tion of a
pleasurable state of emotion, will prefer pictures which suggest
pleasant associations, nice people, refined amusements, agreeable
landscapes. In many cases this lack of clearness is of comparatively
slight importance, the given picture containing all these
pleasure-giving elements in addition to the qualities peculiar to the
art of painting. But in the case of the Florentines, the distinction is
of vital consequence, for they have been the artists in Europe who have
most resolutely set themselves to work upon the specific problems of the
art of figure-painting, and have neglected, more than any other school,
to call to their aid the secondary pleasures of association. With them
the issue is clear. If we wish to appreciate their merit, we are forced
to disregard the desire for pretty or agreeable types, dramatically
interpreted situations, and, in fact, "suggestiveness" of any kind.
Worse still, we must even forego our pleasure in colour, often a
genuinely artistic pleasure, for they never systematically exploited
this element, and in some of their best works the colour is actually
harsh and unpleasant. It was in fact upon form, and form alone, that the
great Florentine masters concentrated their efforts, and we are
consequently forced to the belief that, in their pictures at least, form
is the principal source of our aesthetic enjoyment.

Now in what way, we ask, can form in painting give me a sensation of
pleasure which differs from the ordinary sensations I receive from form?
How is it that an object whose recognition in nature may have given me
no pleasure, becomes, when recognised in a picture, a source of aesthetic
enjoyment, or that recognition pleasurable in nature becomes an enhanced
pleasure the moment it is transferred to art? The answer, I believe,
depends upon the fact that art stimulates to an unwonted activity
psychical processes which are in themselves the source of most (if not
all) of our pleasures, and which here, free from disturbing physical
sensations, never tend to pass over into pain. For instance: I am in
the habit of realising a given object with an intensity that we shall
value as 2. If I suddenly realise this familiar object with an intensity
of 4, I receive the immediate pleasure which accompanies a doubling of
my mental activity. But the pleasure rarely stops here. Those who are
capable of receiving direct pleasure from a work of art, are generally
led on to the further pleasures