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Walter Horatio Pater, the English essayist and critic lived from 1839 until 1894. Born in London, he was educated at the University of Oxford, where he spent most of his life. His concentration was on interpreting to his age the art and literature of the Renaissance through historical novels, stories, and, mainly, essays. His attention to elaborate, exquisite phrasing reveals his preoccupation with perfecting prose style without neglecting depth of subject matter. Pater is remembered primarily as an innovator in aesthetics who celebrated the pleasurable effects of art on the viewer or reader. His hedonist philosophy greatly influenced his younger contemporary, the Irish-born writer Oscar Wilde. Pater's philosophy of criticism rests primarily upon his "Art for art's sake" ideal, and emphasizes the importance of perception in the quest for beauty in art as in life. In his own words, "What is important... ...is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects" (Pater, p.1350). This power of separation, of finding the pure and good amongst the mediocre, is truly the motivating force in Pater's works. This essay will explore Pater's views on observation and experience, and relate these theories to some of his major works.

 

Art For Art's Sake

 

Art should inspire us with passion, and passion is necessary in order for us to get the maximum amount of enjoyment from our relatively short lives. Pater speaks of aesthetic passion as a state in which one feels a "quickened, multiplied consciousness"(Pater, p.1354). One must have times of multiple observational experiences, of heightened senses and passionate interest in order to fully experience life. The experience one gains in this way is wisdom, the wisdom to see true beauty unencumbered by "reality". Pater elaborates: "Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most."(Pater, p.1354). Art has a specific role to play in this quest for passion, and yet not all art is equal in the quality of experience it may bring one. In his essay on the Venetian painter Giorgione, Pater makes the claim that in respect to music, all other forms of art are lacking. This is because while in most visual art one can distinguish between the matter of the piece and the form of the piece, Pater's highly developed aesthetic perception led him to think that the whole purpose of art should be, and was, the obliteration of this distinction. He says that while in painting, poetry and other visual arts, the matter of the piece is and must be nothing without form, this constituting the manner in which the matter is transmitted. Further, this form, as a manner of projection will become an end rather than a means, and is the principal thought every artist must give to their work. Specifically, in poetry, Pater judges lyrical poetry to be the finest, for it most blurs the distinction between form and matter. Moreover, the best sort of these lyric poems are ones that depend primarily on a general vagueness of matter, allowing the subject to infiltrate our concioussness by other means that the artist has devised. These ways can be such things as alternate meanings to words, metaphor, and rhythm amongst many others. It is this force, the subversiveness of form, that allows everyday objects such as furniture and architecture to shed their humdrum existence, and be seen not for their utility, nut for their pure form and artistic being. This loosing of ties to subject or matter serve to force a separation also from intelligence; form is governed not by the intelligent mind, it depends on perception in order for its true value to be glimpsed. John Ruskin, who was a large influence on Pater's work, had a similar approach to this idea of art and its subversive tendencies. He belived that emotion as well as the intelligent mind could cloud one's perception, and therefore their expression in art. However, the "pathetic fallacy" commited by minds overcome by grief or passion can be used as a subtle indicator of the true emotions of the author. Where an author chooses to use a metaphor signifying an emotion such as sadness, one can feel sure (without needing to know the actual subject matter) about the author's emotional state at the time of writing. This can give us a valuable glimpse into the form of the work, the pathetic fallacy of using rhetorical devices can be illuminating and useful in terms of aestheitcs.

 

The Tyranny of the Senses

 

Pater's realization of the boundaries to personal observation led to his various analogies for the "tyranny of the senses". This phrase implies that escape is impossible from the boundaries of the senses, and that Art (and therefore beauty, and our perception/realization of it) is limited by the means at our disposal to witness and relate phenomena. Pater illustrates this meme in various ways, from prose fiction to critical essay. In The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, he expressly states that "...experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects."(Pater, p.1353). This is to say that at first there seems to be a great deal of objects to experience, more than one could ever seriously contemplate. Pater then says "But when reflexion begins to play upon those objects they are dissipated under its influence... ...each object is loosed into a group of impressions - colour, odour, texture - in the mind of the observer."(Pater, p.1352). This is a common theme of philosophical thought into the epistimological basis of observation. Questions about the nature and subjective qualities of reality in philosophy are neatly imported by Pater in an explanation of his theory. The mind to Pater is a narrow tool, just as philosophy is a narrow tool for studying reality. The main function of the brain seems geared to excluding extraneous thoughts and experiences, when this may be just what the artist is inspired by. Pater states that "The whole scope of observation is dwarfed into the narrow chamber of the individual mind."(Pater, p.1352). It is a bleak view of human experience, one in which we are all imprisoned within self-imposed isolation, each of us living in our "...own dream of a world."(Pater, p.1352). Of course, time is also limited to us, we are all "...under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve..."(Pater, p.1353). We must find a way, as Rousseau did in the Confessions, to enjoy as much as possible of the interim left to us. According to Pater, art is the tool for reaching this objective. This is because "...art comes to you proposing frankly to give you nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moment's sake."(Pater, p.1354). One can concentrate more fully on art, they are guided towards the artists view of reality, as if explained by a master storyteller or summoned by an illusionist. This facility of art as a tool for guidance led Pater to adopt a view of "Art for art's sake", that art is a valuable entity on its own. "Pater's theory of style was essentially Hegelian and expressionistic. For Hegel all art was the sensuous manifestation of the absolute Idea. In adapting Hegel Pater typically ignored his emphasis on the absolute Idea and limited art to expressing the individual mind of the artist. Style for Pater was the external expression of an inner vision, an inner vision he characterized as the writer's "imaginative sense of fact.". Furthermore, he insisted on an absolute fidelity to that inner vision and on the precise accommodation of language to it" (McGrath). Imaginary Portraiture, Pater's short text written in diary form illustrates in typical Pater fashion the limits to art's expression. The ultimate meaning of the text is a seeming jab at the arts in general, and those who strive to perform them. The text addresses the tyrannical nature of expression, and how art will never be true expression, there being far too many gates through which perception must pass before being interpreted by the audience.

In conclusion, Pater challenged the very foundation of art and aesthetics of his age. He ushered in the era of decadence, and became well known for his love of sensory pleasures. He inspired great men such as Joyce and Wilde to write without the traditional emphasis on standard form, allowing them to reach creative heights still unparralelled. His views on art for art's sake are common sense rules of todays art world, allowing more and more provocative pieces to become seen as art and fine form. The bleakness of the idea of the tyranny of the senses becomes mitigated by Pater's love of and appreciation for fine form. It is this grail of expression that drove him, and it is his understanding and explication of these matters of aesthetics which makes him a fully relevant topic for discussion into the new millenium.

Texts Consulted

 

Website: Pater in the 1990's (F. C. McGrath, Chapter 8: Pater Speaking Bloom Speaking Joyce http://www.uncg.edu/eng/elt/pater/text/)

 

Class handout: Pater, H.W. The Renaissance Giorgione

 

Book: The Broadviw Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory Walter Pater The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry Broadview Press, Canada 1999