The Enjoyment of Art (Classic Reprint)

#*

V

GIFT OF A. P. Morrison

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2007

with funding from

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THE ENJOYMENT OF ART

THE ENJOYMENT OF ART BY

CARLETON NOYES

TOUT

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (Cfje

litas'ibe press, Cambridge

1903

K*)M35

COPYRIGHT,

1903,

BY CARLETON NOYES

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published, March, iqoj

GIFT OF

To

ROBERT HENRI AND

VAN

D.

PERRINE

m9M36

This day before dawn

I

ascended a

hill

and look'd

at

the crowded heaven,

And

I said to

my

thing in

And my

spirit

When we become

the enfolders of

and knowledge of every them, shall we be filFd and satisfied then ?

those orbs,

and

spirit said

the pleasure

No, we but

level that lift to pass

and

continue beyond,

Walt Whitman

PREFACE The

following pages

questions which a self

are the answer to

young man asked him-

when, fresh from the university, he

found himself adrift in the great galleries

As he

of Europe.

stood helpless and con-

fused in the presence of the visible expressions of the spirit of

and so

many

insistently

What

is

:

man

in so

many

ages

lands, one question recurred

Why

are

these

the meaning of

after expression

?

pictures

?

all this striving

What was

the aim of

men who have left their record here ? What was their moving impulse ? Why, why does the human spirit seek to mani-

these

fest itself in

forms which

we

call beautiful?

He

turned to histories of art and to bio-

graphies of to the

artists,

"Why?"

but he found no answer

The

philosophers with

their theories of aesthetics helped

to understand the dignity

him

little

and force of

this

portrait or the beauty of that landscape.

In the conversation of his artist friends

there was no enlightenment, for they talked

about " values " and " planes of modeling " and the mysteries of "tone."

he turned this

in

canvas

found

his

upon himself:

mean

me

this

to

The

artist is

new wonder

communicate

to his fellow

What does And here he is

of a fuller beauty, a

deeper harmony, than felt.

last

This work of art

answer.

the revelation to

me?

to

At

I

have ever seen or

he who has experienced

in nature

and who wants

his joy, in concrete forms,

men.

[xi]

The purpose in

of this book

is

to set forth

simple, untechnical fashion the nature

and the meaning of a work of though the

illustrations

principles are

art.

Al-

of the underlying

drawn mainly from

pictures,

yet the conclusions apply equally to books

and to music.

It is

true that the manifesta-

tions of the art-impulse are innumerable,

embracing not only painting, sculpture, literature, music,

and architecture, but also

the handiwork of the craftsman in the de-

signing of a rug or in the fashioning of a cup

or a candlestick has

its

;

it

is

special province

that each

is

true that each art

and function, and

peculiarly adapted to the ex-

pression of a certain order of emotion or idea,

art

and that the

distinctions

between one

and another are not to be inconsider-

ately swept aside or obscured.

Yet

art

is

[xii] one.

It

possible, without confusing the

is

individual characteristics essential to each, to discuss these principles

under the com-

prehensive rubric of Art.

The

attempt

is

made here

to reduce the

supposed mysteries of art discussion to the basis

and

of practical, every-day intelligence

common

What

the ordinary

himself in any

way attracted

sense.

man who feels

towards art needs stantly

more

is

not more and con-

pictures to look

lore about them, not further

the

men and

at,

not added

knowledge of

the times that have produced

them; but rather what he needs understanding of what the

artist

is

some

has aimed

to express, and, as reinforcing that under-

standing, the capacity rightly to appreciate

and enjoy. It is

hoped that

in this

book the

artist

[ xiii ]

may

find

justice his

expressed with simplicity and

own

highest aims

appreciator and the

;

and that the

layman may gain some

insight into the

meaning of art expression,

and that they

may

their

way

to the

be helped a

enjoyment of

Harvard College, December

tenth,

art.

ig02.

little

on

CONTENTS PAGE I.

The

Picture and the

Man

i

II.

The Work

of

Art

as

III.

The Work

of

Art

as Beautiful

IV.

Art and Appreciation

V.

The

Artist

Symbol

.

.

...

i

.

9

41

67 86

THE ENJOYMENT OF ART

THE PICTURE AND THE MAN j

At any

more parsome public gallery or museum,

exhibition of paintings,

ticularly at

one can hardly est in pictures

fail is

People are there

and what

is

to reflect that

an inter-

unmistakably widespread. in considerable

more

striking,

numbers,

they seem to

represent every station and walk in is

life.

It

evident that pictures, as exhibited to the

public, are not the cult of an initiated few; their appeal

and is

this

is

manifestly to no one class

popular interest

is

as genuine as

;

it

extended.

Thus

reflectively scanning the

crowd,

What

has at-

the observer asks himself

:

[a] numbers

tracted these

to that

which might

be supposed not to be understood of the

many ? general

A ifito

And what are draw

the pictures that in

the popular attention

few persons have of course

?

drifted

th0 |exih^ition out of curiosity or from

lack of something better to do.

So much

evident at once, for these

past the

is

file

walls listlessly, seldom stopping, and then

but to glance at those pictures which are

most obviously

like

the

they pretend to represent,

familiar

object

— such

as the

bowl of flowers which the beholder can almost smell, the theatre-checks and fivedollar note pasted

him

on a wall which tempt

to finger them, or the panel of

birds

which puzzles him

to

ous.

With

enough

determine

These however, are not the most numer-

whether the birds are real or visitors,

game

not.

the great majority

it

is

not

that the picture be a clever piece

of imitation or illusion

:

transferring their

[3] interest

mand shall

from the mere execution, they de-

further that the subjects represented

The crowd pause

be pleasing.

fore a

be-

sunny landscape, with cows stand-

ing by the shaded pool ; they gather about the brilliant portrait of a didly arrayed,

—

social celebrity

;

a

woman

splen-

actress or a

favorite

they linger before a group

of children wading in a brook, or a dog

crouching mournfully by an empty cradle.

At

length, with an approving and

thetic

sympa-

word of comment, they pass on

Some

the next pleasing picture.

to

canvases,

not the most popular ones, are yet not without their interest for a few are taking things a

little

;

these visitors

more

seriously

they do not try to see every picture, they

do not hurry

;

they seem to be considering

them with

the canvas immediately before

concentrated attention.

No

one of

all

these people

is

to the appeal of the picturesque

:

insensible their pre-

[4] sence at the exhibition In

life

is

evidence of that.

they like to see a bowl of flowers,

woman

a sunny landscape, a beautiful beautiful surroundings

;

in

and naturally they

are interested in that which represents and

At once

recalls the reality.

plain,

is

it

however, that to different individuals the various pictures appeal in different measure

and for

differing reasons.

fact of representation

cination. is

To

the subject

what he

is

To

one the very

a mystery and fas-

another the important thing ;

the picture must represent

likes in nature or in

third the subject itself

is

To

life.

a

of less concern

than what the painter wanted to say about it

:

the artist

saw a beauty manifested by

an ugly beggar, perhaps, and he wanted to

show

that beauty to his fellows,

not perceive

The

it

who

could

for themselves.

special interest in pictures of each

of these three

men

rant in experience.

is

not without

What man

is

its

war-

wholly

[5] indifferent to the display of

Who

is

skill

?

there without his store of pleasur-

able associations, call

human

who is

not stirred by any

which rouses them

lover of beauty revelation of

into play

What

?

not ever awake to the

is

new beauty

Indeed, upon

?

these three principles together, though in

varying proportion, depends the nificance of a great

As

work of

full sig-

art.

the lover of pictures looks back over

the period of his conscious interest in exhibitions

and

that his

galleries,

earliest

it is

not improbable

memories attach themwhich most closely

selves to those paintings

resembled the object represented.

members that

He

re-

wonder which he felt a man with mere paint and canvas the great

could so reproduce the reality of nature. it is

that those paintings

the

first

to attract the

interest in pictures

So

which are perhaps

man who

feels

awakening are such

display most obviously the painter's

an as

skill.

[6] Whatever the nation remains

subject imitated, the fascithat such illusion

;

sible at all is the

But

mystery and the

is

pos-

delight.

grows with

as his interest in pictures

indulgence, as his experience widens, the

beholder becomes gradually aware that he

making a larger demand. After the first shock of pleasurable surprise is worn away,

is

he finds that the repeated exhibition of the painter's dexterity ceases to satisfy

him

these clever pieces of deception manifest a

wearying sameness, holder begins

now

after all

to look for something

more than mere expertness. his experience,

jects

and the be-

;

Thinking on

he concludes that the sub-

which can be imitated deceptively are

limited in range and interest

vague, disquieting sense that pictures do not

puzzled.

Art aims

himself, and art

is

that

mean

it

;

he has a

somehow these

anything.

Yet he

to represent,

he

is

tells

should follow that the best

which represents most closely

[7] and exactly.

He

recalls, perhaps, the le-

gend of the two Greek painters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew

down

to

peck

the other with his paint-

at,

ing of a veil which deceived his very

rival.

The imitative or "illusionist" picture pleads its

case most plausibly.

A further experi-

ence of such pictures, however, fails to bring the beholder beyond his simple admiration

and that

he

of the painter's

skill

comes gradually

to realize, does not differ

essentially

gler

who

;

skill,

from the adroitness of the jug-

keeps a

billiard ball,

a chair, and

a silk handkerchief rotating from hand to

hand. Conscious, then, of a

added interest to be

new demand,

satisfied,

of an

the amateur

of pictures turns from the imitative canvas to those paintings which appeal

widely to

his familiar experience.

he does not here forgo altogether light in the painter's

more

Justly, his de-

cunning of hand, only

[8] he requires further that the subjects represented shall be pleasing. It must be a sub-

whose meaning he can recognize at once a handsome or a strong portrait, a ject

:

familiar

which is

landscape,

tells its

now

own

some story.

by those

attracted

little

incident

The

spectator

pictures

which

rouse a train of agreeable associations.

He

stops before a canvas representing a bit of

rocky

coast, with the

exhilaratingly.

and finds

it

He

ocean tumbling in

recognizes the subject

pleasing;

where the picture was

then he wonders painted.

to his catalogue, he reads

Coast of Maine."

:

Turning

"37. On the

" Oh, yes," he says to

himself, " I

was on the coast of Maine last summer, and I remember what a glorious time I had sitting on the rocks of an afternoon, with some book or other which the ocean was too fine to let me read. I like that picture."

If the title

" Massachusetts Coast,"

it

is

had read

to be feared

[9] he would not have liked the canvas quite

The next

so well. tices

picture which he no-

shows, perhaps, a stately woman sump-

tuously attired.

It is

with a slight shock

of disappointment that the visitor finds re-

corded in his catalogue

He

a Lady." self.

Portrait of

much

was going

it

for

to

him-

be the

mother or somebody's wife,

person he ought to pictures

"41.

could see that

He hoped

painter's

:

know

about.

—

a

But the

which appeal to him most surely

some little story, "The Lovers," " The Boy leaving Home," "The Wreck." Here the subject, touching some one of the big human emotions, to which no man is wholly insensible, calls are those which tell

out the response of immediate interest and

sympathy.

It is

something which he can

understand.

At length

there comes a day

visitor stops before a

to

him more

when

the

landscape which seems

beautiful than anything he has

to]

[

ever seen in nature

;

or some portrait dis-

closes a strength of character or radiates a

charm of personality which he has seldom met with in life. Whence comes this beauty, this strength, this graciousness

Can

be that the painter has seen a

it

wonder

human

in nature, a life

?

The

new

?

new

significance in

spectator's previous ex-

perience of pictures has familiarized

him

in

some measure with the means of expression

which the painter employs.

sensitive

now

More

to the appeal of color and

form, he sees that what the present on his canvas

is

artist cares to

just his peculiar

sense of the beauty in the world, a beauty that

is

best symbolized and

made

manifest

through the medium of color and form. Before he understood

this

eloquent lan-

guage which the painter speaks, he misinterpreted those pictures whose significance

he mistook to be literary and not

pictorial.

He early liked the narrative picture because

»

[

here was a subject he could understand;

he could rephrase

it

in his

own

terms, he

could retell the story to himself in words.

Now

words are the means of expression

of every-day

life.

Because of

this fact, the

which employs words as

art

its

medium

the art which comes nearest to being

is

universally understood, namely, literature.

The

other arts use each a

requires

it

medium which

special training to under-

a

Without some sense of the expres-

stand.

siveness of color, line, form, and sounds,

— is

a sense which can be cultivated,

— one

necessarily unable to grasp the full and

meaning of

true

composition.

picture, statue, or musical

One must realize further

that

the artist thinks and feels in his peculiar

medium

;

his special

and expressed

The

in color or

is

conceived

form or sound.

task of the appreciator, correspond-

ingly,

the

meaning

is

to receive the artist's

same terms

in

which

it

message

in

was conceived.

[

The tendency

12] however, to

inevitable,

is

meaning of the work into words, the terms in which men commonly

translate the

A

phrase their experience.

dency

is

parallel ten-

manifest in one's efforts to learn

The

a foreign language.

of French at

first

English student

thinks in English and

laboriously translates phrase for phrase into

French; and

in

hearing or reading the

foreign language, he translates the origi-

word

nal,

for

word, into

his native

before he can understand

its

mastered the language

has

tongue

sense

only

he

:

when

he has reached that point where English

is

no longer present to his consciousness he thinks in French and understands in French. :

Similarly, to translate the art into

message of any

terms that are foreign to

it,

to

phrase the meaning of music or painting, for

example,

tial, is

in

words,

true significance.

musical

;

is

to

fail

of its essen-

The import of music

the meaning of pictures

is

not

[

i3] In the understand-

literary but pictorial.

ing of this truth, then, the spectator penetrates to the artist's real intention

and he

;

becomes aware that when he used the ture as the reflections

ing of the this

peg whereon

and

I

artist's

know

hang

his

own

he missed the meanwork. " As I look at

ideas,

canvas," he

what

to

pic-

tells

himself, "

it

is

not

of the coast of Maine that

is

of concern, but what the painter has seen

and to

its

beauty and wants to reveal

me." Able

at last to interpret the paint-

er's

felt

of

medium, the appreciator comes

in pictures not primarily

the craftsman's his

skill,

to seek

an exhibition of

not even a recall of

own pleasurable experiences, but rather,

beyond

all this,

a fuller visible revelation

of beauty.

The is

essential significance of art, that art

revelation, is illustrated not only

by paint-

ing but by the other arts as well. In music, to take but a single example, are present

[

H]

the same elements that constitute the appeal

of pictures,

the rendering, a cer-

power of imaginative

the facts of

who is

skill in

correspondence with experience, and

tain

the

—

life.

The

interpretation of

music-hall performer

wins the loudest and heartiest applause

he who does the greatest number of pyro-

technic, wonderful things

on the piano, or

holds a high note on the cornet for the longest time.

His success, as with the painter

whose aim men's

to create illusion, rests

is

upon

instinctive admiration for the exhibi-

tion of skill.

Again, as the imitative picture

involves not only the display of dexterity,

but also likeness to the thing represented

and the consequent

possibility of recogniz-

ing it immediately, so in the domain of music there is an order of composition which seems to

aim at imitation,

tive" music.

A

—

the so-called "descrip-

popular audience

is

de-

lighted with the "Cats' Serenade," executed

on the

violins

with overwhelming likeness

[

-5]

"Day

to the reality, or with the

Country/' in which the sun

in the in the

rises

high notes, cocks crow, horses rattle the road,

merrymakers

frolic

down

on the green,

come up in the horns, lightning plays in the violins, thunder crashes in the drums and cymbals, the merrymakers scatter in clouds

the whole orchestra, the storm passes di-

minuendo, and

moon

rises

in the

muted

violins the full

serenely into a twilight sky.

Here the intention is easily understood the layman cannot fail to recognize what the composer wanted to say. And as in the case ;

of pictures which interest the beholder because he can translate their subject into the

terms which are pression, that

is,

his

own medium

of ex-

words, so with descriptive

music, broadly speaking, the interest and significance Still

is

literary

another parallel

is

and not musical. presented.

Just as

those pictures are popular whose subjects lie

within the range of familiar experience,

i6]

[

such as cows by the shaded pool, or chil-

dren playing, or whose subjects touch the feelings is

;

so, that

music

is

popular which

phrased in obvious and familiar rhythms

such as the march and the waltz, or which appeals readily and unmistakably to sen-

timent and emotion.

It is after

the lover

of music has traversed these passages of musical expression and has proved their limitations that

new

he comes to seek

in

music

ranges of experience, unguessed-at

possibilities

of feeling, which the composer

has himself sounded and which he would

communicate to artist

others.

only as he leads

He

is

truly the

his auditors

into

regions of beautiful living which they alone

and of themselves had not penetrated. For it is

then that his work reveals.

Only such pictures, too, willliave a vital meaning as reveal. The imitative and the iterative alike, that

which adds nothing to

the object and that which adds nothing to the

[17] experience of the beholder, though once pleasing,

now

tor calls for

fail

The

to satisfy.

something

fuller.

apprecia-

He wants to

pass beyond the object, beyond his experience of

it,

into the

whither the true

realm of illumination

artist

would lead him. The

development of appreciation,

come

has

to realize in his

as the

own

amateur

person,

only the enlargement of demand.

The

is

ap-

preciator requires ever fresh revelations of

beauty.

He

discovers, too, that in practice

the tendency of his development direction of exclusion.

is

As he goes

in

the

on, he

cares for fewer and fewer things, because

those works which can minister to his ever-

expanding desire of beauty must needs be less

numerous. But these make up

in large-

ness of utterance, in the intensity of their

message, what they lack does

this

numbers. Nor

outcome make against a fancied

catholicity of taste. still

in

The

true appreciator

sees in his earlier loves something that

[ i8 ] is

good, and he values the good the more

justly that he sees tion

it

now

and apprehends

As each

in its turn led

its

in

its

right rela-

real significance.

him

each became an instrument

to seek further, in his develop-

ment. For himself he has need of them no longer. But far from contemning them, he is

rightly grateful for the solace they have

by them he has made the fuller meaning of art.

afforded, as

up

into

his

way

II

THE WORK OF ART AS SYMBOL

man who feels himpictures and who studies

In the experience of the self attracted to

them intelligently and with sympathy, there comes a day when suddenly a canvas reveals to him a new beauty in nature or in life.

Much

seeing and

much thinking, much be-

wilderment and some disappointment, have taught him that in the appreciation of pictures the question at issue

is

not,

how clev-

erly has the painter imitated his object, not,

how

suggestive

ing associations self,

"

in the

;

What has

the subject of pleas-

he need simply ask himthe artist conceived or felt

presence of

rangement of

is

is

line

this landscape, this ar-

and

color, this

human

face, that I

have not seen and

he wants to communicate to

The

felt,

me

and that

?

incident of the single canvas,

which

by its illuminating revealment first disclosed to the observer the true significance of pictures,

The

is

whole scope of

typical of the

mission of art

is

to reveal.

art.

It is

the

prophet's message to his fellow men, the

apocalypse of the seer. to

whom

is

The

artist is

he

vouchsafed a special apprehen-

He has

sion of beauty.

the eye to see, the

temperament

to feel, the imagination to in-

terpret

by

;

it

is

virtue of these capacities,

this high, transfiguring vision, that artist

;

and

his skill

to the great fact that

his

Art

is

is

incidental

common man has not. To

work, the manifestation of

accorded the

an

he has somewhat to

material form, his perception is

is

of hand, his equipment

with the means of expression,

express that the

he

name of

expression.

his spirit in

made sensible,

art.

It is

not a display of

t« skill

;

it is

not the reproduction of external

forms or appearances

some

]

say, exist for itself:

means.

To cry

does not even, as

it

;

it is

" Art for Art's sake " !

Such a

converse with the echo. but moves in a

No

itself.

The

;

artist is

a message, a

art

circle, is

is

to

definition

and doubles upon

for the

artist's

human

the agent or

sake.

instru-

ment whereby the supreme harmony, which is beauty, is manifested to men. Art is the medium by which the artist communicates himself to his fellows

work felt

is

;

and the individual

the expression of

or thought, as at the

aspect of the universal

what the

moment some new harmony was Art

vealed to his apprehension. objectified,

artist

but the object

is

is

re-

emotion

subordinated

The

to the emotion as

means

material result

not the final significance,

is

is

to an end.

but what of spiritual meaning or beauty the artist desired to convey. painted, as the

layman

Not what

is

how

it

thinks, not

[«] is

painted, as the technician considers, but

why

did the artist paint

it, is

the question

which sums up the truth about

What

appreciator need simply ask,

beauty, what the idea, which the striving to reveal

and form of the

?

He

work

is

is

the

artist is

by these symbols of color

understands that the import the idea, and that the

because

beautiful idea

significance

its

it

work

symbolizes a

itself is beautiful ;

The

art.

is

spiritual.

The function of art, then, is through the medium of concrete, material symbols to reveal to men whatever of beauty has been disclosed to the artist's

more penetrating

vision.

In order to seize the real meaning of art it is

all

necessary to

strip the

word beauty of

the wrappings of customary associations

and the accretions of

As the word

is

tradition

and

habit.

current in ordinary parlance,

the attribute of beauty

is

ascribed to that

which is pleasing, pretty, graceful, comely

[*3] in

which

is

purely agree-

But surely such

is

not the beauty

fine,

able.

to that

which Rembrandt saw

in the filthy, loath-

some beggar. To Rembrandt the beggar was expressive of some force or manifestation of the supreme universal life, wherein all things work together to a perfect harmony. Beauty is the essential quality belonging to energy, character, significance.

A

merely agreeable object

unless ever,

it is

not beautiful

is

expressive of a meaning

on the other hand,

is

form

however much

may

to conventional standards,

Beauty does not reside it is

it

meaning

;

and

—

fail is

to con-

beautiful.

in the object.

in proportion as

be

No

meaning

he finds that

the qualities of energy, force,

aspiration, life in objects

may

it

the artist's sense of the great

of things

what-

expressive of

a meaning, however shocking in itself,

;

—

manifest and expressed

do those objects become

beautiful.

Such was the conception of beauty Keats

[»4] had when he wrote

in a letter

:

"

What the

Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth,

— whether I

it

existed before or not,

have the same idea of

of Love

:

they are

tive of essential

" I can never

all, in

all

from a clear perception of

"'Beauty

is

it

is

And

similarly:

any

truth, but

:

—

its

truth, truth beauty,'

Ye know on

When

our passions as

feel certain of

he sings

earth,

and

for

their sublime, crea-

Beauty/'

his verse

—

all

Beauty/

—

that

In

'

is all

ye need to know."

said here, then, that the artist

sees beauty in nature, the phrase

may

be

understood as a convenient but inexact for-

mula, as

when one

the sun sets.

says the sun rises or

Beauty

is

in the landscape

only in the sense that these material forms express for the ceived of

The

artist

an idea he has con-

some aspect of the

artist is

impelled to

universal

life.

embody con-

cretely his perception of beauty, and so to

[*|] communicate

his

emotion, because the emo-

wakened by the perception of new harmony in things is most fully possessed and enjoyed as it comes to expression.

tion

Thus

to

make

real his ideal

expression of himself is the

A

happiness.

and find the

artist's

supreme

familiar illustration of the

twin need and delight of expression

handiwork produced

be found

in the

old days

when every

It

may

be,

may

in the

was an artist. perhaps, a key which some

craftsman of

artisan

Nuremberg

fashioned.

In

making of it he was not content to stop with the key which would unlock the door or the chest. It was his key, the work of his hands and he wrought upon it lovingly,

the

;

devotedly, and his

work

feeling

;

made

it

beautiful, finding in

the expression of his thought or it

was the

realization for that

mo-

ment of his ideal. His sense of pleasure in the making of it prompted the care he bestowed upon it his delight was in crea;

[ 2

rendering actual a

in

tion,

which In

6]

was given him

it

origin as a

its

new beauty

to conceive.

work of

art the

key

does not differ from a landscape by Inness,

an " arrangement " by Whistler, a portrait

The artist, whether craftsman

by Sargent. or painter,

is

deeply stirred by some passage

in his experience, a fair object or a true

thought

:

it is

the imperious

demand of

his

supreme pleasure, to give feeling expression. The form which

nature, as his

it is

his

his expression takes

pet,

it

may be

— —

it

may be key or car-

statue, picture,

phony, or cathedral

is

that

poem, symwhich most

closely responds to his idea, the form which

most truly manifests and represents All idea,

is

tative.

art, as

it.

the expression of the artist's

in a certain definite sense represen-

Not

that all art reproduces an ex-

ternal reality, as

it

is

literature represents

but every

work of

said that painting or

and music does not;

art, in painting,

poetry,

music, or in the handiwork of the craftsman, represents in that ator's

ideal.

it is

To

the symbol of the cre-

be sure, the painter or

sculptor or dramatist draws his symbols

from already existing material forms, and these symbols are like objects in a sense in

which music the

life

is

not.

But

line

of man, apart from

and color and resemblance

this

to external reality, are representative or

symbolic of the

artist's

idea precisely as the

craftsman's key, the designer's pattern, or the musician's symphony.

The

beautifully

wrought key, the geometric pattern of oriental rug or hanging, the embroidered foliation

on

priestly vestment, are

works of

art

equally with the landscape, the statue, the

drama, or the symphony,

one and

all

they are

the sensuous manifestation of

some new beauty

The symbolic must not be

in that

spiritually conceived.

character of a

from

work of

art

is

the

clue to the interpretation of pictures, as

it is

lost

sight, for

it

[a* of all

art.

The

]

painter feels his

way through

harmony of color just as truly as the musician summons the notes of his scale and marshals them into accord. The painter is moved by some sweep of landscape it wakens in him an

gamut of

the

his palette to a

;

emotion.

When he

sets

himself to express

emotion in the special medium with which

his

he works, he represents by pigment the external aspect of the landscape, yes ; but not in

order to imitate

it

or reproduce

it:

he

represents the landscape because the colors

and the forms which he registers upon the canvas express for him the emotions roused

by those

He

colors and those forms in nature.

does not try to match his grays with

nature's grays, but this nuance which he

gropes for on his palette, and having found it,

touches upon his canvas, expresses for him

what

that particular

gray

in nature

made

him feel. His one compelling purpose all fidelity

is

in

and singleness of aim to " trans-

late the impression received."

medium

is

The painter's

just as symbolic as the notes of

the musician's nocturne or the words of the poet's sonnet, equally inspired

and place. Color and

line and

by the hour

form, although

they happen to be the properties of things,

have a value for the emotions as truly as musical

sounds

:

they are the outward symbol

of the inward thought or feeling, the visible

bodying forth of the immaterial

The world

idea.

symbolic character of the material

is

not early apprehended. In superfi-

cial reaction

upon

life,

men do

not readily

pass beyond the immediate actuality.

That

the spiritual meaning of all things is not perceived, that all things are not seen to be beautiful, or expressive of the

mony,

is

due to men's limited powers of

sight and feeling. artist is

Therefore

is

it

that the

may reveal as relations, or new

given in order that he

yet unrealized spiritual beauty.

supreme har-

The workaday world

with

its

bur-

[3°] den of exigent « realities " has need of a Carlyleto declare that things are but a wonderful metaphor and the physical universe is

the garment of the living God. In the

realm of thought an Emerson, seer of transcendent vision, must come to restore his

lows to their birthright, which

is

the

fel-

life

of

men do not easily pass the obvious and immediate. The child reads "Gulliver's Travels" or " The

the

As

spirit.

in life, so in art

Pilgrim's Progress " for the story.

As his ex-

perience of life both widens and deepens, he is

able to see through externals, and he pene-

trates to the real significance, of

narrative

is

but the symbol. So

which the

it is

with an

insight born of experience that the lover of

no longer the "subject," but the beauty which the subject is meant to symart sees

bolize.

In the universal, all-embracing constitution of things, nothing

cance.

To be

meaning

is

is

without

its signifi-

aware that everything has a

necessary to the understanding

[3i of art, as indeed of life

]

That meaning,

itself.

which things symbolize and express, not be said too often,

phrased in words. spirit.

is

it

can-

not necessarily to be

It is

a meaning for the

A straight line affects one differently

from a curve; that

is,

each kind of line

means something. Every

line in the face

utters the character behind

it;

ment of the body whole being. "

eloquent of the man's

is

The

balks account," says "

every move-

expression of the face

Walt Whitman,

But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,

It is in his

limbs and joints

in the joints of his hips It is

also, it is

and

curiously

wrists,

in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist

and knees, dress does not

hide him,

The

strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,

To

see

him

pass conveys as

much

as the best

poem, perhaps more,

You

linger to see his back, and the back of neck and shoulder-side."

his

[3*] Crimson rouses a feeling

different

from that

roused by yellow, and gray wakens a different

from

either.

In considering this

symbolic character of colors

between

to distinguish

mood

it is

necessary

their value for the

emotions and merely literary associations.

That white stands fidelity

is

for purity or blue for

a conventionalized and attached

conception.

But the pleasure which a

man

has in some colors or his dislike for others

depends upon the his emotions,

and

effect

each color has upon determines for

this effect

him the symbolic value of the color. In the same way sounds are symbolic in that they

affect the

emotions apart from associ-

ated "thoughts."

Even with a person who

has no technical knowledge of music, the effect

of the minor key

different

from the major.

is

unmistakably

The

tones and

modulations of the voice, quite apart from the words uttered, have an emotional value

and

significance.

Everything,

line,

form,

l33l movement,

gesture,

material world, tive

is

color, sound, all the

expressive.

All objec-

forms have their meaning, and rightly

perceived are, in the sense in which the

word

is

used here, beautiful, in that they

represent or symbolize a spiritual idea.

Thus

it

ject but in

is

that beauty

is

man's sense of the

not in the obobject's

sym-

bolic expressiveness.

The amateur may

be rapt by some

" quality of color."

But

on

it is

his

artist's

probable that in the act of laying

pigment, the

of his "quality" at

by

artist

was not thinking

all,

but, rapt himself

the perception of the supreme

at that

harmony

moment newly revealed to his

sense,

he was striving sincerely and directly to give his feeling

His color beautiful.

is

its

faithfullest expression.

beautiful because his idea

The

expression

essence of the thought

;

it is

but the thought embodied. says Carlyle,

is

was

of the very the thought,

" Coleridge,"

"remarks very pertinently

[34] somewhere

that

whenever you

find a sen-

rhythm

tence musically worded, of true

and melody

in the

words, there

some-

is

thing deep and good in the meaning, too.

For body and

soul,

word and

idea,

go

strangely together here as everywhere."

Not

to look

beyond the material

is

to miss

the meaning of the work. In an art such as music, in which form

and content are one and inextricable, not

difficult to

understand that the

medium

of expression which the art employs cessarily symbolic, for here the

it is

is

ne-

form can-

not exist apart from the meaning to be

conveyed.

In the art of literature,

ever, the case rial

is

how-

not so clear, for the mate-

with which the poet, the novelist, the

dramatist works, material facts

made up of

of the world about us,

tomed

we

are accus-

to regard as objective realities.

incident

is

the

An

an incident, the inevitable issue

of precedent circumstances, and that

's all

[35] there

is

to

it.

Character

the result of he-

is

redity, environment, training, plus the in-

To

explicable Ego.

regard these facts of

which are so actual and immediate as a

life

kind of animate algebraic formulae seems absurd, but absurd only as one

is

unable to

penetrate to the inner meaning of things.

"Madame quite at

ism.

Bovary," to take an example

random,

is

Now realism, of all literary methods,

should register the fact as all

should concern

this

triumph of real-

called a

great novel

one woman's

is

life.

itself

it is,

and

least of

with symbols.

more than

Any

But

the record of

one who has come

to understand the character

and tempera-

ment of Flaubert as revealed in his Letters must feel that " Madame Bovary " is no arbitrary recital of tragic incident, but those

people

who move through

his pages,

what

they do and what goes on about them, expressed for Flaubert his

own

fled rebellion against life.

dreary, baf-

That the

artist

[36] may

employ the

consciously

not for the sake of the

municate

his feeling

fact,

facts

by thus bodying

own method prefer

tion of

ways

explicit

is

of composition, Poe writes

:

commencing with

the considera-

Keeping

originality al-

an

in

it

In an essay dealing with his

testimony.

I

life,

but to com-

forth in concrete symbols, there

"

of

effect.

view

first place,

*

...

I

say to myself, in the

of the innumerable effects or

impressions of which the heart, the intellect,

or (more generally) the soul

what one

ceptible,

occasion, select first,

?

*

shall

I,

or tone

on the present

effect, I

consider

can be best wrought by incident

it .

sus-

Having chosen a novel

and secondly, a vivid

whether

is

.

.

afterwards looking about

me

(or rather within) for such combinations

of event or tone as shall best aid construction of the effect."

me

in the

Yes, physical

circumstances, the succession of incident, shifting

momentary grouping of

persons,

[37] of character in varied combination

traits

and contrast,

—

all

these are significant for

the literary artist of spiritual relations.

the symbol of what the artist feels

As and

work more than any mere

strives to express, the individual

of art

necessarily

is

transcript of fact.

It is

the meeting and

mingling of nature and the the result of their union

is

spirit

of

man

fraught with

the inheritance of the past and holds within it

the limitless promise of the future.

work of

art

is

a focus, gathering into itself

the stored experience of the

all

The

artist,

and

much to the beholder moment to receive. A

radiating in turn so as

he

is

painter

able at the is

starting out to sketch.

Through

underbrush and across the open he pushes his

way, beset by beauty on every

side,

and

storing impressions, sensations, thoughts.

At

last his

some meadow or hill, which seems the instant to sum up and express his

brush, at

eye lights upon some clump of

[38] accumulated experience. bit

In rendering this

of nature, he pours out upon his canvas of feeling.

his store

which

typifies

man's whole His

his

life

the single case

It is

"The

entire course.

preludes the single deed."

way through

the world has been just

such a gathering up of experience, and each

new work which he

produces

charged

is

with the collected wealth of years.

The

work

special

epitome of the

the

is

artist's total

momentary

meaning.

He

finds this brief passage in nature beautiful it

expresses what

He

does not try to

then and there because

he

and means.

feels

reproduce the thing, but uses the thing for

what

it

signifies.

The

thing

moment it signifies all As he watches, a fore. :

is

cloud passes over

Suddenly the scene bursts is

gone be-

that has

the sun and the face of nature

In itself the landscape

but for that

is

darkened.

into light again.

no brighter than

before the sun was darkened.

The

painter

l39l feels

brighter for the contrast, and inevi-

it

tably his rendering of

ened and

Art

height-

intensified.

as nature

is

interpreted through the trans-

medium of

the object

is

the

human

To

spirit.

added "

The The

is

nature heightened and intensified

is

figuring

aspect

its

light that never

The gleam,

was on sea or

land,

consecration and the poet's dream."

After an early morning in the

fields,

Corot

«l dream «I of the morning landscape," he writes withdraws to

his

house to

rest.

;

dream

my

my picture, and presently I will paint

dream."

But not only does the

render the beauty which

pens to express for him colors and forms

this :

artist

landscape hap-

he charges these

with the beauty of

all

landscape. Corot painted at Ville d'Avray;

what he painted was God's twilight or dawn enwrapping tree and

pool. In gratitude

worship he revealed to

men

and

the tender, in-

[40] gray dawns

efFable poetry of

and for called

they

all

time.

Millet's peasants

were

John and Peter and Charles, and

tilled

the soil of France; but on their

bowed shoulders these

in all places

dumb

rests the universal burden;

figures are eloquent of the un-

complaining, hopeless " peasanthood " of the world. In the actual to discern the ideal, in the ity,

appearance to penetrate to the real-

without taking leave of the material to

reveal the spiritual, vocation of the is art.

—

this is the

artist,

and

his

mystery and achievement

Ill

THE WORK OF ART AS BEAUTIFUL Just as nature and

life

are significant as

the material manifestation of spiritual forces

and

relations, so a

work of art

by which the

the symbol

cates himself;

it

is

is

artist

in its turn

communi-

his revelation to

of the beauty he has perceived and

Beauty

felt.

not easy to define. That con-

is

ception which regards beauty as the to

men

power

awaken merely agreeable emotions

limited and in so far false.

of misunderstanding

is

Another source

the confusion of

beauty with moralistic values. that beauty

"Ideal"

With

is

is

the Ideal; and

taken to

is

mean

It

is

said

by many the

ideal goodness.

righteousness and sin as such beauty

[4* has no concern.

much

Much

that

evil in life,

is

that offends against the moral law,

must be regarded it

]

plays

necessary part in the universal

its

whole.

Clearing

tions, then,

as beautiful in so far as

away

these misconcep-

an approximate

definition

be that the essence of beauty

would

harmony.

is

shown in its relation to a whole, then it becomes beautiful because it is expressive of the supreme unity. So soon as a

A

detail

is

discord in music

only as

it is

isolated

is ;

be a discord

felt to

when

it

takes

its fit-

ting and inevitable place in the large unity

of the symphony, ing.

The

becomes

full

of mean-

hippopotamus, dozing in

at the Zoo,

But who

it

is

his

tank

wildly grotesque and ugly.

shall say that, seen in the fast-

nesses of his native rivers, he

is

not the

beautiful perfect fulfilling of nature's har-

mony ? To a race of blacks, the fair-skinned among them could not but be monstrous. The smoking factory, Apollo appearing

[43 sordid and hideous, sees that

is

]

him who

beautiful to

accomplishes a necessary func-

it

tion in the great

scheme of

Whatever

adaptation.

so far truly beautiful.

is

life.

Beauty

truly useful

The steam

is

is

in

engine

and the battleship are beautiful just as truly

Madonna, glorified and sweeping upward into the presence of God the Father. Only what is vital and serviceable, as Titian's

and whatever

is

that,

is

beautiful.

When the spirit of man perceives a unity in things, a

beauty

working together of parts, there It resides in

exists.

the synthesis

of details to the end of shaping a complete whole. This perception, this synthesis, function of the

human mind. Beauty

is

is

a

not

in the landscape, but in the intelligence

which apprehends damental truth landscape

is

is

it.

Evidence of

this fun-

the fact that the

more "beautiful"

to one

than to another, or to a third, perhaps, beautiful at

all.

It is

same

man is

not

only as the individual

[44] perceives a relation

ing

among the

parts result-

in a total unity that the object

becomes

beautiful for him.

This abstract exposition

may

be made

by a graphic illustration. Here are four figures composed of the same ele-

clearer

ments

:

##

w ##*

*

*X"

* *##

WW WW W w w w w w w

WW w w W W * wwwwwwwwwwwwww * w w w w WW W

Fig. I.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* w * * *

* * * * *

www

# w * * *

w w w w w Fig. III.

I.,

*

www

Fig. II.

Figure

w w w

far

Fig.

from being pleasing,

itively disquieting.

With

IV. is

pos-

the other three

[45] figures, the perception of their

form

is

at-

tended with a kind of pleasure. Whereas the

first

figure

is

without form and

ingless, each of the second

:

each

is

mean-

group exhibits

harmony, balance, proportion, of parts

is

interrelation

perceived to be a whole.

Although experience itself comes to

men in

fragments and seemingly without order, yet the

human mind

is

so constituted as to re-

shown to be a whole before the mind can comprehend quire that an idea or a truth be

In considering the element of balance,

it.

it

should be noted, as illustrated by Figure

IV., that balance

symmetry.

no

is

not necessarily perfect

A Gothic cathedral

less than a

is

beautiful

Greek temple. In a painting

of a landscape, for example,

it is

necessary

simply that the masses and the tones stand in balancing relation

;

symme-

the perfect

try of geometric exactness, characteristic

of Hellenic and Renaissance quired.

In the

art, is

not re-

work which embodies

the

[46] artist's

perception of the universal har-

mony, there must be rhythm, in variety

sive

and

As art

is

;

so framed

it

order, unity

becomes expres-

significant.

the symbol of beauty, the itself beautiful in that

it

work of

manifests in

itself that

wholeness and integrity which

beauty.

Every work of

by a

art

controlling design;

it

is

informed

subordinates

manifold details to a definite whole reduces and adjusts

its

is

;

it

parts to an all-

inclusive, perceptible unity.

The Nurem-

berg key must have some sort of rhythm the rug or vestment must exhibit a pattern which can be seen to be a whole

;

the

canvas must show balance in the composition,

and the color must be "in tone."

any work of

art there

In

must be design and

purpose. In nature there

is

limited perception of

pear to be beautiful,

much which to the men does not apfor there is much

[47] that

does not manifest

necessary harmony.

superficially the

The

landscape

at

noonday under the blaze of the

relentless

many things which

are seem-

sun discloses

ingly incongruous with one another. dull vision of

men

The

cannot penetrate to the

At twilight, as the shadows of evening wrap it round, the same landscape is invested with mysterious unity underlying

beauty.

it

all.

Conflicting details are lost, harsh

outlines are softened

and merged, discord-

ant colors are mellowed and attuned.

Na-

ture has brought her field and hill and

So the

clustered dwellings into "tone."

who has perceived a harmony where common eye saw it not, selects he sup-

artist,

the

;

presses here, strengthens there, fuses, and

brings

all into unity.

Harmony wherever perceived is beauty. Beauty made manifest by the agency of the human spirit is art. Art, in order to reveal this

harmony

to

men, must work

[48] through selection, through rejection and emphasis, through interpretation. not

difficult to

It

is

understand, then, that the

exact reproduction of the facts of the external world

The

is

not in a true sense

photograph, which

is

art.

the most ex-

method of reproducing outward aspect, denied the title of a work of art that

act is is,

;

the photograph direct, which has not

To

been retouched.

graph cess,

is

and

result of

be sure, the photo-

the product of a mechanical prois

not, except

human

skill.

incidentally, the

Another kind of

reproduction of outward aspect, however,

which does show the

virtually exact,

dence of

human

rank as

art,

picture.

—

skill, is

evi-

yet not entitled to

the imitative or deceptive

Photograph and picture are ruled

out equally on the one

count.

Neither

selects.

In an exhibition of paintings were once

displayed two panels precisely similar in

[49] army coat and At a distance

appearance, presenting an cap, a sabre and a canteen.

there was no point of difference in the two.

A

nearer view disclosed the fact that on

one panel the objects were real and that

The beholder

the other panel was painted.

was pleased by the er's skill

;

exhibition of the paint-

but in so far as the

work

did not

reveal a significance or beauty in these objects

which the

holder had not,

of

art.

artist it

fell

Just as the

craftsman was a

had seen and the be-

work Nuremberg

short of being a

key of the

work of art

in that

it

was

him the expression, the rendering actual, of a new beauty it was given him to conceive, so only that is art which makes manifest a beauty that is new^ a beauty for

that

The

is

truly born of the artist's

spirit.

repetition of existing

forms with no

by the

workman

modification

individual

not creation, but imitation is

own

manufacture, not

art.

;

is

and imitation

Inasmuch

as the

[5o] two panels could not be distinguished, the presentment signified no more than the Tried as a work of

reality.

tative picture, in

graph, lacks

the

representation

ity

it

necessary element

artist's

of

That the there must

may become art, some new attribute

born of the

the imi-

with the photo-

of revelation.

interpretation,

be added to

common

art,

or qual-

The work

spirit.

must take on new meaning. As lending his work significance of an obvious sort, a significance not necessarily

"

pictorial," the painter

might see

in the

some story they have to tell. The plaster of the garret wall where they are hanging he may show to be cracked that

objects

;

tear in the coat speaks of faithful service,

but the coat hangs limp and dusty now; the inscription on the canteen literated,

and the strap

is

almost ob-

is

broken

;

the sabre,

which shows the marks of stern usage along its

blade,

is

spotted with rust: the whole

Neg-

composition means Trusty Servants in

By

lect.

the emphasis of certain aspects

the picture the

mere

is

made

more than

to signify

objects themselves, wherein there

was nothing

The meaning

salient.

is

im-

posed upon them or drawn out of them by the

artist.

Or

may

again, the painter

see

him of a harmony which he can manifest by the in these things the expression for

arrangement of

line

and

disposes his material as to

mony fact

visible.

which the

some

make

that har-

then, not the crude

artist transcribes,

but rather

feeling he has toward the fact.

selection, cial

It is,

and he so

color,

by adjustment, he

By

gives this spe-

aspect of the fact emphasis and relief.

In virtue of his interpretation the picture acquires a significance that

the beholder a itself did

into the

The

is

new;

pleasure which

not give, and thus

domain of

it

it

gives

the fact

passes over

art.

purpose of art

is

not the reproduc-

[52] tion of a beautiful object, but the expres-

sion in objective

A

form of a

plaster cast of a hand,

may be, is

beautiful idea.

however comely

work of photograph, the work

the hand

with the

not a

art.

involves

human

only incidentally the exercise of

But that

skill.

is

not

render the work in the

In order

all.

spirit

of

As

art,

to

the

must model, not the hand, but his sense of the hand he must draw out and sculptor

;

express

him flesh

it ;

its

him

sitiveness, or

force.

its

significance.

To

not a certain form in bone and

is

to

character,

As

it

means grace,

delicacy, sen-

perhaps resolution, strength,

the material symbol of his idea

of the hand, he will select and

make

salient

such lines and contours as are expressive to

him of

that character.

Indeed, so

little

depends upon the exact

much upon the so much depends

subject represented and so artist's feeling

upon the

spirit

toward

it,

of the rendering, that the

[53] representation of a subject uninteresting or

even "ugly"

in itself may

be

beautiful. In

the art of literature, the subject

from the

life

of man.

The

is

total experience, the

furnished

sum

sensations, impressions, emotions,

events in which he rience crowds in

is

drawn

material of the

poem, the novel, the drama,

by man's

is

of his

and the

concerned. But expe-

upon him

at

every point,

without order and without relation; the daily round of living

is

for

humdrum

it

is

thing.

Yet

most men a

just this rudi-

mentary and undistinguished mass of experience which

is

transmuted into literature;

by the alchemy of that

which

is

art the representation of

without interest becomes in-

And it happens on this wise. Life is humdrum only in so far as it is meaningless; men can endure any amount teresting.

of drudgery and monotony provided that it

lead somewhere, that they perceive

relation to a larger unity

which

is

its

the total

[54] of

As

life.

part of a whole which can be

apprehended, immediately pose and becomes of meaning in

warmth

to the

it

acquires pur-

significant. It

life

is

the sense

which gives color and

march of uniform

days. So

the literary artist shapes his inchoate material to

a definite end; out of the limitless

complex

details at his

command, he

selects

such passages of background, such dents, and such traits of character as

inci-

make

for the setting forth of the idea he has con-

ceived. Clearly the artist cannot use every-

thing, clearly he does not

the fact

:

aim to reproduce

there are abridgments and sup-

pressions, as there are accent and emphasis.

The

finished

ing what

is

work

is

a composite,

essential of

embody-

many, many pre-

liminary studies and sketches, wrought and

compiled with generous industry. ter

is

recognized in what he omits

suppressed great

The mas-

is

artist, in

to peak.

felt

;

what

is

but not perceived: the

the result, steps from peak

[55] "

The Sun's rim dips; At one stride comes

Thus with

the stars rush out: the Dark."

three strokes the master Cole-

ridge depicts the onrush of the night over

boundless spaces of sky and sea.

Within

Tennyson reempty monotony

the compass of a few lines, gisters the interminable,

of weary years " No

from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices The blaze upon the waters to the east The blaze upon his island overhead sail

The blaze upon the Then the great stars

waters to the west; that globed themselves in

Heaven,

The The

hollower-bellowing ocean, and again scarlet shafts

Thus through

of sunrise

— but no

selection does the artist

to interpretation.

By

his sense

of

work

detaching the eternal

meaning from the momentary bodying

sail."

its

fact,

by em-

significance in such

[56] concrete forms as symbolize his idea, byinvesting the single instance with universally typical import, then in very truth

represents. Nature

she

art;

whose

not the subject of

is

the universal treasury from

is

infinitely various store the artist se-

lects his

A

he

symbols.

special

method

in art

gest itself as having for

produce the

method

is

its

may

here sug-

purpose to re-

perfect fidelity; the

fact in

called realism.

But a moment's

considerate analysis shows that realism

is

only a label for one manner of handling,

and as

in the

it

the

end comes no nearer the object

" really "

is.

In

its

essence realism

personal vision of the

artist's

fact,

is

ex-

actly as idealism or romanticism or impres-

sionism

is

the reality his

personal. ?

For

A chance

what

after all,

newsboy

is

offering

papers on a crowded street corner.

fine lady recoils

contact with

from

his filth

The

and from

him the philanthropist ;

is

all

sees in

[57] him a human being

to help

the philosopher regards

and to redeem;

him dispassionately

as a "social factor," the result of heredity

and environment; the eye

as his

But

all

artist cries

upon good

lights

out in joy

stuff to paint.

the while, which of these concep-

tions

figures the "real"

one.

For he

is all

newsboy?

Not

these together; and the

single observer, whatever his bias, cannot

apprehend him

at

every point.

Any

at-

tempt to represent him involves selection and interpretation, the suppression of some traits in

order to emphasize others, which

are the special aspects that have impressed

the given observer. So there

is

no

essential

The term applies to the method of those who choose to render what is less comforting in life, who insist on those characteristics of things which men call ugly.

realism.

In realism, just as truly as in any other kind

of treatment, of the

expressed the personality

is

artist, his

own

aging the world.

peculiar

way of envis-

[58]

A

work of

sire to

art

born of the

is

express his joy in some

de-

artist's

new

aspect

of the universal harmony which has been

The

disclosed to him.

mission of art

through interpretation to reveal. pens sometimes that a tion of paintings

for the

moment impos-

yet withal he finds himself

his experience;

attracted

not

rested says,

an exhibi-

because so far beyond the range of

sible,

It is

hap-

It

shocked by a picture

is

which seems to him

visitor at

is

by

it

and he returns to study

many days

by

before his glance

that very effect in nature,

"Why,

that

is

it.

ar-

is

and he

like that picture!"

It

was the artist who first saw it and who taught him to see it for himself. When one observes an effect in nature or in

one

calls

means

life

that

"aCorot" or "a Whistler," one

that to Corot or to Whistler

is

due

the glory of discovering that fuller beauty

and revealing Lippo Lippi say

it.

Browning makes Fra

[59] " First

when we

see

We

we love them painted, things we have 're

made

so that

passed

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see

And so Which

they are is

better,

same

the

painted

thing.

—

better to us,

Art was given

for

that."

This revealing power of art

is

to the individual appreciator.

not restricted It is said

that

the French are an artistic people and that

Americans are not. The explanation

is

that

for generations the artists of France have

been discovering to their countrymen the beauty that

is

around them at their very

door, and have taught

them

to appreciate

The Americans will be an artistic people when our artists shall have done the like it.

for us.

When

there shall have been for

generations a truly native American art, there will be a public to understand and to appreciate.

So

it

is

the high function of art

that is

everywhere

to reveal.

As

[6o] a friend, more sensitive and more enthusiastic,

with

whom we

many

out to us

by the wayside or the artist takes us by

beauties

and sky, so

in trees

are strolling, points

the hand and leads us out into

life,

ing for us a harmony to which

Burdened with

blind before.

the daily round,

we had

indicat-

we were

affairs

and

not thought to

look off and out to the spreading tossing into hills which roll

meadows upward into the

blue heaven beyond.

The beauty which the

thus revealed

artist

The

is

a beauty

has apprehended in

and which he would make of art

is

spirit

A work

actual.

the expression of an aspiration.

crude and tawdry images of the

donna

Ma-

set in the roadside cross are just as

truly a

work of

art as the rapt saints of

Madonnas of Raphael they are expressive of what

Giotto or the perfect in so far as

those poor, devout souls

them

felt

who

fashioned

of worship and of love.

After

[6i all,

more Raphael was endowed with more

the difference

than they,

]

that Giotto felt

is

The

accomplished powers of expression.

work

receives

ful utterance is

import as

its

of him

it is

the faith-

who shaped

it,

genuinely the realization of his

"The

gift

But

is

it

without

no

is

involves not only its

reaches.

message

sterile

ideal.

bare."

and

void, for art

its

creator's intention but

to

him

In a book,

it is

makes

writer says that also

is

it

less true that the gift with-

out the receiver

also

giver

the

as

whom

the

work

not only what the its

significance but

what the reader thinks

as

he reads.

man finds in picture or new beauty, a fuller sense

In so far as any

poem or song a of harmony than was his before, for him that is a work of art. Thus the standard by which art is to be For its creator, the work tried is relative. is

art in that

new harmony

it

embodies a perception of

that

is

peculiarly his.

In the

[62] material result, this special character

is

im-

work by the artist's instincselection. No two painters, though

parted to the tive

equipped with equal technical

skill

and per-

haps of like tastes and preferences, would or indeed could render the same sweep of

Obdown everything were at

landscape in precisely similar fashion. viously, to set

once an impossibility and an untruth, for the detail of nature

infinite

is

and the be-

holder does not see everything.

bound and

way

Each

is

to select such details as impress him,

his selection will in

be determined by the

which he as a unique personality,

an individual

different

man in the whole wide

from every other

universe, feels about

the bit of nature before him.

ing by his special

In express-

medium what he

feels

about the landscape, he aims, in the selection of material

and render

form and

visible

the landscape

what of

means

color, to detach

essential truth

to him, to

purge

it

of

[6 3 and register

accidents,

The

]

eternal beauty.

its

painter will not attempt, then, to re-

produce the physical

facts

of nature,

— the

topography, geology, botany, of the landscape,

— but

rather through those facts in

terms of color and form he expression

its

derness

down

;

:

its

as joy, mystery, setting

those salient aspects of

bine to give

landscape

it

—

which com-

it

character and meaning.

For

to recall the exposition of a

preceding page truly as the

render

quality, as brilliance, ten-

mood,

its

tries to

—

human

has

its

face.

expression as

A man

knows

not by the shape of the nose or

his friends

the color of the eyes, but

by the character

which these features express, the personalwhich shines

ity

from

it.

in the face

and radiates

This effluence of the soul within

man; people "expression." As with human

is

the essential

the

many

traits

are

aspects

merged

call life,

of nature.

in the spiritual

it

the

so with

External

meaning.

[6 4 The

]

material forms have the

power of

af-

fecting the spirit thus or so; and in man's

on

reaction

they come to take

his universe

on a symbolic emotional

Each

significance.

manifestation of nature arouses in the

more or

less consciously

feeling toward

it

on

artist,

his part,

some

he cares, then, to repre-

:

sent these external material forms, whether

a flower, a landscape, a

because there

;

who

flower as he knows "

only

them something in he fashions the work of

art in praise of the thing

clever technician

face,

in

is

which he delights

human

it

he loves.

To

the

imitatively paints the to be,

A primrose on the river's brim A yellow primrose to him is

And But to the "

it

is

nothing more."

artist

The meanest

Thoughts

And

it is

that

flower that blows can give

do often

lie

too deep for tears."

these thoughts that he cares to

[6j] express and not the visible truth about the flower. streets

A

was walking along the of Paris on a day in early March. writer

" It was dark and rather cold.

I was gloomy, and walked because I had nothing to do. I passed by some flowers placed breast-high upon a wall. A jonquil in bloom was there. It is

the strongest expression of desire

perfume of the

first

year.

piness destined for man.

mony

of

arose in

souls, the

me

I

I

shape,

the hap-

felt all

never

great or so instantaneous.

was

was the

This unutterable har-

phantom of

complete.

it

:

what analogy, what

I

the ideal world, felt

anything so

know

secret

not what

of relation

it

made me see in this flower a limitless ... I shall never enclose in a concep-

that

beauty.

tion this power, this immensity that nothing will express

;

this

tain; this ideal feels,

but which

form that nothing will con-

of a better world which one it

would seem

that nature has

not made."

And

if

Senancour had

his jonquil as

set himself to paint

he has written about

it,

how

[66] that tender flower would have been trans-

figured and glorified

What

the artist aims to render

is

not

the rose but the beauty of the rose, his

sense of one chord in the universal har-

mony which

the rose sounds for him, not

that only, but the beauty

of all

ever were or ever shall be

;

roses that

and inevitably

he will select such colors and such

lines as

bring that special and interpreted beauty into relief,

and so make manifest to the

beholder what was revealed to his

own

higher vision, by virtue of which, and not

because of any exceptional technical

he

is

an

artist.

skill,

IV ART AND APPRECIATION It

may

be that some reader of the fore-

going pages will attempt to apply the principles therein set forth to the pictures in the It is

next exhibition he happens to attend.

more than probable

efforts

that in his first

For the

he will be disappointed.

principles discussed its

shown

have dealt with art

in

authentic manifestations; and not every

painter

an

is

artist,

not every picture

work of art. At the very

outset

an exhibition

of paintings as

made up

is

it

through

in

one

sitting

a

should be said that ordinarily

confusing and wholly

We may suppose that a

is

volume

illogical.

to be read

of two hours

is

placed

[68] in the

book ries,

hands of an intelligent reader.

consists of essays,

poems, short

The sto-

and dramatic dialogue, each within the

compass of a few pages, each contributed

by a different writer as an example of his work for the year. We may suppose now that the reader

is

asked to gather from

this

volume, read hastily and either superficially or in random

bits,

some

idea of the signifi-

cance of each author and of the import and scope of contemporary American literature. Is it

a

fair test?

This volume,

we may

fur-

means by which the writer can get his work before the public. A public means a purchaser, and of course the writer must live. Is it reasonable to think that every number contributed to such a volume will be a work of art, wrought with singleness of heart and in loving devotion to an ideal? There are ther suppose,

still

is

practically the only

with us those

and those

who "work

who "work

for

money"

for fame."

There

[6 9 who believe

are those lic

what

it

]

in

"giving the pub-

wants/' and the numbers they

contribute to the yearly volumes are samples of the sort of thing they do, from

the public

may

which

order. In the table of con-

names; and to the

tents stand celebrated

work of such men, perhaps,

will turn the

seeker after what he thinks ought to be the

men

best, not realizing that these are the

who have known how

to " give the people

what they want," that the people do not always want the good and right thing, and that

it is

somewhat the

contemporary recognition.

dispense with If there

or a

is

poem

here or there in the book an essay the product of thought and effort

and offered chance

it

habit of genius to

in

all

seriousness,

how

little

has of being appreciated, except

by a few, even

if it is

remarked

at all in the

jumble of miscellaneous contributions. This hypothetical volume lel

is

a

fair paral-

of an annual exhibition of paintings. In

C?o] such an exhibition the number of works of art,

the true, inevitable expression of a

message,

is

relatively small.

new

The most

celebrated and most popular painters are

not necessarily by that fact great indeed

ment

artists at all. is

or

Contemporary judg-

notoriously liable to

The gods

artists,

go

astray.

of one generation are often the

laughing stock of the next

;

the idols of the

down and trampled under foot by the children. Some spirits there have been of liberal promise who have not been able to withstand the demands made upon them by early popular approval. fathers are torn

Such

is

which

is

the struggle and soul's tragedy studied convincingly in

wilPs novel, the

Mr. Zang-

"The Master." No assault on

artist's integrity is

mediate favor, which in

so insidious as imits

turn begets the

fatal desire to please.

To

the "successful" painters, however,

are for the most part accorded the places

[7i

3

of honor on academy walls. of these

men

are seen

but they are not

all.

first

The

canvases

by the

visitor;

There are other

pic-

which promise neither better nor

tures

worse. in color

Here are paintings of merit, good and good in drawing, but empty

of any meaning.

Scattered through the

exhibition are the

works of a group of able

men, imitating themselves, each trying

to

outdo the others by a display of cleverness in solving some "painter's problem " or by

some But

it

startling effect of subject or handling. is

a sad day for any artist

when he

ceases to find his impulse and inspiration either in his

when he

own

spirit

or in nature, and

looks to his fellow craftsmen for

the motive of his work.

Again, there are

by men who, equipped with adequate technical skill, have caught the manner of a master, and mistaking the manner for the message it was simply intended to express, they degrade it into a mannerism pictures

and turn out a product which people do not distinguish

from the authentic utterances

of the master.

The

artist is

a seer and

prophet, the channel of divine influences the individual painter, sculptor, writer,

is

a

very human being.

As he

looks over these walls, clamorous

of the commonplace and the commercial, the seeker after what art realizes

how

The

good and true

in

very few of these pictures

have been rendered joy.

is

in the spirit

of love and

painter has one eye on his ob-

and one eye on the public; and too

ject

often, as a distinguished actor

once said of

manager whose vision is between art and the box office, the is a one-eyed man. the stage

A

divided painter

painter once refused to find anything

to interest him,

still

less to

move him,

in

a silent street with a noble spire detaching

itself

depths

vaguely from the luminous blue

of a midnight sky, because, he

[73]

i

said,

"People won't buy dark

what

's

the use

You might

?

things, so

do

as well

bright, pretty things that they will buy,

A

and that are just as easy to make." portrait-painter gives

he does not hesitate to

jects because, as

declare,

it

up landscape sub-

And

hurts his business.

the

painters themselves are not altogether to

blame

The

for this attitude towards their

fault lies half

pictures,

work.

who buy money, and who have

with the people

having the

not a gleam of understanding of the meaning of

A woman

art.

who had

ordered

her house to be furnished and decorated expensively, remarked

to a

caller

who

commented on a water-color hanging the drawing-room "Yes, :

I

think

the purpose of those

and such

is

is

is

such

paint pictures

the understanding of those

buy them, it picture

who

matches

When

the wall-paper very nicely." is

it

in

who

not surprising that not every

inevitably a

work of

art.

[74] But what

The

is

the poor seeker after art to

by no means hopeless. In current exhibitions a few canvases strike and by senses delicately ata new note

do

?

case

is

;

tuned

this

note can be distinguished within

the jangle of far louder and popular tunes

ground

out, as

it

were, by the street-piano.

Seriously to study contemporary painting,

however, the logical opportunity nished

by the

exhibitions of the

men or of reader who wishes single

fur-

is

works of

As

small groups.

the

to understand an author

or perhaps a school does not content himself with

random

lates the

man

his

work

extracts, but instead iso-

moment and

for the

reads

consecutively and one book in

relation to his

others

;

its

so the student of

pictures can appreciate the

work and un-

derstand the significance of a given painter

only as he sees a number of together and in relation.

his canvases

So, he

is

able to

gather something of the man's total meaning.

[75] Widely

different

from annual exhibiand museums

tions, too, are galleries

for

;

here the proportion of really good things is

immeasurably larger.

masterpieces,

amateur eration.

at

it

In the study of

need hardly be

said, the

may exercise judgment and modHe should not try to do too much

one time, for he can truly appreciate

only as he enters fully into the the

work and

allows

it

spirit

of

To

to possess him.

achieve this sympathy and understanding

same hour for more than a very few great works is manifestly impossible. Such appreciation involves fundamentally a within the

quick sensitiveness to the appeal and the variously expressive power of color and line and form.

To win

from the picture

may

meaning, the observer

some knowledge of the duced

it

which he

its

fullest

bring to bear

artist

who

pro-

and of the age and conditions lived.

But

in the

surrender himself to the

in

end he must

work of art, bring-

[76] ing to

it

equipment, his

intellectual

his

store of sensuous and emotional experi-

power of being moved. For when all is said, there is no single invariable standard by which to try a work

ence, his entire

of art:

upon

rests

receive

ear of

significance to the appreciator

its

it.

him

his capacity at the

A jest's

"

that hears

prosperity

The

it."

need simply ask himself,

work

to reveal to

me

of

new

work

man

appreciator

has this

of beauty that I shall

have

not look

significance, energy, life, has this

to express to

me

I

?

the whole truth

;

it

has

is

true,

Let

and to separate

unessential and false.

search for what

will

every man has some mea-

task to find is

I

No man

sure of the truth, however small.

from what

no

will accept

entirely and unquestioningly,

my

I

and the agreeable. But what

condemn no one unheard.

be

to

the

lies in

"What

not perceived for myself? for the pretty

moment

I

In

will conserve

it it

my my

[77]

my independence. recognize my own wherever I

integrity and maintain

And may

I

shall

find it."

" Man

is

the measure of

all

things," de-

clared an ancient philosopher.

And

his

teaching has not been superseded to-day.

The

individual

universe

;

he

is

is

the creator of his

the focus of the currents

and forces of

his world.

things

subjective.

all

is

of beauty in

life

own

for a

The meaning

of

So the measure

man

is

determined

by his capacity to receive and understand. Thus it is that a man's joy in experience and his appreciation of art in any of its manifestations are conditioned by the opportunity that nature or art furnishes for his spirit to exercise itself.

we Our

In the reading

of poetry, for example,

seek the ex-

pression of ourselves.

first

is,

emotion

perhaps, a simple, unreflecting delight,

the delight which a butterfly must feel

among

the flowers or that of a child play-

[78] warm

ing in the fields under the is

a delight wholly physical,

sation.

A

sun;

— pure

it

sen-

quick taking of the breath, the

escape of a sigh, inarticulate and uncritical, are

we

the only expression

at that instant for

what we

can find

feel: as

when

an abrupt turn of the road spreads out before us a landscape of which

not dreamed, or the

presence

We But

we

of the Apollo

know simply after nerves

acutely,

we

enter for the

that

we

we had first

time

Belvedere.

are

pleased.

have ceased to tingle so

begin to think; and

we

seek

to give account to ourselves of the beauty

which for the moment we could but

Once

we

feel.

arrived at the attitude of reflection,

find that the poetry

most and to which

we

which

affects

oftenest return

us is

the poetry that contains the record of our

own experience, but heightened, the

poetry

which expresses our desires and aspirations, that in

which we recognize ourselves

[79] elevated and idealized. in

it

In so far as

the ennobled image of our

so far

it

we

see

own nature,

has power to hold us and to

stir

us.

An dency

elementary manifestation of the tento seek in art the record of our

experience

is

own

seen in the popularity of

those pictures whose subjects are familiar

and can be immediately recognized. On a studio wall was once hanging a " Study of Brush," showing the play of sunlight

A visitor

through quivering leaves. the painter

why he did

ens in the foreground.

was meaningless,

asked

not put some chick-

To

for she

her the canvas

had never seen,

had never really seen, the sunlight dancing

on burnished

leaves.

The

chickens, which

she had seen and could recognize, were the

element of the familiar she required

in

order to find any significance in the picture.

This tendency, of which the demand

[8o] for chickens

a rudimentary manifesta-

is

The artist's revelation of the import of life we can receive and understand only as we of

tion, is the basis

have

felt

selves.

a

little

Color

all appreciation.

of that import for our-

is

meaningless to a blind

man, music does not

To him who

exist for the deaf.

has never opened his eyes to

behold the beauty of

field

and sky, to him whose

and

spirit

hill

and trees

has not dimly

apprehended something of that eternal nificance of

which these things are the ma-

terial visible

the

bodying

work of

forth, to

the master

paint and canvas. ciator, then,

sig-

is

The

is

such a one

only so

much

task of the appre-

to develop his capacity to

receive and enjoy.

That capacity ercise of itself.

he

is

power vision.

is

to

be trained by the ex-

Each new harmony which

enabled to perceive intensifies his to feel

and widens the range of

The more

his

beauty he apprehends

[8i in the world, so sal forces

]

much

the

more of univer-

he brings into unity with

By this

personality.

his

extension of his

he reaches out and becomes merged all-embracing

own

spirit

in the

life.

If the conception

be true that a supreme

unity, linking all seemingly chaotic details,

them

ultimately brings this

unity,

which

is

into order,

spiritual,

and that

penetrates

every atom of matter, fusing everything

and making

all

things one; then the ap-

preciator will realize that the significance

of art

is

The beauty which

for the spirit.

the artist reveals

is

but the

harmony which

underlies the universal order; and he in his turn

must apprehend

that beauty spir-

itually.

From

this truth

dition of aesthetic

it

follows that the con-

enjoyment, or in other

words the appreciation of beauty,

ment of

spirit

is

detach-

and remoteness from practi-

cal consequences.

The

classic illustration

[8a] of the truth it is

is

the saying of Lucretius, that

sublime to stand on the shore and be-

hold a shipwreck.

It is

sublime only as

one's personal interests and feelings are

not engaged. it

were

It

would not be sublime

possible for the spectator to aid in

averting the catastrophe;

sublime ship.

if

one's

One

is

only as one

what

is

if

is

friends

it

would not be

were aboard the

able to appreciate beauty able to detach one's self from

immediate and

practical,

and by

vir-

tue of this detachment, to apprehend the spiritual significance.

shipwreck

lies in

The

what

it

sublimity of the

expresses of the

impersonal might of elemental forces and

man's impotence nature.

That

in the struggle against

sublimity, which

festation of beauty,

spirit,

and by

it

examples. fields

of the

one mani-

must be apprehended. illustrate this truth by a few homely

the spirit

To

is

is

A

farmer looking out on

his

of tossing wheat, drenched in golden

[8 3 sunlight, exclaims,

What

tiful!"

]

" Look,

is

n't that

he really means

is:

beau-

"See

there the promise of a rich harvest, and

mine."

If the fields

belonged to

seen and

No,

his neigh-

them would be

bor, his feelings towards

quite different.

it is

their beauty

is

to

only by him whose mind

felt

be is

free of thoughts of personal enrichment

and who thus can perceive the harmony with

life

abundant

of golden sunshine and nature's gifts.

The farmer

beyond the material and material. for

it

is

But beauty

its

lies

could not see

value to him as

deeper than that,

the expression of spiritual rela-

tions.

Two men are riding together in a railway carriage.

As

they pass a houses,

the train draws into a city,

little

group of tumble-down

brown and gray, a heap of corners

thrown together. One man thinks " What :

dreary lives these people must lead dwell there."

The

other, with

who

no such

[84] stirring of the

"scheme"

ful

sympathy, sees a wonder-

in

grays and browns, or an

expressive composition or ordering of

line.

Neither could think the thoughts of the

One

other at the same time with his own. feels a practical

and physical reaction, and

he cannot therefore

at that

moment pene-

meaning of these things for the and that meaning is the harmony

trate to the spirit

;

which they express.

From

the tangle of daily living with

conflict of interests tical its

its

burden of prac-

needs, the appreciator turns to art with

power

art,

and

its

he

to chasten

and to

tranquillize. In

finds the revelation in fuller

sure of a beauty which he has

vaguely.

He

meabut

felt

realizes that underlying the

external chaos of immediate practical experience rests a supreme and satisfying

Of that order he can perceive but little, hemmed

order.

here and in as

he

now

is

by

the material world, whose meaning he dis-

[85] cerns as through a glass, darkly.

keeps resolutely on kinship with

his

Yet he

way, secure

the eternal

spirit,

in his

and re-

warded by momentary glimpses of the " broken arcs " which he knows will in the end take their appointed places in the "perfect round."

THE ARTIST

Out

of chaos, order.

earth

is

finite

Man's

life

on the

and fragmentary, but

it

is

the constant effort of his spirit to bring the

momentary experience an enduring harmony with his person-

scattering details of into ality

and with that supreme unity of which

he

a part.

is

The man who ray of

mony first

—

his little

is

an

out of the complex disar-

world

for

He who

artist.

cup, shaping

effects

it

no prototype

sponse to his needs

a

new

fashioned the

according to his ideal, existed, ;

— and

in re-

he who, taking

elementary form, wrought upon his fingers

har-

and embellished

it

it

this

with

according to

[87] and

his ideal

in

response to his need of ex-

pressing himself; he, again,

same need

who

out of the

cup

for expression adds to the

new each of these workmen is an artist. The reproduction of already anything

:

existing forms, with

the individual

no modification by

workman,

is

not

example, only that painter

an

is

So, for

art.

who

artist

adds to his representation of the visible

world some of his

man,

own

new

spirit.

attribute or quality

Primitive artisan, crafts-

painter, each creates in that

and makes actual some

was but

As

born

part,

he reveals

which before

potential, of the all-embracing

the

artist,

then, wins

new

life.

reaches of

experience and brings them into unity, he reveals old.

new

beauty,

new to men yet

For the harmony which he

new only perceived.

in the sense that

it

world-

effects is

was not before

As, in the physical universe, not

an atom of matter through the ages

is

cre-

ated or destroyed, so the supreme spiritual

[88] life is

constant in

its

this life individuals

sure

;

much

Of

complete.

partake in varying mea-

their

growth

of

they

it

sum and is

determined by

make

growth of the soul

their

own.

in this sense

is

how The

not dif-

ferent from man's experience of the physical world.

The

child

is

born

:

he grows up

into his family; the circle widens to include

neighbors and the community; the circle

widens again as the boy goes away to school

With

and then to college.

ever- widening

sweep the outermost bound recedes, though still embracing him, as he reaches out to

Europe and

at length

compasses the earth,

conquering experience and bringing treasures into tribute

The

things

to his

were there; but

own

spirit.

for the

each was in turn created as he made

own.

So the

artist,

revealing

new

its

boy it

his

aspects

of the supreme unity, creates in the sense that he

makes

possible for his fellows a

fuller taking-up of this life into themselves.

[89] may artist who It

life,

—

be said that he has

felt

the greatest

is

the most of

harmony

in

the greatest artist but potentially.

The beauty he

has perceived must in ac-

cordance with our

human needs

pression concretely, because

he manifests himself

in

we Though a

it

find ex-

is

only as

forms which

we

can understand that

are able to re-

cognize him.

mute, inglorious

Milton were Milton limitations

demand

still,

yet our

his utterance

may know him. So the

artist

human that we

accomplishes

when he communicates himself. The human spirit is able to bring the supreme life into unity with itself according to the measure of its own growth made his mission

possible through expression.

The supreme thing partakes, animal, and

its

—

of which every created

the stone, the flower, the

man,— is

the supreme

has

life,

beauty, because

it is

harmony wherein everything

place in relation to every other thing.

[9° This central unity has

The round

pression.

3 its

existence in ex-

broken off from

earth,

the stellar system and whirling along

through space,

orbit

little

is

yet ever in

communication with the great system tree,

with

its

its

;

the

roots in the earth, puts forth

branches, the branches expand into twigs,

the twigs burst into leaves whose veins

reach out into the air; out of the twigs spring buds swelling into blossoms, the

blossoms ripen into

the fruit drops

fruit,

seed into the earth which

up

springs its

into

new

growth, which

itself

is

trees.

gave

it

The

tree

and

by

the putting forth of

or expression, develops needs, these

needs are the needs

satisfied, is

and the satisfying of

the condition of

its

continued

expansion.

Man, sion.

which

too, has his existence in expres-

By growth is

through expression,

the creation of a

new

need, he

is

enabled to take up more into himself ; he

[9i more

brings

harmony.

The

—

into the unity of his person-

and thus he expands into the univer-

ality,

sal

ters

unity which underlies the cosmos

—

which

more the conception

once

define

to

which

is

the basis of the preceding chap-

is

of the

we

spirit.

The

The material world

see and touch

and bodying forth of

is

]

is

but the symbol relations.

spiritual

tranquillizing, satisfying

power of

due to the revelation which

art

accom-

harmony which

plishes of a spiritual

art

tran-

scends the seeming chaos of instant experience.

So

it

comes about

or beauty, which

hended by the artist is

is

of the

spirit.

by which he

is

that

harmony,

spirit, is

That

appre-

faculty in the

able to perceive beauty

called temperament.

By temperament

is

to be understood the receptive faculty, the

power

to feel, the capacity for sensations,

emotions, and " such intellectual apprehensions

as, in

strength and directness and

[9*] their immediately realized values

at

the

bar of an actual experience, are most like sensations is

.

The function

* '

of temperament

to receive and to transmit, to interpret, to

create in the sense that result

felt to

it is

it

In the

reveals.

be present only as the

medium through which the forces behind it come to expression. Art, the human spirit, temperament,

—

these terms are general and abstract.

Now

the abstract to be realized must be

made

concrete. fest,

Just as art, in order to be mani-

must be embodied

work, as the ing, the

man

in

the particular

statue, the picture, the build-

drama, the symphony, so the hu-

spirit

becomes operative

in the

person

of the individual, and temperament

be best studied vidual

in the character of the indi-

artist.

As temperament the

may

artist's

is

attitude

Wordsworth

called

the receptive faculty,

toward

life

is

what

"wise passiveness,"

I

93

]

Wordsworth, the poet of "impassioned Keats, too,

contemplation."

— and among

beauty was more

the poets,

whose

beautiful,

whose grasp on the truth more

true?

—

characterizes himself as "addicted

to passiveness."

Keats

is

"That

vision of

It is

of temperament that

when he

writing

says in a letter

quality which goes to

form a man

of achievement, especially in

literature,

and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously, letter

is

Negative Capability" In another

he writes

:

"It has been an old comparison for our urging

on

—

the Beehive

we should for

it is

;

however,

it

seems to

rather be the flower than the

a false notion that more

receiving than giving

—

doubt its

not, receives a fair

that

Bee

—

gained by

no, the receiver

giver are equal in their benefits.

—

is

me

The

and the

flower, I

guerdon from the Bee

leaves blush deeper in the next spring

—

and who shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted*? Now it is more noble to

sit

like

Jove than to

fly like

Mercury

[94]

—

us not therefore go hurrying about and

let

honey, bee-like buzzing here and

collecting

knowledge of what is us open our leaves like

there impatiently from a

aimed

to be

at

;

but

let

a flower and be passive and receptive

— bud-

ding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every noble insect that favours

us with a

and dew

visit

— sap

for drink.

will be given us for

.

.

meat

.

— have none, And yet my song comes with warmth. not knowledge — have none, O "

O

fret

not after knowledge

I

the

native

after

fret

And

I

yet the Evening

listens.

He who

saddens

At thought of idleness cannot be idle, And he 's awake who thinks himself asleep." Still

again he says

work out

etry must

man:

It

:

"

The Genius of Poits own salvation in a

cannot be matured by law and

by sensation and watchfulness That which is creative must cre-

precept, but in itself.

ate itself."

A tive

nature so constituted, a nature recep-

and passive,

is

necessarily withdrawn

[95] from

To

practical affairs.

an example, for Keats

as

artist, life

it is

his

revert to Keats is

so wholly the

remoteness from the daily

about him that makes him the

no one country or time.

man

of

His poetry has a

kind of universality, but universality within

a definite sphere, and that sphere

world of things lovely and

mood Keats

ful

me

Books,

:

" Give

French wine and

little

played by somebody

the

In a play-

writes to his sister

fruit,

weather and a

fair.

is

fine

music out of doors, I

do not know

.

.

.

summer very quietly without caring much about Fat Louis, fat Regent or the Duke of Wellington. These and

I

can pass a

,,

are trivial words fine in

;

but they serve to de-

some measure the

artistic

this characteristic

remoteness from

tempera-

ment.

For affairs

the artist

by those who things.

is

sometimes reproached

pin their faith to material

Such are not aware that

for the

[96] artist

The

the only reality

is

the

life

of the

Man

Carlyle says of the

artist, as

spirit.

of

Letters, "lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine and Eternal,

which

exists always,

unseen to most, under

the Temporary, Trivial: his being

Temperament

that."

moral nature of the

constitutes the

artist.

is

in

whole

" With a great

poet/' says Keats, "the sense of beauty

overcomes every consideration, or rather obliterates

all

consideration."

It

is

the

standard which measures the worth of any act.

It is

conscience, too; for the functions

performed by conscience

moral

by

of the

life

the

artist's

in

the normal

man of action are

fulfilled

devotion to his ideal; his

service to his art

is

his sole

and

sufficient

obligation.

And where

the

man

of action looks to

find his rewards in the approval of his fel-

low men, the

The very

artist cares to

act of expressing

please himself. is itself

the joy

[97] To this truth

and the reward.

Keats again

stands as witness:

"I

says, " I should write

from the mere yearn-

ing and fondness

even

if

my night's

I

feel

assured/' he

have for the beautiful,

labours should be burnt

every Morning and no eye ever shine upon them." And still again " I value more :

the privilege of seeing great things in loneliness

than the fame of a prophet."

Not

that the artist does not crave appreciation.

His message is

no ear

of completeness

fails

to hear

it,

if it

if

there

does not meet a

sympathy which understands. But the true artist removes all shadow of petty vanity and becomes,

in

Whitman's phrase, " the

free channel of himself."

medium through whom

He

is

but the

the spirit of beauty

reveals itself; in thankfulness and praise he

but receives and transmits.

him

to see beauty

That it is given

and to interpret

it

is

enough. It is

by

virtue of his

power

to feel that

[98] the artist

is

able to apprehend beauty

temperament

By

harmonies.

which

is

he sends

force of his imagination,

temperament,

his

his spirit into other lives, absorbs

their experience

and makes

his

it

own, and

himself with world

ultimately identifies forces

and becomes creator.

In a lyric

passage in a letter Keats exclaims "

his

new

ever responsive to

one function of

is

;

The mighty

:

—

have of Beauty more divided and minute domestic happiness. ... I feel more and more abstract Idea I

in all things stifles the

my

every day, as I

do not

imagination strengthens, that

live in this

world alone, but in a thou-

No sooner am

sand worlds.

I

alone than shapes

of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve

my

Spirit the office

sceptered pall to

my

state

which

— then

is

equivalent

Tragedy with comes sweeping by/ According

to a King's body-guard

of mind

am

I

'

with Achilles shout-

ing in the Trenches, or with Theocritus in the

Vales of

Sicily.

into Troilus,

Or

I

throw

my

and repeating those

der like a lost soul

upon

whole being I

wan-

Banks

stay-

lines,

the Stygian

*

l99~\ ing for wattage,' I melt into the tuousness so delicate that I

air

am

with a volup-

content to be

alone."

This power to penetrate and to identify

was exercised with peculiar directness and plenitude by Walt Whitman, prophet of the omnipotence of man.

burden of

his

To

find

message formulated

single phrase one

may

turn to his

the

in the

Poems

quite at random. "

My spirit has

pass'd in compassion

and

deter-

mination around the whole earth." " I inhale great draughts of space,

The

east

and the west

and the south

are mine,

and the north

are mine.

All seems beautiful to me."

Of the artist may be affirmed what Whitman affirms of the Answerer:

—

* Every existence has

its

idiom, every thing has

an idiom and tongue,

[

He

IO ° ]

own and

resolves all tongues into his

upon men, and any man

stows

it

lates,

and any man

translates

be-

trans-

himself

also,

One

part does not counteract another part, he is

As

the joiner, he sees

how

the artist sends out his

they join." spirit

through

the world, as he becomes the channel of universal and divine influences, so he

admitted to

of beauty. vision,

is

new and ever new revelations And stirred by the glorious

he brings that beauty to earth, com-

municating

it

to his fellows

and making

them partakers of it, as he gives his feeling expression. Thus finding utterance as the prophet of God, he consummates his mission and takes his place in the world order. is

Herein he has his being, for

expression;

life

and each new harmony

which he makes manifest

is.

the

medium

of his fuller identification with the universal life.

ioi

So

it

is

that the artist

His work

is

gratitude, of worship.

servant

of God,

whom He declares of men.

His

a

i

-;

man and

work of

He

»

the supreme

between

interpreter, the mediator

beauty.

is

;,

'

:

is

joy, of

the

prophet,

happy

through

Himself to the children

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2

194?

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T S4Mai'S§' MAR 1 6 1956 LU

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NOV

2 5 1957

25Mar'63/?Vr

—— -

.

ITW

LD21-100»-7,'89(402s)

Y£

1

1

3699

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY