A further connection discernible between the different branches of art, and which alone seems to establish the sister-hood between them, and to constitute a point of family resemblance, is that they each of them possess precisely the same peculiar and special styles which belong to art generally, but, at the same time, to art exclusively. Indeed, the extent to which this coincidence in style prevails in each of the arts, was very fully pointed out in the preceding chapter.* And the circumstance of this coincidence running through each branch of art, and corresponding so closely in each alike, however remote in their nature one from the other, affords of itself the strongest possible proof and confirmation of the intimate connection and relation between them.
All the arts are alike and equally capable of being distinguished into the several leading styles already described and enumerated, corresponding indeed here with the main divisions running through all nature, of which art is but the reflection. And as the principal and leading division in nature, as regards the animated portion of it, is into male and female; so in an analogous manner is the leading division as regards the styles of art into the grand and the beautiful, the principal characteristics of the former of which correspond with the characteristic qualities of the male, and those of the latter with those of the female sex. So also in music, the base corresponds with the grand in art, and the male in sex; and the treble with the beautiful in art, and the female in sex.
All the different styles in art, moreover, are but prototypes of what we see existent in the human mind, from which they spring, the sentiments and excitements of which are mainly distributable into those of the grand and the beautiful, the pathetic and the satirical; the first and third being allied to pain, and the second and last to pleasure, which are the two principal and primary emotions of the soul.
As regards the manner of operation in all the different arts, it is moreover to be remarked that high finish and polish may exist in each art alike, in painting, sculpture, poetry, gardening, and costume, equally with eloquence and music, of which in every case extensive refinement of the taste is the main promoter. In acting, too, what is analogous to, if not strictly constituting high finish, can readily be accomplished. Even in the case of poetry and architecture, which at first sight, appear very remote from one another in all their essential characteristics, if considered as members of the same family, a close analogy between their style and the several varieties and development of it, may be discernible.