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ESSAY ON TASTE, IN THE THINGS OF NATURE AND OF ART. or REFLECTIONS ON THE CAUSES OF PLEASURE THAT EXCITE IN US THE WORKS OF ESPIRIT AND THE PRODUCTIONS OF BEAUTIFUL ARTS by Montesquieu

[1] In our current manner of being, our soul tastes three sorts of pleasures; there are some that it draws from the bottom of our very existence; others that result in its union with the body; others, finally, that are founded on the bends and the prejudices that certain institutions, certain usages, certain habits, have made it take.

[2] It is these different pleasures of our soul that form the objects of taste, like the beautiful, the good, the agreeable, the naïve, the delicate, the tender, the gracious, the je ne sais quoi, the noble, the great, the sublime, the majestic, etc. For example, when we find some pleasure in seeing a thing with a utility for us, we say that it is good; when we find some pleasure in it without disentangling a present utility for us, we call it beautiful.

[3] The ancients did not have a good understanding of this. They would regard as positive qualities all of the relative qualities of our soul; which means that these dialogues where Plato makes Socrates reason, these dialogues so admired by the ancients, are today unbearable, because they are founded on a false philosophy; for, all these reasonings drawn on the good, the beautiful, the perfect, the wise, the mad, the hard, the soft, the dry, the wet, though having been treated as positive things, they no longer signify anything.

[4] The sources of the good, of the beautiful, of the agreeable, etc., are in ourselves; and in seeking the reasons, it is to seek the causes of the pleasures of our soul.

[5] So let us examine our soul, let us study it in its actions and in its passions; it is there where it manifests more. Poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance, the different sorts of games, at last the works of nature and of art, are able to give pleasure to it. Let us see why, how, and when they give pleasure to it the soul; let us render reason from our sentiments; this will be able to contribute to us forming the taste, which is nothing other than the advantage of discovering with finesse and with promptitude the measure of the pleasure that each thing ought to give to men.

Of the Pleasures of our Soul

[6] The soul, independently of the pleasures that come to it from the senses, has some [pleasures] that it would have independently of them, and which are its own; such are those that curiosity, the ideas of its greatness, of its perfections, the idea of its existence opposed to the sentiment of nothingness, the pleasure of embracing everything from one general idea, that of seeing a great number of things, etc., that of comparing, of joining and of separating the ideas. These pleasures are in the nature of the soul independently of sense, because they may belong to every being who think; and it is quite indifferent to examine here whether our soul has these pleasures as substance united with the body, or as separated from the body,

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because it always has them, and they are the objects of taste: thus we will not distinguish here the pleasures that come to the soul from its nature along with those that come to it from its union with the body; we will call all of this natural pleasures, which we will distinguish from the acquired pleasures that the soul makes for itself by certain liaisons with the natural pleasures; and in the same manner and by the same reason we will distinguish the natural taste and the acquired taste.

[7] It is good to know the source of the pleasures; of which the taste is the measure: the knowledge of the natural and acquired pleasures will be able to serve us in rectifying our natural taste and our acquired taste. It is necessary to start from the state where our being is, and to know what are its pleasures, in order to get to measuring them and even sometimes to sensing them.

[8] If our soul had not been united to the body, it would have known; but it appears that it would have liked what it would have known: at present we almost only love what we do not know.

[9] Our manner of being is entirely arbitrary; we could have been made as we are, or otherwise. But if we had been made otherwise, we would have sensed otherwise; one organ more or less in our machine would made another eloquence, another poetry: for example, if the constitution of our organs had rendered us capable of a longer span of attention, all the rules that accommodate the disposition of the subject to the measure of our attention would no longer be; if we had been rendered capable of more penetration, all the rules that are founded on the measure of our penetration would fall in the same way; finally all the laws established on what our machine is of a certain way, would be different, if our machine was not this way.

[10] If our sight had been more feeble and more confused, less patterns and more uniformity would have been necessary in the parts of architecture; if our sight had been more distinct, and our soul capable of embracing more of things at once, more ornaments would have been necessary in architecture; if our ears had been made as those of certain animals, it would have been necessary to reform many of our musical instruments. I know well that the relations that things have between themselves would have subsisted; but the relation that they have with us having changed, things that, in the present state, make a certain effect on us, would no longer make it; and as the perfection of the arts is from presenting things to us such that they may make the most pleasure for us that is possible, there would have to have been some change in the arts, since there would have been some change in the manner most appropriate to give pleasure to us.

[11] One believes first that it would suffice to know the diverse sources of our pleasures in order to have taste, and that, when one has read what philosophy tells us thereupon, one has some taste, and that one can boldly judge works. But the natural taste is not a knowledge from theory, it is a prompt and exquisite application of the very rules that one does not know. It is not necessary to know that the pleasure that gives us a certain thing that we find beautiful comes from surprise it suffices that it surprises us, and that it surprises us as much as it ought, neither more nor less.

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[12] Thus what we could say here, and all the precepts that we could give in order to form the taste, can only regard the acquired taste, that is to say they are able to regard directly only this acquired taste, although they still indirectly regard the natural taste; for the acquired taste affects, changes, augments and diminishes the natural taste, as the natural taste affects, changes, augments and diminishes the acquired taste.

[13] The most general definition of taste, without considering whether it is good or bad, just or not, is what we attach to a thing by the sentiment; which does not prevent that it may be applied to intellectual things, whose knowledge makes so much pleasure to the soul that it was the only felicity that certain philosophers were able to comprehend. The soul knows by its ideas and by its sentiments; for, although we oppose the idea to the sentiment, nevertheless when it sees a thing it senses it; and there are no things so intellectual that it may not see them or that it may not believe to see them, and by consequence that it may not sense them.

Of the Espirit in General

[14] The espirit is the genus that has several species under it, the genius, the good sense, the discernment, the accuracy, the talent and the taste.

[15] The espirit consists in having the organs well constituted relative to the things where it is applied. If the thing is extremely particular, it is named talent; if it has more relation to a certain delicate pleasure of the gens of the world, it is named taste; if the particular thing is unique among a people, the talent is named espirit, as the art of war and of agriculture among the Romans, hunting among the Savages.

Of Curiosity

[16] Our soul is made in order to think, that is to say in order to apperceive: now such a being ought to have curiosity; for, as all the things are in a chain where each idea precedes one and follows another, one cannot ever have one thing without desiring to have some of another; and, if we did not have this desire for this thing here, we would have had no pleasure for that one there. Thus, when one shows a part of a painting to us, we wish to see the part that one hides from us, in proportion to the pleasure that the one that we have seen made for us.

[17] So it is, the pleasure that gives one object to us that carries us to another; that is why the soul always seeks new things, and is never reposed.

[18] Thus one will always be sure to please the soul when one will cause many things to be seen by it, or more than it had expected to see.

[19] Here one can explain the reason why we have pleasure when we see a quite regular garden, and that we still have some pleasure when we see a raw and plains place: it is the same cause that produces these effects. As we love to see a great number of objects, we would like to extend our sight, to be in several places, to cross more of space: at last our soul flees the boundaries, and it would like so to speak to extend the sphere of its presence; thus it is a great pleasure for it to carry its sight afar. But how to do it? In the cities? Our sight is bounded by houses; in the country? It is by a thousand obstacles; scarcely can we see three or four trees. Art comes to our succor, and nature uncovers for us that nature herself hides herself; we love art, and we love it better than nature, that is to say the nature hidden to our eyes: but

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when we find beautiful situations, when our sight at liberty can see afar meadows, brooks, hills, and these dispositions that are, so to speak, expressly created, sight is much more enchanted than when it sees the gardens of Le Nostre; because nature does not copy itself, whereas art always resembles itself.1 That is why in painting we love a landscape better than the most beautiful garden in the world: it is that the painting only takes nature there where she is most beautiful, there where the sight is able to carry itself afar and in all its extent, there where she is varied, there where she can be seen with pleasure.

[20] What ordinarily makes a great thought, is when one says a thing that makes one see a great number of others, and that one makes us discover all of a sudden for what we used to be able to hope only after a great reading.

[21] Florus represents for us in few words all of the mistakes of Hannibal “When he was able,” said he, “to use victory, he preferred to enjoy it;” cum victoria posset uti, frui maluit.

[22] He gives an idea to us of the whole war of Macedonia when he says: “It was vanquish to enter it;” introisse victoria fuit.

[23] He gives to us the whole spectacle of the life of Scipion when he says of his youth: “It is Scipio who grows for the destruction of Africa;” hic erit Scipio qui in exitium Africæ crescit. You believe to see a child who grows and rises as a giant.

[24] At last he makes us see the great character of Hannibal, the situation of the universe, and the greatness of the Roman people when he says: “Hannibal the fugitive was seeking for the roman people an enemy through the whole universe;” qui, profugus ex Africa, hostem populo romano toto orbe quærebat.

Of the Pleasures of Order

[25] It does not suffice to show many things to the soul, it is necessary to show them to it with order; for then we remember what we have seen, and we commence to imagine what we will see; our soul is felicitated by its extent and by its penetration: but, in a work where there is no order, the soul senses each instant to trouble that thing that it wants to place. The result that the author has made for himself, and the one that we make for ourselves, are confounded; the soul retains nothing, it foresees nothing; it is humiliated by the confusion of its ideas, by the inanity that stays with it; it is truly fatigued, and it is not able to taste any pleasure: this is why, when the design is not to express or to show confusion, one always places order in the confusion itself; thus painters group their figures; thus those who paint the battles put at the front of their paintings the things that the eye ought to distinguish, and the confusion in the background and in the distance.

1 André Le Nostre was the gardener of King Louis XIV. Le Nostre is remembered for his ornate landscape architecture.

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Of the Pleasure of Variety

[26] But if there is a need of order in things, there is also a need of variety; without this the soul languishes, for similar things appear the same to it; and if one part of a painting that one uncovers for us was resembling another that we had seen, this object would be new without appearing it, and it would not make any pleasure. And as the beauties of works of art, similar to those of nature, consist only in the pleasures that they make for us, it is necessary that one render them appropriate, as much as one is able, to vary these pleasures; it is necessary to cause the soul to see things that it has not seen; it is necessary that the sentiment that one gives to it be different than the one that it comes to have.

[27] It is thus that histories please us by the variety of the narratives, the novels by the variety of the prodigies, the theatre plays by the variety of the passions; and that those, who know how to instruct, change as much as they are able in the uniform tone of instruction.

[28] A long uniformity renders everything unbearable; the same order continued from periods of long time overwhelms in a harangue; the same numbers and the same chutes put boredom in a long poem. If it is true that one had made this famous path from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the traveler ought to die from boredom, contained between the two ranks of this path; and the one who will have traveled for a long time in the Alps will come out disgusted from the happiest situations and the most charming points of view.

[29] There are some things that appear varied, and are not; and other that appear uniformed, but are very varied.

[30] Gothic architecture appears very varied; but the confusion of the ornaments fatigues by their smallness, which causes that there is not anything that we may distinguish from another, and their number causes that there is not anything upon which the eye may arrest; of a manner that it displeases by the very places that one has chosen in order to render it agreeable.

[31] A building of gothic order is a species of enigma for the eye that sees it, and the soul is embarrassed as when one presents an obscure poem to it.

[32] Greek architecture, on the contrary, appears uniform; but, as it has the necessary divisions, and as many as it is necessary so that the soul may see precisely what it is able to see without being fatigued, but that it may see enough in order to be occupied, it has this variety that makes it look with pleasure.

[33] It is thus that the painter divides into groups of three or four those that he represents in a picture: he imitates nature; a large troupe is always divided into platoons; and it is again thus that the painted divides into large masses his lights and his darks.

Of the Pleasures of Symmetry

[34] I have said that the soul loves variety; however, in most things, it loves to see a species of symmetry. It seems that this contains some contradiction: here is how I explain that.

[35] One of the principle causes of the pleasures of our soul when it sees objects, is the facility that it has in perceiving/seeing them; and the reason that causes symmetry to be

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pleasing to the soul is that it spares it pain, that it relieves it, and that it cuts so to speak the work in half.

[36] From there follows a general rule: everywhere that symmetry is useful to the soul and can aid its functions, it is agreeable to it; but everywhere that it is useless, it is bland, because it removes variety. Now the things that we see successively ought to have variety, for our soul does not have any difficulty in seeing them; those on the contrary that we see of a sudden from the eye ought to have symmetry. Thus, as we see of a sudden from the eye a building, a parterre, a temple, one puts symmetry there, which is pleasing to the soul by the facility that it gives it to embrace the whole object from the first.

[37] As the object that one ought to see of a sudden from the eye must be simple, it must also be unique, and the parts are all related to the principal object: that is again why one loves symmetry; it makes a whole ensemble.

[38] It is in nature that a whole be completed; and the soul that sees this whole wants that there be no imperfect part. This is again why one loves symmetry: it is a necessary species of weighting or of balance; and a building with one wing, or one wing shorter than another, is as little finished as a body with one arm, or with one arm too short.

Of Contrasts

[39] The soul loves symmetry, but it also loves contrasts; this asks for many explanations.

[40] For example, if nature require of the painters and of the sculptors that they put symmetry in the parts of their figures, she wants on the contrary that they put contrasts in the attitudes. A foot ranged as another, a member who goes as another, are unbearable: the reason ins that this symmetry makes it that the attitudes are almost always the same, as one see it in the gothic figures, which all resemble each other. Thus there is no more variety in the productions of art. Moreover, nature has not situated us thus; at, as she has given movement to us, she has not adjusted us in our actions and in our manners like pagodas; and if bothered and contained men are unbearable, what shall be of these productions of art?

[41] So it is necessary to put contrasts in the attitudes, above all in the works of sculpture, which, naturally cold, are only able to set fire by the force of contrast and situation.

[42] But, as we have said that the variety that one has sought to set in the gothic has given uniformity to it, it is has often happened that the variety that one has sought to put by means of contrasts has become a symmetry and vicious uniformity.

[43] This is not only sensed in certain works of sculpture and of painting, but also in the style of some writers, who, in each phrase, always put the commencement in contrast with the end by continual antitheses, such as saint Augustine and other authors of low Latin, and anyone of us moderns, as Saint-Évremont. The turn of phrase, always the same and always uniform, displeases extremely; this perpetual contrast becomes symmetry, and this always sought after opposition becomes uniformity. The espirit finds here so little of variety, that, when you have seen a part of the phrase, you always guess the other: you see opposed words, but opposes in the same manner; you see a turn of phrase, but it is always the same.

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[44] Many of the painters have fallen into the default of putting contrasts everywhere and without care; of the sort that, when one sees a figure, one guesses from the first the disposition of those nearby: this continual diversity becomes something similar. Besides, nature, which throw things into disorder, does not show affectation of a continual contrast; not counting that she does not put all bodies in movement, an in a forced movement: she is more varied than that; she puts the ones in repose, and she gives different sorts of movement to others.

[45] If the part of the soul that knows, loves variety, the part that senses does not seek it less; for the soul is not able to sustain the same situations for a long time, because it is linked to a body that is not able to suffer them. In order that our soul be excited, it is necessary that the spirits flow in the nerves: now there are two things; a lassitude in the nerves, a cessation of the part of the spirits that no longer flow, or that dissipate from the places where they have flowed.

[46] Thus everything fatigues us in the long run, and above all the great pleasures; one always quits them with the same satisfaction that one had taken from them; for the fibers that have been its organs have need of repose; it is necessary to employ others more appropriate to serve us, and to distribute so to speak the work.

[47] Our soul is tired of sensing; but not to sense, is to fall into an annihilation that overwhelms it. One remedies everything in varying its modifications; it senses, and it is not tired.

Of the Pleasures of Surprise

[48] This disposition of the soul, which always carries it toward different objects, makes it taste all the pleasures that come from surprise: sentiment that is pleasing to the soul by the spectacle and by the promptitude of action; for it perceives or sense a thing that it does not expect, or in a manner that it was not expecting.

[49] A thing is able to surprise us as marvelous, but also as new, and again as unexpected; and, in these last cases, the principal sentiment lies in an accessory sentiment, founded on whether the thing is new or unexpected.

[50] It is by this that games of chance sting us; they make us see a continual succession of unexpected events: it is by this that the games of society please us; they are again a succession of unforeseen events the cause of which is skill joined at random.

[51] It is again by this that the plays of the theatre please us; they are developed by degrees, they hide the events until they arrive, they always prepare us for new subjects of surprise, and often stinging us by showing them to us such that we ought to have foreseen them.

[52] At last the world of the espirit are ordinarily read only because they spare us agreeable surprises and they compensate for the insipidity of conversations, almost always languid, and they do not make this effect.

[53] The surprise is able to be produced by the thing or by the manner of perceiving it; for we see a thing greater or smaller than it is in effect, or different from what it is; or else we see the

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very thing, but with an accessory idea that surprises us. Such is in a thing the accessory idea of the difficulty of having made it, or of the person who has made it, or of the time where it has been made, or of the manner in which it has been made, or of whatever other circumstance to which it is joined.

[54] Suetonius describes the crimes of Nero for us with a cold blood that surprises us, in making us almost believe that he does not sense the horror of what he is describing. He suddenly changes the whole tone, and says: “The universe having suffered this monster for fourteen years, at last he abandoned it: tale monstrum per quatuordecim annos perpessus terrarum orbis, tandem destituit.” This produces in the espirit different sorts of surprises: we are surprised from the change of style of the author, from the discovery of his different manner of thinking, from his way of rendering in so few word on of the great revolutions that has happened: thus the soul finds a very-great number of different sentiments that combine to shake it and to compose a pleasure for it.

Of the Diverse Causes that Are Able to Produce a Sentiment

[55] It is quite necessary to remark that a sentiment in our soul does not ordinarily have one unique cause; it is, if I may dare to use this term, a certain dose that produces its strength and variety. The espirit consists in knowing how to strike several organs at once; and is one examines the diverse writers, one will see perhaps that the best, and those who have more of advantage, are those who have excited in the soul more sensations at the same time.

[56] See, I pray you, the multiplicity of causes. We prefer to see a garden well arranged than a confusion of trees: 1st because our sight, which would be stopped, is not; 2nd each path is one, and forms a great thing, whereas in the confusion each tree is a thing, and a small thing; 3rd we see an arrangement that we are not accustomed to see; 4th we are grateful for the pain that one has taken; 5th we admire the care that one has in combatting nature without stop, which, by means of productions that one has not asked of nature, seeks to confound everything; which is so true that a neglected garden is unbearable to us. Sometimes the difficulty of a work press us, sometimes it is the facility; and as in a magnificent garden we admire the greatness and the expense of the master, we see sometimes with pleasure that one has had the art of pleasing us with little of expense and of work. Play pleases us because it satisfies our avarice, that is to say the hope of having more; it flattens our vanity by the idea of the preference that fortune gives us and the attention that others have on our happiness; it satisfies our curiosity in giving a spectacle to us; at last it gives us the different pleasures of surprise.

[57] Dance pleases us by lightness, by a certain grace, by the beauty and the variety of attitudes, by its connection with music, the person who dances being as an instrument that accompanies; but above all it pleases by a disposition of our brain, which is such that it brings back in secret the idea of all movement to certain movement, most of the attitudes to certain attitudes.

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Of the Accidental Connection of Certain Ideas

[58] Almost always things please and displease us in different regards: for example, the Castrati of Italy ought to make little pleasure for us: 1st because it is not astonishing that accommodated as they are they sing well; they are as an instrument from which the workman has cut wood in order to make sounds be produced by it; 2nd because the passions that they play are too suspect of falsity; 3rd because they are neither of the sex that we love nor of those that we esteem. On the other hand, they are able to please us, because they conserve a long youthful air, and moreover they have a flexible voice and it is peculiar to them. These each thing gives a sentiment to us that is composed of many others, which weaken each other and sometimes shock each other.

[59] Often our soul composes for itself its very own reason for pleasures, and it succeeds there above all by the connections that it puts on things. Thus one thing that appeals to us pleases us again for the soul reason that it appeals to us, because we join the old idea to the new one. Thus an actress who appeals to us in the theatre pleases us again in the bedroom; her voice, her declamation, the memory of having seen her admire, what am I saying? The idea of the princess joined to her: all this is a species of mixture that forms and produces a pleasure.

[60] We are all full of accessory ideas. A woman who will have a great reputation and a slight defect will be able to put it in credit and to make it be regarded as a grace. Most of the women we love have for themselves only the prevention of their birth or their property, the honors or the esteem of certain gens.

Another Effect of the Connection that the Soul Puts on Things

[61] We owe to the country life that man was leading in the early days this laughing air spread throughout every fable; we owe to him these happy descriptions, these naïve adventures, these gracious divinities, this spectacle of a state different enough from ours as to desire it, and that is not enough removed as to shock verisimilitude, at last this mixture of passions and of tranquility. Our imagination laughs at Diana, at Pan, at Apollo, at the nymphs, at the woods, at the meadows, at the fountains. If the first men had lived as we in the cities, the poets would not have been able to describe to us what we see all day with inquietude, or that we sense with distaste; everything would breath avarice, ambition and passions that torment.

[62] The poets who describe for us the country life speak to us of the age of gold that they regret, that is to say, they speak to us of a time yet happier and more tranquil.

Of the Delicate

[63] The delicate gens are those who join many ideas or many accessory tastes to each idea or to each taste. The gross gens have only one sensation; their soul knows neither how to compose nor how to decompose; they neither join anything to nor take anything from what nature gives: whereas the delicate gens in love are composed the most of pleasures of love. Polixene and Apicius carried to the table many of sensations unknown to us other vulgar eaters; and these who joined the works of espirit with taste have and make for themselves an infinity of sensation that other men do not have.

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Of the Je ne Sais Quoi

[64] There is sometimes in persons or in things an invisible charm, a natural grace that one has not been able to define, and that one has been forced to call the je ne sais quois. It seems to me that it is an effect principally founded on surprise. We are touched by a person who pleases us; and we are agreeably surprised that she knew how to overcome defects that our eyes show us, and that the heart no longer believes. That is why ugly women very often have graces, an that it is rare that the beautiful ones have them. For a beautiful person does ordinarily the contrary of what we have expected: she manages to appear to us less amiable; after having surprised us well, she surprises us badly; but the impression of good is old, that of bad new: thus the beautiful persons rarely make great passions for themselves, almost always reserved for those who have graces, that is to say the amenities that we were not expecting, and we had no reason to expect. Large ornaments rarely have grace, and often the dress of the shepherdesses has some. We admire the majesty of the draperies of Paul Véronès; but we are touched by the simplicity of Raphael and the purity of Corrège. Paul Véronèse promises much, and pays what he promises. Raphael and Corrège promise little, and pay much; and this pleases us more.

[65] The graces are found more ordinarily in the spirt than in the visage: for a beautiful visage appears at first, and it hides almost nothing; but the spirt is only shown little by little, and when it wants, and as much as it wants; it is able to hide itself by appearing, and to give this species of surprise that makes the graces.

[66] The graces are found less in the features of the visage than in the manners; for the manners are born at each instant, and they are able to create surprises at every moment: in a word, a woman is almost able to be beautiful only in one way; but she is pretty in a hundred thousand.

[67] The law of the two sexes has established, among the policed and savage nations, that men would ask, and that women would only grant; it happens that the graces are most particularly attached to women. As they have everything to defend, they have everything to hide; the slightest word, the slightest gesture, all that, without shocking the first duty, shows itself in them, all that is put in liberty, becomes a grace: and such is the wisdom of nature, that what could not be anything without the law of modesty becoming an of infinite value since this happy law, which makes the happiness of the universe.

[68] As gêne and affectation would not know how to surprise us, the graces are not found either in the gênées manner or in the affected manners, but in a certain liberty or freedom that is between the two extremities; and the soul is agreeably surprised in seeing that one has avoided the two pitfalls. It would seem that the natural manners ought to be the easiest: they are those that are less so; for education that gêne us always makes us lose some of the natural: now we are charmed from seeing it return.

[69] Nothing pleases us so much in a finery than when it is in that negligence or even in that disorder that hides from us all the cares that cleanliness has not required, and that only vanity would have made it take; and one never has grace in espirit until what one says seems found and not sought after.

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[70] When you say things that have cost you, you are able to make be seen well that you have espirit, and not graces in the espirit. In order to make it be seen, it is necessary that you do no not see it yourself, and that others, to whom moreover something naïve and simple in you was promising nothing of it, may be gently surprised by apperceiving it.

[71] Thus the graces are not acquired: for in order to have them it is necessary to be naïve. But how can one work to be naïve?

[72] One of the most beautiful fictions of Homer is the one of that belt that gave to Venus the art of pleasing. Nothing is more appropriate to make be sensed that magic and that power of the graces that seem to be given to a person by an invisible power, and that are distinguished from/by beauty itself. Now this belt could only be given to Venus. She was not able to accept the majestic beauty of Juno; for majesty requires a certain gravity, that is to say a gêne opposed to the ingenuity of the graces. She could not well accept the proud beauty of Pallas; for pride is opposed to the sweetness of the graces, and moreover can often be suspected of affectation.

Progression of the Surprise

[73] What makes the great beauties, is when one thing is such that the surprise is at first mediocre, that it is supported, augments, and then leads us to admiration. The works of Raphael strike little at first glance: he imitates nature so well, that one is at first not more astonished than if one was seeing the object itself, which would cause surprise. But an extraordinary expression, a stronger color, a bizarre attitude of a less good painter catches us at first glance, because one is not accustomed to seeing it elsewhere. One can compare Raphael to Virgil, and the painters of Venice, with their forced attitudes, to Lucian. Virgil, more natural, first strikes less in order to then strike more: Lucian first strikes more in order to then strike less.

[74] The exact proportion of the famous church of saint-Pierre makes it not appear as great as it is at first; for we do not know at first where to take ourselves in order to judge of its greatness: is it were less large, we would have been struck by its length; if it were shorter, we would be struck by its width: but to measure as one examines, the eye sees it enlarge, astonishment increases. One is able to compare it to the Pyrenees, where the eye, that was believing at first to measure them, discovers the mountains behind the mountains, and is lost always more.

[75] It happens often that our soul senses pleasure when it has a sentiment that it is not able to disentangle itself, and that it sees a thing absolutely different from what it knows to be, what gives to it a sentiment of surprise from which it is not able to exit. Here is an example. The dome of S. Pierre is immense. One knows that Michael-Angelo, seeing the Patheon, which was the greatest temple of Rome, said that he wanted to make a similar one, but that he wanted to put it in the air. So he made the dome of S.-Pierre on this model; but he made the pillars so massive, that this come, which is like a mountain that one has on the head, appears light to the eye that considers it. So the soul remains uncertain between what it sees and what it knows, and it remains surprised to see a mass at the same time so enormous and so light.

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Of the Beauties That Result from a Certain Bewilder of the Soul

[76] Often the surprise comes to the soul that it is not able to reconcile what it sees with what it has seen. There is in Italy a a great lake, which is called the Great Lake, Lago Maggiore; it is a little sea whose borders show nothing but savage. At fifteen miles in the lake are two islands of a quarter of a turn of a league, which are are called the Borromees, which are, in my opinion, the most enchanting sojourn in the world. The soul is astonished by the romanesque contrast, to recall with pleasure the marvels of the romans, where, before having passed through the rocks and the arid countries, one finds oneself in a place made by fairies.

[77] All the contrasts strike us, because the things in opposition are both raised: thus, when one little man is near a great one, the little one makes the other appear greater, and the great one makes the other appear littler.

[78] These sorts of surprises make the pleasure that one finds in all the beauties of opposition, in all the antitheses and similar figures. When Florus says: “Sore and Algide (who would believe it?) had been formidable for us; Satrique and Cornicule were from provinces; we blush at the Borilians and the Verulians, but we have triumphed; at last Tibur, our suburb, Preneste where our country houses are, were the subjects of the vows that we were going to make at the Capitol:” this author, I say, shows us at the same time the greatness of Rome and the littleness of its beginnings; and the astonishment carries on these two things.

[79] One is able to remark here how great is the difference of antitheses of idea from antitheses of expression. The antithesis of expression is not hidden; the one of idea is so; the one has always the same habit; the other changes as one wants: the one is varried, the other is not.

[80] The same Florus, in speaking of the Samnites, says that their cities were so destroyed that it is difficult to find at present the subject of twenty-four triumphs; ut non facile appareat materia quatuor et viginti triumphorum. And, by the same words which mark the destruction of this people, it is necessary to the see greatness of its courage and of its obstinacy.

[81] When we want to prevent ourselves from laughing, our laughing redoubles because of the contrast which is between the situation where we are and the one where we ought to be. In the same way, when we see a great defect in a visage, as, for example, a very big nose, we laugh because we see that this contrast with the other features of the face ought not be. Thus the contrasts are the cause of defects as well as of beauties. When we see that they are without reason, they raise or illuminate another defect, they are the great instruments of ugliness, which, when it strikes us suddenly, is able to excite a certain joy in our soul and makes us laugh. If our soul regards it as a misfortune in the person who possesses it, it is able to excite pity: if it regards it with the idea of what can harm us and with an idea of comparison with what is wont to move us and to excite our desires, it regards it with a sentiment of aversion.

[82] When one compares opposite ideas to one another, if the contract has been so easy or so difficult to find, it displeases: it is necessary that the opposition which is between the compared ideas make itself be senses because there is one, not because the author wanted to show it; for, in this latter case, the surprise falls only on the foolishness of the author.

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[83] One of the things which pleases us the most, is the naïve; but it is also the most difficult style to catch: the reason is that it is precisely between the noble and the bass, and is so near to the base, that it is very difficult to brush against it without always falling there [to the base].

[84] The musicians have recognized that the music which is sung most easily is the most difficult to compose: a certain prove that our pleasure and the art which gives them to us are between certain limits.

[85] To see the so pompous verses of Corneille, and those so natural of Racine, on would not guess that Corneille was working easily, and Racine with pain.

[86] The bass is the sublime of the people, who love to see a thing done for it and which is within its reach.

[87] The ideas that are presented to the gens who are well educated and who have a great espirit are either naïve, or noble, or sublime.

[88] When one thing is shown to us with the circumstances or the accessories which enlarge it, this appears noble to us: this is sensed above all in the comparisons, where the espirit ought to win always and to lose never; for they always ought to add something, to make the greatest thing be seen, or, if it is not a matter of greatness, more fine and more delicate: but it is quite necessary to devote oneself to be careful to show to the soul a relation to the base, for it would have been hidden if it had discovered it.

[89] When it is a matter of showing the fine things, the soul prefers to see one manner compared to another manner, one action to another action, one thing to another thing. To compare in general a courageous man to a lion, a woman to a star, a lightweight man to a deer, that is easy. But when La Fontaine thus begins one of his fables

Between the claws of a lion A rat came out of the earth dizzy enough; The king of the animals on this occasion Showed what he was, and gave him life; he compares the modifications of the soul of the king of the animals with the modifications of the soul of a veritable king.

[90] Michael-Angelo is the master for giving noblesse to his subjects. In his famous Bacchus he does not do, like the painter of Flanders, who show us a figure falling and who is so to speak in the air; that would be unworthy of the majesty of a god: he painted it firmly on his legs; but he so well gives to it the gaiety of drunkenness and pleasure of seeing the flowing liquor that he pours in his cup, that there is nothing so admirable.

[91] In the Passion which is in the gallery of Florence, he has painted the Virgin standing, who looks at her crucified son, without pain, without pity, without regret, without tears. He supposes her to be instructed in this great mystery, and thereby makes her bear with greatness the spectacle of this death.

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[92] There is no work of Michael Angelo where he has not put anything noble: one finds the great even in his sketches, as in the verses that Virgil did not finish.

[93] Jules Romain, in his Room of the Giants at Mantua, makes all the frightened gods be seen, where he has represented Jupiter who strikes them. But Juno is near Jupiter; she shows to him with an air of certainty a giant upon whom it is necessary that he launch a thunderbolt: thereby he gives to her an air of greatness that the other gods do not have. The closer they are to Jupiter, the more they are reassured: and this is quite natural; for, in a battle, the fright ceases near the one who has the advantage.

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