To set them in new and fitting relations of light
and shade, of colour and composition, is to transform them.
Schopenhauer lays great stress on the transforming power of art.
He instances many typical paintings of the Dutch school, simple
interiors, homely scenes, fruit, vegetables, the commonest tools
and utensils, even dead flesh--all are taken up into material for
pictures, and, in their special setting, compel our admiration.
We have in these facts concerning pictorial art, a strong
corroboration of the inference from the use of discords in
music--the relativity of ugliness, and the possibility of its
progressive transformation. But there is a further point to be
emphasised, one which music, by reason of its abstractness,
could not well enforce, and one which is of profound
significance for the nature-mystic. Pictorial art is concerned
with the representation of external objects. How explain its
transforming power? Schopenhauer has an excellent answer to
the question. He says that the artist is endowed with an
exceptional measure of intuitive insight. He enjoys a genuine
vision of the Idea immanent in the object he reproduces in his
particular medium--he fixes attention upon this Idea, isolates it,
and reveals much that would otherwise escape notice. The result
is that his skill enables others to slip into his mood and share his
insight.
It is on some such lines as those tentatively traced in the last
few paragraphs that the most hopeful solution of the problem of
the ugly must be sought.
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