We will begin by making two assumptions implicit in the beginning of this exposition, namely, (1) that, by choice or accident, we have before us something which has been artistically made, such as a picture or a garment of some strange kind, say Egyptian or Peruvian; and (2) that pleasure being always preferable to pain, we wish if possible to derive some pleasure from the sight of the object before us.

Now pleasure is of two kinds, either of the senses or of the mind, and as we want to have as much pleasure as possible, we desire both kinds. The two kinds of pleasure correspond to the two ways of considering the “beauty” of the object. Physical or sensible pleasure can itself be of two kinds: direct or imagined. If the “decorative” value of the image or the texture of the garment pleases us, the pleasure is direct; but if the image is a representation of someone or something dear to us, or if we think that the garment actually worn would suit us, it will be indirect. Similarly, if the image represents an activity which corresponds to our moral tastes or political prejudices. If we call it “beautiful” accordingly, we mean charming, amiable, or sympathetic, rather than beautiful in the philosopher’s sense.

On the other hand, it is not because the object and its qualities are unfamiliar to us and that it may seem “barbaric” or at least “strange”, and because the works do not represent someone or something that is already close to us, nor always activities that we can approve of and because we have no immediate use for this object, there is a good chance that we will find it ugly, that we will not like it at all, but that we will consider it a curiosity. It is also in this perspective that museums were born, as collections of “curiosities”. Even today, it happens that objects of “curiosity” value are offered as gifts to “art” museums, which refuse them (much to the dismay of the potential donor), and, on the other hand, “art” museums (guided by experts) collect and exhibit as works of art many objects that the public “knowing nothing about art, but knowing what I like best” continues to regard as curiosities – thus missing out on the aforementioned types of pleasure.

It is therefore evident that in order to obtain the desired pleasure we must learn to respond to unfamiliar beauties, to appreciate new sensations, and to approve or permit behavior in others that might be unacceptable to us. This is one of the prices we pay for culture; to judge all things solely by inherited taste is precisely to be “provincial.” At the same time, it does not mean that we must become eclectic, or imitators of unknown works; this is the opposite of “culture.” To be “influenced” involves a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of style and can only result in caricature. We must not try to do for ourselves what is naturally done by others, but rather exercise patience and recognize that what at first seems strange to us may have been necessary and appropriate in its own environment, respecting the idiosyncrasies of others as well as our own.

Most of our difficulties arise from considering things taken out of context. It is easy to admit, for example, that even the most beautiful Egyptian or Chinese figure of a deity will have an incongruous and, in this sense, unsympathetic relationship on the mantelpiece of a living room or even in a museum. He who sees its beauty does not really see it on the mantelpiece, but in an original environment mentally reconstructed. As Goethe so aptly put it: “He who wants to understand the artist must go where the artist lived and worked.” If we cannot do it literally (whether in far-off countries or past eras), we can do it in spirit. This is where the professor of “art appreciation” and “art history” should help us and this is mainly what our museum guides and catalogues should be written for.

In this way we can become “lovers of art” and not just of the familiar arts, we can learn to admire, collect, and take pleasure in the very objects that may have once repelled us. We can learn to appreciate their refinement or charm, to recognize the artist’s sensitivity, the elegance or vigor of his taste, and to share in part his likes and dislikes. Thus we become more universally human and less human in a purely personal way. However, all this is still a question of physical or sensory pleasure, of moral approval or disapproval. Thus taste has been educated and broadened, but it remains a taste rather than a knowledge or judgment—we are still only playing half the game. As Plato so aptly put it about mere art lovers, “they contemplate and love sounds and colors, but they do not admit that beauty itself has any real existence.” The same is true of the majority of those who strive to become acquainted with the history of art, to be able to name, recognize, distinguish, and date the different types of art, which has many advantages, but may well coincide with an almost total indifference to works of art as an immediate source of pleasure. It is one thing to know a great deal about art, it is another to appreciate it when seen, and to be able to judge the real quality of a given work. To participate in the secondary and intellectual pleasure that works of art provide, it will then not be enough to form a broad and cultivated taste, nor to be very learned in art, but rather to understand well its reason, in accordance with the following definition: “Art is the true reason, or way, of doing things.”

Before considering the secondary or mental pleasure which the contemplation of the unknown object may give us, we must mention an obstacle which stands in our way, that of the style or language of a work of art. Every work of art has a meaning which it expresses, and must not be confused with what the work may look like, intentionally or accidentally. To take an extreme case, and concerning the art of words, suppose that a Chinese person means the same thing as we wish to say, he will say it in Chinese, and we in English. It is in fact a recognized axiom, that nothing can be known or expressed except in a certain way. The Chinese way will be intelligible to other Chinese, but not immediately to us; we must learn Chinese. The difficulties are not so obvious in the case of the musical or visual arts. But they are nevertheless present. There is no absolutely universal language for an art. We may indeed recognize that there are mountains or rivers in a Chinese landscape and be interested or not accordingly, but all this is a question of taste and connivance which we have already discussed. What interests us now is to know what the Chinese artist means by his mountains or rivers, which may or may not have the same meaning for us. The fact is that he expresses himself in a certain way, by means of what are called “conventions,” perfectly intelligible to his fellows, but not at first sight to us. We must therefore take the trouble to familiarize ourselves with the language of the artist, in order to be able to take it for granted and grasp its meaning as easily as his fellows. We must learn to take for granted unknown types of perspective and new types of composition, in order to be able to understand without stopping to explain every symbol in his repertoire. As a rule we shall have at least this great advantage, that whereas in the study of the works of individual modern artists we must learn everything anew for each of them separately, in the case of Chinese or Egyptian art the greater part of the vocabulary, or conventions of art, is the common property of the whole school, and remains fundamentally the same through long periods of time.

We have spoken of “meaning,” but not in the popular sense of what the work “speaks” or what it “loves” (which belongs to the interests of the association we spoke of at the beginning), but in the sense of what it signifies, what it was made for and what it was expected to do for the spectator, or rather, what the latter expected him to be able to do with it . All this constitutes what is called the final cause of the work of art, its reason for being . This cause is, moreover, the occasion of what the philosopher means by the beauty of the work, namely the clear expression of its function, by which it invites us to make use of it.

It is true that we are accustomed, on the one hand, to despise the significance of the subject in a work of art and, on the other hand, to ignore the significance – whether in nature or in art. We must, however, realize that in almost all ages other than our own, everything has been considered not only for “what it is,” but also for what it “means.” For example, not only is the sky blue, but “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Not in a vague and sentimental way, but in a specific way. The lotus or the rose is not only a charming flower, but naturally represents the “ground of being.” We thus arrive at one of the most characteristic aspects of the little-known arts, namely, their symbolism, or iconography, as it is called when it is a question of images or divinities. This symbolism or iconography is then the expression of their aim and the immediate vehicle of their beauty – which beauty, in the sense of philosophy, has to do, not with feeling, but with knowledge.

We are finally approaching the sources of the second kind of pleasure, the intellectual one, which can be felt in front of an unknown work, a pleasure much more lively than the previous one, and which can be felt independently of whether or not the work itself is to our taste. The intellectual pleasure will be twofold: first, we will understand what is said, which is a greater pleasure than that of simply hearing the soft tones of the speaker’s voice; and, secondly, we will enjoy the intense pleasure of judgment which has been called “the perfection of art.”

It is obvious that we could not enjoy these pleasures of understanding what is said and of having the capacity to judge whether it is well said or not if we did not know what there was to say, that is, what the work of art was for and what the patron intended to do with it when he commissioned the artist, whose only task was to do well the work entrusted to him. Even if the artist builds his own house, and is therefore both patron and artist, the principle remains the same. The quality of the pudding is measured by its taste. We cannot know whether it is a good house without knowing the particular functions it is to fulfil, the number of people who are going to live in it, etc. If it does not fulfil these conditions, it will be devoid of formal beauty and can only be a work of art unrelated to life, and therefore totally useless. Similarly, we cannot know whether any icon, representing the Madonna or Zeus, is “good” without knowing the idea of ​​”Madonna” or “Zeus” which the patron has entrusted to the artist to embody in painting or stone. Thus it will often happen that the man who is going to live in the house or use the icon in his actual devotions will be a better judge of art than the aesthetician, whose knowledge of the object is necessarily accidental and analytical.

Nor are the difficulties which stand in the way of these intellectual pleasures so great as might be supposed. Human nature itself provides an essential basis for consensus on fundamental principles, once we have understood that our own prejudices and tastes are only a part of those of others. Flavors may differ in detail, but that in which preferences differ remains the same…. Even the ideas to be expressed and the symbols by which they are expressed are far more similar than we suppose—symbols are indeed nearer to a universal language and nearer to being the same throughout the world than any other element of art to which we have referred. Thus, finally, the very differences which at first prevented understanding become the means of knowing each other and of being attracted to the specific beauties of each other’s art—the barriers of race and language are dissolved.