12
PARTISAN
REVIEW
hand, it is a visual organ, the eye, which is primary, for without it,
the experiences which stimulate the hand into becoming an expressive
instrument could not exist.
•
This difference is demonstrated by the difference in our sensa–
tion of motion in musical space and visual space.
An increase in the tension of the vocal chords is conceived in
musical space as a going 'up,' a relaxation as a going 'down.' But in
visual space it is the bottom of the picture (which is also the fore–
ground) which is felt as the region of greatest pressure and as the eye
rises
up the picture, it feels an increasing sense of lightness and
freedom.
The association of tension in hearing with up and in seeing with
down seems to correspond to the difference between an experience
of the force of gravity in our own bodies and an experience of
it
in
other bodies. The weight of our own bodies is felt as inherent in us,
as a personal wish to fall down, so that rising upward is an effort to
overcome the desire for rest in ourselves. But the weight (and
proximity) of other objects is felt as weighing down on us; they
are 'on top' of us and rising means getting away from their restrictive
pressure.
•
All of us have learned to talk, most of us, even, could be taught
to speak verse tolerably well, but very few have learned or could
ever be taught to sing. In any village twenty people could get to–
gether and give a performance of
Hamlet
which, however imperfect,
would convey enough of the play's greatness to be worth attending,
but if they were to attempt a similar performance of
Don Giovanni,
they would soon discover that there was no question of a good or a
bad performance because they could not sing the notes at all. Of
an actor, even in a poetic drama, when we say that his performance
is good, we mean that he simulates by art, that is, consciously, the
way in which the character he is playing would, in real life, behave
by nature, that is, unconsciously. But for a singer, as for a ballet
dancer, there is no question of simulation, of singing the com–
poser's notes 'naturally'; his behavior is unabashedly and triumphantly
