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diff --git a/27194-h/27194-h.htm b/27194-h/27194-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ca58c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/27194-h/27194-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1851 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Enjoyment of Art, by Carleton Noyes</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {margin-top:100px; + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align:justify} + hr { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 75%;} + blockquote {margin: 1em 5em 1em 5em;} +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Enjoyment of Art, 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 Enjoyment of Art + +Author: Carleton Noyes + +Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27194] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENJOYMENT OF ART *** + + + + +Produced by Ruth Hart + + + + + +</pre> + + +<center> + +<p>[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to the +beginning of the text.]</p> + + +<br> +<br> + +<p>THE ENJOYMENT OF ART</p> + +<p>BY</p> + +<p>CARLETON NOYES</p><br> + +<p>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br> +1903</p><br> + +<p>COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CARLETON NOYES<br> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br> +<i>Published, March, 1903</i></p><br> +<br> + +<p>To<br> +ROBERT HENRI<br> +AND<br> +VAN D. PERRINE</p><br> +<br> + +<blockquote>This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at<br> + the crowded heaven,<br> +And I said to my spirit <i>When we become the enfolders of<br> + those orbs, and the +pleasure and knowledge of every<br> + thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied +then?<br></i>And my spirit said <i>No, we but level that lift to pass and<br> + continue +beyond.</i> +<br> + +<p>WALT WHITMAN</blockquote><br> + + +<p>CONTENTS</p><br> + +<table> +<tr> +<td align="right"></td> + +<td><a href="#0">Preface</a></td> + +<td align="right"></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">I.</td> + +<td><a href="#1">The Picture and the Man</a></td> + +<td align="right">i</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">II.</td> + +<td><a href="#2">The Work of Art as Symbol</a></td> + +<td align="right">19</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">III.</td> + +<td><a href="#3">The Work of Art as Beautiful</a></td> + +<td align="right">41</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">IV.</td> + +<td><a href="#4">Art and Appreciation</a></td> + +<td align="right">67</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right">V.</td> + +<td><a href="#5">The Artist</a></td> + +<td align="right">86</td> +</tr> +</table> +</center><br> +<a name="0"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>PREFACE</p> + +<p>The following pages are the answer to questions which a young man asked himself when, +fresh from the university, he found himself adrift in the great galleries of Europe. As +he stood helpless and confused in the presence of the visible expressions of the spirit +of man in so many ages and so many lands, one question recurred insistently: <i>Why</i> +are these pictures? What is the meaning of all this striving after expression? What was +the aim of these men who have left their record here? What was their moving impulse? Why, +why does the human spirit seek to manifest itself in forms which we call beautiful?</p> + +<p>He turned to histories of art and to biographies of artists, but he found no answer! +to the "Why?" The philosophers with their theories of aesthetics helped him little to +understand the dignity and force of this portrait or the beauty of that landscape. In the +conversation of his artist friends there was no enlightenment, for they talked about +"values" and "planes of modeling" and the mysteries of "tone." At last he turned in upon +himself: What does this canvas mean to me? And here he found his answer. This work of art +is the revelation to me of a fuller beauty, a deeper harmony, than I have ever seen or +felt. The artist is he who has experienced this new wonder in nature and who wants to +communicate his joy, in concrete forms, to his fellow men.</p> + +<p>The purpose of this book is to set forth in simple, untechnical fashion the nature and +the meaning of a work of art. Although the illustrations of the underlying principles are +drawn mainly from pictures, yet the conclusions apply equally to books and to music. It +is true that the manifestations of the art-impulse are innumerable, embracing not only +painting, sculpture, literature, music, and architecture, but also the handiwork of the +craftsman in the designing of a rug or in the fashioning of a cup or a candlestick; it is +true that each art has its special province and function, and that each is peculiarly +adapted to the expression of a certain order of emotion or idea, and that the +distinctions between one art and another are not to be inconsiderately swept aside or +obscured. Yet art is one. It is possible, without confusing the individual +characteristics essential to each, to discuss these principles under the comprehensive +rubric of Art.</p> + +<p>The attempt is made here to reduce the supposed mysteries of art discussion to the +basis of practical, every-day intelligence and common sense. What the ordinary man who +feels himself in any way attracted; towards art needs is not more and constantly more +pictures to look at, not added lore about them, not further knowledge of the men and the +times that have produced them; but rather what he needs is some understanding of what the +artist has aimed to express, and, as reinforcing that understanding, the capacity rightly +to appreciate and enjoy.</p> + +<p>It is hoped that in this book the artist may find expressed with simplicity and +justice his own highest aims; and that the appreciator and the layman may gain some +insight into the meaning of art expression, and that they may be helped a little on their +way to the enjoyment of art.</p> + +<p>HARVARD COLLEGE, <i>December tenth, 1902.</i></p><a name="1"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>I</p> + +<p>THE PICTURE AND THE MAN</p> + +<p>At any exhibition of paintings, more particularly at some public gallery or museum, +one can hardly fail to reflect that an interest in pictures is unmistakably widespread. +People are there in considerable numbers, and what is more striking, they seem to +represent every station and walk in life. It is evident that pictures, as exhibited to +the public, are not the cult of an initiated few; their appeal is manifestly to no one +class; and this popular interest is as genuine as it is extended.</p> + +<p>Thus reflectively scanning the crowd, the observer asks himself: What has attracted +these numbers to that which might be supposed not to be understood of the many? And what +are the pictures that in general draw the popular attention?</p> + +<p>A few persons have of course drifted into the exhibition out of curiosity or from lack +of something better to do. So much is evident at once, for these file past the walls +listlessly, seldom stopping, and then but to glance at those pictures which are most +obviously like the familiar object they pretend to represent,—such as the bowl of +flowers which the beholder can almost smell, the theatre-checks and five-dollar note +pasted on a wall which tempt him to finger them, or the panel of game birds which puzzles +him to determine whether the birds are real or not. These visitors, however, are not the +most numerous. With the great majority it is not enough that the picture be a clever +piece of imitation or illusion: transferring their interest from the mere execution, they +demand further that the subjects represented shall be pleasing. The crowd pause before a +sunny landscape, with cows standing by the shaded pool; they gather about the brilliant +portrait of a woman splendidly arrayed,—a favorite actress or a social celebrity; +they linger before a group of children wading in a brook, or a dog crouching mournfully +by an empty cradle. At length, with an approving and sympathetic word of comment, they +pass on to the next pleasing picture. Some canvases, not the most popular ones, are yet +not without their interest for a few; these visitors are taking things a little more +seriously; they do not try to see every picture, they do not hurry; they seem to be +considering the canvas immediately before them with concentrated attention.</p> + +<p>No one of all these people is insensible to the appeal of the picturesque: their +presence at the exhibition is evidence of that. In life they like to see a bowl of +flowers, a sunny landscape, a beautiful woman in beautiful surroundings; and naturally +they are interested in that which represents and recalls the reality. At once it is +plain, however, that to different individuals the various pictures appeal in different +measure and for differing reasons. To one the very fact of representation is a mystery +and fascination. To another the important thing is the subject; the picture must +represent what he likes in nature or in life. To a third the subject itself is of less +concern than what the painter wanted to say about it: the artist saw a beauty manifested +by an ugly beggar, perhaps, and he wanted to show that beauty to his fellows, who could +not perceive it for themselves.</p> + +<p>The special interest in pictures of each of these three men is not without its warrant +in experience. What man is wholly indifferent to the display of human skill? Who is there +without his store of pleasurable associations, who is not stirred by any call which +rouses them into play? What lover of beauty is not ever awake to the revelation of new +beauty? Indeed, upon these three principles together, though in varying proportion, +depends the full significance of a great work of art.</p> + +<p>As the lover of pictures looks back over the period of his conscious interest in +exhibitions and galleries, it is not improbable that his earliest memories attach +themselves to those paintings which most closely resembled the object represented. He +remembers the great wonder which he felt that a man with mere paint and canvas could so +reproduce the reality of nature. So it is that those paintings which are perhaps the +first to attract the man who feels an interest in pictures awakening are such as display +most obviously the painter's skill. Whatever the subject imitated, the fascination +remains; that such illusion is possible at all is the mystery and the delight.</p> + +<p>But as his interest in pictures grows with indulgence, as his experience widens, the +beholder becomes gradually aware that he is making a larger demand. After the first shock +of pleasurable surprise is worn away, he finds that the repeated exhibition of the +painter's dexterity ceases to satisfy him; these clever pieces of deception manifest a +wearying sameness, after all; and the beholder begins now to look for something more than +mere expertness. Thinking on his experience, he concludes that the subjects which can be +imitated deceptively are limited in range and interest; he has a vague, disquieting sense +that somehow these pictures do not mean anything. Yet he is puzzled. Art aims to +represent, he tells himself, and it should follow that the best art is that which +represents most closely and exactly. He recalls, perhaps, the legend of the two Greek +painters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew down to peck at, the +other with his painting of a veil which deceived his very rival. The imitative or +"illusionist" picture pleads its case most plausibly. A further experience of such +pictures, however, fails to bring the beholder beyond his simple admiration of the +painter's skill; and that skill, he comes gradually to realize, does not differ +essentially from the adroitness of the juggler who keeps a billiard ball, a chair, and a +silk handkerchief rotating from hand to hand.</p> + +<p>Conscious, then, of a new demand, of an added interest to be satisfied, the amateur of +pictures turns from the imitative canvas to those paintings which appeal more widely to +his familiar experience. Justly, he does not here forgo altogether his delight in the +painter's cunning of hand, only he requires further that the subjects represented shall +be pleasing. It must be a subject whose meaning he can recognize at once: a handsome or a +strong portrait, a familiar landscape, some little incident which tells its own story. +The spectator is now attracted by those pictures which rouse a train of agreeable +associations. He stops before a canvas representing a bit of rocky coast, with the ocean +tumbling in exhilaratingly. He recognizes the subject and finds it pleasing; then he +wonders where the picture was painted. Turning to his catalogue, he reads: "37. On the +Coast of Maine." "Oh, yes," he says to himself, "I was on the coast of Maine last summer, +and I remember what a glorious time I had sitting on the rocks of an afternoon, with some +book or other which the ocean was too fine to let me read. I like that picture." If the +title had read "Massachusetts Coast," it is to be feared he would not have liked the +canvas quite so well. The next picture which he notices shows, perhaps, a stately woman +sumptuously attired. It is with a slight shock of disappointment that the visitor finds +recorded in his catalogue: "41. Portrait of a Lady." He could see that much for himself. +He hoped it was going to be the painter's mother or somebody's wife,—a person he +ought to know about. But the pictures which appeal to him most surely are those which +tell some little story,—"The Lovers," "The Boy leaving Home," "The Wreck." Here the +subject, touching some one of the big human emotions, to which no man is wholly +insensible, calls out the response of immediate interest and sympathy. It is something +which he can understand.</p> + +<p>At length there comes a day when the visitor stops before a landscape which seems to +him more beautiful than anything he has ever seen in nature; or some portrait discloses a +strength of character or radiates a charm of personality which he has seldom met with in +life. Whence comes this beauty, this strength, this graciousness? Can it be that the +painter has seen a new wonder in nature, a new significance in human life? The +spectator's previous experience of pictures has familiarized him in some measure with the +means of expression which the painter employs. More sensitive now to the appeal of color +and form, he sees that what the artist cares to present on his canvas is just his +peculiar sense of the beauty in the world, a beauty that is best symbolized and +made manifest through the medium of color and form. Before he understood this eloquent +language which the painter speaks, he misinterpreted those pictures whose significance he +mistook to be literary and not pictorial. He early liked the narrative picture because +here was a subject he could understand; he could rephrase it in his own terms, he could +retell the story to himself in words. Now words are the means of expression of every-day +life. Because of this fact, the art which employs words as its medium is the art which +comes nearest to being universally understood, namely, literature. The other arts use +each a medium which it requires a special training to understand. Without some sense of +the expressiveness of color, line, form, and sounds,—a sense which can be +cultivated,—one is necessarily unable to grasp the full and true meaning of +picture, statue, or musical composition. One must realize further that the artist thinks +and feels in his peculiar medium; his special meaning is conceived and expressed in color +or form or sound. The task of the appreciator, correspondingly, is to receive the +artist's message in the same terms in which it was conceived. The tendency is inevitable, +however, to translate the meaning of the work into words, the terms in which men commonly +phrase their experience. A parallel tendency is manifest in one's efforts to learn a +foreign language. The English student of French at first thinks in English and +laboriously translates phrase for phrase into French; and in hearing or reading the +foreign language, he translates the original, word for word, into his native tongue +before he can understand its sense: he has mastered the language only when he has reached +that point where English is no longer present to his consciousness: he thinks in French +and understands in French. Similarly, to translate the message of any art into terms that +are foreign to it, to phrase the meaning of music or painting, for example, in words, is +to fail of its essential, true significance. The import of music is musical; the meaning +of pictures is not literary but pictorial. In the understanding of this truth, then, the +spectator penetrates to the artist's real intention; and he becomes aware that when he +used the picture as the peg whereon to hang his own reflections and ideas, he missed the +meaning of the artist's work. "As I look at this canvas," he tells himself, "it is not +what I know of the coast of Maine that is of concern, but what the painter has seen and +felt of its beauty and wants to reveal to me." Able at last to interpret the painter's +medium, the appreciator comes to seek in pictures not primarily an exhibition of the +craftsman's skill, not even a recall of his own pleasurable experiences, but rather, +beyond all this, a fuller visible revelation of beauty.</p> + +<p>The essential significance of art, that art is revelation, is illustrated not only by +painting but by the other arts as well. In music, to take but a single example, are +present the same elements that constitute the appeal of pictures,—skill in the +rendering, a certain correspondence with experience, and the power of imaginative +interpretation of the facts of life. The music-hall performer who wins the loudest and +heartiest applause is he who does the greatest number of pyrotechnic, wonderful things on +the piano, or holds a high note on the cornet for the longest time. His success, as with +the painter whose aim is to create illusion, rests upon men's instinctive admiration for +the exhibition of skill. Again, as the imitative picture involves not only the display of +dexterity, but also likeness to the thing represented and the consequent possibility of +recognizing it immediately, so in the domain of music there is an order of composition +which seems to aim at imitation,—the so-called "descriptive" music. A popular +audience is delighted with the "Cats' Serenade," executed on the violins with +overwhelming likeness to the reality, or with, the "Day in the Country," in which the sun +rises in the high notes, cocks crow, horses rattle down the road, merrymakers frolic on +the green, clouds come up in the horns, lightning plays in the violins, thunder crashes +in the drums and cymbals, the merrymakers scatter in the whole orchestra, the storm +passes diminuendo, and in the muted violins the full moon rises serenely into a twilight +sky. Here the intention is easily understood; the layman cannot fail to recognize what +the composer wanted to say. And as in the case of pictures which interest the beholder +because he can translate their subject into the terms which are his own medium of +expression, that is, words, so with descriptive music, broadly speaking, the interest and +significance is literary and not musical. Still another parallel is presented. Just as +those pictures are popular whose subjects lie within the range of familiar experience, +such as cows by the shaded pool, or children playing, or whose subjects touch the +feelings; so, that music is popular which is phrased in obvious and familiar rhythms such +as the march and the waltz, or which appeals readily and unmistakably to sentiment and +emotion. It is after the lover of music has traversed these passages of musical +expression and has proved their imitations that he comes to seek in music new ranges of +experience, unguessed-at possibilities of feeling, which the composer has himself sounded +and which he would communicate to others. He is truly the artist only as he leads his +auditors into regions of beautiful living which they alone and of themselves had not +penetrated. For it is then that his work reveals.</p> + +<p>Only such pictures, too, will have a vital meaning as reveal. The imitative and the +iterative alike, that which adds nothing to the object and that which adds nothing to the +experience of the beholder, though once pleasing, now fail to satisfy. The appreciator +calls for something fuller. He wants to pass beyond the object, beyond his experience of +it, into the realm of illumination whither the true artist would lead him. The +development of appreciation, as the amateur has come to realize in his own person, is +only the enlargement of demand. The appreciator requires ever fresh revelations of +beauty. He discovers, too, that in practice the tendency of his development is in the +direction of exclusion. As he goes on, he cares for fewer and fewer things, because those +works which can minister to his ever-expanding desire of beauty must needs be less +numerous. But these make up in largeness of utterance, in the intensity of their message, +what they lack in numbers. Nor does this outcome make against a fancied catholicity of +taste. The true appreciator still sees in his earlier loves something that is good, and +he values the good the more justly that he sees it now in its right relation and +apprehends its real significance. As each in its turn led him to seek further, each +became an instrument in his development. For himself he has need of them no longer. But +far from contemning them, he is rightly grateful for the solace they have afforded, as by +them he has made his way up into the fuller meaning of art.</p><a name="2"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>II</p> + +<p>THE WORK OF ART AS SYMBOL</p> + +<p>In the experience of the man who feels himself attracted to pictures and who studies +them intelligently and with sympathy, there comes a day when suddenly a canvas reveals to +him a new beauty in nature or in life. Much seeing and much thinking, much bewilderment +and some disappointment, have taught him that in the appreciation of pictures the +question at issue is not, how cleverly has the painter imitated his object, is not, how +suggestive is the subject of pleasing associations; he need simply ask himself, "What has +the artist conceived or felt in the presence of this landscape, this arrangement of line +and color, this human face, that I have not seen and felt, and that he wants to +communicate to me?"</p> + +<p>The incident of the single canvas, which by its illuminating revealment first +discloses to the observer the true significance of pictures, is typical of the whole +scope of art. The mission of art is to reveal. It is the prophet's message to his fellow +men, the apocalypse of the seer. The artist is he to whom is vouchsafed a special +apprehension of beauty. He has the eye to see, the temperament to feel, the imagination +to interpret; it is by virtue of these capacities, this high, transfiguring vision, that +he is an artist; and his skill of hand, his equipment with the means of expression, is +incidental to the great fact that he has somewhat to express that the common man has not. +To his work, the manifestation of his spirit in material form, his perception made +sensible, is accorded the name of art.</p> + +<p>Art is expression. It is not a display of skill; it is not the reproduction of +external forms or appearances; it does not even, as some say, exist for itself: it is a +message, a means. To cry "Art for Art's sake!" is to converse with the echo. Such a +definition but moves in a circle, and doubles upon itself. No; art is for the artist's +sake. The artist is the agent or human instrument whereby the supreme harmony, which is +beauty, is manifested to men. Art is the medium by which the artist communicates himself +to his fellows; and the individual work is the expression of what the artist felt or +thought, as at the moment some new aspect of the universal harmony was revealed to his +apprehension. Art is emotion objectified, but the object is subordinated to the emotion +as means is to an end. The material result is not the final significance, but what of +spiritual meaning or beauty the artist desired to convey. Not what is painted, as the +layman thinks, not how it is painted, as the technician considers, but why did the artist +paint it, is the question which sums up the truth about art. The appreciator need simply +ask, What is the beauty, what the idea, which the artist is striving to reveal by these +symbols of color and form? He understands that the import of the work is the <i>idea,</i> +and that the work itself is beautiful because it symbolizes a beautiful idea; its +significance is spiritual. The function of art, then, is through the medium of concrete, +material symbols to reveal to men whatever of beauty has been disclosed to the artist's +more penetrating vision.</p> + +<p>In order to seize the real meaning of art it is necessary to strip the word beauty of +all the wrappings of customary associations and the accretions of tradition and habit. As +the word is current in ordinary parlance, the attribute of beauty is ascribed to that +which is pleasing, pretty, graceful, comely; in fine, to that which is purely agreeable. +But surely such is not the beauty which Rembrandt saw in the filthy, loathsome beggar. To +Rembrandt the beggar was expressive of some force or manifestation of the supreme +universal life, wherein all things work together to a perfect harmony. Beauty is +the essential quality belonging to energy, character, significance. A merely agreeable +object is not beautiful unless it is expressive of a meaning; whatever, on the other +hand, is expressive of a meaning, however shocking it may be in itself, however much it +may fail to conform to conventional standards, is beautiful. Beauty does not reside in +the object. No; it is the artist's sense of the great meaning of things; and in +proportion as he finds that meaning—the qualities of energy, force, aspiration, +life—manifest and expressed in objects do those objects become beautiful. Such was +the conception of beauty Keats had when he wrote in a letter: "What the Imagination +seizes as Beauty must be Truth—whether it existed before or not,—for I have +the same idea of all our passions as of Love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of +essential Beauty." And similarly; "I can never feel certain of any truth, but from a +clear perception of its Beauty." It his verse he sings:—</p> + +<p> "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'—that is all<br> + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."</p> + +<p>When it is said here, then, that the artist sees beauty in nature, the phrase may be +understood as a convenient but inexact formula, as when one says the sun rises or the sun +sets. Beauty is in the landscape only in the sense that these material forms express for +the artist an idea he has conceived of some aspect of the universal life.</p> + +<p>The artist is impelled to embody concretely his perception of beauty, and so to +communicate his emotion, because the emotion wakened by the perception of new harmony in +things is most fully possessed and enjoyed as it comes to expression. Thus to make real +his ideal and find the expression of himself is the artist's supreme Happiness. A +familiar illustration of the twin need and delight of expression may be found in the +handiwork produced in the old days when every artisan was an artist. It may be, perhaps, +a key which some craftsman of Nuremberg fashioned. In the making of it he was not content +to stop with the key which would unlock the door or the chest It was his key, the work of +his hands; and he wrought upon it lovingly, devotedly, and made it beautiful, finding in +his work the expression of his thought or feeling; it was the realization for that moment +of his ideal. His sense of pleasure in the making of it prompted the care he bestowed +upon it; his delight was in creation, in rendering actual a new beau which it was given +him to conceive.</p> + +<p>In its origin as a work of art the key does not differ from a landscape by Inness, an +"arrangement" by Whistler, a portrait by Sargent. The artist, whether craftsman or +painter, is deeply stirred by some passage in his experience, a fair object or a true +thought: it is the imperious demand of his nature, as it is his supreme pleasure, to give +his feeling expression. The form which his expression takes—it may be key or +carpet, it may be statue, picture, poem, symphony, or cathedral—is that which most +closely responds to his idea, the form which most truly manifests and represents it.</p> + +<p>All art, as the expression of the artist's idea, is in a certain definite sense +representative. Not that all art reproduces an external reality, as it is said that +painting or literature represents and music does not; but every work of art, in painting, +poetry, music, or in the handiwork of the craftsman, <i>represents</i> in that it is the +symbol of the creator's ideal. To be sure, the painter or sculptor or dramatist draws his +symbols from already existing material forms, and these symbols are like objects in a +sense in which music is not But line and color and the life of man, apart from this +resemblance to external reality, are representative or symbolic of the artist's idea +precisely as the craftsman's key, the designer's pattern, or the musician's symphony. The +beautifully wrought key, the geometric pattern of oriental rug or hanging, the +embroidered foliation on priestly vestment, are works of art equally with the landscape, +the statue, the drama, or the symphony, in that they are one and all the sensuous +manifestation of some new beauty spiritually conceived.</p> + +<p>The symbolic character of a work of art must not be lost from sight, for it is the +clue to the interpretation of pictures, as it is of all art. The painter feels his way +through the gamut of his palette to a harmony of color just as truly as the musician +summons the notes of his scale and marshals them into accord. The painter is moved by +some sweep of landscape; it wakens in him an emotion. When he sets himself to express his +emotion in the special medium with which he works, he represents by pigment the external +aspect of the landscape, yes; but not in order to imitate it or reproduce it: he +represents the landscape because the colors and the forms which he registers upon the +canvas express for him the emotions roused by those colors and those forms in nature. He +does not try to match his grays with nature's grays, but this nuance which he gropes for +on his palette, and having found it, touches upon his canvas, expresses for him what that +particular gray in nature made him feel. His one compelling purpose is in all fidelity +and singleness of aim to "translate the impression received." The painter's medium is +just as symbolic as the notes of the musician's nocturne or the words of the poet's +sonnet, equally inspired by the hour and place. Color and line and form, although they +happen to be the properties of <i>things,</i> have a value for the emotions as truly as +musical sounds: they are the outward symbol of the inward thought or feeling, the visible +bodying forth of the immaterial idea.</p> + +<p>The symbolic character of the material world is not early apprehended. In superficial +reaction upon life, men do not readily pass beyond the immediate actuality. That the +spiritual meaning of all things is not perceived, that all things are not seen to be +beautiful, or expressive of the supreme harmony, is due to men's limited powers of sight +and feeling. Therefore is it that the artist is given in order that he may reveal as yet +unrealized spiritual relations, or new beauty. The workaday world with its burden of +exigent "realities" has need of a Carlyle to declare that things are but a wonderful +metaphor and the physical universe is the garment of the living God. In the realm of +thought an Emerson, seer of transcendent vision, must come to restore his fellows to +their birthright, which is the life of the spirit. As in life, so in art men do not +easily pass the obvious and immediate. The child reads "Gulliver's Travels" or "The +Pilgrim's Progress" for the story. As his experience of life both widens and deepens, he +is able to see through externals, and he penetrates to the real significance, of which +the narrative is but the symbol. So it is with an insight born of experience that the +lover of art sees no longer the "subject," but the beauty which the subject is meant to +symbolize.</p> + +<p>In the universal, all-embracing constitution of things, nothing is without its +significance. To be aware that everything has a meaning is necessary to the understanding +of art, as indeed of life itself. That meaning, which things symbolize and express, it +cannot be said too often, is not necessarily to be phrased in words. It is a meaning for +the spirit. A straight line affects one differently from a curve; that is, each kind of +line means something. Every line in the face utters the character behind it; every +movement of the body is eloquent of the man's whole being. "The expression of the face +balks account," says Walt Whitman,</p> + +<p> "But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in +his face,<br> + It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the +joints of his hips and wrists,<br> + It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his +waist and knees, dress does not hide him,<br> + The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and +broadcloth,<br> + To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps +more,<br> + You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and +shoulder-side."</p> + +<p>Crimson rouses a feeling different from that roused by yellow, and gray wakens a mood +different from either. In considering this symbolic character of colors it is necessary +to distinguish between their value for the emotions and merely literary associations. +That white stands for purity or blue for fidelity is a conventionalized and attached +conception. But the pleasure which a man has in some colors or his dislike for others +depends upon the effect each color has upon his emotions, and this effect determines for +him the symbolic value of the color. In the same way sounds are symbolic in that they +affect the emotions apart from associated "thoughts." Even with a person who has no +technical knowledge of music, the effect of the minor key is unmistakably different from +the major. The tones and modulations of the voice, quite apart from the words uttered, +have an emotional value and significance. Everything, line, form, gesture, movement, +color, sound, all the material world, is expressive. All objective forms have their +meaning, and rightly perceived are, in the sense in which the word is used here, +beautiful, in that they represent or symbolize a spiritual idea.</p> + +<p>Thus it is that beauty is not in the object but in man's sense of the object's +symbolic expressiveness. The amateur may be rapt by some artist's "quality of color." But +it is probable that in the act of laying on his pigment, the artist was not thinking of +his "quality" at all, but, rapt himself by the perception of the supreme harmony at that +moment newly revealed to his sense, he was striving sincerely and directly to give his +feeling its faithfullest expression. His color is beautiful because his idea was +beautiful. The expression is of the very essence of the thought; it <i>is</i> the +thought, but the thought embodied. "Coleridge," says Carlyle, "remarks very pertinently +somewhere that whenever you find a sentence musically worded, of true rhythm and melody +in the words, there is something deep and good in the meaning, too. For body and soul, +word and idea, go strangely together here as everywhere." Not to look beyond the material +is to miss the meaning of the work.</p> + +<p>In an art such as music, in which form and content are one and inextricable, it is not +difficult to understand that the medium of expression which the art employs is +necessarily symbolic, for here the form cannot exist apart from the meaning to be +conveyed. In the art of literature, however, the case is not so clear, for the material +with which the poet, the novelist, the dramatist works, material made up of the facts of +the world about us, we are accustomed to regard as objective realities. An incident is an +incident, the inevitable issue of precedent circumstances, and that's all there is to it +Character is the result of heredity, environment, training, plus the inexplicable +<i>Ego.</i> To regard these facts of life which are so actual and immediate as a kind of +animate algebraic formulae seems absurd, but absurd only as one is unable to penetrate to +the inner meaning of things. "Madame Bovary," to take an example quite at random, is +called a triumph of realism. Now realism, of all literary methods, should register the +fact as it is, and least of all should concern itself with symbols. But this great novel +is more than the record of one woman's life. Any one who has come to understand the +character and temperament of Flaubert as revealed in his Letters must feel that "Madame +Bovary" is no arbitrary recital of tragic incident, but those people who move through his +pages, what they do and what goes on about them, expressed for Flaubert his own dreary, +baffled rebellion against life. That the artist may consciously employ the facts of life, +not for the sake of the fact, but to communicate his feeling by thus bodying it forth in +concrete symbols, there is explicit testimony. In an essay dealing with his own method of +composition, Poe writes: "I prefer commencing with the consideration of an <i>effect.</i> +Keeping originality <i>always</i> in view . . . I say to myself, in the first +place, 'of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or +(more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, +select?' Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid effect, I consider whether it +can be best wrought by incident or tone . . . afterwards looking about me (or rather +within) for such combinations of event or tone as shall best aid me in the construction +of the effect." Yes, physical circumstances, the succession of incident, shifting +momentary grouping of persons, traits of character in varied combination and +contrast,—all these are significant for the literary artist of spiritual +relations.</p> + +<p>As the symbol of what the artist feels and strives to express, the individual work of +art is necessarily more than any mere transcript of fact. It is the meeting and mingling +of nature and the spirit of man; the result of their union is fraught with the +inheritance of the past and holds within it the limitless promise of the future. The work +of art is a focus, gathering into itself all the stored experience of the artist, and +radiating in turn so much to the beholder as he is able at the moment to receive. A +painter is starting out to sketch. Through underbrush and across the open he pushes his +way, beset by beauty on every side, and storing impressions, sensations, thoughts. At +last his eye lights upon some clump of brush, some meadow or hill, which seems at the +instant to sum up and express his accumulated experience. In rendering this bit of +nature, he pours out upon his canvas his store of feeling. It is the single case which +typifies his entire course. "The man's whole life preludes the single deed." His way +through the world has been just such a gathering up of experience, and each new work +which he produces is charged with the collected wealth of years.</p> + +<p>The special work is the momentary epitome of the artist's total meaning. He finds this +brief passage in nature beautiful then and there because it expresses what he feels and +means. He does not try to reproduce the thing, but uses the thing for what it signifies. +The thing is but for that moment: it signifies all that has gone before. As he watches, a +cloud passes over the sun and the face of nature is darkened. Suddenly the scene bursts +into light again. In itself the landscape is no brighter than before the sun was +darkened. The painter feels it brighter for the contrast, and inevitably his rendering of +its aspect is heightened and intensified.</p> + +<p>Art is nature heightened and intensified as nature is interpreted through the +transfiguring medium of the human spirit To the object is added</p> + +<p> "The gleam,<br> + The light that never was on sea or land,<br> + The consecration and the poet's dream."</p> + +<p>After an early morning in the fields, Corot withdraws to his house to rest. "I dream +of the morning landscape," he writes; "I dream my picture, and presently I will paint my +dream." But not only does the artist render the beauty which this landscape happens to +express for him: he charges these colors and forms with the beauty of all landscape. Corot painted <i>at</i> +Ville d'Avray; <i>what</i> he painted was God's twilight or dawn +enwrapping tree and pool. In gratitude and worship he revealed to men the tender, +ineffable poetry of gray dawns in all places and for all time. Millet's peasants were +called John and Peter and Charles, and they tilled the soil of France; but on their bowed +shoulders rests the universal burden; these dumb figures are eloquent of the +uncomplaining, hopeless "peasanthood" of the world. In the actual to discern the ideal, +in the appearance to penetrate to the reality, without taking leave of the material to +reveal the spiritual,—this is the mystery and vocation of the artist, and his +achievement is art.</p> + + +<a name="3"></a><br> +<br> +III + +<p>THE WORK OF ART AS BEAUTIFUL</p> + +<p>Just as nature and life are significant as the material manifestation of spiritual +forces and relations, so a work of art is in its turn the symbol by which the artist +communicates himself; it is his revelation to men of the beauty he has perceived and +felt.</p> + +<p>Beauty is not easy to define. That conception which regards beauty as the power to +awaken merely agreeable emotions is limited and in so far false. Another source of +misunderstanding is the confusion of beauty with moralistic values. It is said that +beauty is the Ideal; and by many the "Ideal" is taken to mean ideal goodness. With +righteousness and sin as such beauty has no concern. Much that is evil in life, much that +offends against the moral law, must be regarded as beautiful in so far as it plays its +necessary part in the universal whole. Clearing away these misconceptions, then, an +approximate definition would be that the essence of beauty is harmony. So soon as a +detail is shown in its relation to a whole, then it becomes beautiful because it is +expressive of the supreme unity. A discord in music is felt to be a discord only as it is +isolated; when it takes its fitting and inevitable place in the large unity of the +symphony, it becomes full of meaning. The hippopotamus, dozing in his tank at the Zoo, is +wildly grotesque and ugly. But who shall say that, seen in the fastnesses of his native +rivers, he is not the beautiful perfect fulfilling of nature's harmony? To a race of +blacks, the fair-skinned Apollo appearing among them could not but be monstrous. The +smoking factory, sordid and hideous, is beautiful to him who sees that it accomplishes a +necessary function in the great scheme of life. Beauty is adaptation. Whatever is truly +useful is in so far truly beautiful. The steam engine and the battleship are beautiful +just as truly as Titian's Madonna, glorified and sweeping upward into the presence of God +the Father. Only what is vital and serviceable, and whatever is that, is beautiful.</p> + +<p>When the spirit of man perceives a unity in things, a working together of parts, there +beauty exists. It resides in the synthesis of details to the end of shaping a complete +whole. This perception, this synthesis, is a function of the human mind. Beauty is not in +the landscape, but in the intelligence which apprehends it. Evidence of this fundamental +truth is the fact that the same landscape is more "beautiful" to one man than to another, +or to a third, perhaps, is not beautiful at all. It is only as the individual perceives a +relation among the parts resulting in a total unity that the object becomes beautiful for +him.</p> + +<p>This abstract exposition may be made clearer by a graphic illustration. Here are four +figures composed of the same elements:—</p> + +<p> * *** +** * ***<br> + * ***** * ******<br> + +* ** * * * *<br> + +*<br> + ************* +*<br> + * * * *<br> + +**<br> + +Fig. I.</p> + +<p>* * * * * * * +* <br> +* * * * * * +* +*<br> +* * * * * +* +* +*<br> +* * * * * * +* +*<br> +* * * * * * * +* <br> + +Fig. II. Fig. +III. Fig. +IV.</p> + +<p>Figure I., far from being pleasing, is positively disquieting. With the other three +figures, the perception of their form is attended with a kind of pleasure. Whereas the +first figure is without form and is meaningless, each of the second group exhibits +harmony, balance, proportion, interrelation of parts: each is perceived to be a whole. +Although experience itself comes to men in fragments and seemingly without order, yet the +human mind is so constituted as to require that an idea or a truth be shown to be a whole +before the mind can comprehend it In considering the element of balance, it should be +noted, as illustrated by Figure IV., that balance is not necessarily perfect symmetry. A +Gothic cathedral is beautiful no less than a Greek temple. In a painting of a landscape, +for example, it is necessary simply that the masses and the tones stand in balancing +relation; the perfect symmetry of geometric exactness, characteristic of Hellenic and +Renaissance art, is not required. In the work which embodies the artist's perception of +the universal harmony, there must be rhythm, order, unity in variety; so framed it +becomes expressive and significant</p> + +<p>As the symbol of beauty, the work of art is itself beautiful in that it manifests in +itself that wholeness and integrity which is beauty. Every work of art is informed by a +controlling design; it subordinates manifold details to a definite whole; it reduces and +adjusts its parts to an all-inclusive, perceptible unity. The Nuremberg key must have +some sort of rhythm; the rug or vestment must exhibit a pattern which can be seen to be a +whole; the canvas must show balance in the composition, and the color must be "in tone." +In any work of art there must be design and purpose.</p> + +<p>In nature there is much which to the limited perception of men does not appear to be +beautiful, for there is much that does not manifest superficially the necessary harmony. +The landscape at noonday under the blaze of the relentless sun discloses many things +which are seemingly incongruous with one another. The dull vision of men cannot penetrate +to the unity underlying it all. At twilight, as the shadows of evening wrap it round, the +same landscape is invested with mysterious beauty. Conflicting details are lost, harsh +outlines are softened and merged, discordant colors are mellowed and attuned. Nature has +brought her field and hill and clustered dwellings into "tone." So the artist, who has +perceived a harmony where the common eye saw it not, selects; he suppresses here, +strengthens there, fuses, and brings all into unity.</p> + +<p>Harmony wherever perceived is beauty. Beauty made manifest by the agency of the human +spirit is art. Art, in order to reveal this harmony to men, must work through selection, +through rejection and emphasis, through interpretation. It is not difficult to +understand, then, that the exact reproduction of the facts of the external world is not +in a true sense art.</p> + +<p>The photograph, which is the most exact method of reproducing outward aspect, is +denied the title of a work of art; that is, the photograph direct, which has not been +retouched. To be sure, the photograph is the product of a mechanical process, and is not, +except incidentally, the result of human skill. Another kind of reproduction of outward +aspect, however, virtually exact, which does show the evidence of human skill, is yet not +entitled to rank as art,—the imitative or deceptive picture. Photograph and picture +are ruled out equally on the one count. Neither selects.</p> + +<p>In an exhibition of paintings were once displayed two panels precisely similar in +appearance, presenting an army coat and cap, a sabre and a canteen. At a distance there +was no point of difference in the two. A nearer view disclosed the fact that on one panel +the objects were real and that the other panel was painted. The beholder was pleased by +the exhibition of the painter's skill; but in so far as the work did not reveal a +significance or beauty in these objects which the artist had seen and the beholder had +not, it fell short of being a work of art Just as the key of the Nuremberg craftsman was +a work of art in that it was for him the expression, the rendering actual, of a new +beauty it was given him to conceive, so only that is art which makes manifest a beauty +that is new, a beauty that is truly born of the artist's own spirit. The repetition of +existing forms with no modification by the individual workman is not creation, but +imitation; and imitation is manufacture, not art. Inasmuch as the two panels could not be +distinguished, the presentment signified no more than the reality. Tried as a work of +art, the imitative picture, in common with the photograph, lacks the necessary element of +interpretation, of revelation. That the representation may become art, there must be +added to it some new attribute or quality born of the artist's spirit. The work must take +on new meaning.</p> + +<p>As lending his work significance of an obvious sort, a significance not necessarily +"pictorial," the painter might see in the objects some story they have to tell. The +plaster of the garret wall where they are hanging he may show to be cracked; that tear in +the coat speaks of faithful service, but the coat hangs limp and dusty now; the +inscription on the canteen is almost obliterated, and the strap is broken; the sabre, +which shows the marks of stern usage along its blade, is spotted with rust: the whole +composition means Trusty Servants in Neglect. By the emphasis of certain aspects he +picture is made to signify more than he mere objects themselves, wherein there was +nothing salient. The meaning is imposed upon them or drawn out of them by he artist. Or +again, the painter may see in these things the expression for him of a harmony which he +can manifest by the arrangement of line and color, and he so disposes his material as to +make that harmony visible. It is, then, not the crude fact which the artist transcribes, +but rather some feeling he has toward the fact. By selection, by adjustment, he gives +this special aspect of the fact emphasis and relief. In virtue of his interpretation the +picture acquires a significance that is new; it gives the beholder a pleasure which the +fact itself did not give, and thus it passes over into the domain of art.</p> + +<p>The purpose of art is not the reproduction of a beautiful object, but the expression +in objective form of a beautiful idea. A plaster cast of a hand, however comely the hand +may be, is not a work of art. As with the photograph, the work involves only incidentally +the exercise of human skill. But that is not all. In order to render the work in the +spirit of art, the sculptor must model, not the hand, but his sense of the hand; he must +draw out and express its character, its significance. To him it is not a certain form in +bone and flesh; to him it means grace, delicacy, sensitiveness, or perhaps resolution, +strength, force. As the material symbol of his idea of the hand, he will select and make +salient such lines and contours as are expressive to him of that character.</p> + +<p>Indeed, so little depends upon the exact subject represented and so much upon the +artist's feeling toward it, so much depends upon the spirit of the rendering, that the +representation of a subject uninteresting or even "ugly" in itself may be beautiful. In +the art of literature, the <i>subject</i> is drawn from the life of man. The material of +the poem, the novel, the drama, is furnished by man's total experience, the sum of his +sensations, impressions, emotions, and the events in which he is concerned. But +experience crowds in upon him at every point, without order and without relation; the +daily round of living is for most men a humdrum thing. Yet it is just this rudimentary +and undistinguished mass of experience which is transmuted into literature; by the +alchemy of art the representation of that which is without interest becomes interesting. +And it happens on this wise. Life is humdrum only in so far as it is meaningless; men can +endure any amount drudgery and monotony provided that it lead somewhere, that they +perceive its relation to a larger unity which is the total of life. As part of a whole +which can be apprehended, immediately it acquires purpose and becomes significant. It is +the sense of meaning in life which gives color and warmth to the march of uniform days. +So the literary artist shapes his inchoate material to a definite end; out of the +limitless complex details at his command, he selects such passages of background, such +incidents, and such traits of character as make for the setting forth of the idea he has +conceived. Clearly the artist cannot use everything, clearly he does not aim to reproduce +the fact: there are abridgments and suppressions, as there are accent and emphasis. The +finished work is a composite, embodying what is essential of many, many preliminary +studies and sketches, wrought and compiled with generous industry. The master is +recognized in what he omits; what is suppressed is felt but not perceived: the great +artist, in the result, steps from peak to peak.</p> + +<p> "The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:<br> + At one stride comes the Dark."</p> + +<p>Thus with three strokes the master Coleridge depicts the onrush of the night over +boundless spaces of sky and sea. Within the compass of a few lines, Tennyson registers +the interminable, empty monotony of weary years:</p> + +<p> "No sail from day to day, but every day<br> + The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts<br> + Among the palms and ferns and precipices;<br> + The blaze upon the waters to the east;<br> + The blaze upon his island overhead;<br> + The blaze upon the waters to the west;<br> + Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven,<br> + The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again<br> + The scarlet shafts of sunrise—but no sail."</p> + +<p>Thus through selection does the artist work to interpretation. By detaching the +eternal meaning from the momentary fact, by embodying his sense of its significance in +such concrete forms as symbolize his idea, by investing the single instance with +universally typical import, then in very truth he represents. Nature is not the subject +of art; she is the universal treasury from whose infinitely various store the artist +selects his symbols.</p> + +<p>A special method in art may here suggest itself as having for its purpose to reproduce +the fact in perfect fidelity; the method is called <i>realism.</i> But a moment's +considerate analysis shows that realism is only a label for one manner of handling, and +in the end comes no nearer the object as it "really" is. In its essence realism is the +artist's personal vision of the fact, exactly as idealism or romanticism or impressionism +is personal. For after all, what is the reality? A chance newsboy is offering his papers +on a crowded street corner. The fine lady recoils from his filth and from all contact +with him; the philanthropist sees in him a human being to help and to redeem; the +philosopher regards him dispassionately as a "social factor," the result of heredity and +environment; the artist cries out in joy as his eye lights upon good stuff to paint. But +all the while, which of these conceptions figures the "real" newsboy? Not one. For he is +all these together; and the single observer, whatever his bias, cannot apprehend him at +every point. Any attempt to represent him involves selection and interpretation, the +suppression of some traits in order to emphasize others, which are the special aspects +that have impressed the given observer. So there is no essential realism. The term +applies to the method of those who choose to render what is less comforting in life, who +insist on those characteristics of things which men call ugly. In realism, just as truly +as in any other kind of treatment, is expressed the personality of the artist, his own +peculiar way of envisaging the world.</p> + +<p>A work of art is born of the artist's desire to express his joy in some new aspect of +the universal harmony which has been disclosed to him. The mission of art is through +interpretation to reveal. It happens sometimes that a visitor at an exhibition of +paintings is shocked by a picture which seems to him for the moment impossible, because +so far beyond the range of his experience; yet withal he finds himself attracted by it +and he returns to study it. It is not many days before his glance is arrested by that +very effect in nature, and he says, "Why, that is like that picture!" It was the artist +who first saw it and who taught him to see it for himself. When one observes an effect in +nature or in life that one calls "a Corot" or "a Whistler," one means that to Corot or to +Whistler is due the glory of discovering that fuller beauty and revealing it. Browning +makes Fra Lippo Lippi say:</p> + +<p> "We're made so that we +love<br> + First when we see them painted, things we have passed<br> + Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;<br> + And so they are better, painted—better to us,<br> + Which is the same thing. Art was given for that."</p> + +<p>This revealing power of art is not restricted to the individual appreciator. It is +said that the French are an artistic people and that Americans are not. The explanation +is that for generations the artists of France have been discovering to their countrymen +the beauty that is around them at their very door, and have taught them to appreciate it. +The Americans will be an artistic people when our artists shall have done the like for +us. When there shall have been for generations a truly native American art, there will be +a public to understand and to appreciate. So it is that everywhere the high function of +art is to reveal. As a friend, more sensitive and more enthusiastic, with whom we are +strolling, points out to us many beauties by the wayside or in trees and sky, so the +artist takes us by the hand and leads us out into life, indicating for us a harmony to +which we were blind before. Burdened with affairs and the daily round, we had not thought +to look off and out to the spreading meadows tossing into hills which roll upward into +the blue heaven beyond.</p> + +<p>The beauty thus revealed is a beauty which the artist has apprehended in spirit and +which he would make actual. A work of art is the expression of an aspiration. The crude +and tawdry images of the Madonna Set in the roadside cross are just as truly a work of +art as the rapt saints of Giotto or the perfect Madonnas of Raphael in so far as they are +expressive of what those poor, devout souls who fashioned them felt of worship and of +love. After all, the difference is that Giotto felt more than they, Raphael was endowed +with more accomplished powers of expression. The work receives its import as it is the +faithful utterance of him who shaped it, as it is genuinely the realization of his ideal. +"The gift without the giver is bare." But it is no less true that the gift without the +receiver is sterile and void, for art involves not only its creator's intention but also +its message to him whom the work reaches. In a book, it is not only what the writer says +that makes its significance but also what the reader thinks as he reads. In so far as any +man finds in picture or poem or song a new beauty, a fuller sense of harmony than was his +before, for him that is a work of art.</p> + +<p>Thus the standard by which art is to be tried is relative. For its creator, the work +is art in that it embodies a perception of new harmony that is peculiarly his. In the +material result, this special character is imparted to the work by the artist's +instinctive selection. No two painters, though equipped with equal technical skill and +perhaps of like tastes and preferences, would or indeed could render the same sweep of +landscape in precisely similar fashion. Obviously, to set down everything were at once an +impossibility and an untruth, for the detail of nature is infinite and the beholder does +not see everything. Each is bound to select such details as impress him, and his +selection will be determined by the way in which he as a unique personality, an +individual different from every other man in the whole wide universe, feels about the bit +of nature before him. In expressing by his special medium what he feels about the +landscape, he aims, in the selection of material form and color, to detach and render +visible what of essential truth the landscape means to him, to purge it of accidents, and +register its eternal beauty. The painter will not attempt, then, to reproduce the +physical facts of nature,—the topography, geology, botany, of the +landscape,—but rather through those facts in terms of color and form he tries to +render its <i>expression:</i> its quality, as brilliance, tenderness; its mood, as joy, +mystery, setting down those salient aspects of it which combine to give it character and +meaning. For landscape—to recall the exposition of a preceding page—has its +expression as truly as the human face. A man knows his friends not by the shape of the +nose or the color of the eyes, but by the character which these features express, the +personality which shines in the face and radiates from it This effluence of the soul +within is the essential man; people call it the "expression." As with human life, so with +the many aspects of nature. External traits are merged in the spiritual meaning. The +material forms have the power of affecting the spirit thus or so; and in man's reaction +on his universe they come to take on a symbolic emotional significance. Each +manifestation of nature arouses in the artist, more or less consciously on his part, some +feeling toward it: he cares, then, to represent these external material forms, whether a +flower, a landscape, a human face, only because there is in them something in which he +delights; he fashions the work of art in praise of the thing he loves. To the clever +technician who imitatively paints the flower as he knows it to be,</p> + +<p> "A primrose on the river's brim<br> + A yellow primrose is to him<br> + And it is nothing more."</p> + +<p>But to the artist</p> + +<p> "The meanest flower that blows +can give<br> + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."</p> + +<p>And it is these thoughts that he cares to express and not the visible truth about the +flower. A writer was walking along the streets of Paris on a day in early March.</p> + +<blockquote> +"It was dark and rather cold. I was gloomy, and walked because I had nothing to do. I +passed by some flowers placed breast-high upon a wall. A jonquil in bloom was there. It +is the strongest expression of desire: it was the first perfume of the year. I felt all +the happiness destined for man. This unutterable harmony of souls, the phantom of the +ideal world, arose in me complete. I never felt anything so great or so instantaneous. I +know not what shape, what analogy, what secret of relation it was that made me see in +this flower a limitless beauty. . . . I shall never enclose in a conception this power, +this immensity that nothing will express; this form that nothing will contain; this ideal +of a better world which one feels, but which it would seem that nature has not made." +</blockquote> + +<p>And if S<font face="Times New Roman">é</font>nancour had set himself to paint +his jonquil as he has written about it, how that tender flower would have been +transfigured and glorified!</p> + +<p>What the artist aims to render is not the rose but the beauty of the rose, his sense +of one chord in the universal harmony which the rose sounds for him, not that only, but +the beauty of all roses that ever were or ever shall be; and inevitably he will select +such colors and such lines as bring that special and interpreted beauty into relief, and +so make manifest to the beholder what was revealed to his own higher vision, by virtue of +which, and not because of any exceptional technical skill, he is an artist.</p><a name= +"4"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>IV</p> + +<p>ART AND APPRECIATION</p> + +<p>It may be that some reader of the foregoing pages will attempt to apply the principles +therein set forth to the pictures shown in the next exhibition he happens to attend. It +is more than probable that in his first efforts he will be disappointed. For the +principles discussed have dealt with art in its authentic manifestations; and not every +painter is an artist, not every picture is a work of art.</p> + +<p>At the very outset it should be said that an exhibition of paintings as ordinarily +made up is confusing and wholly illogical. We may suppose that a volume to be read +through in one sitting of two hours is placed in the hands of an intelligent reader. The +book consists of essays, poems, short stories, and dramatic dialogue, each within the +compass of a few pages, each contributed by a different writer as an example of his work +for the year. We may suppose now that the reader is asked to gather from this volume, +read hastily and either superficially or in random bits, some idea of the significance of +each author and of the import and scope of contemporary American literature. Is it a fair +test? This volume, we may further suppose, is practically the only means by which the +writer can get his work before the public. A public means a purchaser, and of course the +writer must live. Is it reasonable to think that every number contributed to such a +volume will be a work of art, wrought with singleness of heart and in loving devotion to +an ideal? There are still with us those who "work for money" and those who "work for +fame." There are those who believe in "giving the public what it wants," and the numbers +they contribute to the yearly volumes are samples of the sort of thing they do, from +which the public may order. In the table of contents stand celebrated names; and to the +work of such men, perhaps, will turn the seeker after what he thinks ought to be the +best, not realizing that these are the men who have known how to "give the people what +they want," that the people do not always want the good and right thing, and that it is +somewhat the habit of genius to dispense with contemporary recognition. If there is here +or there in the book an essay or a poem the product of thought and effort and offered in +all seriousness, how little chance it has of being appreciated, except by a few, even if +it is remarked at all in the jumble of miscellaneous contributions.</p> + +<p>This hypothetical volume is a fair parallel of an annual exhibition of paintings. In +such an exhibition the number of works of art, the true, inevitable expression of a new +message, is relatively small. The most celebrated and most popular painters are not +necessarily by that fact great artists, or indeed artists at all. Contemporary judgment +is notoriously liable to go astray. The gods of one generation are often the laughing +stock of the next; the idols of the fathers are torn down and trampled under foot by the +children. Some spirits there have been of liberal promise who have not been able to +withstand the demands made upon them by early popular approval. Such is the struggle and +soul's tragedy which is studied convincingly in Mr. Zangwill's novel, "The Master." No +assault on the artist's integrity is so insidious as immediate favor, which in its turn +begets the fatal desire to please.</p> + +<p>To the "successful" painters, however, are for the most part accorded the places of +honor on academy walls. The canvases of these men are seen first by the visitor; but they +are not all. There are other pictures which promise neither better nor worse. Here are +paintings of merit, good in color and good in drawing, but empty of any meaning. +Scattered through the exhibition are the works of a group of able men, imitating +themselves, each trying to outdo the others by a display of cleverness in solving some +"painter's problem" or by some startling effect of subject or handling. But it is a sad +day for any artist when he ceases to find his impulse and inspiration either in his own +spirit or in nature, and when he looks to his fellow craftsmen for the motive of his +work. Again, there are pictures by men who, equipped with adequate technical skill, have +caught the manner of a master, and mistaking the manner for the message it was simply +intended to express, they degrade it into a mannerism and turn out a product which people +do not distinguish from the authentic utterances of the master. The artist is a seer and +prophet, the channel of divine influences: the individual painter, sculptor, writer, is a +very human being.</p> + +<p>As he looks over these walls, clamorous of the commonplace and the commercial, the +seeker after what is good and true in art realizes how very few of these pictures have +been rendered in the spirit of love and joy. The painter has one eye on his object and +one eye on the public; and too often, as a distinguished actor once said of the stage +manager whose vision is divided between art and the box office, the painter is a one-eyed +man.</p> + +<p>A painter once refused to find anything to interest him, still less to move him, in a +silent street with a noble spire detaching itself vaguely from the luminous blue depths +of a midnight sky, because, he said, "People won't buy dark things, so what's the use? +You might as well do bright, pretty things that they will buy, and that are just as easy +to make." A portrait-painter gives up landscape subjects because, as he does not hesitate +to declare, it hurts his business. And the painters themselves are not altogether to +blame for this attitude towards their work. The fault lies half with the people who buy +pictures, having the money, and who have not a gleam of understanding of the meaning of +art. A woman who had ordered her house to be furnished and decorated expensively, +remarked to a caller who commented on a water-color hanging in the drawing-room: "Yes, I +think it matches the wall-paper very nicely." When such is the purpose of those who paint +pictures and such is the understanding of those who buy them, it is not surprising that +not every picture is inevitably a work of art.</p> + +<p>But what is the poor seeker after art to do? The case is by no means hopeless. In +current exhibitions a few canvases strike a new note; and by senses delicately attuned +this note can be distinguished within the jangle of far louder and popular tunes ground +out, as it were, by the street-piano. Seriously to study contemporary painting, however, +the logical opportunity is furnished by the exhibitions of the works of single men or of +small groups. As the reader who wishes to understand an author or perhaps a school does +not content himself with random extracts, but instead isolates the man for the moment and +reads his work consecutively and one book in its relation to his others; so the student +of pictures can appreciate the work and understand the significance of a given painter +only as he sees a number of his canvases together and in relation. So, he is able to +gather something of the man's total meaning.</p> + +<p>Widely different from annual exhibitions, too, are galleries and museums; for here the +proportion of really good things is immeasurably larger. In the study of masterpieces, it +need hardly be said, the amateur may exercise judgment and moderation. He should not try +to do too much at one time, for he can truly appreciate only as he enters fully into the +spirit of the work and allows it to possess him. To achieve this sympathy and +understanding within the same hour for more than a very few great works is manifestly +impossible. Such appreciation involves fundamentally a quick sensitiveness to the appeal +and the variously expressive power of color and line and form. To win from the picture +its fullest meaning, the observer may bring to bear some knowledge of the artist who +produced it and of the age and conditions in which he lived. But in the end he must +surrender himself to the work of art, bringing to it his intellectual equipment, his +store of sensuous and emotional experience, his entire power of being moved.</p> + +<p>For when all is said, there is no single invariable standard by which to try a work of +art: its significance to the appreciator rests upon his capacity at the moment to receive +it. "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it." The appreciator need +simply ask himself, "What has this work to reveal to me of beauty that I have not +perceived for myself? I shall not look for the pretty and the agreeable. But what of new +significance, energy, life, has this work to express to me? I will accept no man entirely +and unquestioningly, I will condemn no one unheard. No man has the whole truth; every man +has some measure of the truth, however small. Let it be my task to find it and to +separate it from what is unessential and false. In my search for what is true, I will +conserve my integrity and maintain my independence. And I shall recognize my own wherever +I may find it."</p> + +<p>"Man is the measure of all things," declared an ancient philosopher. And his teaching +has not been superseded to-day. The individual is the creator of his own universe; he is +the focus of the currents and forces of his world. The meaning of all things is +subjective. So the measure of beauty in life for a man is determined by his capacity to +receive and understand. Thus it is that a man's joy in experience and his appreciation of +art in any of its manifestations are conditioned by the opportunity that nature or art +furnishes for his spirit to exercise itself. In the reading of poetry, for example, we +seek the expression of ourselves. Our first emotion is, perhaps, a simple, unreflecting +delight, the delight which a butterfly must feel among the flowers or that of a child +playing in the fields under the warm sun; it is a delight wholly physical,—pure +sensation. A quick taking of the breath, the escape of a sigh, inarticulate and +uncritical, are the only expression we can find at that instant for what we feel: as when +an abrupt turn of the road spreads out before us a landscape of which we had not dreamed, +or we enter for the first time the presence of the Apollo Belvedere. We know simply that +we are pleased. But after nerves have ceased to tingle so acutely, we begin to think; and +we seek to give account to ourselves of the beauty which for the moment we could but +feel. Once arrived at the attitude of reflection, we find that the poetry which affects +us most and to which we oftenest return is the poetry that contains the record of our own +experience, but heightened, the poetry which expresses our desires and aspirations, that +in which we recognize ourselves elevated and idealized. In so far as we see in it the +ennobled image of our own nature, so far it has power to hold us and to stir us.</p> + +<p>An elementary manifestation of the tendency to seek in art the record of our own +experience is seen in the popularity of those pictures whose subjects are familiar and +can be immediately recognized. On a studio wall was once hanging a "Study of Brush," +showing the play of sunlight through quivering leaves. A visitor asked the painter why he +did not put some chickens in the foreground. To her the canvas was meaningless, for she +had never seen, had never really seen, the sunlight dancing on burnished leaves. The +chickens, which she had seen and could recognize, were the element of the familiar she +required in order to find any significance in the picture.</p> + +<p>This tendency, of which the demand for chickens is a rudimentary manifestation, is the +basis of all appreciation. The artist's revelation of the import of life we can receive +and understand only as we have felt a little of that import for ourselves. Color is +meaningless to a blind man, music does not exist for the deaf. To him who has never +opened his eyes to behold the beauty of field and hill and trees and sky, to him whose +spirit has not dimly apprehended something of that eternal significance of which these +things are the material visible bodying forth, to such a the work of the master is only +so much paint and canvas. The task of the appreciator, then, is to develop his capacity +to receive and enjoy.</p> + +<p>That capacity is to be trained by the exercise of itself. Each new harmony which he is +enabled to perceive intensifies his power to feel and widens the range of his vision. The +more beauty he apprehends in the world, so much the more of universal forces he brings +into unity with his own personality. By this extension of his spirit he reaches out and +becomes merged in the all-embracing life.</p> + +<p>If the conception be true that a supreme unity, linking all seemingly chaotic details, +ultimately brings them into order, and that this unity, which is spiritual, penetrates +every atom of matter, fusing everything and making all things one; then the appreciator +will realize that the significance of art is for the spirit The beauty which the artist +reveals is but the harmony which underlies the universal order; and he in his turn must +apprehend that beauty spiritually.</p> + +<p>From this truth it follows that the condition of aesthetic enjoyment, or in other +words the appreciation of beauty, is detachment of spirit and remoteness from practical +consequences. The classic illustration of the truth is the saying of Lucretius, that it +is sublime to stand on the shore and behold a shipwreck. It is sublime only as one's +personal interests and feelings are not engaged. It would not be sublime if it were +possible for the spectator to aid in averting the catastrophe; it would not be sublime if +one's friends were aboard the ship. One is able to appreciate beauty only as one is able +to detach one's self from what is immediate and practical, and by virtue of this +detachment, to apprehend the spiritual significance. The sublimity of the shipwreck lies +in what it expresses of the impersonal might of elemental forces and man's impotence in +the struggle against nature. That sublimity, which is one manifestation of beauty, is of +the spirit, and by the spirit it must be apprehended.</p> + +<p>To illustrate this truth by a few homely examples. A farmer looking out on his fields +of tossing wheat, drenched in golden sunlight, exclaims, "Look, isn't that beautiful!" +What he really means is: "See there the promise of a rich harvest, and it is mine." If +the fields belonged to his neighbor, his feelings towards them would be quite different. +No, their <i>beauty</i> is to be seen and felt only by him whose mind is free of thoughts +of personal enrichment and who thus can perceive the harmony with life of golden sunshine +and nature's abundant gifts. The farmer could not see beyond the material and its value +to him as material. But beauty lies deeper than that, for it is the expression of +spiritual relations.</p> + +<p>Two men are riding together in a railway carriage. As the train draws into a city, +they pass a little group of tumble-down houses, brown and gray, a heap of corners thrown +together. One man thinks: "What dreary lives these people must lead who dwell there." The +other, with no such stirring of the sympathy, sees a wonderful "scheme" in grays and +browns, or an expressive composition or ordering of line. Neither could think the +thoughts of the other at the same time with his own. One feels a practical and physical +reaction, and he cannot therefore at that moment penetrate to the meaning of these things +for the spirit; and that meaning is the harmony which they express.</p> + +<p>From the tangle of daily living with its conflict of interests and its burden of +practical needs, the appreciator turns to art with its power to chasten and to +tranquillize. In art, he finds the revelation in fuller measure of a beauty which he has +felt but vaguely. He realizes that underlying the external chaos of immediate practical +experience rests a supreme and satisfying order. Of that order he can here and now +perceive but little, hemmed in as he is by the material world, whose meaning he discerns +as through a glass, darkly. Yet he keeps resolutely on his way, secure in his kinship +with the eternal spirit, and rewarded by momentary glimpses of the "broken arcs" which he +knows will in the end take their appointed places in the "perfect round."</p><a name= +"5"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>V</p> + +<p>THE ARTIST</p> + +<p>Out of chaos, order. Man's life on the earth is finite and fragmentary, but it is the +constant effort of his spirit to bring the scattering details of momentary experience +into an enduring harmony with his personality and with that supreme unity of which he is +a part.</p> + +<p>The man who out of the complex disarray of his little world effects a new harmony is +an artist. He who fashioned the first cup, shaping it according to his ideal,—for +no prototype existed,—and in response to his needs; he who, taking this elementary +form, wrought upon it with his fingers and embellished it according to his ideal and in +response to his need of expressing himself; he, again, who out of the same need for +expression adds to the cup anything new: each of these workmen is an artist. The +reproduction of already existing forms, with no modification by the individual workman, +is not art. So, for example, only that painter is an artist who adds to his +representation of the visible world some new attribute or quality born of his own spirit +Primitive artisan, craftsman, painter, each creates in that he reveals and makes actual +some part, which before was but potential, of the all-embracing life.</p> + +<p>As the artist, then, wins new reaches of experience and brings them into unity, he +reveals new beauty, new to men yet world-old. For the harmony which he effects is new +only in the sense that it was not before perceived. As, in the physical universe, not an +atom of matter through the ages is created or destroyed, so the supreme spiritual life is +constant in its sum and complete. Of this life individuals partake in varying measure; +their growth is determined by how much of it they make their own. The growth of the soul +in this sense is not different from man's experience of the physical world. The child is +born: he grows up into his family; the circle widens to include neighbors and the +community; the circle widens again as the boy goes away to school and then to college. +With ever-widening sweep the outermost bound recedes, though still embracing him, as he +reaches out to Europe and at length compasses the earth, conquering experience and +bringing its treasures into tribute to his own spirit. The things were there; but for the +boy each was in turn created as he made it his own. So the artist, revealing new aspects +of the supreme unity, creates in the sense that he makes possible for his fellows a +fuller taking-up of this life into themselves.</p> + +<p>It may be said that he is the greatest artist who has felt the most of harmony in +life,—the greatest artist but potentially. The beauty he has perceived must in +accordance with our human needs find expression concretely, because it is only as he +manifests himself in forms which we can understand that we are able to recognize him. +Though a mute, inglorious Milton were Milton still, yet our human limitations demand his +utterance that we may know him. So the artist accomplishes his mission when he +communicates himself. The human spirit is able to bring the supreme life into unity with +itself according to the measure of its own growth made possible through expression.</p> + +<p>The supreme life, of which every created thing partakes,—the stone, the flower, +the animal, and man,—is beauty, because it is the supreme harmony wherein +everything has its place in relation to every other thing. This central unity has its +existence in expression. The round earth, broken off from the stellar system and whirling +along its little orbit through space, is yet ever in communication with the great system; +the tree, with its roots in the earth, puts forth branches, the branches expand into +twigs, the twigs burst into leaves whose veins reach out into the air; out of the twigs +spring buds swelling into blossoms, the blossoms ripen into fruit, the fruit drops seed +into the earth which gave it and springs up into new trees. The tree by its growth, which +is the putting forth of itself or expression, develops needs, these needs are satisfied, +and the satisfying of the needs is the condition of its continued expansion.</p> + +<p>Man, too, has his existence in expression. By growth through expression, which is the +creation of a new need, he is enabled to take up more into himself; he brings more into +the unity of his personality, and thus he expands into the universal harmony.</p> + +<p>The unity which underlies the cosmos—to define once more the conception which is +the basis of the preceding chapters—is of the spirit. The material world which we +see and touch is but the symbol and bodying forth of spiritual relations. The +tranquillizing, satisfying power of art is due to the revelation which art accomplishes +of a spiritual harmony which transcends the seeming chaos of instant experience. So it +comes about that harmony, or beauty, which is of the spirit, is apprehended by the +spirit. That faculty in the artist by which he is able to perceive beauty is called +<i>temperament.</i> By temperament is to be understood the receptive faculty, the power +to feel, the capacity for sensations, emotions, and "such intellectual apprehensions as, +in strength and directness and their immediately realized values at the bar of an actual +experience, are most like sensations." The function of temperament is to receive and to +transmit, to interpret, to create in the sense that it reveals. In the result it is felt +to be present only as the medium through which the forces behind it come to +expression.</p> + +<p>Art, the human spirit, temperament,—these terms are general and abstract. Now +the abstract to be realized must be made concrete. Just as art, in order to be manifest, +must be embodied in the particular work, as the statue, the picture, the building, the +drama, the symphony, so the human spirit becomes operative in the person of the +individual, and temperament may be best studied in the character of the individual +artist.</p> + +<p>As temperament is the receptive faculty, the artist's attitude toward life is what +Wordsworth called "wise passiveness,"—Wordsworth, the poet of "impassioned +contemplation." Keats, too,—and among the poets, whose vision of beauty was more +beautiful, whose grasp on the truth more true?—characterizes himself as "addicted +to passiveness." It is of temperament that Keats is writing when he says in a letter: +"That quality which goes to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and +which Shakespeare possessed so enormously, is <i>Negative Capability</i>." In another +letter he writes:—</p> + +<blockquote> +"It has been an old comparison for our urging on—the Beehive; however, it seems to +me that we should rather be the flower than the Bee—for it is a false notion that +more is gained by receiving than giving—no, the receiver and the giver are equal in +their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fair guerdon from the Bee—its +leaves blush deeper in the next spring—and who shall say between Man and Woman +which is the most delighted? Now it is more noble to sit like Jove than to fly like +Mercury—let us not therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey, bee-like +buzzing here and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to be aimed at; but let us +open our leaves like a flower and be passive and receptive—budding patiently under +the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every noble insect that favours us with a +visit—sap will be given us for meat and dew for drink. . . . +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + "O fret not after knowledge—I have none,<br> + And yet my song comes native with the warmth.<br> + O fret not after knowledge—I have none,<br> + And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens<br> + At thought of idleness cannot be idle,<br> + And he's awake who thinks himself asleep." +</blockquote> + +<p>Still again he says: "The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: +It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. +That which is creative must create itself."</p> + +<p>A nature so constituted, a nature receptive and passive, is necessarily withdrawn from +practical affairs. To revert to Keats as an example, for Keats is so wholly the artist, +it is his remoteness from the daily life about him that makes him the man of no one +country or time. His poetry has a kind of universality, but universality within a +definite sphere, and that sphere is the world of things lovely and fair. In a playful +mood Keats writes to his sister: "Give me Books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and +a little music out of doors, played by somebody I do not know . . . and I can pass a +summer very quietly without caring much about Fat Louis, fat Regent or the Duke of +Wellington." These are trivial words; but they serve to define in some measure the +artistic temperament.</p> + +<p>For this characteristic remoteness from affairs the artist is sometimes reproached by +those who pin their faith to material things. Such are not aware that for the artist the +only reality is the life of the spirit. The artist, as Carlyle says of the Man of +Letters, "lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine and Eternal, which +exists always, unseen to most, under the Temporary, Trivial: his being is in that." +Temperament constitutes the whole moral nature of the artist. "With a great poet," says +Keats, "the sense of beauty overcomes every consideration, or rather obliterates all +consideration." It is the standard which measures the worth of any act. It is conscience, +too; for the functions performed by conscience in the normal moral life of the man of +action are fulfilled by the artist's devotion to his ideal; his service to his art is his +sole and sufficient obligation.</p> + +<p>And where the man of action looks to find his rewards in the approval of his fellow +men, the artist cares to please himself. The very act of expressing is itself the joy and +the reward. To this truth Keats again stands as witness: "I feel assured," he says, "I +should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my +night's labours should be burnt every Morning and no eye ever shine upon them." And still +again: "I value more the privilege of seeing great things in loneliness than the fame of +a prophet." Not that the artist does not crave appreciation. His message fails of +completeness if there is no ear to hear it, if it does not meet a sympathy which +understands. But the true artist removes all shadow of petty vanity and becomes, in +Whitman's phrase, "the free channel of himself." He is but the medium through whom the +spirit of beauty reveals itself; in thankfulness and praise he but receives and +transmits. That it is given him to see beauty and to interpret it is enough.</p> + +<p>It is by virtue of his power to feel that the artist is able to apprehend beauty; his +temperament is ever responsive to new harmonies. By force of his imagination, which is +one function of his temperament, he sends his spirit into other lives, absorbs their +experience and makes it his own, and ultimately identifies himself with world forces and +becomes creator. In a lyric passage in a letter Keats exclaims:—</p> + +<blockquote> +"The mighty abstract Idea I have of Beauty in all things stifles the more divided and +minute domestic happiness. . . . I feel more and more every day, as my imagination +strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds. No sooner +am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the +office which is equivalent to a King's body-guard—then 'Tragedy with sceptered pall +comes sweeping by.' According to my state of mind I am with Achilles shouting in the +Trenches, or with Theocritus in the Vales of Sicily. Or I throw my whole being into +Troilus, and repeating those lines, 'I wander like a lost soul upon the Stygian Banks +staying for waftage,' I melt into the air with a voluptuousness so delicate that I am +content to be alone." +</blockquote> + +<p>This power to penetrate and to identify was exercised with peculiar directness and +plenitude by Walt Whitman, prophet of the omnipotence of man. To find the burden of his +message formulated in the single phrase one may turn to his Poems quite at random.</p> + +<p> "My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around +the whole earth."<br> + "I inhale great draughts of space,—<br> + The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are +mine.<br> + . . . . .<br> + All seems beautiful to me."</p> + +<p>Of the artist may be affirmed what Whitman affirms of the Answerer:—</p> + +<p> "Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and +tongue,<br> + He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, +and any man translates, and any man translates himself also,<br> + One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, +he sees how they join."</p> + +<p>As the artist sends out his spirit through the world, as he becomes the channel of +universal and divine influences, so he is admitted to new and ever new revelations of +beauty. And stirred by the glorious vision, he brings that beauty to earth, communicating +it to his fellows and making them partakers of it, as he gives his feeling expression. +Thus finding utterance as the prophet of God, he consummates his mission and takes his +place in the world order. Herein he has his being, for life is expression; and each new +harmony which he makes manifest is the medium of his fuller identification with the +universal life.</p> + +<p>So it is that the artist is the supreme interpreter, the mediator between man and +beauty. His work is a work of joy, of gratitude, of worship. He is the happy servant of +God, His prophet, through whom He declares Himself to the children of men.</p><br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Enjoyment of Art, by Carleton Noyes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENJOYMENT OF ART *** + +***** This file should be named 27194-h.htm or 27194-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/1/9/27194/ + +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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