllC' dicta, 'Tlle life of tlle gods js mathematics' ,;' fure mathema cs is rcligion', was nor , an artlst tnrd ~ 1gh arlcl tlll'Ol gll. Ol ly between this verdict ,and the elemGntal iilstil1Ct of primitive man , therelies t}le' sarrie essential liiffercnce that we have just seen to eiis't between pril11itive humanity's feeling for the 'thirlg in itself' and pllilosophic specu]ation concerning tlle'thing'in itst:lf '. Riegl spcaks of crystalline beauty, 'which con 1'9

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' stitutes th ~' 'first"and most r lal' ,law of forrri in , :' inanimat ~ ",r atter, ,an,d' <;omes'"closest, toabsolute , beauty (material individuality )';,::, ," , Nbw, as I' have said, ,', we cannbt suppose!llan to , , have pic ~ed up these l<;tws,n f mely th ~ laws of abstract , regularity, from, i f ariifuate ,matterj it is, rather, an intellectual' necessity' f~r 'us to' ~ssume', that these laws ' are also' implicitly contained 'inour own human , ' organisatio !!.t ~ 6ugh' aIl,atterppts to.. ,advance our , , " knoWledge 'on't i~ pojnt stop, short 'at logical con ',:jectures, such 'a'g are touched on in the secorid cpapter of the,p,resent wQrk ."'" ,,':, , ' We ihercfore put, forward the, proposition: The , ' simple line and 'its development in purely geometrical , " regularity W ~ S bO:urid ,tooffer, the greatest, possibility of hiiPpiness to, the 'man clisquieted by theobscurity i, and entanglement of phenomena. For. here' t.he .1as . trace of connectio ~ ith, and depehden.ce on, life has . been effaced,here the highest absolute form, the purest , a15straction ,.has been achievedj here, is. law, here is " necessity; while everywhere 'else .the caprice of the . '. 1,' organic prevails; :But such aQstraction does not rnake " i' use ofany natural object as a model. 'The geometric "Iline is distinguished fromtne natural object preciSeIy .. by the tact ffiat lt does .not stand ln any natural . cpntext. 'l'hat which constitutes, its esse 1 ce does, of course pertain to nature. Mechanical forces are natural forces. In the geometric line,.llowever,' and in geometrical forms as a whole, 'they have 'been taken , out of thc natural context and the cea ~elessftux of the . forc ~s' of nature ~ an.d have becomevisible ontheir , own' (I"ipps, Ae ~tlletik , 249 ): '. ., ' Naturally, thispure 'aQstraction could never be atiaiped once a' factuaI patural model underlay it . The question is therefore: How did t ~ e urge to abstrac -

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tion bt: !,ave towar'd the things of the extern,al world ? We haveal ;'ady ,stressed tl e fact that it was not the imitation jmp ~Ise-, !lle histOl'y ofthe imitation inlpulse is a different thing from tl e ,llistory of art-that cOlnelled thereproductlon ln art of a natural model. We 8ee therein rather th ~ endeavour to redeem the in dividual obj ~ct of t ~ e outer worlq, in 80 far as it par ticularly, arouses lnt ~rest, from its combination with , and dependence :upor., other things, to tear it away from the course of happening, to render it absolute . Riegl saw tliis ul'ge toabstraction as the basis of thQ'\ artistic v6lition of the early civilisations: 'The civilised peoples of aIltiquity descried in' external things, on the analogy of what they deemed to be' their own human nature (anthrqpism), material individuals of various ' sizes, but each, one joined together into firmly coher ing part&, into an indivisible unity. Their sense-percep tion shqwed them thip.gs as confused and abscurely intermingledj through tlle medium of plastic art the:r. eicked O\lt single "individuals and set them down in th<ir clearly encl i sed ,lnity. ThllS the plastic art ofthe WhOle of antiquity sought as its llltimate goal to render external things' ii: their clear material individuality , and in so doing to respect the sensible appearance of the outw ~ ings of nature and tE avoid a ~ su ress an thin that mi ht ClOlld and vitiate the lrect convinciri' ,ex resSlon of materla ln lviduality ' (Rieg, piilromische Kunsti zduslrie ). A cI'ucial consequcllce of this artistic volition was , on the one handj the approximati()n of the representa tion to a plane1 and on the otl er, strict suppression of the rep.resentation of space and ((xclusive r ~ eri ~ ,of the slngle for I , '[ he artist was fOI'ced to apI roximate tlle repre sentation to a plane beca'use three-dimensionality ,
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a ything else,.coritr ~dicted' the apprehen i()11 ()f' tllc object as a closed materia1 i dividua1ity , Hill( ~C pcrception of three-dimensionalitycal1s for a !lUc( ~ cssion of perceptua1 elements thath;:tve, to be ombined; in this succession, 6f' e1ements the indivi < Iuality of the object melts away . ' n the' other hand , dimensions of depth a,re dis(:~ ()~~ 'd,'0:ri1y' hrough fore shorteni g andshadow, ~o that a'vigorous participa tion of the corribinativ ~,und'erstandirigiinq of habitua tion is requil"edfor"their appre,hensi'on: In both cases , t,herefore, tht1 putcome"is a subjective clouding,'of the objective fact, which t } e a t cient cu1tural peoples were " at painsto aV()id.'" ," ' , Su res ~i9n 6f' re r entatibn ofs ace W<;l.s dict ted by the urge to':abstractionthrou the, mere fa:ct that lt 1S preclsclys.pace:whic,h l~nks' thirlgs to one anot ~ which' imparts to them' their relativity in' the world picture, ;and peca ~ se space'is ,the one thing, it is im pos sib1~ to ind,ividualise. In so fa , ther ~fore, as a sensuous object is stil1 dependent upon:space, it' Is 'unab1e to appea.r to us'i,r its c ~ osedmateria1, iIldivid.uality. A1l c deavour, was therefpr ~ directed towardthe sing1e for I set free.frorn space . , , '..: et anyo ,t~ w ~ 6m thisthesisof man's prima1 need,to free 'the. sensuo s object from the unc1arity imposedupoQ. it by its three-dimensionality, by means qf, artistic repres ~nt ~tion. seems co'ntrived,and far fetched, reca11 tha ~ a modern artist,anda sculptor at that, has once 'more felt, thi ~ need very strong1y. 1 refer to the fllowing sentences from Hildebrand's Problem d ~r Form: 'For it. is not the task of scu1pture to leave the spectato'r in t1 e incomplete and uneasy state vis-a-vi.f the three-dimensional or cubic qua1ity of the nat \ ral impression, .in' whichhe must labour to form ., a' 'clearvisua1 notiol{;, 011 thc. CQntl"ary, it consists
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precisely iri fur:riishing him with tl1is visual notion andthus depriving the cubic of its agonising quality . As long as asculptural figur ~ makes a primarily cubic , impression on the spectator it is stil1 in the initial stqge of its, artistic configuration; only when it has a ' flat appear4n ~e,althoug'h it is cubic, has it acquired artistic forn1 .' Wl1at fIildebrand here calls 'the agonising quality of the cubic', is, in ,the la$~' analysis, nothing else than a ' residue'bf that'angllishand disquiet which governed man in rel ~tiol1 ,t6 the things of the outer world in their , obscure' 'irlter relationship and interplay, is nothing els~ than ~ last memOl"y of the point of departure of al1 artistic creatio i, namely the urge to abstraction . If we n!J;Wrepeat the fOrmllla which we found to be the basis ,bf the aesthetic experience resulting from the urge to empathy: 'Aesthetic cnjoyn1ent is objectified self-enjoyment', ,we at once become conscious of the po]ar antithesis between tllese two forms of aesthetic cnjoy ~ en;t, < ntl e one l ancl tl"le ego as a cloucling of the g'reatness,of, t]le work of'al't, as a curtailment ofits capaclty, fpr bestowing }1appiness, on the other the , most lntim,ate union between e 0 and work of art w lch receives all 1tSlife from the ego alone . "' his dualism of aesthetjc expe'rience, as charac terised by,the aforementioned two poles, is-a remark which wil,l serve to conclude this chapter-not a final , one. These twopoles are onl)' gradations of a common need, which is revealed to us as the deepest and ulti mate ess~nce, of al1 aesthetic experience: this is ~ need for' self-aliena tion . In the llrge to a action the intensit of the selfalienatlve lmpu se IS l t com ara reater and more conslstent. ere jt i$ not cl1aractel'ised, as ln the neea or emRafuy;', \:>y ,an urge to alienate oneself from

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in<1ivi ( III\I )CII g, but as an urge,to"seek' deliverance I Illc fC ) 'LI ltousness of humapityas 'awhole, from IJIr. Ir.cming arbitraripess" of organic. exis ~ence in Icneral, in the contempl ~tio-r of, something necessary refragaple. Life as such is felt to be a disturbance r aesthetic... en..i,Qymel!t .. " -,' , ,,' - ~ , The fact that' th ~ d for',enipathy as a point of , departure fo'r aest ~ etic, experience also 'represents , fun.damentally, an' impulse of self-alienation is, all ,the less likely to dawn upon us th ~ more clearly the " formula rings' in our ears: 'Aesthetic enjoY r ent is ': ~bjectified s~lr-enjoynieQ.t.' :For this implies that the ", process of1 enipathy, represents a self-affirmation,;:tn ',"a ~ rm;:ttion ofthe general will toactivity,that"is,in us . / 1,. 'We a~ ways. have a i~ ,'for' self- activation.Indeed , this is the basic need of our 'nature.', ~ ~~ hisinlL this will to activity into another.object, hQwever, we are in the other objeCt., We are ,delivered fro ~ our ' individual being as long' as we ,are! absorbed into an external object, an, external fbrni,Wit ~ o ~ r i,nner u,rge to, experience.' ~ e ,feel,as it we.re,.' out indiyiduality \,,'flow into fixed boundari ~s,iIi,'cQntrast tO"the t:>ound, less' differentiation 0[' theindividual cb'ri.sciousness. In ,"thisself-obje ~tiv'~tio ~ ,lies a ,'self': ~lieriation. ,This ,:affirmation of our individual need foractivity reprc :' sents; simultaneotisly ~ acurtailment of its, illimitable potentialities, anegation' of its ununifiable differentia , tions. We rest wit ~ ,our inner'urge to activity within " the limits of this objectivation. 'In empathy, therefore , , 1 am nO,t th6 real,I, ,but,am inwardly liberated,from the latter, i.e. I am liberated from everything which 1 am apart from contemplaiion of the form. 1 am only , this ideal, this contemplating I' (Lipps, .4esthetik , 247 ). Popular ,usage speaks \:Vithstriking accuracy of 'losing ,.:,oneself' in the contemplation of a .work of art : 24

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In tqis ~ense,the:refore,. it cannot appear over-bold to attribute a:ll'aesthetic enjoyment-and perhaps even every aspect bf thc hum ~n sensation of happiness to the ~ mpulse of self-alienation as its most profound and ultimate ~ssei ce . The inlpulse, to, self-;:tlienation, which is extended Qver organic ~itality in general, confronts the urge to , self-alienatio'rl' dir ~<;ted solely toward the individual existence, as revealed in the need for empathy, as its polar antithe ~is. ,The ensuing chapter will be devoted to a more detailed characterisation 6f this aesthetic dualism . 10

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