Note * — Chapter XIX · Sculpture and the Construction of Form

From certain visual signs, then, the contemplator constructs, muscularly as well as visually, the spatial form of the statue. We have seen that the picture-space is a construction, similarly the statue-space is a construction, and the proportions and relations of the volumes which in this statue-space make up the statue are by no means necessarily the same as those of the mass of marble from which we receive our signs. In other words, the scientific examination of the statue and the imaginative contemplation of it do not yield the same spatial results. Thus the process of measuring* statues with a view to discovering a numerical formula for Beauty is little likely to be fruitful. And the work of those, such as Havard Thomas, who have attempted to use this method, show the features which we should expect. Their merits derive from factors outside the range of the theory. The psychological processes involved in the construction of space are too subtle, and the differences between the actual configuration of the marble and the configuration of the statue in the statue-space are brought about in too many ways for any correlation to be established.