psychical distance' as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle

8/12/2019 'Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle.

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VOLUME J U N E , 9 2 PART

PSYCHICAL DISTANCE AS A FACTOR IN ARTAND AN AESTHETIC PRINCIPLE,

BY EDWARD BULLOUCH.

I. 1.2.

3.11 1.

2.3.

4.

5.

6 .

Meaning of the term Distance.Distance as a factor in Art.Diutunce s an aesthetic principle.Distance describes a personal relation.The antinomy of Distance.The variability of Distance.

Distance as the psychological formulation of the anti

Distance U B applied to the antithesis sensual and

Distance as applied to the antithesis individualistic and

realism of Art aturalistic ard idealistic Art.

spiritual.

9pical.111 Distance as an aesthetic principle

1.2.

[3.4.

as a criterion between the agreeable a d he beautiful.as a phase of artistic production alsi ty of the theory of

Distance and some recent aesthetic theorbs.]Distance s a fbndamentd principle of the aesthetic

self expression of the artist.

cmciousness.

I.

1 THE conception of Distance suggests, in connexion with Art,certain trains of thought hy n o means devoid of interest or of specu-lative importance. Perhaps the most obvious suggestion is that o f

actual spatial distance, i.e. the distance of a work of Art from thespectator, or that of represented spatial distance, i.e. the distance repre-sented within the work. Less obvious, more metaphorical, is the

J of Psych. v 7


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90 Psychiml Distccnce

unnoticed, side, comes upon us as a revelation, and such revelationsar e precisely those of A rt. I n th is most general sense, Distance isa

factor in all Art.It is, for this very reason, also an aesthetic principle. Theaesth etic contemplation a nd th e aesth etic outlook have often beendescribed as objective. W e speak of ob jec tive ar tis tsas Shake-speare or Velasquez, of objective works or art forms as HomersIliador the drama. It is a term constantly occurring in discussions andcriticisms, though its sense, if pressed a t all, becomes very question-able. Fo r certain forms of Art, s uch as lyrical poetry, are said tobe subjective Shelley, for example, would usually be considereda sub jective writer. On the other hand, no work of Art can begenuinely objective in the sense in which this term might be appliedto a work on history or to a scientific treatise; nor can it be sub-jective in the ordinary acceptance of that term,as a personal feeling,a direct statement of a wish or belief, or a cry of passion is sub-jective. Objectivity and ubjectivity are a pair of opposites whichin t he ir mu tua l exclusiveness when applied toArt soon lead to con-fusion.

No r ar e the y th e only pair of opposites. A rt has w ith equalvigour been declared alternately dealistic and realistic, sensual and piritual, ndividualistic and ypical. Between th e defenceof e ithe r term s of suc h an tith ese s most aesthetic theories havevacillated. It is one of t h e contention s of th is essay that suchopposites find their synthesis in the more fundamental conceptionofDistance.

Distance f urth er provides th e m uch needed criterion of th e beautifulas distinct from the merely agreeable.

Again, it marks one of th e most imp ortan t steps in the processofartistic creation and serves as a distinguishing f eature of wh at iscommonly so loosely described as the

Finally, it may claim to be considered as one of the essentialcharacteristics of the aesthetic consciousness,-if I may describe byth is term th a t special mental att itu de towards, and outlook upon,experience, which finds its most pregnant expression in the variousforms of Art.

3.

artistic temperament.


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EDWARDULLOUGH 91

11.

Distance, as I said before, is obtained by separating the object andits appeal from ones own self, by putting it out of gear with practicalneeds and ends. Thereby the contemplation of the object becomesalone possible. But it does not mean that the relation between theself and the object is broken to the extent of becoming impersonal.Of the alternatives personal and mpersonal the latter surely comesnearer to the truth; but here, rn elsewhere, we meet the difficultyof having to express certain facts i n terms coined for entirely differentuses. To do so usually results in paradoxes, which are nowhere moreinevitable than in discussions upon Art. Personal and impersonal,subjective and objective are such terms, devised for purposes otherthan aesthetic speculation, and becoming loose and ambiguous as soonas applied outside the sphere of their special meanings. In givingpreference therefore to the term impersonal to describe the relationbetween the spectator and a work of Art, it is to be noticed that itis not impersonal in the sense in which we speak of the inipersonalcharacter of Science, for instance. In order to obtain objectively

validI

results, the scientist excludes th e personal factor, i.e. hispersonal wishes as to the validity of his results, his predilection forany particular system to be proved or disproved by his research. Itgoes without saying that all experiments and investigations are under-taken out of a personal interest i n the science, for the ultimatesupport of a definite assumption, and involve personal hopes ofsuccess; but this does not affect th e dispassionate att itude of theinvestigator] under pain of being accused of manufacturing hisevidence.

1. Distance does not imply an impersonal] purely intellectuallyinterested relation of such a kind. On the contrary, it describes apersonal relation, often highly emotionally coloured, but of a peculiarcharacter. Its peculiarity lies in th at the personal character of th erelation has been, so to speak, filtered. It has been cleared of thepractical, concrete nature of its appeal, without, however, therebylosing its original constitution. One of the best-known examplesis to be found in our attitude towards the events and characters ofthe drama: they appeal to us like persons and incidents of normalexperience, except that that side of their appeal, which wouldusually affect u s in a directly personal manner, is held in abeyance.This difference, so well known as to be almost trivial, is generally


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92 Psychical Distance

explained by reference to the knowledge that the characters andsituations are unreal, imaginary. I n thi s sense Witasekl, operating

with Meinongs theory of Annahmm, has described the emotionsinvolved i n witnessing a drama as Scheingefiihle a term which hasso frequently been misunderstood in discussions of his theories. B n t,as a m atte r of fact, the as su m ptio n upon which the imaginativeemotional reaction is based it3 not necessarily the condition, but oftenth e consequence, of Distance; t h a t is to say, th e converse of th e reasonusually stated would then be true: viz. that Distance, by changingour relation to the characters, renders them seemingly fictitious, notthat the fictitiousness of the charactersalters our feelings towardthem. It is , of course, to be granted that the actual and admittedunreality of th e dra m atic action reinforces th e effect of Distance.B ut surely th e proverbial unsophisticated yokel whose chivalrousinterference in the play on behalf of the hapless heroine can onlybe p revented by impressing upon him th a t th ey ar e only pretending,is not the ideal type of the atric al audience. T h e proof of th e seem ingparadox that it is Distance which primarily gives to dramatic actionthe appearance of unreality and nottrice w s d is the observation thatth e same filtration of our sentim ents an d the same seeming un rea lity of act,ual men and things occur, when at times, by a sudden changeof inward perspective, w e are overcome by th e feeling th at a ll th eworlds a stage.

Th is personal, b u t distanced relation as I will ven ture to callthis nameless charac ter of ou r view) directs atte ntio n toa stran ge factwhich app ears to be one of the fundamental paradoxes of Art: i t iswhat I propose to call th e antinom y of D istance.

It will be readily admitted thata work of Art haa th e more chance

of appeal ing t o us the bet ter it finds us prepared for its particularkin d of appeal. Indeed, without some degreeof predisposition onour part, it must necessarily remain incomprehensible, and to thatex ten t unappreciated. T he success an d inten sity of its appeal wouldseem, therefore, to stand in direct proportion to the completenesswith which it corresponds with our intellectual and emotional pecu-liarities an d th e idiosyncracies of ou r experience. T h e absence ofsuch a concordance between the characters of a work and of thespectator is, of course, the most general explanation for differencesof astes.

2.

1 H. Witasek, Zur psychologischen h l y e e der aesthetischen Einfuhlung, Ztsch . f .Pgychol. u. Phyriol . der Sinwswg. 1901, xxv. 1 f ; GmndrUge de? Aesthetik, Leipaig, 1904.


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EDWARD ULLOUGH 93

At the s a m e time, such a principle of concordance requires Bqualification, which leads at once t o the antinomy of Distance.

Suppose a man, who believes that he has cause to be jealous abauthis wife, witnesses a performance of Othello. H e will the moreperfectly appreciate the situation, conduct and character of Othello, themore exactly the feelings and experiencesof Othello coincide with hisown-at least he ought to on the above principle of concordance. I npoint of fact, he will probably do anything but appreciate the play.In reality, the concordance will merely render him acutely consciousofhis own jealousy ; by a sudden reversal of perspective he willno longersee Othello ap pare ntly bet,rayed by Desdemona, b u t himself inananalogous situ atio n with his own wife. T hi s reversal of perspectiveisth e consequence of th e loss of D istance.

If th i s be taken as a typical case, it follows that the qualificationrequired is that the coincidence should beas complete as is compatiblewith ma intain ing Distance. Th e jealou s spectatorof Othello willindeed appreciate and ente ri n t o th e play th e more keenly, the greaterth e resemblance with his own experience-provided th a t he succeeds inkeeping the Distance between th e action of the play andhis personalfeelings: a very difficult performance in the circumstances. It is onaccount of th e sanie difficulty th a t th e exp ert and th e professional criticmake a bad audience, since the ir ex pertness an d critical professionalismar e pr acti cal activities, involving th eir concrete personality an d con-stantly endangering their Distance. [It is, by the way, one of thereasons why Criticism is an ar t , for it requires th e con stan t interchangefrom the practical to the distanced att i tude andvice versd, which ischaracteristic of artists.]

Th e same qualification applies to th e artist. H e will prove

artistically most effective in th e formulation of a n intensely personalexperience, b u t he can formulate it artistically only on condition of adetachment from the experiencequd personal. H ence th e sta tem en t ofso many artists t h at artistic formulationw a s to them a kind of catharsis,a mea ns of ridd ing themselvesof feelings and ideas the acuteness ofwhich they felt almost as a kin d of obsession. Hen ce, on th e oth erhand, the failure of the average man to convey to others a t alladequately th e impression of an overwhelming joy or sorrow. H ispersonal implication in the event renders it impossible for himt o formulate and present it in such a way as to make others, likehimself, feel all the tneaning aud fulness which it possesses forhim.


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94 Ptychical Distance

What is therefore, both in appreciation and production, mostdesirable is the utmost decrease of Distance without its disappearance.

3. Closely related, in fact a presupposition to t he antimony,' is th evariability of Dtktance. H ere in especially lies t h e advantag e of Distancecompared with such term s as objectivity an d detachment.' N eith erof them implies a personal relation-indeed both actua lly precludeit ;an d th e mere inflexibility an d exclusiveness of th eir opposites renderth eir application generally meaningless.

Distance, on th e contrary, ad m its naturally of degrees, an d differsnot only according to the nature of the object, which may impose agreater or smaller degree of Distance, but varies also according to theindividual s capacity for maintaining a gre ater or lesser degree. An dhere one may remark that not only dopersons d if er fro m each otherin their habitual measure of Distance, but that the same individualdifers i n his ability to maintain it in the face of different objects andof different arts.

Th ere exist, therefore, two different se ts of conditions affecting th edegree of D istance in an y given cas e: those offered by th e object andthose realised by the subject. I n th eir interp lay they afford one of th e

most extensive explanationsfor varieties of a esthe tic expe rience, sinceloss of D istance, w heth er d ue to th e one or th e other, means lossofaesthetic appreciation.

In short, Distance may be said to be varidle both according to thedistancing-power of the individual, and according to the character of the

Th ere are two ways of losing Distance: eith er to nuder-distanceor to over-distance.' Un der-distancing is th e commonest failingofthe subject,an excess of Distauce isa frequ ent failing ofArt , especially

in th e past. Historically it looks almost as if Art had attempted tomeet the deficiency of Distance on the part of the subject and hadovershot the mark in this endeavour. It will be seen late r tha t this isactually tru e, for it appears that over-distanced Art is specially designedfor a class of appreciation which has difficulty to rise Rpontaneously toany degree of Distance. The consequence of a loss of Distance throughone or oth er causeis familiar : he verdict in th e caseof under-distancingis th a t th e work is crudely naturalistic,' harrowing,' epulsive initsrealism.' An excess of Distance produces th e impression of improbability,artificiality, emptiness or absurdity.

The individual tends, asI jus t stated , to under-distance rathe r th anto lose Distance by over-distancing. Theoretically there is no limit to

object.


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EDWARD ULLOUGH 95

the decrease of Distance. I n theory, therefore, not only the usualsubjects of Art , but even the most personal affections, whether ideas,

percepts or emotions, can be sufficiently distanced to be aestheticallyappreciable. Especially artis ts are gifted i n this direction to a remark-able extent. The average individual, on the contrary, very rapidlyreaches his limit of decreasing Distance, his Distance-limit, i.e. thatpoint at which Distance is lost and appreciation either disappears orchanges it s character.

In the practice, therefore, of the average person, a limit does existwhich marks the minimum at which his appreciation can maintainitself in the aesthetic field, and this average minimum lies considerablyhigher than the Distance-limit of the artist. It is practically impossibleto fix this average limit, in th e absence of data , and on account of thewide fluctuations from person to person to which this limit is subject.But it is safe to infer th at , in a rt practice, explicit references to organicaffections, to the material existence of the body, especially to sexualmatters, lie normally below the Distance-limit, and can be touched uponby Art only with special precautions. Allusions to social institutionsof any degree of personal importance-in particular, allusions implying

any doubt as to their validity-the questioning of some generallyrecognised ethical sanctions, references to topical subjects occupyingpublic attention at the moment, and such like, are all dangerously nearthe average limit and may a t any time fall below it , arousing, instead ofaesthetic appreciation, concrete hostility or mere amusement.

This difference i n the Distance-limit between artists and the publichas been the source of much misunderstanding and injustice. Many anartist has seen his work condemned, and himself ostracized for the sakeof so-called mmoralities which to him were hondJide aesthetic objects.

His power of distancing, nay, the necessity of distancing feelings, sensa-tions, situations which for the average person are too intimately boundup with his concrete existence to be regarded in that light, have oftenquite unjustly earned for him accusations of cynicism, sensualism,morbidness or frivolity. The same misconception has arisen over many problem plays and problem novels in which the public have per-sisted in seeing nothing but a supposed problem of the moment,whereas the author may have been-and often has demonstrably been-able to distance the subject-matter sufficiently to risc above its practicalproblematic import and to regard it simply as a dramatically andhumanly interesting situation.

The variability of Distance in respect to Art , disregarding for the


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96 Paychicctl Distance

moment the subjective complication, appears bothas a general featurein Art, and in the differences between the specialarts.

shonld have reached the practically exclusive predominance over artsofother senses. A ttem pts to raise culinaryart to the level of a FineArt have failed in spite of all propaganda,as completely as the creationof scent or liqueur ymphonies. Thereis l i t t le doubt tha t , apa rt fromother excellent reasons of a p:trtly psycho-physical, partly technicalnature, the actual, sp ti l dist nce separating objects of sight andhearing from the subject has contributed strongly to the developmentof this monopoly. In a similar manner tempor l remoteness producesDistance, and objects removed from us in point of time areips0 fact0distanced to an extent which was impossible for their contemporaries.Many pictures, plays an d poems had,as a m att er of fact, rath er anexpositary or illus trativ e significance-as for ins tance much ecclesiasticalArt-or th e force of a direct prac tical appeal-as th e invectivesof manysatires or comedies-which seem to us nowadays irreconcilable withthe ir aes the tic claims. Su ch works have consequently profited gre atlyby lapse of timeand have reached the level of A rt only with th e helpof

temporal distance, while others, on the contrary, often for the samereason have suffereda loss of Distance, th ro ug h over-distancing.Special mention m us t be m ade ofa group of artis tic conceptions which

present excessive Distance in th ei r formof appeal rather than in theiract ua l presentation-a point illus trati ng th e necessity of distinguishingbetween distancing an object and d istancing th e appeal of which itis t hesource, I mean here what is often rather loosely termed idealistic Art,that is, Art springing from abstract conceptions, expressing allegoricalmeanings,or illustratin g general truths. Generalisations an d abstractions

suffer under this disadvantage that they have too much general applic-ability to invite a personal interest in them, and too little individualconcreteness to prevent them applying tou s in all their force. Theyappeal to everybody an d therefore to none. A n axiom of Euclid belongsto nobody,j u s t because it compels everyones assent; eneral conceptionslike Patriotism, Friendship, Love, Hope, Life, Death, concern as muchDick, Tom arid Harry as myself, and I therefore, either feel unable tog et into an y kind of personal relationto them, or, i f I do so, they becomeat once, emphatically and concretely,my Patriotism, my Friendship, my

1 J. Volkelt, D ie Bedeutu ng der niederen Empfindung en fur die aesthetisohe Ein-fiililung, Ztsch. far Psyckol. IL. Physio l . der Sinneeorg. XXXII. 15 16; System derAesthet ik, 1905 I. 260 ff.

It has been an old problem why t he a rt s of th e eye and of the ear


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EDWARD ULLOUQH 97

Love, my Hope, my Life an d De ath. By m ere force of generalisation,a g ene ral trut.h or a universal ideal is so far distanced from myself t h a t

I fail to realise it concretely at all, or, when I do so, I can realise itonly as part of my practical actualbeing i.e. it falls below th e Distance-lim it altog ethe r. Idea listic A rt suffers consequently und er t he peculiardifficulty th at it s excess of Distan ce tu rn s generally into a n under-distanced appeal-all t h e mo re easily, asit is the usual failing of thesubject to under- rather than to over-distance.

The different special ar ts show at the present t ime very markedvariations in t h e degree of Distance which the y usually impose or requ irefor their appreciation. Unfortuna tely here a gain th e absence of da tam ak es itself felt and i ndic ates th e necessity of conducting observations,possibly experiments,so as to place these suggestions upon a securerbasis. I n one single art, viz. th e theatre, a small amount of informationis available, from a n unexpected source, namely t h e proceedingsof thecensorship committee, which on closer exa m inatio n m igh t be made toyield evidence of inte res t to th e psychologist. I n fact, th e whole censor-ship problem,aa far as it does not t ur n upon pure ly economic questions,may be said to hinge upon Distance;i f every m em ber of th e publiccould be truste d to keep i t , there would b e no sense whatever in th eexiste nce of a censor of plays. T he re is,of course, no dou bt th at , speak-i n g generally, the atr ica l performances eoips0 run a special risk of a lossof Distance owing to th e mater ia l pres entm entz of its subject-matter.T h e physical presence of living hu m an beings a s vehicles of d ram aticart is a difficulty which no a r t h a s to face in t h e sam e way. A similar,in m any ways even g reate r, risk confronts dancing: though at t ract ingperhaps a less widely spread human interest,its animal spiri ts arefrequently quite unrelieved by any glimmer of spiri tuali ty and con-

seq uen tly form a proportionately stronger lureto under-distancing. Inth e h ighe r forms of dancin g technical execution of th e most wearing kindmakes u p a g rea t deal for its intrins ic tendency towardsa loss of Dis-tance, and as a popular performance, a t least in so uthe rn E urope,it h a sretained much of its ancient artistic glamour, producinga peculiarlysub tle balancing of Dis tanc e between th e pu re delight of bodily move-m ent and high technical accomplishment. I n passing, i tis in terest ingto observe as bearing upon the development of Distance), that this art,

Report from the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and the House of

2 I shall iise the term presentment to denote the manner of presenting, in distinctionCommons on the Stage Plays (Censorship), 1909.

to presentation as that which is presented.


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once as much a fine art as music and considered by the Greeks asa particu larly valuable educational exercise, should-except in sporadic

cases-have fallen so low from th e pedestal i t once occupied. N ex t tothe the atre and dancing s tandssculpture. Though not using a livingbodily medium, yet th e human form inits full spatial materiality con-st i tutes a similar thr ea t to Distance. O ur northern hab itsof dress andignorance of the human body have enormously increased the difficultyof distancing Sculpture, in part through thegross misconceptions towhich i t is exposed, in part owing to a complete lack of sta nd ard s ofbodily perfection, and a n in ab ility to realise th e d istinction betweensculptural form arid bodily shape, whichis the only but fundamentalpoint distinguishing a st atu e from a cast tak en from life. Inpaintingit is apparently the form of its presentment and t h e usual reduction inscale which would explain why this art can venturet o approach moreclosely th an sculpture to th e normal Distance-limit. As this ma tterwill be discussed later ina special connexion this simple reference maysuffice here. Music and architecture have a curious position. Thesetwo most abstract of all arts show a remarkable fluctuation in theirDistances. Ce rtain kinds of music, especially pu re music, or classicalor heavy music, appear for many people over-distanced; ight, 'catchytunes, on the contrary, easily reach that degreeof decreasing Distancebelow which they cease to be Art and become a pure amusement. Inspite of its strang e abstractness which to many philosophers has madeit comparable to a rchitec ture and mathematics, m usic possessesasensuous, frequently sensual, character: the undoubted physiologicaland muscular s timu lus of its melodies and harmonies, no less thanitsrhy thm ic aspects, would seem to accountfor th e occasional disappearanceof Distance. To th is m ight be added i ts strong tendency, especially in

unmusical people, to stim ulate trainsof tho ug ht qu ite disconnected withitself,following channels of subjectiveinclinations,-day-dreams of a moreor less directly personal cha racter. Architecture requ ires almost uniformlya very g rea t Distance; ha t is to say, the majorityof persons derive noaesthetic appreciation from architectureas such, apart from the in-cidental impression of its decorative features andits associations. Thecauses ar e numerous, b u t prominent among th em ar e th e confusion ofbuilding w ith arch itecture and th e predominanceof util itaria n purposes,which overshadow th e archite ctura l claims upon t he attentio n.

That all art requires a Distance-limit beyond which, anda Dis-tance within which only, aesthetic appreciation becomes possible,isthe psychologicul formulution of general characteristic of A r t , viz. its

4.


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unti-realistic nutiwe. T ho ug h seemingly paradoxical, th is appliesasmuch to naturalist ic as to dealistic A rt. Tlie difference commonlyexpressed by these ep ith ets is a t bottorn merely th e difference in t hedegree of Dis tanc e; an d this produces,so far as natural ism and deal-ism n A rt are not meaningless labels, th e usual result tha t w hat appearsobnoxiously naturalist ic t o one person, may be idealistic to ano ther.To sa y t h a t A r t is anti-re alistic simply insists upon th e fact th at A rt isnot natu re, never p retends to he natu re and strongly resists any con-fusion with nature. It emphasizes the art-character of A rt: ar t is t icis synonymous w ith anti-realist ic ; i t explains even sometimes a verym arke d d egre e of artificiality.

A r t is an im itation of natu re, was th e c urren t art-conception inthe 18 th centu ry. I t is the fundamental axiom of the standard-workof th a t t im e upon aesthetic theory by the Abbe DuBos, Rejexionscritiques sur la pobie e t la peinture, 1719; the idea received strongsupport from the literal acceptance of Aristotles theory ofpIpquLq andproduced echoes everywhere, in Lessings L a o c o o n no less than inBurkes famous statement that all Art is great as i t deceives.Though it may be assumed that since the t ime of Kant and of theRomanticists this notion has died out,it still lives in unsophisticatedminds. Ev en when formally denied, it persists, for instance, in thebel ief that Art idealises nature, which nieans after all only that Artcopies na ture wi th certa in improvements and revisions. Art ists them -selves are unfortunately often responsible for the spreadingof th isconception. Wliist ler indeed said tha t to produce A rt by im itatingna ture would be like tr yin g to produce niusic by sit tin g upoii th e piano,but th e selective, idealising im itation of n atu re finds merely anothe rsupport in such a saying. Na turalism , pleinairism, impressionism,-even

th e guileless enthusiasm of t h e art is tfor th e works of natu re, he r wealthof suggestion, her delicacy of workmanship, for the steadfastness of herguidance, only produce upon th e public th e impression tha t Ar t is, afterall, a n im itation of natu re. T h eanti thesis, Ar t versus nature, seems to break down. Y et ifit does, w ha tis the sense of A r t ?

Th e solutionof th e dilemma lies in th e antin om y of D istance with i ts demand:utm ost decrease of Distance with out i ts disappearance. T he simpleobservation th a t A rt is th e more effective, th e moreit falls into linewith our predispositions which are inevitably mouldedon generalexperience and nature, has always been the original inotive for

Then how can it be anti-realist ic?

H er e t h e conception of Distance comes to t he rescue.


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naturalism. Naturalism, nipressionism is no new thing ; i t i sonly a new name for an in na te leaning of A rt, from the time of t h e

Chaldeans and Egyptians down t o the present day. Even th e Apolloof Tenen apparently struck his contemporaries as so start l inglynaturalistic th at the subsequent legend attr ibu ted a superhuman

genius to his creator. A constantly closer approach to nature, aperpetual refining of the l imit of Distance, yet without oversteppingthe dividing line of art and nature, has always been the inborn bentofart. To deny this dividing line has occasionally been the failingofnatnralism. But no theory of naturalism is complete which does notat t h e same time allow for th e intrinsic idealism of A r t :for l o t h aremerely degrees in th a t wide range lying beyond th e Distance-limit. Toimitate natu re soas to trick the spectator into the deception thatit isna tu re which he beholds, is to forsake A rt, it s anti-realism, its distancedspirituality, and to fall below the limit into sham, sensationalismorplatitude.

But what, in the theory of antinnmyof Distance requires expla-nation is th e existence of a n idealistic, highly distanced Art. There arenumerous reasons to accountfor i t ; ndeed in so complexa phenomenonas Art , single causes can be pronounced almost a priori to be false.Forem ost among such causes which have con tributedto th e formationof an idealistic Art appears to stand the snbordination ofArt to someextraneous purpose of an impressive, exceptional character. Su chasub ordin ation has consisted-at various epochs of A rt history-in th euse to which A rt was p u t to subserv e comm emorative, hieratic, generallyreligions, royal or patriotic functions. T he object to be comm emoratedhad to sta nd o ut from among o ther still existing objectsor persons ; h ething or th e being tobe worshipped had to be distinguished as markedly

as possible from profaner objects of reverence and hadto be investedwith an air of sancti ty by a removal from its ordinary context ofoccurrence. N othin g could have M is te d mnre powerfully the intro-duction of a high Distance th an this atte m pt to differentiate objectsofcommon experience in order t o fit them for their exalted position.Curious, unusual things of na tu re m et this tendency half-way and easilyassumed divine rank; bu t others had to be distanced by an exaggerationof their size, by extraordinary attributes, by strange combinationsofhum an an d anim al forms, by special insistence upon particular char-acteristics, or by the careful removal of all noticeably individualisticand concrete features. N othin g could be more strikin g tha n th econtrast, for example, iu Egyptian Art between the. mouumental,


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stereotyped cffigies of th e Pharaohs, and th c sta rtlingly r ed is tic render-ing of domestic scenes andof ordinary mortals, such as the Scribe , or

h e Village S heik h. Equally noteworthy is th e exceeding artificialityof Russian eikon-painting with its prescribed attribotes, expressionsand gestures. Even Greek dram atic practice appears to have aimed,forsimilar purposes and in marked con trast toour s tage-habits , a t anincrease rather than at a decrease of Distance. Otherw ise Greek A rt,even of a religious type, is reinarkable for itslow Distanc e value ; n d i tspeaks highly for th e aest,hetic capacitiesof the Greeks tha t th e degreeof realism which th ey ventured to im part to th e representationsof theirgods, while hum anis ing the m , did not, at least a t first, im pair t hereverence of the ir feelings towards them. B u t a pa rt from such specialcauses, idealistic Art of gre at Distance has appeared at intervals, forapparent ly no other reason than tha t t he grea t Dis tancew a s felt to beessential to its art-ch arac ter. W ha t is noteworthy and riins counter tomany accepted ideas is that such periods were usually epochs of a lowlevel of general culture. Th es e were tim es, which, like childhood,requ ired th e marvellous, th e ex traord inary , to satisfy t he ir arti stic long-ings, and neither realised nor cared for the poetic or artist ic quali t ies

of ordin ary things. Th ey were frequent ly times, in which t he massofth e people were plunged in ignorance and buried un der a loadof misery,and in which even the small educated class sought rather aniusementor a pas time in Ar t ; or the y were epochsof a strong practical coinmon-sense too much concerned with the rough-and-tumble of life to havcan y sense of i ts aesth etic charms. A rt was to the m what melodramaist o a section of th e pu blicat the presen t t imelan dits wide Distance w a sthe safegiiard of its artistic character. The flowering periods of Arthave, on th e c ontra ry, always borne th e evidenceof a narrow Distance.

Greek Art, asjust mentioned, was realistic to a n e xt en t which we, spoiltas we are by inodern developments, can grasp with difficulty, but whichth e con trast with its oriental contemporaries sufficiently proves. D urin gth e Au gus tan period-which A rt historians a t last ar e coming to regardno longer a s merely degenerated Greek Art-Roman A rt achieved itsgreates t t r iumph s in an a lmost natural is t ic por t ra it -sculpture . In th eRenaissance we need only th in k of th e realismof portraiture, sometimesamounting almost t o cynicism, of the dksinvoltcrre with which themistresses of popes and dukes were posed as madonnas, saints andgoddesses apparently withoii t any detriment to the aesthetic appealof

1 That this practice did, in coursa of time, undermine their religious faith, is clearfrom the plays of Euripides and from P latos condemnation of Hom ers mythology.


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for US to-day. Our view of Greek mythological sculpture, of earlyChristian saints and martyrs must be considerably distanced, compared

with that of the Greek and niedieval worshipper., It is in part theresult of lapsc of time, but in part also a real change of att itude.Already the outlook of the Irnperial Roman had altered, and Pausaniasshows a curious dualism of standpoint, declaring the Athene Lemnia tobe the supreme acliievement of Phidias s genius, and gazing awe-struckupon the roughly hewn tree-trunk representing some primitive Apollo.Our understandiiig of Greek tragedy suffers admittedly under o u rinability to revert to the point of view for which it was originallywritten. Eveu the tragedies of Racine demand an imagiuative effortto put ourselves back into the courtly atmosphere of red-heeled, powderedceremony. Provided the Distance is not too wide, t.he result of itsintervcntion has everywhere been to enhance the art-character of suchworks and to lower their original ethical and social force of appeal.Thus in the central dome of the Church (Sta Maria Jei Miracoli) atSaronno are depicted the heavenly hosts in ascending tiers, crowned bythe benevolent figure of the Divine Father, bending from the window ofheaven to bestow His blessing upon the assembled community. The

mere realism of' foreshortening arid of the boldest vertical perspectivemay well have made the naive Chris tian of the 16th century consciousof the Divine Presence-but for us it has become a work of Art.

Th e unusual, exceptional, has found i b especial home in tragedy.It h a s always-except in highly distanced trageclj-been a popularobjection to it that here is enough sadness in life without going to thetheatre for it. Already Aristotle appears to havu met with this viewamong his contemporaries clatnouring for happy endings. Yet t.ragedyis not sad ; if it were, there would indeed be li tt le sense in its existence.

For the tragic is just in so far different from the merely sad, as it isdistanced ; and it is largely the exceptional which produces the Distanceof tragedy : exceptional situations, exceptional characters, exceptionaldestinies and conduct. Not of course, characters merely cranky, eccentric,pathological. The exceptional element in tragic figures- t hat whichmakes them so utterly different from characters we meet with inordinary experience-is a consistency of direction, a fervour of ideality,a persistence and driving-force which is far above the capacities ofaverage men. The tragic of tragedy would, transposed into ordinarylife, in nine cases out of ten, end in drama, in comedy, even in farce, forlack of steadfastness, for fear of conventions, for the dread of scenes,for a hundred-and-one petty faithlessnesses towards a belief or an ideal :

J. of Psyah. v


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104 Psychical Distaikce

even if for none of these, i t woiild end ina comprom ise simply becaiiseman forgets an d tim e healsl. Ag ain, th e sympathy , which aches with

th e sadness of tragedy is an oth er such confusion, th e tinder-distancingof tragedys appeal. Trag edy trem bles alwayson the knife-edge of apersonal reaction, an d sym pathy which finds relief in tears ten ds almostalways towards a loss of Distance. Su ch a loss naturally renders tragedyunpleasant to a degree : it becomes sad, dismal, harrowing, depressing.Brit real tragedy (melodrama has a very strong tendency to speculateupon sympathy), truly appreciated, is not sad. T h e pityof it-oh,th e pity of it, t h at essence of all gen uin e tragedyis not the pity ofmild, regretful sympathy. It is a chaos of tearless, bi tte r bewilder-ment, of upsurging revolt a nd raptu rou s awe before th e ruthless an dinscrutable fate ; it is the homage to the great. and exceptional in theman who i n a last effort of spiritual tension can rise to confront blind,crowning Necessity even in his crushing defeat.

As I explained earlier, the form of presentation sometimes en-dangers the maintenance of Distance, but i t more frequently acts asa considerable support. T hu s th e bodily vehicle ofdrama is the chieffactor of risk to Distance. But, as if to counterbalance a confusion

with na tur e, oth er features of stage -presentation exercise an oppositeinfluence. Such are the general theatrical milieu; the shape andarrangement of the stage, the artificial lighting, the costumes,mise-en-sckne an d make-up, even th e language, especially verse. Modernreforms of staging, aiming primarilyat t.he removal of artistic incon-gru ities between excessive decoration and th e living figuresof theactors and at the production of a more homogeneous stage-picture,inevitably work also towardsa greater enipliasis and homogeneityofDistance. T he history of staging and dramaturgyis closely bound up

with the evolution of Distance, andits fluctuations lie at the bottomp o t only of the grea ter part of all th e talk and writing abo ut dram aticprobability and the Aristotelian unities, but also of heatricalillusion. I n sculpture, one distancing factor of presentment is itslack of colour. T h e aesthetic,or rather inaesthetic effect of realistic

The famous unity of time so senselesa as a oauon is all the name often anindispensable condition of tragedy. For in many a tragedy the catastrophe would beeven intrinsically impossible if fatality did not overtake the hero with that rush whichgives no time to forget and none to heal. It is in casen such a ~ hese that criticism hae

often blamed the work for improbability-the old confusion between Art and natur-forgetting that the death of the hero is the convention of the art-form as much asgrouping in a picture is such a convention and that probability is not the oorrespondencewith average experience but consistency of Distance.


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colouring, is in no way touched by the controversial question ofits usehistorically ; i t s attempted resuscitation, such as by Klinger, seems only

to confirm it s disadvantages. T h e dis tan cin g use even of pedestals,although originally no doubt serving other purposes,is evident toanyone who has experienced the oppressively crowded sensation ofmoving in a room among life-sized statues placed directly upon thefloor. T he circumstance th at the space of statua ry is th e same spaceaa ou rs (in distinction to relief scu lpture or pain ting, for instance)renders a dis tan cin g by pedestals, i.e.a removal from our spatial context,imperative'. Probab ly th e framing ofpictures might be shown to servea similar purpose-though pain tings have intrinsically a much g reaterDistance-because ne ith er th ei r space (perspective an d imaginary space)nor their lighting coincides with our (actual) space or l ight, and theusual reduction in scale of the represented objects preventsa feeling ofund ue proximity. Besides, painting always retains to some ex ten t atwo-dimensional character, and th is character supplieseo ips0 a Distance.Nevertheless, life-size pictures, especially if they possess strong relief,and their light happens to coincide with the actual lighting, canoccasionally produce the impression of actual presence which is a far

from pleasant, though fortunately onlya passing, illusion. F o r decora-tive purposes, in pictorial renderings of vistas, garden-perspectives andarc hite ctu ral extensions, th e removal of D istance has often b een con-sciously striven after, whether with aesthetically satisfactory resultsismilch disputed.

A general he lp towards Distance (and the rew ith a n anti-realisticfeature) is to be found in the unification of' presentmenta ' of all art-objects. B y unification of presentment are meant such quali t ies assymmetry, opposition, proportion, balance, rhythmical distribution of

pa rts, light-arrangemen ts, i n fact all so-called ormal features, 'corn-position' in th e widest sense. Un questionably, Distanceis no t th e only,nor even the principal functionof composition ; it serves to render ourgrasp of the presentation easier and to increase its intelligibility. Itmay even in itself c ons titute the principal aesthe tic featu re of t he object,as in linear complexes o r patter ns, partly also in arch itectura l designs.Ye t , its distan cing effect can hardlybe underrated. Fo r, every kind of

1 An instance which might be adduced to disprove this point only shows its correctness

on closer inspection : for it was on purpose and with the intention of removing Distance,that Rodin originally intended his c i t q e n a de Calais to be placed, without pedestals, uponthe market-plaoe of that town.

See note 2, p. 97.8 2


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I06 Pqchical Distance

visibly inte ntio na l arr an ge m en t or unification mu st, by th e m ere factof it s presence, enforce Distance, by distinguishing th e object from th e

confused, disjointed and sc att ered forms of ac tual experience. Thisfunction can be gauged in a typical form in cases where compofiitionproduces an exceptionally m arked impressionof artificiality (not in thebad sense of t ha t term , bu t in the sense in which all art is artificial);and it is a natural corollary to the differences of Distancein differentar ts and of different subjects, tha t th e art s an d subjects vary in th edegree of artificiality which theycan bear. It is this sense of artificialfinish which is the source ofso much of th at elaborate charm of Byzantinework, of M oham medan decoration, of th e hieratic stiffness ofso manyprimitive madonnas and saints. In general th e empha sis of compositionand technical finish increases with the Distance of the subject-matter:heroic conceptions lend them selves be tter to verse th anto prose ; monu-men tal statues require a more general treatment, more elaborationofse ttin g and artificiality of pose th an impressionistic sta tu ett es likethose of Troubetzkoi ; an ecclesiastic subject is painted with a degreeof symmetrical arran ge m en t which woiild be ridiculous in a D utc hinterior, and a naturalistic drama carefully avoids th e tableau impressioncharacteristic of a mystery play. I n a similar manner the variations ofDistance in th.e arts go hand i n hand with a visibly g rea ter predomin-ance of composition and ormal elements, reaching a climax in archi-tecture an d music. It is again a matter of consistency of Distance.At the siime time, while from the point of view of the artist this isundo ubtedly th e case, from th e pointof view of t,he public the em phasisof composition and technical finish appears frequentlyt o relieve theimpression of highly distanced subjectsby diminishing the Distance ofthe whole. Th e spectator hasa tendency to see in composition a nd finish

merely evidence of th e artists cleverness, of his m astery over hismaterial. Manual dex terityis a n enviable thingto possess in everyonesexperience, and naturally appeals to the public practically, therebyp u t t i i g it into a directly personal relation to things which intrinsicallyhave very l ittle p ersonal appeal for it. It is true that this function ofcomposition is hardly an aesthetic one: for th e admiration of meretechnical cleverness is not an art ist ic enjoyment, but by a fortunatechance it has saved from oblivion and entire loss, among much rubbish,also much genuine Art, which otherwise would have completely lostcontact with our life.

Th is discussion, necessarily sk etc hy an d incomplete, may havehelped to illustrate the sense in which,I suggested, Distance appears

5 .


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as a fundamental principle to which such antithesesas idealism andrealism are reducible. T h e difference between dealistic and ealistic

A rt is not a clear-cut dividing-line between th e art-practices describedby the se terms, bu t is a difference of degree in the Distance-limitwhich the y presuppose on th e part both of tlie artist andof th e public.A similar reconciliation seems to me possible between the oppositessensual and spiritual, ' ndividual and ypical. ' T h at th e app eal

of A rt is sensuous, even sensual, m us t be taken as a n indisputable fact.Puritanism will never be persuaded, and rightlyso, tha t th i s is no t thecase. The sensiiousncssof Art i s a natural implication of the 'antinomyof Distance,' an d will ap pe ar agnin in an oth er connexion. T h e pointof importance here is that the whole sensual side of Art is purified,spiritualised,'filtered as I expressed it earlier, by Distance. T h e mostsensual appeal becomes th e translu cen t veil of an underlying spiritu ality,once the grossly personal and practical elements have been removedfrom it. And-a m at te rof special emp hasis here-this sp iri tu al mpectof the appeal is the more penetrating, the more personal and direct itssensual appeal would have been BUT FOR THE PRESENCE OF DISTANCE.For the a rt ist , to trust in this delicate transm utation isa natural act of

fai th which the P u r i t n hesi tates to venture upon: which of the two,one asks, is the grea ter idealist?6. The same argument appl ies to the contradictory epithets

individual an d ypical.' A discussion in su pp ortof the fundamentalindividualism of Ar t lies outside th e scope of this essay. Every artisthas taken it for gra nte d. Besides it is ra th er in the sense of concreteor 'individualised,' th at it is usually opposed to ypical.' On th e oth erhand, ypical,' in th e Renseof abstract,' i s as diametrically opposedtothe whole nature of Art , as ndividualism is characteristicof it. It is in

the sense of 'generalised' as a ' genera l human e lement ' tha t it isclaimed as a necessary ingre dien t in Ar t. Th is antithe sisis again onewhich naturally and without mutual sacrificefinds room within theconception of Distance. Historically th e ypical h a s had th e effect ofcou ntera cting under-distancingas much as th e ndividual has opposedover-distancing. N atu rally th et w o ingre dien ts have constantly variedin the history of Art; they represent, in fact, two sets of conditions towhich Art has invariably been subject: the personal and the socialfactors. It is Distance which on one side preven ts the emptyingof Artof its concreteness an d t he developmentof th e typical into abstractness;which, on the other, suppresses the directly personal elementof itsindividualism ; thus reducing the ant i theses t o the peaceful interplay


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108 Psychicat Dis tance

of these two factors. antinomy of Distance.

It is just this interplay which constitutes the

111.

It remains to indicate the value of Distance as an aesthetic principle:as criterion in some of the standing problems of Aesthetics ; as repre-senting a phase of artistic creation ; and as a characteristic feature ofthe aesthetic consciousness.

1. The axiom o f hedonistic Aestheticx is that beauty is pleasure.Unfortunately for hedonism the formula is not reversible: not allpleasure is beauty. Hence the necessity of some limiting criterion toseparate the beautiful within the pleasure-field from the merelyagreeable. This relation of the beautiful to the agreeable is the everrecurring crux of all hedonistic Aesthetics, as the problem of this relationbecomes inevitable when once the hedonistic basis is granted. Ithas provoked a number of widely different solutions, some manifestlywrong, and all as litt le satisfactory as the whole hedonistic groundworkupon which they rest : the shareableness of beauty as opposed to the

monopoly of the agreeable (Bain), the passivity of beauty-pleasure(Grant Allen)l, or most recently, the relative permanence of beauty-pleasure in revival (H. R. Marshal1)s.

Distance offers a distinction which is as simple i n it s operation as iti fundamental in its importance: the agreeable is a non-distancedpleasure. Beauty in the widest sense of aesthetic value is impossiblewithout the insertion of Distance. The agreeable stands in preciselythe same relation to the beautiful (in its narrower sense) as the sadstands to the tragic, as indicated earlier. Translating the aboveformula, one may say that the agreeable i felt m an affection of ourconcrete, practical self ; the centre of gravi ty of an agreeable experiencelies in the self which experiences the agreeable. The aesthetic experi-ence, on the contrary, has its centre of gravity in itself or in th e objectmediating it, not in the self which has been distanced out of th e fieldof the inner vision of the experiencer : not the fruit of experience,but experience itself, is the end. It is for this reason that to be askedin the midst of an intense aesthetic impression whether one likes it,is like a somnambulist being called by name: it is a recall to onesconcrete self, an awakening of practical consciousness which throws the

1 Bain, The Emotiom and the Will 2nd ed. 1860.9 -G. Allen, Physiological Aeathetics 1897.

H. . Marshall, Pain Pleasure and Aesthetics 1894; Aesthetic Principles 1895.


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EDWARDULLOUCIH 109

whole aes the tic mechanism out of gear. On e m igh t almost ventu reupon the paradox tha t the more intense th e aesthetic absorption, th e

less one ikes, consciously, th e experience. T h e failure t o realiset l h fact, so fully borne out by all genuine artistic experience, is thefundamental error of hedonistic Aesthetics.

T h e problem of t h e relation of t h e beau tiful and th e agreeable hastaken more definite shape in the questionof the aesthetic value of th eso-called lower senses (comprising sensations of ta ste a nd tem pe ratu re,Inuscnlar and tactile, and organic sensations). S ig ht and hearin g havealways been the aesthetic sensesp a r excellence. Scent has beenadmit ted t o the s ta tus of an aesthe tic sense by some, excluded by others.T he ground for th e rejection bf th e lower senses has always been th a tthey me diate only agreeab le sensations, b u t ar e incapable of conveyingae sth etic experiences. Though tru e normally, th is rigid distinctionistheoretically unfair to the senses, and in practice often false. It isundoubtedly very difficult to reach an aesthetic appreciation throught h e lower senses, because th e materialness of the ir action, the irproximity and bodily connexion are great obstacles to their distancing.Th e a roma of coffee may be a kind of foretaste, taste etherialised, bu t

still a taste. T he sweetness of scent ofa rose is usually felt more asabodily caress than as an aesthetic experience. Y et poets have nothesitated to call th e scentsof flowers their I soiils. Shelley has tran s-formed the scent to a n imperceptible sound. W e call such conceptions poetical : they mark th e transition from th e merely agreeable to th ebeautiful by meansof Distance.

M. Guyau, in a well-known passagez, has described th e same trans -formation of a taste. Eve n muscular sensations may presen t aesthe ticpossibilities, in the free exercise of bodily movement, the swingof a

runner, in the ease and cer ta inty of the t ra ined gymnast ; nay, suchdiffuse organic sensations as the buoyancy of well-being, and theela sti city of bodily energy, can, in privileged mo men ts, be aestheticallyenjoyed. T h a t the y adm it ofno material fixation, such as objects ofs ight and hear ing do, and for tha t reason form no pa rt of A r t in th enarrower sen se ; th a t they ex is t as aes thetic objects onlyfor th e nionientand for the single being th a t enjoys them,is no argum ent agaiust theiraes thet ic character. Mere m ater ial existence an d permanence isnoaesthetic criterion.

Cf. The Sensitive Plant.M. Guyau, Prob lbws tle 1Estltdtique eoalencporairv, Paris, 1897, qrn ed. Livre I .

chap. VI.


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EDWARDULLOUGH 111

From the point of view of the present discussion, the caseof conLedyis particularly involved. What we mean by comedy as a class of

theatrical entertainment covers several different kinds', which actuallymerge into each other and present historicallya continuity whichallows of no sharp linesof demarcation (a difficulty, by the way, whichbesets all distinctions of literary or artistic species as opposed toar t is t ic generu . The second difficulty is thatthe aughable includesmuch more than the comic of comedy, It may en ter, in all its varietiesof the ridiculous, silly, naive, brilliant, especiallyas the liumorous, intocomedy as ingredients, but the comic is not coextensive with thelaughable as a whole.

The fact to be noted here is, that the different types of comedy,aswell as the different kinds of th e laugh able, presuppose different degreesof Distance. Both to laughand to weep are direct expressions of a thoroughly practical nature,indicating almost always a concrete personal affection. In de ed , givensuitable circumstances and adequate distancing-power, both c a n bedistanced, but only with great difficulty; nor is it possible to decidewhich of the two offers th e grea ter difficulty. T he balance seems

almost to incline in favour of tears as the easier of t h e two, and thiswould accord with the acknowledged difficulty of producinga reallyg o d com edy, or of maintaining a consistent aesthetic att i tude i n faceof a comic situation. Certainly the tendency to underdistance is morefelt in comedy even than in tragedy; most types of th e former present-ing a non-distanced practical and personal appeal, which preciselyimplies that their enjoyment is generally hedonic,n o t aesthetic. In itslower forms coruedy consequently isa mere amusement and falls aslittle under the heading of A rtas pamphleteering would be consideredas belles-lettres or a burglary as a dramatic performance. It may bespiritualised, polished and refinedto the sharpness of a dagger-point orthe subt le ty of foil-play, but there still clings to it an atmosphere ofamusement pure and simple, sometimes of a rude, often ofa cruel kind.

1 Comedy embraces satirical comedy, i.e. dramatic invectives of all degreesof personaldirectness, from the attack on actually existing persons (such as is prohibited by thecensorship, but has flourished everywhere) to skits upon existing professions, cnetoms,evils, OT society ; secondly, farce rarely unmixed with satire, but occasionally purenonsense and liorseplny; thirdly, comedy proper, a sublimation of farce into the pure

comedy of general human situation, or genuine character-comedy, changing easily intothe fourth class, the type of play described on the Continent as drirmu (in the narrowersense), i.e. a play involving serious situation , sometimes with tragic prospects, but havingan happy, if often unexpected, ending.

Their tendency is to have none at all.


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EDWARDULLOUGH 113

with a reality whose existence he doesnot b m ut accepts. Neitherbears the twofold character of the aesthetic state in whichwe know a

thing not to exist, but accept its existence. From th e po int of view ofmoral advantage-in th e absence of an y aes the tic advantage-the formeratt i t ud e migh t seem preferable. B ut even this maybe doubted ; for ifhe believes what he sees in a great spectacular melodrama, everymarble-lined hall of the most ordiuary London hotel that he passesafter the play must appear to him as a veritable Hell, and everyman or woman in evening-dress as the devil incarnate. On eithersupposition, the moral effect must be deplorable in the extreme, andthe melodrama is generallya much more fitting object of th e censorsattention than any usually censored play. For in the one case thebru talising effect of the obtrusively visible wickedness cannot possiblybe outweighed by any retaliatory poetic justice, which must ~eeniohim singularly lacking in real life; in the other, the effectis purelyneg ative an d narco tic; in both his perspective of real life is hopelesslyoutfocussed and distorted.

2. T he importance of Distance in artis tic creation has already beenbriefly alluded to in connexion with theantinomy of Distance.

Distancing might, indeed, well be consideredas the especial andprimary function of what is called the creative act in artistic produc-t ion: dis tancing is t he formal aspect of creation in Art. The viewtha t the a r t i s t copies nature has already been dismissed. Since th e mitation-of-nature theory w a s officially discarded at the beginning ofth e 1 9 th cen tury, it s place in popular fancy has been taken by th econception of the self-expression of the artist, supportedby the wholeforce of th e Rom antic Movement in Europe. Though tr u eas a crudestatement of the subjective origin of an artistic conception, though in

many ways preferable t n its predecessor and valuable as a corollary ofsuch theories aa that of the organic growth of a work of Art, it is ap tto lead to confusions and to one-sided inferences,t o be found even insuch deliberate and expert accounts of artistic productionas tha t ofBene detto Croce. For, to s ta rt with, th e self-expression of a n art istis not such as the self-expression ofa letter-writer ora public speaker:i t i s no t the direct expression of the concrete personalityof the ar t is t ;it is not even an indirect expression of h is concrete personality, in th esense i n which, for instance, Hamlets self-expression might be sup-posed to be th e ind irec t retlexion of Shakespeares ideas. Su chadenial, it migh t be argued, runs counter to t h e observation that in the

Benedetto Croce, Aeatlet ic, translated by Douglas Ainslie, Macnihan, 1909.


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114 Psychical Distarrice

works of a literary ar tis t, for example, ar e to be found echoes andmirrorings of his times and of his personal experiences and convictions.

B ut i t is to be noted t h at to find theseis in fact impossible, unless youpreviously know what reflexions to look fh Even in the relativelymost direct transference from personal expcriences to their expres-sion, viz. in lyrical poetry, such a connexion cannot be establishedbackwards, though it is easy enough to prove it forwards: i.e. giventhe knowledge of th e experiences, there is no difiiculty in tracing theirechoes, but it is impossible to infer biographical data of any detailorconcrete value from an authors works alone. O therw ise ShakespearesSonnets would not have proved as refractory to biographical researchasthey have done, and endless blunders in literary history would neverhave been comm itted. W h at provesso impossible in literature, whichafter all offers an exceptionally adequate medium t o self-expression,is a fortiori ou t of question in othe r arts, in which the reis not evena n equivalence between th e personal experiences and th e m aterial inwhich they ar e supposed t o be formulated. T he fundam ental two-folderror of the self-expression theory is to speak of expression in thesense of ntentional communication, and to identify straightway the

arti st an d th e man. An intentional cominunication isas

far almostfrom the mind of the t rue ar t is t as it would be from that of theordinary respectable citizen to walk abo ut naked in th e streets, an dth e idea has repeatedly been indig nan tly repudiated by artists. T hesecond confusion is as misleading in its theoretical consequences,as itis mischievous and often exceediiigly painful to th e man as well a s toth e artist. Th e numberless instances in history of th e astonishingdifference, often th e marked contrast between th eman and his work isone of the most disconcerting riddles of Art, and should serve as a

manifest warning against the popular illusion of finding theartistsmind in his productions.

Apart from the complication of technical necessities, of conventionalart-forms, of th e requirem ents of unification a nd composition, all imped-ing the direct transference of an actual mental content intoits artisticformulation, ther e is th e interpolation of Distance which stands betwe enthe artists conception and the mans. For the a r t i s t himself isalready distanced from th e concrete, historical personality, who ate an ddrank and slept and did the ordiuary business of life. No doub t herealso are degrees of Distance, an d th eantinom y applies to this case too.

Wattesu Murillo, Molidre, Ychiller, Verlaine, Zola.1 Nome well.known ex amp les of this difference nre, for instance: Mozart, Beethoven,


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EDWARDULLOUGII 115

Some figures in literature and othe r a rts are unquestionably self-po rtra its; b u t even self-portraits are not, a,nd cannot be, th e direct and

faithful cast tak en from th e living soul. I n short,so far from beingself-expression, artistic production is the indirect forrrLulation of a

distanced mental content.A well-known dramatist

described to me th e process of production a s tak in g place in his case insome such way as follows:

The s tar t ing-point of his production is what he described as anemotioual idea, i.e. some more or less general conception carryingwith it a stro ng emotional tone. Th is idea may be suggested by a nact ua l experience ; anyhow the idea itself is an actual experience, i.e.itoccurs within the range of his normal, practical being. Graduallyitcondenses itself into a situation made up of the inberplay of certaincharacters, which maybe of partly objective, partly imaginative descent.Then ensues what he described asa ( ife an d de ath strug gle betweenthe idea and the characters for existence: if the idea gains the upperhand, th e conception of th e whole is doomed. I n th e successful issue,on the contrary, the idea is, to use his phrase, sucked upby the

characters aa a sponge sucks up w ater, un til no traceof the idea is leftoutside the characters. It is a process, which, he assured me, he isquite powerless to director even to influence. It is further of interestto notice th at du rin g th is period th e idea undergoes sometimes profound,often wholesale changes. Once th e stageof complete fusion of t heidea with the characters is reached, the conscious elaboration of theplay can proceed. W ha t follows afte r this, is of no fu rth er inte res t inth is connexion.

T hi s account tallies closely with th e procedure w hich numerous

dramatists are known to have followed. It forms a definite type.There are other types, equally well supported by evidence, whichproceed along much less definite lines ofa semi-logical development,but rather show sudden flash-like illuminations and much more sub-conscious growth.

The point to notice is the life and death struggle between theidea and th e characters. As I first remarked, th e idea is themans, i tis th e reflexion of th e dram atists concrete and practicalself Yet thisis precisely th e part which m ust die. T he paradoxof just the germ-part of th e whole being doomed, particularly imp ressed my informa ntas a kind of life-tragedy. Th e cha racters on th e other hand belongto t he imaginary world, t o t he artists. Thoug h they may be partially

I give a short illustration of this fact,


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116 Pqchical Distance

sugges ted by actuality, their full-grown developmentis divorced from it.Th is proceas of th e id ea being su ck ed up by th e characters and

being destroyed by it, is a phase of artistic production technicallyknown as the I objectivation of th e conception. I n it t he m an diesan d t h e ar tist comes to life, and with him th e work of Ar t. It is achange of death and b irth in which thereis no overlapping of th e livesof pa re nt an d child. T he result is th e distanced finished production.As elsewhere, th e distancing mea ns th e separation of personal affections,whether idea or complex experience, from the concrete personalityofthe experiencer, its filtering by the extrusionof its personal aspects,the throwing out of gear of its personal potency and significance.

T he same transformation through distanceie to be noticed in acting.Here, even m ore than in th e othe r arts,a lingering bias in favour of th e mitation of n a tu re theory h as etood in th e way ofa correct interpr e-tation of th e facts. Y et acting supplies in th is an d o ther respectsexceptionally valuahle information, owingto it s med ium of expressionan d th e overlapping-at least in part-of th e process of producing withth e finished production, which elsewhere ar e separated in pointof time.It illustrates, BR no other art can, the cleavage between the concrete,

normal person an d the distanced personality. [The ac ting here referredt o is, of course, no t th a t sty le which confiistsin walking on. What ismeant here is reative acting, which in its turn must be distinguishedfrom eproductive acting-two different typ es traceable through th egreater part of theatrical history, which in their highest developmentare often outwardly indistinguishable, but nevertheless retain traces ofdifferences, chara cteristic of the ir procedures an d psychical mechanism.]Th is cleavage between th e two stre am s or layers of consciousnessis soobvious that it has led to increasing spectilation from the time when

acting first attracted intelligent interes t, since th e middle of th e 18 thcentury. From th e tim e of DiderotsParadoxe slcr le Comddien (itselfonly th e las t of a series of Fr en ch studies) down to M r William ArchersMaskg or Faces (1888) and the controversy between Coquelin andSalvini (in the nineties), theory has beenat pains to grapple with thisphenomenon. Exp lanations have differed widely, going from the oneextreme of a n identification of th e acting and the normal personality tothe other of a separation so wide as to be theoretically inconceivableand contradicted by experience. It is necessary to offer some concep-tion which will account for the differencesas well as for the indirectconnexion between th e two forms of being, an d whichis applicable notmerely to acting, bu t to othe r kinds of ar tas well. Distance, it is here


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EDWARD ULLOUGH 117

contended, meets th e requirement even inits su btle st shades. To showth is in detail lies outside tb e scope of th is essay, and forms ra th er th e

task of a special treatment of the psychology of acting.I n th e inte rest of those who may bc familiar with th e develop-

ments of aes the tic theories of lat e years, I should l ike to add thatD istanc e ha s a special bearing upon many p oints raised by them. It isessential to the occurrence and workingof mpathy Einfiihlung),andI mentioned earlier its connexion with Witaseks theory of Schsin-gefiihle which forms part of his view on empathy. T he distinctionbetween sympathy and em pa thy as formulated by Lippslis am att e r of th e relative degree of Distance. Vo lkeltsl suggestion ofreg ard ing th e ordina,ry apprehension of expression (sayof a personsface) as the first ru dim en tary stage ofEinfihlung eading subsequentlyto the lowering of o w consciousness of reality( Herabsetzulhg desWirklichkeitsgefuhls ), can similarly be formu lated in term s of Distance.K . Langess account of aes the tic experience in t h e formof llusion asconscious self-deception appears to me a wrong formulation of t hefacts expressed by Distance. Langes illus ion theory seems to me,am on g oth er things, to be baaed upon a false opposition between A rt

and real i ty (nature) as the subject-matter of the former, whereasDistance does no t imply any coniparison between them in th e act ofexperiencing and removes altog ether the c entreof gravity of th e formulafrom the opposition.]

I n this way D istance represents in aesth etic appreciationas wellaa in artistic production a quality inherent in the impersonal, yetsointen sely personal, relation which th e h um an b eing en tertains with A rt,e i ther as mere beholder or as producing artist.

It is Distance which mak es the aesthetic object an end in itself.

It is that which raises Art beyond the narrow sphere of individualin te res t and imp ar t s to it t ha t postulating character which the ideal-istic philosophy of the 19th century regarded as a metaphysicalnecessity. It rend ers questions of origin, of influences, or of purposesalmost as meaningless as those of marketable value, of pleasure, even ofmoral importance, since it lifts the work of Art out of the realm ofpractical systems and ends.

[3.

4.

Th. Lipps, Aeethe t ik , Hamburg and Leipzig, 1903, I . ; Aesthetische Einfiihluny,Z t s ch . f u r P s y c h o l . u. Phys io l . der Sinnesorg. XXII . 416 ff

J . Volkelt, S y r t e m pr Aesthe t ik , 1905 I. 217 ff and 488 f fI . Lenge, Des Wesen der Kitnat 1901, 2 vols.J Segal, Die bewusste Selbsttiiuschung als Kern des aesthetischen Geniessens

Arch. f d . gea. Pdychol . VI. 254ff.


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118 PslJchical Distance

In particular, it is Distance, which supplies one of the specialcrit eria of aes the tic values 83 distinct from practical (utilitarian),

scientific, or social (ethical) values. All thes e a re concrete values,either directly personal aa utilitarian, or indirectly remotely personal,as moral values. To speak, therefore, of the pleasure value of Art,and to introduce hedonism into aesthetic speculation, is even moreirrelevant than to speak of moral hedonism in Ethics. A es the tichedonism is a compromise. It is the attempt to reconcile for publicuse utilita rian ends with aesthetic values. Hedonism,as a practical,personal appeal has no place in the distanced appeal of Art. Moralhedonism is even more to the point than aesthetic hedonism, sinceethical values, qu social values, lie on the line of prolougation of utili-tarian ends, sublimating indeed thedirectly personal object into therealm of socially or universally valuableends, often demanding thesacrifice of individual happiness, but losing neither itspractical noreven its remotely personal character.

I n so far, Distance becomes one of the distinguishing featuresoft he ae sth eti c consciousness, of th a t special men tality or outlook uponexperience and life, which,as I said at the outset, leads in its most

pregnant and most fully developed form, both appreciatively andproductively, to Art.

(Manuscript received March 17, 1912.

psychical distance' as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle

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