The Arche-Type And Intrinsic Beauty

BY K, C. VARADACHARI, M.A.

There are many problems of aesthetic value that find solution in as many ways, but there has not been a question of importance raised with regard to the arche-types and intrinsic beauty. It is interesting to find the relation between these two.

Intrinsic beauty is that beauty which depends upon itself and does not rely for its unique character on the variant influences of the age in which it finds expression, of the age in which it receives its appreciation, and of the age in which it continues its influence. Being thus indifferent to time in its effect and in its character, it acquires a unique value. Is there such a realisation of beauty? At first thought it may well be affirmed that such a complete realisation of beauty is well-nigh impossible. It is impossible, because we move in relation to objects, and objects are in a sense of our making. To seek a complete realisation of our beauty or our concept of beauty of the arche-type as it is sometimes called, in actuality, is a thing made impossible by the necessity implied in existence, which is a world of changing forms and names. However much we may seek to make the expression full and whole from our point of view, it remains relative from the point of space-time in which it was produced by one placed at such a space-time point.

Whatever is absolutely beautiful is intrinsic, as it does not depend for its existence on other points of view and exists for itself. Our question then is: Are the arche-types intrinsically beautiful?

But before we answer this question, we are also aware of another question pertaining to the nature of the arche-type. In the first place, our ordinary notion of the arche-type is something that is behind and beyond all forms, a form that is the complete exemplification of the particular kind or genus that is expressed by the active, fleeting particulars. In the second place, as they are behind the fleeting and vanishing particulars, they are eternal We are now faced with the question whether these are active or passive, or is their exemplification in the nature of reflection as Plato describes in his parable of the cave, or is it the inexhaustible activity of the Universal or essence which these arche-types are said to be, which descends into matter to make it beautiful and good and harmonious?

In considering the dual nature of the arche-typal conception, we see that the arche-type is a general idea. And to be a general idea is to be merely a conceived descriptive label or symbol given to a perceived form exemplified by particular objects. This is the psychological standard stimulus, namely a general idea of a form. General ideas thus are invaluable to thinking and acting in the world, and therefore the general ideas ought not to be taken to be either the arche-type or even existence. We never reach the idea of the perfect except through the intuition of it. We can never get at it by an observation of the passing and evolving forms, even though the latter have sufficient vitality and tenacity to persist as race-traits or characters so as to appear unchanged through even aeons of ages. The general idea is a psychological product and a biological instrument. It is the conservative influence of Life-activity, and is also an expression of the evolutive influences of Life. The general ideas or concepts are merely the average of certain types of forms that recur in evolution, substantially accurate and consistent amalgams of the chief characters that persist in evolution through a long period of time or experience in innumerable representations, rather occurrences, of particular types. The general idea is the psychological conception of the evolution of the arche-types in existence. Though we should not say that the general idea is not the conception of the arche-types, yet it is identical with the arche-type, since arche-types are evolving entities in the world, and though by themselves perfect, their exemplification or mirroring being timed, the general idea of such series of representations is vitiated rightly by the character of evolving of the former.

Therefore the general idea is not identical with the arche-type, but is merely the subjective composition of the innumerable occurrences of the representation of the arche-type, an amalgam, an average arrived at by taking the common features of different numerically distinct objects, and therefore a reduction of the unique quality of the single. For, quality or significance or meaning is individual intuition and never general.

No amount of experiments with the geological and biological reconstruction of the history of the evolution of a particular type will yield the arche-type, which is unique, individual and single in its perfection. The arche-types, undoubtedly conceived products in the sense of being capable of intuition and realisation in intuitive experience, are not amenable to inductive treatment and composition. They are realizable only by an imaginative effort, and are objective visualizations and perceptions.

It is true that the attainment to the levels of the arche-typal vision is preceded by a careful scrutiny of the variant manifestations of the same, but that is different from the really intrinsic imagination of the arche-types. The scrutiny of the several manifestations of the arche-types is not absolutely necessary but it serves a useful purpose, namely, that it marks out for us whether our intuition is absolutely flawless and unvitiated by the several manifestations. After all, what we speak through the inductive treatment is a unique single, the arche-type, but what is had is something that is a mongrel offspring, which is neither the one, nor the other. It is not the actual perceived unique single, nor is it the unique beauty of the perfect which is purely ideal and intuitional. In the distinctive measure the mongrel offspring is one or the other, any artistic product is judged and ranked.

It is held that artistic products are universally appreciated or universally condemned. It is true for the reason that the general actual occurrence of the several manifestations of the arche-types in the world makes the general populace get the idea of the perfect in some degree through them, and initiates their own hankering for perfection on such lines, though that is not the perfect in the absolute sense of arche-typal perfection. For them, the general mode is the criterion of judgment. Therefore, there is a standard called the general idea which is a social aesthetic criterion, but that is not really the absolute. The absolute criterion is the intuitively realized, but unexpressed in manifestation, of the truly single experience of the arche-typal.

The artist's creation is the artist's effort to arrive at the true and the real, released from the merely factual (which are merely the instances or snatches of the really perfect at a moment of its manifestation) and the accurate and exact picturing of such a concept.

In one sense, the arche-types remain merely the spectators of the world, and as it is (in a second sense), mirrored by a too willing and accommodating existence, it becomes the ordinary man's general idea–or particular as the case may be. In the former sense, they are, as Plato fully stressed, absolutely impeccable forms, full and therefore passive in their perfection, as Spinoza held them to be the case with his Dei, with no development in their character or nature. If they occur, it is by a process of reflection or mirroring. But in the second sense, they are, as Aristotle enunciated, the forms that are never absent from existence and the mere matter. The merely formal are never available in existence. The second heaven is therefore an unnecessary appendage. But we find that both are legitimate conclusions, and none of them are absolutely true by themselves. Plato, as the aesthetician par excellence, suggests the utter perfection of the single and the impeccable form; Aristotle, as the metaphysician and logician par excellence, is the exponent of the general idea, and only acknowledges the final perfection of God as a necessary, free, formal existence. In both cases, if they stressed, as they did stress, the final reality of absolute form of arche-typal perfection, then they expound the non-existence of the Absolute, and therefore truly become idealists of the first degree.

Our problem now is, is there such a thing as the absolutely beautiful, and if there is such a thing, is that identical with the arche-type? On the first issue there can be no doubt that we do hold that there is such a concept as the intrinsically beautiful and that this can be found only in the individual who recognizes and evokes in himself the beautiful. On the second issue we have to hold that it is becanse the arche-types are intrinsically perfect and absolutely Ideal according to definition, (and in conclusion to the argument advanced already)–a definition that is as fallacious in the same degree as the definition of straight line by Euclid–they are capable of being brought into existence and within manifestative limits by Life which animates us, because Life is intrinsically simple and sympathetic. It is the perfect character fulfilled by the intrinsically simple experience of Life that gives to artistic products the appeal of Beauty. For, the Beautiful is that which has the intrinsic capacity to soothe and make one sympathise with Life and make us one with all that it pervades or manifests. The Beautiful is not the mere perfect representation of the arche-types, though it is not without the power to make us be in admiration with Life, But admiration is not sympathy or, at-oneness with Life, though it may happen that ere we sympathise with an object, we invariably admire or pity, which latter is an inversion of the same feeling or emotion. Brilliancy or striking quality is the stimulus to appreciation, an agreement, and finally recognition, of the Beautiful. Forms, either arche-typal or imperfect, are thus the stimulus to feeling, being in their character desirable or ugly according to the perfectness or imperfectness or disproportionateness of the original. They do not form the essential Significance of the object. This significance is an exclusive character of Life which manifests the forms and evolves them and weaves them into the woof of the world.

In fact the unity with Life that is displayed in an artistic product by an artist, who in his turn calls us to the unity of ourselves with that Life, is the characteristic mark of genius and beauty. This characteristic is not individual and finite or even personal; it is the unique quality of reality, and it is our freedom from the bondage of the foci of individual perceptions, though the creation itself is an absolute creation of an individual artist.

In any future development of art, then, this question should be deeply borne in mind, that the artist should not be bound to the arche-types, to the desirables, not even to the personal expressions, but to the ideal awakening of the sympathy with all Life in all its harmony and divergence, of all Life in emergence and evolution. Holding to the creative ideal of fulfilling Life by drawing inspiration from its variant phases and manifestations, should the artist create art for the sake of art and the universe. In the intuition of Life consists the future development of true and harmonious art. That alone is the truly and integrally beautiful, the intrinsic beauty.