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diff --git a/27183-8.txt b/27183-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff1e033 --- /dev/null +++ b/27183-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5309 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gate of Appreciation, by Carleton Noyes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Gate of Appreciation + Studies in the Relation of Art to Life + +Author: Carleton Noyes + +Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27183] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATE OF APPRECIATION *** + + + + +Produced by Ruth Hart + + + + + + + +[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to +the beginning of the text. Also I have made one spelling change: +irrevelant circumstance to irrelevant circumstance.] + + + +THE GATE OF APPRECIATION +Studies in the Relation of Art to Life + +BY + +CARLETON NOYES + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY +The Riverside Press, Cambridge +1907 + + +COPYRIGHT 1907 BY CARLETON NOYES +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + +_Published April 1907_ + + +TO +MY FATHER +AND THE MEMORY OF +MY MOTHER + + +"Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, +As souls only understand souls." + + +CONTENTS + +Preface i +I. The Impulse to Expression i +II. The Attitude of Response 23 +III. Technique and the Layman 44 +IV. The Value of the Medium 87 +V. The Background of Art 105 +VI. The Service of Criticism 137 +VII. Beauty and Common Life 165 +VIII. The Arts of Form 201 +IX. Representation 221 +X. The Personal Estimate 254 + + + +PREFACE + +IN the daily life of the ordinary man, a life crowded with diverse +interests and increasingly complex demands, some few moments of +a busy week or month or year are accorded to an interest in art. +Whatever may be his vocation, the man feels instinctively that in his +total scheme of life books, pictures, music have somewhere a place. +In his own business or profession he is an expert, a man of special +training; and intelligently he does not aspire to a complete +understanding of a subject which lies beyond his province. In the +same spirit in which he is a master of his own craft, he is content to +leave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the +connoisseur. For his part as a layman he remains frankly and happily +on the outside. But he feels none the less that art has an interest and +a meaning even for him. Though he does not practice any art himself, +he knows that he enjoys fine things, a beautiful room, noble +buildings, books and plays, statues, pictures, music; and he believes +that in his own fashion he is able to appreciate art, I venture to think +that he is right. + +There is a case for the outsider in reference to art. And I have tried +here to state it. This book is an attempt to suggest the possible +meaning of art to the ordinary man, to indicate methods of approach +to art, and to trace the way of appreciation. It is essentially a +personal record, an account of my own adventures with the problem. +The book does not pretend to finality; the results are true for me as +far as I have gone. They may or may not be true for another. If they +become true for another man, he is the one for whom the book was +written. I do not apologize because the shelter here put together, in +which I have found a certain comfort, is not a palace. Rude as the +structure may be, any man is welcomed to it who may find solace +there in an hour of need. + + C. N. +CAMBRIDGE, _November second, 1906._ + + + +I + +THE IMPULSE TO EXPRESSION + +TOWARD evening a traveler through a wild country finds himself +still in the open, with no hope of reaching a village that night. The +wind is growing chill; clouds are gathering in the west, threatening +rain. There rises in him a feeling of the need of shelter; and he looks +about him to see what material is ready to his hand. Scattered stones +will serve for supports and low walls; there are fallen branches for +the roof; twigs and leaves can be woven into a thatch. Already the +general design has shaped itself in his mind. He sets to work, +modifying the details of his plan to suit the resources of his material. +At last, after hours of hard thought and eager toil, spurred on by his +sense of his great need, the hut is ready; and fee takes refuge in it as +the storm breaks. + +The entire significance of the man's work is _shelter._ The +beginning of it lay in his need of shelter. The impulse to action rose +out of his consciousness of his need. His imagination conceived the +plan whereby the need might be met, and the plan gave shape to his +material. The actual result of his labor was a hut, but the hut itself +was not the end for which he strove. The hut was but the means. The +all-inclusive import of his work--the stimulus which impelled him to +act, the purpose for which he toiled, and the end which he +accomplished--is shelter. + +A man of special sensitiveness to the appeal of color and form finds +himself also in the open. He is weary with the way, which shows but +broken glimpses of the road. His spirit, heavy with the "burden of +the mystery," is torn by conflict and confusion. As he looks across +the stony places to the gnarled and weather-tortured trees beyond, +and up to the clouds piling black above him, there is revealed to him +a sudden harmony among the discords; an inner principle, +apprehended by his imagination, compels the fragments of the +seeming chaos into a regnant order. These natural forms become for +him the expression external to himself of the struggle of his own +spirit and its final resolution. The desire rises in him to express by +his own act the order he has newly perceived, the harmony of his +spirit with the spirit of nature. As life comes to him dominantly in +terms of color and form, it is with color and form that he works to +expression so as to satisfy his need. The design is already projected +in his imagination, and to realize concretely his ideal he draws upon +the material of nature about him. The picture which he paints is not +the purpose of his effort. The picture is but the means. His end is to +express the great new harmony in which his spirit finds shelter. + +Both men, the traveler and the painter, are wayfarers. Both are +seeking shelter from stress and storm, and both construct their +means. In one case the product is more obviously and immediately +practical, and the informing purpose tends to become obscured in +the actual serviceableness of the result. The hut answers a need that +is primarily physical; the need in the other case is spiritual. But it is +a matter of degree. In essence and import the achievement of the two +men is the same. The originating impulse, a sense of need; the +processes involved, the combination of material elements to a +definite end; the result attained, shelter which answers the need,--they +are identical. Both men are artists. Both hut and picture are +works of art. + +So art is not remote from common life after all. In its highest +manifestations art is life at its best; painting, sculpture, poetry, music +are the distillment and refinement of experience. Architecture and +the subsidiary arts of decoration adorn necessity and add delight to +use. But whatever the flower and final fruit, art strikes its roots deep +down into human need, and draws its impulse and its sustenance +from the very sources of life itself. In the wide range from the hut in +the wilderness to a Gothic cathedral, from the rude scratches +recorded on the cave walls of prehistoric man to the sublimities of +the Sistine Chapel, there is no break in the continuity of effort and +aspiration. Potentially every man is an artist. Between the artist, +so-called, and the ordinary man there is no gulf fixed which cannot be +passed. Such are the terms of our mechanical civilization to-day that +art has become specialized and the practice of it is limited to a few; +in consequence artists have become a kind of class. But essentially +the possibilities of art lie within the scope of any man, given the +right conditions. So too the separation of the "useful arts" from the +"fine arts" is unjust to art and perversive of right appreciation. +Whatever the form in which it may manifest itself, from the lowest +to the highest, the art spirit is one, and it may quicken in any man +who sets mind and heart to the work of his hand. That man is an +artist who fashions a new thing that he may express himself in +response to his need. + +Art is creation. It is the combination of already existing material +elements into new forms which become thus the realization of a +preconceived idea. Both hut and picture rose in the imagination of +their makers before they took shape as things. The material of each +was given already in nature; but the form, as the maker fashioned it, +was new. Commonly we think of art as the expression and +communication of emotion. A picture, a statue, a symphony we +recognize as the symbol of what the artist has felt in some passage +of his experience and the means by which he conveys his feeling to +us. Art _is_ the expression of emotion, but all art springs out of need. +The sense of need which impels expression through the medium of +creation is itself an emotion. The hut which the traveler built for +himself in the wilderness--shaping it according to the design which +his imagination suggested, having reference to his need and to the +character of his materials--was a work of creation; the need which +prompted it presented itself to him as emotion. The picture which +the other wayfarer painted of the storm-swept landscape, a harmony +which his imagination compelled out of discords, was a work of +creation; the emotion which inspired the work was attended by need, +the need of expression. The material and practical utility of the hut +obscures the emotional character of its origin; the emotional import +of the picture outweighs consideration of its utility to the painter as +the means by which his need of expression is satisfied. The +satisfaction of physical needs which results in the creation of +utilities and the satisfaction of spiritual needs which results in the +forms of expression we commonly call works of art differ one from +the other in their effect on the total man only in degree. All works of +use whose conception and making have required an act of creation +are art; all art--even in its supreme manifestations--embraces +elements of use. The measure in which a work is art is established +by the intensity and scope of its maker's emotion and by his power +to body forth his feeling in harmonious forms which in turn recreate +the emotion in the spirit of those whom his work reaches. + +In its essence and widest compass art is the making of a new thing in +response to a sense of need. The very need itself creates, working +through man as its agent. This truth is illustrated vividly by the +miracles of modern invention. The hand of man unaided was not +able to cope with his expanding opportunities; the giant steam and +the magician electricity came at his call to work their wonders. The +plow and scythe of the New England colonist on his little farm were +metamorphosed into the colossal steam-driven shapes, in which +machinery seems transmuted into intelligence, as he moved to the +conquest of the acres of the West which summoned him to dominion. +First the need was felt; the contrivance was created in response. A +man of business sees before him in imagination the end to be +reached, and applying his ideal to practical conditions, he makes +every detail converge to the result desired. All rebellious +circumstances, all forces that pull the other way, he bends to his +compelling will, and by the shaping power of his genius he +accomplishes his aim. His business is his medium of self-expression; +his success is the realization of his ideal. A painter does no more +than this, though he works with a different material. The landscape +which is realized ultimately upon his canvas is the landscape seen in +his imagination. He draws his colors and forms from nature around; +but he selects his details, adapting them to his end. All accidents and +incidents are purged away. Out of the apparent confusion of life +rises the evident order of art. And in the completed work the artist's +_idea_ stands forth salient and victorious. + +That consciousness of need which compels creation is the origin of +art. The owner of a dwelling who first felt the need of securing his +door so that he alone might possess the secret and trick of access +devised a lock and key, rude enough, as we can fancy. As the maker +of the first lock and key he was an artist. All those who followed +where he had led, repeating his device without modification, were +but artisans. In the measure that any man changed the design, +however, adapting it more closely to his peculiar needs and so +making it anew, to that extent he was an artist also. The man who +does a thing for the first time it is done is an artist; a man who does a +thing better is an artist. The painter who copies his object imitatively, +finding nothing, creating nothing, is an artisan, however skillful he +may be. He is an artist in the degree in which he brings to his subject +something of his own, and fashioning it, however crudely, to express +the idea he has conceived of the object, so creates. + +The difference between work which is art and work which is not art +is just this element of the originating impulse and creative act. The +difference, though often seemingly slight and not always +immediately perceived, is all-important. It distinguishes the artist +from the artisan; a free spirit from a slave; a thinking, feeling man +from a soulless machine. It makes the difference between life rich +and significant, and mere existence; between the mastery of fate and +the passive acceptance of things as they are. + +If a mind and heart are behind it to control and guide it to expression, +even the machine may be an instrument in the making of a work of +art. It is not the work itself, but the motive which prompted the +making of it, that determines its character as art. Art is not the way a +thing is done, but the reason why it is done. A chair, though turned +on a lathe, may be a work of art, if the maker has truly expressed +himself in his work. A picture, though "hand-painted," may be +wholly mechanical in spirit. To set about "making a picture" is to +begin at the wrong end. The impulse to art flows from within +outwards. Art is bound up with life itself; like nature, it is organic +and must grow. The form cannot be laid on from the outside; it is +born and must develop in response to vital need. In so far as our acts +are consciously the expression of ourselves they are prompted by the +art spirit. + +All our acts are reducible to one of two kinds: either they are acts of +creation, effecting a new result, or they are acts of repetition. Acts of +repetition tend rapidly to become habits; and they may be performed +without attention or positive volition. Thus, as I am dressing in the +morning I may be planning the work for the day; while my mind is +given over to thought, I lose the sense of my material surroundings, +my muscles work automatically, the motor-currents flowing through +the well-worn grooves, and by force of habit the acts execute +themselves. Obviously, acts of repetition, or habits, make up the +larger part of our daily lives. + +Acts of creation, on the other hand, are performed by an effort of the +will in response to the consciousness of a need. To meet the new +need we are obliged to make new combinations. I assume that the +traveler constructed his hut for the first time, shaping it to the special +new conditions; that the harmony which the painter discerned in the +tumult around him he experienced for the first time, and the picture +which he paints, shaped with reference to his need and fulfilling it, +is a new thing. In the work produced by this act of creation, the +feeling which has prompted it finds expression. In the making of the +hut, in the painting of the picture, the impelling need is satisfied. + +Although acts of repetition constitute the bulk of life, creation is of +its very essence and determines its quality. The significance and joy +of life are less in being than in _becoming._ Growth is expression, +and in turn expression is made possible by growth. In our +conscious experience the sense of becoming is one of our supreme +satisfactions. Growth is the purpose and the recompense of our +being here, the end for which we strive and the reward of all the +effort and the struggle. In the exercise of brain or hand, to feel the +work take form, develop, and become something,--that is happiness. +And the joy is in the creating rather than in the thing created; the +completed work is behind us, and we move forward to new creation. +A painter's best picture is the blank canvas before him; an author's +greatest book is the one he is just setting himself to write. The desire +for change for the sake of change which we all feel at times, a vague +restlessness of mind and body, is only the impulse to growth which +has not found its direction. Outside of us we love to see the +manifestation of growth. We tend and cherish the little plant in the +window; we watch with delight the unfolding of each new leaf and +the upward reach into blossom. The spring, bursting triumphant +from the silent, winter-stricken earth, is nature's parable of +expression, her symbol perennially renewed of the joy of growth. + +The impulse to expression is cosmic and eternal. But even in the +homeliness and familiarity of our life from day to day the need of +expression is there, whether we are entirely aware of it or not; and +we are seeking the realization and fulfillment of ourselves through +the utterance of what we are. A few find their expression in forms +which with distinct limitation of the term we call works of art. Most +men find it in their daily occupations, their profession or their +business. The president of one of the great Western railroads +remarked once in conversation that he would rather build a thousand +miles of railroad than live in the most sumptuous palace on Fifth +Avenue. Railroad building was his medium of expression; it was his +art. Some express themselves in shaping their material environment, +in the decoration and ordering of their houses. A young woman said, +"My ambition is to keep my house well." Again, for her, +housekeeping is her art. Some find the realization of themselves in +the friends they draw around them. Love is but the utterance of what +we essentially are; and the response to it in the loved one makes the +utterance articulate and complete. Expression rises out of our +deepest need, and the need impels expression. + +The assertion that art is thus involved with need seems for the +moment to run counter to the usual conception, which regards art as +a product of leisure, a luxury, and the result not of labor but of play. +Art in its higher forms becomes more and more purely the +expression of emotion, the un-trammeled record of the artist's +spiritual experience. It is only when physical necessities have been +met or ignored that the spirit of man has free range. But the maker +who adds decoration to his bowl after he has moulded it is just as +truly fulfilling a need--the need of self-expression--as he fulfilled a +need when he fashioned the bowl in the first instance in order that he +might slake his thirst. Art is not superadded to life,--something +different in kind. All through its ascent from its rudimentary forms +to its highest, from hut to cathedral, art is coordinate with the +development of life, continuous and without breach or sudden end; it +is the expression step by step of ever fuller and ever deeper +experience. + +Creation, therefore, follows upon the consciousness of need, +whether the need be physical, as with the traveler, or spiritual, as +with the painter; from physical to spiritual we pass by a series of +gradations. At their extremes they are easy to distinguish, one from +the other; but along the way there is no break in the continuity. The +current formula for art, that art is the utterance of man's joy in his +work, is not quite accurate. In the act of creation the maker finds the +expression of himself. The man who decorates a bowl in response to +his own creative impulse is expressing himself. The painter who +thrills to the wonder and significance of nature is impelled to +expression; and his delight is not fully realized and complete until he +has uttered it. Such art is love expressed, and the artist's work is his +"hymn of the praise of things." But the joy for both the potter and +the painter, the joy which is so bound up with art as to partake of its +very essence, is the joy which attends self-expression and the +satisfaction of the need. + +A work of art is a work of creation brought into being as the +expression of emotion. The traveler creates not the wood and stone +but shelter, by means of the hut; the painter creates not the landscape +but the beauty of it; the musician creates not the musical tones, but +by means of a harmony of tones he creates an emotional experience. +The impulse to art rises out of the earliest springs of consciousness +and vibrates through all life. Art does not disdain to manifest itself +in the little acts of expression of simple daily living; with all its +splendid past and vital present it is ever seeking new and greater +forms whose end is not yet. I spoke of the work of the traveler +through the wilderness as art; the term was applied also to +railroad-building and to housekeeping. The truth to be illustrated by these +examples is that the primary impulse to artistic expression does not +differ in essence from the impulse to creation of any kind. The +nature of the thing created, as art, depends upon the emotional value +of the result, the degree in which it expresses immediately the +emotion of its creator, and the power it possesses to rouse the +emotion in others. To show that all art is creation and that all +creation tends toward art is not to obscure useful distinctions, but +rather to restore art to its rightful place in the life of man. + +In the big sense, then, art is bounded only by life itself. It is not a +cult; it is not an activity practiced by the few and a mystery to be +understood only by those who are initiated into its secrets. One +difficulty in the way of the popular understanding of art is due to the +fact that the term art is currently limited to its highest manifestations; +we withhold the title of artist from a good carpenter or +cabinet-maker who takes a pride in his work and expresses his creative +desire by shaping his work to his own idea, and we bestow the name +upon any juggler in paint: with the result that many people who are +not painters or musicians feel themselves on that account excluded +from all appreciation. If we go behind the various manifestations of +art to discover just what art is in itself and to determine wherein it is +able to link itself with common experience, we find that art is the +response to a need. And that need may waken in any man. Every +man may be an artist in his degree; and every man in his degree can +appreciate art. A work of art is the expression of its maker's +experience, the expression in such terms that the experience can be +communicated to another. The processes of execution involved in +fashioning a work, its technique, may be as incomprehensible and +perplexed and difficult as its executants choose to make them. +Technique is not the same as art. The only mystery of art is the +mystery of all life itself. Accept life with its fundamental mysteries, +with its wonders and glories, and we have the clue to art. But we +miss the central fact of the whole matter if we do not perceive that +art is only a means. It is by expression that we grow and so fulfill +ourselves. The work itself which art calls into being is not the end. It +fails of its purpose, remaining void and vain, if it does not perform +its function. The hut which does not furnish shelter is labor lost. The +significance of the painter's effort does not stop with the canvas and +pigment which he manipulates into form and meaning. The artist +sees beyond the actual material thing which he is fashioning; his +purpose in creation is expression. By means of his picture he +expresses himself and so finds the satisfaction of his deepest need. +The beginning and the end of art is life. + +But the artist's work of expression is not ultimately complete until +the message is received, and expression becomes communication as +his utterance calls out a response in the spirit of a fellow-man. Art +exists not only for the artist's sake but for the appreciator too. As art +has its origin in emotion and is the expression of it, so for the +appreciator the individual work has a meaning and is art in so far as +it becomes for him the expression of what he has himself felt but +could not phrase; and it is art too in the measure in which it is the +revelation of larger possibilities of feeling and creates in him a new +emotional experience. The impulse to expression is common to all; +the difference is one of degree. And the message of art is for all, +according as they are attuned to the response. Art is creation. For the +artist it is creation by expression; for the appreciator it is creation by +evocation. These two principles complete the cycle; abstractly and +very briefly they are the whole story of art. + +To be responsive to the needs of life and its emotional appeal is the +first condition of artistic creation. By new combinations of material +elements to bring emotion to expression in concrete harmonious +forms, themselves charged with emotion and communicating it, is to +fashion a work of art. To feel in material, whether in the forms of +nature or in works of art, a meaning for the spirit is the condition of +appreciation. + + + +II + +THE ATTITUDE OF RESPONSE + +IT is a gray afternoon in late November. The day is gone; evening is +not yet come. Though too dark to read or write longer, it is not dark +enough for drawn shades and the lamp. As I sit in the gathering dusk, +my will hovering between work done and work to do, I surrender to +the mood of the moment. The day is accomplished, but it is not yet a +remembrance, for it is still too near for me to define the details that +made up its hours. Consciousness, not sharp enough for thought, +floats away into diffused and obscure emotion. The sense is upon +me and around me that I am vaguely, unreasoningly, yet pleasantly, +unhappy. Out of the dimness a trick of memory recalls to me the +lines,-- + + "Tears! tears! tears! + In the night, in solitude, tears, + On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand, + Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate, + Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head; + O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears? + What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand? + Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries; + O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the + beach! + O wild and dismal night storm, with wind--O belching and + desperate! + O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance + and regulated pace, + But away at night as you fly, none looking--O then the + unloosened ocean + Of tears! tears! tears!" + +Now I know. My mood was the mood of tears. The poet, too, has +felt what I was feeling. And as a poet he has been able to bring his +emotion to expression. By the magic of phrase and the mystery of +image he has, out of the moving of his spirit, fashioned a concrete +reality. By means of his expression, because of it, his emotion +becomes realized, and so reaches its fulfillment. And for me, what +before was vague has been made definite. The poet's lines have +wakened in me a response; I have felt what he has phrased; and now +they become my expression too. As my mood takes form, I become +conscious of its meaning. I can distill its significance for the spirit, +and in the emotion made definite and realizable as consciousness I +feel and know that I am living. Doubly, completely, the poem is a +work of art. And my response to it, the absorption of it into my own +experience, is appreciation. + +I appreciate the poem as I make the experience which the poet has +here phrased my own, and at the instant of reading I live out in +myself what he has lived and here expressed. I read the words, and +intellectually I take in their signification, but the poem is not +realized in me until it wakens in me the feeling which the words are +framed to convey. The images which an artist employs have the +power to rouse emotion in us, so that they come to stand for the +emotion itself. We care for nature and it is beautiful to us as its +forms become objectively the intimate expression for us of what we +feel. + + "O to realize space! + The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds, + To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying + clouds, as one with them." + +In his contact with the external world the artist identifies himself +with his object. If he is painting a tree he in a measure becomes the +tree; he values it at all because it expresses for him concretely what +he feels in its presence. The object and his spirit fuse; and through +the fusion they together grow into a new and larger unity. What his +work expresses is not the object for its own sake but this larger unity +of his identity with it. To appreciate the artist's work, therefore, we +must in our turn merge ourselves in his emotion, and becoming one +with it, so extend our personality into larger life. + +To make the artist's emotion our own, to identify ourselves with the +object which he presents to us, we must pass beyond the material +form in which the work is embodied, letting the spirit and meaning +of it speak to our spirit. In itself an individual picture or statue or +symphony is an objective, material thing, received into +consciousness along the channel of the senses; but its origin and its +end alike are in emotion. The material form, whether in nature or in +works of art, is only the means by which the emotion is +communicated. A landscape in nature is composed of meadow and +hills, blue sky and tumbling clouds; these are the facts of the +landscape. But they are not fixed and inert. The imagination of the +beholder combines these elements into a harmony of color and mass; +his spirit flows into consonance with the harmony his imagination +has compelled out of nature, becoming one with it. To regard the +world not as facts and things, but as everywhere the stimulus of +feeling, feeling which becomes our own experience, is the condition +of appreciation. + +To the awakening mind of a child, life is full of wonder, and each +unfolding day reveals new marvels of excitement and surprise. As +yet untrammeled by any sense of the limitations of material, his +quick imagination peoples his world with creatures of his fancy, +which to him are more real than the things he is able actually to see +and touch. For him the external world is fluid and plastic, to be +moulded into forms at will in obedience to his creative desire. In the +tiny bundle of rags which mother-love clasps tight to her heart, a +little girl sees only the loveliest of babies; and a small boy with his +stick of lath and newspaper cap and plume is a mightier than +Napoleon. The cruder the toy, the greater is the pleasure in the game; +for the imagination delights in the exercise of itself. A wax doll, sent +from Paris, with flaxen hair and eyes that open and shut, is laid away, +when the mere novelty of it is exhausted, in theatric chest, and the +little girl is fondling again her first baby of rag and string. A real +steel sword and tin helmet are soon cast aside, and the boy is back +again among the toys of his own making. That impulse to creation +which all men feel, the impulse which makes the artist, is especially +active in a child; his games are his art. With a child material is not +an end but a means. Things are for him but the skeleton of life, to be +clothed upon by the flesh and blood reality of his own fashioning. +His feeling is in excess of his knowledge. He has a faculty of +perception other than the intellectual. It is imagination. + +The child is the first artist. Out of the material around him he creates +a world of his own. The prototypes of the forms which he devises +exist in life, but it is the thing which he himself makes that interests +him, not its original in nature. His play is his expression. He creates; +and he is able to merge himself in the thing created. In his play he +loses all consciousness of self. He and the toy become one, caught +up in the larger unity of the game. According as he identifies himself +with the thing outside of him, the child is the first appreciator. + +Then comes a change. + + "Heaven lies about us in our infancy! + Shades of the prison-house begin to close + Upon the growing Boy, + But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, + He sees it in his joy; + The Youth, who daily farther from the east + Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, + And by the vision splendid + Is on his way attended; + At length the Man perceives it die away, + And fade into the light of common day." + +Imagination surrenders to the intellect; emotion gives place to +knowledge. + +Gradually the material world shuts in about us until it becomes for +us a hard, inert thing, and no longer a living, changing presence, +instinct with infinite possibilities of experience and feeling. Now +custom lies upon us + + "with a weight, + Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!" + +It happens, unfortunately for our enjoyment of life, that we get used +to things. Little by little we come to accept them, to take them for +granted, and they cease to mean anything to us. Habit, which is our +most helpful ally in lending our daily life its practical efficiency, is +the foe of emotion and appreciation. Habit allows us to perform +without conscious effort the innumerable little acts of each day's +necessity which we could not possibly accomplish if every single act +required a fresh exercise of will. But just because its action is +unconscious and unregarded, habit blunts the edge of our +sensibilities. "Thus let but a Rising of the Sun," says Carlyle, "let but +a creation of the World happen _twice,_ and it ceases to be +marvelous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable." + +"Except ye become as little children!" Unless the world is +new-created every day, unless we can thrill to the beauty of nature with +its fair surfaces and harmonies of vibrant sounds, or quicken to the +throb of human life with its occupations and its play of energies, its +burdens and its joys, unless we find an answer to our needs, and +gladness, in sunlight or storms, in the sunset and evening and +solitude under the stars, in fields and hills or in thronging city streets, +in conflict and struggle or in the face of a friend, unless each new +day is a gift and new opportunity, then we cannot interpret the +meaning of life nor read the riddle of art. For we cannot truly +appreciate art except as we learn to appreciate life. Until then art has +no message for us; it is a sealed book, and we shall not open the +book nor loose the seals thereof. The meaning of life is for the spirit, +and art is its minister. To share in the communion we must become +as children. As a child uses the common things of life to his own +ends, transfiguring them by force of his creative desire, and +fashioning thus a wonderful world of his own by the exercise of his +shaping imagination, a world of limitless incident and high +adventure, so we must penetrate the visible and tangible actuality +around us, the envelope of seemingly inert matter cast in forms of +rigid definition, and we must open ourselves to the influence of +nature. That influence--nature's power to inspire, quicken, and +dilate--flowing through the channel of the senses, plays upon our +spirit. The indwelling significance of things is apprehended by the +imagination, and is won for us in the measure that we feel. + +As we respond to the emotional appeal of the great universe external +to ourselves we come to realize that the material world which we see +and touch is not final. In the experience of us all there are moments +of exaltation and quickened response, moments of illumination +when-- + + "with an eye made quiet by the power + Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, + We see into the life of things." + +The "life of things" is their significance for the spirit. By spirit I +mean the sum of our conscious being, that complete entity within us +which we recognize as the self. The material world, external, visible, +tangible, may be regarded as the actual world. The real world is the +world of spiritual forces and relations, apprehended by the +imagination and received with feeling. Life, in the sense of our +conscious experience of the world, is the moving of the spirit in +emotion. + +The measure of life for the individual, therefore, is the degree of +intensity with which he feels. Experience is not meted out by weeks +and months; it is to be sounded by the depth and poignancy of +instant emotion. Variety and multitude of incident may crowd +through insentient years and leave no record of their progress along +the waste places of their march. Or a day may be a lifetime. In such +moments of intensest experience time and space fall away and are +not. The outermost bounds of things recede; they vanish altogether: +and we are made free of the universe. At such moments we are truly +living; then we really _are._ + +As the meaning of art is not the material thing which it calls into +form, but what the work expresses of life, so in order to appreciate +art it is necessary to appreciate life, which is the inspiration of art +and its fulfillment. To appreciate life is to send out our being into +experience and to _feel_,--to realize in terms of emotion our +identity with the great universe outside of us, this world of color and +form and sound and movement, this web of illimitable activities and +energies, shot through with currents of endlessly varied and +modulated feeling. "My son," says the father in Hindu lore, pointing +to an animal, a tree, a rock, "my son, thou art that!" The universe is +one. Of it we are each an essential part, distinct as individuals, yet +fusing with it in our sense of our vital kinship with all other parts +and with the whole. I am sauntering through the Public Garden on a +fragrant hushed evening in June; touched by the lingering afterglow, +the twilight has not yet deepened into night. Grouped about a bench, +children are moving softly in the last flicker of play, while the +mother nods above them. On the next bench a wanderer is stretched +at full length, his face hidden in his crooked-up arm. I note a couple +seated, silent, with shoulder touching shoulder. I meet a young man +and woman walking hand in hand; they do not see me as I pass. +Beyond, other figures are soundless shadows, gathering out of the +enveloping dusk. It is all so intimate and friendly. The air, the +flowers, the bit of water through the trees reflecting the lights of the +little bridge, are a caress. And it is all for me! I am a child at his +tired play, I am the sleeping tramp, I am the young fellow with his +girl. It is not the sentiment of the thing, received intellectually, that +makes it mine. My being goes out into these other lives and becomes +one with them. I feel them in myself. It is not thought that +constitutes appreciation; it is emotion. + +Another glimpse, caught this time through a car window. Now it is a +winter twilight. The flurry of snow has passed. The earth is +penetrated with blue light, suffused by it, merged in it, ever blue. +Vague forms, still and shadowy, of hills and trees, soppy with light, +are blue within the blue. The brief expanse of bay is deeply +luminous and within the pervasive tempering light resolves itself +into the cool and solemn reaches of the sky which bends down and +touches it. Once more my spirit meets and mingles with the spirit of +the landscape. By the harmony of nature's forms and twilight tones I +am brought into a larger harmony within myself and with the world +around. + +All experience offers to us at any moment just such possibilities of +living. The infinite and ever-changing expressiveness of nature at +every instant of day and night is ours to read if we will but look +upon it with the inner vision. The works of men in cities and +cultivated fields, if we will see beyond the actual material, may +quicken our emotions until we enact in ourselves their story of +struggle, of hopes and ambitions partly realized, of defeat or final +triumph. The faces seen in a passing crowd bear each the record of +life lived, of lives like ours of joys or disappointments, lives of great +aims or no aims at all, of unwritten heroisms, of hidden tragedies +bravely borne, lives sordid and mean or generous and bright. The +panorama of the world unrolls itself _for us._ It is ours to experience +and live out in our own being according as we are able to feel. Just +as the impulse to expression is common to all men, and all are artists +potentially, differing in the depth of their insight into life and in the +degree of emotion they have to express, so appreciation lies within +the scope of all, and the measure of it to us as individuals is +determined by our individual capability of response. + +Life means to each one of us what we are able to receive of it in +"wise passiveness," and then are able by the constructive force of +our individuality to shape into coherence and completeness. As the +landscape which an artist paints is the landscape visioned in +imagination, though composed of forms given in nature, so life +furnishes us the elements of experience, and out of these elements +we construct a meaning, each for himself. To one man an object or +incident is commonplace and blank; to another it may be charged +with significance and big with possibilities of fuller living. "In every +object." says Carlyle, "there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees +in it what it brings means of seeing." To _see_ is not merely to +receive an image upon the retina. The stimulation of the visual organ +becomes sight properly only as the record is conveyed to the +consciousness. When I am reading a description of a sunset, there is +an image upon my retina of a white page and black marks of +different forms grouped in various combinations. But what I see is +the sunset. Momentarily to rest the eye upon a landscape is not +really to see it, for our mind may be quite otherwhere. We see the +landscape only as it becomes part of our conscious experience. The +beauty of it is in us. A novelist conceives certain characters and +assembles them in action and reaction, but it is we who in effect +create the story as we read. We take up a novel, perhaps, which we +read five years ago; we find in it now new significances and appeals. +The book is the same; it is we who have changed. We bring to it the +added power of feeling of those five years of living. Art works not +by information but by evocation. Appreciation is not reception but +response. The artist must compel us to feel what he has felt,--not +something else. But the scope of his message, with its overtones and +subtler implications, is limited by the rate of vibration to which we +are attuned. + + "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it, + (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of + the arches and cornices?) + All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by + the instruments." + +And again Whitman says, "A great poem is no finish to a man or +woman, but rather a beginning." The final significance of both life +and art is not won by the exercise of the intellect, but unfolds itself +to us in the measure that we feel. + +To illustrate the nature of appreciation and the power from which +appreciation derives, the power to project ourselves into the world +external to us, I spoke of the joy of living peculiar to the child and to +the childlike in heart. But that is not quite the whole of the story. A +child by force of his imagination and capacity of feeling is able to +pass beyond the limits of material, and he lives in a world of +exhaustless play and happiness; for him objects are but means and +not an end. To transcend thus the bounds of matter imposed by the +senses and to live by the power of emotion is the first condition of +appreciation. The second condition of appreciation is to feel and +know it, to become conscious of ourselves in our relation to the +object. To _live_ is the purpose of life; to be aware that we are +living is its fulfillment and the reward of appreciation. + +Experience has a double value. There is the instant of experience +itself, and then the reaction on it. A child is unconscious in his play; +he is able to forget himself in it completely. At that moment he is +most happy. The instant of supreme joy is the instant of ecstasy, +when we lose all consciousness of ourselves as separate and distinct +individualities. We are one with the whole. But experience does not +yield us its fullest and permanent significance until, having +abandoned ourselves to the moment, we then react upon it and +become aware of what the moment means. A group of children are +at play. Without thought of themselves they are projected into their +sport; with their whole being merged in it, they are intensely living. +A passer on the street stands and watches them. For the moment, in +spirit he becomes a child with them. In himself he feels the +absorption and vivid reality to them of what they are doing. But he +feels also what they do not feel, and that is, what it means to be a +child. Where they are unconscious he is conscious; and therefore he +is able, as they are not, to distill the significance of their play. This +recognition makes possible the extension of his own life; for the +man adds to himself the child. The reproach is sometimes brought +against Walt Whitman that the very people he writes about do not +read him. The explanation is simple and illustrates the difference +between the unconscious and the conscious reception of life. The +"average man" who is the hero of Whitman's chants is not aware of +himself as such. He goes about his business, content to do his work; +and that makes up his experience. It is not the average man himself, +but the poet standing outside and looking on with imaginative +sympathy, who feels what it means to be an average man. It is the +poet who must "teach the average man the glory of his daily walk +and trade." It is not enough to be happy as children are +happy,--unconsciously. We must be happy and know it too. + +The attitude of appreciation is the attitude of response,--the +projection of ourselves into new and fuller ranges of feeling, with +the resultant extension of our personality and a larger grasp on life. +We do not need to go far afield for experience; it is here and now. +To-day is the only day, and every day is the best day. "The readiness +is all." But mere contact with the surface of life is not enough. +Living does not consist in barely meeting the necessities of our +material existence; to live is to feel vibrantly throughout our being +the inner significance of things, their appeal and welcome to the +spirit. This fair world of color and form and texture is but a show +world, after all,--this world which looms so near that we can see it, +touch it, which comes to us out of the abysms of time and recedes +into infinitudes of space whither the imagination cannot follow it. +The true and vital meaning of it resides within and discovers itself to +us finally as emotion. Some of this meaning art reveals to us, and in +that measure it helps us to find ourselves. But art is only the means. +The starting-point of the appreciation of art, and its goal, is the +appreciation of life. The reward of living is the added ability to live. +And life yields its fullest opportunities, its deepest tragedies, its +highest joys, all its infinite scope of feeling, to those who enter by +the gate of appreciation. + + + +III + +TECHNIQUE AND THE LAYMAN + +A PEASANT is striding across a field in the twilight shadow of a +hill. Beyond, where the fold of the hill dips down into the field, +another peasant is driving a team of oxen at a plow. The distant +figures are aglow with golden mellow light, the last light of day, +which deepens the gloom of the shadowing hillside. The sower's cap +is pulled tight about his head, hiding under its shade the unseeing +eyes. The mouth is brutal and grim. The heavy jaw flows down into +the thick, resistive neck. The right arm swings powerfully out, +scattering the grain. The left is pressed to his body; the big, stubborn +hand clutches close the pouch of seed. Action heroic, elemental; the +dumb bearing of the universal burden. In the flex of the shoulder, +the crook of the outstretched arm, the conquering onward stride, is +expressed all the force of that word of the Lord to the first toiler, "In +the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." + +Three men are standing before Millet's canvas. + +One recognizes the subject of the picture. With the pleasure of +recognition he notes what the artist has here represented, and he is +interested in the situation. This is a peasant, and he is sowing his +grain. So the onlooker stands and watches the peasant in his +movement, and he _thinks_ about the sower, recalling any sower he +may have read of or seen or known, his own sower rather than the +one that Millet has seen and would show to him. This man's pleasure +in the picture has its place. + +The second of the three men is attracted by the qualities of execution +which the work displays, and he is delighted by what he calls the +"actual beauty" of the painting. With eyes close to the canvas he +notes the way Millet has handled his materials, his drawing, his +color, his surfaces and edges, all the knack of the brush-work, +recognizing in his examination of the workmanship of the picture +that though Millet was a very great artist, he was not a great painter, +that the reach of his ideas was not equaled by his technical skill. +Then as the beholder stands back from the canvas to take in the +ensemble, his eye is pleased by the color-harmony, it rests lovingly +upon the balance of the composition, and follows with satisfaction +the rhythmic flow of line. His enjoyment is both intellectual and +sensuous. And that too has its place. + +The third spectator, with no thought of the facts around which the +picture is built, not observing the technical execution as such, +unconscious at the moment also of its merely sensuous charm, feels +within himself, "_I_ am that peasant!" In his own spirit is enacted +the agelong world-drama of toil. He sees beyond the bare subject of +the picture; the medium with all its power of sensuous appeal and +satisfaction becomes transparent. The beholder enters into the very +being of the laborer; and as he identifies himself with this other life +outside of him, becoming one with it in spirit and feeling, he adds +just so much to his own experience. In his reception of the meaning +of Millet's painting of the "Sower" he lives more deeply and +abundantly. + +It is the last of these three men who stands in the attitude of full and +true appreciation. The first of the three uses the picture simply as a +point of departure; his thought travels away from the canvas, and he +builds up the entire experience out of his own knowledge and store +of associations. The second man comes a little nearer to appreciation, +but even he falls short of full realization, for he stops at the actual +material work itself. His interest in the technical execution and his +pleasure in the sensuous qualities of the medium do not carry him +through the canvas and into the emotion which it was the artist's +purpose to convey. Only he truly appreciates the painting of the +"Sower" who feels something of what Millet felt, partaking of the +artist's experience as expressed by means of the picture, and making +it vitally his own. + +But before the appreciator can have brought himself to the point of +perception where he is able to respond directly to the significance of +art and to make the artist's emotion a part of his own emotional +experience, he must needs have traveled a long and rather devious +way. Appreciation is not limited to the exercise of the intellect, as in +the recognition of the subject of a work of art and in the interest +which the technically minded spectator takes in the artist's skill. It +does not end with the gratification of the senses, as with the delight +in harmonious color and rhythmic line and ordered mass. Yet the +intellect and the senses, though they are finally but the channel +through which the artist's meaning flows to reach and rouse the +feelings, nevertheless play their part in appreciation. Between the +spirit of the artist and the spirit of the appreciator stands +the individual work of art as the means of expression and +communication. In the work itself emotion is embodied in material +form. The material which art employs for expression constitutes its +language. Certain principles govern the composition of the work, +certain processes are involved in the making of it, and the result +possesses certain qualities and powers. The processes which enter +into the actual fashioning of the work are both intellectual and +physical, requiring the exercise of the artist's mind in the planning of +the work and in the directing of his hand; so far as the appreciator +concerns himself with them, they address themselves to his intellect. +The finished work in its material aspect possesses qualities which +are perceived by the senses and which have a power of sensuous +delight. Upon these processes and these qualities depends in part the +total character of a work of art, and they must be reckoned with in +appreciation. + +In his approach to any work of art, therefore, the layman is +confronted first of all with the problem of the language which the +work employs. Architecture uses as its language the structural +capabilities of its material, as wood or stone, bringing all together +into coherent and serviceable form. Poetry is phrased in words. +Painting employs as its medium color and line and mass. At the +outset, in the case of any art, we have some knowledge of the +signification of its terms. Here is a painting of a sower. Out of +previous experience of the world we easily recognize the subject of +the picture. But whence comes the majesty of this rude peasant, the +dignity august of this rough and toil-burdened laborer, his power to +move us? In addition to the common signification of its terms, then, +language seems to have a further expressiveness, a new meaning +imparted to it by the way in which the artist uses it. In a poem we +know the meaning of the words, but the _poetry_ of it, which we +feel rather than know, is the creation of the poet, wrought out of the +familiar words by his cunning manipulation of them. + + "The grey sea and the long black land; + And the yellow half-moon large and low; + And the startled little waves that leap + In fiery ringlets from their sleep, + As I gain the cove with pushing prow, + And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. + + "Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; + Three fields to cross till a farm appears; + A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch + And blue spurt of a lighted match, + And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, + Than the two hearts beating each to each!" + +A drama in twelve lines. These are words of common daily usage, +every one,--for the most part aggressively so. But the romance +which they effuse, the glamour which envelops the commonplace +incident as with an aura, is due to the poet's strategic selection of his +terms, the one right word out of many words that offered, and his +subtle combination of his terms into melody and rhythm. The +wonder of the poet's craft is like the musician's,-- + + "That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a + star." + +A building rises before us; we recognize it as a building, and again +easily we infer the purpose which it serves, that it is a temple or a +dwelling. And then the beauty of it, a power to affect us beyond the +mere feet that it is a building, lays hold upon us, an influence +emanating from it which we do not altogether explain to ourselves. +Simply in its presence we feel that we are pleased. The fact, the +material which the artist uses, exists out there in nature. But the +beauty of the building, the majesty and power of the picture, the +charm of the poem,--this is the _art_ of the artist; and he wins his +effects by the way in which he handles his materials, by his +_technique._ Some knowledge of technique, therefore,--not the +artist's knowledge of it, but the ability to read the language of art as +the artist intends it to be read,--is necessary to appreciation. + +The hut which the traveler through a wild country put together to +provide himself shelter against storm and the night was in essence a +work of art. The purpose of his effort was not the hut itself but +shelter, to accomplish which he used the hut as his means. The +emotion of which the work was the expression, in this case the +traveler's consciousness of his need, embodied itself in a concrete +form and made use of material. The hut which he conceived in +response to his need became for him the subject or motive of his +work. For the actual expression of his design he took advantage of +the qualities of his material, its capabilities to combine thus and so; +these inherent qualities were his medium. The material wood and +stone which he employed were the vehicle of his design. The way in +which he handled his vehicle toward the construction of the hut, +availing himself of the qualities and capabilities of his material, +might be called his technique. + +The sight of some landscape wakens in the beholder a vivid and +definite emotion; he is moved by it to some form of expression. If he +is a painter he will express his emotion by means of a picture, which +involves in the making of it certain elements and certain processes. +The picture will present selected facts in the landscape; the +landscape, then, as constructed according to the design the painter +has conceived of it, becomes the motive or subject of his picture. +The particular aspects of the landscape which the picture records are +its color and its form. These qualities of color and form are the +painter's medium. An etching of the scene would use not color but +line to express the artist's emotion in its presence; so line is the +medium of etching. But "qualities" of objects are an abstraction +unless they are embodied in material. In order, therefore, to give his +medium actual embodiment the painter uses pigment, as oil-color or +water-color or tempera, laid upon a surface, as canvas, wood, paper, +plaster; this material pigment is his vehicle. The etcher employs +inked scratches upon his plate of zinc or copper, bitten by acid or +scratched directly by the needle; these marks of ink are the vehicle +of etching. To the way in which the artist uses his medium for +practical expression and to his methods in the actual handling of his +vehicle is applied the term technique. The general conception of his +picture, its total design, the choice of motive, the selection of details, +the main scheme of composition,--these belong to the great strategy +of his art. The application of these principles in practice and their +material working out upon his canvas are an affair of tactics and fall +within the province of technique. + +The ultimate significance of a work of art is its content of emotion, +the essential controlling idea, which inspires the work and gives it +concrete form. In its actual embodiment, the expressive power of the +work resides in the medium. The medium of any art, then, as color +and mass in painting, line in drawing and etching, form in sculpture, +sound in music, is its means of expression and constitutes its +language. Now the signification of language derives from +convention. Line, for example, which may be so sensitive and so +expressive, is only an abstraction and does not exist in nature. What +the draughtsman renders as line is objectively in fact the boundary +of forms. A head, with all its subtleties of color and light and shade, +may be represented by a pencil or charcoal drawing, black upon a +white surface. It is not the head which is black and white, but +the drawing. Our acceptance of the drawing as an adequate +representation of the head rests upon convention. Writing is an +elementary kind of drawing; the letters of the alphabet were +originally pictures or symbols. So to-day written or printed letters +are arbitrary symbols of sounds, and grouped together in arbitrary +combinations they form words, which are symbols of ideas. The +word _sum_ stood to the old Romans for the idea "I am;" to +English-speaking people the word signifies a "total" and also a problem in +arithmetic. A painting of a landscape does not attempt to imitate the +scene; it uses colors and forms as symbols which serve for +expression. The meaning attaching to these symbols derives from +common acceptance and usage, Japanese painting, rendering the +abstract spirit of movement of a wave, for example, rather than the +concrete details of its surface appearance, differs fundamentally +from the painting of the western world; it is none the less pregnant +with meaning for those who know the convention. To understand +language, therefore, we must understand the convention and accept +its terms. The value of language as a means of expression and +communication depends upon the knowledge, common to the user +and to the person addressed, of the signification of its terms. Its +effectiveness is determined by the way in which it is employed, +involving the choice of terms, as the true line for the false or +meaningless one, the right value or note of color out of many that +would almost do, the exact and specific word rather than the vague +and feeble; involving also the combination of terms into articulate +forms. These ways and methods in the use of language are the +concern of technique. Technique, therefore, plays an important part +in the creation and the ultimate fortunes of the artist's work. + +Just here arises a problem for the layman in his approach to art. The +man who says, "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I +like," is a familiar figure in our midst; of such, for the most part, the +"public" of art is constituted. What he really means is, "I don't know +anything about technique, but art interests me. I read books, I go to +concerts and the theatre, I look at pictures; and in a way they have +something for me." If we make this distinction between art and +technique, the matter becomes simplified. The layman does not +himself paint pictures or write books or compose music; his contact +with art is with the purpose of appreciation. Life holds some +meaning for him, as he is engaged in living, and there his chief +interest lies. So art too has a message addressed to him, for art starts +with life and in the end comes back to it. If art is not the expression +of vital feeling, in its turn communicating the feeling to the +appreciator so that he makes it a real part of his experience of life, +then the thing called art is only an exercise in dexterity for the maker +and a pastime for the receiver; it is not art. But art is not quite the +same as life at first hand; it is rather the distillment of it. In order to +render the significance of life as he has perceived and felt it, the +artist selects and modifies his facts; and his work depends for its +expressiveness upon the material form in which the emotion is +embodied. The handling of material to the end of making it +expressive is an affair of technique. The layman may ask himself, +then, To what extent is a knowledge of technique necessary for +appreciation? And how may he win that knowledge? + +On his road to appreciation the layman is beset with difficulties. +Most of the talk about art which he hears is either the translation of +picture or sonata into terms of literary sentiment or it is a discussion +of the way the thing is done. He knows at least that painting is not +the same as literature and that music has its own province; he +recognizes that the meaning of pictures is not literary but pictorial, +the meaning of music is musical. But the emphasis laid upon the +manner of execution confuses and disturbs him. At the outset he +frankly admits that he has no knowledge of technical processes as +such. Yet each art must be read in its own language, and each has its +special technical problems. He realizes that to master the technique +of any single art is a career. And yet there are many arts, all of +which may have some message for him in their own kind. If he must +be able to paint in order to enjoy pictures rightly, if he cannot listen +intelligently at a concert without being able himself to compose or at +least to perform, his case for the appreciation of art seems hopeless. + +If the layman turns to his artist friends for enlightenment and a little +sympathy, it is possible he may encounter a rebuff. Artists +sometimes speak contemptuously of the public. "A painter," they +say, "paints for painters, not for the people; outsiders know nothing +about painting." True, outsiders know nothing about painting, but +perhaps they know a little about life. If art is more than intellectual +subtlety and manual skill, if art is the expression of something the +artist has felt and lived, then the outsider has after all some standard +for his estimate of art and a basis for his enjoyment. He is able to +determine the value of the work to himself according as it expresses +what he already knows about life or reveals to him fuller +possibilities of experience which he can make his own. He does not +pretend to judge painting; but he feels that he has some right to +appreciate art. In reducing all art to a matter of technique artists +themselves are not quite consistent. My friends Jones, a painter, and +Smith, a composer, do not withhold their opinion of this or that +novel and poem and play, and they discourse easily on the +performances of Mr. James and Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Shaw; but I +have no right to talk about the meaning to me of Jones's picture or +Smith's sonata, for my business is with words, and therefore I cannot +have any concern with painting or with music. To be sure, literature +uses as its vehicle the means of communication of daily life, namely, +words. But the _art_ in literature, the interpretation of life which it +gives us, as distinct from mere entertainment, is no more generally +appreciated than the art in painting. A man's technical +accomplishment may be best understood and valued by his +fellow-workmen in the same craft; and often the estimate set by artists on +their own work is referred to the qualities of its technical execution. +As a classic instance, Raphael sent some of his drawings to Albert +Dürer to "show him his hand." So a painter paints for the painters. +But the artist gives back a new fullness and meaning to life and +addresses all who live. That man is fortunate who does not allow his +progress toward appreciation to be impeded by this confusion of +technique with art. + +The emphasis which workers in any art place upon their powers of +execution is for themselves a false valuation of technique, and it +tends to obscure the layman's vision of essentials. Technique is not, +as it would seem, the whole of art, but only a necessary part. A work +of art in its creation involves two elements,--the idea and the +execution. The idea is the emotional content of the work; the +execution is the practical expressing of the idea by means of the +medium and the vehicle. The idea of Millet's "Sower" is the emotion +attending his conception of the laborer rendered in visual terms; the +execution of the picture is exhibited in the composition, the color, +the drawing, and the actual brush-work. So, too, the artist himself is +constituted by two qualifications, which must exist together: first, +the power of the subject over the artist; and second, the artist's +power over his subject. The first of these without the second results +simply in emotion which does not come to expression as art. The +second without the first produces sham art; the semblance of art may +be fashioned by technical skill, but the life which inspires art is +wanting. The artist, then, may be regarded in a dual aspect. He is +first a temperament and a mind, capable of feeling intensely and +able to integrate his emotions into unified coherent form; in this +aspect he is essentially the _artist_. Secondly, for the expression of +his idea he brings to bear on the execution of his work his command +of the medium, his intellectual adroitness and his manual skill; in +this aspect he is the _technician_. Every artist has a special kind of +means with which he works, requiring knowledge and dexterity; but +it may be assumed that in addition to his ability to express himself +he has something to say. We may test a man's merit as a painter by +his ability to paint. As an artist his greatness is to be judged with +reference to the greatness of his ideas; and in his capacity as artist +his technical skill derives its value from the measure in which it is +adequate to their expression. In the case of an accomplished pianist +or violinist we take his proficiency of technique for granted, and we +ask, What, with all this power of expression at his command, has he +to say? In his rendering of the composer's work what has he of his +own to contribute by way of interpretation? Conceding at once to Mr. +Sargent his supreme competence as a painter, his consummate +mastery of all his means, we ask, What has he seen in this man or +this woman before him worthy of the exercise of such skill? In terms +of the personality he is interpreting, what has he to tell us of the +beauty and scope of life and to communicate to us of larger +emotional experience? The worth of technique is determined, not by +its excellence as such, but by its efficiency for expression. + +It is difficult for an outsider to understand why painters, writers, +sculptors, and the rest, who are called artists in distinction from the +ordinary workman, should make so much of their skill. Any man +who works freely and with joy takes pride in his performance. And +instinctively we have a great respect for a good workman. Skill is +not confined to those who are engaged in what is conventionally +regarded as art. Indeed, the distinction implied in favor of "art" is +unjust to the wide range of activities of familiar daily life into which +the true art spirit may enter. A bootblack who polishes his shoes as +well as he can, not merely because he is to be paid for it, though too +he has a right to his pay, but because that is his work, his means of +expression, even he works in the spirit of an artist. Extraordinary +skill is often developed by those who are quite outside the pale of art. +In a circus or music-hall entertainment we may see a man throw +himself from a trapeze swinging high in air, and after executing a +double somersault varied by complex lateral gyrations, catch the +extended arms of his partner, who is hanging by his knees on +another flying bar. Or a man leaning backwards over a chair shoots +at a distance of fifty paces a lump of sugar from between the +foreheads of two devoted assistants. Such skill presupposes +intelligence. Of the years of training and practice, of the sacrifice +and the power of will, that have gone to the accomplishment of this +result, the looker-on can form but little conception. These men are +not considered artists. Yet a painter who uses his picture to exhibit a +skill no more wonderful than theirs would be grieved to be +accounted an acrobat or a juggler. Only such skill as is employed in +the service of expression is to be reckoned with as an element in art; +and in art it is of value not for its own sake but as it serves its +purpose. The true artist subordinates his technique to expression, +justly making it a means and not the end. He cares for the +significance of his idea more than for his sleight of hand; he effaces +his skill for his art. + +A recognition of the skill exhibited in the fashioning of a work of art, +however, if seen in its right relation to the total scope of the work, is +a legitimate source of pleasure. Knowledge of any subject brings its +satisfactions. To understand with discerning insight the workings of +any process, whether it be the operation of natural laws, as in +astronomy or chemistry, whether it be the construction of a +locomotive, the playing of a game of foot-ball, or the painting of a +picture, to see the "wheels go round" and know the how and the +wherefore,--undeniably this is a source of pleasure. In the +understanding of technical processes, too, there is a further occasion +of enjoyment, differing somewhat from the satisfaction which +follows in the train of knowledge. + + "There is a pleasure in poetic pains + Which only poets know," + +says the poet Cowper. There is a pleasure in the sense of difficulties +overcome known only to those who have tried to overcome them. +But such enjoyment--the pleasure which comes with enlightened +recognition and the pleasure of mastery and triumph--derives from +an intellectual exercise and is not to be confounded with the full +appreciation of art. Art, finally, is not the "how" but the "what" in +terms of its emotional significance. Our pleasure in the result, in the +design itself, is not the same as our pleasure in the skill that +produced the work. The design, with the message that it carries, not +the making of it, is the end of art. + +Too great preoccupation with technique conflicts with full +appreciation. To fix the attention upon the manner of expression is +to lose the meaning. A style which attracts notice to itself is in so far +forth bad style, because it defeats its own end, which is expression; +but beyond this, our interest in technical execution is purely +intellectual, whereas art reaches the emotions. At the theatre a critic +sits unmoved; dispassionately he looks upon the personages of the +drama, as they advance, retreat, and countermarch, little by little +yielding up their secret, disclosing all the subtle interplay of human +motives. From the heights of his knowledge the critic surveys the +spectacle; with an insight born of his learning, he penetrates the +mysteries of the playwright's craft. He knows what thought and skill +have gone into this result; he knows the weary hours of toil, the +difficulties of invention and selection, the heroic rejections, the +intricacies of construction, the final triumph. He sees it all from the +point of view of the master-workman, and sympathetically he +applauds his success; his recognition of what has been accomplished +is his pleasure. But all the while he has remained on the outside. Not +for a moment has he become a party to the play. He brings to it +nothing of his own feeling and power of response. There has been +no union of his spirit with the artist's spirit,--that union in which a +work of art achieves its consummation. The man at his side, with no +knowledge or thought of how the effect has been won, surrenders +himself to the illusion. These people on the stage are more intensely +and vividly real to him than in life itself; the artist has distilled the +significance of the situation and communicates it to him as emotion. +The man's reaction is not limited to the exercise of his intellect,--he +gives himself. In the experience which the dramatist conveys to him +beautifully, shaping discords into harmony and disclosing their +meaning for the spirit, he lives. + +A true artist employs his medium as an instrument of expression; +and he values his own technical skill in the handling of it according +to the measure that he is enabled thereby to express himself more +effectively. On the layman's part so much knowledge of technique is +necessary as makes it possible for him to understand the artist's +language and the added expressiveness wrought out of language by +the artist's cunning use of it. And such knowledge is not beyond his +reach. + +In order to understand the meaning of any language we must first +understand the signification of its terms, and then we must know +something of the ways in which they may be combined into +articulate forms of expression. The terms of speech are words; in +order to speak coherently and articulately we must group words into +sentences according to the laws of the tongue to which they belong. +Similarly, every art has its terms, or "parts of speech," and its +grammar, or the ways in which the terms are combined. The terms +of painting are color and form, the terms of music are tones. Colors +and forms are brought together into harmony and balance that by +their juxtaposition they may be made expressive and beautiful. +Tones are woven into a pattern according to principles of harmony, +melody, and rhythm, and they become music. When technique is +turned to such uses, not for the vainglory of a virtuoso, but for the +service of the artist in his earnest work of expression, then it +identifies itself with art. + +A knowledge of the signification of the terms of art the layman may +win for himself by a recognition of the expressive power of all +material and by sensitiveness to it. The beholder will not respond to +the appeal of a painting of a landscape unless he has himself felt +something of the charm or glory of landscape in nature; he will not +quicken and expand to the dignity or force caught in rigid marble +triumphantly made fluent in statue or relief until he has realized for +himself the significance of form and movement which exhales from +every natural object. Gesture is a universal language. The mighty +burden of meaning in Millet's picture of the "Sower" is carried by +the gesture of the laborer as he swings across the background of +field and hill, whose forms also are expressive; here, too, the +elemental dignity of form and movement is reinforced by the +solemnity of the color. Gesture is but one of nature's characters +wherewith she inscribes upon the vivid, shifting surface of the world +her message to the spirit of man. A clue to the understanding of the +terms of art, therefore, is found in the layman's own appreciation of +the emotional value of all objects of sense and their multitudinous +power of utterance,--the sensitive decision of line, the might or +delicacy of form, the splendor and subtlety of color, the magic of +sound, the satisfying virtue of harmony in whatever embodiment, all +the beauty of nature, all the significance of human life. And this +appreciation is to be won largely by the very experience of it. The +more we feel, the greater becomes our power for deeper feeling. +Every emotion to which we thrill is the entrance into larger capacity +of emotion. We may allow for growth and trust to the inevitable +working of its laws. In the appreciation of both life and art the +individual may be his own teacher by experience. + +The qualities of objects with their inherent emotional values +constitute the raw material of art, to be woven by the artist into a +fabric of expressive form and texture. Equipped with a knowledge of +the terms of any art, the layman has yet to understand something of +the ways in which the terms may be combined. Every artist has his +idiom or characteristic style. Rembrandt on the flat surface of his +canvas secures the illusion of form in the round by a system of light +and shade; modeling is indicated by painting the parts in greater +relief in light and the parts in less relief in shadow. Manet renders +the relief of form by a system of "values," or planes of more and less +light. The local color of objects is affected by the amount of light +they receive and the distance an object or part of an object is from +the eye of the spectator. Manet paints with degrees of light, and he +wins his effects, not by contrasts of color, but by subtle modulations +within a given hue. Landscape painters before the middle of the +nineteenth century, working with color in masses, secured a total +harmony by bringing all their colors, mixed upon the palette, into +the same key. The "Luminarists," like Claude Monet, work with +little spots or points of color laid separately upon the canvas; the +fusion of these separate points into the dominant tone is made by the +eye of the beholder. The characteristic effect of a work of art is +determined by the way in which the means are employed. Some +knowledge, therefore, of the artist's aims as indicated in his method +of working is necessary to a full understanding of what he wants to +say. + +In his effort to understand for his own purposes of appreciation what +the artist has accomplished by his technique, the layman may first of +all distinguish between processes and results. A landscape in nature +is beautiful to the beholder because he perceives in it some harmony +of color and form which through the eye appeals to the emotions. +His vision does not transmit every fact in the landscape; +instinctively his eye in its sweep over meadow and trees and hill +selects those details that compose. By this act of _integration_ he is +for himself in so far forth an artist. If he were a painter he would +know what elements in the landscape to put upon his canvas. But he +has no skill in the actual practice of drawing and of handling the +brush, no knowledge of mixing colors and matching tones; he +understands nothing of perspective and "values" and the relations of +light and shade. He knows only what he sees, that the landscape as +he sees it is beautiful; and equally he recognizes as beautiful the +presentment of it upon canvas. He is ignorant of the technical +problems with which the painter in practice has had to contend in +order to reach this result; it is the result only that is of concern to +him in so far as it is or is not what he desires. The painter's color is +significant to him, not because he knows how to mix the color for +himself, but because that color in nature has spoken to him +unutterable things and he has responded to it. The layman cannot +make a sunset and he cannot paint a picture; but he can enjoy both. +So he cares, then, rather for what the painter has done than for how +he has done it, because the processes do not enter into his own +experience. The picture has a meaning for him in the measure that it +expresses what he perceives and feels, and that is the beauty of the +landscape. + +Any knowledge of technical processes which the layman may +happen to possess may be a source of intellectual pleasure. But for +appreciation, only so much understanding of technique is necessary +as enables him to receive the message of a given work in the degree +of expressiveness which the artist by his use of his medium has +attained. A clue to this understanding may come to him by intuition, +by virtue of his own native insight and intelligence. He may gain it +by reading or by instruction. He may go out and win it by intrepid +questioning of those who know; and it is to be hoped that such will +be very patient with him, for after all even a layman has the right to +live. Once started on the path, then, in the mysteries of art as in the +whole complex infinite business of living, he becomes his own tutor +by observation and experience; and he may develop into a fuller +knowledge in obedience to the law of growth. Each partial clue to +understanding brings him a step farther on his road; each new +glimmer of insight beckons him to ultimate illumination. Though +baffled at the outset, yet patient under disappointment, undauntedly +he pushes on in spite of obstacles, until he wins his way at last to +true appreciation. + +If the layman seeks a standard by which to test the value of any +technical method, he finds it in the success of the work itself. Every +method is to be judged in and for itself on its own merits, and not as +better or worse than some other method. Individually we may prefer +Velasquez to Frans Hals; Whistler may minister to our personal +satisfaction in larger measure than Mr. Sargent; we may enjoy Mr. +James better than Stevenson; Richard Strauss may stir us more +deeply than Brahms. We do not affirm thereby that impressionism is +inherently better than realism, or that subtlety is more to be desired +than strength; the psychological novel is not necessarily greater than +romance; because of our preference "programme music" is not +therefore more significant than "absolute music." The greatness of +an artist is established by the greatness of his ideas, adequately +expressed. And the value of any technical method is determined by +its own effectiveness for expression. + +There is, then, no invariable standard external to the work itself by +which to judge technique. For no art is final. A single work is the +manifestation of beauty as the individual artist has conceived or felt +it. The perception of what is beautiful varies from age to age and +with each person. So, too, standards of beauty in art change with +each generation; commonly they are deduced from the practice of +preceding artists. Classicism formulates rules from works that have +come to be recognized as beautiful, and it requires of the artist +conformity to these rules. By this standard, which it regards as +absolute, it tries a new work, and it pretends to adjudge the work +good or bad according as it meets the requirements. Then a Titan +emerges who defies the canons, wrecks the old order, and in his own +way, to the despair or scorn of his contemporaries, creates a work +which the generation that follows comes to see is beautiful. "Every +author," says Wordsworth, "as far as he is great and at the same time +_original,_ has had the task of creating the taste by which he is to be +enjoyed." Wordsworth in his own generation was ridiculed; Millet, +when he ceased painting nudes for art-dealers' windows and +ventured to express himself, faced starvation. Every artist is in some +measure an innovator; for his own age he is a romanticist. But the +romanticist of one age becomes a classic for the next; and his +performance in its turn gives laws to his successors. Richard Strauss, +deriving in some sense from Wagner, makes the older man seem a +classic and conservative. Then a new mind again is raised up, a new +temperament, with new needs; and these shape their own adequate +new expression. "The cleanest expression," says Whitman, "is that +which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one." As all life is +growth, as there are no bounds to the possibilities of human +experience, so the workings of the art-impulse cannot be +compressed within the terms of a hard and narrow definition, and +any abstract formula for beauty is in the very nature of things +foredoomed to failure. No limit can be set to the forms in which +beauty may be made manifest. + +"The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters +of beauty." And Whitman's own verse is a notable example of a new +technique forged in response to a new need of expression. Dealing +as he did with the big basic impulses of common experience +accessible to all men, Whitman needed a largeness and freedom of +expression which he did not find in the accepted and current poetic +forms. To match the limitlessly diversified character of the people, +occupations, and aspirations of "these States," as yet undeveloped +but vital and inclosing the seed of unguessed-at possibilities, to tally +the fluid, indeterminate, outward-reaching spirit of democracy and a +new world, the poet required a medium of corresponding scope and +flexibility, all-inclusive and capable of endless modulation and +variety. Finding none ready to his hand, he created it. Not that +Whitman did not draw for his resources on the great treasury of +world-literature; and he profited by the efforts and achievement of +predecessors. But the form in his hands and as he uses it is new. +Whatever we may think of the success of his total accomplishment, +there are very many passages to which we cannot deny the name of +poetry. Nor did Whitman work without conscious skill and +deliberate regard for technical processes. His note-books and papers +reveal the extreme calculation and pains with which he wrote, +beginning with the collection of synonyms applying to his idea and +mood, and so building them up gradually, with many erasures, +corrections, and substitutions, into the finished poem. Much of the +vigor of his style is due to his escape from conventional literary +phrase-making and his return to the racy idiom of common life. His +verse, apparently inchoate and so different from classical poetic +forms, is shaped with a cunning incredible skill. And more than that, +it is art, in that it is not a bare statement of fact, but communicates to +us the poet's emotion, so that we realize the emotion in ourselves. +When his purpose is considered, it is seen that no other technique +was possible. His achievement proves that a new need creates its +own means of expression. + +What is true of Whitman in respect to his technique is true in greater +or less degree of every artist, working in any form. It is true of +Pheidias, of Giotto and Michelangelo and Rembrandt, of Dante and +Shakespeare, of Beethoven and Wagner, of Monet, of Rodin, in fine, +from the beginnings of art to the day that now is. All have created +out of existing forms of expression their own idiom and way of +working. Every artist owes something to his predecessors, but +language is re-created in the hands of each master and becomes a +new instrument. There can be then no single formula for technical +method nor any fixed and final standard of judgment. + +An artist himself is justified from his own point of view in his +concern with technique, for upon his technique depends his +effectiveness of expression. His practice serves to keep alive the +language and to develop its resources. Art in its concrete +manifestations is an evolution. From Velasquez through Goya to +Manet and Whistler is a line of inheritance. But a true artist +recognizes that technique is only a means. As an artist he is seeking +to body forth in external form the vision within, and he tries to make +his medium "faithful to the coloring of his own spirit." Every artist +works out his characteristic manner; but the progress must be from +within outwards. Toward the shaping of his own style he is helped +by the practice of others, but he is helped and not hindered only in +so far as the manner of others can be made genuinely the expression +of his own feeling. Direct borrowing of a trick of execution and +servile imitation of a style have no place in true art. A painter who +would learn of Velasquez should study the master's technique, not +that in the end he may paint like Velasquez, but that he may +discover just what it was that the master, by means of his individual +style, was endeavoring to express, and so bring to bear on his own +environment here in America to-day the same ability to see and the +same power of sympathetic and imaginative penetration that +Velasquez brought to his environment at the court of seventeenth-century +Spain. The way to paint like Velasquez is to be Velasquez. No man +is a genius by imitation. Every man may seek to be a master +in his own right. Technique does not lead; it follows. Style is the +man. + +From within outwards. Art is the expression of sincere and vital +feeling; the material thing, picture, statue, poem, which the artist +conjures into being is only a means. The moment art is worshiped +for its own sake, that moment decadence begins. "No one," says +Leonardo, "will ever be a great painter who takes as his guide the +paintings of other men." In general the history of art exhibits this +course. In the beginning arises a man of deep and genuine feeling, +the language at whose command, however, has not been developed +to the point where it is able to carry the full burden of his meaning. +Such a man is Giotto; and we have the "burning messages of +prophecy delivered by the stammering lips of infants." In the +generations which supervene, artists with less fervor of spirit but +with growing skill of hand, increased with each inheritance, turn +their efforts to the development of their means. The names of this +period of experiment and research are Masaccio, Uccello, Pollaiuolo, +Verrocchio. At length, when the fullness of time is come, emerges +the master-mind, of original insight and creative power. Heir to the +technical achievements of his predecessors, he is able to give his +transcendent idea its supremely adequate expression. Content is +perfectly matched by form. On this summit stand Michelangelo, +Raphael, Leonardo. Then follow the Carracci, Domenichino, +Guercino, Guido Reni, Carlo Dolci, men who mistake the master's +manner for his meaning. The idea, the vital principle, has spent itself. +The form only is left, and that is elaborated into the exuberance of +decay. Painters find their impulse no longer in nature and life but in +paint. Technique is made an end in itself. And art is dead, to be +reborn in another shape and guise. + +The relation of technique to appreciation in the experience of the +layman begins now to define itself. Technique serves the artist for +efficient expression; an understanding of it is of value to the layman +in so far as the knowledge helps him to read the artist's language and +thus to receive his message. Both for artist and for layman technique +is only a means. Out of his own intelligent and patient experience +the layman can win his way to an understanding of methods; and his +standard of judgment, good enough for his own purposes, is the +degree of expressiveness which the work of art, by virtue of its +qualities of execution, is able to achieve. Skill may be enjoyed +intellectually for its own sake as skill; in itself it is not art. +Technique is most successful when it is least perceived. _Ars celare +artem:_ art reveals life and conceals technique. We must understand +something of technique and then forget it in appreciation. When we +thrill to the splendor and glory of a sunset we are not thinking of the +laws of refraction. Appreciation is not knowledge, but emotion. + + + +IV + +THE VALUE OF THE MEDIUM + +AS I swing through the wide country in the freshness and fullness of +a blossoming, sun-steeped morning in May, breathing the breath of +the fields and the taller by inches for the sweep of the hills and the +reaches of sky above my head, every nerve in my body is alive with +sensation and delight. My joy is in the fragrance of earth, the +ingratiating warmth of the fresh morning, the spacious, inclosing air. +My pleasure in this direct contact with the landscape is a physical +reaction, to be enjoyed only by the actual experience of it; it cannot +be reproduced by any other means; it can be recalled by memory but +faintly and as the echo of sensation. There is, however, something +else in the landscape which can be reproduced; and this recall may +seem more glorious than the original in nature. There are elements +in the scene which a painter can render for me more intensely and +vividly than I perceived them for myself. These elements embody +the value that the landscape has for my emotions. The scene appeals +to something within me which lies beyond my actual physical +contact with it and the mere sense of touch. The harmony that the +eye perceives in these open fields, the gracious line of trees along +the stream's edge, the tossing hills beyond, and the arch of the blue +sky above impregnating the earth with light, is communicated to my +spirit, and I feel that this reach of radiant country is an extension of +my own personality. A painter, by the manipulation of his color and +line and mass, concentrates and intensifies the harmony of it and so +heightens its emotional value. The meaning of the scene for the +spirit is conveyed in terms of color and mass. + +Color and mass are the painter's medium, his language. The final +import of art is the _idea,_ the emotional content of the work. On his +way to the expression of his idea the artist avails himself of material +to give his feeling concrete actuality and visible or audible +realization. He paints a picture, glorious in color and compelling in +the concentration of its massing; he carves a statue, noble in form or +subtly rhythmic; he weaves a pattern of harmonious sounds. He +values objects not for their own sake but for the energies they +possess,--their power to rouse his whole being into heightened +activity. And they have this power by virtue of their material +qualities, as color and form or sound. A landscape is gay in +springtime or sad in autumn. The difference in its effect upon us is +not due to our knowledge that it is spring or autumn and our +consciousness of the associations appropriate to each season. The +emotional quality of the scene is largely a matter of its color. Let the +spring landscape be shrouded in gray mist sifting down out of gray +skies, and we are sad. Let the autumn fields and woodland sparkle +and dance in the crisp golden sunlight, and our blood dances with +them and we want to shout from full lungs. In music the major key +wakens a different emotion from the minor. The note of a violin is +virgin in quality; the voice of the 'cello is the voice of experience. +The distinctive emotional value of each instrument inheres in the +character of its sound. These qualities of objects art uses as its +language. + +Though all art is one in essence, yet each art employs a medium of +its own. In order to understand a work in its scope and true +significance we must recognize that an artist thinks and feels in +terms of his special medium. His impulse to create comes with his +vision, actual or imaginative, of color or form, and his thought is +transmitted to his hand, which shapes the work, without the +intervention of words. The nature of his vehicle and the conditions +in which he works determine in large measure the details of the form +which his idea ultimately assumes. Thus a potter designs his vessel +first with reference to its use and then with regard to his material, its +character and possibilities. As he models his plastic clay upon a +wheel, he naturally makes his bowl or jug round rather than sharply +angular. A pattern for a carpet, to be woven by a system of little +squares into the fabric, will have regard for the conditions in which +it is to be rendered, and it will differ in the character of its lines and +masses from a pattern for a wall-paper, which may be printed from +blocks. The designer in stained glass will try less to make a picture +in the spirit of graphic representation than to produce an harmonious +color-pattern whose outlines will be guided and controlled by the +possibilities of the "leading" of the window. The true artist uses the +conditions and very limitations of his material as his opportunity. +The restraint imposed by the sonnet form is welcomed by the poet as +compelling a collectedness of thought and an intensity of expression +which his idea might not achieve if allowed to flow in freer channels. +The worker in iron has his triumphs; the goldsmith has his. The +limitations of each craft open to it effects which are denied to the +other. There is an art of confectionery and an art of sculpture. The +designer of frostings who has a right feeling for his art will not +emulate the sculptor and strive to model in the grand style; the +sculptor who tries to reproduce imitatively the textures of lace or +other fabrics and who exuberates in filigrees and fussinesses so far +departs from his art as to rival the confectioner. In the degree that a +painter tries to wrench his medium from its right use and function +and attempts to make his picture tell a story, which can better be told +in words, to that extent he is unfaithful to his art. Painting, working +as it does with color and form, should confine itself to the +expression of emotion and idea that can be rendered visible. On the +part of the appreciator, likewise, the emotion expressed in one kind +of medium is not to be translated into any other terms without a +difference. Every kind of material has its special value for +expression. The meaning of pictures, accordingly, is limited +precisely to the expressive power of color and form. The impression +which a picture makes upon the beholder maybe phrased by him in +words, which are his own means of expression; but he suggests the +import of the picture only incompletely. If I describe in words +Millet's painting of the "Sower" according to my understanding of it, +I am telling in my own terms what the picture means to me. What it +meant to Millet, the full and true significance of the situation as the +painter felt it, is there expressed upon his canvas in terms of visible +aspect; and correspondingly, Millet's meaning is fully and truly +received in the measure that we feel in ourselves the emotion roused +by the sight of his color and form. + +The essential content of a work of art, therefore, is modified in its +effect upon us by the kind of medium in which it is presented. If an +idea phrased originally in one medium is translated into the terms of +another, we have _illustration._ Turning the pages of an "illustrated" +novel, we come upon a plate showing a man and a woman against +the background of a divan, a chair, and a tea-table. The man, in a +frock coat, holding a top hat in his left hand, extends his right hand +to the woman, who has just risen from the table. The legend under +the picture reads, "Taking his hat, he said good-by." Here the +illustrator has simply supplied a visible image of what was +suggested in the text; the drawing has no interest beyond helping the +reader to that image. It is a statement of the bare fact in other terms. +In the hands of an artist, however, the translation may take on a +value of its own, changing the original idea, adding to it, and +becoming in itself an independent work of art. This value derives +from the form into which the idea is translated. The frescoes of the +Sistine Chapel are only sublime illustration; but how little of their +power attaches to the subject they illustrate, and how much of their +sublimity lies in the painter's rendering! Conversely, an example of +the literary interpretation of a picture is Walter Pater's description of +Leonardo's Mona Lisa. + +The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is +expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to +desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are +come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out +from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange +thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a +moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful +women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, +into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts +and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that +which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward +form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the +middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the +return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than +the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead +many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a +diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and +trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, +was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of +Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, +and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the +changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The +fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand +experiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the +idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all +modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the +embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea. + +It is Leonardo's conception, yet with a difference. Here the critic has +woven about the subject an exquisite tissue of associations, a whole +wide background of knowledge and thought and feeling which it lay +beyond the painter's range to evoke; but the critic is denied the +vividness, the immediateness and intimate warmth of vital contact, +which the painter was able to achieve. The Lisa whom Leonardo +shows us and the Lisa whom Pater interprets for us are the same in +essence yet different in their power to affect us. The difference +resulting from the kind of medium employed is well exemplified by +Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." The fundamental concept of both +poem and picture is identical, but picture and poem have each its +distinctive range and limitations and its own peculiar appeal. If we +cancel the common element in the two, the difference remaining +makes it possible for us to realize how much of the effect of a work +of art inheres in the medium itself. Painting may be an aid to +literature in that it helps us to more vivid images; the literary +interpretation of pictures or music gives to the works with which it +deals an intellectual definiteness. But the functions peculiar to each +art are not to be confounded nor the distinctions obscured. + +Pictures are not a substitute for literature, and their true meaning is +finally not to be translated into words. Their beauty is a visible +beauty; the emotions they rouse are such as can be conveyed +through the sense of sight. In the end they carry their message +sufficingly as color and mass. Midway, however, our enjoyment +may be complicated by other elements which have their place in our +total appreciation. Thus a painting of a landscape may appeal to us +over and above its inherent beauty because we are already, out of +actual experience, familiar with the scene it represents, and the sight +of it wakens in our memory a train of pleasant allied associations. A +ruined tower, in itself an exquisite composition in color and line and +mass, may gather about it suggestions of romance, elemental +passions and wild life, and may epitomize for the beholder the +whole Middle Age. Associated interest, therefore, may be +sentimental or intellectual. It may be sensuous also, appealing to +other senses than those of sight. The sense of touch plays a large +part in our enjoyment of the world. We like the "feel" of objects, the +catch of raw silk, the chill smoothness of burnished brass, the thick +softness of mists, the "amorous wet" of green depths of sea. The +senses of taste and smell may be excited imaginatively and +contribute to our pleasure. Winslow Homer's breakers bring back to +us the salt fragrance of the ocean, and in the presence of these white +mad surges we feel the stinging spray in our faces and we taste the +cosmic exhilaration of the sea-wind. But the final meaning of a +picture resides in the total harmony of color and form, a harmony +into which we can project our whole personality and which itself +constitutes the emotional experience. + +All language in its material aspect has a sensuous value, as the +wealth of color of Venetian painting, the sumptuousness of +Renaissance architecture, the melody of Mr. Swinburne's verse, the +gem-like brilliance of Stevenson's prose, the all-inclusive +sensuousness, touched with sensuality, of Wagner's music-dramas. +Because of the charm of beautiful language there are many +art-lovers who regard the sensuous qualities of the work itself as +making up the entire experience. Apart from any consideration of +intention or expressiveness, the material _thing_ which the artist's +touch summons into form is held to be "its own excuse for being." + +This order of enjoyment, valid as far as it goes, falls short of +complete appreciation. It does not pass the delight one has in the +radiance of gems or the glowing tincture of some fabric. The +element of meaning does not enter in. There is a beauty for the eye +and a beauty for the mind. The qualities of material may give +pleasure to the senses; the object embodying these qualities becomes +beautiful only as it is endowed with a significance wakened in the +human spirit. A landscape, says Walter Crane, "owes a great part of +its beauty to the harmonious relation of its leading lines, or to certain +pleasant contrasts, or a certain impressiveness of form and mass, and +at the same time we shall perceive that this linear expression is +inseparable from the sentiment or emotion suggested by that +particular scene." In the appreciation of art, to stop with the +sensuous appeal of the medium is to mistake means for an end. +"Rhyme," says the author of "Intentions," "in the hands of a real +artist becomes not merely a material element of metrical beauty, but +a spiritual element of thought and passion also." An artist's color, +glorious or tender, is only a symbol and manifestation to sense of his +emotion. At first glance Titian's portrait of the "Man with the Glove" +is an ineffable color-harmony. But truly seen it is infinitely more. By +means of color and formal design Titian has embodied here his +vision of superb young manhood; by the expressive power of his +material symbols he has rendered visible his sense of dignity, of +fineness, of strength in reserve. The color is beautiful because his +idea was beautiful. Through the character of this young man as +revealed and interpreted by the artist, the beholder is brought into +contact with a vital personality, whose influence is communicated to +him; in the appreciation of Titian's message he sees and feels and +lives. + +The value of the medium resided not in the material itself but in its +power for expression. When language is elaborated at the expense of +the meaning, we have in so far forth sham art. It should be easy to +distinguish in art between what is vital and what is mechanical. The +mechanical is the product of mere execution and calls attention to +the manner. The vital is born out of inspiration, and the living idea +transmutes its material into emotion. Too great an effort at +realization defeats the intended illusion, for we think only of the +skill exercised to effect the result, and the operation of the intellect +inhibits feeling. In the greatest art the medium is least perceived, and +the beholder stands immediately in the presence of the artist's idea. +The material is necessarily fixed and finite; the idea struggles to free +itself from its medium and untrammeled to reach the spirit. It is +mind speaking to mind. However complete the material expression +may seem, it is only a part of what the artist would say; imagination +transcends the actual. In the art which goes deepest into life, the +medium is necessarily inadequate. The artist fashions his work in a +sublime despair as he feels how little of the mighty meaning within +him he is able to convey. In the greatest works rightly seen the +medium becomes transparent. Within the Sistine Chapel the visitor, +when once he has yielded to the illusion, is not conscious of plaster +surface and pigment; indeed, he hardly sees color and design as such +at all; through them he looks into the immensity of heaven, peopled +with gods and godlike men. Consummate acting is that which makes +the spectator forget that it is acting. The part and the player become +one. The actor, in himself and in the words he utters, is the +unregarded vehicle of the dramatist's idea. In a play like Ibsen's +"Ghosts," the stage, the actors, the dialogue merge and fall away, +and the overwhelming meaning stands revealed in its complete +intensity. As the play opens, it cuts out a segment from the chaos of +human life; step by step it excludes all that is unessential, stroke by +stroke with an inevitableness that is crushing, it converges to the +great one-thing that the dramatist wanted to say, until at the end the +spectator, conscious no longer of the medium but only of the idea +and all-resolving emotion, bows down before its overmastering +force with the cry, "What a _mind_ is there!" + +In the art which most completely achieves expression the medium is +not perceived as distinct from the emotion of which the medium is +the embodiment. In order to render expressive the material +employed in its service, art seeks constantly to identify means and +end, to make the form one with the content. The wayfarer out of his +need of shelter built a hut, using the material which chance gave into +his hand and shaping his design according to his resources; the +purpose of his work was not the hut itself but shelter. So the artist in +any form is impelled to creation by his need of expression; the thing +which he creates is not the purpose and end of his effort, but only +the means. Each art has its special medium, and each medium has its +peculiar sensuous charm and its own kind of expressiveness. This +power of sensuous delight is incidental to the real beauty of the +work; and that beauty is the message the work is framed to convey +to the spirit. In the individual work, the inspiring and shaping idea +seeks so to fuse its material that we feel the idea could not have been +phrased in any other way as we surrender to its ultimate appeal,--the +sum of the emotional content which gave it birth and in which it +reaches its fulfillment. + + + +V + +THE BACKGROUND OF ART + +SCENE: The main hall of the Accademia in Venice. + +Time: Noon of a July day. + +Dramatis personae: A guide; two drab-colored and tired men; a +group of women, of various ages, equipped with red-covered little +volumes, and severally expressive of great earnestness, wide-eyed +rapture, and giggles. + +_The guide, in strident, accentless tones:_ Last work of Titian. +Ninety-nine years old. He died of smallpox. + +_A woman:_ Is that it? + +_A high voice on the outskirts:_ I'm going to get one for forty +dollars. + +_Another voice:_ Well, I'm not going to pay more than fifty for +mine. + +_A straggler:_ Eliza, look at those people. Oh, you missed it! +_(Stopping suddenly?)_ My, isn't that lovely! + +_Chorus:_ Yes, that's Paris Bordone. Which one is that? He has +magnificent color. + +_The guide:_ The thing you want to look at is the five figures in +front. + +_A voice:_ Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. + +_A man:_ Foreshortened; well, I should say so! But I say, you can't +remember all these pictures. + +_The other man:_ Let's get out of this! + +_The guide, indicating a picture of the Grand Canal:_ This one has +been restored. + +_A girl's voice:_ Why, that's the house where we are staying! + +_The guide:_ The next picture . . . + +The squad shuffles out of range. + +This little comedy, enacted in fact and here faithfully reported, is not +without its pathos. These people are "studying art." They really want +to understand, and if possible, to enjoy. They have visited galleries +and seen many pictures, and they will visit other galleries and see +many more pictures before their return home. They have read +guide-books, noting the stars and double stars; they have dipped into +histories of art and volumes of criticism. They have been told to +observe the dramatic force of Giotto, the line of Botticelli, the +perfect composition of Raphael, the color of Titian; all this they +have done punctiliously. They know in a vague way that Giotto was +much earlier than Raphael, that Botticelli was rather pagan than +Christian, that Titian belonged to the Venetian school. They have +come to the fountain head of art, the very works themselves as +gathered in the galleries; they have tried to remember what they +have read and to do what they have been told; and now they are left +still perplexed and unsatisfied. + +The difficulty is that these earnest seekers after knowledge of art +have laid hold on partial truths, but they have failed to see these +partial truths in their right relation to the whole. The period in which +an artist lived means something. His way of thinking and feeling +means something. The quality of his color means something. But +what does his _picture_ mean? These people have not quite found +the key by which to piece the fragments of the puzzle into the +complete design. They miss the central fact with regard to art; and as +a consequence, the ways of approach to the full enjoyment of art, +instead of bringing them nearer the centre, become for them a +network of by-paths in which they enmesh themselves, and they are +left to wander helplessly up and down and about in the blind-alleys +of the labyrinth. The central fact with regard to art is this, that a +work of art is the expression of some part of the artist's experience +of life, his vision of some aspect of the world. For the appreciator, +the work takes on a meaning as it becomes for him in his turn the +expression of his own actual or possible experience and thus relates +itself by the subtle links of feeling to his own life. This is the central +fact; but there are side issues. Any single work of art is in itself +necessarily finite. Because of limitations in both the artist and the +appreciator the work cannot express immediately and completely of +itself all that the author wished to convey; it can present but a single +facet of his many-sided radiating personality. What is actually said +may be reinforced by some understanding on the beholder's part of +what was intended. In order to win its fullest message, therefore, the +appreciator must set the work against the large background out of +which it has proceeded. + +A visitor in the _Salon Carré_ of the Louvre notes that there are +arrayed before him pictures by Jan van Eyck and Memling, Raphael +and Leonardo, Giorgione and Titian, Rembrandt and Metsu, Rubens +and Van Dyck, Fouquet and Poussin, Velasquez and Murillo. Each +one bears the distinctive impress of its creator. How different some +of them, one from another,--the Virgin of Van Eyck from the +Virgin of Raphael, Rembrandt's "Pilgrimsat Emmaus" from the +"Entombment" by Titian. Yet between others there are common +elements of likeness. Raphael and Titian are distinguished by an +opulence of form and a luxuriance of color which reveal supreme +technical accomplishment in a fertile land under light-impregnated +skies. The rigidity and restraint of Van Eyck and Memling suggest +the tentative early efforts of the art of a sober northern race. To a +thoughtful student of these pictures sooner or later the question +comes, Whence are these likenesses and these differences? + +Hitherto I have referred to the creative mind and executive hand as +generically _the artist._ I have thought of him as a type, +representative of all the great class of those who feel and express, +and who by means of their expression communicate their feeling. +Similarly I have spoken of _the work of art,_ as though it were +complete in itself and isolated, sprung full-formed and panoplied +from the brain of its creator, able to win its way and consummate its +destiny alone. The type is conceived intellectually; in actual life the +type resolves itself into individuals. So there are individual artists, +each with his own distinctive gifts and ideals, each with his own +separate experience of life, with his personal and special vision of +the world, and his characteristic manner of expression. Similarly, a +single work of art is not an isolated phenomenon; it is only a part of +the artist's total performance, and to these other works it must be +referred. The kind of work an artist sets himself to do is determined +to some extent by the period into which he was born and the country +in which he lived. The artist himself, heir to the achievements of his +predecessors, is a development, and his work is the product of an +evolution. A work of art, therefore, to be judged aright and truly +appreciated, must be seen in its relation to its background, from +which it detaches itself at the moment of consideration,--the +background of the artist's personality and accomplishment and of the +national life and ideals of his time. + +If the layman's interest in art is more than the casual touch-and-go of +a picture here, a concert there, and an entertaining book of an +evening, he is confronted with the important matter of the study of +art as it manifests itself through the ages and in diverse lands. It is +not a question of practicing an art himself, for technical skill lies +outside his province. The study of art in the sense proposed has to +do with the consideration of an individual work in its relation to all +the factors that have entered into its production. The work of an +artist is profoundly influenced by the national ideals and way of life +of his race and of his age. The art of Catholic Italy is ecclesiastical; +the art of the Protestant North is domestic and individual. The actual +form an artist's work assumes is modified by the resources at his +disposal,--resources both of material and of technical methods. +Raphael may have no more to say than Giotto had, but he is able to +express himself in a fuller and more finished way, because in his +time the language of painting had become richer and more varied +and the rhetoric of it had been carried to a farther point of +development. Finally, as all art is in essence the expression of +personality, a single work is to be understood in its widest intention +and scope by reference to the total personality of the individual artist +as manifested in his work collectively, and to be interpreted by the +appreciator through his knowledge of the artist's experience of life. + +In order to wrest its fullest expressiveness from a work of art it is +necessary as far as possible to regard the work from the artist's own +point of view. We must try to see with his eyes and to feel with him +what he was working for. To this end we must reconstruct +imaginatively on a basis of the facts the conditions in which he lived +and wrought. The difference between Giotto and Raphael is a +difference not of individuality only. Each gives expression to the +ideals and ways of thought of his age. Each is a creative mind, but +each bases his performance upon what has gone before, and the +form of their work is conditioned by the resources each had at his +disposal. To discover the artist's purpose more completely than he +was able to realize it for himself in the single work,--that is the aim +and function of the historical study of art. A brief review of the +achievement of Giotto and of Raphael may serve to illustrate +concretely the application of the principle and to fix its value to +appreciation. + +In the period of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire art passed +from Rome to Byzantium. The arts of sculpture and painting were +employed in the service of the Church, imposing by its magnificence +and all-powerful in its domination over the lives and minds of men. +The function of art was to teach; its character was symbolic and +decorative. Art had no separate and independent existence. It had no +direct reference to nature; the pictorial representation of individual +traits was quite outside its scope; a few signs fixed by convention +sufficed. A fish--derived from the acrostic _ichtbus--_symbolized +the Saviour; a cross was the visible token of redeeming grace. And +so through several hundred years. The twelfth century saw the +beginnings of a change in the direction of spiritual and intellectual +emancipation. The teachings and example of Francis of Assisi +brought men to the consciousness of themselves and to a realization +of the worth and significance of the individual life. The work of +Giotto is the expression in art of the new spirit. + +Of necessity Giotto founded his work upon the accepted forms of +the Byzantine tradition. But Giotto was a man of genius and a +creative mind. In the expression of his fresh impulse and vital +feeling, the assertion of new-found individuality, he tried to +_realize_ as convincingly and vividly as possible the situation with +which he was dealing; and with this purpose he looked not back +upon art but out upon nature. Where the Byzantine convention had +presented but a sign and remote indication of form by means of flat +color, Giotto endows his figures with life and movement and +actuality by giving them a body in three dimensions; his forms exist +in the round. Until his day, light and shade had not been employed; +and such perspective as he was able to achieve he had to discover +for himself. For the first time in Christian painting a figure has +bodily existence. Giotto gives the first evidence, too, of a sense of +the beauty of color, and of the value of movement as a means of +added expressiveness. His power of composition shows an immense +advance on his predecessors. In dealing with traditional subjects, as +the Madonna and child, he follows in general the traditional +arrangement. But in those subjects where his own inventiveness is +given free play, as in the series of frescoes illustrating the life of St. +Francis, he reveals an extraordinary faculty of design and a dramatic +sense which is matched by a directness and clarity of expression. + +Not only in the technique of his craft was Giotto an innovator, but +also in the direction of naturalness and reality of feeling. He was the +first to introduce portraits into his work. His Madonnas and saints +are no longer mere types; they are human and individual, vividly felt +and characterized by immediate and present actuality. Giotto was +the first realist, but he was a poet too. His insight into life is +tempered by a deep sincerity and piety; his work is genuinely and +powerfully felt. As a man Giotto was reverent and earnest, joyous +and beautifully sane. As a painter, by force of the freshness of his +impulse and the clarity of his vision, he created a new manner of +expression. As an artist he reveals a true power of imaginative +interpretation. The casual spectator of to-day finds him naive and +quaint. In the eyes of his contemporaries he was anything but that; +they regarded him as a marvel of reality, surpassing nature itself. +When judged with reference to the conditions of life in which he +worked and to the technical resources at his command, Giotto is +seen to be of a very high order of creative mind. + +The year 1300 divides the life of Giotto into two nearly equal parts; +the year 1500 similarly divides the life of Raphael. In the two +centuries that intervene, the great age of Italian painting, initiated by +Giotto, reaches its flower and perfection in Michelangelo, Leonardo, +and Raphael. The years which followed the passing of these +greatnesses were the years of decadence and eclipse. If we are to +understand and justly appreciate the work of each man in its own +kind, the painting of Giotto must be tried by other standards than +those we apply to the judgment of Raphael. Giotto was a pioneer; +Raphael is a consummation. The two centuries between were a +period of development and change, a development in all that regards +technique, a change in national ideals and in the artist's attitude +toward life and toward his art. A quick survey of the period, if so +hasty a generalization permits correctness of statement, will help us +in the understanding of the craft and art of Raphael. + +Giotto was succeeded by a host of lesser men, regarded as his +followers, men who sought to apply the principles and methods of +painting worked out by the master, but who lacked his inspiration +and his power. Thus it was for nearly a hundred years. The turn of +the fourteenth century into the fifteenth saw the emergence of new +forces in the science and the mechanics of painting. The laws of +perspective and foreshortening were made the object of special +research and practice by men like Uccello (1397-1475), Piero dei +Franceschi (1416-1492), and Mantegna (1431-1506). "Oh, what a +beautiful thing this perspective is!" Uccello exclaimed, as he stood +at his desk between midnight and dawn while his wife begged him +to take some rest. In the first thirty years of the fifteenth century, +Masaccio contributed to the knowledge of anatomy by his painting +of the nude form; and the study of the nude was continued by +Pollaiuolo and Luca Signorelli, in the second half of the century. +Masaccio, also, was the first to place his figures in _air,_ enveloping +them in atmosphere. Verrocchio, a generation later than Masaccio, +was one of the first of the Florentines to understand landscape and +the part played in it by air and light. The realistic spirit, which +suffices itself with subjects drawn from every-day actual experience, +finds expression in the first half of the fifteenth century in the work +of Andrea del Castagno. And so down through that century of spring +and summer. Each painter in his own way carries some detail of his +craft to a further point of development and prepares the path for the +supreme triumphs of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. + +The growing mastery of the principles and technique of painting +accompanied a change in the painter's attitude toward his art. +Originally, painting, applied in subjection to architecture and +employed in the service of the Church, was decorative in scope; its +purpose was illustration, its function was to teach. As painters, from +generation to generation, went deeper into the secrets of their craft, +they became less interested in the didactic import of their work, and +they concerned themselves more and more with its purely artistic +significance. Religious subjects were no longer used merely as +symbols for the expression of piety and as incitements to devotion; +they became inherently artistic motives, valued as they furnished the +artist an opportunity for the exercise of his knowledge and skill and +for the exhibition of lovely color and significant form. A change in +the mechanical methods of painting, also, had its influence on a +change in the conception of the function of art. With a very few +exceptions, the works of Giotto were executed in fresco as wall +decorations. The principles of mural painting require that the +composition shall be subordinated to the architectural conditions of +the space it is to fill and that the color shall be kept flat. The fresco +method meets these requirements admirably, but because of its +flatness it has its limitations. The introduction of an oil vehicle for +the pigment material, in the fifteenth century, made possible a much +greater range in gradated color, and reinforcing the increased +knowledge of light and shade, aided in the evolution of decoration +into the "easel picture," complete in itself. Released from its +subjection to architecture, increasing its technical resources, and +widening its interests in the matter of subject so as to include all life, +painting becomes an independent and self-sufficing art. + +Coincident with the development of painting as a craft, a mighty +change was working itself out in the national ideals and in men's +ways of thought and feeling. Already in Giotto's time the spirit of +individualism had begun to assert itself in reaction from the +dominance of an all-powerful restrictive ecclesiasticism, but the age +was still essentially pietistic and according to its lights, religious. +The fifteenth century witnessed the emancipation from tradition. +The new humanism, which took its rise with the rediscovery of +Greek culture, extended the intellectual horizon and intensified the +enthusiasm for beauty. Men's interest in life was no longer narrowly +religious, but human; their art became the expression of the new +spirit. Early Christianity had been ascetic, enjoining negation of life +and the mortification of the flesh. The men of the Renaissance, with +something of the feeling of the elder Greeks, glorified the body and +delighted in the pride of life. Pagan myths and Greek legends take +their place alongside of Bible episodes and stories of saints and +martyrs, as subjects of representation; all served equally as motives +for the expression of the artist's sense of the beauty of this world. + +To this new culture and to these two centuries of growth and +accomplishment in the practice of painting Raphael was heir. With a +knowledge of the background out of which he emerges, we are +prepared now to understand and appreciate his individual +achievement. In approaching the study of his work we may ask, +What is in general his ideal, his dominant motive, and in what +manner and by what means has he realized his ideal? + +How much was already prepared for him, what does he owe to the +age and the conditions in which he worked, and what to the common +store has he added that is peculiarly his own? + +Whereas Giotto, the shepherd boy, was a pioneer, almost solitary, by +sheer force of mind and by his sincerity and intensity of feeling +breaking new paths to expression, for Raphael, on the contrary, the +son of a painter and poet, the fellow-worker and well-beloved friend +of many of the most powerful artistic personalities of his own or any +age, the way was already prepared along which he moved in +triumphant progress. The life of Raphael as an artist extends through +three well-defined periods, the Umbrian, the Florentine, and the +Roman, each one of which contributed a distinctive influence upon +his development and witnessed a special and characteristic +achievement. + +To his father, who died when the boy was eleven years old, Raphael +owed his poetic nature, scholarly tastes, and love of beauty, though +he probably received from him no training as a painter. His first +master was Timoteo Viti of Urbino, a pupil of Francia; from him he +learned drawing and acquired a "certain predilection for round and +opulent forms which is in itself the negation of the ascetic ideal." At +the age of seventeen he went from Urbino to Perugia; there he +entered the workshop of Perugino as an assistant. The ideal of the +Umbrian school was tenderness and sweetness, the outward and +visible rapture of pietistic feeling; something of these qualities +Raphael expressed in his Madonnas throughout his career. Under the +teaching of Perugino he laid hold on the principles of "space +composition" which he was afterwards to carry to supreme +perfection. + +From Perugia the young Raphael made his way to Florence, and +here he underwent many influences. At that moment Florence was +the capital city of Italian culture. It was here that the new humanism +had come to finest flower. Scholarship was the fashion; art was the +chief interest of this beauty-loving people. It was the Florentines +who had carried the scientific principles of painting to their highest +point of development, particularly in their application to the +rendering of the human figure. In Florence were collected the art +treasures of the splendid century; here Michelangelo and Leonardo +were at work; here were gathered companies of lesser men. By the +study of Masaccio Raphael was led out to a fresh contact with nature. +Fra Bartolomeo revealed to him further possibilities of composition +and taught him some of the secrets of color. In Florence, too, he +acknowledged the spell of Michelangelo and Leonardo. But though +he learned from many teachers, Raphael was never merely an +imitator. His scholarship and his skill he turned to his own uses; and +when we have traced the sources of his motives and the influences +in the moulding of his manner, there emerges out of the fusion a +creative new force, which is his genius. What remains after our +analysis is the essential Raphael. + +Raphael's residence in Florence is the period of his Madonnas. From +Florence Raphael, twenty-five years old and now a master in his +own right, was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II; and here he +placed his talents and his mastership at the disposal of the Church. +He found time to paint Madonnas and a series of powerful and +lovely portraits; but these years in Rome, which brought his brief +life to a close, are preeminently the period of the great frescoes, +which are his supreme achievement. But even in these mature years, +and though he was himself the founder of a school, he did not cease +to learn. Michelangelo was already in Rome, and now Raphael came +more immediately under his influence, although not to submit to it +but to use it for his own ends. In Rome were revealed to him the +culture of an older and riper civilization and the glories and +perfectness of an elder art. Raphael laid antiquity under contribution +to the consummation of his art and the fulfillment and complete +realization of his genius. + +This analysis of the elements and influences of Raphael's career as +an artist--inadequate as it necessarily is--may help us to define his +distinctive accomplishment. A comparison of his work with that of +his predecessors and contemporaries serves to disengage his +essential significance. By nature he was generous and tender; the +bent of his mind was scholarly; and he was impelled by a passion for +restrained and formal beauty. Chiefly characteristic of his mental +make-up was his power of assimilation, which allowed him to +respond to many and diverse influences and in the end to dominate +and use them. He gathered up in himself the achievements of two +centuries of experiment and progress, and fusing the various +elements, he created by force of his genius a new result and stamped +it with the seal perfection. Giotto, to whom religion was a reality, +was deeply in earnest about his message, and he phrased it as best he +could with the means at his command; his end was expression. +Raphael, under the patronage of wealthy dilettanti and in the service +of a worldly and splendor-loving Church, delighted in his +knowledge and his skill; he worshiped art, and his end was beauty. +The genius of Giotto is a first shoot, vigorous and alive, breaking +ground hardily, and tentatively pushing into freer air. The genius of +Raphael is the full-blown flower and final fruit, complete, mature. +The step beyond is decay. + +By reference to Giotto and to Raphael I have tried to illustrate the +practical application of certain principles of art study. A work of art +is not absolute; both its content and its form are determined by the +conditions out of which it proceeds. All judgment, therefore, must +be comparative, and a work of art must be considered in its relation +to its background and its conventions. Art is an interpretation of +some aspect of life as the artist has felt it; and the artist is a child of +his time. It is not an accident that Raphael portrayed Madonnas, +serene and glorified, and Millet pictured rude peasants bent with toil. +Raphael's painting is the culmination of two centuries of eager +striving after the adequate expression of religious sentiment; in +Millet's work the realism of his age is transfigured. As showing +further how national ideals and interests may influence individual +production, we may note that the characteristic art of the Italian +Renaissance is painting; and Italian sculpture of the period is +pictorial rather than plastic in motive and handling. Ghiberti's doors +of the Florence Baptistery, in the grouping of figures and the three +and four planes in perspective of the backgrounds, are essentially +pictures in bronze. Conversely, in the North the characteristic art of +the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is carving and sculpture; and +"the early painters represented in their pictures what they were +familiar with in wood and stone; so that not only are the figures dry +and hard, but in the groups they are packed one behind another, +heads above heads, without really occupying space, in imitation of +the method adopted in the carved relief." Some knowledge of the +origin and development of a given form of technique, a knowledge +to be reached through historical study, enables us to measure the +degree of expressiveness of a given work. The ideas of a child may +be very well worth listening to, though his range of words is limited +and his sentences are crude and halting, A grown man, having +acquired the trick of language, may talk fluently and say nothing. In +our endeavor to understand a work of art, a poem by Chaucer or by +Tennyson, a picture by Greco or by Manet, a prelude by Bach or a +symphony by Brahms, we may ask, Of that which the artist wanted +to say, how much could he say with the means at his disposal? With +a sense of the artist's larger motive, whether religious sentiment, or a +love of sheer beauty of color and form, or insight into human +character, we are aided by a study of the history of technique to +determine how far the artist with the language at his command was +able to realize his intention. + +But not only is art inspired and directed by the time-spirit of its age. +A single work is the expression for the artist who creates it of his +ideal. An artist's ideal, what he sets himself to accomplish, is the +projection of his personality, and that is determined by many +influences. He is first of all a child of his race and time; inheritance +and training shape him to these larger conditions. Then his ideal is +modified by his special individuality. A study of the artist's character +as revealed in his biography leads to a fuller understanding of the +intention and scope of his work. The events of his life become +significant as they are seen to be the causes or the results of his total +personality, that which he was in mind and temperament. What were +the circumstances that moulded his character and decided his course? +What events did he shape to his own purpose by the active force of +his genius? What was the special angle of vision from which he +looked upon the world? The answers to these questions are the clue +to the full drift of his work. As style is the expression of the man, so +conversely a knowledge of the man is an entrance into the wider and +subtler implications of his style. We explore the personality of the +man in order more amply to interpret his art, and we turn to his art +as the revelation of his personality. In studying an artist we must +look for his _tendency_ and seek the unifying principle which binds +his separate works into a whole. An artist has his successive periods +or "manners." There is the period of apprenticeship, when the young +man is influenced by his predecessors and his masters. Then he +comes into his own, and he registers nature and life as he sees it +freshly for himself. Finally, as he has mastered his art and won some +of the secrets of nature, and as his own character develops, he tends +more and more to impose his subjective vision upon the world, and +he subordinates nature to the expression of his distinctive +individuality. A single work, therefore, is to be considered in +relation to its place in the artist's development; it is but a part, and it +is to be interpreted by reference to the whole. + +In the study of biography, however, the man must not be mistaken +for the artist; his acts are not to be confounded with his message. "A +man is the spirit he worked in; not what he did, but what he +became." We must summon forth the spirit of the man from within +the wrappages of material and accident. In our preoccupation with +the external details of a man's familiar and daily life it is easy to lose +sight of his spiritual experience, which only is of significance. +Whistler, vain, aggressive, quarrelsome, and yet so exquisite and so +subtle in extreme refinement, is a notable example of a great spirit +and a little man. Wagner wrote to Liszt: "As I have never felt the +real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of +my dreams, in which from beginning to end that love shall be +thoroughly satiated." Not the Wagner of fact, but the Wagner of +dreams. Life lived in the spirit and imagination may be different +from the life of daily act. So we should transcend the material, +trying through that to penetrate to the spiritual. It is not a visit to the +artist's birthplace that signifies, it is not to do reverence before his +likeness or cherish a bit of his handwriting. All this may have a +value to the disciple as a matter of loyalty and fine piety. But in the +end we must go beyond these externals that we may enter +intelligently and sympathetically into the temper of his mind and +mood and there find disclosed what he thought and felt and was able +only in part to express. It is not the man his neighbors knew that is +important. His work is the essential thing, what that work has to tell +us about life in terms of emotional experience. + +Studies in the history of art and in biography are avenues of +approach to the understanding of a work of art; they do not in +themselves constitute appreciation. Historical importance must not +be mistaken for artistic significance. In reading about pictures we +may forget to look at them. The historical study of art in its various +divisions reduces itself to an exercise in analysis, resolving a given +work into its elements. But art is a synthesis. In order to appreciate a +work the elements must be gathered together and fused into a whole. +A statue or a picture is meant not to be read about, but to be looked +at; and its final message must be received through vision. Our +knowledge will serve us little if we are not sensitive to the appeal of +color and form. There is danger that preoccupation with the history +of art may betray us if we are not careful to keep it in its place. The +study of art should follow and not lead appreciation. We are apt to +see what we are looking for. So we ought to come to each work +freshly without prejudice or bias; it is only afterwards that we should +bring to bear on it our knowledge about the facts of its production. +Connoisseurship is a science and may hold within itself no element +of aesthetic enjoyment. Appreciation is an art, and the quality of it +depends upon the appreciator himself. The end of historical study is +not a knowledge of facts for their own sake, but through those facts +a deeper penetration and fuller true enjoyment. By the aid of such +knowledge we are enabled to recognize in any work more certainly +and abundantly the expression of an emotional experience which +relates itself to our own life. + +The final meaning of art to the appreciator lies in just this sense of +its relation to his own experience. The greatest works are those +which express reality and life, not limited and temporary conditions, +but life universal and for all time. Without commentary these carry +their message, appealing to the wisest and the humblest. Gather into +a single room a fragment of the Parthenon frieze, Michelangelo's +"Day and Night," Botticelli's "Spring," the sprites and children of +Donatello and Delia Robbia, Velasquez's "Pope Innocent," +Rembrandt's "Cloth-weavers," Frans Hals' "Musician," Millet's +"Sower," Whistler's "Carlyle." There is here no thought of period or +of school. These living, present, eternal verities are all one company. + + + +VI + +THE SERVICE OF CRITICISM + +THE greatest art is universal. It transcends the merely local +conditions in which it is produced. It sweeps beyond the individual +personality of its creator, and links itself with the common +experience of all men. The Parthenon, so far as it can be +reconstructed in imagination, appeals to a man of any race or any +period, whatever his habit of mind or degree of culture, as a perfect +utterance. The narrow vault of the Sistine Chapel opens into +immensity, and every one who looks upon it is lifted out of himself +into new worlds. Shakespeare's plays were enjoyed by the +apprentices in the pit and royalty in the boxes, and so all the way +between. The man Shakespeare, of such and such birth and training, +and of this or that experience in life, is entirely merged in his +creations; he becomes the impersonal channel of expression of the +profoundest, widest interpretation of life the world has known. Such +art as this comes closest to the earth and extends farthest into +infinity, "beyond the reaches of our souls." + +But there is another order of art, more immediately the product of +local conditions, the personal expression of a distinctive +individuality, phrased in a language of less scope and currency, and +limited as to its content in the range of its appeal. These lesser works +have their place; they can minister to us in some moment of need +and at some point in our development. Because of their limitations, +however, their effectiveness can be furthered by interpretation. A +man more sensitive than we to the special kind of beauty which they +embody and better versed in their language, can discover to us a +significance and a charm in them to which we have not penetrated. +To help us to the fullest enjoyment of the great things and to a more +enlightened and juster appreciation of the lesser works is the service +of criticism. + +We do not wholly possess an experience until, having merged +ourselves in it, we then react upon it and become conscious of its +significance. A novel, a play, a picture interests us, and we surrender +to the enjoyment of the moment. Afterwards we think about our +pleasure, defining the nature of the experience and analyzing the +means by which it was produced, the subject of the work and the +artist's method of treating it. It may be that we tell our pleasure to a +friend, glad also perhaps to hear his opinion of the matter. The +impulse is natural; the practice is helpful. And herein lies the origin +of criticism. In so far as an appreciator does not rest in his +immediate enjoyment of a work of art, but seeks to account for his +pleasure, to trace the sources of it, to establish the reasons for it, and +to define its quality, so far he becomes a critic. As every man who +perceives beauty in nature and takes it up into his own life is +potentially an artist, so every man is a critic in the measure that he +reasons about his enjoyment. The critical processes, therefore, are an +essential part of our total experience of art, and criticism may be an +aid to appreciation. + +The function of criticism has been variously understood through the +centuries of its practice. Early modern criticism, harking back to the +method of Aristotle, concerned itself with the form of a work of art. +From the usage of classic writers it deduced certain "rules" of +composition; these formulas were applied to the work under +examination, and that was adjudged good or bad in the degree that it +conformed or failed to conform to the established rules. It was a +criticism of law-giving and of judgment. In the eighteenth century +criticism extended its scope by the admission of a new consideration, +passing beyond the mere form of the work and reckoning with its +power to give pleasure. Addison, in his critique of "Paradise Lost," +still applies the formal tests of the Aristotelian canons, but he +discovers further that a work of art exists not only for the sake of its +form, but also for the expression of beautiful ideas. This power of +"affecting the imagination" he declares is the "very life and highest +perfection" of poetry. This is a long step in the right direction. With +the nineteenth century, criticism conceives its aims and procedure in +new and larger ways. A work of art is now seen to be an evolution; +and criticism adapts to its own uses the principles of historical study +and the methods of scientific investigation. Recognizing that art is +organic, that an art-form, as religious painting or Gothic architecture +or the novel, is born, develops, comes to maturity, lapses, and dies, +that an individual work is the product of "race, environment, and the +moment," that it is the expression also of the personality of the artist +himself, criticism no longer regards the single work as an isolated +phenomenon, but tries to see it in its relation to its total background. + +Present-day criticism avails itself of this larger outlook upon art. But +the ends to be reached are understood differently by different critics. +With M. Brunetière, to cite now a few representative names, +criticism is authoritative and dogmatic: he looks at the work +objectively, refusing to be the dupe of his pleasure, if he has any; +and approaching the work in the spirit of dispassionate impersonal +inquiry as an object of historical importance and scientific interest, +he decrees that it is good or bad. Matthew Arnold considers +literature a "criticism of life," and he values a work with reference to +the moral significance of its ideas. Ruskin's criticism is didactic; he +wishes to educate his public, and by force of his torrential eloquence +he succeeds in persuading his disciples into acceptance of his +teaching, though he may not always convince. Impressionistic +criticism, as with M. Anatole France or M. Jules Lemaître, does not +even try to see the work "as in itself it really is," but is an account of +the critic's own subjective reaction on it, a narrative of what he +thought and felt in this chance corner of experience. With Walter +Pater criticism becomes _appreciation._ A given work of art +produces a distinctive impression and communicates a special and +unique pleasure; this active power constitutes its beauty. So the +function of the critic as Pater conceives it is "to distinguish, analyze, +and separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a picture, a +landscape, a fair personality in life or in a book, produces this +special impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate what the source +of that impression is, and under what conditions it is experienced." +The interpretative critic--represented in the practice of Pater--stands +between a work of art and the appreciator as mediator and revealer. + +Each kind of criticism performs a certain office, and is of use within +its own chosen sphere. To the layman, for his purposes of +appreciation, that order of criticism will be most helpful which +responds most closely and amply to his peculiar needs. A work of +art may be regarded under several aspects, its quality of technical +execution, its power of sensuous appeal, its historical importance; +and to each one of these aspects some kind of criticism applies. The +layman's reception of art includes all these considerations, but +subordinates them to the total experience. His concern, therefore, is +to define the service of criticism to appreciation. + +The analysis of a work of art resolves it into these elements. There is +first of all the emotion which gives birth to the work and which the +work is designed to express. The emotion, to become definite, +gathers about an idea, conceived in the terms of its own medium, as +form, or color and mass, or musical relations; and this artistic idea +presents itself as the subject or motive of the work. The emotion and +artistic idea, in order that they may be expressed and become +communicable, embody themselves in material, as the marble of a +statue, the pigment of a picture, the audible tones of a musical +composition. This material form has the power to satisfy the mind +and delight the senses. Through the channel of the senses and the +mind the work reaches the feelings; and the aesthetic experience is +complete. + +As art springs out of emotion, so it is to be received as emotion; and +a work to be appreciated in its true spirit must be enjoyed. But to be +completely enjoyed it must be understood. We must know what the +artist was trying to express, and we must be able to read his +language; then we are prepared to take delight in the form and to +respond to the emotion. + +To help us to understand a work of art in all the components that +entered into the making of it is the function of historical study. Such +study enables us to see the work from the artist's own point of view. +A knowledge of its background, the conditions in which the artist +wrought and his own attitude toward life, is the clue to his ideal; and +by an understanding of the language it was possible for him to +employ, we can measure the degree of expressiveness he was able to +achieve. This study of the artist's purpose and of his methods is an +exercise in explanation. + +The interpretation of art, for which we look to criticism, deals with +the picture, the statue, the book, specifically in its relation to the +appreciator. What is the special nature of the experience which the +work communicates to us in terms of feeling? In so far as the +medium itself is a source of pleasure, by what qualities of form has +the work realized the conditions of beauty proper to it, delighting +thus the senses and satisfying the mind? These are the questions +which the critic, interpreting the work through the medium of his +own temperament, seeks to answer. + +Theoretically, the best critic of art would be the artist himself. He +above all other men should understand the subtle play of emotion +and thought in which a work of art is conceived; and the artist rather +than another should trace the intricacies and know the cunning of the +magician processes by which the immaterial idea builds itself into +visible actuality. In practice, however, the theory is not borne out by +the fact. The artist as such is very little conscious of the workings of +his spirit. He is creative rather than reflective, synthetic and not +analytic. From his contact with nature and from his experience of +life, out of which rises his generative emotion, he moves directly to +the fashioning of expressive forms, without pausing on the way to +scan too closely the "meaning" of his work. Mr. Bernard Shaw +remarks that Ibsen, giving the rein to the creative impulse of his +poetic nature, produced in "Brand" and "Peer Gynt" a "great puzzle +for his intellect." Wagner, he says, "has expressly described how the +intellectual activity which he brought to the analysis of his music +dramas was in abeyance during their creation. Just so do we find +Ibsen, after composing his two great dramatic poems, entering on a +struggle to become intellectually conscious of what he had done." +Moreover, the artist is in the very nature of things committed to one +way of seeing. His view of life is limited by the trend of his own +dominant and creative personality; what he gains in intensity and +penetration of insight he loses in breadth. He is less quick to see +beauty in another guise than that which his own imagination weaves +for him; he is less receptive of other ways of envisaging the world. + +The ideal critic, on the contrary, is above everything else catholic +and tolerant. It is his task to discover beauty in whatever form and to +affirm it. By nature he is more sensitive than the ordinary man, by +training he has directed the exercise of his powers toward their +fullest scope, and by experience of art in its diverse manifestations +he has certified his judgment and deepened his capacity to enjoy. +The qualifications of an authentic critic are both temperament and +scholarship. Mere temperament uncorrected by knowledge may +vibrate exquisitely when swept by the touch of a thing of beauty, but +its music may be in a quite different key from the original motive. +Criticism must relate itself to the objective fact; it should interpret +and not transpose. Mere scholarship without temperament misses art +at its centre, that art is the expression and communication of +emotional experience; and the scholar in criticism may wander his +leaden way down the by-paths of a sterile learning. To mediate +between the artist and the appreciator, the critic must understand the +artist and he must feel with the appreciator. He is at once the artist +translated into simpler terms and the appreciator raised to a higher +power of perception and response. + +The service of criticism to the layman is to furnish him a clue to the +meaning of the work in hand, and by the critic's own response to its +beauty to reveal its potency and charm. With technique as such the +critic is not concerned. Technique is the business of the artist; only +those who themselves practice an art are qualified to judge in +matters of practice. The form is significant to the appreciator only so +far as regards its expressiveness and beauty. It is not the function of +the critic to tell the artist what his work _should be;_ it is the critic's +mission to reveal to the appreciator what the work _is_. That +revelation will be accomplished in terms of the critic's own +experience of the beauty of the work, an experience imaged forth in +such phrases that the pleasure the work communicates is conveyed +to his readers in its true quality and foil intensity. It is not enough to +dogmatize as Ruskin dogmatizes, to bully the reader into a terrified +acceptance. It is not enough to determine absolute values as +Matthew Arnold seeks to do, to fix certain canons of intellectual +judgment, and by the application of a formula as a touchstone, to +decide that this work is excellent and that another is less good. +Really serviceable criticism is that which notes the special and +distinguishing quality of beauty in any work and helps the reader to +live out that beauty in his own experience. + +These generalizations may be made more immediate and practical +by examples. In illustration of the didactic manner in criticism I may +cite a typical paragraph of Ruskin, chosen from his "Mornings in +Florence." + +First, look at the two sepulchral slabs by which you are standing. +That farther of the two from the west end is one of the most +beautiful pieces of fourteenth-century sculpture in this world. . . . +And now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for +understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that +the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the +folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the +softness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a +few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and +Botticelli's;--Donatello's carving, and Luca's. But if you see nothing +in _this_ sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, _of_ theirs. Where +they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern +trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is +French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but +what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also the +beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never. + +The earnest and docile though bewildered layman is intimidated into +thinking that he sees it, whether he really does or not. But it is a +question if the contemplation of the "beauty of this old man in his +citizen's cap," however eager and serious the contemplation may be, +adds much to his experience; it may be doubted whether as a result +of his effort toward the understanding of the rightness and loveliness +of the lines of the cap and the exquisiteness of the choice of folds, +which the critic has pointed out to him with threatening finger, he +feels that life is a fuller and finer thing to live. + +An example of the intellectual estimate, the valuation by formulas, +and the assignment of abstract rank, is this paragraph from Matthew +Arnold's essay on Wordsworth. + +Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of +profound truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is +unique. His best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this +balance. I have a warm admiration for "Laodameia" and for the great +"Ode;" but if I am to tell the very truth, I find "Laodameia" not +wholly free from something artificial, and the great "Ode" not +wholly free from something declamatory. If I had to pick out poems +of a kind most perfectly to show Wordsworth's unique power, I +should rather choose poems such as "Michael," "The Fountain," +"The Highland Reaper." And poems with the peculiar and unique +beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth produced in +considerable number; besides very many other poems of which the +worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still exceedingly +high. + +Thus does the judicial critic mete out his estimate by scale and +measuring-rod. We are told dogmatically what is good and what is +less good; but of distinctive quality and energizing life-giving +virtues, not a word. The critic does not succeed in communicating to +us anything of Wordsworth's special charm and power. We are +informed, but we are left cold and unresponding. + +The didactic critic imposes his standard upon the layman. The +judicial critic measures and awards. The appreciative critic does not +attempt to teach or to judge; he makes possible to his reader an +appreciation of the work of art simply by recreating in his own terms +the complex of his emotions in its presence. Instead of declaring the +work to be beautiful or excellent, he makes it beautiful in the very +telling of what it means to him. As the artist interprets life, +disclosing its depths and harmonies, so the appreciative critic in his +turn interprets art, reconstituting the beauty of it in his own terms. +Through his interpretation, the layman is enabled to enter more fully +into the true spirit of the work and to share its beauty in his own +experience. + +In contrast to the passage from Arnold is this paragraph from an +essay on Wordsworth by Walter Pater. + +And so he has much for those who value highly the concentrated +presentment of passion, who appraise men and women by their +susceptibility to it, and art and poetry as they afford the spectacle of +it. Breaking from time to time into the pensive spectacle of their +daily toil, their occupations near to nature, come those great +elementary feelings, lifting and solemnizing their language and +giving it a natural music. The great, distinguishing passion came to +Michael by the sheepfold, to Ruth by the wayside, adding these +humble children of the furrow to the true aristocracy of passionate +souls. In this respect, Wordsworth's work resembles most that of +George Sand, in those of her novels which depict country life. With +a penetrative pathos, which puts him in the same rank with the +masters of the sentiment of pity in literature, with Meinhold and +Victor Hugo, he collects all the traces of vivid excitement which +were to be found in that pastoral world--the girl who rung her +father's knell; the unborn infant feeling about its mother's heart; the +instinctive touches of children; the sorrows of the wild creatures, +even--their home-sickness, their strange yearnings; the tales of +passionate regret that hang by a ruined farm-building, a heap of +stones, a deserted sheepfold; that gay, false, adventurous, outer +world, which breaks in from time to time to bewilder and deflower +these quiet homes; not "passionate sorrow" only, for the overthrow +of the soul's beauty, but the loss of, or carelessness for personal +beauty even, in those whom men have wronged--their pathetic +wanness; the sailor "who, in his heart, was half a shepherd on the +stormy seas;" the wild woman teaching her child to pray for her +betrayer; incidents like the making of the shepherd's staff, or that of +the young boy laying the first stone of the sheepfold;--all the +pathetic episodes of their humble existence, their longing, their +wonder at fortune, their poor pathetic pleasures, like the pleasures of +children, won so hardly in the struggle for bare existence; their +yearning towards each other, in their darkened houses, or at their +early toil. A sort of biblical depth and solemnity hangs over this +strange, new, passionate, pastoral world, of which he first raised the +image, and the reflection of which some of our best modern fiction +has caught from him. + +Here is the clue to Wordsworth's meaning; and the special quality +and power of his work, gathering amplitude and intensity as it plays +across the critic's temperament, is reconstituted in other and +illuminating images which communicate the emotion to us. The +critic has felt more intimately than we the appeal of this poetry, and +he kindles in us something of his own enthusiasm. So we return to +Wordsworth for ourselves, more alert to divine his message, more +susceptible to his spell, that he may work in us the magic of +evocation. + +Criticism is of value to us as appreciators in so far as it serves to +recreate in us the experience which the work was designed to +convey. But criticism is not a short cut to enjoyment. We cannot +take our pleasure at second hand. We must first come to the work +freshly and realize our own impression of it; then afterwards we may +turn to the critic for a further revelation. Criticism should not shape +our opinion, but should stimulate appreciation, carrying us farther +than we could go ourselves, but always in the same direction with +our original impression. There is a kind of literary exercise, calling +itself criticism, which takes a picture or a book as its point of +departure and proceeds to create a work of art in its own right, +attaching itself only in name to the work which it purports to +criticise. "Who cares," exclaims a clever maker of epigrams, +"whether Mr. Ruskin's views on Turner are sound or not? What does +it matter? That mighty and majestic prose of his, so fervid and so +fiery-coloured in its noble eloquence, so rich in its elaborate +symphonic music, so sure and certain, at its best, in subtle choice of +word and epithet, is at least as great a work of art as any of those +wonderful sunsets that bleach or rot on their corrupted canvases in +England's Gallery." A very good appreciation of Ruskin, this. But +the answer is that such writing as is here attributed to Ruskin is +magnificent: it may be art; but it is not true criticism. A work of art +is not "impressive" merely, but "expressive" too. Criticism in its +relation to the work itself has an objective base, and it must be +steadied and authenticated by constant reference to the original feet. +Criticism is not the source of our enjoyment but a medium of +interpretation. + +Before we turn to criticism, therefore, we must first, as Pater +suggests, know our own impression as it really is, discriminate it, +and realize it distinctly. Only so shall we escape becoming the dupe +of some more aggressive personality. In our mental life suggestion +plays an important and perhaps unrecognized part. In a certain frame +of mind we can be persuaded into believing anything and into liking +anything. When, under the influence of authority or fashion, we +think we care for that which has no vital and consciously realized +relation to our own experience, we are the victims of a kind of +hypnotism, and there is little hope of our ultimate adjustment over +against art. It is far better honestly to like an inferior work and know +why we like it than to pretend to like a good one. In the latter case +no real progress or development is possible, for we have no +standards that can be regarded as final; we are swayed by the +authority or influence which happens at that moment to be most +powerful. In the former case we are at least started in the right +direction. Year by year, according to the law of natural growth, we +come to the end of the inferior work which up to that time has been +able to minister to us, and we pass on to new and greater works that +satisfy the demands of our deepening experience. It is sometimes +asked if we ought not to try to like the best things in art. I should +answer, the very greatest things we do not have to _try_ to like; the +accent of greatness is unmistakable, and greatness has a message for +every one. As regards the lesser works, we ought to be willing to +grow up. There was a time when I enjoyed "Robinson Crusoe" in +words of one syllable. If I had _tried_ then to like Mr. George +Meredith, I should not really have enjoyed him, and I should have +missed the fun of "Robinson Crusoe." Everything in its time and +place. The lesser works have their use: they may be a starting-point +for our entrance into life; and they furnish a basis of comparison by +which we are enabled to realize the greatness of the truly great. We +must value everything in its own kind, affirming what it is, and not +regretting what it is not. But the prerequisite of all appreciation, +without which our contact with art is a pastime or a pretense, is that +we be honest with ourselves. In playing solitaire at least we ought +not to cheat. + +So the layman must face the situation squarely and accept the +responsibility of deciding finally for himself. On the way we may +look to criticism to guide us to those works which are meant for us. +In art as in the complex details of living, there is need of selection; +and criticism helps toward that. In literature alone, to name but a +single art, there is so much to be left unread which the length of our +life would not otherwise permit us to escape, that we are grateful to +the critic who aids us to omit gracefully and with success. But the +most serviceable criticism is positive and not destructive. The lesser +works may have a message for us, and it is that message in its +distinctive quality which the critic should affirm. In the end, +however, the use we make of criticism should not reduce itself to an +unquestioning acceptance of authority. In the ceremonial of the +Roman service, at the moment preceding the elevation of the Host, +two acolytes enter the chancel, bearing candles, and kneel between +the congregation and the ministrants at the altar; the tapers, +suffusing the altar in their golden radiance, throw the dim figures of +the priests into a greater gloom and mystery. So it happens that art +often is enshrouded by the off-giving of those who would seem to +illuminate it; and "dark with excess of light," the obscurity is +intensified. The layman is told of the virginal poetry of early Italian +painting; he is bidden to sit at the homely, substantial feast of the +frank actuality of Dutch art; he listens in puzzled wonder to the +glorification of Velasquez and Goya; he reads in eloquent, glowing +language of the splendor of Turner. He is more than half persuaded; +but he does not quite understand. From this tangle of contending +interests there seems for the moment to be no way out. It is assumed +that the layman has no standard of his own; and he yields himself to +the appeal which comes to him immediately at the instant. The next +day, perhaps, brings a new interest or another judgment which runs +counter to the old. Back and forth and back again, without purpose +and without reason; it is only an endless recurrence of the conflict +instead of development and progress. Taking all his estimates at +second hand, so for his opinion even of a concert or a play he is at +the mercy of a critic who may have dined badly. Some boy, caught +young at the university and broken to miscellaneous tasks on a big +newspaper, is sent to "do" a picture-exhibition, a concert, and the +theatre in the same day. He is expected to "criticise" in an hour the +work of a lifetime of struggle and effort and knowledge and thought +and feeling. This is the guide of opinion and the foundation of +artistic creed. I have stated the reduction to absurdity of the case for +authority in criticism. If the layman who leans too heavily upon +criticism comes to realize the hopelessness of his position and thinks +the situation through to its necessary conclusion, he sees that the +authority of criticism is not absolute, but varies with the powers and +range of the individual critic, and that at the last he must find his +standard within himself. + +There are, of course, certain standards of excellence recognized +universally and certain principles of taste of universal validity; and +to these standards and these principles must be referred our +individual estimates for comparison and correction. Given a native +sensibility to the worth of life and to the appeal of beauty, the justice +of our estimate will be in proportion to the extent of our knowledge +of life and of our contact with art. Our individual judgment, +therefore, must be controlled by experience,--our momentary +judgments by the sum of our own experience, and our total +judgment by universal experience. In all sound criticism and right +appreciation there must be a basis of disciplined taste. We must +guard ourselves against whims and caprice, even our own. So the +individual may not cut loose altogether from external standards. But +these must be brought into relation to his personal needs and applied +with reference to his own standard. Finally, for his own uses, the +individual has the right to determine the meaning and value to him +of any work of art in the measure that it links itself with his own +actual or possible experience and becomes for him a revelation of +fuller life. For beauty is the power possessed by objects to quicken +us with a sense of larger personality; and art, whether the arts of +form or of representation, is the material bodying forth of beauty as +the artist has perceived it and the means by which his emotion in its +presence is communicated. Upon this conception of beauty and this +interpretation of the scope and function of art rests the justice of the +personal estimate. + + + +VII + +BEAUTY AND COMMON LIFE + +TO become sensitive to the meaning of color and form and sound as +the artist employs them for expression, to feel a work of art in its +relation to its background, to find in criticism enlightenment and +guidance but not a substitute for one's own experience,--these are +methods of approach to art. But the appreciator has yet to penetrate +art's inmost secret. At the centre, as the motive of all his efforts to +understand the language of art and the processes of technique, as the +goal of historical study and the purpose of his recourse to criticism, +stands the work itself with its power to attract and charm. Here is +Millet's painting of the "Sower." In the actual presence of the picture +the appreciator's experience is complex. Analysis resolves it into +considerations of the material form of the work, involving its +sensuous qualities and the processes of execution, considerations +also of the subject of the picture, which gathers about itself many +associations out of the beholder's own previous knowledge of life. +But the clue to the final meaning of the work, its meaning both to +the artist and to the appreciator, is contained in the answer to the +question, Why did Millet paint this picture? And just what is it +designed to express? + +Art is born out of emotion. Though the symbols it may employ to +expression, the forms in which it may manifest itself, are infinitely +various in range and character, essentially all art is one. A work of +art is the material bodying forth of the artist's sense of a meaning in +life which unfolds itself to him as harmony and to which his spirit +responds accordantly. It may be a pattern he has conceived; or he +adapts material to a new use in response to a new need: the artist is +here a craftsman. He is stirred by the tone and incident of a +landscape or by the force or charm of some personality: and he puts +brush to canvas. He apprehends the complex rhythms of form: and +the mobile clay takes shape under his fingers. He feels the +significance of persons acting and reacting in their contact with one +another: and he pens a novel or a drama. He is thrilled by the +emotion attending the influx of a great idea; philosophy is touched +with feeling: and the thinker becomes a poet. The discords of +experience resolve themselves within him into harmonies: and he +gives them out in triumphant harmonies of sound. The particular +medium the artist chooses in which to express himself is incidental +to the feeling to be conveyed. The stimulus to emotion which impels +the artist to create and the essential content of his work is _beauty._ +As beauty, then, is the very stuff and fibre of art, inextricably bound +up with it, so in our effort to relate art to our experience we may +seek to know something of the nature of beauty and its place in +common life. + +During a visit in Philadelphia I was conducted by a member of the +firm through the great Locomotive Works in that city. From the vast +office, with its atmosphere of busy, concentrated quiet, punctuated +by the clicking of many typewriters, I was led through doors and +passages, and at length came upon the shrieking inferno of the shops. +The uproar and din were maddening. Overhead, huge cranes were +swinging great bulks of steel from one end of the cavernous shed to +the other; vague figures were moving obscurely in the murk; the +floor was piled and littered with heaps of iron-work of unimaginable +shapes. After a time we made our way into another area where there +was more quiet but no less confusion. I yelled to my guide, "Such a +rumpus and row I never saw; it is chaos come again!" And he +replied, "Why, to me it is all a perfect order. Everything is in its +place. Every man has his special job and does it. I know the meaning +and purpose of all those parts that seem to you to be thrown around +in such a mess. If you could follow the course of making from the +draughting-rooms to the finishing-shop, if you could see the process +at once as a whole, you would understand that it is all a complete +harmony, every part working with every other part to a definite +end." It was not I but my friend who had the truth of the matter. +Where for me there was only chaos, for him was order. And the +difference was that he had the clue which I had not. His sense of the +meaning of the parts brought the scattering details into a final unity; +and therein he found harmony and satisfaction. + +I went away much impressed by what I had seen. When I had +collected my wits a little in the comparative calm of the streets, it +occurred to me that the immense workshops were a symbol of man's +life in the world. In the instant of experience all seems chaos. At +close range, in direct contact with the facts and demands of every +day, we feel how confusing and distracting it all is. Life is beating in +upon us at every point; all our senses are assailed at once. Each new +day brings its conflicting interests and obligations. Now, whether we +are aware of it or not, our constant effort is, out of the great variety +of experience pressing in upon us, to select such details as make to a +definite purpose and end. Instinctively we grope toward and attract +to us that which is special and proper to our individual development. +Our progress is toward harmony. By the adjustment of new material +to the shaping principle of our experience, the circle of our +individual lives widens its circumference. We are able to bring more +and more details into order, and correspondingly fuller and richer +our life becomes. + +The mental perception of order in the parts gives the whole its +significance. This quick grasp of the whole is like the click of the +kaleidoscope which throws the tumbling, distorted bits into a design. +The conduct of practical life on the mental plane is the process also +of art on the plane of the emotions. Not only does experience offer +itself to us as the subject of thought; our contact with the world is +also the stimulus of feeling. In my account of the visit to the +Locomotive Works I have set down but a part and not the sum of my +reaction. After I had come away, I fell to thinking about what I had +seen, and intellectually I deduced certain abstract principles with +regard to unity and significance. But at the moment of experience +itself I simply felt. I was overwhelmed by the sense of unloosened +power. The very confusion of it all constituted the unity of +impression. The emotion roused in me by the roar and riotous +movement and the vast gloom torn by fitful yellow gleams from +opened furnaces and shapes of glowing metal was the emotion +appropriate to the experience of chaos. That I can find a single word +by which to characterize it, is evidence that the moment had its +harmony for me and consequent meaning. All the infinite universe +external to us is everywhere and at every instant potentially the +stimulus to emotion. But unless feeling is discriminated, it passes +unregarded. When the emotion gathers itself into design, when the +moment reveals within itself order and significance, then and not till +then the emotion becomes substance for expression in forms of art. + +If I were able to phrase what I saw and what I felt in the Locomotive +Works, so that by means of presenting what I saw I might +communicate to another what I felt and so rouse in him the same +emotion, I should be an artist. Whistler or Monet might picture for +us the murk and mystery of this pregnant gloom. Wagner might +sound for us the tumultuous, weird emotions of this Niebelungen +workshop of the twentieth century. Dante or Milton might phrase +this inferno and pandemonium of modern industry and leave us +stirred by the sense of power in the play of gigantic forces. Whether +the medium be the painter's color, the musician's tones, or the poet's +words, the purpose of the representation is fulfilled in so far as the +work expresses the emotion which the artist has felt in the presence +of this spectacle. He, the artist, more than I or another, has thrilled to +its mystery, its tumult, its power. It is this effect, received as a unity +of impression, that he wants to communicate. This power of the +object over him, and consequently the content of his work, is beauty. + +In the experience of us all there are objects and situations which can +stir us,--the twilight hour, a group of children at play, the spectacle +of the great human crowd, it may be, or solitude under the stars, the +works of man as vast cities or cunningly contrived machines, or +perhaps it is the mighty, shifting panorama which nature unrolls for +us at every instant of day and night, her endless pageant of color and +light and shade and form. Out of them at the moment of our contact +is unfolded a new significance; because of them life becomes for us +larger, deeper. This power possessed by objects to rouse in us an +emotion which comes with the realization of inner significance +expressed in harmony is beauty. A brief analysis of the nature and +action of beauty may help us in the understanding and appreciation +of art, though the value to us of any explanation is to quicken us to a +more vivid sensitiveness to the effect of beauty in the domain of +actual experience of it. + +Because the world external to us, which manifests beauty, is +received into consciousness by the senses, it is natural to seek our +explanation in the processes involved in the functioning of our +organism. Our existence as individual human beings is conditioned +by our embodiment in matter. Without senses, without nerves and a +brain, we should not _be._ Our feelings, which determine for us +finally the value of experience, are the product of the excitement of +our physical organism responding to stimulation. The rudimentary +and most general feelings are pleasure and pain. All the complex +and infinitely varied emotions that go to make up our conscious life +are modifications of these two elementary reactions. The feeling of +pleasure results when our organism "functions harmoniously with +itself;" pain is the consequence of discord. In the words of a recent +admirable statement of the psychologists' position: "When rhythm +and melody and forms and colors give me pleasure, it is because the +imitating impulses and movements that have arisen in me are such +as suit, help, heighten my physical organization in general and in +particular. . . . The basis, in short, of any aesthetic +experience--poetry, music, painting and the rest--is beautiful +through its harmony with the conditions offered by our senses, +primarily of sight and hearing, and through the harmony of the +suggestions and impulses it arouses with the whole organism." Beauty, +then, according to the psychologists, is the quality inherent in +things, the possession of which enables them to stimulate our +organism to harmonious functioning. And the perception of beauty +is a purely physiological reaction. + +This explanation, valid within its limits, seems to me to fall short of +the whole truth. For it fails to reckon with that faculty and that entity +within us whose existence we know but cannot explain,--the faculty +we call mind, which operates as imagination, and the entity we +recognize as spirit or soul. I mean the faculty which gives us the +idea of God and the consciousness of self, the faculty which +apprehends relations and significance in material transcending their +material embodiment. I mean the entity within us which expresses +itself in love and aspiration and worship, the entity which is able to +fuse with the harmony external to it in a larger unity. When I glance +out upon a winter twilight drenching earth and sky with luminous +blue, a sudden delight floods in upon me, gathering up all my senses +in a surging billow of emotion, and my being pulses and vibrates in +a beat of joy. Something within me goes out to meet the landscape; +so far as I am at all conscious of the moment, I feel, There, that is +what I am! This deep harmony of tone and mass is the expression of +a fuller self toward which I yearn. My being thrills and dilates with +the sensation of larger life. Then, after the joy has throbbed itself out +and my reaction takes shape as consciousness, I set myself to +consider the sources and the processes of my experience. I note that +my eye has perceived color and form. My intellect, as I summon it +into action, tells me that I am looking upon a scene in nature +composed of material elements, as land and trees and water and +atmosphere. My senses, operating through channels of matter, +receive, and my brain registers, impressions of material objects. But +this analysis, though defining the processes, does not quite explain +_my joy._ I know that beyond all this, transcending my material +sense-perception and transcending the actual material of the +landscape, there is something in me and there is something in nature +which meet and mingle and become one. Above all embodiment in +matter, there is a plane on which I feel my community with the +world external to me, recognizing that world to be an extension of +my own personality, a plane on which I can identify myself with the +thing outside of me in so far as it is the expression of what I am or +may become. Between me and the external world there is a common +term. The effect which nature has upon us is determined, not by the +object itself alone and not by our individual mind and temperament +alone, but by the meeting of the two, the community between the +object and the spirit of man. When we find nature significant and +expressive, it is because we make nature in some way a part of our +own experience. + +The material of an object is perceived by the senses. We see that it is +blue or green or brown; we may touch it and note that it is rough or +smooth, hard or soft, warm or cold. But the expressiveness of the +object, its value for the emotions, does not stop with its merely +material qualities, but comes with our grasp of the "relations" which +it embodies; and these relations, transmitted through material by the +senses, are apprehended by the mind. There are, of course, +elementary data of sense-perception, such as color and sound. It may +be that I prefer red to yellow because my eye is so constituted as to +function harmoniously with a rate of vibration represented by 450 +billions per second, and discordantly with a rate of vibration +represented by 526 billions per second. So also with tones of a given +pitch. But though simple color and simple sound have each the +power to please the senses, yet in actual experience neither color nor +sound is perceived abstractly, apart from its embodiment in form. +Color is felt as the property of some concrete object, as the crimson +of a rose, the dye of some fabric or garment, the blue of the sky, +which, though we know it to be the infinite extension of atmosphere +and ether, we nevertheless conceive as a dome, with curvature and +the definite boundary of the horizon. Sound in and of itself has pitch +and _timbre_, qualities of pure sensation; but even with the +perception of sound the element of form enters in, for we hear it +with a consciousness of its duration--long or short--or of its relation +to other sounds, heard or imagined. + +Our perceptions, therefore, give us forms. Now form implies +_relation,_ the reference of one part to the other parts in the +composition of the whole. And relation carries with it the +possibilities of harmony or discord, of unity or disorder. Before an +object can be regarded as beautiful it must give out a unity of +impression. This unity does not reside in the object itself, but is +effected by the mind which perceives it. In looking at a +checkerboard I may see it as an aggregation of white squares set off +by black, or as black squares relieved by white. I may read it as a +series of horizontals, or of verticals, or of diagonals, according as I +_attend_ to it. The design of the checker-board is not an absolute +and fixed quantity inherent in the object itself, but is capable of a +various interpretation according to the relative emphasis given to the +parts by the perceiving mind. So with all objects in nature. The +twilight landscape which stirred me may have been quite without +interest or meaning to the man at my side; or, if he responded to it at +all, his feelings may have been of a different order and quality than +mine. Where I felt a deep and intimate solemnity in the landscape, +he might have received the twilight as chill and forbidding. Beauty, +then, which consists in harmonious relation, does not lie in nature +objectively, but is constituted by the perception in man's +constructive imagination of a harmony and consequent significance +drawn out of natural forms. It is, in Emerson's phrase, "the integrity +of impression made by manifold natural objects." And Emerson says +further, "The charming landscape which I saw this morning is +indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns +this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none +of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon +which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that +is, the poet." The mere pleasurable excitement of the senses is hardly +to be called beauty. An object to be beautiful must express a +harmony of relations and hence a meaning,--a meaning which goes +beyond sense-perception and does not stop with the intellect, but +reaches the spirit. Psychologists tell us that "a curved line is pleasing +because the eye is so hung as best to move in it." Pleasing, yes; but +not beautiful. And precisely herein is illustrated the distinction. A +life wearied with an undulating uniformity of days will find beauty +less in the curve than in the zigzag, because the sight of the broken +line brings to the spirit suggestions of change and adventure. A +supine temper finds shock, excitement, and a meaning in the vertical. +Yet the significance of forms is not determined necessarily by +contrasts. A quiet spirit sees its own expression, a harmony of self +with external form, in the even lines and flat spaces of some Dutch +etching. Or a vigorous, hardy mind takes fresh stimulus and courage +from the swirling clouds of Turner or the wind-torn landscapes of +Constable. An object is beautiful, not because of the physical ease +with which the eye follows its outlines, but in so far as it has the +power to communicate to us the feeling of larger life, to express and +complete for us a harmony within our emotional experience. + +Our senses report to us the material world; we see, we hear, we +touch and taste and smell. But we recognize also that nature has a +value for the emotions; it can delight and thrill and uplift, taking us +out of ourselves and carrying us beyond the confines of the little +circle of our daily use and wont. As I look from my window I see +against the sky a pear tree, radiant with blossom, an explosion of +light and sensation. Its green and white, steeped in sunshine and +quivering out of rain-washed depths of blue, are good to behold. But +for me, as my spirit goes out to meet it, the tree is spring! In this I do +not mean to characterize a process of intellectual deduction,--that as +blossoms come in the spring, so the flowering of the tree is evidence +that spring is here. I mean that by its color and form, all its outward +loveliness, the tree communicates to me the spirit of the new birth of +the year. In myself I feel and live the spring. My joy in the tree, +therefore, does not end with the sight of its gray trunk and +interwoven branches and its gleaming play of leaves: there my joy +only begins, and it comes to its fulfillment as I feel the life of the +tree to be an expression and extension of the life that is in me. My +physical organism responds harmoniously in rhythm with the form +of the tree, and so far the tree is pleasing. But, finally, a form is +beautiful because it is expressive. "Beauty," said Millet, "does not +consist merely in the shape or coloring of a face. It lies in the +general effect of the form, in suitable and appropriate action. . . . +When I paint a mother, I shall try and make her beautiful simply by +the look she bends upon her child. Beauty is expression." Beauty +works its effect through significance, a significance which is not +always to be phrased in words, but is felt; conveyed by the senses, it +at last reaches the emotions. Where the spirit of man comes into +harmony with a harmony external to it, there is beauty. + +The elements of beauty are design, wholeness, and significance. +Significance proceeds out of wholeness or unity of impression; and +unity is made possible by design. Whatever the flower into which it +may ultimately expand, beauty has its roots in fitness and utility; +design in this case is constituted by the adaptation of the means to +the end. The owner of a saw-mill wanted a support made for a +shafting. Indicating a general idea of what he desired, he applied to +one of his workmen, a man of intelligence and skill in his craft, but +without a conventional education. The man constructed the support, +a triangular framework contrived to receive the shafting at the apex; +where there was no stress within the triangle, he cut away the timber, +thus eliminating all surplusage of material. When the owner saw the +finished product he said to his workman, "Well, John, that is a really +beautiful thing you have made there." And the man replied, "I don't +know anything about the beauty of it, but I know it's strong!" The +end to be reached was a support which should be strong. The strong +support was felt to be beautiful, for its lines and masses were +apprehended as _right._ Had the man, with the "little learning" that +is dangerous, attempted embellishment or applied ornament, he +would have spoiled the effect; for ornateness would have been out of +place. The perfect fitness of means to end, without defect and +without excess, constituted its beauty; and its beauty was perceived +aesthetically, as a quality inherent in the form, a quality which apart +from the practical serviceableness of the contrivance was capable of +communicating pleasure. So in general, when the inherent needs of +the work give shape to the structure or contrivance, the resulting +form is in so far forth beautiful. The early "horseless carriages," in +which a form intended for one use was grafted upon a different +purpose, were very ugly. Today the motor-car, evolved out of +structural needs, a thing complete in and for itself, has in its lines +and coherence of composition certain elements of beauty. In his +"Song of Speed," Henley has demonstrated that the motorcar, +mechanical, modern, useful, may even be material for poetry. That +the useful is not always perceived as beautiful is due to the fact that +the design which has shaped the work must be regarded apart from +the material serviceableness of the object itself. Beauty consists not +in the actual material, but in the unity of relations which the object +embodies. We appreciate the art involved in the making of the first +lock and key only as we look beyond the merely practical usefulness +of the device and so apprehend the harmony of relations effected +through its construction. As the lock and key serve to fasten the door, +they are useful; they are beautiful as they manifest design and we +feel their harmony. Beauty is removed from practical life, not +because it is unrelated to life,--just the reverse of that is true,--but +because the enjoyment of beauty is disinterested. The detachment +involved in appreciation is a detachment from material. The +appreciator may seem to be a looker-on at life, in that he does not +act but simply feels. But his spirit is correspondingly alert. In the +measure that he is released from servitude to material he gives free +play to his emotion. + +Although beauty is founded upon design, design is not the whole of +beauty. Not all objects which exhibit equal integrity of design are +equally beautiful. The beauty of a work of art is determined by the +degree of emotion which impelled its creation and by the degree in +which the work itself is able to communicate the emotion +immediately. The feeling which entered into the making of the first +lock and key was simply the inventor's desire for such a device, his +desire being the feeling which accompanied his consciousness of his +need. At the other extreme is the emotion such as attended +Michelangelo's vision of his "David" and urged his hand as he set +his chisel to the unshaped waiting block. And so all the way between. +Many pictures are executed in a wholly mechanical spirit, as so +much manufacture; and they exhibit correspondingly little beauty. +Many useful things, as a candle-stick, a pair of andirons, a chair, are +wrought in the spirit of art; into them goes something of the maker's +joy in his work; they become the expression of his emotion: and +they are so far beautiful. It is asserted that Millet's "Angelus" is a +greater picture than the painting entitled "War" by Franz Stuck, +because "the idea of peasants telling their beads is more beautiful +than the idea of a ruthless destroyer only in so far as it is morally +higher." The moral value as such has very little to do with it. It is a +question of emotion. If Stuck were to put on canvas his idea of +peasants at prayer and if Millet had phrased in pictorial terms his +feeling about war, there is little doubt that Millet's painting would be +the more telling and beautiful. The degree of beauty is fixed by the +depth of the man's insight into life and the corresponding intensity of +his emotion. + +Beauty is not limited to one class of object or experience and +excluded from another. A chair may be beautiful, although turned to +common use; a picture is not beautiful necessarily because it is a +picture. "Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is +bad," says Whitman, Whistler speaks of art as "seeking and finding +the beautiful in all conditions and in all times, as did her high priest, +Rembrandt, when he saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in +the Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its +inhabitants were not Greeks." The beautiful must exhibit an integrity +of relations within itself, and it must be in integral relation with its +surroundings. The standard of beauty varies with every age, with +every nation, indeed with every individual. As beauty is not in the +object itself, but is in the mind which integrates the relations which +the object manifests, so our appreciation of beauty is determined by +our individuality. And individuality is the resultant of many forces. +The self, inexplicable in essence, is the product of inheritance, and is +modified by environment and training. More than we realize, our +judgment is qualified by tradition and habit and even fashion. +Because men have been familiar for so many centuries with the idea +that sculpture should find its vehicle in white marble, the knowledge +that Greek marbles originally were painted comes with something of +a shock; and for the moment they have difficulty in persuading +themselves that a Parthenon frieze _colored_ could possibly be +beautiful. Until within comparatively recent years the French have +regarded Shakespeare as a barbarian. The heroic couplet, which was +the last word in poetical expression in the age of Queen Anne, we +consider to-day as little more than a mechanical jingle. Last year's +fashions in dress, which seemed at the time to have their merits, are +this year amusingly grotesque. In our judgment of beauty, therefore, +allowance must be made for standards which merely are imposed +upon us from without. It is necessary to distinguish between a +formula and the reality. As far as possible we should seek to come +into "original relation" with the universe, freshly for ourselves. So +we must return upon our individual consciousness, and thus +determine what is vitally significant to us. For the man who would +appreciate beauty, it is not a question between this or that "school" +in art, whether the truth lies with the classicists or the romanticists; it +is not a question of this or that subject or method to the exclusion of +all others. Beauty may be anywhere or everywhere. It is our task and +joy to find it, wherever it may be. And we shall find it, if we are able +to recognize it and we hold ourselves responsive to its multitudinous +appeal. + +The conception of beauty which limits its manifestation to one kind +of experience is so far false and leads to mischievous acceptances +and narrowing rejections. We mistake the pretty for the beautiful +and so fail of the true value of beauty; we are blind to the +significance which all nature and all life, in the lowest and +commonest as in the highest and rarest, hold within them. "If +beauty," says Hamerton, "were the only province of art, neither +painters nor etchers would find anything to occupy them in the foul +stream that washes the London wharfs." By beauty here is meant the +merely agreeable. Pleasing the river may not be, to the ordinary man; +but for the poet and the painter, those to whom it is given to see with +the inner eye, the "foul stream" and its wharfs may be lighted with +mysterious and tender beauty. + + "Earth has not anything to show more fair: + Dull would he be of soul who could pass by + A sight so touching in its majesty: + This city now doth, like a garment, wear + The beauty of the morning. + + . . . . . + + Never did sun more beautifully steep + In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; + Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! + The river glideth at his own sweet will: + Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; + And all that mighty heart is lying still!" + +And Whistler, by the witchery of his brush and his needle, has +transmuted the confusion and sordidness and filth of this +Thames-side into exquisite emotion. The essence of beauty is harmony, but +that harmony is not to be reduced to rule and measure. In the very +chaos of the Locomotive Works we may feel beauty; in the thrill +which they communicate we receive access of power and we _are,_ +more largely, more universally. The harmony which is beauty is that +unity or integrity of impression by force of which we are able to feel +significance and the relation of the object to our own experience. It +is an error to suppose that beauty must be racked on a procrustean +bed of formula. Such false conceptions result in sham art. To create +a work which shall be beautiful it is not necessary to "smooth, inlay, +and clip, and fit." Beauty is not imposed upon material from without, +according to a recipe; it is drawn out from within by the integrating +power of imagination. Art is not artificiality. Art is the expression of +vital emotion and essential significance. The beauty of architecture, +for example, consists not in applied ornament but in structural +fitness and adaptability, and grows out of the inherent needs of the +work. The cathedral-builders of old time did not set themselves to +create a "work of art." They wanted a church; and it was a church +they built. It is we who, perceiving the rightness of their +achievement, pronounce it to be beautiful. Beauty is not +manufactured, but grows; it cannot be laid on as ornament. Beauty is +born out of the contact of the spirit of man with natural forms, that +contact which gives to objects their significance. + +The recognition of the true nature of beauty may change for us the +face of the world. Some things are universally regarded as beautiful +because their appeal is universal. There are passions, joys, +aspirations, common to all the race; and the forms which objectify +these emotions are beautiful universally. We can all enter into the +feelings that gather about a group of children dancing round a +Maypole in the Park; but in the murk and din and demoniacal +activity of the Locomotive Works the appeal is not so obvious. The +stupendous workshops become beautiful to me as my being merges +into harmony with them and dilates with the emotion of intenser and +fuller life. The Sistine Madonna is generally regarded as beautiful. +But what is the beauty in the unspeakable witch on the canvas of +Frans Hals? Harmony of color and of composition is employed by +Raphael in the rendering of a figure and in the expression of an +emotion both of which relate themselves to the veneration of +mankind. Maternity, Christian or pagan, divine or human, evokes its +universal tribute of feeling. On Raphael's canvas complete harmony +is made visible; and the beauty of the picture for us is measured by +its power to stir us. In the painting by Frans Hals the subject +represented is in itself not pleasing. The technical execution of the +picture is masterly. But our delight goes beyond any enjoyment of +the skill here exhibited, goes beyond even the satisfaction of the +senses in its color and composition. What the picture expresses is +not merely the visible aspect of this woman, but the painter's own +sympathy and appreciation. He saw a beauty in ugliness, a beauty to +which we were blind, for he felt the significance of her life, the +eternal rightness to herself of what she was. His joy in this inner +harmony has transfigured the object and made it beautiful. Beauty +penetrates deeper than grace and comeliness; it is not confined to the +pretty and agreeable. Indeed, beauty is not always immediately +pleasant, but is received often with pain. The emotion of pleasure, +which is regarded as the necessary concomitant of beauty, ensues as +we are able to merge ourselves in the experience and so come to feel +its ultimate harmony. What is commonly accepted as ugly, as +shocking or sordid, becomes beautiful for us so soon as we +apprehend its inner significance. Judged by the canons of formal +beauty, the sky-line of New York city, seen from the North River, is +ugly and distressing. But the responsive spirit, reaching ever +outward into new forms of feeling, can thrill at sight of those Titanic +structures out-topping the Palisades themselves, thrusting their +squareness adventurously into the smoke-grayed air, and telling the +triumph of man's mind over the forces of nature in this fulfillment of +the needs of irrepressible activity, this expression of tremendous +actuality and life. Not that the reaction is so definitely formulated in +the moment of experience; but this is something of what is felt. The +discovery of such a harmony is the entrance into fuller living. So it +is that the boundaries of beauty enlarge with the expansion of the +individual spirit. + +To extend the boundaries of beauty by the revelation of new +harmonies is the function of art. With the ordinary man, the plane of +feeling, which is the basis of appreciation, is below the plane of his +attention as he moves through life from day to day. As a clock may +be ticking in the room quite unheeded, and then suddenly we hear it +because our attention is called to it; so only that emotion really +counts to us as experience which comes to our cognizance. When +once the ordinary man is made aware of the underlying plane of +feeling, the whole realm of appreciation is opened to him by his +recognition of the possibilities of beauty which life may hold. +Consciously to recognize that forces are operating which lie behind +the surface aspect of things is to open ourselves to the play of these +forces. With persons in whom intellect is dominant and the +controlling power, the primary need is to understand; and for such, +first to know is to be helped finally to feel. To comprehend that +there is a soul in every fact and that within material objects reside +meanings for the spirit, or beauty, is to be made more sensitive to +their influence. With the artist, however, the case is different. At the +moment of creation he is little conscious of the purport of the work +to which he sets his hand. He is not concerned, as we have been, +with the "why" of beauty; from the concrete directly to the concrete +is his progress. Life comes to him not as thought but as emotion. He +is moved by actual immediate contact with the world about him,--by +the sight of a landscape, by the mood of an hour or place, by the +power of some personality; it may be, too, a welter of recollected +sensations and impressions that plays upon his spirit. The resultant +emotion, not reasoned about but nevertheless directed to a definite +end, takes shape in external concrete forms which are works of art. +Just because he is so quick to feel the emotional value of life he is an +artist; and much of his power as an artist derives from the +concreteness of his emotion. The artist is the creative mind, creative +in this sense, that in the outward shows of things he feels their +inward and true relations, and by new combinations of material +elements he reëmbodies his feeling in forms whose message is +addressed to the spirit. The reason why Millet painted the "Sower" +was that he felt the beauty of this peasant figure interpreted as +significance and life. And it is this significance and life, in which we +are made to share, that his picture is designed to express. + +Experience comes to us in fragments; the surface of the world +throws back to us but broken glimpses. In the perspective of a +lifetime the fragments flow together into order, and we dimly see the +purpose of our being here; in moments of illumination and deeper +insight a glimpse may disclose a sudden harmony, and the brief +segment of nature's circle becomes beautiful. For then is revealed +the shaping principle. Within the fact, behind the surface, are +apprehended the relations of which the fact and the surface are the +expression. The rhythm thus discovered wakens an accordant +rhythm in the spirit of man. The moment gives out its meaning as +man and nature merge together in the inclusive harmony. If the +human spirit were infinite in comprehension, we should receive all +things as beautiful, for we should apprehend their rightness and their +harmony. To our finite perception, however, design is not always +evident, for it is overlaid and confounded with other elements which +are not at the moment fused. Just here is the office of art. For art +presents a harmony liberated from all admixture of conflicting +details and purged of all accidents, thus rendering the single +meaning salient. To compel disorder into order and so reveal new +beauty is the achievement of the artist. The world is commonplace +or fraught with divinest meanings, according as we see it so. To art +we turn for revelation, knowing that ideals of beauty may be many +and that beauty may manifest itself in many forms. + + + +VIII + +THE ARTS OF FORM + +THE maker of the first bowl moulds the plastic clay into the shape +best adapted to its purpose, a vessel to hold water, from which he +can drink easily; the half-globe rather than the cube affords the +greatest holding capacity with the least expenditure of material. He +finds now that the form itself--over and above the practical +serviceableness of the bowl--gives him pleasure. With a pointed +stick or bit of flint he traces in the yielding surface a flowing line or +an ordered series of dots or crosses, allowing free play to his fancy +and invention. The design does not resemble anything else, nor does +it relate itself to any object external to the maker; it has no meaning +apart from the pleasure which it gave him as he conceived and +traced it, and the pleasure it now gives him to look at it. To another +man who sees the bowl, its form and its decoration afford likewise a +double pleasure: there is first the satisfaction of senses and mind in +the contemplation of harmonious form and rhythmic pattern; and +second, there is communicated to him a feeling of the maker's +delight in his handiwork, and sympathetically and imaginatively the +beholder realizes that delight in his own experience. + +I am walking with a friend along a road which climbs a wooded +hillside. A few steps bring us to the top and the edge of a clearing. +There, suddenly a sweep of country is rolled out before us. A quick +intake of the breath, and then the cry, "Ah!" Consciousness surges +back over me, and turning to my friend, I exclaim, "See the line of +those hills over there across the tender sky and those clouds +tumbling above them; see how the hills dip down into the meadows; +look at the lovely group of willows along the bank of the river, how +graciously they come in, and then that wash of purple light over +everything!" My simple cry, "Ah!" was the expression of emotion, +the unconscious, involuntary expression; it was not art. It did not +formulate my emotion definitely, and although it was an expression +of emotion, it had no power to communicate the special quality of it. +So soon, however, as I composed the elements in the landscape, +which stimulated my emotion, into a distinct and coherent whole +and by means of that I tried to convey to my friend something of +what I was feeling, my expression tended to become art. My +medium of expression happened to be words. If I had been alone and +wanted to take home with me a record of my impression of the +landscape, a pencil-sketch of the little composition might have +served to indicate the sources of my feeling and to suggest its +quality. Whether in words or in line and mass, my work would be in +a rudimentary form a work of representative art. The objective fact +of the landscape which I point out to my friend engages his interest; +his pleasure derives from those aspects of it which my emotion +emphasizes and which constitute its beauty; and something of the +same emotion that I felt he realizes in his own experience. + +The impulse to expression which fulfills itself in a work of art is +directed in general by one of two motives,--the motive of +representation and the motive of pure form. These two motives are +coexistent with human activity itself. The earliest vestiges of +prehistoric races and the remains of the remotest civilizations are +witnesses of man's desire to imitate and record, and also of his +pleasure in harmony of form. Certain caves in France, inhabited by +man some thousands of years before history begins, have yielded up +reindeer horns and bones, carved with reliefs and engraved with +drawings of mammoths, reindeer, and fish. On the walls and roofs of +these caves are paintings in bright colors of animals, rendered with +correctness and animation. Flint axes of a still remoter epoch "are +carved with great dexterity by means of small chips flaked off the +stone, and show a regularity of outline which testifies to the delight +of primitive man in symmetry."[*] Burial mounds, of unknown +antiquity, and the rude stone monuments such as Stonehenge and the +dolmens of Brittany and Wales, emerging out of prehistoric dawns, +are evidence of man's striving after architectural unity in design and +harmony of proportion. + +[*] S. Reinach, _The Story of Art throughout the Ages,_ chapter i. + +The existence of these two separate motives which impel creation, +man's desire to imitate and his delight in harmony, gives rise to a +division of the arts into two general classes, namely, the +representative arts and the arts of pure form. The representative arts +comprise painting and sculpture, and literature in its manifestations +of the drama, fiction, and dramatic and descriptive poetry. These arts +draw their subjects from nature and human life, from the world +external to the artist. The arts of form comprise architecture and +music, and that limitless range of human activities in design and +pattern-making for embellishment--including also the whole +category of "useful arts"--which may be subsumed under the +comprehensive term _decoration._ In these arts the "subject" is +self-constituted and does not derive its significance from its likeness to +any object external to it; the form itself is the subject. Lyric poetry +stands midway between the two classes. It is the expression of +"inner states" but it externalizes itself in terms of the outer world. It +has a core of thought, and it employs images from nature which can +be visualized, and it recalls sounds whose echo can be wakened in +imaginative memory. + + "Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, + And Phoebus 'gins arise, + His steeds to water at those springs + On chaliced flowers that lies; + And winking Mary-buds begin + To ope their golden eyes; + With everything that pretty bin, + My lady sweet, arise! + Arise, arise!" + +The intellectual and sensuous elements which lyric poetry embodies +are finally submerged under the waves of emotional stimulus which +flow from the form as form. Such poetry does not depend upon the +fact of representation for its meaning; the very form itself, as in +music, is its medium of communicating the emotion. Art, therefore, +to phrase the same matter in slightly different terms, has a subjective +and an objective aspect. In the one case, the artist projects his +feeling into the forms which he himself creates; in the other case, the +forms external to him, as nature and human life, inspire the emotion, +and these external forms the artist reproduces, with of course the +necessary modifications, as the symbol and means of expression of +his emotion. + +The distinction between the representative arts and the arts of form +is not ultimate, nor does it exclude one class wholly from the other; +it defines a general tendency and serves to mark certain differences +in original motive and in the way in which the two kinds of work +may be received and appreciated. In actual works of art themselves, +though they differ as to origin and function, the line of division +cannot be sharply drawn. The dance may be an art of form or a +representative art according as it embodies the rhythms of pure +movement or as it numerically figures forth dramatic ideas. Painting, +as in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel and the wall paintings of +Tintoretto and Veronese in the Ducal Palace of Venice, may be +employed in the service of decoration. Decoration, as in +architectural sculpture and in patterns for carpets and wall-coverings, +often draws its motives from nature, such as leaves, flowers, fruits, +and animals; but when the function of the work is decorative and not +representative, the naturalistic and graphic character of the subject is +subordinated to the purposes of abstract and formal design. A +picture, on the other hand, which is frankly representative in purpose, +must submit its composition and color-harmony to the requirements +of unity in design; in a sense it must make a pattern. And a statue, as +the "Victory of Samothrace," bases its ultimate appeal, not upon the +fact of representation, but upon complete, rhythmic, beautiful form. + +To the appreciator the arts of form carry a twofold significance. +There is first the pleasure which derives from the contemplation and +reception of a harmony of pure form, including harmony of color, of +line, and of flat design as well as form in the round, a pleasure of the +senses and the mind. Second, works of art in this category, as they +are the expression for the artist of his emotion, become therefore the +manifestation to the appreciator and means of communication of that +emotion. + +Man's delight in order, in unity, in harmony, rhythm, and balance, is +inborn. The possession of these qualities by an object constitutes its +form. Form, in the sense of unity and totality of relations, is not to +be confounded with mere regularity. It may assume all degrees of +divergence from geometric precision, all degrees of variety, ranging +from the visual perfectness of the Parthenon to the sublime and +triumphant inconsequence of the sky-line of New York city. It may +manifest all degrees of complexity from a cup to a cathedral or from +"Home, Sweet Home" to Tschaikowski's "Pathetic Symphony." +Whatever the elements and the incidents, our sense of order in the +parts and of singleness of impression endows the object with its +form. The form as we apprehend it of an object constitutes its beauty, +its capability to arouse and to delight. + +Because of the essential make-up of man's mind and spirit, powers +that are innate and determined by forces still beyond the scope of +analysis, the perception of a harmony of relations, which is beauty, +is attended with pleasure, a pleasure that is felt and cannot be +explained. This inborn, inexplicable delight is at once the origin of +the arts of form and the basis of our appreciation. Each art, as the +fashioning of objects of use, as decoration, architecture, and music, +is governed by its own intrinsic, inherent laws and rests its appeal +upon man's pleasure in form. There is no standard external to the +laws of the art itself by which to judge the rightness and the beauty +of the individual work. In the arts of use and in decoration and +architecture, the beauty of a work, as the beauty of a chair, as in the +ordering and appointments of a room, as the beauty of a temple, a +theatre, a dwelling, derives primarily from the fitness of the object to +its function, and finally from the rhythm of its lines and the harmony +of its masses and proportions,--its total form. A chair which cannot +be sat in may be interesting and agreeable to look at, but it is not +truly beautiful; for then it is not a chair but a curiosity, a bijou, and a +superfluity; to be beautiful it must be first of all frankly and +practically a chair. A living-room which cannot be lived in with +comfort and restfulness and peace of mind is not a living-room, but +a museum or a concentrated department store; at best it is only an +inclosed space. A beautiful building declares its function and use, +satisfies us with the logic and coherence of its parts, and delights us +with its reticence or its boldness, its simplicity or its inventiveness, +in fine, its personality, as expressed in its parts and their confluence +into an ordered, self-contained, and self-sufficing whole. Music, +using sound for its material, is a pattern-weaving in tones. The +power of music to satisfy and delight resides in the sensuous value +of its material and in the character of its pattern as form, the balance +and contrast of tonal relations, the folding and unfolding of themes, +their development and progress to the final compelling unity-in-variety +which constitutes its form and which in its own inherent and +self-sufficing way is made the expression of the composer's emotion +and musical idea. Lyric poetry is the fitting of rhythmic, melodious, +colored words to the emotion within, to the point where the very +form itself becomes the meaning, and the essence and mystery of the +song are in the singing. Beauty is harmony materialized; it is +emotion ordered and made visible, audible, tangible. If in the arts of +form we seek further a standard of truth, their truth is not found in +their relation to any external verity, but is determined by their +correspondence with inner experience. + +In the category of the arts of form the single work is to be received +in its entirety and integrity as form. The whole, however, may be +resolved into its parts, and the individual details may be interesting +in themselves. Thus into decorative patterns are introduced elements +of meaning which attach themselves to the world and experience +external to the artist. Many ornamental motives, like the zigzag and +the egg-and-dart, for example, had originally a symbolic value. +Sometimes they are drawn from primitive structures and fabrics, as +the checker-board pattern, with its likeness to the plaitings of rush +mattings, and the volute and spiral ornaments, which recall the +curves and involutions of wattle and wicker work. Again, decoration +may employ in its service details that in themselves are genuinely +representative art. The frieze of the Parthenon shows in relief a +procession of men and women and horses and chariots and animals. +The sculptures of Gothic churches represent men and women, and +the carvings of mouldings, capitals, and traceries are based on +naturalistic motives, taking their designs from leaves and flowers. +The essential function of ornament is to emphasize form and not to +obscure it, though nowadays in machine-made things a kind of +pseudo-embellishment is laid on to distract attention from the +badness and meaninglessness of the form; in true decoration the +representative elements are subordinated to the formal character of +the whole. The representative interest may be enjoyed separately and +in detail; but finally the graphic purpose yields to the decorative, and +the details take their place as parts of the total design. Thus a Gothic +cathedral conveys its complete and true impression first and last as +form. Midway we may set ourselves to a reading of the details. The +figure of this saint on the jamb or the archivolt of the portal is +expressive of such simple piety and enthusiasm! In this group on the +tympanum what animation and spirit! This moulding of leaves and +blossoms is cut with such loving fidelity and exquisite feeling for +natural truth! But at the last the separate members fulfill their +appointed office as they reveal the supreme function of the living +total form. + +Music, too, in some of its manifestations, as in song, the opera, and +programme music, has a representative and illustrative character. In +Chopin's "Funeral March" we hear the tolling of church bells, and it +is easy to visualize the slow, straggling file of mourners following +the bier; the composition here has a definite objective base drawn +from external fact, and the "idea" is not exclusively musical, but +admits an infusion of pictorial and literary elements. In listening to +the love duet of the second act of "Tristan," although the lovers are +before us in actual presence on the stage, I find myself involuntarily +closing my eyes, for the music is so personal and so spiritualized, it +is in and of itself so intensely the realization of the emotion, that the +objective presentment of it by the actors becomes unnecessary and is +almost an intrusion. The representative, figurative element in music +may be an added interest, but its appeal is intellectual; if as we hear +the "Funeral March," we say to ourselves, This is so and so, and, +Here they do this or that, we are thinking rather than feeling. Music +is the immediate expression of emotion communicated immediately; +and the composition will not perfectly satisfy unless it is _music,_ +compelling all relations of melody, harmony, and rhythm into a +supreme and triumphant order. + +Whereas the representative arts are based upon objective fact, +drawing their "subjects" from nature and life external to the artist; in +decoration, in architecture, and in music the artist creates his own +forms as the projection of his emotion and the means of its +expression. Richard Wagner, referring to the composition of his +"Tristan," writes: "Here, in perfect trustfulness, I plunged into the +inner depth of soul events, and from out this inmost centre of the +world I fearlessly built up its outer form. . . . Life and death, the +whole import and existence of the outer world, here hang on nothing +but the inner movements of the soul. The whole affecting Action +comes about for the reason only that the inmost soul demands it, and +steps to light with the very shape foretokened in the inner shrine." +The form, thus self-constituted, has the power to delight us, and the +work is at the same time the expression of emotion. The arts of form +please us with the pleasure that attends the perception of formal +beauty; but this pleasure docs not exhaust their capability to minister +to us. What differentiates art from manufacture is the element of +personal expression. Born out of need, whether the need be physical +or spiritual, fulfilling the urge to expression, a work of art embodies +its maker's delight in creating. Correspondingly, beyond our +immediate enjoyment of the work as form, we feel something of +what the man felt who was impelled to create it. His handiwork, his +pattern, his composition, becomes the means of communicating to +us his emotional experience. + +Obviously the significance of any work is determined primarily by +the intensity and scope of emotion which has prompted it. The +creation of works of art involves all degrees of intention, from the +hut in the wilderness rudely thrown together, whose purpose was +shelter, to a Gothic cathedral, in its multitudinousness eloquent of +man's worship and aspiration. The man who moulded the first bowl, +adapting its form as closely as possible to its use and shaping its +proportions for his own pleasure to satisfy his sense of harmony and +rhythm, differs from the builders of the Parthenon only in the degree +of intensity of his inspiring emotion and in the measure of his +controlling thought. The beauty of accomplished form of cathedral +and of temple is compelling; and we may forget that they rose out of +need. Both hut and bowl are immediately useful, and their beauty is +not so evident,--that little touch of feeling which wakens a response +in us. But in their adaptation to their function they become +significant; the satisfaction which accompanies expression is +communicated to us as we apprehend in the work the creator's +intention and we realize in ourselves what the creation of it meant to +him as the fulfillment of his need and the utterance of his emotion. + +So the expressive power of an individual work is conditioned +originally by the amount of feeling that enters into the making of it. +Every phrase of a Beethoven symphony is saturated with emotion, +and the work leads us into depths and up to heights of universal +experience, disclosing to us tortuous ways and infinite vistas of the +possibilities of human feeling. A simple earthen jug may bear the +impress of loving fingers, and the crudely turned form may be +eloquent of the caress of its maker. So we come to value even in the +humblest objects of use this autographic character, which is the gate +of entrance into the experience of the men who fashioned them. +Every maker strives toward perfection, the completest realization of +his ideal within his power of execution. But the very shortcomings +of his work are significant as expressive of what he felt and was +groping after; they are so significant that by a curious perversion, +machinery, which in our civilized day has supplanted the craftsman, +tries by mechanical means to reproduce the roughness and supposed +imperfections of hand work. Music is the consummate art, in which +the form and the content are one and inextricable; its medium is the +purest, least alloyed means of expression of instant emotion. +Architecture, in its harmonies and rhythms, the gathering up of +details into the balanced and perfect whole, partakes of the nature of +music. But the arts of use and decoration also have their message for +the spirit. There is no object fashioned by the hand of man so +humble that it may not embody a true thought and a sincere delight. +There is no pattern or design so simple and so crude that it may not +be the overflow of some human spirit, a mind and heart touched to +expression. + + + +IX + +REPRESENTATION + +BEFORE me is a little bowl of old Satsuma. As I look at it there +wakens in me a responsive rhythm, and involuntarily my fingers +move as if to caress its suave and lovely lines. The rich gold and +mingled mellow browns of its surface pattern intricately woven are a +gracious harmony and a delight. Gradually, as I continue to look on +it, a feeling is communicated to me of the maker's own joy in his +work; and the bowl, its harmonies and rhythms, and all that it +expresses, become part of me. There it is, complete in itself, +gathering up and containing within itself the entire experience. My +thoughts, sensations, feelings do not go beyond the bowl. + +Another time I am standing in the hall of the Academy in Florence. +At the end of the corridor towers a superb form. I see that it is the +figure of a youth. His left hand holds a sling drawn across his +shoulder; his right arm hangs by his side, his hand grasping a pebble +close to his thigh; calm and confident, his head erect, his strength +held in leash waiting to be loosed, he fronts the oncoming of the foe. +The statue is the presentation of noble form, and it wakens in me an +accordant rhythm; I feel in myself something of what youthful +courage, life, and conscious power mean. But my experience does +not stop there. The statue is not only presentation but representation. +It figures forth a youth, David, the Hebrew shepherd-boy, and he +stands awaiting the Philistine. I have read his story, I have my own +mental image of him, and about his personality cluster many +thoughts. To what Michelangelo shows me I add what I already +know. Recognition, memory, knowledge, facts and ideas, a whole +store of associations allied with my previous experience, mingle +with my instant emotion in its presence. The sculptor, unlike the +potter, has not created his own form; the subject of his work exists +outside of him in nature. He uses the subject for his own ends, but in +his treatment of it he is bound by certain responsibilities to external +truth. His work as it stands is not completely self-contained, but is +linked with the outer world; and my appreciation of it is affected by +this reference to extrinsic fact. + +An artist is interested in some scene in nature or a personality or +situation in human life; it moves him. As the object external to him +is the stimulus of his emotion and is associated with it, so he uses +the object as the symbol of his experience and means of expression +of his emotion. Here, then, the feeling, to express which the work is +created, gathers about a subject, which can be recognized +intellectually, and the fact of the subject is received as in a measure +separate from the feeling which flows from it. In a painting of a +landscape, we recognize as the basis of the total experience the fact +that it is a landscape, so much water and field and sky; and then we +yield ourselves to the _beauty_ of the landscape, the emotion with +which the artist suffuses the material objects and so transfigures +them. Into representative art, therefore, there enters an element not +shared by the arts of pure form, the element of _the subject,_ +carrying with it considerations of objective truth and of likeness to +external fact. Toward the understanding of the total scope of a +picture or a statue, and by inference and application of the principles, +toward the understanding of literature as well, it may help us if we +determine the relation of beauty to truth and the function and value +of the subject in representative art. + +The final significance of a work of art is beauty, received as +emotional experience. Nature becomes beautiful to us at the point +where it manifests a harmony to which we feel ourselves attuned. At +the moment of enjoyment we unconsciously project our personality +into this harmony outside of us, identifying ourselves with it and +finding it at that instant the expression of something toward which +we reach and aspire. When we come consciously to reason about our +experience, we see that the harmony external to us which we feel as +the extension of ourselves does not stop with the actual material +itself of nature, but emanates from it as the expression of nature's +spirit. The harmony is a harmony of relations, made visible through +material, and significant to us and beautiful in the measure that we +respond to it. + +It is the beauty of the object, its significance for the spirit, that +primarily moves the artist to expression. Why one landscape and not +another impels him to render it upon his canvas is not to be +explained. This impulse to immediate and concrete utterance is +inspiration. And inspiration would seem to be a confluence of forces +outside of the individual consciousness or will, focused at the instant +into desire, which becomes the urge to creation. "The mind in +creation," says Shelley, "is as a fading coal, which some invisible +influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; +this power rises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades +and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our +natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure." The +artist does not say, "Lo, I will paint a landscape; let me find my +subject!" The subject presents itself. There it is, by chance almost,--a +sudden harmony before him, long low meadows stretching away to +the dark hills, the late sun striking on the water, gold and green +melting into a suffusing flush of purple light, a harmony of color and +line and mass which his spirit leaps out to meet and with which it +fuses in a larger unity. In the moment of contact all consciousness of +self as a separate individuality is lost. Out of the union of the two +principles, the spirit of man and the beauty of the object, is born the +_idea,_ which is to come to expression as a work of art. + +But the artist is a mind as well as a temperament. Experience +is a swing of the pendulum between the momentary ecstasy of +immediate contact and the subsequent reaction upon the moment, +which is consciousness of it. In order to make his vision actual, the +artist rises out of the domain of feeling into that of thought. The +landscape has compelled him; it is now he who must compel the +landscape. To the shaping of his work he must bring to bear all his +conscious power of selection and organization and all his knowledge +of the capabilities and resources of his means. Art springs out of +emotion; painting is a science. The artist's command of his subject +as the symbol of his idea derives from the stern and vigorous +exercise of mind. The rightness of his composition is determined by +a logic more flexible, perhaps, but no less exacting than the laws of +geometry. By the flow of his line and the disposition of his masses, +the artist must carry the eye of the beholder along the way he wants +it to travel until it rests upon the point where he wants it to rest. +There must be no leaks and no false directions; there must be the +cosmos within the frame and nothing outside of it. The principles of +perspective have been worked out with a precision that entitles them +to rank as a science. Color has its laws, which, again, science is able +to formulate. These processes and formulas and laws are not the +whole of art, but they have their place. The power to feel, the +imaginative vision, and creative insight are not to be explained. But +knowledge too, acquired learning and skill, plays its part, and to +recognize its function and service is to be helped to a fuller +understanding of the achievement of the artist. + +Gifted with a vibrant, sensitive temperament, endowed with +discriminating and organizing power of mind, equipped with a +knowledge of the science and the mechanics of his craft, and trained +to skill in manual execution, the artist responds to the impulse of his +inspiration. His subject is before him. But what is his subject? A +scene in nature furnishes him the objective base of his picture, but +properly his work is the expression of what he feels. A storm may +convey to different men entirely different impressions. In its +presence one man may feel himself overwhelmed with terror. These +wild, black skies piling in upon him, the hilltops that seem to race +through the clouds, the swaying, snapping trees, the earth caught up +in the mad grasp of the tempest, may smite his soul with the +pitilessness of nature and her inexorable blind power. Another thrills +with joy in this cosmic struggle, the joy of conflict which he has +known in his own life, the meeting of equal forces in fair fight, +where the issue is still doubtful and victory will fall at last upon the +strong, though it is not the final triumph but the present struggle that +makes the joy. In rendering the "subject" upon his canvas, by the +manipulation of composition and line and mass and color, he makes +the storm ominous and terrible, or glorious, according as he feels. +The import of his picture is not the natural fact of the storm itself, +but its significance for the emotions. + +A work of representative art is the rendering of a unity of impression +and harmony of relations which the artist has perceived and to which +he has thrilled in the world external to him. He presents not the facts +themselves but their spirit, that something which endows the facts +with their significance and their power to stir him. As the meaning +of nature to the beholder is determined by the effect it produces on +his mind and temperament, so the artist, in the expression of this +meaning, aims less at a statement of objective accuracy of exterior +appearance than at producing a certain effect, the effect which is the +equivalent of the meaning of nature to him. Thus the painter who +sees beyond the merely intellectual and sensuous appeal of his +subject and enters into its spirit, tries to render on his canvas, not the +actual color of nature, but the sensation of color and its value for the +emotions. With the material splendor of nature,--her inexhaustible +lavish wealth of color, the glory of life which throbs through +creation, the mystery of actual movement,--art cannot compete. For +the hues and tones of nature, infinite in number and subtlety, the +painter has only the few notes within the poor gamut of his palette. +How can he quicken his dull paint with the life-beat of palpitating +flesh, or the sculptor animate the rigid marble with the vibrations of +vivid motion? But where nature is infinite in her range she is also +scattering in her effects. By the concentration of divergent forces, art +gains in intensity and directness of impression what it sacrifices in +the scope of its material. Michelangelo uses as his subject David, the +shepherd-boy; but the person, the mere name, does not signify. What +his work embodies is triumphant youth, made visible and +communicable. When Millet shows us the peasant, it is not what the +peasant is feeling that the artist represents, but what Millet felt about +him. The same landscape will be rendered differently by different +men. Each selects his details according to the interest of his eye and +mind and feeling, and he brings them into a dominant harmony +which stands to him for the meaning of the landscape. None of the +pictures is an accurate statement of the facts as they are, off there in +nature; all are true to the integrating inner vision. The superficial +observer sees only the accidents, and he does not distinguish relative +importance. The artist, with quicker sensibilities and a trained mind, +analyzes, discovers the underlying principle, and then makes a +synthesis which embodies only the essential; he seizes the +distinctive aspect of the object and makes it salient. There may be, +of course, purely descriptive representation, which is a faithful +record of the facts of appearance as the painter sees them, without +any feeling toward them; here he works as a scientist, not as an artist. +Merely imitative painting falls short of artistic significance, for it +embodies no meaning beyond the external fact. It is the +expressiveness of the object that the true artist cares to represent; it +is its expressiveness, its value for the emotions, that constitutes its +beauty. + +To achieve beauty the representative artist bases his work upon the +truth of nature. It is nature that supplies him with his motive,--some +glimpse, some fragment, which reveals within itself a harmony. It +may be a form, as a tree, a man, a mountain range, the race of clouds +across the sky; it may be a color-harmony or "arrangement," in +which color rather than form is the dominant interest, as with a +landscape or an interior; it may be the effects of light, as the +sunshine playing over golden haystacks, or the glint of light on +metal, or the sheen of lovely fabrics. Out of the complex of interests +and appeals which an object offers, what is the _truth_ of the object? +The truth of nature resides not in the accidents of surface but in the +essential relations, of which the surface is the manifestation. A birch +tree and an apple tree are growing side by side. Their roots strike +down into the same soil, their branches are warmed by the same sun, +wet by the same rains, and swept by the same winds. The birch tree +is always lithe and gracious and feminine; the apple tree is always +bent and sternly gnarled like the hand of an old man. The life-force +which impels the tree to growth is distinctive to each kind. Within +all natural objects, then, a crystal, a tree, a man, there is a shaping +principle which determines their essential form. But no two +individual apple trees are precisely alike; from the essential form of +the tree there are divergences in the single manifestations. Though +subject to accident and variation, however, every tree exhibits a +characteristic, inviolate _tendency,_ and remains true to the inner +life-principle of its being. The "truth" of the apple tree is this +distinctive, essential form, by virtue of which it is an apple tree and +not some other kind, the form which underlies and allows for all +individual variations. What the painter renders on his canvas is not +the superficial accidents of some single tree, but by means of that, +he seeks to image forth in color and form the tendency of all trees. +The truth of an object presents itself to the imagination as design, for +this organic, shaping principle of things, expressed in colored +myriad forms throughout the endless pageantry of nature, is +apprehended by the spirit of man as a harmony; and in the +experience of the artist truth identifies itself with beauty. + +The distinction between the accidental surface of things and the +significance that may be drawn out of them is exemplified by the +difference between accuracy and truth in representation. Accurate +drawing is the faithful record of the facts of appearance as offered to +the eye. Truth of drawing is the rendering in visible terms of the +meaning and spirit of the object, the form which the object takes not +simply for the eye but for the mind. A pencil sketch by Millet shows +a man carrying in each hand a pail of water. The arms are drawn +inaccurately, in that they are made too long. What Millet wanted to +express, however, was not the physical shape of the arms, but the +feeling of the burden under which the man was bending; and by +lengthening the arms he has succeeded in conveying, as mere +accuracy could not express it, the sensation of weight and muscular +strain. In Hals' picture of the "Jester" the left hand is sketched in +with a few swift strokes of the brush. But so, it "keeps its place" in +relation to the whole; and it is more nearly right than if it had been +made the centre of attention and had been drawn with the most +meticulous precision. The hand is not accurate, but it is true. +Similarly, size is an affair not of physical extent but of proportion. A +figure six inches high may convey the same value as a figure six feet +high, if the same proportions are observed. A statue is the +presentation, not of the human body, but of the human form, and +more than that, of what the form expresses. When I am talking with +my friend I am aware of his physical presence detaching itself from +the background of the room in which we are. But I feel in him +something more. And that something more goes behind the details +of his physical aspect. His eyes might be blue instead of brown, his +nose crooked rather than straight; he might be maimed and +disfigured by some mishap. These accidents would not change for +me what is the reality. My friend is not his body, though it is by his +body that he exists; the reality of my friend is what he essentially is, +what he is of the spirit. A photograph of a man registers certain facts +of his appearance at that moment. The eye and the mind of the artist +discern the truth which underlies the surface; the artist feels his sitter +not as a face and a figure, a mere body, but as a personality; and the +portrait expresses a man. + +As grasped by our finite minds, there are partial truths and degrees +of truth. There are, for example, the facts of outer appearance, +modified in our reception of them by what we know as distinct from +what we really see. Thus a tree against the background of hill or sky +seems to have a greater projection and relief than is actually +presented to the eye, because we _know_ the tree is round. Manet's +"Girl with a Parrot," which appears to the ordinary man to be too flat, +is more true to reality than any portrait that "seems to come out of its +frame." Habitually in our observation of objects about us, we note +only so much as serves our practical ends; and this is the most +superficial, least essential aspect. Projection is a partial truth, and to +it many painters sacrifice other and higher truths. Manet, recovering +the "innocence of the eye" and faithful to it, has penetrated the +secrets and won the truth of light. Botticelli saw the world as +sonorous undulations of exquisite line; and his subtly implicated, +evanescent patterns of line movement, "incorrect" as they may be +superficially in drawing, caress the eye as music finds and satisfies +the soul. When such is his power over us, it is difficult to say that +Botticelli had not some measure of the truth. The world of the +Venetians sang full-sounding harmonies of glorious color. +Velasquez saw everything laved around with a flood of silver quiet +atmosphere. All in their own way have found and shown to us a +truth. + +To render what he has seen and felt in the essence and meaning of it, +the artist seeks to disengage the shaping principle of the particular +aspect of truth, which has impressed him, from all accidents in its +manifestation. To make this dominant character salient beyond +irrelevant circumstance, art works by selection. Art is necessarily a +compromise. It isolates some elements and sacrifices others; but it is +none the less true on that account. The mere material of the object is +more or less fixed, but the relations which the object embodies are +capable of many combinations and adjustments, according to the +mind and temperament of the individual artist who is moved by it. +All art is in a certain sense abstraction; all art in a measure idealizes. +It is abstraction in the sense that it presents the intrinsic and +distinctive qualities of things, purged of accident. + +Art does not compete with nature; it is a statement of the spirit and +intention of nature in the artist's own terms. The test of the work is +not apparent and superficial likeness, but truth. Art idealizes in the +measure that it disengages the truth. In this aspect of it the work is +ideal as distinct from merely actual. There is a practice in art which +draws its standard of beauty, its ideal, not from nature but from +other art, and which seeks to "improve nature" by the combination +of arbitrarily chosen elements and by the modification of natural +truth to fit a preconceived formula. The Eclectics of Bologna, in the +seventeenth century, sought to combine Raphael's perfection of +drawing and composition, Michelangelo's sublimity and his mastery +of the figure, and Correggio's sweet sentiment and his supremacy in +the rendering of light and shade, fondly supposing thus that the sum +of excellent parts is equivalent to an excellence of the whole. This is +false idealism. The Greeks carried their research for certain truths of +the human form to the point of perfection and complete realization. +The truth of the Greeks was mistaken by the pseudo-classicists and +misapplied. Thus Delacroix exclaimed ironically, "In order to +present an ideal head of a negro, our teachers make him resemble as +far as possible the profile of Antinöus, and then say, 'We have done +our utmost; if, nevertheless, we fail to make the negro beautiful, +then we ought not to introduce into our pictures such a freak of +nature, the squat nose and thick lips, which are so unendurable to the +eyes.'" True idealism treats everything after its own kind, making it +more intensely itself than it is in the play of nature; the athlete is +more heroically an athlete, the negro more vividly a negro. True +idealism seeks to express the tendency by virtue of which an object +is what it is. The abstraction which art effects is not an unreality but +a higher reality. It is not the mere type, that art presents, for the type +as such does not exist in nature. The individual is not lost but +affirmed by this reference to the inner principle of its being. A good +portrait has in it an element of caricature; the difference between +portraiture and caricature is the difference between emphasis and +exaggeration. Art is not the falsification of nature, but the fuller +realization of it. It is the interpretation of nature's truth, the +translation of it, divined by the artist, into simpler terms to be read +and understood by those of less original insight. The deeper the +penetration into the life-force and shaping principle of nature, the +greater is the measure of truth. + +In representative art the truth of nature is the work's objective base. +What the artist finally expresses is the relation of the object to his +own experience. A work of art is the statement of the artist's insight +into nature, moulded and suffused by the emotion attending his +perception. Of the object, he uses that aspect and that degree of truth +which serve him for the expression of his feeling toward it. What is +called "realism" is one order of truth, one way of seeing. +"Impressionism" is another order of truth. "Idealism" is still another. +But all three elements blend in varying proportion in any work. +Even the realist, who "paints what he sees," has his ideal, which is +the effect he sets himself to produce by his picture, and he paints +according to his impression. He renders not the object itself but his +mental image of it; and that image is the result of his way of seeing +and feeling, his habit of mind, his interest, and his store of memories. +The idealist must base his work upon some kind of reality, or it is a +monstrosity; he is obliged to refer to the external world for his +symbols. The impressionist, who concerns himself with the play of +light over surfaces in nature, is seeking for truth, and he cares to +paint at all because that play of light, seemingly so momentary and +so merely sensuous, has a value for his spirit of which he may or +may not be wholly conscious; and these shifting effects are the +realization of his ideal. Unwitting at the moment of contact itself of +the significance that afterwards is to flow articulately from his work, +the artist, in the presence of his object, knows only that he is +impelled to render it. As faithfully as possible he tries to record what +he sees, conscious simply that what he sees gives him delight. His +vision wakens his feeling, and then by reaction his feeling +determines his vision, controlling and directing his selection of the +details of aspect. When Velasquez, engaged on a portrait of the king, +saw the maids of honor graciously attending on the little princess, he +did not set about producing a _picture,_ as an end in itself. In the +relation of these figures to one another and to the background of the +deep and high-vaulted chamber in which they were standing, each +object and plane of distance receiving its just amount of light and +fusing in the unity of total impression, were revealed to him the +wonder and the mystery of nature's magic of light. This is what he +tried to render. His revelation of natural truth, wrung from nature's +inmost latencies and shown to us triumphantly, becomes a thing of +beauty. + +So the differences among the various "schools" in art are after all +largely differences of emphasis. The choice of subject or motive, the +angle from which it is viewed, and the method of handling, all are +determined by the artist's kind of interest; and that interest results +from what the man is essentially by inheritance and individual +character, and what he is moulded into by environment, training, and +experience. It may happen that the external object imposes itself in +its integrity upon the artist's mind and temperament, and he tries to +express it, colored inevitably by his feeling toward it, in all +faithfulness to the feet as he sees it. Millet said, "I should never paint +anything that was not the result of an impression received from the +aspect of nature, whether in landscape or figures." Millet painted +what he saw, but he painted it as only he saw it. Or again it happens +that an artist imposes his feeling upon nature. Thus Burne-Jones said, +"I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that +never was, never will be--in a light better than any that ever shone--in +a land no one can define or remember, only desire." Whether true +to nature or true to the creative inner vision, the work of both men +embodies truth. Sometimes an artist effaces entirely his own +individuality, as in Greek sculpture and Gothic architecture, and the +mere name of the creator does not signify. George Frederick Watts +is reported to have said, "If I were asked to choose whether I would +like to do something good, as the world judges popular art, and +receive personally great credit for it, or, as an alternative, to produce +something which should rank with the very best, taking a place with +the art of Pheidias or Titian, with the highest poetry and the most +elevating music, and remain unknown as the perpetrator of the work, +I should choose the latter." Sidney Lanier wrote, "It is of little +consequence whether _I_ fail; the _I_ in the matter is small +business. . . . Let my name perish,--the poetry is good poetry and the +music is good music, and beauty dieth not, and the heart that needs it +will find it." Or on the contrary, a work may bear dominantly, even +aggressively, the impress of the distinctive individuality of its +creator, as with Carlyle's prose and Browning's poetry. Whistler +seems at times to delight less in the beauty of his subject than in the +_exercise_ of his own power of refinement. Where another man's art +is personal, as with Velasquez or Frans Hals, Whistler's art becomes +egotistical. He does not say, "Lo, how mysterious is this dusk +river-side, how tenderly serene this mother, how wistful and mighty is this +prophet-seer!" He exclaims rather, "Note how subtly I, Whistler, +have seen. Rejoice with me in my powers of vision and of +execution." There is no single method of seeing, no one formula of +expression and handling. The truth both of nature and of art is great +and infinitely various. For art, like nature, is organic, allowing for +endless modifications, while remaining true to the inner principle of +its being. + +The judgment of truth is a delicate business. To test the truth of a +work of art by reference to the truth of nature is to presuppose that +our power of perception is equal to the artist's power, and that our +knowledge of the object represented is equal to his knowledge of it. +The ordinary man's habitual contact with the world is practical, and +his knowledge of natural fact, based upon the most superficial aspect +of it and used for practical purposes, tends to falsify his vision. The +artist's contact with the world, in his capacity as artist, is one of +feeling; he values life, not for its material rewards and satisfactions, +but for what it brings to him of emotional experience. The ordinary +man uses nature for his own workaday ends. The artist loves nature, +and through his love he understands her. His knowledge of natural +fact, instead of falsifying his vision, reinforces it. He studies the +workings of nature's laws as manifested in concrete phenomena +around him,--the movement of storms, the growth of trees, the +effects of light,--penetrating their inmost secrets, that he may make +them more efficient instruments of expression. He uses his +understanding of anatomy, of earth-structure, of the laws of color, as +the means to a fuller and juster interpretation. As he receives the +truth of nature with reverence and joy, so he transmutes truth into +beauty. + +An artist's interest in the truth of nature is not the scientist's +interest, an intellectual concern with knowledge for the sake of +knowledge. The artist receives nature's revelation of herself with +emotion. The deeper he penetrates into her hidden ways, the greater +becomes her power to stir him. The artist values his "subject," +therefore, as the stimulus of emotion and as the symbol by means of +which he expresses his emotion and communicates it. The value of the +subject to the appreciator, however, is not immediately clear. It is +not easy for us to receive the subject purely as the artist shows it +to us and independently of our own knowledge of it. About it already +gather innumerable associations, physical, practical, intellectual, +sentimental, and emotional, all of them or any of them, which result +from our previous contact with it in actual life. Here is a portrait of +Carlyle. I cannot help regarding the picture first of all from the point +of view of its likeness to the original. This is a person with whom I +am acquainted, an individual, by name Carlyle. And my reaction on +the picture is determined, not by what the artist has to say about a +great personality interpreted through the medium of color and form, +but by what I already know about Carlyle. Or here a painting shows +me a landscape with which I am familiar. Then instead of trying to +discover in the picture what the artist has seen in the landscape and +felt in its presence, letting it speak to me in its own language, I allow +my thoughts to wander from the canvas, and I enjoy the landscape in +terms of my own knowledge and remembrance of it. The artist's +work becomes simply a point of departure, whereas it should be not +only the beginning but also the end and fulfillment of the complete +experience. What is, then, we may ask, the relation of the fact of the +subject to the beauty and final message of the work? + +The pleasure which attends the recognition of the subject is a +legitimate element in our enjoyment of art. But the work should +yield a delight beyond our original delight in the subject as it exists +in nature. The significance of a work of representative art depends +not upon the subject in and of itself, but upon what the artist has to +say about it. A rose may be made to reveal the cosmos; a mountain +range or cloud-swept spaces of the upper air may be niggled into +meanness. The ugly in practical life may be transfigured by the +artist's touch into supreme beauty. _"Il faut pouvoir faire servir le +trivial à l'expression du sublime, c'est la vraie force,"_ said one who +was able to invest a humble figure with august dignity. Millet's +peasants reveal more of godlike majesty than all the array of +personages in the pantheon of post-Raphaelite Italy and the classic +school of France. Upon his subject the artist bases that harmony of +relations which constitutes the beauty and significance of his work. +Brought thus into a harmony, the object represented is made more +vivid, more intensely itself, than it is in nature, with the result that +we receive from the representation a heightened sense of reality and +of extended personality. The importance of the subject, therefore, is +measured by the opportunity it affords the artist, and with him his +appreciators, to share in the beauty of nature and life. A picture +should not "standout" from its frame, but should go back into it, +reaching even into infinity. Our own associations attaching to the +subject lose themselves as they blend with the artist's revelation of +the fuller beauty of his object; and finally all becomes merged in the +emotional experience. + +Eliminating the transient and accidental, a work of art presents the +essential and eternal. Art appeals not to the intellect and the reason, +but to the imagination and the emotions. The single work, therefore, +is concrete and immediate. But universal in its scope, it transcends +the particularities of limited place and individual name. We must +distinguish between the abstractly typical and the universal. The +representative artist does not conceive an abstraction and then seek +to find a symbol for it. That is the method of allegory, where spring, +for example, is figured as a young woman scattering flowers. +Allegory is decorative rather than representative in intention. The +artist receives his inspiration and stimulus from some actual +concrete bit of nature, a woodland wrapt in tender mists of green, a +meadow gold and softly white with blossoms, a shimmering gauze +of sun touched air, moist and vibrating, enfolding it. That is what he +paints. But he paints it so that it is spring, and instinct with the spirit +of all springs. Michelangelo does not intellectually conceive youth +and then carve a statue. Some boy has revealed to him the beauty of +his young strength, and the sculptor moves to immediate expression. +He calls his statue David, but the white form radiates the rhythm and +glory of all youth. And as we realize youth in ourselves, more +poignantly, more abundantly, the mere name of the boy does not +matter. The fact that the portrait shows us Carlyle is an incident. +Carlyle is the "subject" of the picture, but its meaning is the twilight +of a mighty, indomitable mind, made visible and communicable. His +work is done; the hour of quiet is given, and he finds rest. Into this +moment, eternal in its significance, into this mood, universal in its +appeal, we enter, to realize it in ourselves. The subject of picture or +statue is but the means; the end is life. Objective fact is transmuted +into living truth. Art is the manifestation of a higher reality than we +alone have been able to know. It begins with the particular and then +transcends it, admitting us to share in the beauty of the world, the +cosmic harmony of universal experience. + + + +X + +THE PERSONAL ESTIMATE + +ART starts from life and in the end comes back to it. Art is born out +of the stirring of the artist's spirit in response to his need of +expression, and it reaches its fulfillment in the spirit of the +appreciator as it answers his need of wider and deeper experience. +Midway on its course from spirit to spirit it traverses devious paths. +The emotion out of which art springs and of which it is the +expression is controlled and directed by the shaping force of mind, +and it embodies itself in material form. This material form, by virtue +of its qualities, has the power to delight our senses; the skill which +went into the fashioning of it, so far as we can recognize the +processes of execution, gives us pleasure; the harmony which the +work of art must manifest satisfies the mind and makes it possible +for us to link the emotion with our own experience. + +These paths which a work of art traverses in its course from its +origin to its fulfillment I have tried to follow in their ramifications, +and I have tried to trace them to their issue in appreciation. Some +lovers of art may linger on the way and rest content with the +distance they have come, without pressing forward to the end. A +work of art is complex in its appeal; and it is possible to stop with +one or another of its elements. Thus we may receive the work +intellectually, recognizing its subject, and turning the artist's +emotion into our thought and translating it from his medium of color +and form or sound into our own medium of words. Here is a portrait +of Carlyle; and Carlyle we _know_ as an author and as a man. This +landscape is from the Palisades, where we have roamed in leisure +hours. Before us is a statue of Zeus, whom our classical reading has +made a reality to us. This symphony gathers about a day in the +country, suggesting an incident in our own experience of which we +have pleasant remembrances. Intellectually, also, we enjoy the +evidence of the artist's skill which the work exhibits. Or we may +pass beyond the simple exercise of the intellect, and with a +refinement of perception we may take a sensuous delight in the +qualities of the material in which the work is embodied. This portrait +is a subtle harmony of color and exquisite adjustment of line and +mass. The luminous night which enwraps the Palisades is a solemn +mighty chord. The white rhythm of this statue caresses the eye that +follows it. This symphony is an intricate and wonderful +wave-pattern upon a sea of billowing sound in which the listener immerses +himself voluptuously. The essential significance of a work of art is +not to be received apart from its form, but the form is more than +merely sensuous in its appeal. Finally, therefore, the color and the +composition of the portrait are but the point of meeting where we +touch in energizing contact a powerful personality. Our spirit goes +out into the night of these Palisades and dilates into immensity. This +statue is Olympian majesty made visible, and in its presence we feel +that we too are august. The symphony is a resolution of the struggle +of our own tangled lives, a purification, and the experience of joy. + +Art is the expression of experience, whether the experience enacts +itself within the spirit of the artist or derives from his contact with +the external world. So by the same token, art is finally to be received +as experience. The ultimate meaning of a work of art to the +appreciator is what it wakens in him of emotion. It is the artist's +business, by the manipulation of his materials and his elements, by +the choice of motive and the rendering, by the note and pitch of his +color, the ordering of his line, the disposition of his masses, to +compel the direction of the emotion; he must not allow the +solemnity and awe with which his night invests the Palisades to be +mistaken by the beholder for terror or for mere obscurity. But the +quality and the intensity of the emotion depend upon the temper of +the appreciator's sensibilities and the depth and range of his +experience of life. Art is not fixed and invariable in its effect. +"Vanity Fair" is a great novel. One man may read it for the sake of +the story, and in his amusement and interest in following the +succession of incident, he may for a while forget himself. A possible +use to put one's reading to; yet for that man the book is not art. +Another may be entertained by the spectacle of the persons as they +exhibit themselves in Thackeray's pages, much as he might stop a +moment on the curbstone and watch a group of children at play in +the street. Here he is a looker-on, holding himself aloof; and for him, +again, the book is not art. Still a third may find in "Vanity Fair" a +record of the customs and manners of English people at the +beginning of the nineteenth century; and he adds this much to his +stock of information. Still for him the book is not art. Not one of the +three has touched in vital contact the essential meaning of "Vanity +Fair." But the man who sees in the incidents of the book a situation +possible in his own life, who identifies himself with the personages +and acts out with them their adventures, who feels that he actually +knows Rawdon Crawley and Becky Sharp, Jo Sedley, Dobbin, and +Amelia, and understands their character and personality better here +than in the actual world about him by force of Thackeray's greater +insight and power of portraiture, who sees in English manners here +represented the interpretation of his own surroundings, so that as a +result of it all, his own experience becomes richer for his having +lived out the life of the fictitious persons, his own acquaintances +have revealed themselves more fully, his own life becomes more +intelligible,--for him at last the book is a work of art. So any work +may be a mirror which simply reflects the world as we know it; it +may be a point of departure, from which tangentially we construct +an experience of our own: it is truly art only in the degree that it is +revelation. + +A work of art, therefore, is to be received by the individual +appreciator as an added emotional experience. It appeals to him at +all because in some way it relates itself to his own life; and its value +to him is determined by the measure in which it carries him out into +wider ranges of feeling. There are works whose absolute greatness +he recognizes but yet which do not happen at the moment to find +him. Constable comes to him as immensely satisfying; Turner, +though an object of great intellectual interest, leaves him cold. He +knows Velasquez to be supreme among painters, but he turns away +to stand before Frans Hals, whose quick, sure strokes call such very +human beings into actuality and rouse his spirit to the fullest +response. Why is it that of two works of equal depth of insight into +life, of equal scope of feeling, of the same excellence of technical +accomplishment, one has an appeal and a message for him and not +the other? What is the bridge of transition between the work and the +spirit of the appreciator by which the subtle connection is +established? + +It comes back to a matter of harmony. Experience presents itself to +us in fragments; and in so far as the parts are scattering and +unrelated, it is not easy for us to guess the purpose of our being here. +But so soon as details, which by virtue of some selecting principle +are related to one another, gather themselves into a whole, chaos is +resolved into order, and this whole becomes significant, intelligible, +and beautiful. Instinctively we are seeking, each in his own way, to +bring the fragments of experience into order; and that order stands to +each of us for what we are, for our individual personality, the self. +We define thus our selecting principle, by which we receive some +incidents of experience as related to our development and we reject +others as not related to it. Thus the individual life achieves its +integrity, its unity and significance. This, too, is the process of art. A +landscape in nature is capable of a various, interpretation. By +bringing its details into order and unity, the artist creates its beauty. +His perception of the harmony which his imagination compels out of +the landscape is attended with emotion, and the emotion flows +outward to expression in a form which is itself harmonious. This +form is a work of art. Art, therefore, is the harmonizing of +experience. Appreciation is an act of fusion and identification. In +spirit we _become_ the thing presented by the work of art and we +merge with it in a larger unity. The individual harmony which a +work of art manifests becomes significant to us as we can make it an +harmonious part of our own experience and as it carries us in the +direction of our development. + +But how to determine, each man for himself, what is the direction of +our development? A life becomes significant to itself so soon as it is +conscious of its purpose, and it becomes harmonious as it makes all +the details of experience subserve that purpose. The purpose of the +individual life, so far as we can guess it, seems to be that the life +shall be as complete as possible, that it shall fulfill itself and provide +through its offspring for its continuance. It is true that no life is +isolated; as every atom throughout the universe is bound to every +other atom by subtlest filaments of influence, so each human life +stands related to all other lives. But the man best pays his debt of +service to others who makes the most of that which is given him to +work with; and that is his own personality. We must begin at the +centre and work outwards. My concern is with my own justice. If I +worry because my friend or another is not just, I not only do not +make him more just, but I also fail of the highest justice I can +achieve, which is my own. We must be true to ourselves. We help +one another not by precept but by _being;_ and what we are +communicates itself. As physical life propagates and thus continues +itself, so personality is transmitted in unconscious innumerable ways. +The step and carriage of the body, the glance of the eye, the work of +our hands, our silences no less than our speech, all express what we +are. As everything follows upon what we are, so our responsibility is +to _be,_ to be ourselves completely, perfectly. + +A tender shoot pushes its way out of the soil into light and air, and +with the years it grows into a tree. The tree bears fruit, which +contains the seed of new manifestations of itself. The fruit falls to +the ground and rots, providing thus the aliment for the seed out of +which other trees are to spring. From seed to seed the life of the tree +is a cycle, without beginning and without end. At no one point in the +cycle can we say, Here is the purpose of the tree. Incidentally the +tree may minister to the needs and comfort and pleasure of man. The +tree delights him to look upon it; its branches shade him from the +noonday sun; its trunk and limbs can be hewn down and turned to +heat and shelter; its fruit is good to eat. The primary purpose of the +fruit, however, is not to furnish food to man, but to provide the +envelope for the transmission of its seed and the continuance of its +own life. Seen in its cosmic bearing and scope, the purpose of the +tree is to be a tree, as fit, as strong, as beautiful, as complete, as +tree-like, as it can be. The leaf precedes the flower and may be thought +on that account to be inferior to it in the scale of development. If a +leaf pines and withers in regret that it is not a flower, it not only +does not become a flower, but it fails of being a good leaf. +Everything in its place and after its own kind. In so far as it is +perfectly itself, a leaf, a blossom, a tree, a man, does it contribute to +the well-being of others. Man has subdued all things under his feet +and turned them to his own uses. By force of mind he is the +strongest creature, but it is not to be inferred that he is therefore the +aim and end of all creation. Like everything else, he has his place; +like everything else he has the right to live his own life, triumphing +over the weaker and in his turn going down before a mightier when +the mightier shall come; like everything else he is but a part in the +universal whole. Only a part; but as we recognize our relation to +other parts and through them our connection with the whole, our +sense of the value of the individual life becomes infinitely extended. +We must get into the rhythm, keeping step with the beat of the +universal life and finding there our place, our destiny, the meaning +of our being here, and joy. The goods which men set before +themselves as an end are but by-products after all. If we pursue +happiness we overtake it not. If we do what our hands find to do, +devotedly and with our might, then, some day, if we happen to stop +and make question of it, we discover that happiness is already there, +in us, with us, and around us. The aim of a man's life in the world, as +it would seem, is to be perfectly a man, and his end is to fulfill +himself; as part of this fulfillment of himself, he provides for the +continuance of his life in other lives, and transmitting his character +and influence, he enriches other lives because of what he is. The +purpose of seeing is that we may see more, and the eye is ever +striving to increase its power; the health of the eye is growth. The +purpose of life is more life, individual in the measure that it lies +within a man's power to develop it, but cosmic in its sources and its +influence. + +As the harmony which a work of art presents finds a place in that +harmony of experience and outward-reaching desire which +constitutes our personality, art becomes for us an entrance into more +life. In the large, art is a means of development. But as any work +embraces diverse elements and is capable of a various appeal, it may +be asked in what sense the appreciation of art is related to education +and culture. Before we can answer the question intelligently, we +must know what we mean by our terms. By many people education +is regarded as they regard any material possession, to be classed +with fashionable clothes, a fine house, a carriage and pair, or +touring-car, or steam yacht, as the credential and card of entrée to +what is called good society. Culture is a kind of ornamental furniture, +maintained to impress visitors. Of course we ourselves do not think +so, but we know people who do. Nor do we believe--as some +believe--that education is simply a means of gaining a more +considerable livelihood. It is pathetic to see young men in college +struggling in desperate, uncomplaining sacrifice to obtain an +education, and all the while mistaking the end of their effort. Not all +the deeds of daring in a university course are enacted on the athletic +field; the men I am thinking of do not have their pictures published +in the newspapers,--the unrecorded heroisms of college life are very +moving to those who know. But the tragedy I have in mind is this--for +tragedy consists not in sacrifice itself but in needless and futile +sacrifice--that some of these young men suppose _there_ is a magic +virtue in education for its own sake, that it is the open-sesame to all +the wealth and beauty of life. With insufficient ability to start with, +they are preparing to be unfit professional men, when they might be +excellent artisans. The knowledge of books is in no sense the whole +story nor the only means of education. In devotion to some craft or +in the intelligent conduct of some business they might find the true +education, which is the conscious discipline of one's powers. The +man who can do things, whether with his hands or with his brain, +provided intelligence govern the exercise of hand and brain, and +who finds happiness in his work because it is the expression of +himself, is an educated man. The end of education is the building of +personality, the making of human power, and its fruit is wisdom. + +Wisdom, however, does not consist in the most extensive knowledge +of facts. Oftentimes information overweights a man and snuffs out +what personal force there might otherwise have been. On the futility +of mere learning there is abundant testimony. Walt Whitman, as we +might expect from his passion for the vital and the human, has said: +"You must not know too much and be too precise and scientific +about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft. A certain free +margin, perhaps ignorance, credulity, helps your enjoyment of these +things and of the sentiment of feather'd, wooded, river or marine +nature generally. I repeat it--don't want to know too exactly or the +reasons why." Even Ruskin, whose learning was extensive and +various, bears witness to the same effect. He notes "the diminution +which my knowledge of the Alps had made in my impression of +them, and the way in which investigation of strata and structure +reduces all mountain sublimity to mere debris and wall-building." In +the same spirit he planned an essay on the Uses of Ignorance. From +the midst of his labors in Venice he wrote: "I am sure that people +who work out subjects thoroughly are disagreeable wretches. One +only feels as one should when one doesn't know much about the +matter." In other words, we are not to let our knowledge come +between us and our power to feel. In thus seeming to assail +education I am not seeking to subvert or destroy; I want simply to +adjust the emphasis. The really wise man is he who knows how to +make life yield him its utmost of true satisfaction and furnish him +the largest scope for the use of his powers and the expression of +himself. In this sense a newsboy in the streets may be wiser than a +university professor, in that one may be the master of his life and the +other may be the servant of his information. Education should have +for its end the training of capacities and powers, the discipline and +control of the intelligence, the quickening of the sympathies, the +development of the ability to live. No man is superior to his fellows +because of the fact of his education. His education profits him only +in so far as it makes him more of a man, more responsive because +his own emotions have been more deeply stirred, more tolerant +because his wider range has revealed more that is good, more +generous to give of his own life and service because he has more +generously received. It is not what we know nor what we have that +marks our worth, but what we are. No man, however fortunate and +well-circumstanced he may be, can afford to thank God that he is +not as other men are. In so far as his education tends to withdraw +him from life and from contact with his fellows of whatever station, +in so far as it fosters in him the consciousness of class, so far it is an +evil. Education should lead us not to judge lives different from our +own, but to try to understand and, to appreciate. The educated man, +above all others, should thank God that there are diversity of gifts +and so many kinds of good. + +Art is a means of culture, but art rightly understood and received. +Art does not aim to teach. It may teach incidentally, tangentially to +its circle, but instruction, either intellectual or ethical, is not its +purpose. It fulfills itself in the spirit of the appreciator as it enables +him in its presence to become something that otherwise he had not +been. It is not enough to be told things; we must make trial of them +and live them out in our own experience before they become true for +us. As appreciation is not knowledge but feeling, so we must live +our art. It is well to have near us some work that we want to be +_like._ We get its fullest message only as we identify ourselves with +it. If we are willing to be thought ignorant and to live our lives as +seems good to us, I believe it is better to go the whole way with a +few things that can minister to us abundantly and so come to the end +of them, than to touch in superficial contact a great many lesser +works. The lesser works have their place; and so far as they can +carry us beyond the point where we are, they can serve us. In a +hurried touch-and-go, however, there is danger of scattering; +whereas true appreciation takes time, for it is less an act than a +whole attitude of mind. This is an age of handbooks and short cuts. +But there is no substitute for life. If for one reason or another the +opportunity to realize art in terms of life is not accorded us, it is +better to accept the situation quite frankly and happily, and not try to +cheat ourselves with the semblance. But if it is indeed the reality, +then we maybe content with the minutes of experience, though we +are denied the hours or the years. "The messages of great poems," +says Whitman, "to each man and woman are, Come to us on equal +terms; only then can you understand us." The power of response +must be in us, and that power is the fruit of experience. The only +mystery of art is the mystery of all life itself. In nature the artist +finds the manifestation of a larger self toward which he aspires, and +this is what his work expresses. Alone with his spirit, he cries to us +for that intimate mystic companionship which is appreciation, and +our response gives back the echo of his cry. He reaches out across +the distance to touch other and kindred spirits and draw them to +himself. Says the poet,-- + + "Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, + Therefore for thee the following chants." + +We appreciate the artist's work as in it we live again and doubly. + +Thus art links itself with life. The message of art to the individual +defines itself according to his individual needs. Life rises with each +man, to him a new opportunity and a new destiny. We create our +own world; and life means to us what we are in ourselves. In art we +are seeking to find ourselves expressed more fully. The works that +we care for, if we consider it a moment, are the works we +understand; and we understand them because they phrase for us our +own experience. Life and the truth of life are relative. Truth is not in +the object but in our relation to it. What is true for me may or may +not be true for another. This much is true for me, namely, whatever +tallies with my experience and reveals to me more of the underlying +purpose of the universe. We are all, each in his own way, seeking +the meaning of life; and that meaning is special and personal to the +individual, each man deciding for himself. By selection here, by +rejection there, we are trying to work toward harmony. The details +of life become increasingly complex with the years, but living grows +simpler because we gradually fix a selecting and unifying principle. +When we have truly found ourselves, we come to feel that the +external incidents do not signify; which chance happens, whether +this or that, is indifferent. It is the spirit in which the life is lived +that determines its quality and value. The perception of purpose in the +parts brings them into order and gives them meaning. A man's life is +an expanding circle, the circumference of which is drawn around an +order or interplay and adjustment of part with part. Whatever lies +without the circle does not pertain to the individual--as yet. So soon +as any experience reveals its meaning to us and we feel that it takes +its place in our life, then it belongs to us. Whatever serves to bring +details, before scattering and unrelated, into order, is for that +moment true. Art has a message for us as it tallies with what we +already know about life; and, quickening our perceptions, disclosing +depths of feeling, it carries us into new ranges of experience. + +In this attitude toward life lies the justice of the personal estimate. +The individual is finally his own authority. To find truth we return +upon our own consciousness, and we seek thus to define our +"original relation" to the universal order. So as one stands before the +works of the Italian painters and sculptors, for example, in the +endeavor rightly to appreciate what they have achieved, one may ask: +How much of life has this artist to express to me, of life as I know it +or can know it? Has the painter through these forms, however crude +or however accomplished, uttered what he genuinely and for himself +thought and felt? The measure of these pictures for me is the degree +of reality, of vital feeling, which they transmit. Whether it be spring +or divine maternity or the beauty of a pagan idea, which Botticelli +renders, the same power is there, the same sense of gracious life. +Whether it be Credi's naïve womanhood, or Titian's abounding, +glorious women and calm and forceful men, or Delia Robbia's +joyous children and Donatello's sprites, the same great meaning is +expressed, the same appreciation of the goodness and beauty of all +life. This beauty is for me, here, to-day. In the experience of a man +who thinks and feels, there is a time when his imagination turns +toward the past. At the moment, as the world closes in about him, +his spirit, dulled by the attrition of daily use and wont, is unable to +discern the beauty and significance of the present life around him. +For a time his imagination finds abundant nourishment in the mighty +past. Many spirits are content there to remain. But life is of the +present. To live greatly is to live now, inspired by the past, corrected +and encouraged by it, impelled by "forward-looking thoughts'" and +providing for the future, but living in to-day. Life is neither +remembrance nor anticipation, neither regret nor deferment, but +present realization. Often one feels in a gallery that the people are +more significant than the pictures. Two lovers furtively holding +hands and stopping before a canvas to press closer together, +shoulder to shoulder; a young girl erect and firm, conscious of her +young womanhood and rejoicing in it, radiating youth and life; an +old man, whose years are behind him yet whose interest reveals his +eager welcome of new experience, unconsciously rebuking the jaded +and indifferent: here is reality. Before it the pictures seem to recede +and become dimmed. Our appreciation of these things makes the +significance of it all. Only in so far as art can communicate this +sensation, this same impression of the beauty and present reality of +life, has it a meaning for us. The painter must have registered his +appreciation of immediate reality and must impart that to us until it +becomes, heightened and intensified, our own. The secret of +successful living lies in compelling the details of our surroundings +to our own ends. Michelangelo lived his life; Leonardo lived his; +neither could be the other. A man must paint the life that he knows, +the experience into which he enters. So we must live our lives +immediately and newly. We have penetrated the ultimate mystery of +art when we realize the inseparable oneness of art with life. + +Art is a call to fuller living. Its real service is to increase our +capacity for experience. The pictures, the music, the books, which +profit us are those which, when we have done with them, make us +feel that we have lived by just so much. Often we purchase +experience with enthusiasm; we become wise at the expense of our +power to enjoy. What we need in relation to art is not more +knowledge but greater capability of feeling, not the acquisition of +more facts but the increased power to interpret facts and to apply +them to life. In appreciation it is not what we know about a work of +art, it is not even what we actually see before us, that constitutes its +significance, but what in its presence we are able to feel. The +paradox that nature imitates art has in it this much of truth, that art is +the revelation of the possibilities of life, and we try to make these +possibilities actual in our own experience. Art is not an escape from +life and a refuge; it is a challenge and reënforcement. Its action is +not to make us less conscious but more; in it we are not to lose +ourselves but to find ourselves more truly and more fully. Its effect +is to help us to a larger and juster appreciation of the beauty and +worth of nature and of life. + +Art is within the range of every man who holds himself open to its +appeal. But art is not the final thing. It is a means to an end; its end +is personality. There are exalted moments in the experience of us all +which we feel to be finer than any art. Then we do not need to turn +to painting, music, literature, for our satisfaction. We are living. Art +is aid and inspiration, but its fulfillment and end is life. + +"We live," says Wordsworth, "by admiration, hope, and love." +Admiration is wonder and worship, a sense of the mystery and the +beauty of life as we know it now, and thankfulness for it, and joy. +Hope is the vision of things to be. And love is the supreme enfolding +unity that makes all one. Art is life at its best, but life is the greatest +of the arts,--life harmonious, deep in feeling, big in sympathy, the +life that is appreciation, responsiveness, and love. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Gate of Appreciation, by Carleton Noyes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATE OF APPRECIATION *** + +***** This file should be named 27183-8.txt or 27183-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/1/8/27183/ + +Produced by Ruth Hart + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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