The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-04-23

4 y
actor who plays the part of BRUTUs, th'
) very costume that of old the Roman
, hero wore, it would touch true connois
, seurs very little. This is not all. Wher
the illusion goes too far, the sentiment
of Art disappears, in order to give place
to sentiment purely natural-some
times insupportable. If believed that
IPHEeENIA were, in fact, on the point
of being inundated by her father at o
distance of twenty years from me, ]
| should leave the theater trembling with
horror If the ARIADNE that see and
hear, were the true ARIApNE who is
about to be betrayed by her sister, in
that pathetic scene where the poor wo-
man, who already feels herself less loved,
asks" who, then, robs me of the heart
| once so tender?"-I would do as the
young Englishman did, who cried out
| sobbing and trying to spring upon the
stage, ait is P1EDRE-it is PIEDRE," as
If he would warn and save ARlADNE.
But, it is said, is it not the aim of the
poet to excite pity and terror? Yes; but
at first in certain measure; then he
Eaust mix with them some other sonti-
ment that tempers them, or makes them
serve a nobler end If the aim Of Ora
matte Art were only to excite in the
highest degree pity and terror, Art
would be the powerless rival of Nature.
All the misfortuncs represented on the
stage, are very feeble in comparison
with those real spectacles which we may
see every day. The first hospital is
fuller of pity and terror than all the
theatres in the world. What, then,
should the poet do in the theory that we
combat? He should transfer to the
stage the greatest possible reality, apd
move as powerfully by shocking our
senses with TIC sight of frightful pains.
The great resort of the pathetic would
then be the representations of death,
especially that of the greatest torture.
Quite on the contrary, there is an end
Of Art, when sensibility is too much ex-
cited. To take another example that
we have already employed, what con-
stitutes the beauty of tempest?-of a
shipwreck? What attracts us to those
grand scenes of nature? 1t is certainly
not pity and terror. The=e p0ffguunr
and lacerating sentiments would much
sooner keep Us away. An emotion very
different from these is necessary, which
triumphs over us, in order to retain US
BY the shore. This emotion is the pure
sentiment of the beautiful and sublime,
excited and kept alive by the grandeur
of the spectacle-by the vast extent of
the seattle rolling of the foaming
waves and the imposing sound of the
thunder. But do we think for single
ms tant that there are in the midst Of the
sea, the unfortunate who are suffering
and are perhaps about to perishP From
that moment the spectacle becomes to
US insupportable. 1t is SO in AIT.
Whatever sentiment it proposes to ex-
cite in US, must always be tempered and
governed by that of the beautiful. If
it only produces pity and terror beyond
a certain limit--especially physical pity
or terror--it revolts, and no longer
charms; It loses the object that belongs
to it, in exchange for foreign and vul-
gar effect.
For this same reason, cannot accept
another theory, which is compounding
the sentiment of the beautiful with the
moral and religious sentiment, puts Art
in the service of Religion and Morals,
aud gives it for its end to make US bet
ter and elevate US to God. There is
here an essential distinction to be made,
If all beauty covers moral beauty--if
the ideal mounts Increasingly towards
the iu6nite--Art, which expresses ideal
beauty, purifes the soul in elevating it
towards the iDfinite-that is to say, to-
wards God. Art, then, produces the
perfection of the soul, but it produces it
Indirectly.
The philosopher who investigates eff
fcots and causes, kaows what is the ul=
innate principle of the beautiful, and its
certain, although remote, effects. But
the artist is before all things an Art
ist;--what animates him is the senti-
ment of the beautiful; what he wishes
to make pass into the soul of the specta-
tor is the same sentiment that fills his
own. He confdes himself to the charm
of the ideal; it must then do its own
work-the Artist has done his when he
has procured for some noble souls, the
exquisite sentiment of beauty. This
pure and disinterested sentiment is an
ally of the moral and religious senti-
rnent it awakens, preserves, and devel-
ops them, but it is distinct and special
sentiment. So Art, which is founded
on this sentiment--which is inspired by
(which expands it's, in its turn, an
independents power. 1t is not naturally
associated with all that enobles the soul
with morals and religion-but it
springs only from itself.
Let us confino our thoughts strictly
within its proper limits. In vindicating
the independence, the proper dignity,
and the particular end of Art, we do not
intend to separate it from religion