A. W. Dow on Appreciation

We know from Plato (Republic, 601d–2a) that the “quality, beauty and fitness” (transl. Lee, 1974 [1955]) of an object, or its “excellence or beauty or rightness” (transl. Cornford, 1941)—or, better, its “excellence or virtue”—depends upon its use. Thus, an object’s user, having gained the most thorough acquaintance with it, best knows its use. Its manufacturer, wishing to make a good (“virtuous”) object, should consult its user; thereby, he comes to believe rightly about the object and its virtues.

Knowledge by acquaintance is proper to the user qua user, and (true) belief to the manufacturer qua manufacturer.

Nicolas Poussin provided the following definition of painting in a 1665 letter to the Sieur de Chambray:

C’est une Imitation faicte auec lignes et couleurs en quelque superficie de tout ce qui se voit dessoubs le Soleil, sa fin est la Délectation [Correspondance (Paris: Jean Schemit, 1911), p. 462].

Painting’s “end,” purpose, or use is delectation. Its user is the art lover, who delights in it. if a painter wishes to make a good painting, he must consult the art lover, its user. This inner dilettante, “inner critic,” or assimilation by maker-as-such of user-as-such—is, according to Arthur Wesley Dow, “the divine gift APPRECIATION” (Composition [New York: Doubleday, 1913], p.128).

Dow is opposed to the academic distinction between “representation” and “design” (Theory and Practice of Teaching Art [New York:Columbia University, 1912], p. 3), insofar as the distinction is made to sideline design (or “decoration”).

The effort of the academic method is centered upon “learning to draw,” and in two directions: nature forms and historic art. The principle is—first acquire a knowledge of facts, either of nature’s facts or art’s facts, then use them in your own creative expression [ibid.].

Dow’s modernist “Synthetic Method” begins, not with facts (things and their appearances), but with appreciation (cf. 1912, pp. 4–6). For Dow, this is an inborn “power,” perhaps latent:

This power cannot be imparted like information. Artistic skill cannot be given by dictation or acquired by reading. It does not come by merely learning to draw, by imitating nature, or by any process of storing the mind with facts.
The power is within—the question is how to reach it and use it.
Increase of power always comes with exercise [1913, p. 21].

The object of appreciation is “structure,” an element common to all “space-arts”—i.e. painting, sculpture, architecture, etc.—of which “composition” is thus an essential part (cf. pp. 3–4, 5).