ARS-SUR-MOSELLE, a t. in Alsace-Lorraine„ at the junction of the ?1ance and Moselle, 6 m. s.w. of Metz; pop. '71, 5330. During the Franco-German war it was a place of much strategic importance in connection with the siege of Metz. It has iron mines, forges, and paper-mills.
ART. The word A. is here meant as designating what is more specifically termed fine A., being opposed to the useful arts, or the industrial operations for supplying the common necessities of life. Painting and poetry are fine arts; agriculture, navigation, and medicine are useful arts.
The great end of A. is to give pleasure, but the kind of pleasure is peculiar and cir cumscribed. There are many of our enjoyments that no artist would ever think of attempting to provide. The gratifications of eating and drinking, of exercise and repose, warmth and coolness, form a class in contrast with the pleasures of music, sculp ture, or the drama. It is a matter of some nicety to draw the line between these two regions of our pleasurable susceptibility; indeed, it is not clear that a precise line can be drawn. Certain peculiarities can be assigned as disqualifying circumstances, such that any mode of pleasure laboring under them is debarred from entering into A.; but after we have allowed for these, there will remain a disputed border-land, on which Lo general criterion will hold.
The various indulgences called sensual are the best examples of contrast to the pleas ures of A. In the first place, as our frame is constituted, these bodily functions, while incidentally ministering to our pleasure, are in the main subservient to maintaining our existence, and being in the first instance guided for that special end, they do not neces sarily rank among our gratifications as such; in the second place, they are connected with the production of what is repulsive and loathsome, which mars their purity as sources of pleasure; and in the third place, they are essentially confined in their influence to the single individual; for the sociability of the table is an element superadded. Now, a mode of pleasure subject to one or more of these three conditions may belong in an eminent degree to the list of utilities, and constitute an end of industry, but does not come under the class we are now considering. Wealth is disqualified by the third con
dition, inasmuch as, while in the shape of money, it is confined to some single proprietor. The same may be said of the pleasures of power and dignity. Even affection is too exclusive to come under the artistic head. Anything so restricted in its sphere of action as to constitute individual property, and give occasion to envy and jealousy, is not a pleasure aimed at by the producer of fine A.; for there do exist objects that can give us delight as their primary end, that have no disagreeable or revolting accompaniments, and whose enjoyment is not restricted to a single mind; all which considerations obviously elevate the rank of such objects in the scale of our enjoyments. The landscape, the glowing sunset, the song of the lark, the flowers of the field and the garden, yield unal loyed pleasure, and create no monopoly. The painter, sculptor, and musician aim at corresponding effects.
The eye and the ear are the chief avenues of artistic delight; the other senses are more or less in the monopolist interest. Moreover, one important feature in the some what capricious attribute termed refinement, attaches more particularly to the objects of these two senses, namely, the power of protracted enjoyment without fatigue. A coarse effect is one that is intense and pungent, but too exhausting to be kept up; such is a noisy clash of loud instruments in a musical performance, or a tale of overdone marvels. To remove all the fatiguing accompaniments, and thereby tone down the exciting influ ence, while retaining as much as possible the really pleasurable part, is to refine upon the effect, and produce a higher work of art. Now, in the sensations of taste and smell generally, the stimulus is apt to be of short duration; the pleasure is said to pall soon. Yet there are degrees iu the case, some of the choicer odors can affect us for hours together with a gentle and pleasing sensation. But it is the car, and perhaps still more the eye, that can remain open to agreeable stimulation for the greatest length of time; and taking this fact along, with the unconsuming nature of their objects, we see good reasons for the artist striving so earnestly towards the gratification of those two senses.