35 Walter Pater

Dr. Beena Agarwal

34.0      Learning Outcomes

34.1      Walter Pater: Life and Works

34.2      Walter Pater: His Attitude to Life and Art

34.3      Critics on Walter Pater

34.4      Studies in the History of Renaissance: A Critical Introduction

34.5      Preface: A Critique

34.6      Prefac : Key Concepts

34.7      Preface: Significant Statements

34.8      Conclusion: A Critique

34.9      Conclusion: Key Concepts

34.10    Conclusion: Significant Statements

34.11    Self-Assessment: Multiple Choice Question

34.12   Self Assessment: Elaborate the Idea

34.13    Self Assessment: Answer the Long Questions

34.14    Know More: Bibliography for Further Reading

34.0 Learning Outcomes

There is an elaborate analysis of the life and works of Walter Pater. It will help the learners to frame primary opinions about the life, sensibility and literary background of Walter Pater. The comprehensive, critical analysis of the Preface and Conclusion of Renaissance is done to expose the fundamental principles of critical views of Pater about art, literature and human life. These views are the basic foundation of his literary creed. The analysis of the key concepts will help the students to frame accurate opinions about the complex critical views of Walter Pater. It will open the windows for fresh and independent interpretations. Exercise in the form of Multiple Choice Questions, Elaborate the Idea and Long Questions will help students to express their own understanding of Walter Pater‟s ideas. Bibliography for further reading will open the windows to gather more information about the vision and ideology of Keats.

34.1 Walter Pater: Life and Works

Walter Pater who is acknowledged as a prominent art critic, was a fellow of Brasenose. His complete name was Walter Horatio Pater. He was associated with pre-Raphaelite movement. There are doubts and uncertainties about his birth and parentage. However, it is certain that Pater belonged to Dutch Stock and lived near Olney in Buckinghamshire. The grandparents of Pater migrated to America where Richard Pater, Father of Walter Pater was born. Subsequently, Richard Pater returned to England and settled at Shadwell as a doctor at Shadwell where Walter Pater was born in the year 1839. After the death of his father, Pater was forced to pass his time in poverty and hardships. In his religious faith, Pater was influenced by Roman Catholicism but later on he turned to the Church of England. Pater started his education in 1853 after getting admission in Kings School Canterbury. From King‟s School, he shifted to Queen‟s College Oxford. In his school life, he earned the reputation of being a sober and serious boy devoted to the serious studies of art and religion. During his stay at Oxford, he visited to his sisters at Heidelberg in Germany where he got his fascination for the middle ages and the romantic atmosphere. It further inspired him to study German philosophy and literature. Amid these impressions Goethe‟s vision and works encouraged him a strong inclination of transcendental philosophy. In 1865, with his friend Dr. Shadwell, he visited to Northern Italy, Pisa and Florence. It opened the windows for Italian art and culture and the great Italian artists of Renaissance. With his serious speculations on art and literature, he started contributing to “Fortnightly” magazine edited by John Morley. In 1873, came out his collective essays in one volume entitled Studies in the History of Renaissance.

As a literary artist Pater got exceptional reputation as an art critic. Oliver Elton in his celebrated study A Survey of English Literature comments, “In approaching the Renaissance, Pater does not claim to do the work of excavation, or the professional „expert‟, some errors of detail in connoisseurship has been found in his book. Nor does he try, like the orderly historian to show the whole story in perspective.” However in his absence of perfection lies the seeds of his originality and sensibility, Pater as a leader of aesthetic movement supported Flaubert‟s doctrine “Art for Art‟s sake”. In his personal and professional life Pater was not very successful. Even his studies and interpretations of them were neither systematic nor successful. From 1878, Pater became more and more absorbed in Marius, The Epicurean, the story of the life of grave young Romans. In Marius, The Epicurean seems to spiritualize the search for pleasure. After the publication of Marius, Pater started contributing essays and article to the leading periodicals. His well known collection of critical essays entitled Appreciations came out in the year 1889. In the year 1895, Dr. Shadwell published certain scattered essays under the title Miscellaneous Studies. Besides of his critical essays, Pater gave a new direction to English literary prose with the contents of Imaginary Portraits. In 1893, Pater produced Plato and Platonium. Pater considers the volume as the greatest contribution to literature. he said, “If there is anything of mine which has a chance of surviving. I should say was my Plato.”

In prose writings, Pater composed an essay on the metaphysics of Coleridge, „Coleridge‟s Writing‟ contributed to the WestMinister Review in the year 1866. His well known essay “Winckelmann” that appeared in the year 1867, is an expression of his intellectual and artistic idealism. In the Poems of William Marris (1868), Walter Pater expresses his admiration for romanticism. His well known essays Leonardo de Vinci (1869), Sandro Botticalli (1870) and Michalenglo (1871) appeared in Fortnightly Review. Besides his well known critical essays on art and literature came in the collected volume Studies in the History of Renaissance (1873) and it subsequently came out in the form The Renaissance : Studies in Art and Poetry. The essay entitled The School of Ciorgione, appeared in Fortnightly Review contains Pater‟s well known maxim “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.” The final paragraph of the 1868 William Morris essay were reworked as the book‟s „Conclusion‟. Pater‟s style is highly polished and appropriate to express delicate meanings. Still it has been criticized for being „slow‟ and over effeminate. Sometimes the thoughts are so complex that they go beyond the power of comprehension.

34.2 Walter Pater: His Attitude to Life and Art

Pater is one of those thinkers who contemplated the requisites of art in context of the paradigms of real life conditions. As an artist, he was devoted to the perpetual search of “the choicest perfume and saviour of humanity.” For him art is no longer an isolated activity but it is an outward expression of the whole of life as it is reflected in the realm of spirit. He admits that art is the expression of the artists‟ inner soul. Even in the conditions of life Pater accepts the importance intellectual pleasure. He further accepts that the real intellectual pleasure emerges from the great works of art and literature.

In establishing the dictum artistic and intellectual pleasure, Pater shares the vision of Ruskin. However, both inspite of their affinity in artistic pleasure, are pole apart. For Ruskin the realization of beauty is independent of senses and intellect. It emerges in the realization of joy originated from deep realization of God‟s experience in all objects. In this respect all great arts are the expression of divine sublimity. For Ruskin all great arts are “the winner of glory of God.” Plato, the first voice of aesthetic principles condemned art on the grounds of morality. Ruskin praised them as the basis of all morality. He considers, “beautiful as the Gift of God” and, therefore, realization of „beautiful‟ is the process of emancipation from the grossness of this worked. For Ruskin art has a serious didactic function and, therefore, it must be taken seriously and not as “handiwork for drawing room tables.” (Modern Painters: Ruskin) Referring to Ruskin‟s vision of art, Walter Scott comments, “The feeling of beautiful, according to Ruskin, does not depend on the senses of romance, gratitude and joyfulness that arise from the recognition of the handiwork of God in the objects of Nature.” He accepts the importance of “artistic imagination” in the construction of the idea of beauty. According to Ruskin, Imagination performs three functions in the process of construction of beauty –

(a) Imagination is associative,

(b) imagination is contemplative,

(c) Imagination is penetrative.

Through imagination an artist performs the design of God. Ruskin confesses that it is the function art to convey the moral truths. It is the business of artist to show what life should be. However as a foil to Ruskin, Pater

considers that “to treat life in the spirit of art, is to make life a thing in which means and life are identified. To encourage such treatment is the true moral significance of art and poetry.” For Pater the work of great poets is not to teach lessons only but to withdraw the thoughts for a while from the routine course of life. Art elevates human spirit. For Walter Pater, life is a constantly changing combination of natural elements and the mental life is made of unstable and inconsistent flickering. It is the duty of an artist to capture the inner life of things. Pater admits that experience are to be consciously persuaded not for the fruits but for its own sake. He defends the cause of intellectual Epicureanism. A co-united number of pulses to give to us of variegated dramatic life.” Pater‟s idea of intellectual Epicurinism admits of the following facts:

1. The real experience should be the end of art without caring for its fruits. It suggests that art is meant for pleasure and is beyond the domain of utility. The ecstasy of pleasure determines the greatness of art.
2. It is the purpose and duty of an artists‟s life to test and to recommend what is most beautiful. The short span of time given by God must be devoted to accumulate art and literature.
3. Art comes to us nothing but the highest quality to our comments they path and simply for these moments sake.
4. There are individual difference in the spiritual experiences of every person. However, what is beautiful will appeal to us all only when beauty is identical with truth.

Of all instruments in life which quickens us with the consciousness of beauty in all things, the greatest and the most refined are art and literature. He admits, “to treat life in the spirit of art, is to make life a thing in which means and end are identified. To encourage such treatment is the true and moral significance of art and poetry.”

For Walter Pater, literature and arts are not merely a part of life but they seem to become whole of life. Since physical life is in a state of perpetual flux, the concepts of art are also like that his theory of art promotes “Intellectual Epicureanism”. He comments, “The service of philosophy of speculative culture towards the human spirit is to rouse, to startle it to life of contrast and eager observation.”

Pater admits that intellectual and spiritual experiences have no fix formula. The experience of one person differs from the other. However the idea of beauty is same and it is identical to truth.

Pater in elaborating the concept of art emphasizes three qualities of literature – the matter, the manner and the quality of giving pleasure. The term „matter‟ denotes the quality of containing thought, the „manner‟ refers to the quality of communicating „thoughts‟ and the power‟ of a work of art. It must appeal to our imagination to make the poetic truth more convincing.

34.3 Critics on Walter Pater

“Mr. Pater is deliberate and successful architecture of the prose-paragraph – in what may, for the sake of necessary difference be called the scriptural in opposition to the oratorical manner. He may fall short of the people grandeur of Sir Thomas Browne, of the phantasmagoric charm of De Quincy at his rare brett, of the gorgeous panorama of Mr. Ruskin. But his happiest paragraphs are like flamboyant Chantries, not imposing, not quite supreme in quality, but in their own kind showing wonderful perfection of craftsmanship.” (Sainsbury)

“Pater‟s critical theory, sketchy and allusive though it is, generally admirable. It provides a continual directive towards sincerity and irrelevance. But it must be confessed that by no means all of the admissible intentions are fulfilled in practice, the general impression is inconclusive, even more conclusive than Pater must have desired. They are hardly criticism in any substantial sense; they convey an atmosphere, and helps us to perceive some subtle tones that we would have hardly noticed for ourselves. His art criticism are reveries, fantasies on pictorial themes; the value is in themselves rather than in any light they throw on the subject?…

Pater‟s triumph is the triumph, and he had his years of triumph, is the triumph not of purpose but of a temperament.” (Graham Hugh)

“There is something of the sense glowing use of words; something of the same charming naiveté and transparency in best of the passages of both; but whereas Ruskin is remarkable for prodigality, Pater is remarkable for restrain; Ruskin drew his vocabulary from a hundred sources, and sent it pouring down in a bright cascade where as Pater close more and more to refine his use of words, to inculcate rather than to describe Ruskin‟s infact is a style and Pater‟s is an artificial one; but he undoubtedly received a strong impulse from Ruskin in the direction of ornamental expressions, and a still stronger impulse in the direction of turning a creative force into the criticism of beautiful things – a vein of subjective criticism, in fact.” (A.C. Benson)

“Pater as a critic is eminent. His method is that impression which Hazlitt and Lamb has brilliantly illustrated. His intention, no less acute, is still more personal than theres in so far and it is more limited, exclusively governed by the feeling of his own powers, in so far, too as it readily utilizes semi-conscious states; the dim regimes of the inner world, and his judgements more often are a divination of the obscure parts and of the reverse sides of souls.” (Cazamian)

“In his criticism, Pater has never trampled artificiality to separate the soul from the body of literature, the idea from the expression, because he is alive to both quality and also to their content… His general way of writing is faithfully enough indicated by his essay on style. He belongs to the cell building tribe of authors, whom better among the poets, Gray and Tennyson belong to it. Thus he seeks for exact and perfect richness, beginning with the single word and working outwards. A minute and sensitive fidelity to the single word, to the perfection of cell, is ever with him.” (Oliver Elton)

34.4 Studies in the History of Renaissance: A Critical Introduction

The Renaissance, the monumental work of Pater‟s artistic vision came out as a result of his wide study and teaching at Oxford along with the formative visits to the continent. In 1865, Pater visited to Florence, Pisa and Ravena. These visits made Pater acutely interested in art and literature. First he contributed an essay on Metaphysics of Coleridge contributed to WestMinister Review in the year 1866. Further in Fortnightly Review he printed his essay Leonardo de Vinci (1869), Sandro Botticelli (1870) and Michalangelo (1871). These three essays collectively came out in the form of Studies in the History of Renaissance (1873). It is the second edition it was renamed as The Renaissance Studies in Art and Poetry. In the essay Leonardo de Vinci expresses his views on Leonardo‟s famous painting Mona Lisa. Through the essay Botticelli, he tried to establish the elegance of the art of this painter. The essay on “The School of Giorgione” Pater has proved the conditions of art equal to the conditions of music. It contains his most quoted maxims “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.” He considers music as unifying art. Music is the only art in which subject and form are seemingly one. In 1868, the final paragraph of William Morn‟s essay were reworked as the conclusion of Renaissance. This conclusion is quite influential but is also quite controversial regarding Pater‟s idea of art and human life. He accepts, “Intellectual Excitement” or the “Desire for Beauty” as the highest tributes to humanity to maintain balance and order. He admits, “The greatest potential for striving of the sense of transience, because in the arts the perceptions of highly sensitive minds are already ordered, we are confronted with a reality already refined and we are able to reach the personality behind the work.”

In the Preface to Renaissance Walter Pater admits that the subject matter of it is „Complex‟ and „Many sided‟. The subject of Renaissance is the lives and works of the French,

Italian, and German Painters ranging from thirteenth to the eighteenth century. In their writing Pater finds the many sided and divergent attitudes and aims of Renaissance.

In Renaissance, Pater promotes impressionistic theory of art. He tries to establish that it is the responsibility of aesthetic critic to realize and to pour out the distinctive impressions of a work of art. Art is not an appreciation of the object but the realization of beauty. He says, “the task of aesthetic critic is first to realize distinctly the exact impression that a work of art makes upon him, then to determine the source and conditions – the virtue – of that impression and finally to express that virtue so that the impression it has made on him may be shared by others.” For him Renaissance was not an event of the Revival of classical antiquity only. The revival of classical antiquity was only one aspect of this complex movement. Its prime aim was to “reconcile Christianity with the religion of ancient Greece.” Pater finds the manifestation of this event in the works of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. As compare to Michelanglo and Leonardo de Vinci, Pater finds Botticelli, a work of an inferior rank. However in his writings, he finds sympathy for humanity in uncertain conditions. Pater frankly appreciates him for his “freshness, the uncertain and difficult promise which belong to earlier Renaissance. In the chapter “Luca della Robin” he writes about sculpture and particularly the works of Luca. According to Pater the limitation of sculpture is that it tends towards a “hard realism, a one sided presentment of mere form.” According to him, Tuscan sculptors achieved “a profound expressiveness” by working in low relief earth wave, the subtle dimension of the line serving as the means of overcoming the special limitation of sculpture. In Michelangelo‟s poetry, Pater appreciates the impressions of his poetry. It is in a “brooding spirit of life” achieved only through an idealization of life‟s “vehement sentiments.”

Inspite of the Richness of content, The Renaissance has been a subject of controversy and hostile criticism. It provoked criticism for conservative queries. Margaret Oliphant reviewing this book in Blackwood’s Magazine dismissed it as “Rocco Epicureanism”. George Sloit criticized it as “quite poisonous in false principles of criticism and false conceptions of life.”

34.5 Preface: A Critique

Walter Pater in the History of Renaissance takes steps to expose his idea of art and its relationship with human life. He emerged as the defender of the ideology of „Art for Art‟s Sake‟ but at the same time are acknowledged the power of art in the formation of ideal life conditions. At the very outset of the „Preface‟ he admits that since time immemorial the thinkers have been trying to expose the nature, function and purpose of art, poetry and the abstract nature the concept of beauty. Critics have tried to find out a universal formula to determine the basic nature and structure of the abstract nature of poetry. However, the scattered discussions are of little significance to draw conclusions of art and poetry. Even it is difficult to determine the degree of the quality that ensures beauty and greatness in a work of art.

Walter Pater in exposing the nature of poetry admits that the realization of beauty is not an „absolute‟ phenomenon but a relative principle depending on the experience of the individual. He admits, “Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experiences, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness.” It shows that the abstract, character of beauty can‟t be confined within the framework of well defined theoretical framework. According to Pater instead of finding a universal formula for the concept of beauty, one can justify the process of the manifestation of the concept of beauty. It is the responsibility of the students of aesthetics to find out, to evaluate and to appreciate the various forms of manifestation of beauty.

Walter Pater reflects on the relative significance of the manifestation of beauty in the background of the manifestation of reality. In aesthetic criticism the manifestation of reality depends not on experience but on the impressions of it. According to Pater aesthetic criticism no longer presents the reality as it is but makes evaluation of one‟s own impression as it really is, to discriminate it. Aesthetic criticism exposes music, art, poetry artistic and accomplished forms of human life. In making criticism of them, the critic analyze the various elements or qualities that determine their value. He seeks answer to the query to evaluate what is the impact and value of a specific work. Aesthetic critic no longer evaluates the nature of the work and art but makes efforts to study the „effect‟ that the work of art produces. It is the quality of „pleasure‟ and not the quality „object‟ that determines the artistic excellence of a work of art. The „effect‟ consequently introduces modifications in the work of art. According to Pater the impact and influences elevates human spirit above the considerations of logical justifications. He admits, “And he who experiences these impressions strongly and derives directly at the analysis and discrimination of them, need not trouble himself with the abstract question what beauty is in itself.” It brings no pleasure and interest to him.

Pater admits that aesthetic critic aims at investigating the forms “producing pleasurable sensations.” These pleasures might be of unique of its own kind. This pleasure can be derived from the diverse sources of different elements. There is no one single property that can affect pleasure to each human being on the basis of one‟s specific quality. He points out that the picture, the landscape, the engaging personality, the hills of Corrora, Pioo of Miradula has its own properties to affect specific kind of pleasure.

Walter Pater admits that the prime function of an aesthetic critic is to distinguish, to analyze and to separate the virtues by which a picture, a landscape or fair personality produces its special impression of body. The aesthetic criticism aims at investigating the conditions that produce beauty and pleasure.

Pater further points out that a real art critic must have the power of being moved by the elements that induce pleasure and beauty. It is not necessary that a critic might give a correct abstract definition of poetry to convince the intellect but must try to establish a certain kind of temperament that is bound to be moved by the beautiful objects. In all ages certain objects are excellent but genius has its own autonomy to celebrate their greatness in their own way. Walter Pater quotes, “The ages are all equal but genius is always above its age.”

Walter Pater points out that in the appreciation of beautiful, it is difficult to distinguish „Commoner elements‟ from its real virtue. Referring to Wordsworth, he admits that the heat of his genius, entering into the substance of his work, has crystallized a part only. It is therefore, in the great mass of verse there is much which will be forgotten. It suggests that every work of art produced by a genius can‟t produce beauty and pleasure. What does not provide pleasure, is likely to fall in oblivion. It is the responsibility of the art critic to find out the active principle in Wordsworth‟s poetry and to disassociate it from the main body of verse.

Walter Pater referring to the history of Renaissance presents the possibilities of the revival of classical antiquity in fifteenth century that was the result of the enlightening of human mind. It was emerged as opposed to Christian art. It marked the opposition to the spirit of

Renaissance. He accepts that the outbreak of human spirit can be traced back in Middle Ages. It encouraged a sensibility that care for physical beauty, the worship of the body, the breaking of the bondages of religious system of the Middle Ages.

In context of the contemplation of beauty and art, Walter Pater points out about the various forms of intellectual activities. These intellectual activities that move from different direction collectively form, the culture of an age. Inspite of apparent diversity, they share a „common character‟ depending the common characteristics of that age but each group is solitary.

Each branch of art or religion are confined to its own circle of ideas but simultaneously they share the thoughts of others. It suggests that the work of art can‟t be appreciated or interpreted in isolation. However, during different periods of time, the thoughts of men come closer and many interests of intellectual world combine in one define order that can be defined as „general culture‟, the many interests of intellectual world combine in one complete type of „general culture.‟ It is, therefore, according to Pater artists and philosophers no longer live in isolation. In the culmination of their thoughts “breath a common air and catch light and heat from each other‟s thoughts.” In this effort one can trace a general spirit of elevation and enlightenment. This common spirit meant for enlightenment gives a distinctive unity to the various products of Renaissance. The art manifests the participation to all products of Renaissance. It is, therefore, the art of Italy in fifteenth century was much of its grave dignity and influence.

34.6 Preface: Key Concepts

• Critics have made efforts to find out a universal formula to define the nature of beauty in the abstract.
• The term „beauty‟ is a relative concept related to the nature of human experiences.
• It is a futile effort to give it a definition in proportion to its abstractness.
• Beauty can be defined not in its abstract form but in its concrete form.
• In aesthetic criticism judgement depends on impression not on the reality of the structure of given object.
• In aesthetic criticism reality is estimated in terms of one‟s own impression.
• The various objects that comes under the canopy of aesthetic criticism including poetry, music, accomplished forms of human life are the manifestations of various forms and forces.
• An aesthetic critic is expected to convey strong impressions instead of getting himself lost in the dilemma of the analysis and metaphysical justification of the concept of Beauty.
• All the works of art or the forces of nature producing pleasurable sensations are unique of its own kind.
• It is the function of aesthetic criticism to find out and to analyze the resources that produces this special impressions of beauty and pleasure.
• An art critic must be gifted by the power of being moved by the presence of beautiful objects.
• A man of genius may produce a mass of verses but it is not essential that every part might be beautiful.
• It is the responsibility of the artist to trace out the active principal of beauty.
• The various forms of intellectual beauty activity move in different form and it forms the culture of an age.
• Different out form no longer survive in isolation but they move in the mode of a collective unit sharing common character.
• Each form of art and philosophy move in its own circle of ideas but it essentially shares the ideas of others.
• Several interest of intellectual world combine in one complete type of general culture.
• Art in its wiser implications share the totality of human experience.
• Most of the artists and philosophers do not live in isolation but they essentially share a common air and cast light and heat from each other‟s thoughts.
• There is a fundamental unity in all forms of art depending on the impact of a common culture. It gives unity to the various products of Renaissance.
• Art is closely related to the sympathy for the human beings.

34.7 Preface: Significant Statements

• “Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative, and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness.”
• “In aesthetic criticism the first step towards seeing one‟s object as it really is, to discriminate it, to realize it distinctly.”
• “The aesthetic critic, then regards all objects with which he has to do, all works of art and the fairer forms of nature and human life, as powers of forces, producing pleasurable sensations, each of a more or less peculiar and unique kind.”
•  “And the function of aesthetic critic is to distinguish, analyze and separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a picture, a landscape, a fair personality, in life or in book, produce this special impression of beauty or pleasure.”
• “What is important then, 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 process of beautiful objects.”
• “The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up of the culture of the age, move for the most part from different starting points and unconnected roads. The product of same generation they partake indeed of a „Common Character‟ and unconsciously illustrate each other; but of the producers themselves, each group is solitary, gaining what advantage or disadvantage there may be in intellectual isolation.”
• “Art and poetry, philosophy and the religious life, and the other life of refined pleasure and action in the open places of the world, and each of them confined to its own circle of ideas, and those who prosecute either of them are generally curious of thoughts of others.”
• “By his enthusiasm for the things of the intellect and the imagination for their own sake by his Hellenism, his life long struggle to attain to the Greek spirit, he is in sympathy with the humanists of an earlier century.”

34.8 Conclusion: A Critique

The “Conclusion” of the Studies in the History of Renaissance is a significant document of Walter Pater to expose the various dimensions of his critical perceptions. Pater at the outset of „Conclusion‟ admits that it is difficult to draw the final conclusion of any specific dimension of art because “inconstant modes” have become the tradition of modern thoughts. People are no longer moving in the direction of universal principles. To justify his points of view, he goes on illustrating the fundamental principles of physical life operating on human will. According to Pater, physical life work in totality of the co-ordination of diverse elements. The physical life expressed in the form of different actions is only “Combination of natural elements.” H states, “What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names.” It essentially involves the idea of synthesis and co-ordination. The different actions can‟t take place in a state of isolation. These elements are – phosphorus, lime and delicate fibres. These elements have no independent motion but their collective movement give pace to physical actions that can be defined under different names. Walter Pater defines that our physical life is a constant motion of different elements. The different actions such as the passage of the blood, the wasting and repairing of the lenses of the eye, the modification of tissues are governed by elementary forces. Further, the action of these forces extends beyond us.

He further establishes that these basic elements are driven by many forces. Depending on the combination of elements and elementary forces, there can be innumerable variety of physical actions. The different visible actions are only the expressions “a design in a web.” His vision is, “The clear perpetual outline of face and limb is but an image of ours under which we group them a design in a web, the actual threads of which pass out beyond it.” The physical expressions are the reflection of forces parting sooner or later on their ways.

Walter Pater expresses his views not only about the physical actions but also of Inner world of thoughts. For him the inward actions and thoughts are more rapid. The flame of inward action moves with a greater devouring force and seek an external outlet of them. It implies greater force than gradual fading of colours. Internal actions are acute and intense. He draws an analogy from the process of water fall. The internal thoughts are like the “race of midstream” that are beyond the process of rational control. They are intense, spontaneous and contain exceptional force. Defining the nature of internal thoughts, Walter Pater admits, “… but the race of midstream, a drift of momentary acts of sight and passion and thought.”

Pater further ventures to expose the significance of experience in generating physical and mental actions. All experiences are primarily related to external objects. The exposure to physical objects induce a sharp importunate reality. It subsequently inspires thousand forms of actions. It suggests the ideal that physical actions are the result of the experiences and the exposure of external reality. This generation of action is not one sided activity. First the individual gets the experience of object and later on these impressions act upon these objects. The objects related to external reality takes a new shape and colour under the impact of over indulging sensual actions. The impressions leading to strong reactions give a new colour and shape to these objects. It shows that the sensitive reaction determines the force and direction of physical action. Beyond the physical entity of the object and the reactions of observer, the whole experience take a new colour. He admits, “The cohesive force is suspended like a trick of magic, each object is loosed into a group of impressions – colour, odour, texture in the mind of the observer.” It creates a new world of artistic beauty. In this state the solidity of object defined in terms of comprehensive language carry no significance. The experience takes into a different sphere taking into account the sensibility of individual. It is a world of artistic realizations. Here the individual is concerned not with the objects but impressions, “the impressions, unstable, flickering, inconsistent, which burn and extinguished with our consciousness of them, it contracts still further, the whole scope observation is dwarfed to the narrow chamber of the individual mind.” The expression is estimated only in terms of impressions. According to Pater, these impression are individual and unique with admitting any universal formula. He states, “Every one of these impressions is the impression of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner, its own dream of world.”

In his discourse, Pater admits that impressions depend on the conditions of time. These impressions are likely to dwindle. They are in a constant mode of flight or flux. In these shifting of impressions, images and sensations, there is a constant weaving and unweaving of unexpressed imagination.

Walter Pater continues that philosophy, religion, culture and art perform identical functions in human life. These are the arenas of learning that enhances the capacity of sharp and unusual observations. However, there are wide spread variation of the intensity of moment and sensation to determine the conditions of experience. Some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is essentially more attractive and irresistible. It denotes the idea that each experience can‟t be of similar excitement under all conditions. In this respect, the experience itself is the end of the process.

Walter Pater recommends that it is essential for the individual to retain the flames appropriate to receive the impressions out of a given object. This instant excitement leads to individual experiences but in absence of this desired experience, the impression becomes a part of mechanical habit. There must be appropriate sensations to make a discrimination in different objects and different situations. The exquisite passion set the spirit free from a point. It provides a specific sense of splendor to our experience. In this respect, the artistic experience is not a natural state of being. In this moment of excitement, individual finds himself lost in that object and leaves no space for the formal formation of theories on those objects. In this respect, Walter Pater‟s vision has come close to Longinus or Wordsworth. Under such conditions, one is not supposed to be governed by artificial doctrines of Comte or Hegel but testing new opinions and courting new impressions.

Walter Pater denies the possibilities of canonical foundations to restore the real state of pleasure. The theories, points of view or instruments of criticism that motivates to sacrifice any part of this experience is not to be encouraged. The impressions should not be conditioned but independent and absolute. Pater illustrates Rousseau‟s Confession where he describes his own source of literary sense. In this work he makes a confession of his isolation where he seeks the possibilities for the fulfillment of his free time. To fill this gap, he tried to find out some intellectual excitement which he found in the clear fresh writings of Voltaire. Different persons pass this time of interval in different activities like in listlessness, high passions and the wisest man pass this time in art and song. During this time of high passions give one this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love but it essentially induces „enthusiasm for humanity‟. But this state of excitement is not of much significance because it no longer generates “multiplied consciousness.”

As the ultimate conclusion of his observations, Walter Pater summarizes that to fill the intervals of life, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love for art for art‟s sake provide the highest quality to the moments of vacuum. He acknowledges it as a power because during this moment a person breaths in the purest state for moment‟s sake.

34.9 Conclusion: Key Concepts

• In the modern thoughts most of the principles are evaluated in terms of “in constant modes.”
• He considers the whole of physical life but a combination of natural elements.
•  The different elements of human body is constituted is driven by several external forces generating diverse modes of actions.
• The external expressions or designs are only the „image‟ that forms different elements and the actual thread of them are beyond human thoughts body and perceptions.
• The external action takes place forced by several internal powers and it becomes more rapid and intense in case of inward world of thought and feeling.
• The internal flow of passion born out of physical experiences have been acknowledged as the “race of midstream.” It suggests the idea of spontaneity and force that is beyond the control of rational faculty.
• It is uncontrovercially true that external objects generate experience. The impact of these objects work upon our consciousness. The impressions lead to thousand forms of action.
• The external object do not pass through human consciousness in isolation but it turns out to be the collective impression of colour, odour, texture etc. in the mind of the observer.
• In artistic creation the impressions of the external object are significant than the real image of the object.
• Every one of these impressions are the impressions of individual in isolation.
• The awareness stirred by philosophy, religion and culture inspires sharp and eager observations on the conditions of human life.
• For Walter Pater, the experience itself is more significant than the fruits of experience.
• The mechanical responses to external objects are the form of habits and such habits are relative to stereotype world.
• Experience generates a sense of splendor. In this moment of splendor and excitement one enjoys the pure pleasure without exposing the possibilities of formulation of theories.
• The new experiences must not be evaluated and estimated in terms of the existing theories.
• It is only intellectual excitement that can help in filling the intervals of human life.
• Walter Pater rejects the possibilities of filling the intervals with „high passions‟ only.
• According to Pater the desire of beauty, the love for art for art‟s sake is the best possible option because it can provide highest quality to your moments.

34.10 Conclusion: Significant Statements

• “What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names.”
• “Our physical life is a perpetual motion of them – the passage of blood, the wasting and repairing of the lenses of the eye, the modification of the tissues of the brain by every ray of light and sound – processes which science reduces to simpler and move elementary forces.”
• “This at least of flame – like our life has, that it is but the concurrence, renewed from moment to moment, of forces passing sooner or later on the own ways.”
• “No fruit of experience, but the experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses is only given to us of variegated dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen by the finest senses? How shall we parts must swiftly from point to point and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy.”
• “With this sense of the splendor of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch.”
• “Great passions may give us a quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which comes naturally to many of us. Only be sure, it is passion that does yield you the fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake has most. For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments‟ sake.”