‘Psychical Distance’ as a Factor in Art and as an

Aesthetic Principle
Edward Bullough

Edward Bullough redirects aesthetics away from the subject or model of a work of
art to the “aesthetic object.” The “object” of art or “formal content” is obtained
by maintaining a “psychical distance” from the work. Only if we suspend judgment
about the actual surrounding of a work of art (e.g. the stage, the proscenium, the
wobbling sets, or the cold being suffered by the tenor) can we relate ourselves to the
art phenomenon. Bullough is anxious to avoid suggesting that this psychical distance
is impersonal. We may become quite emotionally caught up with the tragedy of
Othello without ever once believing that an actress was literally smothered to death
on stage. However, if the play triggers in us our own jealousy and we begin to obsess
about the possibility of our own spouse’s betrayal, we have lost our personal contact
with the travails of Othello, the Moor; and we’ve lost sight of the aesthetic object.

#1. The conception of ‘Distance’ suggests, in connexion with Art, certain trains of thought by no means
devoid of interest or of speculative importance. Perhaps the most obvious suggestion is that of actual
spatial distance, i.e. the distance of a work of Art from the spectator, or that of represented spatial dis-
tance, i.e. the distance represented within the work. Less obvious, more metaphorical, is the meaning
of temporal distance. The first was noticed already by Aristotle in his Poetics; the second has played a
great part in the history of painting in the form of perspective; the distinction between these two kinds of
distance assumes special importance theoretically in the differentiation between sculpture in the round,
and relief-sculpture. Temporal distance, remoteness from us in point of time, though often a cause of
misconceptions, has been declared to be a factor of considerable weight in our appreciation.

#2. It is not, however, in any of these meanings that ‘Distance’ is put forward here, though it will be
clear in the course of this essay that the above mentioned kinds of distance are rather special forms of the
conception of distance as advocated here, and derive whatever aesthetic qualities they may possess from
distance in its general connotation. This general connotation is ‘Psychical Distance.’

#3. A short illustration will explain what is meant by ‘Psychical Distance.’ Imagine a fog at sea; for most
people it is an experience of acute unpleasantness. Apart from the physical annoyance and remoter forms
of discomfort such as delays, it is apt to produce feelings of peculiar anxiety, fears of invisible dangers,
strains of watching and listening for distant and unlocalised signals. The listless movements of the ship
and her warning calls soon tell upon the nerves of the passengers; and that special, expectant, tacit anxiety
and nervousness, always associated with this experience, make a fog the dreaded terror of the sea (all the
more terrifying because of its very silence and gentleness) for the expert seafarer no less than the ignorant
landsman.

#4. Nevertheless, a fog at sea can be a source of intense relish and enjoyment. Abstract from the expe-

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rience of the sea fog, for the moment, its danger and practical unpleasantness, just as every one in the
enjoyment of a mountain-climb disregards its physical labour and its dancer (though, it is not denied,
that these may incidentally enter into the enjoyment and enhance it); direct the attention to the features
‘objectively’ constituting the phenomenon—the veil surround you with an opaquensss as of transparent
milk, blurring the outline of things and distorting their shapes into weird grotesqueness; observe the
carrying-power of the air, producing the impression as if you could touch some far-off siren by merely
putting out your hand and letting it lose itself behind that white wall; note the curious creamy smooth-
ness of the water, hypocritically denying as it were any suggestion of dancer; and, above all, the strange
solitude and remoteness from the world, as it can be found only on the highest mountain tops; and the
experience may acquire, in its uncanny mingling of repose and terror, a flavour of such concentrated
poignancy and delight as to contrast sharply with the blind and distempered anxiety of its other aspects.
This contrast, often emerging with startling suddenness, is like a momentary switching on of some new
current, or the passing ray of a brighter light, illuminating the outlook upon perhaps the most ordinary and
familiar objects—an impression which we experience sometimes in instants of direct extremity, when
our practical interest snaps like a wire from sheer over-tension, and we watch the consummation of some
impending catastrophe with the marvelling unconcern of a mere spectator.

#5. It is a difference of outlook, due - if such a metaphor is permissible—to the insertion of distance. This
distance appears to lie between our own self and its affections, using the latter term in its broadest sense
as anything which affects our being, bodily or spiritually, e.g., as sensation, perception, emotional state or
idea. Usually, though not always, it amounts to the same thing to say that the Distance lies between our
own self and such objects as are the sources or vehicles of such affections.

#6. Thus, in the fog, the transformation by Distance is produced in the first instance by putting the phe-
nomenon, so to speak, out of gear with our practical, actual self; by allowing it to stand outside the con-
text of our personal needs and ends—in short, by looking at it ‘objectively,’ as it has often been called,
by permitting only such reactions on our part as emphasise the ‘objective’ features of the experience, and
by interpreting even our ‘subjective’ affections not as modes of our being but rather as characteristics of
the phenomenon.

#7. The working of Distance is, accordingly, not simple, but highly complex. It has a negative, inhibitory
aspect—the cutting-out of the practical sides of things and of our practical attitude to them - and a positive
side—the elaboration of the experience on the new basis created by the inhibitory action of Distance.

#8. 2. Consequently, this distanced view of things is not, and cannot be, our normal outlook. As a rule,
experiences constantly turn the same side towards us, namely, that which has the strongest practical force
of appeal. We are not ordinarily aware of those aspects of things which do not touch us immediately and
practically, nor are we generally conscious of impressions apart from our own self which is impressed.
The sudden view of things from their reverse, unusually unnoticed, side, comes upon us as a revelation,
and such revelations are precisely those of Art. In this most general sense, Distance is a factor in all Art.

#9. 3. It is, for this very reason, also an aesthetic principle. The aesthetic contemplation and the aesthetic
outlook have often been described as ‘objective.’ We speak of ‘objective’ artists as Shakespeare or Ve-
lasquez, of ‘objective’ works or art forms as Homer’s Iliad or the drama. It is a term constantly occurring
in discussions and criticisms, though its sense, if pressed at all, becomes very questionable. For certain
forms of Art, such as lyrical poetry, are said to be ‘subjective’; Shelley, for example would usually be
considered a ‘subjective’ writer. On the other hand, no work of Art can be genuinely ‘objective’ in the
sense in which this term might be applied to a work on history or to a scientific treatise; nor can it be
‘subjective’ in the ordinary acceptance of that term, as a personal feeling, a direct statement of a wish or
belief, or a cry of passion is subjective. ‘Objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ are a pair of opposites which in
their mutual exclusiveness when applied to Art soon lead to confusion.

#10. Nor are they the only pair of opposites. Art has with equal vigour been declared alternately ‘idealis-
tic’ and ‘realistic,’ ‘sensual’ and ‘spiritual,’ ‘individualistic’ and ‘typical.’ Between the defence of either

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terms of such antitheses most aesthetic theories have vacillated. It is one of the contentions of this essay
that such opposites find their synthesis in the more fundamental conception of Distance.

#11. Distance further provides the much needed criterion of the beautiful as distinct from the merely
agreeable.

#12. Again, it marks one of the most important steps in the process of artistic creation and serves as a
distinguishing feature of what is common so loosely described as the ‘artistic temperament.’

#13. Finally, it may claim to be considered as one of the essential characteristics of the ‘aesthetic
consciousness,’—if I may describe by this term that special mental attitude towards, and outlook upon,
experience, which finds its most pregnant expression in the various forms of Art.

#14. Distance, as I said before, is obtained by separating the object and its appeal from one’s own self, by
putting it out of gear with practical needs and ends. Thereby the ‘contemplation’ of the object becomes
alone possible. But it does not mean that the relation between the self and the object is broken to the
extent of becoming ‘impersonal.’ Of the alternatives ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’ the latter surely comes
nearer to the truth; but here, as elsewhere, we meet the difficulty of having to express certain facts in
terms coined for entirely different uses. To do so usually results in paradoxes, which are nowhere more
inevitable than in discussions upon Art. ‘Personal’ and ‘impersonal,’ ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ are such
terms, devised for purposes other than aesthetic speculation, and becoming loose and ambiguous as soon
as applied outside the sphere of their special meanings. In giving preference therefore to the term ‘im-
personal’ to describe the relation between the spectator and a work of Art, it is to be noticed that it is not
impersonal in the sense in which we speak of the ‘impersonal’ character of Science, for instance. In order
to obtain ‘objectively valid’ results, the scientist excludes the ‘personal factor,’ i.e., his personal wishes
as to the validity of his results, his predilection for any particular system to be proved or disproved by his
research. It goes without saying that all experiments and investigations are undertaken out of a personal
interest in the science, for the ultimate support of a definite assumption, and involve personal hopes of
success; but this does not affect the ‘dispassionate’ attitude of the investigator, under pain of being ac-
cused of ‘manufacturing his evidence.’

#15. 1. Distance does not imply an impersonal, purely intellectually interested relation of such a kind. On
the contrary, it describes a personal relation, often highly emotionally coloured, but of a peculiar char-
acter. Its peculiarity lies in that the personal character of the relation has been, so to speak, filtered. It has
been cleared of the practical, concrete nature of its appeal, without, however, thereby losing its original
constitution. One of the best known examples is to be found in our attitude towards the events and char-
acters of the drama; they appeal to us like persons and incidents of normal experience, except that that
side of their appeal, which would usually affect us in a directly personal manner, is held in abeyance. This
difference, so well known as to be almost trivial, is generally explained by reference to the knowledge
that the characters and situations are ‘unreal,’ imaginary. In this sense Witasek, oeprating with Meinong’s
theory of Annahem, has described the emotions involved in witnessing a drama as Scheingefuhle, a term
which has so frequently been misunderstood in discussions of his theories. But, as a matter of fact, the
‘assumption’ upon which the imaginative emotional reaction is based is not necessarily the condition, but
often the consequence, of distance; that is to say, the converse of the reason usually stated would then
be true: viz. That distance, by changing our relation to the characters, renders them seemingly fictitious,
not that the fictitiousness of the characters alters our feelings toward them. It is, of course, to be granted
that the actual and admitted unreality of the dramatic action reinforces the effect of Distance. But surely
the proverbial unsophisticated yokel whose chivalrous interference in the play on behalf of the hapless
heroine can only be prevented by impressing upon him that ‘they are only pretending,’ is not the ideal
type of theatrical audience. The proof of the seeming paradox that it is Distance which primarily gives to
dramatic action the appearance of unreliability and not vice versa, is the observation that the same filtra-
tion of our sentiments and the same seeming ‘unreality’ of actual men and things occur, when at times, by
a sudden change of inward perspective, we are overcome by the feeling that “all the world’s a stage.”

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#16. 2. This personal, but ‘distanced’ relation (as I will venture to call this nameless character of our
view) directs attention to a strange fact which appears to be one of the fundamental paradoxes of Art: it
is what I propose to call ‘the antinomy of Distance.’

#17. It will be readily admitted that a work of Art has the more chance of appealing to us the better it finds
us prepared for its particular kind of appeal. Indeed, without some degree of predisposition on our part,
it must necessarily remain incomprehensible, and to that extent unappreciated. The success and intensity
of its appeal would seem, therefore, to stand in direct proportion to the completeness with which it cor-
responds with our intellectual and emotional peculiarities and the idiosyncracies of our experience. The
absence of such a concordance between the characters of a work and of the spectator is, of course, the
most general explanation for differences of ‘tastes.’

#18. At the same time, such a principle of concordance requires a qualification, which leads at once to
the antinomy of distance.

#19. Suppose a man, who believes that he has cause to be jealous about his wife, witnesses a performance
of ‘Othello.’ He will the more perfectly appreciate the situation, conduct and character of Othello, the
more exactly the feelings and experiences of Othello coincide with his own—at least he ought to on the
above principle of concordance. In point of fact, he will probably do anything but appreciate the play.
In reality, the concordance will merely render him acutely conscious of his own jealousy; by a sudden
reversal of perspective he will no longer see Othello apparently betrayed by Desdemona, but himself in
an analogous situation with his own wife. The reversal of perspective is the consequence of the loss of
Distance.

#20. If this be taken as a typical case, it follows that the qualification required is that the coincidence
should be as complete as is compatible with maintaining Distance. The jealous spectator of ‘Othello’
will indeed appreciate and enter into the play the more keenly, the greater the resemblance with his own
experience—provided that he succeeds in keeping the Distance between the action of the play and his
personal feelings: a very difficult performance in the circumstances. It is on account of the same diffi-
culty that the expert and the professional critic makes a bad audience, since their expertness and critical
professionalism are practical activities, involving their concrete personality and constantly endangering
their Distance. . . .

#21. The same qualification applies to the artist. He will prove artistically most effective in the formula-
tion of an intensely personal experience, but he can formulate it artistically only on condition of a detach-
ment from the experience qua personal. Hence the statement of so many artists that artistic formulation
was to them a kind of catharsis, a means of ridding themselves of feelings and ideas the acuteness of
which they felt almost as a kind of obsession. Hence, on the other hand, the failure of the average man
to convey to others at all adequately the impression of an overwhelming joy or sorrow. His personal im-
plication in the event renders it impossible for him to formulate and present it in such a way as to make
others, like himself, feel all the meaning and fullness which it possesses for him.

#22. What is therefore, both in appreciation and production, most desirable is the utmost decrease of
Distance without its disappearance.

#23. 3. Closely related, in fact a presupposition to the ‘antimony,’ is the variability of Distance. Herein
especially lies the advantage of Distance compared with such terms as ‘objectivity’ and ‘detachment.’
Neither of them implies a personal relation - indeed both actually preclude it; and the mere inflexibility
and exclusiveness of their opposites render their application generally meaningless.

#24. Distance, on the contrary, admits naturally of degrees, and differs not only according to the nature
of the object, which may impose a greater or smaller degree of Distance, but varies also according to the
individual’s capacity for maintaining a greater or lesser degree. And here one may remark that not only do
persons differ from each other in their habitual measure of distance, but that the same individual differs
in his ability to maintain it in the face of different objects and of different arts.

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#25. There exist, therefore, two different sets of conditions affecting the degree of distance in any given
case: those offered by the object and those realised by the subject. In their interplay they afford one of the
most extensive explanations for varieties of aesthetic experience, since loss of distance, whether due to
the one or the other, means loss of aesthetic appreciation.

#26. In short, Distance may be said to be variable both according to the distancing power of the indi-
vidual, and according to the character of the object.

#27. There are two ways of losing distance: either to ‘under-distance’ or to ‘over-distance.’ ‘Under-
distancing’ is the commonest failing of the subject, an excess of distance is a frequent failing of Art, espe-
cially in the past. Historically it looks almost as if Art had attempted to meet the deficiency of distance on
the part of the subject and had overshot the mark in this endeavour. It will be seen later that this is actu-
ally true, for it appears that over-distanced Art is specially designed for a class of appreciation which has
difficulty to rise spontaneously to any degree of distance. The consequence of a loss of Distance through
one or other cause is familiar: the verdict in the case of under-distancing is that the work is ‘crudely
naturalistic,’ ‘harrowing,’ ‘repulsive in its realism.’ An excess of distance produces the impression of
improbability, artificiality, emptiness or absurdity.

#28. The individual tends, as I just stated, to under-distance rather than to lose Distance by over-dis-
tancing. Theoretically there is no limit to the decrease of Distance. In theory, therefore, not only the
usual subjects of Art, but even the most personal affections, whether ideas, percepts or emotions, can be
sufficiently distanced to be aesthetically appreciable. Especially artists are gifted in this direction to a
remarkable extent. The average individual, on the contrary, very rapidly reaches his limit of decreasing
Distance, his ‘Distance-limit,’ i.e. that point at which distance is lost and appreciation either disappears
or changes its character.

#29. In the practice, therefore, of the average person, a limit does exist which marks the minimum at
which his appreciation can maintain itself in the aesthetic field, and this average minimum lies consider-
ably higher than the Distance-limit of the artist. It is practically impossible to fix this average limit, in
the absence of data, and on account of the wide fluctuations from person to person to which this limit is
subject. But it is safe to infer that, in art practice, explicit references to organic affections, to the mate-
rial existence of the body, especially to sexual matters, lie normally below the Distance-limit, and can
be touched upon by Art only with special precautions. Allusions to social institutions of any degree of
personal importance—in particular, allusions implying any doubt as to their validity—the questioning of
some generally recognised ethical sanctions, references to topical subjects occupying public attention at
the moment, and such like, are all dangerously near the average limit and may at any time fall below it,
arousing, instead of aesthetic appreciation, concrete hostility or mere amusement.

#30. This difference in the Distance-limit between artists and the public has been the source of much mis-
understanding and injustice. Many an artist has seen his work condemned, and himself ostracized for the
sake of so-called ‘immoralities’ which to him were bona fide aesthetic objects. His power of distancing,
nay, the necessity of distancing feelings, sensations, situations which for the average person are too inti-
mately bound up with his concrete existence to be regarded in that light, have often quite unjustly earned
for him accusations of cynicism, sensualism, morbidness or frivolity. The same misconception has arisen
over many ‘problem plays’ and ‘problem novels’ in which the public have persisted in seeing nothing but
a supposed ‘problem’ of the moment, whereas the author may have been - and often has demonstrably
been—able to distance the subject-matter sufficiently to rise above its practical problematic import and
to regard it simply as a dramatically and humanly interesting situation.

#31. The variability of Distance in respect to Art, disregarding for the moment the subjective complica-
tion, appears both as a general feature in Art, and in the differences between the special arts.

#32. It has been an old problem why the ‘arts of the eye and of the ear’ should have reached the practically
exclusive predominance over arts of other senses. Attempts to raise ‘culinary art’ to the level of a Fine

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Art have failed in spite of all propaganda, as completely as the creation of scent or liquer ‘symphonies.’
There is little doubt that, apart from other excellent reasons of a partly psycho-physical, partly technical
nature, the actual, spatial distance separating objects of sight and hearing from the subject has contrib-
uted strongly to the development of this monopoly. In a similar manner temporal remoteness produces
Distance, and objects removed from us in point of time are ipso facto distanced to an extent which was
impossible for their contemporaries. Many pictures, plays and poems had, as a matter of fact, rather an
expository or illustrating significance—as for instance much ecclesiastical Art—or the force of a direct
practical appeal—as the invectives of many satires or comedies—which seem to us nowadays irreconcil-
able with their aesthetic claims. Such works have consequently profited greatly by lapse of time and have
reached the level of art only with the help of temporal distance, while others, on the contrary, often for
the same reason have suffered a loss of distance, through over-distancing.

#33. Special mention must be made of a group of artistic conceptions which present excessive distance
in their form of appeal rather than in their actual presentation—a point illustrating the necessity of dis-
tinguishing between distancing an object and distancing the appeal of which it is the source. I mean here
what is often rather loosely termed ‘idealistic Art,’ that is, Art springing from abstract conceptions, ex-
pressing allegorical meanings, or illustrating general truths. Generalisations and abstractions suffer under
this disadvantage that they have too much general applicability to invite a personal interest in them, and
too little individual concreteness to prevent them applying to us in all their force. They appeal to every-
body and therefore to none. An axiom of Euclid belongs to nobody, just because it compels everyone’s
assent; general conceptions like Patriotism, Friendship, Love, Hope, Life, Death, concern as much Dick,
Tom and Harry as myself, and I therefore either feel unable to get into any kind of personal relation to
them or, if I do so, they become at once, emphatically or concretely, my Patriotism, my Friendship, my
Love, my Hope, my Life and Death. By mere force of generalisation, a general truth or a universal ideal
is so far distanced from myself that I fail to realise it concretely at all, or, when I do so, I can realise
it only as part of my practical actual being, i.e. it falls below the distance-limit altogether. ‘Idealistic
Art’ suffers consequently under the peculiar difficulty that its excess of distance turns generally into an
under-distanced appeal—all the more easily, as it is the usual failing of the subject to under-rather than
to over-distance....

Edward Bullough. “‘Psychic Distance’ as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle.” British Journal of
Psychology 5 (1912): 87-117.

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