Honor, then, to the fine arts! Glory to eloquence! Praise to the good
man who knows how to speak well! Blessed be the great orator! Like our
tutelary angel, he will show us the path that conducts or leads back to
God.
Part Fourth.
Arnaud on Delsarte.
The Delsarte System.
By
Angelique Arnaud, (_Pupil of Delsarte_).
Translated by Abby L. Alger.
Chapter I.
The Bases of the Science.
Delsarte published no book upon art. The bases of the science which he
created are contained in a synthetical table. Other tables develop each
branch of it considered separately.
Starting from an undeniable law--that which regulates the constitution
of man,--Delsarte applies it to aesthetics; he designates man as "the
object of art," and groups in series the organic agents that co-operate
in the manifestation of human thought, sentiment and passion; declaring
the purpose of these manifestations, now become artistic, to be the
amelioration of our being by throwing into relief and light the
splendors of moral beauty and the horrors of vice.
Delsarte defines art in several ways. He has been reproached for his
over-amplitude of definition, and his development of it in a sense too
metaphysical for a science which he himself calls "positive." I give
here only such definitions as seem to me most clear and important.
"Art is at once the knowledge, the possession and the free direction of
the agents by virtue of which are revealed the life, soul and mind.
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