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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32337-8.txt b/32337-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d0ec59 --- /dev/null +++ b/32337-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7883 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Belcaro, by Vernon Lee + +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: Belcaro + Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions + +Author: Vernon Lee + +Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32337] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELCARO *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + + + + + + + + +BELCARO + + +BEING + + +ESSAYS ON SUNDRY ÆSTHETICAL QUESTIONS, + + +BY +VERNON LEE, +AUTHOR OF "STUDIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY." + + + +LONDON: +W. SATCHELL & CO., +12 TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. + + + + +_TO_ + +A. MARY F. ROBINSON. + + + + + CONTENTS. + PAGE + + I. THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE 1 + II. THE CHILD IN THE VATICAN 17 + III. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 49 + IV. FAUSTUS AND HELENA 70 + V. CHAPELMASTER KREISLER 106 + VI. CHERUBINO 129 + VII. IN UMBRIA 156 + VIII. RUSKINISM 197 + IX. A DIALOGUE ON POETIC MORALITY 230 + X. POSTSCRIPT OR APOLOGY 275 + + +I have to thank the Editors of the _Cornhill_ and of _Fraser's +Magazines_, and of the _Contemporary Review_, for kind permission to +republish such of these studies as have previously appeared in print. + + + + +THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE. + +TO ONE OF MY READERS--THE FIRST AND EARLIEST. + + +A little while ago I told you that I wished this collection of studies +to be more especially yours: so now I send it you, a bundle of proofs +and of MS., to know whether you will have it. I wish I could give you +what I have written in the same complete way that a painter would give +you one of his sketches; that a singer, singing for you alone, might +give you his voice and his art; for a dedication is but a drop of ink on +a large white sheet, and conveys but a sorry notion of property. Now, +this book is intended to be really yours; yours in the sense that, were +it impossible for more than one copy of it to exist, that one copy I +should certainly give to you. Because these studies represent the ideas +I have so far been able to work out for myself about art, considered not +historically, but in its double relation to the artist and the world for +whom he works; ideas which it is my highest ambition should influence +those young enough and powerful enough to act upon them; and, this being +the case, my first thought is to place them before you: it is, you see, +a matter of conversion, and the nearest, most difficult, most desired +convert, is yourself. + +To you, therefore, before any one else, must I explain what manner +of book this is, what are its origin and its aims. And first, the +meaning of its title. Logically, this title means nothing; it is a mere +negation, a mere arbitrary combination of letters chosen from sheer +despair to find any name which should tell, what this title certainly +does not, what is the contents of the volume. Yet, a meaning the name +has: a meaning of association. For, even as a snatch of melody will +sometimes, for no apparent reason, haunt us while we are about any +particular work, follow us while we are travelling through a definite +tract of country (as, two years since, Wagner's Spinning Chorus +travelled with me from Mantua to Verona, and from Verona to Venice) in +such a way that the piece of work, the tract of country, bring with +their recollection the haunting tune to our mind; so, also, during the +time of making up this volume, I have been haunted by the remembrance of +that winter afternoon, when last we were together, on the battlements of +Belcaro. Perhaps (if we must seek a reason), because, while driving to +the strange, isolated villa castle, up and down, and round and round the +hills of ploughed-up russet earth, and pale pink leafless brushwood, and +bright green pine-woods, where every sharp road-turning surprises one +with a sudden glimpse of Siena, astride, with towers and walls and +cupolas, on her high, solitary ridge; while dashing up the narrow hedged +lanes whose sere oak and ilex branches brushed across our faces; or, +while looking down from the half-fortified old place on to the endless, +vague, undulating Sienese fields and oak-woods; perhaps, because at +that moment I may, unconscious to myself, have had a vague first desire +to put together more of the helter-skelter contents of the notes over +which we had been looking, and give it you in some intelligible shape. +Perhaps this may have served to set up the association; or perhaps it +was something wholly different, unguessed, trumpery, inscrutable. Be +this as it may, the fact remains that during the dull months of planning +and putting together this book, I have been haunted, as by a melody, by +the remembrance, the vision, the consciousness of that afternoon, warm +and hazy, of early December, on the battlements of Belcaro castle, when +we looked down over the top of the dense mural crown of sprouting pale +green acorned ilex on to the hills and ravines, with the sere oak-woods +reddened with the faint flush of sun-light, and the vague, white thinned +olives and isolated golden-leaved oaks, and distant solitary belfries +and castles; away towards Siena, grey on the horizon, beneath the grey, +pinked, wet cloud masses, lurid and mysterious like Beccafumi's frescos, +as if the clouds, if one looked at them long, might gather into +clustered angels with palm-shaped wings and flushed faces and reddened +pale locks. Thus have I been haunted by this remembrance, this inner +sight, this single moment continuing, in a way, to exist alongside of so +many and various other moments; so that, when it has come to giving a +name to this book, I find that there is already indissolubly associated +with it, the name of Belcaro. + +So far of the title: now of the book itself, of what it is, and why it +is such. When, two summers since, I wrote the last pages of my first +book, it was, in a way, as if I had been working out the plans of +another dead individual. The myself who had, almost as a child, been +insanely bewitched by the composers and singers, the mask actors and +pedants, and fine ladies and fops, the whole ghostly turn-out of the +Italian 18th century; who had, for years, in the bustle of self-culture, +I might almost say, of childish education, never let slip an opportunity +of adding a new microscopic dab of colour to the beloved, quaint, and +ridiculous and pathetic century-portrait which I carried in my mind; +this myself, thus smitten with the Italian 18th century, had already +ceased to exist. Another myself had come instead, to whom this long +accumulated 18th century lore had been bequeathed, but who would never +have taken the pains, or had the patience, to collect it; who carried +out with a sort of filial piety the long cherished plan of making into a +book all that inherited material, seeing the while in this 18th century +lore what the original collector had never guessed: illustrations, +partial explanations, of questions of artistic genesis and evolution, +of artistic right and wrong, which were for ever being discussed within +me. This new myself, this heir to the task of putting into shape the +historical materials collected by an extinct individuality, is the +myself by whom has been written this present book: this present book +represents the thoughts, the problems, the doubts, the solutions, which +were haunting me while writing that first book from which this new one +so completely differs. To plan, to work for such a book as that first +one, seems to me now about the most incomprehensible of all things; to +care for one particular historical moment, to study the details of one +particular civilisation, to worry about finding out the exact when and +how of any definite event; above all, to feel (as I felt) any desire to +teach any specified thing to anybody; all this has become unintelligible +to my sympathies of to-day. And it is natural: natural in mental +growth that we are, to some extent, professorial and professorially +self-important and engrossed, before becoming restlessly and sceptically +studious: we may teach some things before we even know the desire of +learning others. Thus I, from my small magisterial chair or stool of +18th century-expounder, have descended and humbly gone to school as a +student of æsthetics. + +To school, where, and with whom? A little to books, and this (excepting +a few psychological works not bearing directly upon my subject) with but +small profit; mainly to art itself, to pictures and statues and music +and poetry, to my own feelings and my own thoughts; studying, in +seemingly desultory fashion, in discussions with my friends and with +myself. This volume BELCARO is the first fruit of these attempts at +knowing: it is not the Sir-Oracle manual of a professor, with all in its +right place, understood or misunderstood, truth and error all neatly +systematised for the teaching of others; but rather the scholar's copy +book, the fragmentary and somewhat helter-skelter notes of what, in his +listenings and questionings, he has been able to understand, and which +he hands over to his fellow-pupils, who may have understood as much of +the lessons as himself, but have in all probability understood different +portions or in different ways. Such a collection of notes this volume +most unmetaphorically is: it is literally a selection of such pages out +of my commonplace books as seemed (though written at various moments) +to converge upon given points of æsthetical discussion; to coalesce, +conglomerate naturally, and to admit of some sort of setting, or +resetting. I say setting or resetting, because these thoughts, these +questionings, these discussions, though in their written shape merely +copied out from a confusion of quite heterogeneous notes, have nearly +all had, while they were living, while thought or asked or discussed, +a real setting of some sort. For the ideas have come mainly in the +presence of works of art, or in discussions with friends: they have +come, sometimes unperceived at the moment, together with the sight +of a picture, the hearing of a bar or two of music, the reading of +an accidentally met, familiar quotation; a reason, a long sought +explanation has been suddenly struck out by a sentence, a word from a +friend. Oh yes, a setting they have had, these ideas, such as they are: +a real, living, shimmering setting of tones and looks, and jests and +passion, and anecdote and illustration, and irrelevant streakings and +veinings of description and story; a setting too of place and time and +personality. For they have come out of real desultory talks: re-echoed +by the bare walls of glaring galleries and sounding statue cells; or +whispered on the steps before the withdrawn curtain of some altar-piece, +while the faint mass bell tinkled from distant chapels, or great waves +of litany responses rushed roaring down the nave, and broke in short +repeated echoes against the pillars of the aisle; or, never clearly +begun or ended, between one piece of music and another, with the hands +still on the keys, and the eyes still on the score; talks desultory, +digressive, broken off by the withdrawing of the curtain from a fresh +picture, by the prelude of another piece, by a cart blocking up the +street or a cat in behind a window grating; by something often utterly +trumpery, senseless and for the moment all important. And they have come +also, these scattered ideas, in long discussions, rambling but eager +(their seriousness shivered ever and anon by a sudden grotesque image or +cutting answer, or inane pun, or diverted off, no one knew how, into +anecdotes or folk tales), in the fire-lit winter afternoons, with the +crackle of wood and the crackling of sparks; or, in the August-heated, +shuttered room, with the midday drowsy silence brought home more +completely by the never flagging saw of the cicalas on the vine-bearing +poplars, by the uniform clatter of the wooden frame crushing the brittle +silvery hemp straw in the dark courtyard outside. This manner of setting +they have had; and a far finer than any that could artificially be given +to them. In order to endure, they had, these ideas, to be removed out of +all this living frame-work; to be written down, that is to say, to be +made quite lifeless and inorganic, and dry and stiff, like some stuffed +animal or bird. And when it came to sorting them, to preparing them to +show to other folk; the vague melancholy sense of how different they +now looked, my poor art thoughts all dreary in their abstractness, from +what they had been when they had first come into my head; this sense +of difference made me wish and try to replace them in a setting, an +artificial one, which should in a manner be equivalent to that original +real setting of place and moment, and individuality and digression: +equivalent as an acre of garden, with artificial rocks, streams, groves, +grottoes, places for losing your way, flower-beds etc., is equivalent +for all the country you can travel over in five or six years. I have +done as best I could, merely to satisfy my own strong feeling that art +questions should always be discussed in the presence of some definite +work of art, if art and its productions are not to become mere +abstractions, logical counters wherewith to reckon; also, that +discussions should be, what real discussions are, a gradual unravelling +of tangled questions, either alone or with others' assistance, not a +mere exposition of a cut and dry system. I have always, in putting +together these notes, had a vision of pictures or statues or places, had +a sound of music in my mind, or a page of a book in my memory; I have +always thought, in arranging these discussions, of the real individuals +with whom I should most willingly have them: I have always felt that +some one else was by my side to whom I was showing, explaining, +answering; hence, the use of the second person plural, of which I have +vainly tried to be rid: it is not the oracular _we_ of the printed book, +it is the _we_ of myself and those with whom, for whom, I am speaking; +it is the constantly felt dualism of myself and my companion. + +Thus much of the form into which, as the only one which, however +imperfectly, suited my liking, I have worked these notes, taken from +out of the confusion of my commonplace books. Now, as to the notes, or +rather as to the ideas which they embody. These ideas, I repeat, are not +a system; they are mere fragmentary thinkings out of æsthetic questions. +Yet, they have, taken altogether, a certain uniformity of tendency, a +certain logical shape: they look like a system. But if a logical shape +they have, it is not because they have been deliberately fitted into +each other, but because they have been homogeneously evolved; if a +system they appear, it is because the same individual mind, in its +attempt to solve a series of closely allied problems, must solve them +in a self-consistent way. Hence, while dreading beyond all things to +cramp my still growing, and therefore altering, ideas in the limits +of a system, I find that I have, nevertheless, evolved for myself a +series of answers to separate questions, which constitute a sort of +art-philosophy. An art-philosophy entirely unabstract, unsystematic, +essentially personal, because evolved unconsciously, under the pressure +of personal circumstances, and to serve the requirements of personal +tendencies. I have, of course, read a good deal about art, perhaps more +than other people; and I have consciously and unconsciously assimilated +a good deal of the books that I read; but I have never deliberately +accepted (except in the domain of art-history and evolution, of which I +have not treated in this book which deals only of art in its connection +with the individual artist and his public) a whole theory, and set +myself either to developing or correcting it: the ideas of others enter +largely into the answers to my self-questionings, but they do so because +they had become part and parcel of my own thought; and the questions and +their answers have always been asked by myself and answered by myself. +For, with respect to æsthetic training, I have been circumstanced +differently from most writers on the subject, nay, from most readers of +our generation. I was taught as little about art, I heard as little talk +about pictures, statues, or music, as any legendary calvinist child of +the 17th century; I jostled art of one kind or another as much as any +child well can: I was familiar with art, cared about it (to the extent +of requiring it) before well knowing that art existed: reversing the +training of these days of culture and eclecticism and philosophy, +according to which one usually knows all about art, all about its +history, ethics, philosophy, schools, epochs, moral value, poetic +meaning, and so forth, before one knows art itself, long before one +cares a jot for it. To me, art was neither a technical study, nor a +philosophic puzzle, nor a rhetorical theme, nor a fashionable craze: it +was something natural, familiar; indifferent at first, then enjoyed; +only later read and thought about. It was only when I began to read +what other people had thought and felt on the subject, that I began +to discover (with surprise and awe) that there was something rare, +wonderful, exotic, sublime, mysterious, ineffable about art. I read a +great many books about all the arts, and about each art in particular, +from Plato to Lessing, from Reynolds to Taine, from Hegel to Ruskin; I +read, re-read, annotated, extracted, compared, refuted; I filled copy +books with transcendental, romantic, and positivistic æsthetics; I began +to feel, to understand art and all its wonderful mysteries; I began to +be able to express in words all the vague sublimities which I felt. Any +one reading my notes, hearing my conversation, would have sworn that I +was destined to become an art philosopher. But it was not to be. Much as +I read, copied, annotated, analysed, imitated, I could not really take +in any of the things which I read; or if I took them in, they would +remain pure literary flourishes. As soon as I got back into the presence +of art itself, all my carefully acquired artistic philosophy, mystic, +romantic, or transcendental, was forgotten: I looked at pictures and +statues, and saw in them mere lines and colours, pleasant or unpleasant; +I listened to music, and when, afterwards, I asked myself what strange +moods it had awakened in my soul, what wondrous visions it had conjured +up in my mind, I discovered that, during that period of listening, my +mind had been a complete blank, and that all I could possibly recollect +were notes. My old original prosaic, matter-of-fact feeling about art, +as something simple, straightforward, enjoyable, always persisted +beneath all the metaphysics and all the lyrism with which I tried to +crush it. I continued, indeed, to study art, to think about what it +really was; but gradually I perceived that this thinking of mine, +instead of developing my faculties for seeing in art all the wonderful +things seen in it by others, tended more and more to confirm my original +childish impression that art was a simple thing to be simply enjoyed. +My thinking was mainly negative: instead of discovering new things +in art, I discovered every day the absence in it of some of the strange +properties with which I had learned to invest it; I perceived more and +more distinctly that half of the ideas of æstheticians had merely served +to hide the real nature of the art about which they wrote; I understood +that while analysing psychological meanings in pictures, they were +shutting their eyes to the form and the colour; that while they were +dreaming about woods and lakes, and love and death, they were not +listening to the music. I gradually took in the fact that most writers +on art were simply substituting psychological or mystic or poetic +enjoyment, due to their own literary activities, for the simple artistic +enjoyment which was alone and solely afforded by art itself. I saw that +the more value any work of art possessed in itself, and the greater +the amount of pleasure which it could afford, the more extraneous and +impertinent was the sort of interest with which æstheticians tried to +invest it. I became aware that writers, being unable to awaken with +their machinery of thoughts and feelings and words the activities +awakened by the intrinsic qualities, visible or audible, of statues or +pictures or music, had unconsciously substituted an appeal to other +mental activities with which the works of art had at best but little +connection. This gradual discovery amused me, but it also made me +indignant. Had mankind appeared to me to be merely placidly enjoying as +artistic effects those which were not artistic effects at all, it would +have been a mere matter for amusement; but it seemed to me that as a +consequence of this mankind was entirely missing much of the enjoyment +which art could give, and, moreover, which could be given only by art. +Besides, art was for ever attempting really to produce those imaginary, +imagined effects: sculpture was trying to give psychological amusement, +music was trying to play tragedies and paint landscapes, and write +religious meditations; and in so doing art was incapacitating itself +for its real work, even as mankind was incapacitating itself for +appreciating the real powers of art. Hence, in so far as I thought +at all about art in its absolute relations to artist and public (as +distinguished from art as a psychological, historical, merely scientific +study) my thoughts all tended towards getting rid of those foreign, +extra-artistic, irrelevant interests which æstheticians have since the +beginning of time interposed between art and those who are intended to +enjoy it; my work has, unconsciously enough, been to logically justify +that perfectly simple, direct connection between art and ourselves, +which was the one I had felt, as a child, before learning all the +wonderful fantastications of art philosophers. My own art philosophy is +therefore simply to try and enjoy in art what art really contains, to +obtain from art all that it can give, by refraining from asking it to +give what it cannot. To this end have tended all those most harum-scarum +notes, written during the last six years, which I have here collected +and tried to group according to the particular art, or the particular +portion of an art, to which they referred. Some are about painting, +some about music, some about poetry, some about art in general, some +inextricably combined and mixed up with other subjects. They have been +written at different times, hence with varying amount of experience and +information; occasionally they may even be contradictory in a trifle. +Thus, when I wrote the notes on musical expression incorporated in the +essay called after Hoffmann's Kapell-Meister Kreisler, I was not yet +acquainted with the discoveries of Mr. Herbert Spencer on the subject; +discoveries which have infinitely cleared my ideas, and which serve to +correct, in the adjoining essay called _Cherubino_, much that was vague, +and perhaps equivocal, in my earlier notes. Had I been constructing a +system, I should have recast all the old (or suppressed all the new); +but I am merely collecting notes, so I have let them stand as they were +written. My object is not to teach others, but to show them how far I +have taught myself, and how far they may teach themselves. I must always +return to my comparison of the copy books of the boy attending a course +of lectures: this is not all that I conceive can be said on the subject; +it is merely as much as I have been able to understand thereof; and the +more I have listened and questioned, the more what I have understood has +become connected within itself and seemed to indicate connections with +unstudied problems belonging to different orders of thought. Thus, after +having thought and written only about art; about what each art can and +cannot do, about the relations of the various arts amongst each other +and to their artists, I have gradually found myself thinking and writing +about what art as a whole can do and should do; about the relations +between all art and life taken as a whole: after the purely æsthetical +questions has come the question, no æsthetical question this time--what +value, in this world of good and evil, of doubt and certainty, of action +and inaction, in this world struggling for physical and social and moral +good, what value have æsthetical questions at all? And with these notes, +written latest of all, and threatening to divert me more than they +should from my present field of study to the wider, nobler, far more +intricate and dangerous field of ethics, I have thought it best to +close my book; since these latest notes supply the explanation--felt +all along, but only vaguely formulated till now--of my whole æsthetic, +because of my whole philosophic, tendencies: the greatest amount of good +work to be obtained from everything, and this possible only by all being +seen in its right light, and consequently used in its right place. + +This is what my new book is, and this is how such it has come to be. And +just because it is what it is, because it is not a mere piece of work, +not a mere something made by me and thrust away, in its systematic cut +and dryness, from my living personality; but a certain proportion of my +growing, altering, enlarging, disjointed, helter-skelter thoughts, of +the thoughts which come to me whether I will or not; because it is not +a real book but a collection of notes, do I wish it to be read by you. +So now I tie together and make a packet of all the pages of proofs and +sheets of MS., and send it all to you. The summer has come round: the +tall grass, brocaded like some rough, rich mediæval stuff, with yellow +buttercups and blue sage flowers, is already beginning to be scythed +and raked away; the last clusters of hawthorn, which, a few days since, +still stood out white and crisp against the blue of the sky, fall to +pieces as soon as one tries to gather them; the Tuscan country has +already got its summer sheen of pale green poppied wheat, and pale green +budding vine, and dim blue distance, and pervading faint yellow haze; +the hills of Siena are green with sprouting arbutus and ilex and fern +and hellebore bells; the oakwoods that we saw russet under the reddening +light, are in tender, yellowish new leaf; the olives are in blossom from +which we broke the fruit-laden twigs; it seems so long, so very long, +since that soft grey winter day when last we were together, looking down +from the battlements of the old Sienese villa; and yet the memory of +that winter day seems as real as the present reality of this summer one; +and haunts me still, as I write these words, even as it has haunted me +throughout the putting together of this book, which I have called, +from that haunting remembrance, and, perhaps, a little also that the +association might make it more pleasant in your eyes, by the name of +that strange, isolated, ilex-circled castle villa of Belcaro. And now, +unroll the tight-rolled manuscript and smooth out the rumpled proof +sheets; read, and tell me whether or not what you have read is ever to +be read by any one else. + + FLORENCE, _May, 1881_. + + + + +THE CHILD IN THE VATICAN. + + +There were a lot of children in the Vatican this morning: small +barbarians scarce out of the nursery, who should have been at home, +at their lessons, or reading fairy books, or carpentering, or +doll-educating, or boat-sailing, or amusing themselves in the hundred +nondescript ways which we seem to forget (remembering only ready-made +toys and ready-made stories) when we grow up. Some were left to their +own devices, and scampered, chattering and laughing, through the +gallery; jumping up three steps at a time, clambering up to windows, +running round isolated statues, feretting into all the little nook and +corner rooms, peeping into the lidless sarcophagi and the great porphyry +baths, with the rough-hewn rings and lions' heads. The others were being +led by their elders: talking in whispers, or silent: demure, weary, +vacant, staring about with dreary, vague little faces; these, who were +not permitted to rush about like the others, seemed chilled, numbed +by a sort of wonder unaccompanied by curiosity, oppressed by a sense +of indefineable desolation. And, indeed, it is a desolate place, this +Vatican, with its long, bleak, glaring corridors; its half-lit, chill, +resounding halls; its damp little Belvedere Court, where green lichen +fills up the fissured pavement; a dreary labyrinth of brick and +mortar, a sort of over-ground catacomb of stones, constructed in our +art-studying, rather than art-loving times where once--when Michael +Angelo was stretched painting on the creaking scaffolding slung from +the roof of the Sixtine--the poppies waved scarlet among the trailing +vines of the pope's orchard, and the white butterflies, like wind-blown +blossoms, swarmed in the tall grass beneath the bending apple trees, and +the fire-flies danced in luminous spirals among the wild rose-hedges. +A dismal scientific piece of ostentation, like all galleries; a place +where art is arranged and ticketed and made dingy and lifeless even as +are the plants in a botanic collection. Eminently a place of exile; or +worse, of captivity, for all this people of marble: these athletes and +nymphs and satyrs, and warriors and poets and gods, who once stood, each +in happy independence, against a screen of laurel or ilex branches, +or on the sun-heated gable of a temple, where the grass waved in the +fissures and the swallows nested, or in a cresset-lit, incense-dim +chapel, or high against the blue sky above the bustle of the market +place; poor stone captives cloistered in monastic halls and cells, or +arranged, like the skeletons of Capuchins, in endless rows of niche, +shelf, and bracket. Galleries are necessary things, to save pictures and +statues (or the little remaining of them) from candle smoke, sacristans' +ladders, damp, worms, and street boys, but they are evil necessities; +and the sense of a sort of negative vandalism always clings to them, +specially to the galleries of statues, so uninhabited, so utterly +sepulchral. Going to a gallery of sculpture, we must be prepared to +isolate what we wish to enjoy, to make for it a fitting habitation in +our fancy: it is like going to read a page of Homer, or the Georgics, +or Shelley, in some great musty, dusty library, redolent of crumbling +parchment and forgotten rubbish. Such is this Vatican, even for us +accustomed to it and knowing what we do and do not want: for us grown-up +creatures, familiar with such matters, and with powers of impression +quite deadened by culture. What, therefore, must not this Vatican be +for a child: a quite small, ignorant barbarian such as has never before +set its feet in a gallery, to whom art and antiquity have been mere +names, to whom all this world of tintless stone can give but a confused, +huge, overpowering impression of dreariness and vacuity. An impression +composed of negative things: of silence and absence of colour, of +lifelessness, of not knowing what it all is or all means; a sense of +void and of unattractive mystery which chills, numbs the little soul +into a sort of emotionless, inactive discomfort. What we were, how we +felt, how we understood and vaguely guessed things, as children, we can +none of us know. The recollection of ourselves when we were so different +from ourselves, this tradition handed down from a dim, far-off creature +of whom we know, without feeling it, that he, was our _ego_, this +mysterious tradition remains to us only in fragments, has been printed +into our memory only by desultory patches: at one point we can read, at +another the ink has not taken; we know as distinctly as the sensation +and impressions of this very morning this or that sensation or +impression of so many, many years ago; and we ask ourselves at the same +time--"how did such another thing affect our mind?"--with the utter +hopelessness of answer with which we should try to look into the soul +of a dog or a cat. Thus it is with our small barbarian child in the +Vatican: how did it feel? Alas, we should, in order to know, first +have to find that little obscure, puzzled soul again; and where is +it gone? this thing which may once have been ourselves, whither has it +disappeared, when has it been extinguished? So we can only speculate and +reconstruct on a general basis. Certain it is that to this child, to +any child, this Vatican must have been the most desolate, the most +unintelligible of places. For, strange as it may seem, this clear and +simple art of sculpture, born when the world was young and had not yet +learned to think and talk in symbolical riddles, this apparently so +outspoken art is, to the childish soul of our days, the most silent art +of any. To the child, the modern child, it is speechless; it knows not +a word of the language understood by the child's fancy. For this fancy +language of our modern child is the language of colour, of movement, of +sound, of suggestion, of all the broken words of modern thought and +feeling: and the statue has none of these. The child does not recognise +in it anything familiar: these naked, or half-naked, limbs are things +which the child has never seen, at least, never observed; they do not, +in their unfamiliarity, their vagueness, constitute an individual +character; the dress, the furrowed face, the coloured hair, the beard, +these are the things which the child knows, and by which it recognises; +but in these vague, white things, with their rounded white cheek, and +clotted white hair, with their fold of white drapery about them, the +child recognises nothing: men? women? it does not ask: for it, they are +mere things, figures cut out of stone. And thus, in their vagueness, +their unfamiliarity, they seem also to be all alike, even as, on first +acquaintance, we sometimes ask ourselves whether those sisters or +brothers we know are four or only three; for in the unknown there is no +diversity. Mysterious things, therefore, these statues for the child; +but theirs is a mystery of mere vacuity, one which does not haunt, does +not seek a solution. For they are dull things, in their dirty whiteness: +they are doing nothing, these creatures, merely standing or sitting or +leaning, they are looking at nothing with their pupilless white eyes, +they have no story to tell, no name to be asked. The child does not say +to them, as to the people in pictures, the splendid people in strange +colours, and holding strange things, "Who are you? why are you doing +that?" It does not even ask or answer itself whether these white things, +who seem to be all the same, are dead or alive: they are not ghosts, +they are things which, for aught the child knows or cares, have never +been born and never will die. A negation, oppressive and depressing, +that is all; and in the infinite multitude of statues in such a place +as this Vatican, their sense must become actively painful to the child. +Hence, the children we meet either rush headlong through corridor and +hall, looking neither to the right nor to the left, or let themselves +be passively led through, listless, depressed, glancing vaguely about, +looking wistfully at the little glimpses of sunlit garden outside, at +the clipped box hedges and trim orange trees in the court of the Pine +Cone. For there, outside, is life, movement, green; little hedged beds +to run round; fountains to be made to spirt aside by sticking fingers +into their pipes; walls on which to walk balanced, and benches to jump +over: there is field and food for the child's fancy, and here, within, +among all these cut stones, there is none. + +Hence it is that the child, who will one day become ourselves, rarely +cares to return to these sculpture galleries; or, if it care to return +to any, it is to mixed galleries like those of Florence, where, instead +of the statues, it looks at the pictures. And out of pictures, out of +the coarse blurs of colour in picture-books, out of the black, huddled, +infinitively suggestive engravings in bible and book of travel; out of +fine glossy modern pictures which represent a definite place, or tell a +definite story; out of all this, confused with haunting impressions, of +things seen or heard of (the strange, deeply significant sights and +words of our childhood), do we get our original, never really alterable +ideas and feelings about art; for much as we may clip, trim, and bedizen +our minds with borrowed things, we can never change, never even recast +its solid material: a compact, and seemingly homogeneous soul mass, +made up of tightly-pressed, crushed odds and ends of impression; +broken, confused, pounded bits of the sights and sounds and emotions +of our childhood. To the statues we return only quite late, when this +long-formed, long-moulded soul of ours has been well steeped in every +sort of eclectic and artificial culture; has been saturated with modern +art and modern criticism, with mysticism and realism and sentiment and +cynicism, with Dante and Zola, and Mozart and Wagner and Offenbach, +saturated, with every kind of critically distilled æsthetic essence, +till there is not a flavour and not a scent, good or bad, sweet or foul, +which may not be perceived in this strange soul of ours. Then we return +to the statues; and, having imbibed (like all things) a certain amount +of Hellenic, Pagan, antique feeling, we try also to assimilate the +spirit of the statues of Phidias or Praxiteles; we expound the +civilisation, the mode of thought; we trace the differences of school, +we approve and condemn, we speak marvellously well, with subtlety or +passion; we imagine all manner of occult, ineffable virtues and vices +in this antique art, we dabble deliciously in alternate purity and +impurity (this being the perfection of artistic pleasure), as we even +occasionally, for a few moments, feel actual, simple, unreasoning, +wholesome pleasure in the sight of the old broken marbles. All this +we do, and most often are therewith satisfied. Yet if, weighing our +artistic likings and dislikings, comparing together our feelings towards +so many and so various manifestations, trying to determine what is fresh +and wholesome food to our depraved æsthetic (and æsthetico-moral) +palate, and what is mere highly flavoured, spicy or nauseous drug-stuff, +if, in such a moment of doubt, we ask ourselves, overheard by no one, +whether in reality this antique art is, in the life of our feelings, at +all important, comforting, influential? we shall, for the most part, +whisper back to ourselves that it is not so in the very least. But could +it ever have been? Could this, or any art have been for us more than +merely one of a hundred feebly enjoyed, more or less exotic mental +luxuries; than an historic fossil, by study of which, as with the +bone of a pterodactyl or an ichthyosaurus, we can amuse ourselves +reconstructing the appearance and habits of a long dead, once living +civilisation? Or might these statues have been much more to us? Might +they, perhaps, have shaped and trained our souls with their unspoken +lessons? + +Well, once upon a time (let us invent a fairy tale), a child was +brought to the Vatican: just such an one, only perhaps a trifle more +wayward, than those we met this morning, demurely led about, or +scampering through the galleries: its name signifies nothing, suffice it +that it was a child. Now, it so happened, that upon that day the statues +(who, as our forefathers of the middle ages knew) are merely stone +imprisoned demons, dethroned gods of antiquity, were bent upon getting +some small amount of amusement in their dreary lives: all the more +dreary since the great joyful hope of restoration in the hearts of men +which they had conceived when Winckelmann and Goethe came to them and +adored, had been slowly disappointed by seeing that what men cared +for was not them, but merely their own impertinent theories and +grandiloquent speeches. The Statue-demons were sick of the bitter +amusement of watching the follies of their pretended or deluded +worshippers. So they sorely wanted excitement, diversion of some sort; +and in their idleness, they capriciously determined to amuse themselves, +no longer with grown men, but with children. So, as a toy for the +moment, they singled out this particular child we are speaking of, +who was wandering wearily through the gallery, overpowered like its +companions by the sense of negativeness, of greyness, of silence, of +want of character and movement and story, and as it passed them, the +statue-demons looked at each other with their pupilless eyes, as much as +to say: "This is the one we shall take," and determined to cast a spell +upon it which would make it theirs. How they did is more than any of us +can tell: there was a little gurgling fountain in the garden outside, +where a broken-snouted dragon spirted a trickle of water through the +maiden-hair choking up the basin, and of this water the child did drink +a little in the palm of its hand, the rest running up its sleeve; there +was also an old noseless Vertumnus in a corner, on whose pedestal a +great tuft of wild grass had shot up, and round whose arms and neck an +ivy plant had cast its green trailing leaves; and one of these bitter +glossy leaves that child did certainly munch; but whether the charm was +in the water or the leaf, or in neither, and only a mysterious spell, +a sort of invisible winged seed of passion which they cast direct into +that little soul, no one may ever decide. Be it as it may, the child +remained for a while conscious of nothing at all, never dreaming that it +had in any way come in contact with that demon world imprisoned in the +stone. It lived its child life of romping and day dreams and lessons and +punishments, and, with its companions, fretted to get away from this +dreary, horrible Rome of the popes: this warm, wet place with its sordid +houses, its ruins embedded in filth and nettles; its tawdry, stuffy +churches, filled with snuffling of monks and jig-quavering of strange, +cracked, sickening-sweet voices; its whole atmosphere of decay and +sloth, as of a great marsh-pond, sprinkled with bright green weed and +starred with flaunting nauseous yellow lilies. The child wondered at +all these things: dug bits of porphyry and serpentine out of gutters, +collected pieces of potshard from the Palatine; read and re-read +the stories of shipwrecks and red Indians and volcanoes: played in +dressing-gowns and shawls, at processions of cardinals and prelates, +and, with yelling companions in pinafores and napkins, at church music, +with tremendous time-beating with rolls of paper; laughed and pouted and +quarrelled as children do; quite unconscious of being the chosen one, +the changeling, the victim of the statues. But little by little, into +its everyday life, stole strange symptoms; sometimes there would come +like a sudden stop, as of a boat caught in the rushes, a consciousness +of immobility in the midst of swirling, flowing movement, a giddy +brain-swimming feeling; and then things went on again just as before. +But the symptoms returned, and others with them. What was the matter? +A vagueness, a want; a seeking, a clinging, but seeking for, clinging +to the unknown. In the evenings of early spring, when the children had +returned from their scrambling walks, and were waiting for supper, +chattering, looking at books, or strumming tunes; this child would watch +the bank of melting colours, crimson, and smoke-purple and gold, left by +the sun behind the black dome of St. Peter's; and as the white vapours +rose from the town below and gathered on the roofs like a veil, it would +feel a vague, acheless pain within it; and at any stray, trifling word +or bar of dance music, its eyes and its whole little soul would fill +with a mist of tears. The spell cast by the statues was not idle, the +mysterious philter which they had poured into it was working throughout +that childish soul: the child was in love; in love with what it had +hated; in love intensely, passionately, with Rome. And as a part of Rome +it loved, blindly, for no other reason, that desolate Vatican; to the +statues it returned, and in a way, grew up in their presence. And one +day the child looked at itself, and perceived that it was a child no +longer; knew all of a sudden, that in those drowsy years of childish +passion and day dreams, it had been learning something which others did +not know. For it heard one day a few pages of a symphony of Mozart's; +the first it had ever heard save much more modern music; and those bars +of symphony were intelligible words, conveyed to the child a secret. And +the secret was: "we are the brethren, the sounding ones of the statues: +and all we who are brethren, whether in stone, or sound, or colour, or +written word, shall to thee speak in such a way that thou recognise us, +and distinguish us from others; and thou shalt love and believe only in +us and those of our kin." Then the child went forth from the Vatican, +and went in among the pictures, and among the poems and the music, and +did indeed find that all those who were of the same kin as the statues +spoke to it intelligible words, and returned its love by making it +happy. This came of the statues having had the whim of giving to that +child the love potion which had made it love Rome. + +All this is a fairy tale, a very meagre one indeed, quite inferior to +any told us by nurse or peasant woman; but a fairy tale nevertheless; +for, of course, we all know that statues cannot give love philters, nor +children fall in love with towns, nor symphonies talk about having +brothers in marble or colour. All this is rubbish of the same sort as +the dancing water, the singing apple, the dragon Fafner's blood which +made Sigurd understand the language of the birds, the enchanted lake +into which Charlemagne sat gazing out his life, because of the ring cast +into it; mere rubbish, and, consequently, not to be examined into or +reasoned about. But as the wise men of to-day tell us that in all our +nursery tales (Heaven forbid that anything so appalling be true) there +is a hidden, sensible meaning; perhaps, also, there may be one in this +absurd little story of the child in the Vatican, and that we may see. +And so, now, we must be serious and examine methodically into the +matter. + +To grow up in the presence of the statues; to become acquainted +with antique art long before any other; to perceive the beauty +and enjoyableness of a statue before seeking for the beauty and +enjoyableness of a picture or a piece of music; this is the reverse of +the artistic training which every individual man or woman obtains +consciously or unconsciously in our own day; for we begin with the art +born nearest our time, then proceed to those further; we go from music +to painting, and from painting to sculpture. But humanity at large +received the opposite training in the last four-and-twenty centuries, +since humanity knew beauty in the statue before knowing beauty in the +picture, and beauty in the picture before beauty in music. The first +standard of artistic right and wrong (since architecture, being a thing +partly for use, and only partly for beauty, has a mixed morality of its +own) was the standard of sculpture. Let us see what that was, and how we +must alter and enlarge it (as humankind has done), in order to obtain +the standard of right and wrong in painting and that in music. The +statues, in our fairy tale, told the child that they had brethren in +sound, brethren which, knowing them, he should also know from the +resemblance. But first, what like are these first born of art, these +statues? What is this character in them which, found in the younger +things, in painting and music, shall show that even these are of the +same stock as the statues? What like are these statues? What a question! +it is perfectly insulting to any one of us most æsthetic creatures. +What like are these statues? Does any of us require to ask or to be +taught that? And to begin with, the very question is a gross error, an +unendurable blunder: statues, antique statues.... You think that so +simple, do you? You think, perhaps, like the people of the sixteenth +century, that there is only one kind of antique statue; know, most +impudent of ignoramuses, that there are innumerable sorts of statues +and antique statues, there are good statues and bad statues, and early +statues and late statues, there are Dedalian statues and Æginete +statues, and immediately pre-Phidian and Phidian, and immediately +post-Phidian and Praxitelian statues, and statues of the school of +Pergamus, and statues of the school of Rhodes, and Græco-Roman statues, +and statues of the Græco-Egyptian revival under Hadrian, and statues.... +Enough, enough! We have been talking of the teachings of the statues +themselves, of the lesson which they, with their unchangeable attitude +and gesture, their lines and curves and lights and shadows of body, +their folds and plaits of drapery, have silently, slowly taught to a +child; and the statues themselves, who have never read Winckelmann, +nor Quatremère, nor Ottfried Müller, do not know all these wondrous +classifications of schools of which (with their infinite advantage of +teaching us to admire only one or two schools, and abominate all the +others as barbarous, decaying, Græculan, etc., without even looking at +them) we are so justly proud. Oh, yes, the statues which taught the +child were a very mixed company, such as the carefully-trained of our +day, who can endure only Phidias, and next to Phidias, only Clodion or +Carpeaux, would scarcely like to know at all. Not Phidian, all of them, +nor even, alas, Praxitelian; they were not the Elgin marbles nor the +Venus of Milo, sole objects of the feeble love of us good, learned folk; +they were those extremely harum-scarum statues of the Vatican: a few of +them copies of lost, irreproachable originals, like the Doryphoros, the +Minerva, the Amazon, the Satyr; a certain number of impostors of now +exploded reputation, the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Antinous, and a whole +host of quite despicable others, of every degree of lateness of epoch +and baseness of work. And what is still worse, the child was taught, not +merely by this multifarious company, but by heaven knows what dreadful +statues besides; things to shudder at, things, hewn stones (for the +right-minded cannot call them statues) out in gardens, noseless, armless +things under artificial ruined temples, in niches of clipped box, or +half-swathed up with ivy and creeping roses. All these said to that +child that, although some of them were quite artistic patricians and +princes, and others the merest ragtag and bobtail, nay, unspeakable +ruffians and outcasts, they yet belonged to the same stock, they all +being antique; and that all of them, according to their degree and +power, some in unspoken words perfect as any of Plato's, and others +in horrible, jumbled slang, malaprop gibberish, would teach him the +same lesson, if he would listen to them all: the lesson of their own +nature and kinship. And from all of them, insensibly, slowly, without +archæologic or æsthetic formulæ, in the simple manner in which children +learn all that is most important to know, this child learned. So +that, without desire for archæologic and æsthetic answers, we now +ask, referring to this lesson learnt by the child--"What like +_are_ the statues?" What like? Why, of course--well, they are +like--like--like--what in the world should statues _be_ like?--things +cannot be defined in that cut and dry fashion--why, statues are like--. +In short, such questions can neither be asked nor answered by +intelligent folk. They can be put only by people who believe in love +philters and symphonies which talk, and children who fall in love with +towns; idiotic questions like "Why should there be sin?"--and "Why love +our neighbours when they are nasty?"--which only children ask--questions +to answer which as they deserve, you had better get hold of your eternal +fairy-story child, and ask him what the statues said they were like. +Nay, do not lose all patience. And see, since you think that the +question, "What like are the statues" is fit to be answered only by the +child of the fairy tale, we will pretend, for a moment, that the fairy +tale is true, and play, for your benefit, the part of that child. And +the things which that child would have learned, scarce consciously, in +the course of its own growth, and during years of familiarity with all +this host of statues, we will try and explain in an hour or so, by +examining together a single work of ancient sculpture. This work is the +Niobe group; and we have chosen it, after a little thought, for the +purpose, because, from the complication of the story and of the group +itself, it will enable us to illustrate a greater number of points than +could well be done in the examination of isolated antique figures, or +groups of merely two or three, such as there are plenty of here in Rome. +But the Niobe is not in Rome, you will say; why not take some statue or +group of statues here in the Vatican? Because the Niobe can teach us +most in least time; and because also, you need not think of the group as +it stands in the gallery in Florence. Indeed, you must not think of that +group at all, spread out as it is, in idiotic confusion, round the walls +of Peter Leopold's oblong hall. What you must think of, look at, is +this--See: here we have all the figures composing the group, very fairly +copied in terra-cotta, the largest not much longer than your arm; and +these figures we have placed, according to their relative size, in this +rough wooden model of the triangular gable of a Greek temple; following +approximately the design of the restored temple front which Cockerell +made years ago for the Florentine gallery. + +Come and stand at a little distance from the table on which the wooden +gable and statues are set. So, now we can get an idea (which in the +gallery we cannot) of the general effect of the group. It seems so +simple, but it is not: it is in sculpture something like what a fugue +is in music: it is a homogeneous form due to the extremely skilful +co-ordination of various forms; it is a harmonious whole, because the +parts are combined just at the point where their diversities coalesce. +For, as the various voices of the fugue, some subtly insinuating +themselves half whispered, while the others are thundering their loudest +or already dying away into silence, meet and weave together various +fragments of the same melody, so also do the figures of the group, +some standing, some reclining, some kneeling, some rising, some draped, +some nude, meet our sight in various ways so as to constitute in their +variety, one great pattern; balance each other on opposite sides of the +gable, slope and taper down towards the extremities, grow and rise +higher towards the middle where the vertex of the triangular temple +front, the triumphant centre of the rhythm and harmony of lines, is +formed by the majestic, magnificent mother between her two eldest, most +beautiful daughters. And now, think no more of this terra-cotta than, +having learned the shape of a hymn by Bach or a psalm by Marcello on +the piano, you would think of the poor miserable piano-notes which you +hear with your ears, instead of the mass of voices which you hear with +your fancy. Think of this Niobe group, twice humansized, standing +on the weather-mellowed, delicately painted marble temple front; the +amber-tinted figures against the dark hollow formed by the projecting +roof; the sunshine drawing on the black back-ground, as with a luminous +pencil, the great solemn masses of light and shadow, the powerfully +rhythmed attitudes, the beautiful combinations of lines and light and +shade produced by the gesture, which now raises, now drops the drapery, +opposing to the large folds, heavy and severe, the minute, most supple, +and most subtle plaits; and to the strong broken shadows of the drapery, +the shining smoothness of the nude. Think of that, and remember then the +single figures in their best examples, the mother and eldest daughter of +Florence, the headless younger daughter of the Vatican, the exquisite +dying boy of Munich; and think, by recollecting these dispersed noblest +copies, what must the lost original have been. And thus, looking at the +little rough terra-cotta model, and magnifying it in fancy into the +great superb group such as it must have stood on the temple, there comes +home to us, filling, expanding our mind, an almost ineffable sense of +perfection of line and curve, and light and shade, perfection as of the +sweeping wave of some great mountain, distant and deep blue against the +pale sky; perfection as of the pearled edge of the tiny pink cyclamen +petal; as of the single small voice, swelling and diminishing in crisp +exquisiteness every little turn and shake, and again as of the many +chords of multitudinous voices rolling out in great joyous sound +billows; perfection of whole in harmony and graduation of perfect +parts: perfection of visible form. + +But by the side of this overwhelming positive sense of beauty there +creeps into our consciousness an irritating little sense of negation. +For the more intense becomes our perception of the form, the vaguer +becomes our recollection of the subject; the strong imaginative +realization of the story of Niobe, conjured up by the mere mention of +her name, dwindles to nothing in the presence of the group representing +the chief incident of history; the skrieks and desperate scuffling of +feet, which we had heard in our fancy, gradually die into silence; our +senses cease to shrink with horror, our sympathies cease to vibrate with +pity, as we look upon this visible embodiment of the terrible tragedy. +We are no longer feeling emotion; we are merely perceiving beauty. How +has this come to pass? Shall we look into ourselves and analyze in the +darkness of our consciousness? Nay, rather first look for an explanation +in the materially visible, the clear, easily examined work of art. Come +and look at the group once more: this time not to understand its beauty, +but to understand why there is in it nothing beyond this beauty. + +Certainly, the group answers very well to the general idea of the +massacre of the Niobides: the figures have the attitudes of men and +women overtaken by a sudden danger against which they seek, but vainly, +to shield themselves: the mother clasps the cowering, clinging, youngest +girl, and tries to cover her with her mantle, her arms, her whole body, +to let the child melt into herself and be lost; the youngest son sinks, +panting and helpless, on to one knee; the eldest daughter bends forward +to throw her veil over a dead brother; the younger daughter mechanically +raises her draped arm to ward off the shafts from her face; another son +hastens away, looking bewildered around him, trying to see from which +side come the arrows, which come from all sides. All this is perfectly +correct in expression; we are bound to admit that these are the probable +movements and gestures of people situated like Niobe and her children. +We cannot find fault with anything, yet we feel a vague sense of +unreality. Unreality to ourselves? Nay, rather, unreality to the +artist: we perceive, little by little, that everyone of these evident +indications of a catastrophe is connected with a grand gesture, a noble +fold, a harmonious combination of masses: the mother raising the arm +covered with her cloak and clasping the child with the other, produces +thereby a magnificent contrast between the round, bunched fold of the +mantle, and the straight, narrow folds of her skirt, nay, between the +simple and ample drapery covering her own bosom, and the minute clinging +crinkles on the back of the little one; the wounded youth sinks +down in such a way as to display the grand muscles of his throat +and shoulders; the girl covering her naked dead brother, forms with +him, a powerfully-balanced mass of brightly-lit nude and broken, +shadow-furrowed drapery; and all the remaining children stoop and cower +and stretch forth their arms in such a way as to produce the inclination +of the two sides of the triangle crowning the temple. Moreover, the +pathetic, upward movement of the mother's head, by slightly drawing +down the jaw, and in upturning the eyes, contracting the brows into a +triangular furrow, accentuates the grandeur of the grand features, and +prevents the light from above falling upon a mere flat expanse of cheek +and forehead; the eldest daughter stooping tenderly over the dead boy +produces, in so doing, an incomparable curve of neck and shoulders; and +thus, with all the other figures, the gesture is invariably productive +of a definite beauty of form. And, on the other hand, there is not +present a single one of the gestures or attitudes which would certainly +produce definite ugliness of form, and would yet be as appropriate and +inevitable to the situation as these. There is not, in this group, any +movement, any effect, of which we could decidedly say that it would not +arise in a scene like this; but, in a scene like this, there would +certainly be a great many movements and effects which cannot be found in +the group. Hence, the dramatic expression of the work is essentially +negative: in the mind of the artist the realisation of the scene, the +bringing home of the story, has been a purely secondary thing, and +therefore the realisation of the scene, the bringing home of the story, +is secondary also to us, the spectators. The impression produced in us +is exactly corresponding to the interest dominant in the artist: he +has cared for the subject only inasmuch as it afforded suggestions for +beautiful forms; and we therefore have perceived the beautiful forms, +and forgotten the subject. The object of the artist has been, whether or +not he formulated it clearly to himself, not to bring home the situation +to the fancy; not to awaken an emotion; but to present to the eye and +the mind a mere beautiful form. And that such has been his object, is +the first and main lesson which we have learned from the Niobe group, as +it was the first and main lesson learned by the child of our fairy tale +from the innumerable statues which, during those long years in the +Vatican, were its silent teachers. + +To present to the eye and the mind a mere beautiful form, this seems a +terrible low and limited definition of the aim of a great artist, of a +whole great national art. Surely not this. The aim of the artist, of the +innumerable artists constituting antique art, must have been nobler: the +form for them must have been the mere physical embodiment of the ideas +and the presentation of the beautiful idea must have been their real +object. You think so? well; the child of our fairy tale pretends that +the statues told him the contrary; told him that form was the real +artistic aim, and that the idea was arranged, clipped, sometimes even +mangled, to make it fit the form. We can judge for ourselves. You say +_idea_, and oppose it to form; hence, the _idea_ is, we must presume, +what the _form_ is not, and since the form is the sensible, the visible, +the concrete, the outwardly existing, the idea must be the invisible, +the abstract, the merely intellectually existing. In this sense, what +is the _idea_, the abstract intellectual conception of the Niobe group? +Merely the fact of the slaughtering of the Niobides by Apollo and +Artemis in the presence of their mother, keep this fact (if you can) in +your mind without mentally investing with any shape the Niobides, the +gods, or the mother; conceiving the mere bare fact, without conceiving +what it would look like; do this and when you have succeeded, as far as +any creature not born blind can succeed, you will have the _idea_ of +the Niobe group. Such an idea does not require for its conception that +you be a great sculptor; indeed you understand that for the idea to +be nothing beyond an idea, it requires a man born blind, that is to +say, totally deficient, that activity of plastic conception which is +possessed in the highest degree by the artist. Now what is the product +of that very plastic activity of mind which the artist possesses in the +highest degree, and which you required to deaden in yourself in order to +conceive the _idea_ in its perfect abstract purity, what is that product +of plastic activity? what is it which is for ever hovering before your +mental vision, getting between you and the mere idea, interfering with +the abstract conception, turning that abstract idea into something (even +in your mind) concrete, perceptible by the senses? That something was +the _form_. When you involuntarily said to yourself--"the mother looked +in such a way, the sons in such another," this that you were conceiving +was no longer the mere _idea_, it was the _form_: not the action, but +the visible appearance presented by the action. To conceive the mere +_idea_, all plastic fancy must be in abeyance; to conceive the _form_, +all plastic fancy must be active; and as the artist is the man in +whom plastic fancy is more than usually active, that which the artist +conceives is not the idea, but the form: not the abstract intellectual +side of the action, but the concrete, the visible. The idea, the fact +of the action, and all its non-visible, psychological details, come +to the artist from without; the knowledge that Niobe saw her children +slaughtered by the gods, and the psychological inferences therefrom that +Niobe, being a mother, and mothers feeling anguish at the sufferings of +their children, must have undergone great anguish at thus seeing her +children slaughtered--this fact by its psychologic developments, comes +from without to the artist, it may come from the same individual man of +whom the artist is a portion, but even in this case it comes equally +from without the artist; if Mr. Rossetti invent a story about a Blessed +Damozel, and then paint a picture representing her looking down from +heaven, the story, the idea of the Blessed Damozel is given by Mr. +Rossetti, the poet, that is the man who conceives facts and their +psychologic developments, to Mr. Rossetti, the painter, that is the +man who conceives the visible appearance of actions; the two artists +happen to be united in one person, but they are two distinct artists +nevertheless, and the painter is _not_ the artist who conceives the idea +of the action, but the one who conceives the _form_ of the action. Thus, +the artist is the man who conceives the form. Now, since his activity is +entirely limited to the form, since, as an artist, he can produce only +the form, how is this artist to do what behoves every man and every +artist: his best? How is he to give the world the greatest possible +benefit of his special endowment? Evidently, since his endowment is +for the creation of form, the result of the greatest activity of his +endowment will be seen in the form; if he do his best, he will do his +best with the only thing which, inasmuch as he is an artist, he can +control, namely, the form. But how do his best, with the form? Clearly, +by making the form as good as possible. Good in what way? Shall we +say as expressive as possible? Nay, but the expressiveness is a mere +correspondence between the idea and the form, it is not an inherent +quality of the form itself; given only the form, without the idea, we +cannot judge of its expressiveness: to judge whether or not the Niobe +group is expressive, we must first be told that which it might or might +not express; the idea, the fact and its psychologic developments, which +do not lie within the domain of the man of mere form. Thus the goodness +of the form must not be a fittingness to something outside and separate +from the form, it must be intrinsic in the form itself. And what is +this excellence which can be intrinsic to the form, which can be fully +appreciated in the contemplation of that mere form, which requires no +comparison with anything outside the form? Not expressiveness, we have +seen; not likeness, for that, like expressiveness, is an extrinsic +quality of which we can judge only by bringing into comparison something +besides this form; still less fittingness to some material or moral use. +We must look for the intrinsic possibilities of form, that is for the +effect which the form can, without intermediary or collateral help, +produce upon the spectator; shall we say clearness? Clearness is an +intrinsic quality of form, but it is not an ultimate quality. That a +form is clear means that we can see it well; but the question remains, +why should we care to see it well? what is the intrinsic quality of form +in obtaining which the artist is doing the utmost which, in his capacity +of mere artist, he can do? What is that which can make it desirable +for us to see clearly a form isolated from any extraneous interest of +expressiveness, resemblance or utility? That highest intrinsic quality +of form is beauty; and the highest merit of the artist, of the mere form +creator, is to make form which is beautiful. + +Can the Niobe teach us more? Has your Vatican child learned any more +from the statues? you ask, contemptuous at this definition, narrow, as +must be all definitions of duty. Perhaps the Niobe may teach us next how +this highest artistic quality of beauty, this sole aim of the artist, is +to be attained? Be not so contemptuous. The Niobe can teach us something +about the mode of attaining to this end; it cannot, indeed, teach us +what to do, for the knowledge of that, the knowledge of how to combine +lines and curves and lights and shades, is the secret belonging to the +artist, to be taught and learned only by himself; but it can teach us +what not to do, teach us the conditions without which those combinations +of lines and curves and lights and shades, cannot be created. Let us +return to the Niobe once more: let us see the group clearly in its +general composition, and then, with the group before us, let us ask +ourselves what plastic form is conceived in our imagination when there +comes home to it the mere abstract idea of the sudden massacre of the +Niobides, by Apollo and Artemis. Nothing, perhaps, very clear at first, +but clearer if we try to draw what we see or to describe it in words. +In the first place, we see, more or less vaguely, according to our +imaginative endowment, a scene of very great confusion and horror: +figures wildly shuffling to and fro, clutching at each other, writhing, +grimacing with convulsed agony, shrieking, yelling, howling; we see +horrible wounds, rent, raw flesh, arrows sticking in torn muscles, +dragging forth hideous entrails, spirting and gushing and trickling +of blood; we see the mother, agonised into almost beast-like rage and +terror, the fourteen boys and girls, the god and the goddess adjusting +their shafts and drawing their bows; we see all, murderous divinities, +writhing victims, impotent, anguished mother. If we see it, how much +more fully and more clearly, in every detail, is it not seen in the +mind of the sculptor, of the man whose special gift is the conception +of visible appearances? Oh, yes, he sees it: here the mother, here +the elder daughters, there the other children, further off, Apollo +and Artemis, sees how each stands, moves, looks, sees the convulsed +features, the rumpled garments, the fear, the pain, the anger, the +hopelessness, the pitilessness. He takes three planks, nails together +their extremities: this is the gable of the temple, the triangular +cavity or box into which he must fit his group; then, with thumb and +fingers, roughly moulds a certain number of clay puppets, places them in +the triangular box, removes them, alters them, replaces them, takes them +out once more, throws some away, elaborates others; works for hours, +days, weeks, till we return to his workshop, and find a number of +models, tiny moulded dolls in the plank triangle; large statuettes, +half-finished, roughly-worked heads--drawings, perhaps, of parts of the +group. And we examine it all. It is the rudiment of the Niobe group. But +see: of all those things which we saw in our fancy, which the artist, +being an artist, must have seen with infinitely more completeness +and clearness, only a portion has here been reproduced. Of all the +movements and gestures there remain but a very few: the convulsions, the +writhings, and grimacings are gone; there is no trampling, no clutching, +no howling, no grimacing, there are no quivering limbs, or disembowelled +bodies. Why so? Ask the artist. Because, he will answer, all those +movements and gestures were radically ugly; because all that howling and +grimacing in agony entirely ruined the beauty of the features; because +the situation could not be adequately represented, except to the utter +detriment of the form. Hence, of all the movements and gestures which +had presented themselves to his inner vision, at the first mention of +the story of Niobe, the artist has rejected those which were at all +detrimental to the beauty of the form, and accepted those others which +were conducive thereto. He has cast aside a whole portion of the real +appearance of the event, because it interfered with his, perhaps +unspoken and unformulated, but instinctively imperious artistic aim: +to create beautiful form. + +But this is not all. He has left out something else which was a most +essential, nay, an all important part of his first mental vision of the +scene. He has actually left out--guess what--some son or daughter of +Niobe?--has run counter to the tradition of the seven girls and seven +boys?--oh, in comparison, that would be nothing. He has actually and +absolutely left out the god and goddess--left out the murderers from +the representation of the murder. Why in the world has he done this? +Granting that he need not transfer to his group all the terrible details +he has seen in his mind, why should he leave out Apollo and Artemis? +They need not be convulsed, or writhing, or grimacing; on the contrary, +they ought to be quite calm and passionless in their cruel beauty. There +is nothing unbeautiful in Apollo and Artemis surely. No: not in Apollo +and Artemis, taken in themselves; but in Apollo and Artemis considered +as part of this group. Listen: we will explain. Since Apollo and Artemis +are, between them, slaughtering all the Niobides, closing them in with +their arrows, it is obvious that Apollo and Artemis must be placed in +such a manner as to command the whole family of Niobides; there must be +no Niobides behind them, for that would mean that there are Niobides who +are out of danger and can escape. So the god and goddess must be placed +in one of three ways: either back to back in the very centre of the +group, each shooting down one half of the family; or else entirely +separated, each at one extremity of the group, so as to face each other +and enclose all the Niobides between them; or else above the Niobides, +floating in mid air and raining down arrows like hail. Now, which of +these three arrangements shall the sculptor select? He rejects at once +the plan of placing the god and goddess back to back in the centre of +the group, and we agree with him; for the two figures, thus applied to +each other, each more or less in profile, would form the most ludicrous +double-headed Janus. Place, then, Apollo at one end and Artemis at the +other. There is nothing ugly in that, is there? There would not be were +the sculptor modelling the oblong bas-relief of a sarcophagus; but there +would be something very ugly now that, as it happens, he is modelling +a group for the triangular gable of a temple. For, as the sides of +the triangle slope sharply down, the figures beneath them necessarily +become smaller and less erect in proportion to their distance from the +vertex; so the god and goddess, if placed at the extremity of the group, +must be flattened down in the acute angles of the base, must crouch and +squat with their bows barely on a level with the knees of their victims. +So this arrangement will not do; there remains the third plan of placing +Apollo and Artemis above the Niobides. This is an admirable idea: the +vertex of the triangle is filled by the floating figures of the gods, +who appear calm, beautiful, mysterious, showering down death from +inaccessible heaven. Will this do? Alas, much less than either of the +others. The arrangement would be beautiful if the triangle of the +gable, instead of being filled with a group of statues, were walled up, +plastered, and could be painted on in fresco. The colour, light and +shade, and perspective of painting, by creating a seeming depth of +back-ground, by hiding one figure partially behind another, so as to +make them appear not in actual contact, by piling up ætherial clouds or +waving light draperies, would permit the artist to show the Niobides on +solid ground below, and the gods in the air, high, distant above. But +the sculptor, without any such means, could only suspend Apollo and +Artemis (at tremendous expense of iron clamps) in such a way that +they should seem to be standing on the shoulders of the Niobides; or +interpose between them a thick bolster of marble clouds, a massive +flutter of streaming marble draperies. Now do you think that the marble +clouds and the marble fluttering drapery would be conducive to the +beauty of the group, to the perfection of visible forms? Certainly not. +And, therefore, Apollo and Artemis, gods though they are and chief +actors in the story, have simply been left out in this its artistic +representation. + +For beauty of form has a double origin: it is not only an intellectual +conception, but also a physical embodiment; and the intellectual +conception is altered by the nature of the material in which it is +embodied. The abstract form which will be infinitely delicate and +life-like in the brown clay, which receives every minute dimple and +crease from the finger of the artist, which presents a soft, uniform +tint to the spectator; this same abstract form will be coarse and +lifeless in the purple speckled porphyry, against whose hard grain the +chisel is blunted, and the mottled colour and salt-like sparkle of which +hide from the eye the real relations of line and curve, of concave and +projection. The Mercury who, in the green bronze, floats upwards like a +bubble, would jump like a clodhopper in the dingy white plaster. And +these, remark, are differences only in one category of material and +handling; change the sort of material and manner of handling and the +differences become still greater. Statues, whether in clay, bronze, +porphyry, or plaster, are always similar in the fact of being wholly +free--round as Vasari calls them--of being interfered with by no +complications of shadows like the figures of a high, middle or +bas-relief; hence, as soon as the figures cease to be round, as soon as +they are attached to a back-ground, the whole composition is altered +by the consideration how the different degrees of projection, and the +consequent play of light and shadow, will affect the apparent shape +of the figures. And yet we are still within the domain of sculpture. +How great a difference of form will not result when, instead of the +tintless, tangible projections of stone, we get to the mere semblance +of infinite depth and distance cunningly obtained by light and shade, +colour and perspective, on a flat surface; where the light, instead of +existing variable and confusing outside the work, is within that very +work, inside the picture, combining, graduating every detail, making +form melt gently into form, or stand out in triumphant relief? Thus the +things which can be done in bronze must not be attempted in porphyry, +the group of statues must be conceived differently from the bas-relief; +the picture is different from the statue; for the beauty of form depends +not only on the conception but upon the embodiment: if the material is +violent, the conception is warped; and the same beauty can be obtained +in all the arts only by remembering that those arts are different that, +with the material and modes of handling, must change the conception. + +Thus we have seen that the sculptor of the Niobe deliberately refused +to embody his complete mental vision of the scene of massacre; that he +selected among the attitudes and gestures and expressions suggested +to him by this scene, rejected those which were inherently ugly, and +accepted those which were intrinsically beautiful; and that he left out +of his representation of the incidents its principal actors, because he +could not have introduced them without either violating the nature of +the whole composition to which he was bound, or violating the nature of +the material in which he was working, and by so doing sacrificing the +perfection of visible form which, being the only intrinsic quality to +which his art could independently attain, was the one object of his +desires and efforts. Such is the logical conclusion which we have +consciously and perhaps wearisomely obtained from our analysis of the +mode of conception and treatment of the Niobe group; and such the lesson +which, unconsciously, vaguely, the child of our fairy tale must have +learned from its marble teachers in the Vatican: That the only intrinsic +perfection of art is the perfection of form, and that such perfection +is obtainable only by boldly altering, or even casting aside, the +subject with which this form is only imaginatively, most often +arbitrarily, connected; and by humbly considering and obeying the +inherent necessities of the material in which this form is made visible +or audible. That by such artistic laws they themselves had come into +existence, and that all other things which had come into existence +by the same laws, were their brethren, was the secret which those +statue-demons imparted to that child; the secret which enabled it to +understand those symphony notes of Mozart's, when they said: "we also, +the sounding ones, are the brethren of the statues; and all we who are +brethren, whether in stone, or sound or colour, shall to thee speak in +such a way that thou recognize us, and distinguish us from all others; +and thou shalt love and believe only in us and those of our kin; in +return we will give thee happiness." And this, as we have told you, +came to pass solely because the statues took the whim of bewitching +that child into falling in love with Rome. + + + + +ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. + +THE LESSON OF A BAS-RELIEF. + + +No Greek myth has a greater charm for our mind than that of Orpheus and +Eurydice. In the first place, we are told by mythologists that it is a +myth of the dawn, one of those melancholy, subdued interpretations of +the eternal, hopeless separation of the beautiful light of dawn and the +beautiful light of day, which forms the constantly recurring tragedy of +nature, as the tremendous struggle between light and darkness forms +her never-ending epic, her Iliad and Nibelungenlied. There is more of +the purely artistic element in these myths of the dawn than in the +sun myths. Those earliest poets, primitive peoples, were interested +spectators of the great battle between day and night. The sun-hero was +truly their Achilles, their Siegfried. In fighting, he fought for them. +When he chained up the powers of darkness the whole earth was hopeful +and triumphant; when he sank down dead, a thousand dark, vague, hideous +monsters were let loose on the world, filling men's hearts with +sickening terror; the solar warfare was waged for and against men. The +case is quite different with respect to the dawn tragedy. If men were +moved by that, it was from pure, disinterested sympathy. The dawn and +the day were equally good and equally beautiful; the day loved the dawn, +since it pursued her so closely, and the dawn must have loved the day +in return, since she fled so slowly and reluctantly. Why, then, were +they forbidden ever to meet? What mysterious fate condemned the one to +die at the touch of the other--the beloved to elude the lover, the +lover to kill the beloved? This sad, sympathising question, which the +primitive peoples repeated vaguely and perhaps scarce consciously, day +after day, century after century, at length received an answer. One +answer, then another, then yet another, as fancy took more definite +shapes. Yes, the dawn and the morning are a pair of lovers over whom +hangs an irresistible, inscrutable fate--Cephalus and Procris, Alcestis +and Admetus, Orpheus and Eurydice. + +And this myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is, to our mind, the most charming +of the tales born of that beautiful, disinterested sympathy for the dawn +and the morning, the one in which the subdued, mysterious pathos of its +origin is most perfectly preserved; in which no fault of infidelity or +jealousy, no final remission of doom, breaks the melancholy unity of +the story. In it we have the real equivalent of that gentle, melancholy +fading away of light into light, of tint into tint. Orpheus loses +Eurydice as the day loses the dawn, because he loves her; she has issued +from Hades as the dawn has issued from darkness; she melts away beneath +her lover's look even as the dawn vanishes beneath the look of the day. + +The origin of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is beautiful; the myth +itself, as evolved by spontaneous poetry, is still more so, and more +beautiful still are the forms which have successively been lent it by +the poet, the sculptor, and the musician. Its own charm adds to that +of its embodiments, and the charm of its embodiments adds in return to +its own; a complete circle of beautiful impressions, whose mysterious, +linked power it is impossible to withstand. The first link in the chain +are those lines of Virgil's, for which we would willingly give ten +Æneids, those grandly simple lines, half-hidden in the sweet luxuriance +of the fourth book of the _Georgics_, as the exquisitely chiselled +fragment of some sylvan altar might lie half-hidden among the long +grasses and flowers, beneath the flowering bays and dark ilexes, broken +shadows of boughs and yellow gleams of sunlight flickering fantastically +across the clear and supple forms of the sculptured marble "And already +upwards returning, he had escaped all mishaps, and the given-back +Eurydice was coming into the upper air, walking behind him, for +Proserpina had made this condition. When, of a sudden, a madness seized +on the unwily lover--pardonable, surely, if ghosts but knew how to +pardon. He stood, and back on his Eurydice, already in our sunlight, +he looked, forgetful, alas! and broken of will. Then was all the work +undone, broken was the compact with the unkind lord, and vainly had he +thrice heard the waters of hell sounding. Then she--'What madness has +ruined me, wretched one, and thee, also, Orpheus? For I am called by the +cruel Fates to return, and sleep closes my swimming eyes. So, farewell. +I am borne away muffled in thick night, stretching forth to thee (alas, +thine no longer!) my helpless hands.' She spoke, and from his sight +suddenly, even as thin smoke mingles with air, disappeared; nor him, +vainly clasping the shadows, and many things wishing to say, did she +see again." These lines suggest a bas-relief to us, because a real +bas-relief is really connected with them in our mind, and this +connection led to a curious little incident in our æsthetic life, which +is worth narrating. The bas-relief in question is a sufficiently obscure +piece of Greek workmanship, one of those mediocre, much-degraded works +of art with which Roman galleries abound, and among which, though left +unnoticed by the crowd that gathers round the Apollo, or the Augustus, +or the Discobolus, we may sometimes divine a repetition of some great +lost work of antiquity, some feeble reflection of lost perfection. It +is let into the wall of a hall of the Villa Albani, where people throng +past it in search of the rigid, pseudo-Attic Antinous. And it is as +simple as the verses of Virgil: merely three figures slightly raised out +of the flat, blank back-ground, Eurydice between Orpheus and Hermes. +The three figures stand distinctly apart and in a row. Orpheus touches +Eurydice's veil, and her hand rests on his shoulder, while the other +hand, drooping supine, is grasped by Hermes. There is no grouping, no +embracing, no violence of gesture--nay, scarcely any gesture at all; yet +for us there is in it a whole drama, the whole pathos of Virgil's lines. +Eurydice has returned, she is standing beneath our sun--_jam luce sub +ipsa_--but for the last time. Orpheus lets his lyre sink, his head +drooping towards her--_multa volens dicere_--and holds her veil, +speechless. Eurydice, her head slightly bent, raises her eyes full +upon him. In that look is her last long farewell:-- + + Jamque vale, feror ingenti circumdata nocte, + Invalidas tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas. + +Behind Eurydice stands Hermes, the sad, though youthful messenger of +the dead. He gently takes her hand; it is time; he would fain stay and +let the parting be delayed for ever, but he cannot. Come, we must go. +Eurydice feels it; she is looking for the last time at Orpheus, her +head and step are prepared to turn away--_jamque vale_. Truly this sad, +sympathising messenger of Hades is a beautiful thought, softening the +horror of the return to death. + +And we look up again at the bas-relief, the whole story of Orpheus +laying firmer hold of our imagination; but as our eyes wander wistfully +over the marble, they fall, for the first time, upon a scrap of paper +pasted at the bottom of it, a wretched, unsightly, scarce legible rag, +such as insult some of the antiques in this gallery, and on it is +written:--"Antiope coi figli Anfione e Zeto." A sudden, perplexed wonder +fills our mind--wonder succeeded by amusement. The bunglers, why, they +must have glued the wrong label on the bas-relief. Of course! and we +turn out the number of the piece in the catalogue, the solemn, portly +catalogue--full of references to Fea, and Visconti, and Winckelmann. +Number--yes, here it is, here it is. What, again? + +"Antiope urging her sons, Amphion and Zethus, to avenge her by the +murder of Dirce." + +We put down the catalogue in considerable disgust. What, they don't see +that that is Orpheus and Eurydice! They dare, those soulless pedants, +to call _that_ Antiope with Amphion and Zethus! Ah!--and with smothered +indignation we leave the gallery. Passing through the little ilex copse +near the villa, the colossal bust of Winckelmann meets our eyes, the +heavy, clear-featured, strong-browed head of him who first revealed the +world of ancient art. And such profanation goes on, as it were, under +his eyes, in that very Villa Albani which he so loved, where he first +grew intimate with the antique! What would he have said to such +heartless obtuseness? + +We have his great work, the work which no amount of additional learning +can ever supersede, because no amount of additional learning will ever +enable us to feel antique beauty more keenly and profoundly than he made +us feel it--we have his great work on our shelf, and as soon as we are +back at home, our mind still working on Orpheus and Eurydice, we take it +down and search for a reference to our bas-relief. We search all through +the index in vain; then turn over the pages where it may possibly be +mentioned, again in vain; no Orpheus and Eurydice. Ah! "A bas-relief +at the Villa Albani"--let us see what that may be. "A bas-relief," &c., +&c.--horror beyond words! The bas-relief--our bas-relief--deliberately +set down as Antiope with Amphion and Zethus--set down as Antiope with +Amphion and Zethus, by Winckelmann himself! + +Yes, and he gravely states his reasons for so doing. The situation is +evidently one of great hesitation; there is reluctance on the one hand, +persuasion on the other. Moreover, the female figure is that of a +mourner, of a supplicant, draped and half-veiled as it is; the figure +with the lyre, in the Thracian or Thessalian costume, must necessarily +be Amphion, while the other in the loose tunic of a shepherd, must as +evidently be his brother, Zethus; and if we put together these facts, +we cannot but conclude that the subject of the bas-relief is, as +previously stated, Antiope persuading Amphion and Zethus to avenge her +on Dirce. + +The argument is a good one, there can be no denying it, although it +is very strange that Winckelmann should not have perceived that the +bas-relief represented Orpheus and Eurydice. But, after all, we ask +ourselves, as the confusion in our minds gradually clears up: how do +we know that this _is_ Orpheus and Eurydice, and not Antiope and her +sons? How! and the answer rises up indignantly, Because we see to the +contrary; because we know that it must be Orpheus and Eurydice because +we feel morally persuaded that it is. But a doubt creeps up. We are +morally convinced, but whence this conviction? Did we come to the +bas-relief not knowing what it was, and did we then cry out, overcome by +its internal evidence, that it must represent Orpheus and Eurydice? Did +we ourselves examine and weigh the evidence as Winckelmann did? And we +confess to ourselves that we did none of these things. But how, then, +explain this intense conviction, and the emotion awakened in us by +the bas-relief? Yet that emotion was genuine; and now we have, little +by little, to own that we had read in a book, by M. Charles Blanc, +that such and such a bas-relief at the Villa Albani represented +Orpheus and Eurydice, and that we had accepted the assertion blindly, +unscrutinisingly, and coming to the bas-relief with that idea, did not +dream of examining into its truth. And did we not then let our mind +wander off from the bas-relief to the story of Orpheus, and make a sort +of variation on Virgil's poem, and mistake all this for the impression +received from the bas-relief itself? May this not be the explanation of +our intense conviction? It seems as if it were so. We have not only lost +our sentimental pleasure in the bas-relief, but we have been caught by +ourselves (most humiliating of all such positions) weaving fantastic +stories out of nothing at all, decrying great critics for want of +discernment, when we ourselves had shown none whatever. + +It may have been childish, but it was natural to feel considerable +bitterness at this discovery; you may smile, but we had lost something +precious, the idea that art was beginning to say more to us than to +others, the budding satisfaction of being no longer a stranger to the +antique, and this loss was truly bitter; nay, in the first bitterness +of the discovery, we had almost taken an aversion to the bas-relief, +as people will take an aversion to the things about which they know +themselves to have been foolish. However, as this feeling subsided, we +began to reflect that the really worthy and dignified course would +be to attain to real certainty on the subject, and finding that our +recollection of the bas-relief was not so perfectly distinct as to +authorise a final decision, we determined coolly to examine the work +once more, and to draw our conclusions on the spot. + +The following Tuesday, therefore, we started betimes for the Villa +Albani, intending to have a good hour to ourselves before the arrival of +the usual gaping visitors. The gallery was quite empty; we drew one of +the heavy chairs robed in printed leather before the bas-relief, and +settled ourselves deliberately to examine it. We were now strangely +unbiassed on the subject, for the reaction against our first positive +mood, and the frequent turning over one view, then the other, had left +in us only a very strong critical curiosity, the desire to unravel the +tangled reason of our previous unexplained conviction. Of course we +found that our memory had failed in one or two particulars, that the +image preserved in our mind was not absolutely faithful, but we could +discover nothing capable of materially influencing our views. We looked +at the bas-relief again and again; strictly speaking, there is in it +nothing beyond a woman standing between two men, of whom the one touches +her veil, and the other, to whom she turns her back, grasps her right +hand, while her left hand rests lightly on the shoulder of the first +male figure; so far there is reason for saying that the bas-relief +represents either Orpheus and Eurydice, or Antiope and her sons; indeed, +all that could fairly be said is that it represents a woman between two +men, with one of whom she appears to be in more or less tender converse, +whereas she is paying no attention to the other, who is taking her +passively drooping hand. There is, however, the additional circumstance +that one of the men holds a lyre and is dressed in loose trousers and +mitre-like head-dress, while the other man wears only a short tunic, +leaving the arms and legs bare, and his head is uncovered and shows +closely-cut curly locks; the woman being entirely draped, and her +head partially covered with a veil. Now, we know that this costume of +trousers and mitre-shaped head-gear was that of certain semi-barbarous +peoples connected with the Greeks, amongst others the Thracians and +Phrygians, while the simple tunic and the close-cut locks were +distinctive of Hellenic youths, especially those admitted to gymnastic +training. Moreover, we happen to know that Orpheus was a Thracian, and +that Hermes on the other hand, although in one capacity conductor of +the souls to Hades, was also the patron divinity of the Greek ephebi, of +the youths engaged in gymnastic exercises. Now, if we put together these +several facts, we perceive great likelihood of these two figures--the +one in the dress of a barbarian, which Orpheus is known to have been, +and holding a lyre, which Orpheus is known to have played, and the other +in the dress of a Greek ephebus, which Hermes is known to have worn--of +these two figures really being intended for Orpheus and Hermes. At the +same time, we must recollect that Amphion also is known to have worn +this barbaric costume and to have played the lyre, while his brother, +Zethus, is equally known to have worn the habit of the ephebus; so that +Winckelmann has quite as good grounds for his assertion as we have for +ours. If only the sculptor had taken the trouble to give the figure in +the tunic a pair of winged sandals or a caduceus, or a winged cap; then +there could remain no doubt of his being Hermes, for it is a positive +fact that no one except Hermes ever had these attributes; the doubt +is owing to the choice of insufficiently definite and distinctive +peculiarities. But it now strikes us: all this is founded upon the +supposition that we know that the barbarians wore trousers and mitres, +that Orpheus was a sort of barbarian, that Greek ephebi wore tunics and +short-cut hair, that Hermes was a sort of ephebus, that, moreover, he +was a conductor of souls; now, supposing we knew none or only some of +these facts, which we certainly should not, if classical dictionaries +had not taught them us, how could we argue that this is Orpheus and that +Hermes? Is the meaning of a work of Art to depend on Lempriere and Dr. +William Smith? At that rate the sculptor might as well have let alone +all such distinctions, and merely written under one figure _Orpheus_ +or _Amphion_, whichever it might be, under the other _Hermes_ or +_Zethus_; this would not have presupposed more knowledge on our part, +since it seems even easier to learn the Greek alphabet than the precise +attributes of various antique gods and demi-gods, and then, too, no +mistake would have been possible, we should have had no choice, the +figure _must_ be either Orpheus or Amphion, Hermes or Zethus, since the +artist himself said so. But this would be an admission of the incapacity +of the art or the artist, like the old device of writing--"This is a +lion," "This is a horse;" well, but, after all, how are we able to +recognise a painted lion or a horse? Is it not, thanks to previous +knowledge, to our acquaintance with a live horse or live lion? if we had +never seen either, could we say, "This is a lion," "That is a horse?" +evidently not. But then, most people can recognise a horse or a lion, +while they cannot be expected to recognise a person they have never +seen, especially a purely imaginary one; the case is evidently one of +degree; if we had never seen a cow, and did not know that cows are +milked, we should no more understand the meaning of a representation +of cow-milking than we should understand the meaning of a picture of +Achilles in Scyros if we knew nothing about Achilles. The comprehension +of the subject of a work of art would therefore seem to require certain +previous information; the work of art would seem to be unable to tell +its story itself, unless we have the key to that story. Now, this is +not the case with literature; given the comprehension of the separate +words, no further information is required to understand the meaning, the +subject of prose or verse; Virgil's lines pre-suppose no knowledge of +the story of Orpheus, they themselves give the knowledge of it. The +difference, then, between the poem and the bas-relief is that the story +is absolutely contained in the former, and not absolutely contained +in the latter; the story of Orpheus is part of the organic whole, of +the existence of the poem; the two are inseparable, since the one is +formed out of the other; whereas, the story of Orpheus is separate +from the organic existence of the bas-relief, it is arbitrarily connected +with it, and they need not co-exist. What then is the bas-relief? A +meaningless thing, to which we have wilfully attached a meaning which is +not part or parcel of it--a blank sheet of paper on which we write what +comes into our head, and which itself can tell us nothing. + +As we look up perplexedly at the bas-relief, which, after having been as +confused, has now become well nigh as blank as our mind, we are startled +by hearing our name from a well-known voice behind us. A young painter +stands by our side, a creature knowing or thinking very little beyond +his pencils and brushes, serenely unconscious of literature and science +in his complete devotion to art. A few trivial sentences are exchanged, +during which we catch our friend's eye glancing at the bas-relief. "I +never noticed that before," he remarks, "Do you know, I like it better +than anything else in this room. Strange that I should not have noticed +it before." + +"It is a very interesting work," we answer; adding, with purposely +feigned decision, "Of course you see that it represents Orpheus and +Eurydice, not Antiope and her sons." + +The painter, whose instinctive impression on the point we have thus +tried to elicit, seems wholly unmoved by this remark; the fact literally +passes across his mind without in the least touching it. + +"Does it? Ah, what a splendid mass of drapery! That grand, round fold +and those small, fine vertical ones. I should like to make a sketch of +that." + +A sort of veil seems suddenly to fall off our mental eyes; these simple, +earnest words, this intense admiration seem to have shed new light into +our mind. + +This fellow, who knows or cares apparently nothing whatever about either +Orpheus or Antiope, has not found the bas-relief a blank; it has spoken +for him, the clear, unmistakeable language of lines and curves, of light +and shade, a language needing no interpreters, no dictionaries; and it +has told him the fact, the fact depending on no previous knowledge, +irrefutable and eternal, that it is beautiful. And as our eyes follow +his, and we listen to his simple, unaffected, unpoetical exclamations +of admiration at this combination of lines, or that bend of a limb, we +recognise that if poetry has its unchangeable effects, its power which, +in order to be felt, requires only the comprehension of words; art also +has its unchangeable effects, its power, its supreme virtue, which all +can feel who have eyes and minds that can see. The bas-relief does not +necessarily tell us the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, as Virgil's lines +do, that is not inherent in its nature as in theirs; but it tells us the +fact of its beauty, and that fact is vital, eternal, and indissolubly +connected with it. + +To appreciate a work of art means, therefore, to appreciate that work +of art itself, as distinguished from appreciating something outside it, +something accidentally or arbitrarily connected with it; to appreciate +Virgil's lines means to appreciate his telling of the story of Orpheus, +his choice of words and his metre; to appreciate the bas-relief means to +appreciate the combination of forms and lights and shades; and a person +who cared for Virgil's lines because they suggested the bas-relief or +for the bas-relief because it suggested Virgil's lines, would equally be +appreciating neither, since his pleasure depended on something separate +from the work of art itself. + +Yet this is what constantly happens, and happens on account of two very +simple and legitimate movements of the mind: that of comparison and that +of association. Let us examine what we have called, for want of a more +definite word, the movement of comparison. You are enjoying a work of +art, plastic and musical; what you enjoy is the work of art itself, the +combination of lines, lights and shades and colours in the one case, +the combination of modulations and harmonies in the other; now, as +this enjoyment means merely the pleasing activity of your visual and +æsthetic, or acoustic and æsthetic organism, you instinctively wish to +increase the activity in order to increase the pleasure; the increase +of activity is obtained by approximating as much as possible to the +creative activity of the original artist, by going over every step +that he has gone over, by creating the work of art over again in the +intensity of appreciation. If it be a plastic work, you produce your +pencil and brushes and copy it; if it be a musical composition, you try +and reproduce it by means of your voice or your instrument; and you +thus obtain the highest degree of æsthetical activity and pleasure +compatible with mere appreciation. But supposing you can neither draw, +nor sing, nor play; supposing you have only another set of faculties, +those dealing with thoughts and images, those of the artist in words, of +the writer. How will you obtain that high degree of æsthetical activity, +how will you go over the steps of the original creator? You will find +that words cannot copy the work of art, plastic or musical; that lines +and lights and shades, or modulations and harmonies, must be seen or +heard to be appreciated; that, in short, you have no means of absolutely +reproducing what you have seen or heard;--instinctively, unintentionally, +unconsciously, you will seek for an equivalent for it; you will try and +produce with the means at your disposal something analogous to the work +of art, you will obtain your æsthetic activity from another set of +faculties; not being able to draw or to sing, you will think and feel, +and, in default of producing a copy, you will produce an equivalent. But +the same result is not obtainable by different means; a painter, copying +a statue, will produce not a statue but a picture; a sculptor copying a +picture will produce a model, not a sketch; yet the difference between +the _modus operandi_ of painting and sculpture is as nothing compared +with that between the _modus operandi_ of art which appeals to the eye +or the ear, and art which appeals direct to the mind; of art which deals +with visible or audible shapes, and of art which deals with purely +abstract thoughts and images. How much greater, then, must not also +be the difference in the result! Instead of a statue you have, not a +picture, but a poem, a work of art of totally different nature from +the one which you originally tried to reproduce. Instead of visual or +audible forms, you have feelings and fancies; and if you compare your +equivalent with the original work of art you will probably find that it +has little in common with it: you had seen a beautifully chiselled head, +and you say that you had perceived a beautiful emotion; you had heard a +lovely modulation, and you have written that you witnessed a pathetic +parting; instead of your eye and your ear, your imagination and feeling +have been active, and the product of their activity is a special, +separate one. So, in your desire to appreciate a work of art, you have, +after a fashion, created a new one, good or bad, and having created it, +there are a hundred chances against one that you will henceforward +perceive your creation and not the original work; that you will no +longer perceive lines or sounds, but fancies and feelings, in short, +that instead of appreciating the work of art itself, you will appreciate +merely your intellectual equivalent of it, that is to say, something +which most distinctly and emphatically is _not_ the work of art. + +The process of association is even commoner: you have taken interest in +some story, or some form, your mind has worked upon it; you are shown a +work of art whose name, often nothing more, connects it with this story +or poem, and your thoughts being full of the latter, you apply to the +work of art the remarks you had made about the story or poem; you see +in the work of art the details of that story or poem; you look at it +as a mere illustration; very often you do not look at it at all; for +although your bodily eyes may be fixed on the picture or statue, your +intellectual eyes are busy with some recollection or impression in your +mind; it is the case of the bas-relief of the Villa Albani, the pleasure +received from Virgil's lines being re-awakened by the mere circumstance +of the bas-relief being called, rightly or wrongly, Orpheus and Eurydice; +it is the story of a hundred interpretations of works of art, of people +seeing a comic expression in a certain group at the Villa Ludovisi +because they imagined it to represent Papirius and his mother, while +other people found the same group highly tragic, because they fancied it +represented Electra and Orestes; it is the old story of violent emotion, +attributed to wholly unemotional music, because the words to which it +is arbitrarily connected happen to be pathetic; the endless story of +delusions of all sorts, of associations of feelings and ideas as +accidental as those which make certain tunes or sights depress us +because we happened to be in a melancholy mood when we first saw or +heard them. + +What becomes of the real, inherent effect of the work of art itself in +the midst of such concatenations of fancies and associations? How can +we listen to its own magic speech, its language of lines and colours +and sounds, when our mind is full of confused voices telling us of +different and irrelevant things? Where, at such times, is our artistic +appreciation, and what is it worth? Should we then, if such a thing +were possible, forbid such comparisons, such associations? Should we +voluntarily deprive ourselves of all such pleasure as is not given by +the work of art itself? + +No, but we should restrain such impressions; we should, as far as +we can, remain conscious of the fact that they are mere effects of +comparison and association, that they are not the work of art, but +something distinct from it, and that the work of art itself exists in +the lines, tints, lights and shades of the picture or statue, in the +modulations and harmonies of a composition, and that all the rest is +gratuitously added by ourselves. Nay, we should remember that there +could not even have been that very comparison, that very association +if there had been no previous real artistic perception; that unless we +had first cared for Virgil's Orpheus for its own sake, we could not +afterwards have cared for the bas-relief on its account. + +We confess that we have ourselves become instinctively jealous of such +foreign causes of pleasure in art, jealous because we have been pained +by their constant encroachment; the feeling may be an exaggerated one, +but it is a natural reaction. We have thus caught ourselves almost +regretting that pictures should have any subjects; we have sometimes +felt that the adaptation of music to the drama is a sort of profanation; +and all this because we have too often observed that the subject seemed +to engross so much attention as to make people forget the picture, and +that the drama made people misinterpret the music; and that criticism +itself, instead of checking this tendency, has done much to further it. +Yes, critics, grave and emphatic thinkers, have spoken as if the chief +merit of the painter had consisted in clearly expressing some story, +which in all probability was not worth expressing, some dull monkish +legend which his genius alone could render tolerable; as if the chief +aim of the composer were to follow the mazes of some wretched imbecile +libretto, which has become endurable thanks only to his notes; as if the +immortal were to be chained to the mortal, and mediocrity, inferiority, +mere trumpery fact or trumpery utility were to bridle and bestride the +divine hippogriff of art, and, like another Astolfo, fly up on its back +into the regions of immortality. Artists themselves have been of this +way of thinking, we cannot say of feeling, for, as long as they were +true artists, their instinctive feelings must have propelled them in a +very different direction. Gluck, that great dramatist, who was greatest +when least dramatic, thought that music was made for the sake of the +drama, that its greatest glory was to express the difference, as he +himself wrote, between a princess and a waiting-maid between a Spartan +and a Phrygian, to follow the steps of a play as its humble retainer and +commentator. Gluck composed his music for the sake of the dramas; but, O +irony of art! the dramas are recollected only for the sake of his music. +Let the artist be humble, mistrustful of his own art, let him believe +it to be subservient to something outside it, devote it magnanimously +to some purpose of utility, or some expression of fact, sacrifice it +throughout; it will be all in vain; if his work be excellent, it will +subordinate all to itself, it will swallow up every other interest, +throw into the shade every other utility. + +One day the Pope's banker, Agostino Chigi, came to Master Rafael of +Urbino, and said to him--"I am building a little pleasure villa in +which to entertain my friends. Baldassare Peruzzi has made the plans, +Sebastiano del Piombo has designed the arabesques, Nanni da Udine will +paint me the garlands of fruit and flowers; it must be perfection. You +shall paint me the walls of the open hall looking out on the Tiber, +that it may be a fit place wherein to sup and make merry with popes +and cardinals and princes." "Very good," answered Rafael. + +The object was to obtain a dining-hall, and the fresco was to be there +merely as an ornament; but Rafael painted his Galatea, and behold, the +hall could no longer be used as a dining-room; every one crowded into +it to see the fresco; the hall has now become a gallery, and the real +property, less of its owners, who cannot make use of it, than of the +whole world, who insist on entering it; the room now exists only for the +sake of the fresco, yet the fresco was originally intended to exist only +for it. This is the inevitable course of art; we call in beauty as a +servant, and see, like some strange dæmon, it becomes the master; it may +answer our call, but we have to do its bidding. + +We have strayed far away from Orpheus and Eurydice, while thus following +the train of ideas suggested by the story of the bas-relief. Yet we may +return to the subject, and use it as an illustration of our last remark. +We have said much against the common tendency towards transporting on to +a work of art an interest not originally due to it, because, by this +means, we are apt to lose the interest which does belong to the work +of art. But, if only each could get its due, each exert its power +unimpaired, there could be nothing more delightful than thus to enjoy +the joint effect of several works of art; not, according to the notion +of certain æsthetic visionaries--who do not see that singers cannot be +living Greek statues nor librettists poets, nor scene-painters +Poussins--in one clumsy ambiguous monster spectacle, but in our minds, +in our fancy; if, conscious of the difference between them, we could +unite in one collection the works of various arts: people the glades +and dingles of Keats with the divinities we have seen in marble, play +upon the reed of the Praxitelian Faun the woodland melodies of Mozart's +Tamino. It would thus be the highest reward for self-scrutinising +æsthetic humility, for honest appreciation of each art for itself, for +brave sacrifice of our own artistic whimsies and vanities, to enable us +to bring up simultaneously the recollection of Virgil's nobly pathetic +lines, of the exquisitely simple and supple forms of the bas-relief, of +the grand and tender music of Gluck, and to unite them in one noble +pageant of the imagination, evoked by the spell of those two names: +Orpheus and Eurydice. + + + + +FAUSTUS AND HELENA. + +NOTES ON THE SUPERNATURAL IN ART. + + +There is a story, well-known throughout the sixteenth century, which +tells how Doctor Faustus of Wittemberg, having made over his soul to the +fiend, employed him to raise the ghost of Helen of Sparta, in order that +she might become his paramour. The story has no historic value, no +scientific meaning; it lacks the hoary dignity of the tales of heroes +and demi-gods, wrought, vague, and colossal forms, out of cloud and +sunbeam, of those tales narrated and heard by generations of men deep +hidden in the stratified ruins of lost civilisation, carried in the +races from India to Hellas, and to Scandinavia. Compared with them, +this tale of Faustus and Helena is paltry and brand-new; it is not a +myth, nay, scarcely a legend; it is a mere trifling incident added by +humanistic pedantry to the ever-changing mediæval story of the man who +barters his soul for knowledge, the wizard, alchemist, philosopher, +printer, Albertus, Bacon, or Faustus. It is a part, an unessential, +subordinate fragment, valued in its day neither more nor less than any +other part of the history of Doctor Faustus, narrated cursorily by the +biographer of the wizard, overlooked by some of the ballad rhymers, +alternately used and rejected by the playwrights of puppet-shows; given +by Marlowe himself no greater importance than the other marvellous +deeds, the juggling tricks and magic journeys of his hero. + +But for us, the incident of Faustus and Helena has a meaning, a +fascination wholly different from any other portion of the story; the +other incidents owe everything to artistic treatment: this one owes +nothing. The wizard Faustus, awaiting the hour which will give him over +to Hell, is the creation of Marlowe; Gretchen is even more completely +the creation of Goethe; the fiend of the Englishman is occasionally +grand, the fiend of the German is throughout masterly; in all these +cases we are in the presence of true artistic work, of stuff rendered +valuable solely by the hand of the artist, of figures well defined and +finite, and limited also in their power over the imagination. But the +group of Faustus and Helena is different; it belongs neither to Marlowe +nor to Goethe, it belongs to the legend. It does not give the complete +and limited satisfaction of a work of art; it has the charm of the +fantastic and fitful shapes formed by the flickering firelight or the +wreathing mists; it haunts like some vague strain of music, drowsily +heard in half-sleep. It fills the fancy, it oscillates and transforms +itself; the artist may see it, attempt to seize and embody it for +evermore in a definite and enduring shape, but it vanishes out of his +grasp, and the forms which should have inclosed it are mere empty +sepulchres, haunted and charmed merely by the evoking power of our own +imagination. If we are fascinated by the Lady Helen of Marlowe, walking, +like some Florentine goddess, with embroidered kirtle and madonna face, +across the study of the old wizard of Wittemberg; if we are pleased +by the stately pseudo-antique Helena of Goethe, draped in the drapery +of Thorwaldsen's statues, and speaking the language of Goethe's own +Iphigenia, as she meets the very modern Faust, gracefully masqued in +mediæval costume; if we find in these attempts, the one unthinking and +imperfect, the other laboured and abortive, something which delights +our fancy, it is because our thoughts wander off from them and evoke a +Faustus and Helena of our own, different from the creations of Marlowe +and of Goethe; it is because in these definite and imperfect artistic +forms, there yet remains the suggestion of the subject with all its +power over the imagination. We forget Marlowe, and we forget Goethe, to +follow up the infinite suggestion of the legend. We cease to see the +Elizabethan and the pseudo-antique Helen; we lift our imagination from +the book and see the mediæval street at Wittemberg, the gabled house of +Faustus, all sculptured with quaint devices and grotesque forms of apes +and cherubs and flowers; we penetrate through the low brown rooms, +filled with musty books and mysterious ovens and retorts, redolent with +strange scents of alchemy, to that innermost secret chamber, where the +old wizard hides, in the depths of his mediæval house, the immortal +woman, the god-born, the fatal, the beloved of Theseus and Paris and +Achilles; we are blinded by this sunshine of Antiquity pent up in the +oaken-panelled chamber, such as Dürer might have etched; and all around +we hear circulating the mysterious rumours of the neighbours, of the +burghers and students, whispering shyly of Dr. Faustus and his strange +guest, in the beer-cellars and in the cloisters of the old university +town. And gazing thus into the fantastic intellectual mist which has +risen up between us and the book we were reading, be it Marlowe or +Goethe, we cease, after a while, to see Faustus or Helena, we perceive +only a chaotic fluctuation of incongruous shapes; scholars in furred +robes and caps pulled over their ears, burghers wives with high +sugar-loaf coif and slashed boddices, with hands demurely folded over +their prayer-books, and knights in armour and immense plumes, and +haggling Jews, and tonsured monks, descended out of panels of Wohlgemuth +and the engravings of Dürer, mingling with, changing into processions of +naked athletes on foaming short-maned horses, of draped Athenian maidens +carrying baskets and sickles, and priests bearing oil-jars and torches, +all melting into each other, indistinct, confused, like the images in a +dream; vague crowds, phantoms following in the wake of the spectre woman +of Antiquity, beautiful, unimpassioned, ever young, luring to Hell the +wizard of the Middle Ages. + +Why does all this vanish as soon as we once more fix our eyes upon the +book? Why can our fancy show us more than can the artistic genius of +Marlowe and of Goethe? Why does Marlowe, believing in Helen as a satanic +reality, and Goethe, striving after her as an artistic vision, equally +fail to satisfy us? The question is intricate: it requires a threefold +answer, dependent on the fact that this tale of Faustus and Helena is in +fact a tale of the supernatural--a weird and colossal ghost-story, in +which the actors are the spectre of Antiquity, ever young, beautiful, +radiant, though risen from the putrescence of two thousand years; and +the Middle Ages, alive, but toothless, palsied, and tottering. Why +neither Marlowe nor Goethe have succeeded in giving a satisfactory +artistic shape to this tale is explained by the necessary relations +between art and the supernatural, between our creative power and our +imaginative faculty; why Marlowe has failed in one manner and Goethe in +another is explained by the fact that, as we said, for the first the +tale was a supernatural reality, for the second a supernatural fiction. + +What are the relations between art and the supernatural? At first sight +the two appear closely allied: like the supernatural, art is born of +imagination; the supernatural, like art, conjures up unreal visions. +The two have been intimately connected during the great ages of the +supernatural, when instead of existing merely in a few disputed +traditional dogmas, and in a little discredited traditional folklore, it +constituted the whole of religion and a great part of philosophy. Gods +and demons, saints and spectres, have afforded at least one-half of the +subjects for art. The supernatural, in the shape of religious mythology, +had art bound in its service in Antiquity and the Middle Ages; the +supernatural, in the shape of spectral fancies, regained its dominion +over art with the advent of romanticism. From the gods of the _Iliad_ +down to the Commander in _Don Giovanni_, from the sylvan divinities of +Praxiteles to the fairies of Shakespeare, from the Furies of Æschylus +to the Archangels of Perugino, the supernatural and the artistic have +constantly appeared linked together. Yet, in reality, the hostility +between the supernatural and the artistic is well-nigh as great as the +hostility between the supernatural and the logical. Critical reason +is a solvent, it reduces the phantoms of the imagination to their +most prosaic elements; artistic power, on the other hand, moulds and +solidifies them into distinct and palpable forms: the synthetical +definiteness of art is as sceptical as the analytical definiteness of +logic. For the supernatural is necessarily essentially vague, and art is +necessarily essentially distinct: give shape to the vague and it ceases +to exist. The task set to the artist by the dreamer, the prophet, the +priest, the ghost-seer of all times, is as difficult, though in the +opposite sense, as that by which the little girl in the Venetian fairy +tale sought to test the omnipotence of the emperor. She asked him for a +very humble dish, quite simple and not costly, a pat of butter broiled +on a gridiron. The emperor desired his cook to place the butter on the +gridiron and light the fire; all was going well, when, behold! the +butter began to melt, trickled off, and vanished. The artists were asked +to paint, or model, or narrate the supernatural; they set about the work +in good conscience, but see, the supernatural became the natural, the +gods turned into men, the madonnas into mere mothers, the angels into +armed striplings, the phantoms into mere creatures of flesh and blood. + +There are in reality two sorts of supernatural, although only one really +deserves the name. A great number of beliefs in all mythologies are in +reality mere scientific errors--abortive attempts to explain phenomena +by causes with which they have no connection--the imagination plays not +more part in them than in any other sort of theorising, and the notions +that unlucky accidents are due to a certain man's glance, that certain +formulæ will bring rain or sunshine, that miraculous images will dispel +pestilence, and kings of England cure epilepsy, must be classed under +the head of mistaken generalizations, not very different in point of +fact from exploded scientific theories, such as Descartes' vortices, or +the innate ideas of scholasticism. That there was a time when animals +spoke with human voice may seem to us a piece of fairy-lore, but it +was in its day a scientific hypothesis as brilliant and satisfying +as Darwin's theory of evolution. We must, therefore, in examining +the relations between art and the supernatural, eliminate as far as +possible this species of scientific speculation, and consider only +that supernatural which really deserves the name, which is beyond and +outside the limits of the possible, the rational, the explicable--that +supernatural which is due not to the logical faculties, arguing from +wrong premises, but to the imagination wrought upon by certain kinds of +physical surroundings. The divinity of the earlier races is in some +measure a mistaken scientific hypothesis of the sort we have described, +an attempt to explain phenomena otherwise inexplicable. But it is +much more: it is the effect on the imagination of certain external +impressions, it is those impressions brought to a focus, personified, +but personified vaguely, in a fluctuating ever-changing manner; the +personification being continually altered, reinforced, blurred out, +enlarged, restricted by new series of impressions from without, even as +the shape which we puzzle out of congregated cloud-masses fluctuates +with their every movement--a shifting vapour now obliterates the form, +now compresses it into greater distinctness: the wings of the fantastic +monster seem now flapping leisurely, now extending bristling like a +griffon's; at one moment it has a beak and talons, at others a mane +and hoofs; the breeze, the sunlight, the moonbeam, form, alter, and +obliterate it. Thus is it with the supernatural: the gods, moulded out +of cloud and sunlight and darkness, are for ever changing, fluctuating +between a human or animal shape, god or goddess, cow, ape, or horse, and +the mere natural phenomenon which impresses the fancy. Pan is the weird, +shaggy, cloven-footed shape which the goat-herd or the huntsman has seen +gliding among the bushes in the grey twilight; his is the piping heard +in the tangle of reeds, marsh lily, and knotted nightshade by the river +side: but Pan is also the wood, with all its sights and noises, the +solitude, the gloom, the infinity of rustling leaves, and cracking +branches; he is the greenish-yellow light stealing in amid the boughs; +he is the breeze in the foliage, the murmur of unseen waters, the mist +hanging over the damp sward, the ferns and grasses which entangle the +feet, and the briars which catch in the hair and garments are his grasp; +and the wanderer dashes through the thickets with a sickening fear in +his heart, and sinks down on the outskirts of the forest, gasping, with +sweat-clotted hair, overcome by this glimpse of the great god. + +In this constant renewal of the impressions on the fancy, in this +unceasing shaping and reshaping of its creations, consisted the vitality +of the myths of paganism, from the scorching and pestilence-bearing gods +of India to the divinities shaped out of tempest and snowdrift of +Scandinavia; they were constantly issuing out of the elements, renewed, +changed, ever young, under the exorcism not only of the priest and of +the poet, but of the village boor; and on this unceasing renovation +depended the sway which they maintained, without ethical importance to +help them, despite philosophy and Christianity. Christianity, born in +an age of speculation and eclecticism, removed its divinities, its +mystic figures, out of the cosmic surroundings of paganism; it forbade +the imagination to touch or alter them, it regularised, defined, +explained, placed the Saviour, the Virgin, the saints and angels, into +a kind of supersensuous world of logic, logic adapted to Heaven, and +different therefore from the logic of earth, but logic none the less. +Christianity endowed them with certain definite attributes, not to be +found among mortals, but analogous in a manner to mortal attributes; the +Christian supernatural system belongs mainly to the category of mistaken +scientific systems; its peculiarities are due, not to overwrought fancy, +but to overtaxed reason. Thus the genuine supernatural was well-nigh +banished by official Christianity, regulated as it was by a sort of +congress of men of science, who eliminated, to the best of their powers, +any vagaries of the imagination which might show themselves in their +mystico-logic system. But the imagination did work nevertheless, and the +supernatural did reappear, both within and without the Christian system +of mythology. The Heaven of theology was too ethical, too logical, too +positive, too scientific, in accordance with the science of the Middle +Ages, for the minds of humanity at large; the scholars and learned +clergy might study and expound it, but it was insufficient for the +ignorant. The imagination reappeared once more. To the monk arose out of +the silence and gloom of the damp, lichen-grown crypt, out of the foetid +emanations of the charnal-house, strange forms of horror which lurked +in his steps and haunted his sleep after fasting and scourging and +vigils; devils and imps horrible and obscene, which the chisel of +the stonecutter vainly attempted to reproduce, in their fluctuating +abomination, on the capitals and gargoyles of cloister and cathedral. +To the artisan, the weaver pent up in some dark cellar into which the +daylight stole grey and faint from the narrow strip of blue sky between +the overhanging eaves, for him, the hungry and toil-worn and weary of +soul, there arose out of the hum of the street above, out of the +half-lit dust, the winter damp and summer suffocation of the underground +workshop, visions and sounds of sweetness and glory, misty clusters of +white-robed angels shedding radiance around them, swaying in mystic +linked dances, mingling with the sordid noises of toil seraphic +harmonies, now near, now dying away into distance, voices singing of +the sunshine and flowers of Paradise. And for others, for the lean and +tattered peasant, with the dull, apathetic resignation of the starved +and goaded ox or horse, sleeping on the damp clay of his hut and eating +strange flourless bread, and stranger carrion flesh, there came a world +of the supernatural, different from that of the monk or the artisan, at +once terrifying and consoling; the divinities cast out by Christianity, +the divinities for ever newly begotten by nature, but begotten of a +nature miserably changed, born in exile and obloquy and persecution, +fostered by the wretched and the brutified; differing from the gods of +antiquity as the desolate heath, barren of all save stones and prickly +furze and thistle, differs from the fertile pasture-land; as the forests +planted over the cornfield, whence issue wolves, and the Baron's +harvest-trampling horses, differ from the forests which gave their +oaks and pines to Tyrian ships; divinities warped, and crippled, grown +hideous and malignant and unhappy in the likeness of their miserable +votaries. + +This is the real supernatural, born of the imagination and its +surroundings, the vital, the fluctuating, the potent; and it is this +which the artist of every age, from Phidias to Giotto, from Giotto to +Blake, has been called upon to make known to the multitude. And there +had been artistic work going on unnoticed long before the time of any +painter or sculptor or poet of whom we have any record; mankind longed +from the first to embody, to fix its visions of wonder, it set to work +with rough unskilful fingers moulding into shape its divinities. Rude +work, ugly, barbarous, blundering scratchings on walls, kneaded clay +vessels, notched sticks, nonsense rhymes; but work nevertheless which +already showed that art and the supernatural were at variance, the +beaked and clawed figures outlined on the wall were compromises between +the man and the beast, but definite compromises, so much and no more of +the man, so much and no more of the beast; the goddess on the clay +vessels became a mere little owl; the divinities even in the nonsense +verses were presented now as very distinct cows, now as very distinct +clouds, or very distinct men and women; the vague, fluctuating +impressions oscillating before the imagination like the colours of a +dove's wing, or the pattern of a shot silk, interwoven, unsteady, never +completely united into one, never completely separated into several, +were rudely seized, disentangled by art; part was taken, part thrown +aside; what remained was homogeneous, definite, unchanging; it was what +it was and could never be aught else. + +Goethe has remarked, with a subjective simplicity of irreverence which +is almost comical, that as God created man in his image, it was only +fair that man, in his turn, should create God in _his_ image. But the +decay of pagan belief was not, as Hegel imagines, due to the fact that +Hellenic art was anthropomorphic. The gods ceased to be gods not merely +because they became too like men, but because they became too like +anything definite. If the ibis on the amulet, or the owl on the +terra-cotta, represents a more vital belief in the gods than does the +Venus of Milo or the Giustiniani Minerva, it is not because the idea of +divinity is more compatible with an ugly bird than with a beautiful +woman, but because whereas the beautiful woman, exquisitely wrought by a +consummate sculptor, occupied the mind of the artist and of the beholder +with the idea of her beauty, to the exclusion of all else, the +rudely-engraven ibis, or the badly-modelled owlet, on the other hand, +served merely as a symbol, as the recaller of an idea; the mind did not +pause in contemplation of the bird, but wandered off in search of the +god: the goggle eyes of the owl and the beak of the ibis were soon +forgotten in the contemplation of the vague, ever transmuted visions of +phenomena of sky and light, of semi-human and semi-bestial shapes, of +confused half-embodied forces; in short, of the supernatural. But the +human shape did most mischief to the supernatural, merely because the +human shape was the most absolute, the most distinct of all shapes: a +god might be symbolised as a beast, but he could only be pourtrayed +as a man; and if the portrait was correct, then the god was a man, +and nothing more. Even the most fantastic among pagan supernatural +creatures, those strange monsters who longest kept their original dual +nature--the centaurs, satyrs, and tritons--became, beneath the chisel of +the artist, mere aberrations from the normal, rare, and curious types +like certain fair-booth phenomena, but perfectly intelligible and +rational; the very Chimæra, she who was to give her name to every sort +of unintelligible fancy, became, in the bas-reliefs of the story of +Bellerophon a mere singular mixture between a lion, a dog, and a bird--a +cross-breed which happens not to be possible, but which an ancient might +well have conceived as adorning some distant zoological collection. How +much more rationalised were not the divinities in whom only a peculiar +shape of the eye, a certain structure of the leg, or a definite fashion +of wearing the hair remained of their former nature. Learned men, +indeed, tell us that we need only glance at Hera to see that she is at +bottom a cow; at Apollo, to recognise that he is but a stag in human +shape: or at Zeus, to recognise that he is, in point of fact, a lion. +Yet it remains true that we need only walk down the nearest street to +meet ten ordinary men and women who look more like various animals than +do any antique divinities, and who can yet never be said to be in +reality cows, stags, or lions. The same applies to the violent efforts +which are constantly being made to show in the Greek and Latin poets a +distinct recollection of the cosmic nature of the gods, construing the +very human movements, looks, and dress of divinities into meteorological +phenomena, as has been done even by Mr. Ruskin, in his _Queen of the +Air_, despite his artist's sense, which should have warned him that no +artistic figure, like Homer's divinities, can possibly be at the same +time a woman and a whirlwind. The gods did originally partake of the +character of cosmic phenomena, as they partook of the characters of +beasts and birds, and of every other species of transformation, such as +we may watch in dreams; but as soon as they were artistically embodied, +this transformation ceased, the nature had to be specified in proportion +as the form became distinct; and the drapery of Pallas, although it had +inherited its purple tint from the storm-cloud, was none the less, when +it clad the shoulders of the goddess, not a storm-cloud, but a piece +of purple linen. "What do you want of me?" asks the artist. "A god," +answers the believer. "What is your god to be like?" asks the artist. +"My god is to be a very handsome warrior, a serene heaven, which +is occasionally overcast with clouds, which clouds are sometimes +very beneficial, and become (and so does the god at those moments) +heavy-uddered cows; at others, they are dark, and cause annoyance, and +then they capture the god, who is the light (but he is also the clouds, +remember), and lock him up in a tower, and then he frees himself, and he +is a neighing horse, and he is sitting on the prancing horse (which is +himself, you know, and is the sky too), in the shape of two warriors, +and also----" "May Cerberus devour you!" cries the artist. "How can I +represent all this? Do you want a warrior, or a cow, or the heavens, or +a horse, or do you want a warrior with the hoofs of a horse and the +horns of a cow? Explain, for, by Juno, I can give you only one of these +at a time." + +Thus, in proportion as the gods were subjected to artistic manipulation, +whether by sculptor or poet, they lost their supernatural powers. A +period there doubtless was when the gods stood out quite distinct from +nature, and yet remained connected with it, as the figures of a high +relief stand out from the background; but gradually they were freed from +the chaos of impressions which had given them birth, and then, little by +little, they ceased to be gods; they were isolated from the world of +the wonderful, they were respectfully shelved off into the region of +the ideal, where they were contemplated, admired, discussed, but not +worshipped even like their statues by Praxiteles and their pictures +by Parrhasius. The divinities who continued to be reverenced were the +rustic divinities and the foreign gods and goddesses; the divinities +which had been safe from the artistic desecration of the cities, and the +divinities which were imported from hieratic, unartistic countries like +Egypt and Syria; on the one hand, the gods shaped with the pruning-knife +out of figwood, and stained with ochre or wine-lees, grotesque mannikins, +standing like scarecrows, in orchard or corn-field, to which the +peasants crowded in devout procession, leading their cleanly-dressed +little ones, and carrying gifts of fruit and milk, while the listless +Tibullus, fresh from sceptical Rome, looked on from his doorstep, a +vague, childish veneration stealing over his mind; on the other hand, +the monstrous goddesses, hundred-breasted or ibis-headed, half hidden +in the Syrian and Egyptian temples, surrounded by mysterious priests, +swarthy or effeminate, in mitres and tawny robes, jangling their sistra +and clashing their cymbals, moving in mystic or frenzied dances, weird, +obscene, and unearthly, to the melancholy drone of Phrygian or Egyptian +music, sending a shudder through the atheist Catullus, and filling his +mind with ghastly visions of victims of the great goddess, bleeding, +fainting, lashed on to madness by the wrath of the terrible divinity. +These were the last survivors of paganism, and to their protection clung +the old gods of Greece and Rome, reduced to human level by art, stripped +naked by sculptor and poet and muffling themselves in the homely or +barbaric garments of low-born or outlandish usurpers; art had been a +worse enemy than scepticism: Apelles and Scopas had done more mischief +than Epicurus. + +Christian art was, perhaps, more reverent in intention, but not less +desecrating in practice; even the Giottesques turned Christ, the Virgin, +and the Saints, into mere Florentine men and women; even Angelico +himself, although a saint, was unable to show Paradise except as a +flowery meadow, under a highly gilded sky, through which moved ladies +and youths in most artistic but most earthly embroidered garments; and +Hell except as a very hot place where men and women were being boiled +and broiled and baked and fried and roasted by very comic little +weasel-snouted fiends, which on a carnival car would have made +Florentines roar with laughter. The real supernatural was in the cells +of fever-stricken, starved visionaries; it was in the contagious awe of +the crowd sinking down at the sight of the stained napkin of Bolsena; in +that soiled piece of linen was Christ, and God, and Paradise; in that +and not in the panels of Angelico and Perugino, or in the frescoes of +Signorelli and Filippino. + +Why? Because the supernatural is nothing but ever-renewed impressions, +ever-shifting fancies; and that art is the definer, the embodier, the +analytic and synthetic force of form. Every artistic embodiment of +impressions or fancies implies isolation of those impressions or +fancies, selection, combination and balancing of them; that is to say, +diminution--nay, destruction of their inherent power. As, in order to +be moulded, the clay must be separated from the mound; as, in order +to be carved, the wood must be cut off from the tree; as, in order to +be re-shaped by art, the mass of atoms must be rudely severed; so also +the mental elements of art, the mood, the fancy must be severed from +the preceding and succeeding moods or fancies; artistic manipulation +requires that its intellectual, like its tangible materials, cease to +be vital, but the materials, mental or physical, are not only deprived +of vitality and power of self-alteration; they are combined in given +proportions, the action of the one on the other destroys in great +part the special power of each; art is proportion, and proportion is +restriction. Last of all, but most important, these isolated, no longer +vital materials, neutralised by each other, are further reduced to +insignificance by becoming parts of a whole conception; their separate +meaning is effaced by the general meaning of the work of art; art +bottles lightning to use it as white colour, and measures out thunder by +the beat of the chapel-master's roll of notes. But art does not merely +restrict impressions and fancies within the limits of form; in its days +of maturity and independence it restricts yet closer within the limits +of beauty. Partially developed art, still unconscious of its powers +and aims, still in childish submission to religion, sets to work +conscientiously, with no other object than to embody the supernatural; +if the supernatural suffers in the act of embodiment, if the fluctuating +fancies which are Zeus or Pallas are limited and curtailed, rendered +logical and prosaic even in the wooden pre-historic idol or the roughly +kneaded clay owlet, it is by no choice of the artist--his attempt is +abortive, because it is thwarted by the very nature of his art. But +when art is mature, things are different; the artist, conscious of +his powers, instinctively recognising the futility of aiming at the +embodiment of the supernatural, dragged by an irresistible longing to +the display of his skill, to the imitation of the existing and to the +creation of beauty, ceases to strain after the impossible and refuses +to attempt anything beyond the possible. The art, which was before a +mere insufficient means, is now an all-engrossing aim; unconsciously, +perhaps, to himself, the artist regards the subject merely as a pretext +for the treatment; and where the subject is opposed to such treatment +as he desires, he sacrifices it. He may be quite as conscientious as +his earliest predecessor, but his conscience has become an artistic +conscience, he sees only as much as is within art's limits; the gods, or +the saints, which were cloudy and supernatural to the artist of immature +art, are definite and artistic to the artist of mature art; he can +think, imagine, feel only in a given manner; his religious conceptions +have taken the shape of his artistic creations; art has destroyed the +supernatural, and the artist has swallowed up the believer. The attempts +at supernatural effects are almost always limited to a sort of symbolical +abbreviation, which satisfies the artist and his public respecting the +subject of the work, and lends it a traditional association of the +supernatural; a few spikes round the head of a young man are all that +remains of the solar nature of Apollo; the little budding horns and +pointed ears of the satyr must suffice to recall that he was once a +mystic fusion of man and beast and forest; a gilded disc behind the head +is all that shows that Giotto's figures are immortals in glory; and a +pair of wings is all that explains that Perugino's St. Michael is not a +mere dainty mortal warrior; the highest mysteries of Christianity are +despatched with a triangle and an open book, to draw which Raphael might +employ his colour-grinder, while he himself drew the finely-draped +baker's daughter from Trastevere. + +In all these cases the artist refused to grapple with the supernatural, +and dismissed it with a mere stereotyped symbol, not more artistic than +the names which he might have engraved beneath each figure. Religious +associations were thus awakened without the artist, whether of the time +of Pericles or of the time of Leo X., giving himself further trouble; +the diffusion of religious ideas and feeling spared art from being +religious. Let us, therefore, in order to judge fairly of what art +can or cannot do for the supernatural, seek for one of the very rare +instances in which the artist has had no symbolical abbreviations at his +disposal, and has been obliged, if he would awaken any idea in the mind +of the spectator, to do so by means of his artistic creations. The +number of such exceptional instances is extremely limited in the great +art of antiquity and the Renaissance, when artistic subjects were almost +always traditionally religious or plainly realistic, and consequently +intelligible at first sight. There is, however, an example, and that +example is a masterpiece. It is the engraving by Agostino Veneziano, +after a lost drawing by Raphael, generally called "Lo Stregozzo," +and representing a witch going to the Sabbath. Through a swampy +country, amidst rank and barren vegetation, sweeps the triumphal +procession--strange, beautiful, and ghastly; a naked boy dashes headlong +in front, bestriding a long-haired he-goat, and blowing a horn, little +stolen children packed behind on his saddle; on he dashes, across the +tufts of marsh-lily and bulrush, across the stagnant-pools of water, +clearing the way and announcing his mistress the witch. She thrones, +old, parched, lank, high on the top of an unearthly car, made of the +spine and ribs of some antediluvian creature, with springs and traces +of ghastly jaw and collar and thigh bones, supported on either side by +galloping skeletons, skeletons made up of skeletons, of all that is +strangest in the bones and beaks of beasts and birds, on which ride +young fauns and satyrs. To her chariot, by a yoke of human bones, +are harnessed two stalwart naked youths, and two others sustain its +plough-like end; grand, magnificently moving figures, bounding forward +like wild horses, the unearthly carriage swinging and creaking as they +go. And, as they go, brushing through the high, dry, maremma-grass, the +witch cowers on her chariot, clutching in one hand a heap of babies, +in the other a vessel filled with fire, whose smoke, mingling with +her long, dishevelled hair, floats behind, sweeping through the rank +vegetation, curling and eddying into vague, strange semblances of +lions, apes, chimæras. Forward dashes the outrunner on his goat, onward +bound the naked litter-bearers; up gallop the fauns and satyrs on the +fleshless, monstrous carcases; up and down sways the creaking, cracking +chariot of bones; one moment more, and the wild, splendid, hideous +triumph will have swept out of sight, leaving behind only trampled +marsh-plants and a trail of fantastic, lurid smoke among the ruffled, +moaning reeds and grasses. + +Such is Raphael's _Stregozzo_. It is a master-piece of drawing and of +pictorial fancy, it is perhaps the highest achievement of great art in +the direction of the supernatural: for Dürer is often hideous, Rembrandt +always obscure, and the moderns, like Blake and Doré, distinctly +run counter to the essential nature of art in their attempts after +vagueness. When once told the subject of the print, by Agostino +Veneziano, our imagination easily flies off on to the track of the +supernatural; but, in so doing, it leaves the work behind, and on return +to it we experience a return to the natural. If, on the other hand, we +are not told the subject of the print, we very possibly see nothing +supernatural in it: there are splendid figures worthy of Michael Angelo, +and grotesque fancies, in the shape of the skeletons and coach of bones, +worthy of Leonardo; as a whole, the print is striking, beautiful, and +problematic, but it falls short of the effect which would be produced by +the mere words "a witch riding through a marsh on a chariot of bones," +if left to insinuate themselves into the imagination. Of the really +supernatural, there is in it but one touch: and that in the only part +of the drawing which is left vague; it is the confused shapes assumed +by the eddying smoke among the rushes. All the rest is outside the +region of the supernatural: it is problematic in subject, but clear, +harmonious, and beautiful in treatment; the imagination may wander +off from it, but in its presence it must remain passive. With this +masterpiece we would fain compare a picture which seems to deal +with a cognate subject; a picture as suggestive as it is absolutely +artistically worthless. We saw it once, many years ago, among a heap +of rubbishy smudges at a picture-dealer's in Rome, and we have never +forgotten it--a picture painted by some German smearer of the early +sixteenth century; very ugly, stupid, and unattractive; ill drawn, ill +composed, of a uniform hard, vulgar brown. It represented, with no +attempt at perspective, a level country spread out like a map, dotted +here and there with little spired and turretted towns, also a castle or +two, a few trees and some rivers, disposed with a child's satisfaction +with their mere indication, as much as to say--"here is a town, there +is a castle." Some peasants were represented working in the fields, a +little train of horsemen coming out of a castle, and near one of the +chess-board castles a grass plot with half-a-dozen lit stakes, to which +tiny figures were carrying faggots, while men-at-arms and burghers, +no bigger than flies, looked on. In the foreground of the great flat +expanse lay a boor, a fellow dressed like a field-labourer, in heavy +sleep on the ground. Round him on the grass were marked curious circles, +and in them was moving a strange figure, in cloak and helmet, with +clawed wings and horns, leering horridly, moving round on tiptoe, his +arms outstretched, as if gradually encircling the sleeper in order to +pounce upon him; despite the complete absence of artistic skill, the +gradual inevitable approach of the demon, the irresistible network of +circles with which he was surrounding his prey, was perfectly indicated. +Above, in the sky, two figures, half demon, half dragon, floated +leisurely, like a moored boat, as if a guard of the devil below. What +is the exact subject of this picture? No one can tell; but its meaning +is intense for the imagination, it has the frightful suggestiveness +of some old book on witchcraft, prosaic and curt; of a page opened at +random of Sprenger's _Malleus Malificarum_. Yes; over the plain, the +towns, and castles, monotonous and dull, the fiends are hovering; even +over the stakes where their votaries are being burnt; and see, the +peasant asleep in the field, with his spade and hoe beside him, is being +surrounded by magic circles, by the invisible nets of the demon, who +prowls round him like a kite ready to pounce on to its quarry. + +Why is there no need to write the word _witchcraft_ beneath this +picture? Why can this nameless smearer succeed where Raphael has failed? +Because he is content to suggest to the imagination, and lets it create +for itself its world of the supernatural; because he is not an artist, +and because Raphael is; because he suggests everything and shows +nothing, while Raphael creates, defines, perfects, gives form to that +which is by its nature formless. + +If we would bring home to ourselves this action of art on the +supernatural, we must examine the only species of supernatural which +still retains vitality, and can still be deprived of it by art. +That which remains to us of the imaginative workings of the past is +traditional and well-nigh effete: we have poems and pictures, Vedic +hymns, Hebrew psalms, and Egyptian symbols; we have folklore and dogma; +remnants of the supernatural, some labelled in our historic museums, +where they are scrutinised, catalogue and eye-glass in hand; others +dusty on altars and in chapels, before which we uncover our heads and +cast down our eyes: relics of dead and dying faiths, of which some are +daily being transferred from the church to the museum; art cannot +deprive any of these of that imaginative life and power which they have +long ceased to possess. We have forms of the supernatural in which we +believe from acquiescence of habit, but they are not vital; we have a +form of the supernatural in which, from logic and habit, we disbelieve, +but which is vital; and this form of the supernatural is the ghostly. We +none of us believe in ghosts as logical possibilities, but we most of +us conceive them as imaginative probabilities; we can still feel the +ghostly, and thence it is that a ghost is the only thing which can in +any respect replace for us the divinities of old, and enable us to +understand, if only for a minute, the imaginative power which they +possessed, and of which they were despoiled not only by logic, but by +art. By _ghost_ we do not mean the vulgar apparition which is seen or +heard in told or written tales; we mean the ghost which slowly rises up +in our mind, the haunter not of corridors and staircases, but of our +fancies. Just as the gods of primitive religions were the undulating, +bright heat which made mid-day solitary and solemn as midnight; the warm +damp, the sap-riser and expander of life; the sad dying away of the +summer, and the leaden, suicidal sterility of winter; so the ghost, +their only modern equivalent, is the damp, the darkness, the silence, +the solitude; a ghost is the sound of our steps through a ruined +cloister, where the ivy-berries and convolvulus growing in the fissures +sway up and down among the sculptured foliage of the windows, it is the +scent of mouldering plaster and mouldering bones from beneath the broken +pavement; a ghost is the bright moonlight against which the cypresses +stand out like black hearse-plumes, in which the blasted grey olives and +the gnarled fig-trees stretch their branches over the broken walls like +fantastic, knotted, beckoning fingers, and the abandoned villas on +the outskirts of Italian towns, with the birds flying in and out of +the unglazed windows, loom forth white and ghastly; a ghost is the +long-closed room of one long dead, the faint smell of withered flowers, +the rustle of long-unmoved curtains, the yellow paper and faded ribbons +of long-unread letters ... each and all of these things, and a hundred +others besides, according to our nature, is a ghost, a vague feeling we +can scarcely describe, a something pleasing and terrible which invades +our whole consciousness, and which, confusedly embodied, we half dread +to see behind us, we know not in what shape, if we look round. + +Call we in our artist, or let us be our own artist; embody, let us see +or hear this ghost, let it become visible or audible to others besides +ourselves; paint us that vagueness, mould into shape that darkness, +modulate into chords that silence--tell us the character and history +of those vague beings ... set to work boldly or cunningly. What do we +obtain? A picture, a piece of music, a story; but the ghost is gone. In +its stead we get oftenest the mere image of a human being; call it a +ghost if you will, it is none. And the more complete the artistic work, +the less remains of the ghost. Why do those stories affect us most in +which the ghost is heard but not seen? Why do those places affect us +most of which we merely vaguely know that they are haunted? Why most +of all those which look as if they might be haunted? Why, as soon as a +figure is seen, is the charm half-lost? And why, even when there is a +figure, is it kept so vague and mist-like? Would you know Hamlet's +father for a ghost unless he told you he was one? and can you remember +it long while he speaks in mortal words? and what would be Hamlet's +father without the terrace of Elsinore, the hour, and the moonlight? Do +not these embodied ghosts owe what little effect they still possess to +their surroundings, and are not the surroundings the real ghost? + +Throw sunshine on to them, and what remains? Thus we have wandered +through the realm of the supernatural in a manner neither logical nor +business-like, for logic and business-likeness are rude qualities, +and scare away the ghostly; very far away do we seem to have rambled +from Dr. Faustus and Helen of Sparta; but in this labyrinth of the +fantastic there are sudden unexpected turns--and see, one of these has +suddenly brought us back into their presence. For we have seen why the +supernatural is always injured by artistic treatment, why therefore +the confused images evoked in our mind by the mere threadbare tale of +Faustus and Helena are superior in imaginative power to the picture +carefully elaborated and shown us by Goethe. We can now understand why +under his hand the infinite charm of the weird meeting of antiquity and +the Middle Ages has evaporated. We can explain why the strange fancy +of the classic Walpurgis-night, in the second part of _Faust_, at once +stimulates the imagination and gives it nothing. If we let our mind +dwell on that mysterious Pharsalian plain, with its glimmering fires and +flamelets alone breaking the darkness, where Faust and Mephistopheles +wandering about meet the spectres of antiquity, shadowy in the +gloom--the sphinxes crouching, the sirens, the dryads and oreads, the +griffons and cranes flapping their unseen wings overhead; where Faust +springs on the back of Chiron, and as he is borne along sickens for +sudden joy when the centaur tells him that Helen has been carried on +that back, has clasped that neck; when we let our mind work on all this, +we are charmed by the weird meetings, the mysterious shapes which elbow +us; but let us take up the volume and we return to barren prose, without +colour or perfume. Yet Goethe felt the supernatural as we feel it, as it +can be felt only in days of disbelief, when the more logical we become +in our ideas, the more we view nature as a prosaic machine constructed +by no one in particular, the more poignantly, on the other hand, +do we feel the delight of the transient belief in the vague and +the impossible; the greater the distinctness with which we see and +understand all around us, the greater the longing for a momentary +half-light in which forms may appear stranger, grander, vaguer than they +are. We moderns seek in the world of the supernatural a renewal of +the delightful semi-obscurity of vision and keenness of fancy of our +childhood; when a glimpse into fairyland was still possible, when things +appeared in false lights, brighter, more important, more magnificent +than now. Art indeed can afford us calm and clear enjoyment of the +beautiful--enjoyment serious, self-possessed, wide-awake, such as befits +mature intellects; but no picture, no symphony, no poem, can give us +that delight, that delusory, imaginative pleasure which we received as +children from a tawdry engraving or a hideous doll; for around that doll +there was an atmosphere of glory. In certain words, in certain sights, +in certain snatches of melody, words, sights, and sounds which we now +recognise as trivial, commonplace, and vulgar, there was an ineffable +meaning; they were spells which opened doors into realms of wonder; +they were precious in proportion as they were misappreciated. We now +appreciate and despise; we see, we no longer imagine. And it is to +replace this uncertainty of vision, this liberty of seeing in things +much more than there is, which belongs to man and to mankind in this +childhood, which compensated the Middle Ages for starvation and +pestilence, and compensates the child for blows and lessons, it is to +replace this that we crave after the supernatural, the ghostly--no +longer believed, but still felt. It was from this sickness of the +prosaic, this turning away from logical certainty, that the men of +the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of this century, the men +who had finally destroyed belief in the religious supernatural, who +were bringing light with new sciences of economy, philology, and +history--Schiller, Goethe, Herder, Coleridge--left the lecture-room and +the laboratory, and set gravely to work on ghostly tales and ballads. It +was from this rebellion against the tyranny of the possible that Goethe +was charmed with that culmination of all impossibilities, that most +daring of ghost stories, the story of Faustus and Helena. He felt the +seduction of the supernatural, he tried to embody it--and he failed. + +The case was different with Marlowe. The bringing together of Faustus +and Helena had no special meaning for the man of the sixteenth century, +too far from antiquity and too near the Middle Ages to perceive as we +do the strange difference between them; and the supernatural had no +fascination in a time when it was all permeating and everywhere +mixed with prose. The whole play of _Dr. Faustus_ is conceived in a +thoroughly realistic fashion; it is tragic, but not ghostly. To +Marlowe's audience, and probably to Marlowe himself, despite his +atheistic reputation, the story of Faustus's wonders and final damnation +was quite within the realm of the possible; the intensity of the belief +in the tale is shown by the total absence of any attempt to give +it dignity or weirdness. Faustus evokes Lucifer with a pedantic +semi-biblical Latin speech; he goes about playing the most trumpery +conjuror's tricks--snatching with invisible hands the food from people's +lips, clapping horns and tails on to courtiers for the Emperor's +amusement, letting his legs be pulled off like boots, selling wisps of +straw as horses, doing and saying things which could appear tragic and +important, nay, even serious, only to people who took every second +cat for a witch, who burned their neighbours for vomiting pins, who +suspected devils at every turn, as the great witch-expert Sprenger shows +them in his horribly matter-of-fact manual. We moderns, disbelieving +in devilries, would require the most elaborately romantic and poetic +accessories--a splendid lurid back-ground, a magnificent Byronian +invocation of the fiend. The Mephistophilis of Marlowe, in those days +when devils still dwelt in people, required none of Goethe's wit +or poetry; the mere fact of his being a devil, with the very real +association of flame and brimstone in this world and the next, was +sufficient to inspire interest in him; whereas in 1800, with Voltaire's +novels and Hume's treatises on the table, a dull devil was no more +endurable than any other sort of bore. The very superiority of Marlowe +is due to this absence of weirdness, to this complete realism; the last +scene of the English play is infinitely above the end of the second +part of _Faust_ in tragic grandeur, just because Goethe made abortive +attempts, after a conscious and artificial supernatural, while Marlowe +was satisfied with perfect reality of situation. The position of +Faustus, when the years of his pact have expired, and he awaits +midnight, which will give him over to Lucifer, is as thoroughly natural +in the eyes of Marlowe as is in the eyes of Shelley the position of +Beatrice Cenci awaiting the moment of execution. The conversation +between Faustus and the scholars, after he has made his will, is +terribly life-like: they disbelieve at first, pooh-pooh his danger; +then, half-convinced, beg that a priest may be fetched; but Faustus +cannot deal with priests. He bids them, in agony, go pray in the next +room. "Aye, pray for me, pray for me, and what noise soever you hear, +come not unto me, for nothing can save me.... Gentlemen, farewell; if I +live till morning, I'll visit you; if not, Faustus is gone to hell." +Faustus remains alone for the one hour which separates him from his +doom; he clutches at the passing time, he cries to the hours to stop +with no rhetorical figure of speech, but with a terrible reality of +agony: + + Let this hour be but + A year, a month, a week, a natural day, + That Faustus may repent and save his soul. + +Time to repent, time to recoil from the horrible gulf into which he +is being sucked; Christ, will Christ's blood not save him? He would +leap up to heaven and cling fast, but Lucifer drags him down. He would +seek annihilation in nature, be sucked into its senseless, feelingless +mass ... and, meanwhile, the time is passing, the interval of respite is +shrinking and dwindling. Would that he were a soulless brute and might +perish, or that at least eternal hell were finite--a thousand, a hundred +thousand years let him suffer, but not for ever and without end! +Midnight begins striking. With convulsive agony he exclaims as the rain +patters against the window: + + O soul, be changed into small water-drops, + And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found. + +But the twelfth stroke sounds; Lucifer and his crew enter; and when next +morning the students, frightened by the horrible tempest and ghastly +noises of the night, enter his study, they find Faustus lying dead, torn +and mangled by the demon. All this is not supernatural in our sense; +such scenes as this were real for Marlowe and his audience. Such cases +were surely not unfrequent; more than one man certainly watched through +such a night in hopeless agony, conscious, like Faustus, of pact with +the fiend--awaiting, with earth and heaven shut and bolted against him, +eternal hell. + +In this story of Doctor Faustus, which, to Marlowe and his contemporaries, +was not a romance but a reality, the episode of the evoking of Helen +is extremely secondary in interest. To raise a dead woman was not more +wonderful than to turn wisps of straw into horses, and it was perhaps +considered the easier of the two miracles; the sense of the ordinary +ghostly is absent, and the sense that Helen is the ghost of a whole +long-dead civilisation, that sense which is for us the whole charm of +the tale, could not exist in the sixteenth century. Goethe's Faust +feels for Helen as Goethe himself might have felt, as Winckelmann felt +for a lost antique statue, as Schiller felt for the dead Olympus: a +passion intensely imaginative and poetic, born of deep appreciation of +antiquity, the essentially modern, passionate, nostalgic craving for +the past. In Marlowe's play, on the contrary, Faustus and the students +evoke Helen from a confused pedantic impression that an ancient lady +must be as much superior to a modern lady as an ancient poem, be it +even by Statius or Claudian, must be superior to a modern poem--it is +a humanistic fancy of the days of the revival of letters. But, by a +strange phenomenon, Marlowe, once realising what Helen means, that she +is the fairest of women, forgets the scholarly interest in her. Faustus, +once in presence of the wonderful woman, forgets that he had summoned +her up to gratify his and his friends' pedantry; he sees her, loves her, +and bursts out into the splendid tirade full of passionate fancy: + + Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, + And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? + Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! + Her lips suck forth my soul! See, where it flies! + Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. + Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips, + And all is dross that is not Helena. + I will be Paris, and for love of thee, + Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked; + And I will combat with weak Menelaus, + And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; + Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, + And then return to Helen for a kiss. + Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; + Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter + When he appeared to hapless Semele; + More lovely than the monarch of the sky + In wanton Arethusa's azure arms; + And none but thou shalt be my paramour. + +This is real passion for a real woman, a woman very different from the +splendid semi-vivified statue of Goethe, the Helen with only the cold, +bloodless, intellectual life which could be infused by enthusiastic +studies of ancient literature and art, gleaming bright like marble +or a spectre. This Helena of Marlowe is no antique; the Elizabethan +dramatist, like the painter of the fifteenth century, could not conceive +the purely antique, despite all the translating of ancient writers, and +all the drawing from ancient marbles. One of the prose versions of the +story of Faustus, contains a quaint account of Helen, which sheds much +light on Marlowe's conception: + + This lady appeared before them in a most rich gowne of purple + velvet, costly imbrodered; her haire hanged downe loose, as faire + as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached downe to her + hammes; having most amorous cole-black eyes, a sweet and pleasant + round face, with lips as red as a cherry; her cheeks of a rose + colour, her mouth small, her neck white like a swan; tall and + slender of personage; in summe, there was no imperfect place in her; + she looked around about with a rolling hawk's eye, a smiling and + wanton countenance, which neerehand inflamed the hearts of all the + students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a spirit, which + make them lightly passe away such fancies. + +This fair dame in the velvet embroidered gown, with the long, hanging +hair, this Helen of the original Faustus legend, is antique only in +name; she belongs to the race of mediæval and modern women--the Lauras, +Fiammettas, and Simonettas of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Lorenzo dei +Medici; she is the sister of that slily sentimental coquette, the Monna +Lisa of Leonardo. The strong and simple women of Homer, and even +of Euripides, majestic and matronly even in shame, would repudiate +this slender, smiling, ogling beauty; Briseis, though the captive of +Achilles' spear, would turn with scorn from her. The antique woman has +a dignity due to her very inferiority and restrictedness of position; +she has the simplicity, the completeness, the absence of everything +suggestive of degradation, like that of some stately animal, pure in +its animal nature. The modern woman, with more freedom and more ideal, +rarely approaches to this character; she is too complex to be perfect, +she is frail because she has an ideal, she is dubious because she is +free, she may fall because she may rise. Helen deserted Menelaus and +brought ruin upon Troy, therefore, in the eyes of Antiquity, she was the +victim of fate, she might be unruffled, spotless, majestic; but to the +man of the sixteenth century she was merely frail and false. The rolling +hawk's eye and the wanton smile of the old legend-monger would have +perplexed Homer, but they were necessary for Marlowe; his Helen was +essentially modern, he had probably no inkling that an antique Helen as +distinguished from a modern could exist. In the paramour of Faustus he +saw merely the most beautiful woman, some fair and wanton creature, +dressed not in chaste and majestic antique drapery, but in fantastic +garments of lawn, like those of Hero in his own poem: + + The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; + Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove + Where Venus, in her naked glory strove + To please the careless and disdainful eyes + Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; + Her kirtle blue.... + Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath + From whence her veil reached to the ground beneath; + Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves + Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives. + +Some slim and dainty goddess of Botticelli, very mortal withal, long and +sinuous, tightly clad in brocaded garments and clinging cobweb veils, +beautiful with the delicate, diaphanous beauty, rather emaciated and +hectic, of high rank, and the conscious, elaborate fascination of a +woman of fashion--a creature whom, like the Gioconda, Leonardo might +have spent years in decking and painting, ever changing the ornaments +and ever altering the portrait; to whom courtly poets like Bembo and +Castiglione might have written scores of sonnets and canzoni to her +hands, her eyes, her hair, her lips, a fanciful inventory to which she +listened languidly under the cypresses of Florentine gardens. Some such +being, even rarer and more dubious for being an exotic in the England +of Elizabeth, was Marlowe's Helen; such, and not a ghostly figure, +descended from a pedestal, white and marble-like in her unruffled +drapery, walking with solid step and unswerving, placid glance through +the study, crammed with books, and vials, and strange instruments, of +the mediæval wizard of Wittenberg. Marlowe deluded himself as well as +Faustus, and palmed off on to him a mere modern lady. To raise a real +spectre of the antique is a craving of our own century; Goethe attempted +to do it and failed, for what reasons we have seen; but we have all +of us the charm wherewith to evoke for ourselves a real Helena, on +condition that, unlike Faustus and unlike Goethe, we seek not to show +her to others, and remain satisfied if the weird and glorious figure +haunt only our own imagination. + + + + +CHAPELMASTER KREISLER. + +A STUDY OF MUSICAL ROMANTICISTS. + + +There is nothing stranger in the world than music: it exists only as +sound, is born of silence and dies away into silence, issuing from +nothing and relapsing into nothing; it is our own creation, yet it is +foreign to ourselves; we draw it from out of the silent wood and the +silent metal, it lives in our own breath, yet it seems to come to us +from a distant land which we shall never see, and to tell us of things +we shall never know. It is for ever striving to tell us something, for +ever imploring us to listen and to understand; we listen, we strain, we +try to take in its vague meaning; it is telling us sweet and mighty +secrets, letting drop precious talismanic words; we guess, but do not +understand. And shall we never understand? May we never know wherefore +the joy, wherefore the sadness? Can we not subtilise our minds, go +forth with our heart and fancy as interpreters, and distinguish in +the wreathing melodies and entangled chords some words of superhuman +emotion, even as the men of other ages distinguished in the sighing oak +woods and the rustling reeds the words of the great gods of nature? + +To us music is no longer what it was to our grandfathers, a mere +pleasing woof of meaningless pattern; we have left those times far +behind, times whose great masters were prophets uttering mere empty +sounds to their contemporaries; we have shaken off the dust of the +schools of counterpoint, we have thrown aside the mechanical teachings +of the art; for us music has become an audible, quivering fata morgana +of life, the embodiment of the intangible, the expression of the +inexplicable, the realisation of the impossible. And it has become a +riddle, a something we would fain understand but cannot, a spell of our +own devising which we cannot decipher; we sit listening to it as we sit +looking into the deep, dreamy eyes of an animal, full of some mute +language, which we vainly strive to comprehend. + +The animal seems as though it could say much if only it could speak; so +also music would seem to contain far deeper meanings than any spoken +word, to be fraught with emotion deeper than we can feel: it could +confide so much if we could understand. Yet the animal is but an animal, +with some of our virtues and some of our vices, infinitely more ignorant +than we are; dumb, not because we cannot understand, but because he +cannot speak. And may it not be the same with music? May not music be +intellectually inscrutable because it is intellectually meaningless? + +The idea is one from which we shrink; but are we right in shrinking from +it? Cannot music be noble in itself apart from any meaning it conveys? +Cannot we be satisfied with what it certainly is, without thinking of +what it may be? It would seem to be so; it is the spirit of our culture +to strain restlessly after the unknown, for ever to seek after the +hidden, to reject the visible and tangible. We yearn to penetrate +through the blue of the summer evening, to thread our way among the +sun-gilded clouds; yet the blue heaven, if we rise into it, is mere +tintless air; the clouds, if we can touch them, are mere dull vapour. +And so also we would fain seek a meaning in those fair sounds which are +fairer than any meaning they could contain; we would break down in rude +analysis the splendours of _Don Giovanni_ only to discover beneath them +the story of a punished Lovelace; we would tear to shreds a glorious +fugue of Bach for the satisfaction of hearing the Jews yelling for +Barabbas. + +This is our tendency, this our way of enjoying the great art of other +days: to care not for itself, but for what it suggests, nay, most often +for the suggestion of the mere name of the work of art, for there is no +punished Lovelace in Mozart's melodies, no Barabbas in Bach's fugues, +there is nothing but beautiful forms made out of sounds. The old prosaic +masters of the past, who worked at a picture or a statue or an opera as +a cobbler works at a pair of shoes, never thought of suggesting anything +to us: they gave something substantial, something intrinsically +valuable, a well-shaped figure, a richly tinted canvas, a boldly +modulated piece of music; to produce that and no more had been their +object, it was all they could give, and their contemporaries were +satisfied with it. Their art was their trade, pursued conscientiously, +diligently, intelligently, sometimes with that superior degree of +intelligence we call genius, but it was their trade and no more. They +themselves were as prosaic as any artisan, and no more saw vague poetry +in their works, though these were the _Olympic Jove_, the _School of +Athens_, or the _Messiah_, than does the potter in his pot or the smith +in his iron; all they saw was that their works were beautiful, as the +potter sees that his pot is round and smooth, and the smith that his +blade is bright and sharp. For the rest they were terribly prosaic, +terribly given up to the mechanical interests of their art and the +material interests of their lives, as you may see them in Vasari, in +the lives of Handel, of Bach, of Haydn, of Mozart, of the last of true, +unpoetic musicians, Rossini, and as you would doubtless see the unknown +sculptors of antiquity if you could see them at all. + +But the time came when the world, which had lived off prose most +heartily ever since the Middle Ages, grew sick of such coarse mental +food, and longed for unsubstantial poetic ambrosia; the fact is, it was +morally sick, and took its strong intellectual food in disgust, and +fancied and yearned for impossible things, as sick men do. And in its +loathing for the common, the simple, the healthy, the world took to +eating the intellectual opium of romanticism; it enjoyed and was plunged +for awhile in ineffable delights, such as only weakness can feel and +poison afford; the universe seemed to expand, the imagination to grow +colossal, the feelings to become supernaturally subtle; all limits were +removed, all impossibilities became possibilities; the fancy roamed over +endless and ever varying tracts, and soared up into the clouds of the +unintelligible, and dived into the bottomless abyss of chaos: all things +quivered with a strange new life, with a life in other lives, with an +unceasing, ever changing life; everything was not only itself but +something else: all was greater, higher, deeper, brighter, darker, +sweeter, bitterer, more ineffable than itself; it was a paradise +of Mahomet, of Buddha, of Dante; it was enjoyment keen, subtle, +intoxicating, which made the fancy swim, the senses ache, and the +soul faint. Then came the reaction, the inevitable after-effect of the +drug--depression, langour, palsy, convulsion. + +About seventy years ago a great humourist, who frittered away a quaint +and fantastic genius in etching grimacing caricatures, and scribbling +gaunt ghost stories, the once popular, now almost forgotten, Hoffmann, +looked on at this crisis in musical history, at this first intoxication +of romanticism; sympathised with its poetry, its ludicrousness, and +its sadness; embodied them all in one grotesque, pathetic figure, +and for the first and last time in his life produced a masterpiece. +The masterpiece is his poor, half-mad musician, Johannes Kreisler, +"chapelmaster and cracked _musicus_ par excellence," as he signs his +letters, the artist of incomplete genius, of broken career, of poetic +dreams and crazy fancies, who used to go about dressed in a coat the +colour of C sharp minor, with an E major coloured collar. And of all +the glimpses Hoffmann has given us of Chapelmaster Kreisler, none is so +weirdly suggestive as that in which we see him improvising on the piano +at his club of friends. The friends had met one evening expressly to +hear Kreisler's extemporary performance, and he was just on the point of +sitting down to the instrument, when one of the company recollected that +a lever had on a previous occasion refused to do its duty. He took up a +light, and began his search for the refractory lever; when suddenly, as +he leaned over the interior of the piano a heavy pair of brass snuffers +crashed down from the candlestick on to the strings, of which half a +dozen instantly snapped. The company began to exclaim at this unlucky +accident, which would deprive them of the promised performance; but +Chapelmaster Kreisler bade them be of good cheer, for they should still +hear what was in his mind, as the bass strings remained intact. + + Kreisler put on his little red skull cap and his Chinese + dressing-gown, and sat down to the piano, while a trusty friend + extinguished all the lights, so that the room remained in utter + darkness. Then, with the muffling pedal down, Kreisler struck the + full chord of A flat major, and spoke: + + "What is it that murmurs so strangely, so sweetly, around me? + Invisible wings seem to be heaving up and down. I am swimming + in perfume laden air. But the perfume shines forth in flaming, + mysteriously linked circles. Lovely spirits are moving their golden + pinions in ineffably splendid sounds and harmonies." + + _Chord of A flat minor (mezzo forte)._ "Ah, they are bearing me off + into the land of eternal desire, but even as they carry me, pain + awakes in my heart, and tries to escape, tearing my bosom with + violence." + + _Chord of E major (third), forte._ "They have given me a splendid + crown, but that which sparkles and lightens in its diamonds are the + thousand tears which I shed; and in the gold shine the flames which + are devouring me. Valour and power, strength and faith, for him who + is called on to reign in the kingdom of spirits." + + * * * * * + + _B major (accentuato)._ "What a gay life in field and woodland in + the sweet springtide! All the flutes and pipes, which have lain + frozen to death in dusty corners throughout the winter, have now + awakened and remembered their best beloved melodies, which they + trill cheerfully like the birds in the air." + + _B major with the diminished seventh (smanioso)._ "A warm west wind + comes sullenly complaining, like some mysterious secret, through + the wood, and wherever it brushes past, the fir trees murmur, the + beeches murmur to each other: 'Wherefore has our friend grown so + sad?'" + + _E flat major (forte)._ "Follow him, follow him! His dress is green + like the dark wood--sweet sounds of horns are his sighing words. + Hearest him murmuring behind the bushes? Hearest thou the sound? + The sound of horns, full of delight and sadness? 'Tis he! up and + meet him." + + _D third, fourth, sixth, chord (piano)._ "Life plays its mocking + game in all manner of fashions. Wherefore desire? Wherefore hope? + Wherefore demand?" + + _C major (third) chord (fortissimo)._ "Let us rather dance over the + open graves in wild rejoicing. Let us shout for joy, those beneath + cannot hear it. Hurrah, hurrah! Dance and jollity; the devil is + riding in with drums and trumpets." + + _C minor chords (ff. in rapid succession)._ "Knowest thou him not? + Knowest thou him not? See, he stretches forth his burning claw to my + heart! He masks himself in all sorts of absurd grimaces--as a free + huntsman, as a concert director, tapeworm doctor, _ricco mercante_; + he pitches snuffers into the strings to prevent my playing! Kreisler, + Kreisler, shake thyself up? Seest thou it hiding, the pale ghost + with the red burning eyes, stretching out its clawy, bony hand + from beneath its torn mantle--shaking the crown of straw on its + smooth bald skull? It is Madness! Johannes, be brave! Mad, mad, + witch-revelry of life, wherefore shakest thou me so in thy whirling + dance? Can I not escape? Is there no grain of dust in the universe on + which, diminished to a fly, I can save myself from thee, horrible + torturing phantom? Desist, Desist! I will behave. My manners shall be + the very best. _Hony soit qui mal y pense._ Only let me believe the + devil to be a _galantuomo_! I curse song and music; I lick thy feet + like the drunken Caliban; free me only from my torments! Aï! Aï! + abominable one! Thou hast trodden down all my flowers: not a blade of + grass still greens in the terrible desert-- + + Dead! Dead! Dead!..." + +When Chapelmaster Kreisler ended, all were silent; poetry, passionate, +weird, and grotesque, had poured from their friend's lips; a strange +nightmare pageant had swept by them, beautiful and ghastly, like a mad +Brocken medley of the triumph of Dionysos and the dance of Death. + +They were all silent--all save one, and that one said: "This is all very +fine, but I was told we were to have music; a good, sensible sonata of +Haydn's--would have been much more the thing than all this." He was a +Philistine, no doubt, but he was right; a good, sensible sonata of +Haydn's--nay, the stiffest, driest, most wooden fugue ever written by +the most crabbed professor of counterpoint would have been far more +satisfactory for people who expected music. A most fantastic rhapsody +they had indeed heard, but it had been a spoken one, and the best +strings of the piano had remained hanging snapped and silent during the +performance. + +Poor Chapelmaster Kreisler! He has long been forgotten by the world in +general, and even those few that still are acquainted with his weird +portrait, smile at it as at a relic of a far distant time, when life and +art and all other things looked strangely different from how they look +now. Yet the crazy musician of Hoffmann is but the elder brother of all +our modern composers. With the great masters of the last century, Haydn, +Mozart, Cimarosa, who were scarcely in their graves when he improvised +his great word fantasia, he has no longer any connection with our own +musicians, born half a century after his end, he is closely linked, for, +like him, they are romanticists. They do not indeed wear C sharp minor +coloured coats, nor do they improvise in the dark on pianos with broken +strings; they are perfectly sane and conscious of all their doings; yet, +all the same, they are but Kreisler's younger brothers. Like the poor +chapelmaster of Hoffmann, music itself has a fantastic madness in it; +like him, it has been crazed by disappointment, by jealousy, by impotent +rage at finding that it cannot now do what it once did, and cannot yet +do what will never be done; like Kreisler it deals no longer with mere +sequences of melody and harmony, but with thoughts, feelings, and +images, hopes and fears and despair, with wild chaotic visions of +splendour and of ghastliness. But the position of our music differs from +that of Kreisler in this much, that no friendly pair of snuffers crashes +on to the strings and makes them fly asunder; that, while Kreisler +spoke, our music can only play its fancies and whimsies; and that, +instead of hearing intelligible spoken words, we hear only musical +sounds which are gibberish and chaos. + +For the time when men sought in music only for music's own loveliness +is gone by; and the time has come when all the arts trespass on each +other's ground, and, worst of all, when the arts which can give and show +envy poetry, the art which can neither give nor show but only suggest, +and when, for the sake of such suggestion, they would cheat us of all +the real gifts--gifts of noble forms of line and colour, and sweet woofs +of melody and harmony which they once gave us. The composer now wishes +to make you see and feel all that he sees and feels in his imagination, +the woods and seas, the joys and sorrows, all the confused day-dreams, +sweet and drowsy, all the nightmare orgies which may pass through his +brain; the sound has become the mere vehicle for this, the weak, vague +language which he can only stammer and we can only divine; the artist +breaks violently against the restraint of form, thinking to attain the +unattainable beyond its limits, and sinks down baffled and impotent +amidst ruin. + +We are apt to think of music as of a sort of speech until, on +examination, we find it has no defined meaning either for the speaker or +for the listener. In reality, music and speech are as different and as +separate as architecture and painting, as wholly opposed to each other +as only those two things can be which, having started from the same +point, have travelled in completely opposite directions, like the two +great rivers which, originating on the same alp, flow respectively to +the north, and to the south, each acquiring a separate character on its +way--the one as the blue river of Germany, ending amidst the tide-torn +sandbanks of the North Sea; the other as the green river of Provence, +dying amidst the stagnant pools and fever-haunted marshes of the +Mediterranean. As long as the Rhine and the Rhone are not yet Rhine and +Rhone, but merely pools of snow-water among the glaciers, so long are +they indistinguishable; but as soon as separated into distinct streams, +their dissimilarity grows with every mile of their diverging course. +So as to speech and music: as long as both exist only in embryo in the +confused cries and rude imitations of the child or of the primitive +people, they cannot be distinguished; but as soon as they can be called +either speech or music, they become unlike and increase in dissimilarity +in proportion as they develop. The cry and the imitative sound become, +on the one hand, a word which, however rude, begins to have an arbitrary +meaning, and, on the other hand, a song which, however uncouth, has no +positive meaning; the word, as it develops, acquires a more precise and +abstract signification, becomes more and more of a symbol; the song, as +it develops, loses definite meaning, becomes more and more a complete +unsymbolical form, until at length the word, having become a thing for +use, a mere means of communication, ceases to require vocal utterance, +and turns into a written sign; while the song, having become an object +of mere pleasure, requires more and more musical development, and is +transported from the lips of man to the strings of an instrument. But +while speech and music are thus diverging, while the one is becoming +more and more of an arbitrary symbol conveying an abstract idea, and the +other is growing more and more into an artistic form conveying no idea, +but pleasing the mind merely by its concrete form--while this divergence +is taking place, a corresponding movement accompanies it which removes +both speech and music farther and farther from their common origin: the +cry of passion and the imitative sound. The Rhone and the Rhine are +becoming not only less like each other, but as the one becomes green and +the other blue, so also are both losing all trace of the original dull +white of the snow water. In the word, the cry and the imitation are +being effaced by arbitrary, symbolical use, by that phonetic change +which shows how little a word as it exists for us retains of its +original character; in the song they are being subdued by constant +attempts at obtaining a more distinct and symmetrical shape, by the +development of the single sounds and their arrangement with a view to +pleasing the ear and mind. Yet both retain the power of resuming to a +limited extent their original nature; but in proportion as the word or +the song resumes the characteristics of the cry or of the imitation does +each lose its own slowly elaborated value, the word as a suggester of +thought, the song as a presenter of form. Now, in so far as the word is +a word, or the song a song, its effect on the emotions is comparatively +small: the word can awaken emotion only as a symbol, that is, indirectly +and merely suggestively; the song can awaken emotion only inasmuch as +it yet partakes of the nature of the brute cry or rude imitation. Thus, +while language owes its emotional effects to the ideas arbitrarily +connected with it, music owes its power over the heart to its sensuous +elements as given by nature. But music exists as an art, that is to say, +as an elaboration of the human mind, only inasmuch as those sensuous +brute elements are held in check and measure, are made the slaves of an +intellectual conception. The very first step in the formation of the art +is the subjection of the emotional cry or the spontaneous imitation to +a process of acoustic mensuration, by which the irregular sound becomes +the regular, definite _note_; the second step is the subjection of this +already artificial sound to mensuration of time, by which it is made +rhythmical; the third step is the subjection of this rhythmical sound to +a comparative mensuration with other sounds, by which we obtain harmony; +the last step is adjustment of this artificially obtained note and +rhythm and harmony into that symmetrical and intellectually appreciable +form which constitutes the work of art, for art begins only where the +physical elements are subjected to an intellectual process, and it +exists completely only where they abdicate their independence and become +subservient to an intellectual design. + +Music is made up of two elements: the intellectual and the sensuous on +the one hand, of that which is conceived by the mind and perceived by +the mind (for our ears perceive only the separate constituent sounds of +a tune, but not the tune itself); on the other hand, of that which is +produced by the merely physical and appreciated by the merely physical, +by the nerves of hearing, through which it may, but only indirectly, +affect the mind. Now if, from an artistic point of view, we must protest +against any degradation of the merely sensuous part, it is because such +a degradation would involve a corresponding one in the intellectual +part, because the physical basis must be intact and solid before we can +build on it an intellectual structure, because the physical element +through which mentality is perceived must be perfect in order that the +mental manifestation be equally so; but the physical must always remain +a mere basis, a mere vehicle for the mental. The enjoyment obtainable +from the purely physical part may indeed be very great and very +valuable, but it is a mere physical enjoyment; and the pleasure we +derive from a fine voice, as distinguished from a fine piece or a fine +interpretation, is as wholly unartistic as that which we receive from a +ripe peach or a cool breeze: it is a purely sensuous pleasure, given us +ready-made by nature, to give or to perceive which requires no +mentality, in which there is no human intention, and consequently no +art. Now, the effect of the cry or of the imitation, and that of certain +other manifestations of sound, such as tone, pitch, volume, rhythm, +major or minor intervals, which are cognate with, but independent of, +the cry or the imitation--the effect of all this is an entirely sensuous +one, an effect of unintelligent matter on the nerves, not of calculating +intelligence on the mind, and it is to these physical effects, and not +to the mentally elaborated form, that music owes its peculiar power of +awaking or even of suggesting emotion. + +That this is the case is shown by various circumstances. The ancients, +who, as is now proved beyond dispute, possessed very little of the +intellectual part of music, little of what we should deem its form, +enjoyed its emotional effects to a far higher degree than could we in +our present musical condition; the stories of Timotheus, Terpander, and +other similar ones, being at least founded on fact, as is evident from +the continual allusions of Greek writers to the moral or immoral effect +of the art, and their violent denunciations of people whose only social +crime was to have added a string to a lyre or a hole to a flute. We +ourselves have constant opportunities of remarking the intense emotional +effects due to mere pitch, tone, and rhythm; that is to say, to the +merely physical qualities of number, nature, and repetition of musical +vibrations. We have all been cheered by the trumpet and depressed by the +hautboy; we have felt a wistful melancholy steal over us while listening +to the drone of the bagpipe and the quaver of the flute of the pifferari +at the shrine; we have felt our heart beat and our breath halt on +catching the first notes of an organ as we lifted the entrance curtain +of some great cathedral; we have known nothing more utterly harrowing +than a hurdy-gurdy playing a cheerful tune, or a common accordion +singing out a waltz or a polka. Nay, it is worthy of remark that the +instruments capable of the greatest artistic development are just those +which possess least this power over the nerves: the whole violin and +harpsichord tribe, the human voice when sound and natural--saying least +themselves, are capable of saying most for others; whereas the trumpet, +the accordion, the harp, the zither, are condemned by their very +expressiveness to a hopeless inferiority; they produce an effect +spontaneously by their mere tone; the artist can produce on them but +that effect, and can scarcely heighten even it. A musical critic of the +beginning of this century, Giuseppe Carpani, wishing to defend Rossini +from the accusation of being unemotional, boldly laid down the principle +that it never is the composer who makes people cry, but the author of +the words and the singer. As to the composer, he can only please, but +not move. + + Never (he says) were people more moved than by a certain scene in + Metastasio's _Araserse_, set by Mortellari, and sung by the famous + Pacchierotti (about 1780); and do you think perhaps that it was + Mortellari, who made them cry? Mortellari, the stupidest mediocrity, + _Dio l'abbia in gloria!_ No, it was Metastasio and Pacchierotti, the + verse and the voice. + +This was a mere absurd exaggeration, and a mere captious plea for +Rossini, who, had he only had Metastasio to write the words and +Pacchierotti to sing, would doubtless have moved the whole universe to +tears, with "Di tanti palpiti." Yet in this exaggeration, an important +truth has been struck out. This truth is that the writer of the +libretto, having at his disposal the clear, idea-suggesting word, can +bring up a pathetic situation before the mind; that the singer, having +at his command the physical apparatus for producing an effect on the +nerves, can sensuously awaken emotion; while the composer, possessing +neither the arbitrary idea-suggesting word, nor the nerve-moving sound, +but only the artistic form, can please to the utmost, but move only to a +limited degree. + +Thus, there is a once popular but now deservedly forgotten air in +the _Romeo e Giulietta_ of Zingarelli, which some seventy years ago +possessed the most miraculous power over what people called the heart, +and especially over the not too sensitive one of Napoleon, who, whenever +it was sung by his favourite Crescentini, invariably burst into tears. +The extraordinary part of the matter is that this air happens to be +peculiarly insipid, without any very definite expression, but, on the +whole, of a sort of feeble cheerfulness, and certainly is the last piece +that we should judge capable of such deeply emotional effects. But the +situation of Romeo is an intensely pathetic one, and it is probable +that the singer's voice may have possessed some strange power over the +nerves, something of the purely sensuous pathos of an accordion or a +zither, especially in the long, gradually diminished notes, "fine by +degrees and beautifully less," which move like an Æolian harp. But, if +the pathetic effect of "Ombra adorata" could not be ascribed to the +composition neither could it be ascribed to the interpretation. For +this sensuous pathos, though enhanced by the singer's intellectual +qualities, in no way depends upon them; the intellect can make him +graduate and improve the form of a piece, all that which is perceived by +the mind, but it has no influence on the nerves; Crescentini's musical +intelligence may have enabled him to make "Ombra adorata" a beautiful +song, but only his physical powers of voice could have enabled him to +make it a pathetic one. + +As these physical elements are the material out of which artistic forms +are moulded by the musician, he necessarily deals with and disposes of +those powers over the nerves which are inherent in them. When he creates +a musical form out of minor intervals, he necessarily gives that form +something of the melancholy effect of such intervals; when he composes +a piece with the peculiar rhythm of a march, he necessarily gives his +piece some of the inspiriting power of that rhythm; when he employs +a hautboy or a trumpet, he necessarily lends his work some of the +depressing quality of the hautboy or some of the cheering quality of +the trumpet. Thus the intellectually conceived and perceived forms are +invested with the power over the nerves peculiar to certain of the +physical elements of music; but it is in those component physical +elements, and not in the forms into which they are disposed, that lies +the emotional force of the art. Nor is this all: the physical elements, +inasmuch as they are subdued and regulated and neutralized by one +another in the intellectual form, are inevitably deprived of the full +vigour of their emotional power; the artistic form has tamed and curbed +them, has forbidden their freely influencing the nerves, while at the +same time it--the form--has exerted its full sway over the mind. The +mountains have been hewn into terraces, the forests have been clipped +into gardens, the waves have been constrained into fountains, the +thunder has been tuned down into musical notes; nature has submitted to +man, and has abdicated her power into his hands. The stormy reign of +instinctive feeling has come to an end; the serene reign of art has +begun. + +In order to see these sensuous elements of music in their unmixed +purity, in their unbridled strength, we must descend to the lowest +stages of the art, compared with whose emotional effects those of modern +music are as nothing, and least of all in the classic periods of the +art; but even in modern music, what really strong emotional effects +there may be are due to a momentary suspension of artistic activity, to +a momentary return to the formless, physically touching music of early +ages. The most emotional thing ever written by Mozart is the exclamation +of Donna Elvira, when, after leaving Don Giovanni at his ill-omened +supper, she is met on the staircase by the statue of the commander; this +exclamation is but one high, detached note, formless, meaningless, which +pierces the nerves like a blade; submit even this one note to artistic +action, bid the singer gradually swell and diminish it, and you at once +rob it of its terrible power. This is Mozart's most emotional stroke; +but was a Mozart, nay, was any musician, necessary for its conception? +Would not that cry have been the same if surrounded by true music? A +contrary example, but to the same effect, is afforded by Gluck in his +great scene of Orpheus at the gate of Hades, which may have moved our +great-grandfathers, accustomed to fugues and minuets and _rigaudons_, +but which seems coldly beautiful as some white antique group to us, +accustomed as we are to romantic art. The _No!_ of the Furies loses +all its effects by being worked into a definite musical form, by being +locked into the phrase begun by Orpheus; it is merely a constituent note +and no more, until after some time it is repeated detached, and without +any reference to the main melody sung by Orpheus: at first it is part of +a work of art, later it becomes a mere brute shout, and then, and then +only, does it obtain a really moving character. + +When these potent physical elements are held in subjection by artistic +form, emotion may be suggested, more or less vaguely, but only +suggested: we perceive them in the fabric which imprisons them, and we +perceive their power, but it is as we should perceive the power of a +tiger chained up behind a grating: we remember and imagine what it has +been and might be, but we no longer feel it; for us to again feel it, +the artistic form must be torn down; the physical elements unchained, +and then, and then only, shall we tremble once more before them. Mozart +may be on his door-step as a regiment passes: he may feel the inspiring, +courage-awakening effect of its rough rhythm and discordant, screeching +trumpets: he may go upstairs, sit down to his piano, make use of all +those sensuous elements, of the rhythm and of the wind instruments, +which have stirred him in that regimental music: he may use them in a +piece professedly suggested by that music; the piece will be "Non più +andrai," and a masterpiece. We shall be reminded of military music by +it, and we shall be aware of the fact that its rhythm and accompaniment +are martial; we shall even call it a martial piece; but will it stir us, +will it make us step out and feel soldier-like as would the coarsest +regimental trumpets? Jommelli may enter a cathedral as the bells are +tolling to mass, and all seems undulating and heaving beneath their +swing; he may feel the awful effect of those simple, shapeless sounds: +he may listen to their suggestion and frame the opening of his Mass for +the Dead on that deep monotonous sway; he will produce a masterpiece, +the wondrous _Introitus_ of his Requiem, in which we shall indeed +recognize something of the solemn rhythm of the bells, something that +will awaken in us the recollection of that moment when the cathedral +towers seemed to rock to their movement, and the aisles re-echoed their +roar, and when even miles away in the open country the clear deep toll +floated across the silent fields; but that effect itself we shall never +hear in the music. The artist has used the already existing emotional +elements for his own purposes, but those purposes are artistic ones; +they aim at delighting the mind, not at tickling the nerves. + +The composer, therefore, inasmuch as he deprives the emotional elements +of music of their freedom and force of action, cannot possibly produce +an effect on the emotions at all to be compared with that spontaneously +afforded by nature; he can imitate the rush of waters or the sob of +despair only so distantly and feebly that the effect of either is +well-nigh lost, and even for such an imitation he must endanger the +artistic value of his work, which is safe only when it is the artist's +sole aim and object. The most that the composer can legitimately do is +to suggest a given emotion by employing in his intellectual structure +such among the physical elements of his art as would in a state of +complete freedom awaken that given emotion; he may choose such sensuous +elements as would inspire melancholy, or joy, or serenity; he may reject +any contrary element or any incongruous effect, and he may thus produce +what we shall call a pathetic piece, or a cheerful piece, or a solemn +piece. + +But this pathetic, cheerful, or solemn character depends not upon the +intellectual forms imagined by the composer, but upon the sensuous +elements afforded by nature; and the artistic activity of the composer +consists in the conception of those forms, not in the selection of those +physical elements. When, therefore, a composer is said to express the +words which he is setting, he does so by means not of the creation +of artistic forms, but by the selection of sensuous materials; the +suggestion of an emotion analogous to that conveyed by the words is due +not to the piece itself, but to its physical constituents; wherefore the +artistic value of the composition in no way depends upon its adaptation +to the words with which it is linked. There is no more common mistake, +nor one which more degrades artistic criticism, than the supposition +that the merit of "He was despised and rejected of men," or of "Fin +ch'an del vino," depends upon their respective suitableness to the +words: the most inferior musician would perceive that such and such +physical elements were required to suggest a mental condition in harmony +with either of these verbal expressions of feeling; the most inferior +musician could have given us a piece as melancholy as "He was despised," +or as cheerful as "Fin ch'an del vino," but--and here lies the unique +test of artistic worth--only Handel could have given us so beautiful a +melancholy piece as the one, and only Mozart so beautiful a cheerful +piece as the other. As it is with the praise, so likewise is it with the +blame: a composer who sets a cheerful piece to dismal words, or a dismal +piece to cheerful words, may be reprehensible for not reflecting that +the mind thus receives together two contrary impressions, and he may be +condemned for want of logic and good sense; but not a word can be said +against his artistic merit, any more than we could say a word against +the artistic merit of the great iron-worker of the Renaissance, who +closed the holy place where lies the Virgin's sacred girdle with a +screen of passion flowers, in whose petals hide goats and ducks, on +whose tendrils are balanced pecking cranes, and in the curling leaves of +which little naked winged Cupids are drawing their bows and sharpening +their arrows even as in the bas-reliefs of a pagan sarcophagus. In the +free and spontaneous activity of musical conception, the composer may +forget the words he is setting, as the painter may forget the subject +he is painting in the fervour of plastic imagination; for the musician +conceives not emotions, but modulations; and the painter conceives not +actions, but gestures and attitudes. Thence it comes that Mozart has +made regicide Romans storm and weep as he would have made Zerlina and +Cherubino laugh, just as Titian made Magdalen smite her breast in +the wilderness with the smile of Flora on her feast-day; hence that +confusion in all save form, that indifference to all save beauty, which +characterises all the great epochs of art, that sublime jumble of times +and peoples, of tragic and comic, that motley crowding together of +satyrs and anchorites, of Saracens and ancient Romans, of antique +warriors and mediæval burghers, of Gothic tracery and Grecian arabesque, +of Theseus and Titania, of Puck and Bottom, that great masquerade of art +which we, poor critics, would fain reduce to law and rule, to +chronological and ethnological propriety. + +Those times are gone by: we wish to make every form correspond with an +idea; we wish to be told a story by the statue, by the picture, most of +all by that which can least tell it--by music. We forget that music is +neither a symbol which can convey an abstract thought, nor a brute cry +which can express an instinctive feeling; we wish to barter the power +of leaving in the mind an indelible image of beauty for the miserable +privilege of awakening the momentary recollection of one of nature's +sounds, or the yet more miserable one of sending a momentary tremor +through the body; we would rather compare than enjoy, and rather weep +than admire. Therefore we try to force music to talk a language which +it does not speak and which we do not understand; and succeed only in +making it babble like a child or rave like a madman, obtaining nothing +but unintelligible and incoherent forms in our anxiety to obtain +intelligible and logical thoughts. We forget that great fact, forever +overlooked by romanticism, that poetry and music are essentially +distinct in their nature; that Chapelmaster Kreisler's improvisation was +not played but spoken; and that had not the snuffers fallen into the +piano, had not the strings snapped asunder, Hoffmann would have had to +record, not a grandly grotesque series of images, but a succession of +formless and meaningless chords. + + + + +CHERUBINO. + +A PSYCHOLOGICAL ART FANCY. + + +It is a strange and beautiful fact that whatsoever is touched by genius, +no matter how humble in itself, becomes precious and immortal. This +wrinkled old woman is merely one of thousands like herself, who have sat +and will sit by the great porcelain stove of the Dutch backshop, their +knitting or their bible on their knees. There is nothing to make her +recollected; yet we know her after two centuries, even as if we had +seen her alive, because, with a few blurred lines and shadows hastily +scratched on his etching plate, it pleased the whim of Master Rembrandt +to pourtray her. And this little commonplace Frankfurt shopkeeper's +maiden, in her stiff little cap and starched frill, who should remember +her? Yet she is familiar to us all, because she struck the boyish fancy +of Goethe. For even as the fact of its once having sparkled on the +waistcoat of Mozart makes us treasure up a tarnished brass button; +and as the notion of their having been planted by the hand of Michael +Angelo made us mourn the cutting down of a clump of sear and rusty +old cypresses, so also the fact of having been noticed, noted down by +genius, with brush, or pen, or chisel, makes into relics men and things +which would else have been forgotten; because the stroke of that pen, +or brush, or chisel removes them from the perishable world of reality +to the deathless world of fancy. Nay, even the beautiful things, the +perfect, physically or morally, of the world, those which called forth +admiration and love as long as they existed: Antinous and Monna Lisa, +Beatrice and Laura, would now be but a handful of nameless dust, were +it not for the artists and poets who have made them live again and +for ever: the deeds and sufferings of the Siegfrieds and Cids, of the +Desdemonas and Francescas, would have died away had they not been +filched out of the world of reality into the world of fiction. And +even as the perishable, the humble, the insignificant reality becomes +enduring and valuable by the touch of genius; so also in the very world +of fiction itself the intellectual creations of one man may be raised to +infinitely higher regions by the hand of another, may be transported +into the kingdom of another and nobler art, and there be seen more +universally and surrounded by a newly acquired radiance. In this manner +the tale of Romeo and Juliet, graciously and tenderly narrated by the +old Italian story-teller, was transfigured by Shakespeare and enshrined +in all the splendours of Elizabethan poetry; the figure of Psyche, +delicately graceful in the little romance of Apuleius, reappeared, +enlarged and glorified by the hand of Raphael, on the walls of the +Farnesina; and thus also our Cherubino, the fanciful and brilliant +creature of Beaumarchais, is known to most of us far less in his +original shape than in the vague form woven out of subtle melodies +to which Mozart has given the page's name. Mozart has, as it were, +taken away Cherubino from Beaumarchais; he has, for the world at +large, substituted for the page of the comedy the page of the opera. +Beaumarchais could give us clear-spoken words, dialogue and action, a +visible and tangible creature; and Mozart could give only a certain +arrangement of notes, a certain amount of rhythm and harmony, a vague, +speechless, shapeless thing; yet much more than the written words do +those notes represent to our fancy the strange and fascinating little +figure, the wayward, the amorous, the prankish, the incarnation of +childishness, of gallantry, of grace, of fun, and of mischief, the +archetype of pages--the page Cherubino. What could music do for +Cherubino? of what means could it dispose to reproduce this type, this +figure? and how did, how should music have disposed of those means? +About this fantastic and brilliant little jackanapes of a page centres a +curious question of artistic anomaly, of artistic power, and of artistic +duty. + +The part of Cherubino: the waywardness, the love, the levity, the +audacity, the timidity, the maturity and immaturity of the page's +feelings, are all concentrated by the admirable ingenuity of the +Venetian D'Aponte, who arranged Beaumarchais's play for Mozart's music, +into one air, the air sung by Cherubino in that very equivocal interview +with the Countess and Susanna, so rudely to be broken by the thundering +rap of the Count at the door. The air is "Voi che sapete"--Cherubino's +description, half to the noble and sentimental lady, half to the +flippant and laughing waiting-maid, of the curious symptoms, the +mysterious hankerings, and attractions which the boy has of late begun +to experience--symptoms of which he is half ashamed, as calculated to +bring down laughter and boxes on the ear, and half proud, mischievously +conscious that they make him a personage for all this womankind. Every +one has heard "Voi che sapete" sung a hundred times by dozens of singers +in dozens of fashions, till it has become in the recollection a sort of +typical jumble of all these various readings; but we once chanced to +hear a reading of "Voi che sapete" which has remained strangely distinct +and separate in our remembrance; which made that performance of the +hackneyed piece remain isolated in our mind, almost as if the air +had never before or never since been heard by us. The scene of the +performance has remained in our memory as a whole, because the look, +the attitude, the face of the performer seemed to form a whole, a unity +of expression and character, with the inflexions of the voice and the +accentuation of the words. She was standing by the piano: a Spanish +Creole, but, instead of the precocious, overblown magnificence of +tropical natures, with a something almost childlike despite seriousness, +something inflexible, unexpanded, unripe about her; quite small, +slender, infinitely slight and delicate; standing perfectly straight +and motionless in her long, tight dress of ashy rose colour; her little +dark head with its tight coils of ebony hair perfectly erect; her great +dark violet-circled eyes, with their perfect ellipse of curved eyebrow +meeting curved eyelash, black and clear against the pale, ivory-tinted +cheek, looking straight before her; self-unconscious, concentrated, +earnest, dignified, with only a faint fluttering smile, to herself, not +to the audience, about the mouth. She sang the page's song in a strange +voice, sweet and crisp, like a Cremonese violin, with a bloom of youth, +scarcely mature yet perfect, like the honey dust of the vine-flower; +sang the piece with an unruffled serenity, with passion, no limpness or +languor, but passion restrained, or rather undeveloped; with at most a +scarcely perceptible hesitation and reticence of accent, as of budding +youthful emotion; her voice seeming in some unaccountable manner to move +in a higher, subtler stratum of atmosphere, as it dextrously marked, +rounded off, kissed away each delicate little phrase. When she had done, +she gave a slight bow with her proud little head, half modestly and half +contemptuously, as, with her rapid, quiet movement, she resumed her +seat; she probably felt that despite the applause, her performance +did not really please. No one criticised, for there was something +that forbade criticism in this solemn little creature; and every one +applauded, for every one felt that her singing had been admirable. But +there was no warmth of admiration, no complete satisfaction: she had +sung with wonderful delicacy and taste and feeling; her performance had +been exquisitely finished, perfect; but something familiar, something +essential had been missing. She had left out Cherubino: she had +completely forgotten and passed over the page. + +How was it? How could it be that the something which we felt was the +nature of the page, the something which even the coarsest, poorest +performers had brought out in this piece, had completely disappeared in +this wonderfully perfect rendering by this subtle little singer? Perhaps +the rendering had been only materially perfect: perhaps it was merely +the exquisite tone of the voice, the wonderful neatness of execution +which had given it an appearance of completeness; perhaps the real +meaning of the music had escaped her; perhaps there was behind all this +perfection of execution only a stolid dulness of nature, to which the +genius of Mozart was not perceptible. None of all these possibilities +and probabilities: the chief characteristic of the performance was +exactly the sense of perfect musical intuition, of subtle appreciation +of every little intonation, the sense that this docile and exquisite +physical instrument was being played upon by a keen and unflinching +artistic intelligence. The more you thought over it, the more you +compared this performance with any other performance of the piece, the +more also did you feel convinced that this was the right, the only right +reading of the piece; that this strange, serious little dark creature +had given you the whole, the perfection of Mozart's conception; no, +there could be no doubt of it, this and this alone was Mozart's idea of +"Voi che sapete." Mozart's idea? the whole of Mozart's conception? +here, in this delicate, dignified, idyllic performance? The whole? Why +then, where, if this was the whole of Mozart's conception, where was +Cherubino, where was the page? Why, nowhere. Now that the song had been +presented to us in its untampered perfection, that the thought of +the composer was clear to us--now that we could begin to analyse the +difference between this performance and the performances of other +singers--we began to see, vaguely at first and not without doubts of our +powers of sight, but to see, and more and more distinctly the longer +we looked, that Cherubino was not in Mozart's work, but merely in +Beaumarchais. A very singular conclusion to arrive at, but one not to +be shirked: Cherubino had passed into the words of Mozart's Italian +libretto, he had passed into the dress, the face, the feature, the +action of the thousands of performers who had sung the "Marriage of +Figaro" on the stage; but he had not passed into Mozart's notes; and +because he had not entered into those notes, that subtle and serious +little Spaniard, who had seen and understood so well the meaning and +beauty of Mozart's music, had known nothing of Cherubino. + +Now, after all this discussion respecting his presence and his absence, +let us stay awhile and examine into the being of this Cherubino, so +familiar and so immediately missed by us; let us look at the page, whom +the clever playwright D'Aponte transported, with extraordinary success, +out of the French comedy into the Italian opera text. Very familiar to +all of us, yet, like the things most familiar, rather vaguely; seen +often and in various lights, fluctuating consequently in our memory, as +distinguished from the distinct and steadfast image of things seen only +once and printed off at a stroke on to our mind. At the first glance, +when we see him sitting at the feet of the Countess, singing her his +love songs, he seems a delicate poetic exotic, whose presence takes us +quite aback in the midst of the rouged and pigtailed philosophy, the +stucco and tinsel sentimentality of the French eighteenth century. In +these rooms, all decorated by Boucher and Fragonard, in this society +redolent with the theories of Diderot and the jests of Voltaire, this +page, this boy who is almost a girl, with his ribbons and his ballads, +his blushes, his guitar, and his rapier, appears like a thing of +long past days, or of far distant countries; a belated brother of +Shakspeare's Cesario and Fletcher's Bellario, a straggler from the +Spain of Lope de Vega, who has followed M. Caron de Beaumarchais, +ex-watchmaker and ex-musicmaster to Mesdames the daughters of Louis +XV., from Madrid, and leaped suddenly on to the planks of the Comédie +Française ... a ghost of some mediæval boy page, some little Jehan de +Saintré killed crusading with his lady's name on his lips. Or is not +Cherubino rather a solitary forerunner of romanticism, stumbled untimely +into this France of Marie Antoinette; some elder brother of Goethe's +Mignon ... nay, perhaps Mignon herself, disguised as or metamorphosed +into a boy.... But let us look well at him: let him finish his song and +raise his audacious eyes; let him rise and be pulled to and fro, bashful +with false bashfulness half covering his mischievous, monkish impudence, +while Susanna is mumming him up in petticoats and kerchiefs; let us look +at him again now, and we shall see that he is no Jehan de Saintré, no +male Mignon, no Viola in boy's clothes, no sweetly pure little romantic +figure, but an impertinent, precocious little Lovelace, a serio-comic +little jackanapes, sighing and weeping only to giggle and pirouette +on his heels the next moment. From the Countess he will run to the +gardener's daughter, from her to the waiting-maid, to the duenna, to all +womankind; he is a professed lady-killer and woman-teaser of thirteen. +There is indeed something graceful and romantic in the idea of this +pretty child consoling, with his poetical, absurd love, the poor, +neglected, ill-used lady. But then he has been smuggled in by that +dubious Abigail, Susanna; the sentimental, melancholy Countess is amused +by dressing him up in women's clothes; and when, in the midst of the +masquerade, the voice of the Count is heard without, the page is huddled +away into a closet, his presence is violently denied, and the Countess +admits her adored though fickle lord with a curious, conscious, +half-guilty embarrassment. We feel vaguely that Shakspeare would never +have introduced his boy Ganymede or his page Cesario into that +dressing-room of the Countess Almaviva; that the archly jesting Maria +would never have dreamed of amusing the Lady Olivia with such mummings; +we miss in this proudly sentimental lady, in this sly waiting-woman, in +this calf-loving dressed-up boy the frank and boisterous merriment of +Portia and Nerissa in their escapades and mystifications; there is in +all this too much locking of doors and drawing of curtains, too much +whispered giggling, too little audible laughter; there hangs an +indefinable sense of impropriety about the whole scene. No, no, this is +no delicate and gracious young creature of the stock of Elizabethan +pages, no sweet exotic in the France of 1780; this Cherubino is merely a +graceful, coquettish little Greuze figure, with an equivocal simplicity, +an ogling _naïveté_, a smirking bashfulness, a hidden audacity of +corruption; a creature of Sterne or Marivaux, tricked out in imitation +Mediæval garb, with the stolen conscious wink of the eye, the would-be +childlike smile, tinged with leer, of eighteenth century gallantry. He +is an impertinent, effeminate, fondled, cynical little jackanapes; the +youngest, childish, monkeyish example, at present merely comic and +contemptible, of the miserable type of young lovers given to France by +the eighteenth century; the _enfant du siècle_, externally a splendid, +brilliant, triumphant success, internally a miserable, broken, unmanned +failure; the child initiated into life by cynicism, the youth educated +to love by adultery; corrupt unripeness; the most miserable type of +demoralisation ever brought into literature, the type of Fortunio +and Perdican, and of their author Alfred de Musset; a type which +the Elizabethans, with their Claudios and Giovannis, could not have +conceived; which the Spaniards, with their Don Juans and Ludovic Enios, +would have despised, they who had brought on to the stage profligacy +which bearded death and hell, turning with contempt from profligacy +which could be chastised only with the birch. Cherubino is this: his +love is no poetic and silly passion for a woman much older than +himself, before whom he sinks on his knees as before a goddess; it +is the instinct of the lady-killer, the instinct of adventures, the +consciousness in this boy of thirteen that all womankind is his destined +prey, his game, his quarry. And womankind instinctively understands and +makes the Lovelace of thirteen its darling, its toy, its kitten, its pet +monkey, all whose grimacings and coaxings and impertinences may be +endured, enjoyed, encouraged. He is the graceful, brilliant, apish Ariel +or Puck of the society whose Mirandas and Titanias are Julie and Manon +Lescaut; he is the page of the French eighteenth century. + +Such is, when we analyse him, the page Cherubino; looking at him +carelessly, with the carelessness of familiarity, these various +peculiarities escape our notice; they merge into each other and into the +whole figure. But although we do not perceive them consciously and in +detail, we take in, vaguely and unconsciously, their total effect: we do +not analyse Cherubino and classify his qualities, we merely take him in +as a general type. And it is this confused and familiar entity which we +call the page, and which we expect to have brought home to us as soon as +we hear the first notes, as we see the title of "Voi che sapete." It is +this entity, this character thus vaguely conceived, which forms for us +an essential part of Mozart's music; and whose absence from that music +made us feel as if, despite the greatest musical perfection, Mozart's +idea were not completely given to us. Yet, in reality, this psychological +combination called Cherubino does not exist in the work of Mozart. It +exists only by the side of it. We speak of the "Marriage of Figaro" as +Mozart's work; we are accustomed to think of the Countess, of Figaro, +of Susanna, of Cherubino as belonging to Mozart; but in reality only +one half of the thing we call the "Marriage of Figaro" belongs to +Mozart--that half which consists in melodies and harmonies; and as +it happens, it is not in that, but in the other half belonging to +Beaumarchais and D'Aponte, the half consisting of words and their +suggestions of character, of expression and of movement, that really +exists, either the Countess, or Figaro, or Susanna, or Cherubino. Those +notes, which alone are Mozart's and which are nothing more than notes, +have been heard by us in the mouths of many women dressed and acting as +Beaumarchais's characters; they have been heard by us associated to the +words of Beaumarchais; they have been heard delivered with the dramatic +inflections suggested not by themselves but by those words; and thus, by +mere force of association, of slovenly thought and active fancy, we are +accustomed to consider all these characters as existing in the music of +Mozart, as being part and parcel of Mozart's conception; and when we +are presented with those notes, which, to the musician Mozart, were +merely notes without those dramatic inflections suggested solely by +Beaumarchais's words, when we hear in "Voi che sapete" only Mozart's +half of the work, we are disappointed and indignant, and cry out that +the composer's idea has been imperfectly rendered. + +Cherubino, we say, is not in Mozart's half of the work; he is in the +words, not in the music. Is this a fault or a merit? is it impotence +in the art or indifference in the artist? Could Mozart have given us +Cherubino? and if able, ought he to have given him? The question is +double; a question of artistic dynamics, and a question of artistic +ethics: the question what can art do; and the question what art ought +to do. The first has been answered by the scientific investigations +of our own scientific times; the second has been answered by the +artistic practice of the truly artistic days of music. The questions are +strangely linked together, and yet strangely separate; and woe betide us +if we receive the answer to the one question as the answer to the other; +if we let the knowledge of what things are serve us instead of the +instinct of what things should do; if we let scientific analysis step +into the place of ethical or æsthetical judgment; and if, in the domain +of art or of morals we think to substitute a system of alembics and +microscopes for that strange intangible mechanism which science tells us +does not exist, and which indeed science can never see or clutch, our +soul. For science has a singular contempt for all that is without its +domain; it seeks for truth, but when truth baffles and eludes it, +science will turn towards falsehood; it will deny what it cannot prove, +and call God himself a brain-phantom because he cannot be vivisected. +So, when logic, which can solve only logical propositions, remains +without explanation before the dicta of the moral and æsthetic parts of +us, it simply denies the existence of such dicta and replaces them by +its own formulæ; if we ask for the aim of things and actions, it tells +us their origin; if we trustingly ask when we should admire beauty and +love virtue, it drops the rainbow into its crucible to discover its +chemical components, and dissects the brain of a saint to examine the +shape of its convolutions; it meets admiration and love with experiment +and analysis, and, where we are required to judge, tells us we can only +examine. Thus, as in ethics, so also in æsthetics, modern philosophy +has given us the means instead of the aim, the analysis instead of the +judgment; let us therefore ask it only how much of human character and +emotion music _can_ express; the question how much of it music _ought_ +to express must be answered by something else: by that artistic instinct +whose composition and mechanism and origin scientific psychology may +perhaps some day explain, but whose unformulated, inarticulate, +half-unconscious dicta all the scientific and logical formulæ in the +world can never replace. As yet, however, we have to deal only with the +question how much of human character and emotion music can express, and +by what means it does so; and here modern psychology, or rather the +genius of Herbert Spencer, is able to answer us. Why does dance music +cheer us, and military music inspirit us, and sacred music make us +solemn? A vague sense of the truth made æstheticians answer, for +well-nigh two centuries, "by the force of association." Dance music +cheers us because we are accustomed to hear it in connection with +laughing and quips and cranks; military music inspirits us because we +are accustomed to hear it in connection with martial movements and +martial sights; sacred music depresses us because we are accustomed to +hear it at moments when we are contemplating our weakness and mortality; +'tis a mere matter of association. To this easy-going way of disposing +of the problem there was an evident and irrefutable objection: but why +should we be accustomed to hear a given sort of music in connection with +these various conditions of mind? Why should dance music, and martial +music, and sacred music all have a perfectly distinct character, which +forbade, from the very first, their being exchangeable? If it is a +matter of association of ideas, tell us why such characters could have +been kept distinct before the association of ideas could have begun to +exist? To this objection there was no reply; the explanation of musical +expression by means of association of ideas seemed utterly hollow; yet +the confused idea of such an association persisted. For it was, after +all, the true explanation. If we ask modern psychology the reason of the +specific characters of the various sorts of music, we shall again be +answered: it is owing to the association of ideas. But the two answers, +though apparently identical, are in fact radically different. The habit +of association existed, according to the old theory, between various +mental conditions and various sorts of music, because the two were +usually found in connection; hence no explanation why, before habit had +created the association, there should have been any connection, and, +there being no connection, no explanation why the habit and consequently +the mental association should ever have been formed. According to the +modern theory, on the contrary, the habit of association is not between +the various mental conditions and the various styles of music; but +between specific mental conditions and specific sounds and movements, +which sounds and movements, being employed as the constituent elements +of music, give to the musical forms into which they have been +artistically arranged that inevitable suggestion of a given mental +condition which is due to memory, and become, by repetition during +thousands of years, an instinct ingrained in the race and inborn in the +individual, a recognition rapid and unconscious, that certain audible +movements are the inevitable concomitants of certain moral conditions. +The half-unconscious memory become part and parcel of the human mind, +that, just as certain mental conditions induce a movement in the muscles +which brings tears into the eye or a knot into the throat, so also +certain audible movements are due to the muscular tension resulting from +mental buoyancy, and certain others to the muscular relaxation due to +mental depression, this half-unconscious memory, this instinct, this +inevitable association of ideas, generated long before music existed +even in the most rudimentary condition, carried with the various +elements of pitch, movement, sonority, and proportion into the musical +forms constructed out of these elements, this unconscious association +of ideas, this integrated recollection of the inevitable connection +between certain sounds and certain passions is the one main cause and +explanation of the expressiveness of music. And when to it we have added +the conscious perception, due to actual comparison, of the resemblance +between certain modes of musical delivery and certain modes of ordinary +speaking accentuation, between certain musical movements and certain +movements of the body in gesticulation; when we have completed the +instinctive recognition of passion, which makes us cry or jump, we know +not why, by the rapidly reasoned recognition of resemblance between the +utterance of the art and the utterance of human life, which, when we +listen for instance to a recitative, makes us say, "This sentence is +absolutely correct in expression," or, "No human being ever said such +a thing in such a manner;" when we have the instinctive perception of +passion, and the conscious perception of imitation; and we have added to +these two the power of tone and harmony, neither of them connected in +any way with the expression of emotion, but both rendering us, by their +nervous stimulant, infinitely more sensitive to its expression; when we +have all this, we have all the elements which the musician can employ to +bring home to us a definite state of mind; all the mysterious unspoken, +unwritten words by means of which Mozart can describe to us what +Beaumarchais has described in clear, logical, spoken, written words--the +page Cherubino. + +Now let us see how much of Cherubino can be shown us by these mere +musical means. Cherubino is childish, coquettish, sentimental, amorous, +timid, audacious, fickle; he is self-conscious and self-unconscious, +passionately troubled in mind, impudently cool in manner; he is brazen, +calm, shy, fluttered; all these things together. Sometimes in rapid +alternation, sometimes all together in the same moment; and in all this +he is perfectly consistent, he is always one and the same creature. +How does the playwright contrive to make us see all this? By means +of combinations of words expressing one or more of these various +characteristics, by subtle phrases woven out of different shades of +feeling, which glance in irridescent hues like a shot silk, which are +both one thing and another; by means also of various emotions cunningly +adapted to the exact situation, from the timid sentimentality before the +countess, down to the audacious love-making with the waiting-maid; by +means, in short, of a hundred tiny strokes, of words spoken by the page +and of the page, by means of dexterously combined views of the boy +himself, and of the reflection of the boy in the feelings of those who +surround him. Thus far the mere words in the book; but these words +in the book suggest a thousand little inflections of voice, looks, +gestures, movements, manners of standing and walking, flutter of lips +and sparkle of eyes, which exist clear though imaginary in the mind of +the reader, and become clearer, visible, audible in the concrete +representation of the actor. + +Thus Cherubino comes to exist. A phantom of the fancy, a little figure +from out of the shadow land of imagination, but present to our mind as +is this floor upon which we tread, alive as is this pulse throbbing +within us. Ask the musician to give us all this with his mere pitch, +and rhythm and harmony and sonority; bid him describe all this in his +language. Alas! in the presence of such a piece of work the musician is +a mere dumb cripple, stammering unintelligible sounds, tottering through +abortive gestures, pointing we know not whither, asking we know not for +what. Passionate music? And is not Othello passionate? Coquettish music? +and is not Susanna coquettish? Tender music? and is not Orpheus tender? +Cool music? and is not Judas Maccabæus cool? Impudent music? And is not +the snatch of dance tune of a Parisian grisette impudent? And which of +these sorts of music shall fit our Cherubino, be our page? Shall we +fuse, in wonderful nameless abomination of nonsense, all these different +styles, these different suggestions, or shall, as in a masquerade, +this dubious Cherubino never seen with his own face and habit, appear +successively in the musical trappings of Othello, of Orpheus, of +Susanna, of Judas Maccabæus, and of the Grisette? Shall we, by means of +this fusion, or this succession of musical incongruities, have got one +inch nearer to Cherubino? Shall we, in listening to the mere wordless +combination of sounds, be able to say, as we should with the book or the +actors before us, this is Cherubino? What, then, can music give us, with +all its powers of suggestion and feeling, if it cannot give us this? +It can give us one thing, not another: it can give us emotion, but it +cannot give us the individual whom the emotion possesses. With its +determined relations between the audible movement and the psychical +movement, it can give us only musical gesture, but never musical +portrait; the gesture of composure or of violence, the solemn tread of +self-possessed melody, the scuffling of frantically rushing up and down, +of throbbing, quivering, gasping, passion-broken musical phrases; it can +give us the rhythm which prances and tosses in victory, and the rhythm +which droops, and languishes, and barely drags itself along for utter +despair. All this it can give us, even as the painter can give the +ecstatic bound-forwards of Signorelli's "Calling of the Blessed," or +the weary, dreary enfolding in gloomy thought of Michael Angelo's +"Jeremiah:" this much, which we can only call gesture, and which +expresses only one thing, a mood. Let the hopeful heroes of Signorelli, +stretching forth impetuous arms towards Paradise, only lose sight of the +stately viol-playing angels who guide them, let them suddenly see above +them the awful sword of the corsleted Angel of Judgment, and they will +sink, and grovel, and writhe and their now up-turned faces will be +draggled in the dust; let the trumpet of warfare and triumph shrill in +the ear of Michael Angelo's "Jeremiah," and the dreary dream will be +shaken off; he will leap up, and the compressed hand-gagged mouth will +open with the yell of battle; let only the emotion change, and the whole +gesture, the attitude, plastic or musical, must change also; the already +existing, finite, definite work will no longer suffice; we must have a +new picture, or statue, or piece of music. And in these inexplicit arts +of mere suggestion, we cannot say, as in the explicit art of poetry, +this grovelling wretch is a proud and hopeful spirit; this violent +soldier is a vague dreamer; this Othello, who springs on Desdemona +like a wild beast, loves her as tenderly as a mother does her child. +Unliterary art, plastic or musical, is inexorable: the man who grovels +is no proud man; the man who fells down to the right and left, is no +dreamer; the man whose whole soul is wrath and destruction, is no lover; +the mood is the mood; art can give only it; and the general character, +the connection between moods, the homogeneous something which pervades +every phase of passion, however various, escapes the powers of all save +the art which can speak and explain. How then obtain our Cherubino, our +shiftiest and most fickle of pages? How? Why, by selecting just one of +his very many moods, the one which is nearest allied to fickleness and +volubility; the mood which must most commonly be the underlying, the +connecting one, the mood into which all his swagger and sentiment sooner +or later resolve; the tone of voice into which his sobs will quickest be +lost, the attitude which will soonest replace the defiant strut; the +frame of mind which, though one and indivisible itself, is the nearest +to instability: levity. + +Let Cherubino sing words of tenderness and passion, of audacity and +shyness, to only one sort of music, to light and careless music; let the +jackanapes be for ever before us, giggling and pirouetting in melody and +rhythm; it will not be Cherubino, the whole Cherubino; it will be only +a miserable fragmentary indication of him, but it will be the right +indication; the psychological powers of music do not go far, but thus +far they can go. Analysis of the nature of musical expression has shown +us how much it may accomplish; the choice of the artist alone can tell +us how much it should accomplish; the scientific investigation is at an +end, the artistic judgment must begin. Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus +Mozart, here are your means of musical expression, and here is the thing +to be expressed; on careful examination it appears distinctly that the +only way in which, with your melodies, rhythms, and harmonies, you +can give us, not a copy, but a faint indicative sketch, something +approaching the original as much as four lines traced in the alley sand +of your Schloss Mirabell Gardens at Salzburg resemble the general aspect +of the Mirabell Palace; that the only way in which you can give us such +a distantly approximative.... + +Signor Maestro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vice-Chapelmaster of His Most +Reverend Highness the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, has meanwhile sat +down at his table near his thin-legged spinet, with the bird-cage above +and the half-emptied beer-glass at his side; and his pen is going +scratch, scratch, scratch as loud as possible. + +"The only way in which you can possibly give us such a distantly +approximative copy of the page Cherubino as shown" ... (Scratch, +scratch, scratch goes the pen on the rough music paper), "as shown in +the words of Beaumarchais and of your librettist D'Aponte, is to compose +music of the degree of levity required to express the temper +_jackanapes_." + +The Chapelmaster Mozart's pen gives an additional triumphant creak as +its point bends in the final flourish of the word _finis_; Chapelmaster +Mozart looks up-- + +"What was that you were saying about jackanapes? Oh, yes, to be sure, +you were saying that literary folks who try to prescribe to musicians +are jackanapes, weren't you? Now, do me the favour, when you go out, +just take this to the theatre copyist; they are waiting in a hurry +for Cherubino's song.... Yes, that was all very interesting about the +jackanapes and all the things music can express.... Who would have +thought that musical expression is all that? Lord, Lord, what a fine +thing it is to have a reasoning head and know all about the fundamental +moods of people's characters! My dear sir, why don't you print a +treatise on the musical interpretation of the jackanapes and send it to +the University of Vienna for a prize? that would be a treatise for you! +Only do be a good creature and take this song at once to the copyist.... +I assure you I consider you the finest musical philosopher in +Christendom." + +The blotted, still half-wet sheet of note paper is handed across by +Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is the manuscript of "Voi che +sapete." + +"But dearest Chapelmaster Mozart, the air which you have just written +appears to be not in the least degree light--it is even extremely +sentimental. How can you, with such phrases, express the Cherubino of +Beaumarchais?" + +"And who, my dear Mr. Music Philosopher, who the deuce told you that I +wanted to express the Cherubino of Beaumarchais?" + +Chapelmaster Mozart, rising from his table, walks up and down the room +with his hands crossed beneath his snuff-coloured coat-tails, humming to +himself-- + + Voi che sapete che cosa è amor, + Donne, vedete s'io l'ho nel cor, + +and stops before the cage hanging in the window, and twitching the +chickweed through the wires, says-- + +"Twee! twee! isn't that a fine air we have just composed, little +canary-bird, eh?" + +"Twee! twee!" answers the canary. + +Mozart has willed it so: there is no possible appeal against his +decision; his artistic sense would not listen to our logic; our +arguments could not attain him, for he simply shook from off his feet +the dust of logic-land, and calmly laughed defiance from the region of +artistic form, where he had it all his own way, and into which we poor +wretches can never clamber. So here is the page's song irrevocably +sentimental; and Mozart has been in his grave ninety years; and we know +not why, but we do shrink from calling in Offenbach or Lecocq to rewrite +that air in true jackanapsian style. What can be done? There still +remains another hope. + +For the composer, as we have seen, could give us--as could the painter +or the sculptor--only one mood at a time; for he could give us only one +homogeneous artistic form. But this artistic form exists so far only in +the abstract, in the composer's brain or on the paper. To render it +audible we require the performer; on the performer depends the real, +absolute presence of the work; or, rather, to the performer is given +the task of creating a second work, of applying on to the abstract +composition the living inflexions and accentuations of the voice. And +here, again, the powers of musical expression, of awaking association +by means of sounds or manner of giving out sounds such as we recognize, +automatically or consciously, to accompany the emotion that is to +be conveyed; here again these powers are given to the artist to do +therewith what he choose. This second artist, this performer, is not +so free indeed as the first artist, the composer; he can longer choose +among the large means of expression the forms of melody and rhythm, the +concatenation of musical phrases; but there are still left to him the +minor modes of expression, the particular manner of setting forth these +musical forms, of treating this rhythm; the notes are there, and their +general relations to one another, but on him depends the choice of the +relative stress on the notes, of the tightening or slackening of their +relations; of the degree of importance to be given to the various +phrases. The great outline cartoon is there, but the cunning lights and +shades, transitions, abrupt or insensible, from tint to tint, still +remain to be filled up. A second choice of mood is left to the singer. +And see! here arises a strange complication: the composer having in his +work chosen one mood, and the singer another, we obtain in the fusion or +juxtaposition of the two works, of the two moods, that very thing we +desired, that very shimmer and oscillation of character which the poet +could give, that dualism of nature required for Cherubino. What +is Cherubino? A sentimental jackanapes. Mozart in his notes has +given us the sentiment, and now we can get the levity from the +performer--unthought-of combination, in which the very irrational, +illogical choice made by the composer will help us. Here are Mozart's +phrases, earnest, tender, noble--Mozart's love song fit for a Bellario +or a Romeo; now let this be sung quickly, lightly, with perverse musical +head-tossing and tripping and ogling, let this passion be gabbled out +flippantly, impudently--and then, in this perfect mixture of the noble +and ignoble, of emotion and levity, of poetry and prose, we shall +have, at last, the page of Beaumarchais. A brilliant combination, a +combination which, thus reasoned out, seems so difficult to conceive; +yet one which the instinct of half, nay, of nearly all the performers in +creation would suggest. A page? A jackanapes? Sing the music as befits +him; giggle and ogle, and pirouette, and languish out Mozart's music: an +universal idea now become part and parcel of tradition: the only new +version possible being to give more or less of the various elements of +giggling, ogling, pirouetting, and languishing; to slightly vary the +style of jackanapes. + +But no, another version did remain possible: that strange version given +by that strange solemn little Spanish singer, after whose singing of +"Voi che sapete" we all felt dissatisfied, and asked each other, "What +has she done with the page?" That wonderful reading of the piece in +which every large outline was so grandly and delicately traced, every +transition so subtly graduated or marked, every little ornament made to +blossom out beneath the touch of the singular crisp, sweet voice: that +reading which left out the page. Was it the blunder of an idealess vocal +machine? or the contradictory eccentricity of a seeker after impossible +novelty? Was it simply the dullness of a sullen, soulless little singer? +Surely not. She was neither an idealess vocal machine, nor a crotchetty +seeker for new readings, nor a soulless sullen little creature; she was +a power in art. A power, alas! wasted for ever, of little or no profit +to others or herself; a beautiful and delicate artistic plant uprooted +just as it was bursting into blossom, and roughly thrown to wither in +the sterile dust of common life, while all around the insolent weeds +lift up their prosperous tawdry heads. Of this slender little dark +creature, with the delicate stern face of the young Augustus, not a soul +will ever remember the name. She will not even have enjoyed the cheap +triumphs of her art, the applause which endures two seconds, and the +stalkless flowers which wither in a day; the clapping which interrupts +the final flourish, the tight-packed nosegays which thump down before +the feet, of every fiftieth-rate mediocrity. Yet the artistic power will +have been there, though gone to waste in obscurity: and the singer will +have sung, though only for a day, and for that day unnoticed. Nothing +can alter that. And nothing can alter the fact that, while the logical +heads of all the critics, and the soulless throats of all the singers +in Christendom have done their best, and ever will do their best to +give us a real musical Cherubino, a real sentimental whipper-snapper of +a page, this utterly unnoticed little singer did persist in leaving out +the page most completely and entirely. Why? Had you asked her, she +would have been the last person in the world capable of answering the +question. Did she consider the expression of such a person as Cherubino +a prostitution of the art? Had she some theory respecting the propriety +of dramatic effects in music? Not in the very least; she considered +nothing and theorised about nothing: she probably never had such a +thing as a thought in the whole course of her existence. She had only +an unswerving artistic instinct, a complete incapacity of conceiving +the artistically wrong, an imperious unreasoning tendency to do the +artistically right. She had read Mozart's air, understood its exquisite +proportions, created it afresh in her appreciation, and she sang it +in such a way as to make its beauty more real, more complete. She had +unconsciously carried out the design of the composer, fulfilled all +that could be fulfilled, perfected the mere music of Mozart's air. And +as in Mozart's air there was and could be (inasmuch as it was purely +beautiful) no page Cherubino, so also in her singing of the air there +was none: Mozart had chosen, and she had abided by his choice. + +Such is the little circle of fact and argument. We have seen what means +the inherent nature of music afforded to composer and performer for the +expression of Beaumarchais's Cherubino; and we have seen the composer, +and the performer who was true to the composer, both choose, instead of +expressing an equivocal jackanapes, to produce and complete a beautiful +work of art. Were they right or were they wrong? Criticism, analysis, +has said all it could, given all its explanations; artistic feeling only +remains to judge, to condemn, or to praise: this one fact remains, that +in the work of the great composer, we have found only certain lovely +patterns made out of sounds; but in them, or behind them, not a vestige +of the page Cherubino. + + + + +IN UMBRIA. + +A STUDY OF ARTISTIC PERSONALITY. + + ... grande, austera, verde, + Da le montagne digradanti in cerchio, + L'Umbria guarda.--CARDUCCI. + + +The autumn sun is declining over the fields and oak-woods and vineyards +of Umbria, where--in the wide undulating valley, inclosed by high +rounded hills, bleak or dark with ilex, each with its strange terraced +white city, Assisi, Spello, Spoleto, Todi--the Tiber winds lazily along, +pale green, limpid, scarce rippled over its yellow pebbles, screened by +long rows of reeds, and thinned, yellowing poplars, reflecting dimly the +sky and trees, the pointed mediæval bridges and the crenelated towers +on its banks; so clear and placid that you can scarcely bring home to +yourself that this can really be the Tiber of Rome, the turbid mass of +yellow water which eddies sullen and mournful round the ship-shaped +island, along by Vesta's temple, beneath the cypressed Aventine, and +away into the desolate Campagna. Gradually, as the sun sinks, the valley +of the Tiber fills with golden light moving along, little by little, +travelling slowly up the wooded hillocks; covering the bluish mountains +of Somma and Subasio with a purple flush, making the white towns rosy +on their flanks, and then dying away into the pale amber horizon, +rosy where it touches the hill, pearly, then bluish where it merges +imperceptibly into the upper sky. Bluer and bluer become the hills, +deeper and deeper the at first faint amber; the valley is filled with +grey-blue mist; the hills stand out dark blue, cold, and massive; the +sky above becomes a livid rose colour; there is scarcely a filament of +cloud, and only a streak of golden orange where the sun has disappeared. +There is a sudden stillness, as when the last chords of a great symphony +have died out. All the way up the hill on which stands Perugia we +meet the teams of huge oxen, not merely white, but milky, with great, +deep, long-lashed eyes, swaying from side to side with their load of +wine-vats; and the peasants returning home from ploughing up the last +corn stubble. All is peaceful and very solemn, more so than after sunset +in other places, in this sweet and austere Umbria, the fit home of the +Christian revival of the early Middle Ages. And it makes us think, this +beautiful and solemn evening, of the little book which epitomises all +the emotions of this new birth, of this charming new childhood of +humanity, when the feelings of men seem to have somewhat of the dewy +freshness of dawn. The book is the "Fioretti di San Francesco," a +collection of legends and examples relating to the cycle of St. Francis +of Assisi by some monk or monks of the end of the thirteenth century. +Flowerets they may well be called--flowers such as might grow, green +and white-starred and delicately pearled with gold, in the thick grass +across which dance Angelico's groups of the Blessed. Yet with a certain +humanness, a certain reality and naturalness of sweetness, such as +the great paradise painter, with his fleshless madonnas, his glory +of radiant, unearthly draperies and golden skies, never could have +conceived. A singular charm of simplicity and lucidness in this little +book; no fever visions or unhealthy glories; an earnestness not without +humour: there is nothing grim or absurd in the credulity and asceticism +of these Umbrian saints. The asceticism is so gentle and tender, the +credulity so childish and poetical, that the ridiculous itself ceases to +be so. These monks, so far from being engrossed with the care of their +own souls, or weighed down by the dread of hell, seemed to have awakened +with perfect hope and faith in celestial goodness, with perfect desire +to love all around them in the most literal sense: religion for them is +love and reliance on love. The gentleness with which they admonish the +sinning and back-sliding, the confidence in the inner goodness of man, +from whose soiled surface all evil may be washed, extends in these men +to the whole of creation, and makes them fraternise with beasts and +birds, as is shown, with a delicate, slightly humorous grace, in the +stories of St. Francis and the turtle doves, and of the ferocious wolf +"Frate Lupo" of Gubbio, whom rather than kill, it pleased the saint +to bring round to harmlessness by fair words, expostulations, and +faithfully kept promises, expecting from the wolf fidelity to his word +as much as from a human being. There is in this little book a vague, +floating, permeating life of affection, of love unbounded by difference +of species. Communion with all men, with Christ, with angels, with +doves, and with wolves; the force of love bringing down God and raising +up brutes to the level of these saints. And as we think over the little +book we feel in a way as if we, to whom Francis and his companions +are mere mortal men, and the tales of the "Fioretti" mere beautiful +fancies, hollow and sad for their very sweetness, were looking down upon +a sort of holy land, as we look down in the white twilight upon the +misty undulations of this solemn and beautiful Umbria. + +A serene country, neither rugged and barren, nor flat and fertile, not +the grey, sharp Florentine valley, whose thin soil must be irrigated +and ploughed, and on whose hillsides the carefully nurtured olives are +stunted with winter wind and summer scorchings, where every outline is +clear and bone-like in that same hard, light atmosphere which, as Vasari +says, makes all appear hard and clear and logical to the minds of the +Florentines. Not the endless flatness and fruitfulness of Lombardy, +where the mists steam up in the evening golden round the great misty +golden descending sun-ball, and the buildings flush like the cheeks of +Correggio's joy-drunken seraphs, and the thin, clear outline of the rows +of poplars looks against the sky like the outshaken golden hair combed +into minute filaments of one of Lionardo's women. Nor the dreary wastes +of sere oakwoods and livid sand-hills of Orvieto; nor the sea of lush +vegetation gilded by the sun, merging into the vaporous damp blue sky +of the plain of Lucca. None of these things is the Tiber valley, not +harsh nor poor nor luxuriant; sober and restrained, without excess or +scantness, an undulating country of pale and modest tints, and, save in +the distant Apennine tops, of simple outline, with what glory of colours +it may have, due mainly to sky and sunset of cloud, and even in that +more chaste than other parts of Italy; neither poor nor rich; without +the commerce of Lombardy or the industry of Tuscany, wholly without +any intellectual movement, rural, believing, with but little of the +imported influence of reviving Paganism, and still much of the clinging +moral atmosphere of Christian contemplation and ecstacy of the days of +St. Francis. Such is this isolated Tiber valley, whose skies and whose +legends are so perfectly in harmony, and in it was born, of the country +and of the traditions, a special, isolated school of art. + +Is it a school or a man?--A school concentrated in one man, or a man +radiating into a school. There are a great many men all about the one +man Perugino, masters or pupils; the first seem so many bungled attempts +to be what he is, the second so many disintegrations of him. Even the +more powerful individualities are lost in his presence; at Perugia we +know nothing of the real Pinturicchio, the bright, vain, thoughtless +painters of the pageant scenes, brilliant like pages of Boiardo's fairy +tales, on the walls of the Sienese Library. Raphael is no separate +individual, has no personal qualities before he leaves Perugia. +Everything is Perugino, in more or less degree. The whole town, nay, the +surrounding country, is one vast studio in which his themes are being +developed, his works being copied, his tricks being imitated. A score of +artists of talent, one or two like Lo Spagna and the young Raphael, of +first-rate powers, and a host of mere mechanical drudges, give us, in +all Perugia, nothing new, nothing individual, no impression which we can +disentangle from the general, all-pervading impression given by the one +man Perugino. The country, physical and moral, has exhausted itself +in this one artistic manifestation. One not merely, but unique and +one-sided. What Perugino has done has been done by no other master; and +what Perugino has done is only one thing, and that to all eternity. The +sense of complete absence of variety, of difference; the impression of +all being reduced to the minimum of everything, the vague consciousness +that all here is one, isolated and indivisible, which haunts us all +through the churches and galleries of Perugia, pursues us likewise +through all the works of the school, that is to say, of Perugino +himself. This unique school, consisting in reality of a single man, +possesses only one theme, one type, one idea, one feeling; it does, +it attempts but one thing, and that one thing means isolation, +concentration, elimination of all but one single mood. + +It is the painting of solitude; of the isolated soul, alone, unaffected +by any other, unlinked in any work, or feeling, or suffering, with any +other soul, nay even with any physical thing. The men and women of +Perugino are the most completely alone that any artist ever painted, +alone though in fours, or fives, or in crowds. Their relations to each +other are purely architectural: it is a matter of mere symmetry, even as +it is with the mouldings or carvings of the frame which surrounds them. +Superficially, taken merely as so many columns, or half-arches of the +pinnacled whole of the composition, they are, in his larger works, more +rigorously related to each other than are the figures of any other +painter of severely architectural groups; compared with Perugino, +the figures in Bellini's or Mantegna's most solemn altarpieces are +irrelevant to each other: one saint is turning too much aside, another +looking too much on his neighbour. Not so with Perugino: his figures +are all in relation to one another. The scarf floating in strange +snakelike convolutions, from the shoulder of the one angel flying, +cutting across the pale blue air as a skater cuts across the ice, floats +and curls in distinct reference to the ribbons which twist, like lilac +or yellow scrolls, about the head and neck of the other angel; the lute, +with down-turned bulb, of the one seraph, his shimmering purple or +ultramarine robe clinging in tight creases round his feet in the breeze +of heaven, is rigorously balanced by the viol, upturned against the +stooping head, of his fellow-seraph; the white-bearded anchorite +stretches forth his right foot in harmony with the outstretched left +foot of the scarlet-robed cardinal; the dainty arch-angelic warrior +drolly designated as Scipio, or Cincinnatus on the wall of the Money +Changer's Hall turns his delicate, quaintly-crested head, and raises +his vague-looking eyes to match the upturned plumed head of the other +celestial knight. All the figures are distinctly connected with each +other; but they are connected as are the pillarets, various, but +different, which balance each other in length and thickness and +character, a twisted with a twisted one, a twin, strangely linked pair +with another such, on the symmetrically sloping front of some Lombard +cathedral; the connection is purely outer, purely architectural; and the +solitude of each figure as a human being, as a body and a mind, is only +the more complete. There is no grouping in these cunningly balanced +altarpieces; there is no common employment or movement, no action or +reaction. Angels and warriors and saints and sibyls stand separate, +the one never touching the other, apart, each alone against the pale +greenish background. They may look, the one towards the other, but +they never see each other. They exist quite single and isolated, each +unconscious that there is any other. Another--indeed, there is no other; +in reality, every one is in complete solitude; it is only the canvas +which makes them appear in the same place. They are not in the same +place, or rather there is no place; the soft green field, the blue +hills, darkening against the greenish evening sky, the spare, thinly +leaved little trees, the white tower in the distance, this little piece +of Umbrian country has nothing to do with any of them. They are nowhere; +or rather each taken singly is nowhere. Place, like subject and action, +has been eliminated; everything has, which possibly could. The very +bodies seem reduced to the least possible: there is no interest in them: +all is concentrated upon the delicate nervous hands, on the faces; in +the faces, upon eyes and mouth, till the whole face seems scarcely more +than tremulous lips, half parted, raised vividly to kiss, to suck in the +impalpable; than dilating pupils, straining vaguely to seize, to absorb, +to burn into themselves the invisible. It is the embodiment, with only +as little body as is absolutely required, of a soul; and that soul +simplified, rarefied into only one condition of being: beatitude of +contemplation. As place and action have been eliminated, so also has +time: they will for ever remain, alone, in the same attitude; they will +never move, never change, never cease; there exists for them no other +occupation or possibility. And as the bodies are separate, isolated from +all physical objects, so is the soul: it touches no other human soul, +touches no earthly interest: it is alone, motionless, space and time and +change have ceased for it: contemplating, absorbing for all eternity +that which the eye cannot see, nor the hand touch nor the will +influence, the mysterious, the ineffable. + +Are they really saints and angels, and prophets and sibyls? Surely +not--for all such act or suffer; for each of these there is a local +habitation, and a definite duty. These strange creatures of Perugino's +are not supernatural beings in the same sense as are those robed in +iridescent, impalpable glory of Angelico; or those others, clothed in +more than human muscle and sinew, of the vault of the Sixtine. What are +they? Not visions become concrete, but the act of vision personified. +They are not the objects of religious feeling; they are its most +abstract, intense reality. Yes, they are reality. They are no +far-fetched fancies of the artist. They are souls and soul-saturated, +soul-moulded bodies which he saw around him. For in that Umbria of the +dying fifteenth century--where the old cities, their old freedom and +industry and commerce well-nigh dwindled to nothing, had shrunk each +on its mountain-side into mere huge barracks of mercenary troopers or +strongholds of military bandit nobles, continually besieged and sacked +and heaped with massacre by rival families and rival factions; where +in the open country, the villagers, pent-up in fortified farms and +barns, were burnt, women and children, with the stored-up fodder, or +slaughtered and cast in heaps into the Tiber, and every year the tangled +brushwood of ilex and oak and briars encroached further upon the +devastated cornfields and oliveyards, and the wolves and foxes roamed +nearer and nearer to the cities--in this terrible barbarous Umbria of +the days of Cæsar Borgia, the soul developed to strange unearthly +perfection. It developed by the force of antagonism and isolation. +This city of Perugia, which was governed by the most ferocious and +treacherous little mercenary captains; whose dark precipitous streets +were full of broil and bloodshed, and whose palaces full of evil, +forbidden lust and family conspiracy, was one of the most pious in all +Italy. Wondrous miraculous preachers, inspired and wild, were for ever +preaching in the midst of the iniquity; holy monks and nuns were for +ever seeing visions and curing the incurable; churches and hospitals +were being erected throughout town and country; novices crowded +the ever-increasing convents. Sensitive souls were sickened by the +surrounding wickedness, and terrified lest it should triumph over them; +resist it, bravely expose themselves to it, prevent or mitigate the evil +of others they dared not: a moral plague was thick in the air, and +those who would escape infection must needs fly, take refuge in strange +spiritual solitude, in isolated heights where the moral air was rarefied +and icy. Of the perfectly human, sociable devotion of the days of St. +Francis, of the active benevolence and righteousness, there was now no +question: the wolves had become too frightfully numerous and ravenous to +be preached to like that Brother Wolf of the _Flowerets of St. Francis_. +Active good there could now no longer be: the pure soul became inactive, +passive, powerless over the evil around, contemplating for ever a +distant, ineffable excellence; aspiring, sterile, and meagre, at being +absorbed into that glory of perfect virtue at which it was for ever +gazing. This solitary and inactive devotion, raised far above this +world, is the feeling out of which are moulded those scarce embodied +souls of Perugino's. Those emaciated hectic young faces, absorbed in +one ineffable passion, which in their weakness and intensity are so +infinitely feminine, are indeed mainly the faces of women--of those +noble and holy ladies like Atalanta Baglioni, living in moral solitude +among their turbulent clan of evil fathers and brothers and husbands: +the victims, or worse, the passive spectators, the passive accomplices, +of iniquity of all sorts, whom the grand old chronicler, Matarazzo, +shows by glimpses, walking through the blood and lust-soiled houses of +the brilliant and horrible Gianpavolos and Semonettos and Griffones of +Perugia, pure and patient like nuns, and as secluded in mind as in any +cloister. Theirs are these faces, and at the same time the faces which +vaguely, confusedly looked down upon them, glorified reflections of +their own, from above. These creatures of Perugino's are what every +great artist's works must be--at once the portrait of those for whom he +paints, and the portrait of their ideals, that is, of their intenser +selves. He is the painter of the city where, in the Italian Renaissance, +the unmixed devotional feeling, innate in the country of St. Francis, +untroubled by Florentine scepticism or Lombard worldly sense, thrust +back and concentrated upon itself by surrounding brutal wickedness, +existed most intense; he is the painter of this kind of devotion. The +very daintiness of accessory, the delicate embroidered robes, the long +fringed scarves, the embossed armour, light and pliable like silk, which +cannot wound the tender young archangels, the carefully waved and curled +hair--all this is the religious luxuriousness of nuns and novices, the +one vent for all love of beauty and ease and costliness of the poor +delicate creatures, worn and galled by their shapeless hair cloth, +living and sleeping in the dreary whitewashed cell. This is unmixed +devotion, religious contemplation and aspiration absolutely separated +from any other sort of moral feeling; there is the destructive wrath of +righteousness in the prophets of Michael Angelo, and the gentleness of +candour and charity in the Florentine virgins of Raphael; there is the +serenity and solemnity of moral wisdom in Bellini, and the sweetness and +cordiality of domestic love in Titian; there is even the half-animal +motherly love in Correggio; there is, in almost all the schools of +Italian painting, some character of human goodness; but in Perugino +there is none of these things. Nothing but the one all-absorbing, +abstract, devotional feeling--intense passive contemplation of the +unattainable good; souls purged of every human desire or will, isolated +from all human affection and action, raised above the limits of time and +space; souls which have long ceased to be human beings and can never +become angels, hovering, half pained, half joyful, in a limbo of endless +spiritual desire. + +Such is the work. Let us seek the master. Pietro Vannucci, of Città +della Pieve, surnamed Perugino, Petrus de Castro Plebis, as he signed +himself, lived, as tradition has it, in a very good house in Via +Deliziosa. Via Deliziosa is one of the many quiet little paved lanes of +Perugia, steep and tortuous, looking up at whose rough scarred houses +you forever see overgrown plants of white starred basil or grey marjoram +bursting out of broken ewers and pipkins on the boards before the +high windows, or trails of mottled red and green tomatos, or long +crimson-tasselled sprays of carnation dangling along the broken, +blackened masonry, crevassed and held together by iron clamps; where, +at every sudden turn, you get, through some black and oozy archway, a +glimpse of green sun-gilded vineyard and distant hills, hazy and blue +through the yellow summer air. Here, in the best part of the town, +Perugino had his house and his workshop. In the house, full of precious +stuffs and fine linen and plate and everything which a wealthy burgher +could desire, lived the handsome wife of the master, for whom he was for +ever designing and ordering new clothes, and whose beautiful hair he +loved himself to dress in strange fantastic diadems and helmets of +minute plaits and waves and curls, that she might go through the town as +magnificent and quaintly attired as any noble lady of the Baglionis or +Antinoris or Della Staffas. In the workshop was the master and a host +of pupils: Giannicola Manni, Doni, the Alfani, Tiberio d'Assisi; the +exquisite anonymous stranger, of whom we know only as John the Spaniard, +and perhaps that gentle fair feminine boy from Urbino, whom, in +half-womanish gear and with wonderful delicate feathers and jewels in +his hair, Perugino painted among the prophets in the Money Changer's +Hall. A workshop indeed. Not merely the studio of a master and his +pupils, but an enormous manufactory of works of devotional art; the +themes of Perugino, the same saints, the same madonnas, the same angels, +in the same groups, for ever repeated in large and small, some mere +copies, others slightly varied or composed of various incoherent +portions, by the pupil; some half by the master, half by the pupil, some +possibly touched up by him, one or two wholly from his own exquisite +hand. Things of all degrees of merit and execrableness, to suit the +richest and the poorest; all could be had at that workshop, for Master +Pietro had the monopoly of the art, good bad, or indifferent, of the +country. You could order designs for wood carvings or silver ware; +you could hire church banners, of which store was kept to be let out +for processions at so much the hour. You could obtain men to set +up triumphal arches of cardboard, and invent moulds for ornamental +sweetmeats, like those of Astorre Baglioni's wedding; patterns, +doubtless also for embroidery and armour embossing; you could have a +young Raphael Santi set to repeating some Marriage of the Virgin for a +Sforza or a Baglioni, or some tattered smearer to copy a copy of some +madonna for a village church; or you could commission the master himself +to go to Rome and paint a wall of Pope Sixtus's Chapel. For there never +was a manufactory of art carried on more methodically or satisfactorily +than this one. There never was a commercial speculator who knew so well +how much good and bad he could afford and venture to give; who knew +his public so thoroughly. He had, in his youth and poverty, invented, +discovered (which shall we call it?) the perfection of devotional +painting, that which perfectly satisfied his whole pious Umbria, and +every pious man or woman of more distant parts: a certain number of +types, a certain expression, a certain mode of grouping, a certain +manner of colouring which constituted a perfect whole; a conception to +embody which most completely he had in his youth worked like a slave, +seeking, perfecting all that which belonged to the style: the clear, +delicate colour, the exquisite, never excessive finish, the infinitely +delicate modelling of finger and wrist, of eyelid and lip, the +diaphanous sheen of light, soft, scarcely coloured hair on brow and +temple and cheek; he had coolly turned away from everything else. +The problems of anatomy, of perspective, of light and shade, and +of grouping, at which in Florence he had seen men like Pollaiolo, +Ghirlandaio, Filippino, Lionardo wasting their youth, he never even +glanced at. No real bodies were required for his saints as long as he +could give them the right, wistful faces; no tangible background, no +well-defined composition. All this was unnecessary; and he wanted only +the necessary. When he had got the amount and sort of skill required for +this narrow style, he stopped; when he had invented the three or four +types of faces, attitude, and composition, he ceased inventing. He had +the means of making a fortune. All that remained was to organise his +mechanism, to arrange that splendid system of repeating, arranging, +altering, copying, on the part of himself and his scholars, by which he +could, without further enlarging style or ideas, furnish Umbria and +Italy with the pure devotional painting it required, in whatever amount +and of whatever degree of excellence it might wish. He succeeded. True, +other artists sneered at him, like that young Buonarroti, who had called +him a blunderer; true, the Florentines complained that when he painted +their fresco for them at S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, he had cheated +them, giving mere copies of works they had had from him twenty years +before. About the judgment of other painters he cared not a fig; success +was the only test; to the Florentines he calmly answered that as those +figures had pleased them twenty years before, they ought to please them +now; that he at least was not going to seek anything new as long as +the old sufficed. For men who grew old in constant attempts after new +styles, new muscles, new draperies, like Signorelli yonder labouring +solitary on the rock of Orvieto, spending years in cramming new figures +into spaces which he, Perugino, would have finished in a month with six +isolated saints and a bit of blue sky; or frittered away time in endless +sketches, endless cooking of new paints and trying of new washes, like +Lionardo da Vinci: or who ruined themselves buying bits of old marble to +copy, like crazy Mantegna at Mantua; for all such men as these Perugino +must have had a supreme contempt. As long as money came in, all was +right; new ideas, improvements, all such things were mere rubbish. Thus +he probably preached to his pupils, and kept them carefully to their +task of multiplying his own works, till his school became sterile and +imbecile; and the young Raphael, in disgust, left him and begged the +Lady Giovanna della Rovere for a letter to the Gonfaloniere Soderini, +which should open to him the doors of the Florentine schools. With what +contempt must not Master Perugino have looked after this departing young +Raphael; with what cynical amusement he must have heard how the young +fool, once successful, kept for ever altering his style, wearing his +frail life out, meditating and working himself into the hectic broken +creature whom Marc-Antonio has etched, seated, fagged and emaciated on +the steps before his work. We can imagine how Perugino descanted on all +this folly to the other young men in his workshop. For he was a cynical +man as well as a grasping: he saw no wisdom beyond the desire for money +and comfort. He had begun life almost a beggar, sleeping on a chest, +going without food, in tatters, giving himself no respite from drudgery, +sustained by one idea, one wish!--to be rich. And rich he had become; he +had built houses on speculation at Florence, to let them out; and had +farms at Città della Pieve, and land near Perugia. He had obtained all +he had ever desired or could conceive desirable: safety from poverty. +In other things he did not believe: not in an after life, nor in God, +nor in good; all these ideas, says Vasari, could never enter into his +porphyry hard brain, "This Peter placed all his hopes in the good things +of fortune, and for money would have made any evil bargain." + +This is how Vasari has shown us Perugino. The unique painter of +archangels and seraphs appears a base commercial speculator, a cynic, +an atheist: the sort of man whom you could imagine transfigured into a +shabby pettifogging Faustus, triumphing over the fiend by making over to +him, in return for solid ducats, a bond mortgaging a soul which he knew +himself never to have possessed. Some people may say, as learned folk +are forever saying now-a-days, that all this is pure slander on the part +of Vasari; and indeed, what satisfactory historical villain shall we +soon possess, at the rate of present learned rehabilitations? Be this as +it may, there remains for the present the typical contrast between this +man and his works; and looking at it, other contrasts between noble art +and grovelling artists vaguely occur to us, and we ask ourselves, Can it +be? Can a pure and exquisite work be produced by a base nature? Can such +anomaly exist--must the mental product not be stained by the vileness of +the mind which has conceived it? Must we, together with a precious and +noble gift taken from a hand we should shrink from touching, accept the +disheartening, the debasing conclusion, that in art purity may spring +from foulness, and the excellent be born of the base? It is a conclusion +from which we instinctively shrink, feeling, rather than absolutely +understanding, that it seems to strip the holiness from art, the +worthiness, nay, almost the innocence, from our enjoyment. We feel +towards any beautiful work of art something akin to love: a sort of +desire to absorb it into our soul, to raise ourselves to it, to be with +it in some manner united; and thus the mere thought that all this may +be sprung from out of unworthiness, that this noble century-enduring +work may be the sister of who knows how many long dead base thoughts +and desires and resolves born together with it in the nature of its +maker--this idea of contamination of origin, makes us shudder and +suspect.... Alas, how many of us, of the better and nobler of us, have +not often sickened for a moment as the thought quivered across their +mind of the foulness out of which the noblest of our art has arisen. But +instinctively we have struck down the half-formulated idea as we dash +away any suspicion against that which we love, and which our love tells +us must be good. And thus, as a rule, we have persuaded ourselves that, +though by a horrible fatality our greatest art--in sculpture, and +painting, and music, and poetry, has oftenest belonged not to a simple +and austere state of society, to the strong manly days of Greece or +Rome, to the first times of Christian abnegation and martyrdom, to +the childlike angelic revival of mediæval Christianity, to the solemn +self-concentration of Huguenot France or Puritan England, that it +has not sprung out of the straightforward purity of periods of moral +regeneration, but rather from out of the ferment, nay, the putrescence, +of many-sided, perplexed, anomalous times of social dissolution. That +although our greatest art seems thus undeniably to have arisen in +corrupt times, yet the individuals to whom we proximately owe have been +the nobler and purer of their day. Nay, we almost persuade ourselves +that in those dubious times of doubt and dissolution, the spotless, the +unshaken were in a way divinely selected, like so many vestal virgins, +to cherish in isolation the holy fire of art. And we call up to our +minds men noble and pure, like Michael Angelo and Beethoven: we eagerly +treasure up like relics anecdotes showing the gentleness and generosity +of men like Lionardo and Mozart: trifling tales of caged-birds let +loose, or of poor fellow-workers assisted, which, in our desire to +trace art back to a noble origin, seem to shed so much light upon the +production of a great picture or great symphony. And yet, even as the +words leave our lips, words so sincerely consoling, we seem to catch in +our voice an unintentional inflexion of deriding scepticism. So much +light! these tales of mere ordinary goodness, such as we might hear (did +we care) of so many a dull and blundering artisan, or vacant idler, +these tales shed so much light upon the production of great works of +art! A sort of reasoning devil seems to possess us, to twitch our +little morsels of unreasoned consolation, of sanctifying, mystical +half-reasoning away from our peace-hungry souls. And he says: "What of +Perugino? What of so many undeniable realities which this Perugino of +ours, even if the purest myth, so completely typifies? How did this +cynic, this atheist, come to paint these saints? You say that he was no +cynic, no atheist, that it is all vile slander." Well, I won't dispute +that: perhaps he _was_ a saint after all. I will even grant that he +was. But in return for the concession, let us examine whether the +saints could not have been equally well painted by the traditional, +unrehabilitated Perugino, Vasari's Perugino--not the real one, oh no, +I will admit not the real one--by the typical Perugino; the man "of +exceeding little religion, who could never be got to believe in +the soul's immortality; nay, with arguments suited to his porphyry +intellect, obstinately refused all good paths; who placed all his hopes +in the goods of fortune and for money would have consented to any evil +compact." Nay, even by a Perugino a good deal worse. + +An ugly, impertinent little reasoning fiend within us; but now-a-days we +have lost the formula of exorcism for this kind of devil, and listen we +must; indignantly, and with mind well made up to find all his arguments +completely false. Think over the matter, now that idea is once started, +we can no longer help. So let us discuss it with ourselves, within +ourselves, the place where most discussion must ever go on. Let us sit +here on the low-broken brick parapet, which seems to prevent all this +rough, black Perugia from precipitating itself, a mass of huddled, +strangled lanes, into the ravine below; sit with the grey, berry-laden +olives, and twisted sere-leaved fig-trees with their little brown +bursting fruit, pushing their branches up from the orchard on the steep +below, where the women dawdle under the low evening sun, sickle in hand, +mowing up the long juicy grass, tearing out wreath after wreath, of vine +and clematis, spray after spray of feathery bluish fennel, till their +wheel-shaped crammed baskets look as if destined for some sylvan god's +altar, rather than to be emptied out into the sweltering darkness before +the cows mewed up in the thatched hut yonder by the straw-stack and the +lavender and rose-hedged tank. + +The question which, we scarcely know how, has thus been started within +us, and which, (like all similar questions) develops itself almost +automatically in our mind, without much volition and merely a vague +feeling of discomfort, until it have finally taken shape and left our +consciousness for the limbo of decided points, this question is simply: +What are the relations between the character of the work of art and the +character of the artist who creates it? To what extent may we infer from +the peculiar nature of the one the peculiar nature of the other? Such, +if we formulate it, is the question, and the answer thereunto seems +obvious: that as the peculiarity of the fruit depends, _cæteris +paribus_, upon the peculiarity of the tree (itself due in part to soil +and temperature and similar external circumstances), so also must the +peculiarity of the spiritual product be due to the peculiarities of the +spiritual whole of which it is born. And thus, in inverted order of +ideas, the definite character of the fruit proves the character of +the tree, the result argues the origin: there must exist a necessary +relation between the product and that which has produced. If then we +find a definite quality in the works of an artist, we have a right to +suppose that corresponding qualities existed in the artist himself: if +the picture, or symphony, or poem be noble, and noble moreover with a +special sort of nobility, then noble also, and noble with that special +sort of nobility must be the artistic organism, the artist, by whom +it was painted, or composed or written. And this once granted (which +we cannot help granting), we must inevitably conclude that the man +Perugino, who painted those wonderful intense types of complete +renunciation of the world, could not in reality have been the worldly, +unconscientious atheist described by Vasari. So, at least, it would +seem. But tarry awhile. We have decided on analogy, and by a sort of +instinct of cause and effect, that the work must correspond in its main +qualities with the main qualities of the artist, of the artistic +organism by which it is produced. Mark what we have said: of the artist, +or artistic organism. Now what is this artistic organism, this artist? +An individual, a man, surely? Yes, and no. The artist and the man are +not the same: the artist is only part of the man; how much of him, +depends upon the art in which he is a worker. The work is produced by +the man, but not by the whole of him; only by that portion which we call +the artist; and how much that portion is, what relation it bears to the +whole man, we can ascertain by asking ourselves what faculties are +required for the production of a work of art. And thus we soon get to a +new question. The faculties required for the production of a work of art +may be divided into two classes; those which directly and absolutely +produce it, and those which are required to enable the production to +take place without interference from contrary parts of the individual +nature. These secondary qualities, merely protective as it were, are +the moral qualities common, in greater or less degree, to all workers: +concentration, patience, determination, desire of improvement; they are +not artistic in themselves, and are not more requisite to the artist +than to the thinker, or statesman, or merchant, or soldier, to preserve +his very different mental powers from the disturbing influence of +laziness, or fickleness, or any more positive tendencies, vices or +virtues, which might interfere with the development of his talents. +And of these purely protective qualities only so much need exist as the +relative strength of the artistic faculty and of the unartistic +tendencies of the individual require in order that the former be +protected from the latter; and thus it comes that where the artistic +endowment has been out of all proportion large, as in the case of such +a man as Rossini, it has been able to produce the most excellent work +without much of what we should call moral fibre: the man was lazy and +voluptuous, but he was, above all, musical; it was easier for him to be +musically active than to be merely dissipated and inactive: the artistic +instincts were the strongest, and were passively followed. When these +moral qualities, merely protective and secondary in art, are developed +beyond the degree requisite for mere protection of the artistic +faculties (a degree small in proportion to the magnitude of the artistic +instinct), they become ruling characteristics of the whole individual +nature, and influence all the actions of the man as distinguished from +the artist: they make him as inflexible in the pursuit of the +non-artistic aims of life as in that of mere excellence in his own art. +The timorous and slothful Andrea del Sarto is quite as complete an +artist as the eager and inquisitive Lionardo da Vinci; but, whereas +Andrea's activity stops short at the limits of his powers of painting, +the increasing laboriousness and never satisfied curiosity of Lionardo +extend, on the contrary, to all manner of subjects quite disconnected +with his real art. When once the glorious fresco of the Virgin, seated +like a happier Niobe, by the mealsack, has been properly finished in the +cloister of the Servites, Andrea goes home and crouches beneath the +violence of his wife, or to the tavern to seek feeble consolation. But +when, after never-ending alterations and additional touches, Lionardo at +length permits Paolo Giocondo to carry home the portrait of his dubious, +fascinating wife, he sets about mathematical problems or chemical +experiments, offers to build fortresses for Cæsar Borgia, manufactures +a wondrous musical instrument like the fleshless skull of a horse and +learns to play thereon, or writes treatises on anatomy: there is in +him a desire, a capacity for work greater than even his subtle and +fantasticating style of art can ever fully employ. Such are the +non-artistic qualities required, merely as protectors from interference, +for the production of a work of art: the same these, whatever the art, +as they are the same if, instead of art, we consider science, or +commerce, or any other employment. The artistic, the really directly +productive qualities, differ of course according to the art to which the +work belongs, differ not only in nature but also in number. For there +are some arts in which the work is produced by a very small number of +faculties; others where it requires a very complex machine, which we +call a whole individuality: and here we find ourselves back again before +our original question, to what extent the personality of an artist +influences the character of his work. We have got back to the anomaly +typified by Perugino; back to it, and as completely without an answer to +the problem as we were on starting. We have been losing our time, going +round and round a question merely to find ourselves at our original +starting-point. Not so: going round the question indeed, but in +constantly narrowing circles, which will dwindle, let us hope, till we +find ourselves on the only indivisible centre, which is the solution of +the problem. For there are many questions which are like the towns of +this same Umbria of Perugino: built upon the brink of a precipice, +walled round with a wall of unhewn rock, seeming so near if we look up +at them from the ravine below, and see every roof, and cypress-tree, +and pillared balcony; but which we cannot approach by scaling the +unscalable, sheer precipice, but must slowly wind round from below, +circling up and down endless undulations of vineyard and oakwood, coming +for ever upon a tantalising glimpse of towers and walls, for ever +seemingly close above us, and yet forever equally distant; till at last, +by a sharp turn of the gradually ascending road, we find ourselves +before the unexpected gates of the city. And thus we have approached +a little nearer to the solution of the question. We have, in our +wanderings, left behind one part of the ground. We have admitted that +the work of art is produced not by the man, but merely by that portion +of him which we call the artist; we have even dimly foreseen that +the case may be that in one art the artist, that is to say, the +art-producing organism, comprises nearly the whole of the mere +individual: that the artistic part is very nearly the complete human +whole. Now, in order to approach nearer our final conclusion, namely, +whether the man Perugino could have painted those saints and those +angels had he really been the mercenary atheist of Vasari, we must set +afresh to examine what, in the various arts, are the portions of an +individual necessary to constitute the mere artist, that is to say, the +producer of a work of art. + +But stop again. Are we quite sure that we know what we mean when we say +"a work of art?" Are we quite sure that we may not, without knowing it, +be talking of two things under one name? Surely not: when we apply the +word to one of Perugino's archangels, we certainly refer to one whole +object. So far, certainly, we mean (let us put it in the crudest way) a +certain amount of colour laid on to a canvas in such a manner, and with +such arrangements of tints and shadows, that it presents to our eyes and +mind a certain form, a form which we define, from its resemblance to +other forms made out of flesh and bone, the face and body of a young +man; a form which, owing to certain constitutional peculiarities +and engrained habits of our mind, we also declare to a given extent +beautiful. This form, moreover, distinctly recalls to our mind real +forms which experience has taught us to associate with the idea of moral +purity, self-forgetfulness, piety; simply because we have noticed or +been told since our infancy that persons with such bodily aspects are +usually pure, self-forgetful and pious; because, without our knowing +it, thousands of painters have accustomed us by giving us such forms as +the portraits of saints to consider this physical type as distinctly +saintly. This perception, that the form into which the colours on +Perugino's canvas have been combined is such as we are accustomed to +think of in connection with saintliness, immediately awakens in our mind +a whole train of associations: we not merely see with our physical eyes +the combination of colours and lines constituting the form, but with +our mental eyes we rapidly and half unconsciously glance over all the +occupations, aspirations, habits of such a creature as we conceive this +form to belong to. We not merely see the delicate, thin, pale lips, +thrown back head and neck, and the wide-opened, dilated, greyish eyes; +we imagine in our mind the vague delights after which those lips are +thirsting as the half-closed pale flowers thirst for the rain-drops, the +ecstasy of fulfilled hope which makes the veins of the neck pulse and +the head fall back in weariness of inner quivering; the confused glory +of heaven after which those wide-opened eyes are straining; while our +bodily sight is resting on the mere coloured surface of Perugino's +picture, our mental sight is wandering across all the past and future of +this strange being whose bodily semblance the artist has suddenly thrust +upon us. All this is what we vaguely think of when we speak of a work +of art. Perhaps we can so little disentangle our impressions and our +fancies that their combination may thus be treated as a unity. But +this unity is a dualism: the mere colour arrangement constituting the +form which we see with our bodily eyes, and with our bodily eyes find +beautiful, is one half; and the whole moral apparition, conjured up by +association and imagination, is the other. And, as far as so infinitely +interwoven a dualism can be divided, coarsely, and leaving or taking too +much on one side or the other, we can divide this dual existence into +that which has been given to us by the artist, the visible, material +form; and that which association, recollection, fancy, has been added +by ourselves to the artist's work. Of this dualism, therefore, of +impression and fancy, only that portion of the work of art which is +absolutely visible and concrete; the form, whether it exist in combined +colour and shadow, or marble mass, as in the plastic arts, or in +partially combined and partially successive sounds, as in music, only +this form is really given by the artist, is that which, with reference +to his productive power, we can call the work of art. He may, it is +true, have deliberately chosen that form which should lead us to such +associations of ideas, but in so far he has been acting not as the +artist, but as a sort of foreshadowed spectator or listener; he has, +before taking up his own work with the mere material, visible, tangible, +audible realities of the art, stepped into the place to be occupied by +ourselves, and foreseen, by his knowledge of the effects which he can +produce, by his experience of what associations are awakened by each of +his various forms, the imaginative activities which his yet unfinished +work will call for in those who see or hear it. But he will, in so +doing, be deliberately or unconsciously leaving his own work, +forestalling ours: nay, the artist who says to himself, "Now I will +paint a soul in a condition of ecstasy," is in reality transforming +himself into the customer who would enter his workshop and say, "Paint +me a figure such as your experience tells you suggests to beholders +the idea of religious enthusiasm; copy the features of any religious +enthusiast of your acquaintance, or put together such dispersed features +as seem to you indicative of that temper of mind." All this, while +the real artistic work has not begun; for that begins when the artist +first places before his easel the model for his archangel: either the +delicate, hectic, little girlish novice-boy, or the distinct outline +of the armed young angel existing in his mind and requiring only to be +printed off into concrete existence. Thus, in our examination of the +amount of an artist's personality which can go into his work, we must +remember that this work is merely the externally existing, definite, +finite form, and not the ideas of emotions which, by the power of +association, that form may awaken in ourselves. What the artist gives +is merely the arrangement of lines and colours in a given manner, which +may, as in painting, resemble an already existing natural object; or, as +in architecture and pattern decoration, resemble no already existing +natural object; the arrangement of sounds which may, as in a dramatic +air, recall the inflexions proper to a given emotion, or, as in a formal +fugue, recall no emotional inflexions whatever. This, and not any train +of thoughts awakened by this possibly but not necessarily existing +resemblance to an already known natural object, or to an already known +sort of emotional voice inflexion, is what is given by the artist, and +this is artistic form, the absolutely, objectively existing work of art. +And now we may examine what mental faculties, in the various arts, are +required for the production of this work: what portions of the whole +individual man are included or excluded in that smaller, more limited +individual whom we call the artist. Let us investigate the point by a +sort of experiment: by stripping away, one by one, those qualities of an +ideal individual which are not necessary for the production of the +various kinds of artistic work; let us separate and afterwards, if need +be, select and reunite the qualities which are required and those which +are not required to make up a poet, a painter, a sculptor, or a +musician. + +And first we must create our ideal man, who contains within him the +stuff of every kind of artist, the faculties of producing every kind of +artistic work. First, a word about this ideal man, and about the manner +in which he differs from other men. He differs in completeness, in +balance, in intensity. For almost every one of us has some mental +faculty so imperfectly developed that we may say that it does not +exist: it exists indeed, and perhaps not without a certain necessary +effect, but as with a single solitary instrument in a powerful orchestra +of dozens of every other kind of instruments, this effect is not +consciously perceived. And the faculties which we do possess are rarely +of very remarkable strength and intensity: we have enough of them for +our ordinary wants of life, but not necessarily more. Our sense of +hearing is sufficient to distinguish the voice of one friend from +another, but not always sufficient to be able to enjoy music, still less +often to perform, least often of all to compose. And similarly with +every other mental faculty: most men can follow a simple argument, +some a more complex one, but few can reason out unaided a complicated +proposition. Now the creative degree in any faculty is the most intense +in its development. The painter is the man who receives the largest +number of most delicately complete visional impressions; the musician +the man who receives the largest number of most delicately complete +audible impressions: to the painter everything is a shape, a colour; to +the musician everything is a sound; the whole universe, to the thinker, +is but a concatenation of logical propositions. Thus, our ideal man +must, at starting, possess every higher faculty, developed to the most +intense degree, and every one of them developed equally: for out of him +is to be made every kind of artist. Here, then, we have our ideal man: +he possesses in the highest degree, and in the most perfect balance, all +the emotional, logical, and perceptive powers of the mind; he is, if +you choose, the abstract creature (never existing, and never, alas! to +exist), the all beautiful, all powerful, perfect fiction, which we call +_humanity_; and with him is our work. He is perfectly balanced, he is +a mere abstraction: for these two reasons he is, so far, inactive; we +cannot, with the best will in the world, imagine his doing anything +as long as he can do everything: he will, in all probability, merely +passively enjoy. Before he can create, we must alter him. And he is to +create, remember, not as a statesman or a handicraftsman, but as an +artist: he is to deal not with realities, but with fictions; he is not +to touch our material interests, he is merely to evoke for us a series +of phantom sights or sounds, of phantom men and women. Therefore, our +first act must be to diminish, by at least a half, all the practical +sides of his nature, so that no practical activities divert him from his +purely ideal field. So that it be for him infinitely more natural to +think, to feel, to imitate, to combine impressions, than to be of any +immediate use in the world; so that the mere employment of his powers be +his furthest aim, without thinking what effect that employment will have +upon the real condition of himself or of others. This much we have done: +we have obtained a creature whose interest is never purely practical. +But this will not suffice. We must diminish by at least a quarter his +mere logical powers, thus rendering him far more inclined to view things +as concrete, living manifestations, than as logical abstractions. This +has served to prevent his being diverted into metaphysic or scientific +speculations: there is now no longer any fear of his becoming a +psychologist instead of a poet, a mathematician or physicist instead of +a painter or a composer: things now interest him no longer for their +practical bearing, nor for their abstract meaning: he cares for them not +as forces, nor as ideas, but as forms, as visions. And this time we +have, as it were, rough-hewn our artist. But what artist? He is, it is +true, mainly attracted by the mere contemplation of things apart from +practical or scientific interests, but he is equally attracted by all +sorts of visions: he receives every kind of impression. This time, +again, he will, from perfect balance, remain inactive. We must throw his +faculties a little into disorder, we must, at random, diminish here in +order (relatively) to increase there: let us, for instance, diminish by +a trifle his faculty for manipulating colours or masses of stone, his +faculty for conceiving sounds in succession and in combination; let us, +in short, make it a little difficult for him to be a painter or sculptor +or musician. + +What will he be, this first made artist of ours? this creature, clipped +in all the mere practically scientific instincts, only that his whole +intense personality may be given more completely, more absolutely to the +world of artistic phantoms? Before breaking up this huge psychological +snow-man, this ungainly monster roughly moulded into caricature shape by +awkward removing of material here and adding on there, before dashing +it back into the limbo of used up and unformed similes, let us ask +ourselves what artist he vaguely resembles: what is the artist thus +formed, it would seem, of a mere intense human being; of all the +faculties of our nature, only more subtle and powerful, and working not +in the world of practical realities, nor of abstract truths, but in that +of imaginary forms? The answer comes instinctively, unhesitatingly to +all of us: this universal artist, this artistic organism which contains +the whole intensified individual, is the poet. Nay: why call him poet? +why reserve this supreme place of artist not of colours or sounds, but +of spoken emotion, and perception, and action, for the man whose words +are grouped into metrical shape? Is it this metrical shape, this +mere enveloping form perceived merely by the ear, this monotonous, +rudimentary music, so paltry by the side of the musician's real music, +is it this which requires for its production that wondrous combination +of faculties, that whole intensified human individuality? For those same +faculties, that same intensified individuality, will act and bear fruit +in the man who lets his words drift on, unmetrical, in mere spoken +manner. And yet he shall be accounted less, and shall cede to the other, +who can measure his words into verses, and couple them into rhyme. +Surely there is injustice in this. Wherefore, I pray you, should you, my +friend, my beloved little child poet, with the keen eyes and eager lips +of Keats, who sit (in fancy at least) here by my side on the rough wall +overlooking the orchard ravine at Perugia, drowsily listening (as poets +listen to prose) to our discussion, wherefore should you, the poet, be +worth more than I, the prose writer, merely inasmuch as you are the one +and I am the other? Why be surrounded, even in my eyes, by a sort of +ideal halo; why pointed out by my own secret instinct as the artist? All +this must be mere folly, prejudice, dried old forms of thought handed +down from the days when poets were priests and lawgivers and prophets, +when their very credit depended upon their not being solely what you +modern poets are; all this is a mere historic myth, in which the world +continues foolishly to believe, letting itself be told from generation +to generation, till the idea has become engrained in its mode of +thinking, that the poet is a special creature, a thing of finer mould, +in whose life, and movements, and feelings it expects something +different from the rest of humanity; in whose eyes it seeks a dim +reflection, in whose voice a distant echo of the colours and sounds of +that fairyland out of which he has come as a changeling into the world +of realities. Infatuation and injustice. But no! mankind at large is +right in its ideas, but as it usually is, without knowing why it has +them: right in giving instinctively this place of artist of the merely +suggested, as distinguished from the absolutely seen or heard forms of +other arts, to the poet alone. For the poet is, in the kingdom of words, +the real, complete artist. The artistic external form which he gives to +his creations removes them out of the domain of the practically useful, +or the scientifically interesting. This metrical setting enables the +poet to show a part, to make perfect the tiniest thing; to give complete +significance, complete beauty, and eternal life to a perception, an +emotion, an image which cannot be expanded beyond the fourteen lines of +a sonnet; while the poor prose writer, reduced to being a mere smith or +mechanist, can do nothing with any stray gem he may cut, knows not how +to set it, and is forced in despair to stick it clumsily into some +unwieldy utensil or implement, some pot out of which to drink knowledge, +or some shield to ward off disaster. The prose writer is for ever being +driven to seek employment outside the land of pure art. Therefore, the +poet is truly the exclusive artist in words; or rather the exclusive +artist in words must needs become the poet; if the man feel that he +cannot hammer wearily at some clumsy ornamented piece of furniture, some +bastard of artistic uselessness and practical utility, that he cannot +write histories, or ethical disquisitions or psychological studies +(waxworks of spiritual pathology, technically called novels), in order +to bury in them the delicate artistic fragments which he spontaneously +produces; then that man will assuredly learn the manner of making +metrical settings; that man, that word artist will infallibly become +a poet: nay, he is one. Thus, the poet is in reality the artist who +suggests emotions, and actions, and sights, and sounds, as the painter +is the artist who shows coloured shapes, and the musician the artist who +creates forms made of sounds. The poet, therefore, is the artist into +whose work there enters, or can enter, the greatest number of fragments +of his whole personality: for his works are made up of all that which +his nature perceives and evolves and desires: of the forests and fields, +and sea and skies which have printed their likenesses on his mind; of +the faces and movements of the men and women whom he has known, nay, +of whom once perhaps, only once in his life, he has caught a never +forgotten glimpse; of the events which have taken place before his eyes, +or of which he has been told; of the emotions and passions which he has +felt hidden in himself or seen burst out in others; of all that he can +see, feel, hear, conceive, imagine. He is the man who assimilates most, +initiates most, perceives most of all that passes within and without +him, and unites it all in a homogeneous outer shape: nothing for him is +waste: not the hard, scaly first shoot of the reed, pale green, which +catches his feet as he walks on the riverside, across the grass, half +sere, half renovated by spring; not the scent of first raindrops on the +upturned mould of the fields; not the sentence read at random in a book +opened by accident; not the sudden, never-recurring look in the eyes of +one beloved; not the base appetite which he has hidden away, trampled +back out of sight of his own consciousness; not the preposterous ideal +which his vanity may have shown him for one second; not anything, +however small or however large, however common or however rare, not +anything inanimate or feeling, not anything in life or in death, not +anything which can be seen, or heard, or felt, or understood, which may +not be moulded by the poet into some form which will have meaning and +charm, and eternal value for all men. The poet is the man who receives a +greater number of more intense impressions than any other man; he is, of +all creatures, the most sensitive in the whole of his being; for the +whole of his being is at once the raw material, and the forming +mechanism of the work of art. This is the ideal, the universal poet, the +type: of him every individual poet represents a limited portion, and is +a fresh repartition of faculties, a fresh combination and proportion of +material and mechanism, due to the accident of race, of time, of birth, +of education. The typical poet assimilates and reproduces everything; +and each fragment of this type, each individual, differs from every +other individual in that which is assimilated and reproduced by him: the +one feels more, the other sees more, the third imagines more; and each +feels, sees, and imagines, according to what external things have been +put within reach of his feelings, his sight, his fancy. As, therefore, +the typical poet is the whole type of humanity affording material and +acting as manipulative apparatus to produce the work of art, so also +the individual poet is the individual man, moulding into shape all the +qualities which are strongest in his nature. All the qualities, let us +however mark, which are indisputedly dominant; often, therefore, only +the better, and in only the lowest tempers the worst. For, remembering +what we noticed about moral faculties of will which protect the artistic +workings from the interference of other parts of our nature, we may see +that it must often happen that a noble spirit may be able to keep out +of his mere abstract creations those baser instincts (which though +recognized with shame) he is unable to subdue in practice; his works +show him as he would desire himself to be, as he, alas! has not the +strength to be in reality; let us not, therefore, complain of those who +are unable to live up to their conceptions, for they have given to us +their better part, and kept for themselves, with bitterness and shame, +their worse. + +The poet, therefore, is the artist into whose work there enters the +greatest proportion of his individual nature; if he be flippant in +temper his works cannot be earnest; if he be impure his writings cannot +be actively pure; the distinctive features of his nature must be +reflected in his work, since his work is made out of and by his nature. +Now let us proceed. We had constructed a sort of typical giant, +promising all the powers and qualities of all humanity; and this, by +the gradually stripping away of some of these human powers, we had +reduced to the condition of typical poet. Now let us continue our +work. Of course there are kinds of poetry which form links with other +intellectual work; and to obtain these we must remove such faculties as +do not enter into them: separate from the artist those qualities which +belong only to the man. There is first of all that great poetical +anomaly the drama, for which, it would seem, that less of the writer's +own personality is required than for any other form; for the dramatist +stands half way between the artist and the psychologist; he can obtain +innumerable varieties of character and feeling merely by his reasoning +powers, not by any personal experience. He is a sort of synthetic +metaphysician, who can construct the saint, the villain, the simpleton, +the knave, not out of anything within himself, but out of the very +elements of these characters which he has obtained by analysis; hence +it is that, while we can from their works reconstruct the character of +poets like Milton, or Wordsworth, or Leopardi, or Musset, we remain +wholly ignorant of the personality of Shakespeare; he cannot be all that +he shows us, and in the doubt he remains none of it at all. Let us put +aside therefore this anomalous artist, and continue stripping away some +of the purely emotional characters of our typical colossus. We shall +soon meet the last and simplest form of poet--the mere describer; of his +aspirations and emotions we know but little; we know only of his tastes, +his preferences for certain sights and sounds. He cares for the sea, or +the woods, or the fields, or the skies; he is very near being a mere +thing of eyes and ears. Yet not wholly; for he perceives not only the +colour and movement of the waves, but their sound, their briny scent; +he perceives not only the green and tawny tints of leaves and moss, he +hears the crackling of the brushwood, the rustling of the boughs, the +confused hum of bees, the faint murmur of waters; nay, in the waves and +in the woods he perceives something more, vague resemblances to other +things; vague expressions of mood and feeling which, when the waters +rush in, make his heart leap; when the grey light steals in among the +branches, sends a sadness throughout him. Nay, in this artist, in this +simplest, least human sort of poet, there remains yet an infinite amount +of the human individuality, of its passions and desires. Let us tear +away, throw aside this last amount of human feeling, reduce our typical +artist to mere intense powers of seeing. Shall we still have wherewith +to obtain any work at all? will this rarified, simplified mentality be +much above a mere feelingless optic machine? Let us see. Here we have a +creature out of which we have removed as much as possible of all human +qualities: a creature which can perceive with infinite keenness and +reproduce with the most perfect exactitude, every little subtle line +and tint and shadow which escapes other men; a creature whose delicate +perception vibrates with delight at every harmonious combination, and +writhes, as if it would shatter to atoms, at every displeasing mixture +of lines or colours. A living and most sensitive organism which feels, +thinks everything as form and colour, fostered with the utmost care by +other such organisms, themselves nurtured into intensity more intense +than that with which they were born; for ever put in contact with the +visual objects which are, let us remember, the air it breathes, the food +it assimilates until this visual organism becomes beyond compare perfect +in its power of perceiving and reproducing. Then, imagine this abstract +being, this quivering thing of sight, placed in the midst of a country +of austere, delicate lines, and solemn yet diaphanous tints; among +the undulating fields and oakwoods, beneath the pearly sky of Umbria; +imagine that before it are placed, as the creatures most precious and +lovely, the creatures whose likeness must for ever be copied in all its +intensity, youths, young women, old men, delicate and emaciate with +solitude and maceration, with eyes grown dilated and bright from +straining to see the glorious visions, the celestial day-dreams which +flit across their mind; with lips grown tremulous and eager with +passionate longing for constantly expected, never-coming bliss; always +alone, inactive, with listless limbs and workless hands, in the bare, +unadorned cell or oratory; or if, coming forth, walking through the +streets, passing through the crowd (giving way with awe), erect, +self-engrossed, seeing and hearing nothing around, like one entranced. +Let us imagine this organism, thus perfect for perceiving and +reproducing all that it sees, for ever in the presence of such lines and +colours, such faces and figures as these; and then let us ask ourselves +what this quite abstract, unhuman power will produce, what this artist, +who is completely divested of all that which belongs merely to the man, +would paint. What would that be, that work thus produced? What save +those delicate, wan angels and saints and apostles, standing in solitary +contemplation and ecstasy, those scarcely embodied souls, raised beyond +the bounds of time and space, concentrated, absorbed in longing for +heavenly perfection? And if this subtle visual organism, nurtured among +these sights, should happen to be lodged in the same body with a sordid, +base, cynical temper, can it be altered thereby? Surely not. The eye has +seen, the hand has reproduced--seen and reproduced that which surrounds +them--and inevitably, fatally, although eye and hand belonged to the +man "who placed all his hopes in the good things of fortune, into whose +porphyry brain no idea of good could enter, who for money would have +concluded any evil bargain," the work thus produced by this commonplace, +grasping atheist, Peter Perugino, must be the ideal of all purely +devotional art. He was an atheist and a cynic, but he was a great +painter, and lived in Umbria, in the country of sweet and austere hills +and valleys, in the country whose moral air was still scented by the +"flowerets of St. Francis." + +This is the end of our long wandering up and down, round and round, the +question of artistic personality, even as we must wander up and down, +round and round, before we can reach any of these strange Umbrian towns. +And, as after long journeying, when we enter the city, and find that +that which seemed a castle, a grand, princely town, all walled and +towered and battlemented, is in reality only a large, rough village, +with blackened houses and fissured church steeples, a place containing +nothing of any interest: so also in this case, when we have finally +reached our paltry conclusion that this painter of saints was no saint +himself, we must admit to ourselves that to arrive at this conclusion +was scarcely our real object; even as while travelling through this +country of Perugino we make our guide confess that what, in all this +expedition, we were meant to see and enjoy, was not the paltry, +deceptive hill-top village, but the sere-brown oakwoods, tinged russet +by the sun, the grey olive hills through which we have slowly ascended, +and the glimpses of undulating grey-green country and distant wave-blue +mountains which we have had at every new turn of our long and up-hill +road. + + + + +RUSKINISM. + +THE WOULD-BE STUDY OF A CONSCIENCE + + +I give a place to the following pages, because, for all the difference +of form, this essay is of the same sort, has had the same kind of +origin, as the so seemingly incongruous studies with which it is bound +up. For this also is the rough putting together of notes made at +various times and in various phases of study; it is a series of +self-questionings and answers, of problems, perhaps only half-formulated +and half-solved, which have arisen round one man, one artist, one art +philosophy, even as in the adjoining essays they have arisen around some +one statue, or song, or picture; self-questionings and problems, these +present ones, not of æsthetic right and wrong suggested by a given work +of art, but of moral fitness and unfitness suggested by the doubts, the +divisions, the mistakes, by the comprehension (or, if you prefer, the +misapprehension) of the conscience of perhaps the greatest and strangest +artist of our days. + + * * * * * + +John Ruskin stands quite isolated among writers on art. His truths and +his errors are alike of a far higher sort than the truths and errors of +his fellow-workers: they are truths and errors not of mere fact, nor of +mere reasoning, but of tendency, of moral attitude; and his philosophy +is of far greater importance than any other system of æsthetics, +because it is not the philosophy of the genius, evolution or meaning +of any art or of all art, but the philosophy of the legitimacy or +illegitimacy of all and every art. In the case of every other writer +on art the evils due to a false system are, in proportion to the great +interests of our lives and of the life around, but very paltry evils: +the evils of misconceiving the relations between various masters and +various schools, and the causes of various artistic phenomena; the evils +of misappreciating a work or a form of art, of preferring an inferior +picture, or statue or piece of music, to a superior one; the evils of +buying fluttering St. Theresas of Bernini rather than noble goddesses +of Scopas; of ornamenting our houses with plaster dragons, grimacing +toothless masks, and meagre lines of lintel and clumsy agglomerations +of columns, rather than with the leaf and flower moulding, the noble +arches and dainty cornices of mediæval art; the evils in short of not +understanding quite well or of not appreciating quite correctly. Very +important evils within the limited sphere of our artistic interests, and +which we must not neglect to eradicate; but evils such as cannot deeply +trouble our whole nature, or seriously damage our whole lives. Such is +the case with the æsthetic systems, with the truths and errors of men +like Winckelmann, Lessing, Hegel, or Taine; but it is not so with the +æsthetic system of Ruskin. For the theories of all other writers on +art deal only with the meaning and value of one work or school of art +compared with another work or school; they deal only with the question +how much of our liking or disliking should we give to this art or to +that; they are all true or false within the region allotted to art. But +the theories of Ruskin deal with the comparative importance of artistic +concerns and the other concerns of our lives: they deal with the +problem, how much of our thoughts and our energies we have a right to +give to art, and for what reasons we may give any portion of them: it +deals with the question of the legitimacy not of one kind of artistic +enjoyment more than another, but of the enjoyment of art at all. + +The question may at first sight seem futile from its very magnitude: +unnecessary because it has so long been answered. In the first moment +many of us may answer with contempt that the thinking men and women of +to-day are not ascetics of the Middle Ages, nor utilitarians of the 18th +century, nor Scotch Calvinists, that they should require to be taught +that beauty is neither sinful nor useless, that enjoyment of art is not +foul self-indulgence nor childish pastime. And so at first it seems. The +thinking men and women of our day are not any of these things, and do +not require to be answered these questions. But though these scruples +and doubts no longer trouble us, we, in our nineteenth century, are yet +not entirely at peace in our hearts. For, just in proportion as the old +religious faith is dying out, we are feeling the necessity to create a +new; as the old vocations of belief are becoming fewer and further +between, the new vocations of duty are becoming commoner; as the old +restrictions of the written law are melting away, so there appears +the new restriction of the unwritten law, the law of our emancipated +conscience; and the less we go to our priests, the more do we go to our +own inner selves to know what we may do and what we should sacrifice: +with our daily growing liberty, grows and must grow, to all the nobler +among us, our responsibility. Nay, the more we realise that we have but +this one brief life wherein to act and to expiate, the more earnestly do +we ask ourselves to what use we should put the little that is vouchsafed +us. And thus it comes to pass that there exist among us many who, seeing +the evil around them, seeing the infinitude of falsehood which requires +to be dispelled and of pain which requires to be alleviated, and of +injustice which requires to be destroyed, must occasionally pause and +ask themselves what right they have to give all, or any, of their +limited time and thought and energy to the mere enjoyment of the +beautiful, when there exists on all sides evil which it seems to require +unlimited effort to quell. Many there must be, and every day more, who +are harried by their love of art and their sense of duty, who daily ask +themselves the question which first arose, nearly forty years ago, in +the mind of John Ruskin; and which, settled by false answers, has +recurred to him ever and anon, and has shaken and shattered the very +system which was intended to answer it for ever. + +John Ruskin has been endowed as have been very few men as an artist, a +critic, and a moralist; in the immense chaotic mass, the constantly +altered and constantly propped up ruins of an impossible system, which +constitute the bulk of his writings, he has taught us more of the subtle +reasons of art, he has reproduced with his pen more of the beauty of +physical nature, and he has made us feel more profoundly the beauty of +moral nature, than has, perhaps, been done separately by any critic, +or artist, or moralist of his day. He has possessed within himself +two very perfect characters, has been fitted out for two very noble +missions:--the creation of beauty and the destruction of evil; and of +these two halves each has been warped; of these two missions each has +been hampered; warped and hampered by the very nobility of the man's +nature: by his obstinate refusal to compromise with the reality of +things, by his perpetual resistance to the evidence of his reason, by +his heroic and lamentable clinging to his own belief in harmony where +there is discord, in perfection where there is imperfection. There are +natures which cannot be coldly or resignedly reasonable, which, despite +all possible demonstration, cannot accept evil as a necessity and +injustice as a fact; which must believe their own heart rather than +their own reason; and when we meet such natures, we in our cold wisdom +must look upon them with pity, perhaps, and regret, but with admiration +and awe and envy. Such a nature is that of John Ruskin. He belongs, it +is true, to a generation which is rapidly passing away; he is the almost +isolated champion of creeds and ideas which have ceased even to be +discussed among the thinking part of our nation; he is a believer +not only in Good and in God, but in Christianity, in the Bible, in +Protestantism; he is, in many respects, a man left far behind by the +current of modern thought; but he is, nevertheless, and unconsciously, +perhaps, to himself, the greatest representative of the highly developed +and conflicting ethical and æsthetical nature which is becoming more +common in proportion as men are taking to think and feel for themselves; +his is the greatest example of the strange battles and compromises which +are daily taking place between our moral and our artistic halves; and +the history of his aspirations and his errors is the type of the inner +history of many a humbler thinker and humbler artist around us. + +When, nearly forty years ago, Ruskin first came before the world with +the wonderful book--wonderful in sustained argument and description, +and in obscure, half crazy, half prophetic utterances--called _Modern +Painters_, it was felt that a totally new power had entered the region +of artistic analysis. It was not the subtle sympathy with line and +curve, with leaf and moulding, nor the wondrous power of reproducing +with mere words the depths of sky and sea, the radiancies of light and +the flame and smoulder of cloud; it was not his critical insight nor +his artistic faculty which drew to him at once the souls of a public so +different, in its universality, from the small eclectic bands which +surround other æstheticians; it was the feeling, in all who read his +books, that this man was giving a soul to the skies and seas; that he +was breathing human feeling into every carved stone and painted canvas; +that he was bidding capital and mosaic, nay, every rudest ornament hewn +by the humblest workman, to speak to men with the voice of their own +heart; that for the first time there had been brought into the serene +and egotistic world of art the passion, the love, and the wrath of +righteousness. He came into it as an apostle and a reformer, but as +an apostle and a reformer strangely different from Winckelmann and +Schlegel, from Lessing and Goethe. For, while attacking the architecture +of Palladio and the painting of Salvator Rosa; while expounding the +landscapes of Turner and the churches of Verona, he was not merely +demolishing false classicism and false realism, not merely vindicating +a neglected artist or a wronged school: he was come to sweep usurping +evil out of the kingdom of art, and to reinstate as its sole sovereign +no human craftsman, but God himself. + +God or Good: for to Ruskin the two words have but one meaning. God and +Good must receive the whole domain of art; it must become the holy of +holies, the temple and citadel of righteousness. To do this was the +avowed mission of this strange successor, haughty and humble, and tender +and wrathful, of the pagan Winckelmann, of the coldly serene Goethe. How +came John Ruskin by this mission, or why should his mission differ so +completely from that of all his fellows? Why should he insist upon the +necessity of morally sanctifying art, instead of merely æsthetically +reforming it? Why was it not enough for him that artistic pleasure +should be innocent, without trying to make it holy? Because, for +Ruskin's nature, compounded of artist and moralist, artistic engagement +was a moral danger, a distraction from his duty--for Ruskin was not the +mere artist, who, powerless outside his art, may, because he can only, +give his whole energies to it; he was not the mere moralist who, +indifferent to art, can give it a passing glance without interrupting +for a moment his work of good; he felt himself endowed to struggle for +righteousness and bound to do so, and he felt himself also irresistibly +attracted by mere beauty. To the moral nature of the man this mere +beauty, which threatened to absorb his existence, became positively +sinful; while he knew that evil was raging without requiring all his +energies to quell it, every minute, every thought diverted from the +cause of good was so much gain for the cause of evil; innocence, mere +negative good, there could not be, as long as there remained positive +evil. Thus it appeared to Ruskin. This strange knight-errant of +righteousness, conscious of his heaven endowed strength, felt that +during every half-hour of delay in the Armida's garden of art, new +rootlets were being put forth, new leaves were being unfolded by the +enchanted forest of error which overshadowed and poisoned the earth, +and which it was his work to hew and burn down; that every moment of +reluctant farewell from the weird witch of beauty meant a fresh outrage, +an additional defiling of the holy of holies to rescue which he had +received his strong muscle and his sharp weapons. Thus, refusing to +divide his time and thoughts between his moral work and his artistic, +Ruskin must absolutely and completely abandon the latter; if art seemed +to him not merely a waste of power, but an absolute danger for his +nobler side, there evidently was no alternative but to abjure it for +ever. But a man cannot thus abandon his own field, abjure the work for +which he is specially fitted; he may mortify, and mutilate and imprison +his body, but he cannot mortify or mutilate his mind, he cannot imprison +his thoughts. John Ruskin was drawn irresistibly towards art because he +was specially organised for it. The impossible cannot be done: nature +must find a vent, and the artistic half of Ruskin's mind found its way +of eluding the apparently insoluble difficulty: his desire reasoned, and +his desire was persuaded. A revelation came to him: he was neither to +compromise with sin nor to renounce his own nature. For it struck him +suddenly that this irresistible craving for the beautiful, which he +would have silenced as a temptation of evil, was in reality the call +to his mission; that this domain of art, which he had felt bound to +abandon, was in reality the destined field for his moral combats, +the realm which he must reconquer for God and for Good. Ruskin had +considered art as sinful as long as it was only negatively innocent: by +the strange logic of desire he made it positively righteous, actively +holy; what he had been afraid to touch, he suddenly perceived that he +was commanded to handle. He had sought for a solution of his own doubts, +and the solution was the very gospel which he was to preach to others; +the truth which had saved him was the truth which he must proclaim. And +that truth, which had ended Ruskin's own scruples, was that the basis of +art is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or unpleasant, but must +be lawful or unlawful, that every legitimate artistic enjoyment is due +to the perception of moral propriety, that every artistic excellence is +a moral virtue, every artistic fault is a moral vice; that noble art can +spring only from noble feeling, that the whole system of the beautiful +is a system of moral emotions, moral selections, and moral appreciation; +and that the aim and end of art is the expression of man's obedience to +God's will, and of his recognition of God's goodness. + +Such was the solution of Ruskin's scruples respecting his right of +giving to art the time and energies he might have given to moral +improvement; and such the æsthetical creed which he felt bound, by +conviction and by the necessity of self-justification, to develop into +a system and to apply to every single case. The notion of making beauty +not merely a vague emanation from the divinity, as in the old platonic +philosophies, but a direct result, an infallible concomitant of moral +excellence; of making the physical the mere reflexion of the moral, is +indeed a very beautiful and noble idea; but it is a false idea. For--and +this is one of the points which Ruskin will not admit--the true state +of things is by no means always the noblest or the most beautiful; our +longing for ineffable harmony is no proof that such harmony exists: the +phantom of perfection which hovers before us is often not the mirage +of some distant reality, but a mere vain shadow projected by our own +desires, which we must follow, but may never obtain. In the soul of all +of us exists, oftenest fragmentary and blurred, a plan of harmony and +perfection which must serve us as guide in our workings, in our altering +and rebuilding of things; but we must not expect that with this plan +should coincide the actual arrangements of nature; we must beware lest +we use as a map of the earth into which we have been created the map of +the heaven which we seek to create; for we shall find that the ways are +different, we shall go astray bewildered and in bitterness, we shall sit +down in despair in this country which is evil where it should have been +good, arid where it should have been fruitful, and we shall uselessly +weep or rage until all the time for our journeyings and workings is +over, and death has come to ask how much we have done. Sin and Pain +and Injustice are realities, and what is worse, they are necessities: +they are not despite Nature, but through Nature; destructive forces +perhaps, but which Nature requires for her endless work of construction; +punished perhaps in the individual wretch devoted to them, but ordered +nevertheless by that same punishing power which requires them. And worse +still, evil and good are not opponents, they are not for ever destroying +each other's work, for ever marshalled in battle against each other; +they are combined though hostile, used in the same great work of action +and reaction: together they build and destroy, together they are knit in +closest and most twisted bonds of cause and effect; bonds so close, so +inextricably crossed and recrossed that severing one of them, tearing +and cutting them asunder, it seems as if the whole universe would crash +down upon us. In this world of reality where evil leads to good and +life to death; where harmonies are imperfect, there is no unvarying +correspondence between things, no necessary genesis of good from good, +and evil from evil. There is much conflict and much isolation. And thus +the world of the physically beautiful is isolated from the world of the +morally excellent: there is sometimes correspondence between them, and +sometimes conflict, but both accidental and due to no inner affinity, +but only to exterior causes: most often there is no relation at all. For +the qualities of right and wrong, and of beautiful and ugly, and our +perceptions of them, belong to different parts of our being, even as +to a yet different part of our being belong our perception of true and +false, that is, of existing and non-existing. A true thing need by no +means be a good or a beautiful thing: that generations of men are doomed +to sin and misery is no good fact; that millions of putrifying bodies +lie beneath the ground is no beautiful fact, but both are nevertheless +true facts, true with that truth of which science, had it perception of +good and of beauty as well as mere perception of truth, should say, "I +recognize, but I shudder"--And thus also is it with the good and the +beautiful: they have no connection except that, each in its kingdom, is +the best, the desirable, that for which we should all strive, that for +which the whole of nature, despite its inextricable evils, seems to +crave and to struggle. A pure state of soul is like a pure state of +body: a morbid craving is like a disease; a noble moral attitude is like +a noble physical attitude: moral excellence and physical beauty are both +the healthy, the perfect; but they are the healthy, the perfect, in two +totally different halves of nature, and we perceive and judge them by +totally different organisms. Whence our moral instincts have come, or +how they ever entered into the scheme of a world in which there is so +much to shock them; how the preference for the good of others was ever +evolved out of the preference for the good of self is a question most +speedily solved by the men of science who seek the reasons why Christ is +good and the thinned gold-leaved poplars by the river are beautiful, in +the living nerves of ripped-up beasts; this much is evident that moral +instinct judges that part of actions which is neither to be felt with +our hands, nor to be seen with our eyes, nor to be tasted or heard or +smelt: it judges and finds good or evil certain qualities or combinations +of qualities which do not materially exist: things which though they +have as real an existence as anything which can be tasted or sniffed or +fingered, have yet a purely intellectual existence, can be found only by +those mysterious senses which, even as touch and hearing, and smell and +taste and sight, put us in communication with the physical world outside +us, put us far more wonderfully in communication with the moral world +within us. The qualities constituting physical beauty, on the other +hand, are, to a large extent at least, perceived by our physical senses: +there is indeed a point where the mere nerve sensations no longer serve +to explain æsthetical likings or dislikings, where, on the other hand, +the addition of mere logical considerations of fitness seem insufficient +to account for phenomena, where, in short, we are forced to have +recourse to a very confused and at present untenable idea of inherited +habits and love of proportion, but it nevertheless remains evident that +physical beauty is a thing perceived through the physical senses and +concretely extant in the world around us. We say that a character is +morally good because certain actions or words reveal to us the existence +of certain tendencies and habits of feeling which (no matter how +instituted) satisfy and delight our moral nature, because there is +between these tendencies of feeling and our moral nature a mysterious +affinity, which may depend on nerve cells or on logical arguments, +but does not in the least resemble either. But when we say that a +tree is beautiful, it is because, in the first instance, its mere +sensation-giving qualities, taken separately, affect us agreeably in our +various physical parts: the colour stimulating or soothing our colour +nerves, the size, enabling our visual nerves to take in its shape +agreeably; its shadyness, which even as a mere suggestion, pleases +our tactile nerves, its rustle, which pleasantly moves our nerves of +hearing; and even if we admit that the perception that the tree as a +whole is beautiful, as distinguished from certain of its qualities being +agreeable, depends upon something higher and more recondite than mere +nerve tickle, even then it remains that whatever abstract instinct of +beauty we may possess, it is only through physical sensations that this +instinct is reached; and that a man born blind cannot perceive beauty +of colours nor a man born deaf beauty of sounds, simply because the +physical receptive organs of sight and sound are wanting. Thus, in +short, beauty is a physical quality, as goodness is a moral quality: and +if they are in a way equivalents, beauty being physical goodness, and +goodness moral beauty, it is exactly because each has a separate sphere +in which each respectively, represents the best. That beauty is in +itself physical, is a point which few have denied: that beautiful curves +and harmonies are moral qualities very few have asserted. But few have +as yet been willing to admit that beauty is a quality independent of +goodness, independent sometimes to the extent of hostility: that it is +as independent of moral excellence as is logical correctness. Yet thus +it is; and thus all of us must vaguely feel; all those who think, must +closely perceive it to be. There is no justice, no charity, no moral +excellence in physical beauty. It is a negative thing. If it refuses to +associate with evil, to dwell in the putrid corpse or in the face of the +murderer, it is because physical beauty is a concomitant of physical +purity and health, and decaying corpses are always unhealthy, while evil +souls nearly always leave ugly marks on the bodies: but the putrescent +corpse and the murderer's face are both ugly because they are physically +wrong, not because they are morally abominable. Beauty, in itself, is +neither morally good nor morally bad: it is æsthetically good, even as +virtue is neither æsthetically good nor æsthetically bad, but morally +good. Beauty is pure, complete, egotistic: it has no other value than +its being beautiful. This is a bitter thing to say, a cruel confession +on the part of one whose love and whose chief interest is the beautiful, +to make to himself: this that his beloved and much studied Beautiful, +which is his happiness and his study, has no moral value: that above +this superb and fascinating thing, there are things which are better, +nobler, more necessary, and for whose sake, in case of conflict, this +adored quality must be trampled under foot. A bitter confession; but the +truth is the truth, and must be admitted; to ourselves first of all. It +is, as we have said, one of the wicked anomalies of this world that the +true, the existing, is at variance with that which we should wish to +exist: we cannot replace with impunity the ugly, the cruel, the mean +truth by the charming, the generous fancy; if we do so, we must be +prepared to break with all truth, or to compromise with all falsehood: +we shall create an evil a hundredfold worse than the one we wished to +avoid. We are afraid of a truth which jars upon our sense of the morally +desirable: we invent and accept a lie, plausible and noble; and behold! +in a moment we are surrounded by a logical work of falsehood, which must +be for ever torn and for ever patched up if any portion of truth is to +enter. + +Such has been the case with John Ruskin; he shrank from owning to +himself what we have just recognized, with reluctance, indeed, and +sorrow, that the beautiful to whose study and creation he was so +irresistibly drawn, had no moral value; that in the great battle between +good and evil, beauty remained neutral, passive, serenely egotistic. +It was necessary for him that beauty should be more than passively +innocent: he must make it actively holy. Only a moral meaning could make +art noble; and as, in the deep-rooted convictions of Ruskin, art was +noble, a moral meaning must be found. The whole of the philosophy of art +must be remodelled upon an ethical basis; a moral value must everywhere +sanction the artistic attraction. And thus Ruskin came to construct a +strange system of falsehood, in which moral motives applied to purely +physical actions, moral meanings given to the merely æsthetically +significant, moral consequences drawn from absolutely unethical +decisions; even the merest coincidences in historical and artistic +phenomena, nay, even in the mere growth of various sorts of plants, +nay, even the most ludicrously applied biblical texts, were all +dragged forward and combined into a wondrous legal summing-up for the +beatification of art; the sense of the impossibility of rationally +referring certain æsthetical phenomena to ethical causes producing in +this lucid and noble thinker a sort of frenzy, a wild impulse to solve +irrational questions by direct appeals for an oracular judgment of God, +to be sought for in the most trumpery coincidences of accidents; so that +the man who has understood most of the subtle reasons of artistic +beauty, who has grasped most completely the psychological causes of +great art and poor art, is often reduced to answer his perplexities +by a sort of æsthetico-moral key and bible divination, or heads-win +tails-lose, toss-up decision. The main pivots of Ruskin's system are, +however, but few: first, the assertion that all legitimate artistic +action is governed by moral considerations, is the direct putting in +practice of the commandments of God; and secondly, that all pleasure in +the beautiful is the act of appreciating the goodness and wisdom of God. +These two main theories completely balance one another; between them, +and with the occasional addition of mystic symbolism, they must explain +the whole question of artistic right and wrong. Now for Ruskin artistic +right and wrong is not only a very complex, but, in many respects, +a very fluctuating question; in order to see how complex and how +fluctuating, we must remember what Ruskin is, and what are his aims. +Ruskin is no ordinary æsthetician, interested in art only inasmuch as +it is a subject for thought, untroubled in the framing of histories, +psychological systems of art philosophy by any personal likings and +dislikings; Ruskin is essentially an artist, he thinks about art because +he feels about art, and his sole object is morally to justify his +artistic sympathies and aversions, morally to justify his caring about +art at all. With him the instinctive likings and dislikings are the +original motor, the system is there only for their sake. He cannot, +therefore, like Lessing, or Hegel, or Taine, quietly shove aside any +phenomenon of artistic preference which does not happen to fit into his +system; he could, like Hegel, assign an inferior rank to painting, +because painting has to fall into the category assigned to romantic, +that is to say, imperfect art; he could not, like Taine, deliberately +stigmatise music as a morbid art because it had arisen, according to +his theory, in a morbid state of society; with Ruskin everything must +finally yield to the testimony of his artistic sense: everything which +he likes must be legitimated, everything which he dislikes must be +condemned; and for this purpose the system of artistic morality must for +ever be altered, annotated, provided with endless saving-clauses, and +special cases. And all this the more especially as, in the course of his +studies, Ruskin frequently perceives that things which on superficial +acquaintance displeased him, are in reality delightful, in consequence +of which discovery a new legislation is required to annul their previous +condemnation and provide for their due honour. Thus, having conceived a +perhaps exaggerated aversion (due, in great part, to the injustice of +his adversaries) to the manner of representing the nature of certain +Dutch painters of the 17th century, Ruskin immediately formulated a +theory that minute imitation of nature was base and sinful; and when +he conceived a perhaps equally exaggerated admiration for the works of +certain extremely careful and even servile English painters of our own +times, he was forced to formulate an explanatory theory that minuteness +of work was conscientious, appreciative, and distinctly holy. Had he +been satisfied with mere artistic value, he need only have said that the +Dutch pictures were ugly, and the English pictures beautiful; but having +once established all artistic judgment upon an ethical basis, it became +urgent that he should invent a more or less casuistic reason, something +not unlike the _distinguo_ by means of which the Jesuit moralists +rendered innocent in their powerful penitents what they had declared +sinful in less privileged people, to explain that, under certain +circumstances, minute imitation was the result of insolence and apathy, +and in other cases the sign of humility and appreciation. Again, having +been instinctively impressed by the coldness and insipidity of the +schools of art which ostensibly refused to copy individual nature, and +professed to reproduce only the more important and essential character +of things, Ruskin annihilated these idealistic conventionalists by a +charge of impious contempt for the details of individual peculiarities +which God had been pleased to put into his work; and when, on the other +hand, his growing love for mediæval art and for mysticism began to draw +him towards the Giottesque and even the pre-Giottesque artists, who +left out of their work all except the absolutely essential and typical +traits, Ruskin sanctified their conventionalism as the result of +preference for the merely spiritual and morally interesting portion of +the subject. The fact that the over refinement of the idealists of the +16th century ended in insipidity because it was due to a general organic +decline in the art, and that the rudeness of the conventional artists of +the 14th century possessed a certain nobility because it was merely a +momentary incapacity in a rapidly progressing art; this fact, and with +it the knowledge that the development and decline of every art is due to +certain necessities of general change, all that explains the life of any +and every art, completely escapes Ruskin on account of his explanation +by moral motives. In this way Ruskin has constructed a whole system of +artistic ethics, extremely contradictory and, as we have remarked, +bearing as great a resemblance to the text book, full of _distinguos_ +and _directions of the intention_ of one of Pascal's Jesuits as a very +morally pure and noble work can bear to a very base and depraved one. +And throughout this system scattered fragmentarily throughout his +various books, every artistic merit or demerit is disposed of as a +virtuous action or a crime; the moral principle established for the +explanation of one case naturally involving the prejudgment of another +case; and the whole system explaining by moral delinquencies the +artistic inferiority of a given time or people, and, on the other hand, +attributing the moral and social ruin of a century or a nation to the +artistic abominations it had perpetrated. The arrangements of lintels +and columns, the amount of incrustation of coloured marble on to brick, +the degree to which window traceries may be legitimately attenuated and +curled, the value of Greek honeysuckle patterns as compared with Gothic +hedge-rose ornaments, all these and a thousand other questions of mere +excellence of artistic effect, are discussed on the score of their +morality or baseness, of their truthfulness, or justice, or humility; +and Ruskin's madness against any kind of cheating or deception goes +to the length, in one memorable passage in the _Seven Lamps of +Architecture_, of condemning Correggio's ceiling of St. Paolo at Parma +because, as real children might be climbing in a real vine trellise +above our heads, there is possibility of deception and of sin; whereas, +as none of us expect to see the heavens open above us, there is no +possibility of deception, and consequently no sin in Correggio's glory +of angels in the Parma Cathedral; thus absolving on the score of +morality a rather confused and sprawling composition, and condemning as +immoral one of the most graceful and childlike works of the Renaissance. +The result of this system of explaining all artistic phenomena by +ethical causes is, as we have remarked, that the real cause of any +phenomenon, the explanation afforded us by history, is entirely +overlooked or even ignominiously rejected. Thus Ruskin attributes the +decay of Gothic architecture to "one endeavour to assume, in excessive +flimsiness of tracery, the semblance of what it was not"--to its having +"sacrificed a single truth." Now the violation of the nature and +possibilities of the material, what Ruskin in ethical language calls +the endeavour to trick, was not the cause but the effect of a gradual +decline in the art. The lace work of 15th century Gothic is not a +_lie_, it is an effete form. The perfect forms had been obtained, and as +the growth of the art could not be checked, imperfect ones naturally +succeeded them; the workman had hewn enough, had diminished the stone +surfaces sufficiently, had carved the leafage as much as was compatible +with beauty; the succeeding generations of workmen continued to work, +and what happened? They hewed away too much, they diminished the stone +surface too much, they carved the leafage too deep, each generation +cutting away more and more, until the whole fabric had reached such a +degree of flimsiness that, had not the Renaissance swept its cobwebs +away, they would have been torn to shreds by the Gothic artists +themselves. An art corrupts and dies of its own vital principles, as +does every other living and changing thing, as a flower withers of its +own life: you begin by chipping, you end, as in Gothic architecture, +by chipping into nothingness. You begin with grouping: you end with +grouping, like Michelangiolo and Parmegianno, into knots and lumps; +you begin by raising your figures out of the background: you end, like +Ghiberti, by tying them on with the narrowest slip of bronze; you begin +with modulating: you end, like Raff, Brahms, and other Wagnerists, by +modulating into chaos. Art, if it lives, must grow, and if it grows it +must grow old and die. And this fact gradually, though instinctively, +beginning to be felt by all thinkers on art, Ruskin, with his theory of +moral æsthetics, could never recognize. For him the corruption of the +art is due to the moral corruption of the artist: if the artist remained +truthfully modest, the perfection of the art would continue +indefinitely. + +Again, the necessity of referring all good art to morality and all bad +art to immorality, obliges Ruskin to postulate that every period which +has produced bad art has been a period of moral decay. The artistic +habits which displease him must be a direct result of a vicious way of +feeling and acting in all things: the decay of Venetian architecture and +sculpture must be distinctly referable to the decay of Venetian morality +in the 15th century; and the final corruption and ruin of the state +must be traced to the moral obliquity which caused Venetians to adopt +pseudo-classic forms in the Riva façade of the Ducal palace; moral +degradation and artistic degradation, acting and re-acting on each +other, bring about, according to Ruskin, political ruin; the iniquities +of the men who became apostates to Gothic architecture are visited upon +their distant descendants, upon the Venetians of the days of Campo +Formio. Now here again the ethical basis induces a complete historical +misconception, a misconception not only in the history of art, but also +in the history of civilization. For, just as his system of moral sin and +artistic punishment blinds Ruskin to the necessities of change and decay +in art, so, also, it prevents his seeing the inevitable necessity of +political growth and decline. Ruskin seeks the cause of the fall of +Venice in moral corruption manifested, or supposed to be manifested, in +art; but the cause of the fall of Venice must be sought elsewhere. Look +at this lagoon, this Adriatic, this Mediterranean: in the 14th century +they are the source of the greatness of the Zenos and Pisanis; three or +four hundred years later they will be the cause of the pettiness of the +Morosinis and Emos. In the present, in this time of Dandolo, into which +Ruskin has led us, it is to them that Venice owes the humiliation of +Barbarossa in the porch of St. Mark's; to them in the future will +be owed the triumph of Bonaparte and the tricolour waving from the +flagstaff of the square. For in the middle ages the sea means the +Mediterranean and the Baltic, the two great navigable, wealth-yielding +lakes, and around them arises prosperity: Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, +Lübeck, Dantzig, Brehmen; the men who live on the shores of the +Mediterranean take the riches of the East and of India, and conquer +Greece and the islands, and grow rich; and on this strip of marshland +keep armies which can cope with the united forces of Europe. Such is the +sea of the middle ages. But the sea of modern times is the ocean; give +the means of navigating that, give to the barbarians who inhabit its +coasts just enough civilization to build a ship and steer it, and those +barbarians, yes, the boors of Frisia, the savages of England, and of +Normandy, and of Portugal, will become the masters of the world, and +Venetians and Genoese shall be their puppets, and the Mediterranean +their pond. Since to the commerce of the Mediterranean they will oppose +the commerce of the ocean, to the riches of Greece, of Asia Minor, +Persia, and Egypt, the riches of Mexico and Peru, of India and of China, +which will flow into the banks of London, of Lisbon, of Antwerp, and +which will create armies to sweep all Italy out of the field. The Ocean +has superseded the Mediterranean, the boundless the bounded; this is the +explanation of the fall of Venice, of her political torpor and her +consequent vices. It is a law of nature that the small and sheltered +spots shall suffice while civilization is small, but that as it grows it +will seek a wider field, and its original homes be abandoned. A small +country, a small sea, made Greece and Italy greatest in antiquity and +the middle ages; a small country, a narrow sea, make them smallest in +modern times. And when the first galley of Prince Henry, the first +pinnace of Amsterdam or London, nay, the first little Norman craft set +sail for St. Brandan's Isle, the fate of Venice was sealed; Lodovico +Manin, and Casanova, and Bonaparte, and Campo Formio, all that in +Venetian history can mean corruption and disgrace, all was irrevocably +fixed; the geographical chance which had raised the palaces of Venice +has also caused them to moulder; time which made has also unmade, for +life is movement and movement is change. That immorality is not the +cause but the effect of political decline is as little conceived by +Ruskin as that neither the one nor the other can be produced by artistic +degradation; in his system which makes artistic inferiority the visible +expression of moral corruption, and national misfortune its direct +punishment, there can be no room for any of the great laws of +development and decay which historical science is now beginning to +perceive. All things must be carried on upon the miraculous system of +Sunday school books, where planks of bridges give way from the cogent +mechanical reason that the little boys passing over them have just +been telling lies or stealing apples; God is for ever busy unbolting +trapdoors beneath the feet of the iniquitous and rolling stones down on +the heads of blasphemers. And this same necessity of condemning morally +a period whose artistic work in any particular line is æsthetically +worthless in Ruskin's judgment, not only leads him into the most absurd +misappreciation of the moral value of a time, but entirely forbids his +recognizing the fact that the decay of one art is frequently coincident +with, and in some measure due to, the efflorescence of another. +The independent development of painting required the decay of the +architecture of the middle ages, whose symbolical, purely decorative +tendency condemned painting to be a sort of allegorical or narrative +Arabesque; whose well defined arches might not be broken through by +daring perspective, whose delicate cornices might not enclose more than +a mere rigid and simply tinted mosaic, or mosaic-like fresco. When, +therefore, painting arose mature in the 16th century, architecture was +necessarily crumbling. But to Ruskin the 16th century, being the century +of bad architecture, is hopelessly immoral, and being immoral, its +painting, Raphael, Michel Angelo, Correggio, all except a few privileged +Venetians, must needs be swept away as so much rubbish; while the very +imperfect painting of the Giottesques, because it belongs to a time +whose morality must be high since its architecture is good, is +considered as the ideal of pictorial art. Again, Ruskin perceives that +the whole plastic art of the 18th century, architecture, sculpture, and +painting, are as bad as bad can be; the cause must necessarily be found +not in the inevitable decline of all plastic art since the Renaissance, +but in the fiendish wickedness of the 18th century, that abominable age +which first taught men the meaning of justice as distinguished from +mercy, of humanity as distinguished from charity: which first taught +us not to shrink from evil but to combat it. And thus, because +the 18th century is proved by its smirking furbelowed goddesses and +handkerchief-cravatted urns to be utterly, morally, abominable, the one +great art which flourished in this period, the glorious music of Bach, +and Gluck, and Marcello, and Mozart, must necessarily be silently carted +off to the dust heap of artistic baseness. + +Thus the radical falsehood of the ethical system of æsthetics warps the +whole of Ruskin's view of the genius and evolution of art, of its +relations with national morality and political supremacy. But it does +more than this. It warps also Ruskin's view of art itself; its sophisms +force him to contradict, to stifle his own artistic instincts. For if, +as Ruskin has established, we are not permitted to love the beautiful +for its own sake, but only because it is supposed to represent a certain +moral excellence, that moral excellence must be the sole valuable +portion, and equally artistically valuable when separated from the +beautiful; while the beautiful must in itself be worthless, and +consequently dangerous. The absolutely ugly must, if it awaken virtuous +emotion, have a greater artistic value than the beautiful if it awaken +none; the macerated hermits, the lepers and cripples of the middle ages +must be artistically preferable to the healthy and beautiful athletes of +antiquity; compassion for the physically horrible is more virtuous than +the desire for the physically beautiful, therefore Ruskin would replace +the one by the other; forgetting, even as the middle ages forgot, that +the beautiful, the healthy, are the best and happiest for all of us; +that we are given sympathy with the physically evil only that we may +endure its contact long enough to transform it into the physically good: +that we compassionate disease only that we may cure it. + +Thus this sophisticated sense of duty, which, applied to artistic +interests where it has no place, has merely caused injustice of all +sorts, and falsehood and unceasing contradiction: which has condemned +the artistically pure for its juxta-position with the morally impure: +which has preferred the inferior in art because it answered to the +definition of the superior in morals: which has placed Giotto above +Michel Angelo because the second could paint and the first only imagine: +which has condemned Greek art as long as it seemed beautiful and +acquitted it when it appeared ugly: which has legitimated colour art +with one verse of the bible and anathematised linear art with another: +which has so often rejected the excellent in art because it wanted the +excellent in conduct: which has come to the point of preferring that +disease and putrefaction which, in the physical world, are equivalent to +sin and corruption in the moral--this sophisticated sense of morality, +originally intended to sanction all that which in art is sanctioned by +its mere innocence and delightfulness, has at length destroyed the very +artistic system which it was to sustain. For the divine elements of +justice, and mercy, and honour, cannot be wasted in this world; +entrapped and imprisoned in order to consecrate by their presence the +already holy, rendered sterile and useless among those artistic things +with which they have no concern, they have at last sought for their +field of action, for their legitimate objects, and have burst forth, +shattering the whole edifice of art philosophy in which they were +enclosed, mere useless talismans. And it has come home to Ruskin, once +and again, that this virtue thus expended upon cornices and lintels, +upon lines and colours, while evil raged outside, is no virtue: that +this sanctified art is not holy; that, direct our intentions as we may, +think of God as much as we like, we cannot make art one whit the less +passive and egotistic; it has come home to him, and with the noble +candour of doubt which is his logical weakness and his moral strength, +he has confessed that he had never known one man really and exclusively +devoted to mere moral good, who cared for art at all. The elaborate +system of ethical æsthetics, the ingeniously far-fetched explanations of +physical beauty by moral excellence, the triumphant decision that art is +the kingdom of God, has, after all and at last, failed to redeem the +beautiful in the eyes of Ruskin. He has seen a ragged creature die of +starvation on a dung heap; and all the cathedrals of Christendom, all +the resplendent Turners and saintly Giottos in the world have seemed to +him black and hideous. He has argued and stormed, and patched up once +more his tattered theories, and talked more than ever of beauty being +virtue, and its appreciation religion, and God being in all fair +things; but all this latter talk has been vain; into the midst of art +discussions have for ever crept doubts whether art should be at all. The +placid paradise of art, whose every flower and grass blade is a generous +thought, whose every fruit is a noble action, where every bubbling of +waters and every bird's song is a hymn to the goodness of God, has +become suspicious to its own creator now that he realises by what it +is surrounded; to live in this sweet and noble impossible paradise, +where beauty is the mere visible expression of virtue, while the foul +world-swamp is stealthily being eaten into, washed away, absorbed by the +surrounding flood of hell: is this not a sin, this quiet dwelling in +holiness, and a worse sin than any being committed in the darkness and +jostle below? + +In this way has Ruskin, one of the greatest thinkers on art and on +ethics, made morality sterile and art base in his desire to sanctify the +one by the other. Sterile and base, indeed, only theoretically: for the +instinct of the artist and of the moralist has ever broken out in noble +self-contradiction, in beautiful irrelevancies; in those wonderful, +almost prophetic passages which seem to make our souls more keen towards +beauty and more hardy for good. But all this is incidental, this which +is in reality Ruskin's great and useful work. He has made art more +beautiful and men better without knowing it--accidentally, without +premeditation, in words which are like the eternal truths, grand and +exquisite, which lie fragmentary and embedded in every system of +theology; the complete and systematic is worthless and even dangerous, +for it is false; the irrelevant, the contradictory, is precious, because +it is true to our better part. Ruskin has loved art instinctively, +fervently, for its own sake; but he has constantly feared lest this love +should be sinful or at least base. Like Augustine, he dreads that the +Devil maybe lurking in the beautiful sunshine; lest evil be hidden in +those beautiful shapes which distract his thoughts from higher subjects +of good and God; he trembles lest the beautiful should trouble his +senses and his fancy, and make him forget his promises to the Almighty. +He perceives that pleasure in art is more or less sensuous and selfish; +he is afraid lest some day he be called upon to account for the moments +he has not given to others, and be chastised for having permitted his +mind to follow the guidance of his senses; he trembles and repeats the +praise of God, the anathema of pride, he mumbles confused words about +"corrupt earth"--and "sinful man,"--even while looking at his works of +art, as some anchorite of old may instinctively have passed his fingers +across his beads and stammered out an _Ave_ when some sight of beauty +crossed his path and made his heart leap with unwonted pleasure. Ruskin +must tranquillize his conscience about art; he must persuade himself +that he is justified in employing his thoughts about it; and lest it be +a snare of the demon, he must make it a service of God. He must persuade +himself that all the pleasure he derives from art is the pleasure in +obeying God, in perceiving his goodness: that the pleasure he derives +from a flower is pleasure not in its curves and colours and scent, but +in its adaptation to its work, in its enjoyment of existence; that the +enjoyment he derives from a grand view is enjoyment of the kindness of +God, and the enjoyment in the sight of a noble face is enjoyment of the +expression of harmony with God's will; in short, all artistic pleasure +must become an act of adoration, otherwise, a jealous God, or a jealous +conscience, will smite him for abandoning the true altar for some golden +calf fashioned by man and inhabited by Satan. And to this constant +moralising, hallowing, nay, purifying of art, are due, as we have seen, +the greater number of Ruskin's errors; his system is false, and only +evil can spring from it; it is a pretence at a perfection which does not +exist, and which, like the pretence at the superhuman virtue of the +anchorite and mystic, must end in lamentable folly: in making men lie to +their own heart because they have sought to clothe all that is really +pure in a false garb of sanctity and have blushed at its naked reality; +because it makes a return to nature a return to sin, since what is +natural has been forbidden and what is innocent has been crookedly +obtained; because it tries to make us think we are nothing but soul, and +therefore turns us to brutes when we remember that we are also body, and +devils when we perceive that we are also reason. Because, in short, it +is a lie, and only falsehood can be born of it. For, in his constant +reference to a spiritual meaning, Ruskin has not only wasted and +sterilised our moral impulses, but has reduced art to mere foulness; in +his constant sanctifying of beauty he makes it appear impure. Above all, +in his unceasing attempt to attach a moral meaning to physical beauty, +he has lost sight of, he has denied, the great truth that all that which +is innocent is moral; that the morality of art is an independent quality +equivalent to, but separate from, the morality of action; that beauty +is the morality of the physical, as morality is the beauty of the +spiritual; that as the moral sense hallows the otherwise egotistic +relations of man to man, so also the æsthetic sense hallows the +otherwise brutish relations of man to matter; that separately but in +harmony, equally but differently, these two faculties make our lives +pure and noble. All this Ruskin has forgotten: he has made the enjoyment +of mere beauty a base pleasure, requiring a moral object to purify it, +and in so doing he has destroyed its own purifying power; he has +sanctified the already holy, and defiled with holy water, which implies +foulness, the dwelling of holiness. + +This is the lesson to be derived from the attempt at noble self-delusion +which Ruskin has practised upon himself. There is not in the world that +harmony and perfection, nay, that analogy of good to good and evil to +evil for which our higher nature seeks. As we have said, there is +contradiction and anomaly: anomaly the most horrible, since our logical +sense must accept it, and our moral sense cannot: anomaly of good +springing from evil, and evil from good, of pollution of the noble and +hallowing of the foul by the force of inevitable sequence. There is also +isolation of one sort of good from the other, and clashing of their +interests. All this there is, and against it all our moral sense must +for ever protest, and against it, whether free in our endeavour or +merely pushed on by the universal necessity, we must struggle. We +must seek for ever to resolve the discord between good and good, to +disentangle the meshes of good and evil, to destroy the dreadful anomaly +of things. But we can do so, however partially, we can really wish to +do so, only if we have the courage to see that the lamentable discord +and the horrible tangle do exist: only if we do not shrink from the +battlefield of reality into an enervating Capua of moral idealism. And +thus we should admit that only morality is really moral, and only virtue +really virtuous; that physical beauty intrinsically possesses but an +æsthetic value quite separate from all moral value; that above it must +always remain a more generous world of feeling and endeavour. If we do +not shrink from this painful truth we shall see that physical beauty and +its egotistic enjoyment have yet a moral value of their own: the value +of being, in the lives of others, absolute pleasure, the giving of which +is positive good. For in this world all is not completed when we have +destroyed evil; it must be replaced by good. We must all of us work, but +we must work in different ways. One half of us are the destroyers of +evil, the wrestlers with all that is wrong in itself or begets wrong, +falsehood, injustice, disease, misery; sent to extirpate the bad, +laboriously to weed it out blade by blade, or boldly to plough and burn +it up by the sheaf, the field, the acre. But when this half of active +mankind has done its work, what would remain? A mere joyless desert of +painless vacuity; and the other half of the workers must come and sow +and plant absolute good, positive joy in this redeemed life soil; nay, +even while the work of destruction is far from completed, and most of +all, perhaps, then, do we require that in the very shadow of the yet +deep-rooted evil, the little tufts of good should rise up, and console +and strengthen us with their sight and their scent. And of all these +kinds of egotistic good which we must needs sow while evil is being +cleared away, art is one of the noblest and most necessary; and woe +betide those who, having the power of creating beauty, would leave their +allotted work and join the destroyers of falsehood and of evil. The +amount of absolute good in the world is comparatively small, and we must +seek to increase it for ever; but increased it cannot be except by the +full employment of our activities, and our activities can be fully +employed only in their own proper sphere. In every artist there is a +man, and the moral perfection of the man is more important than the +artistic perfection of the artist; but, in as far as the artist is an +artist, he must be satisfied to do well in his art. For, though art has +no moral meaning, it has a moral value; art is happiness, and to bestow +happiness is to create good. + + + + +A DIALOGUE ON POETIC MORALITY. + + God sent a poet to reform His earth.--A. MARY F. ROBINSON. + + +"And meanwhile, what have you written?" asked Baldwin, tickling the +flies with his whip from off the horse's head, as they slowly ascended, +in the autumn afternoon, the hill of Montetramito, which with its ilex +and myrtle-grown black rocks, and its crumbling mounds, where the bright +green spruce pine clings to the washed-away scarlet sand, separates +the green and fertile plain of Lucca from the marshes of the Pisan +sea-shore. The two friends had met only an hour or so before at the foot +of the Apennine pass, and would part in not much more again. "And what +have you written?" repeated Baldwin. + +"Nothing," answered the younger man, drearily, leaning back languidly in +the rickety little carriage. "Nothing, or rather too much; I don't know +which. Is trash too much or too little? Anyhow, there's none of it +remaining. I thrust all my manuscripts into my stove at Dresden, and the +chimney took fire in consequence. That's the tragic history of all my +poetical labours of the last two years." And Cyril, lying back in the +carriage with his arms folded beneath his head, smiled half-sadly, half +whimsically in the face of his friend. + +But Baldwin did not laugh. + +"Cyril," he answered, "do you remember on a birthday of yours--you were +a tiny boy, brought up like a girl, with curls and beautiful hands--one +of your sisters dared you to throw your presents into the garden well, +and you did it, before a number of admiring little girls: you felt +quite a hero or a little saint, didn't you? And then my little hero was +suddenly collared by a big boy fresh from school, who was his friend +Baldwin, and who pulled his ears soundly and told him to respect +people's presents a little more. Do you remember that? Well; I now see +that, with all your growing up, and writing, and philosophising, and +talking about duty and self-sacrifice, you are just the self-same +womanish and uncontrolled _poseur_, the same romantic braggadoccio that +you were at seven. I have no patience with you!" And Baldwin whisked the +whip angrily at the flies. + +"Mere conceit: effeminate heroics again!" he went on. "Oh no, we must do +the very best! Be Shakespeare at least! Anything short of that would be +derogatory to our kingly nature! no idea of selecting the good (because +in whatever you do there must be talent), and trying to develop it; no +idea of doing the best with what gifts you have! For you are not going +to tell me that two years of your work was mere rubbish--contained +nothing of value. But, in point of fact, you don't care sufficiently for +your art to be satisfied to be the most you can; 'tis mere vanity with +you." + +Cyril became very red, but did not interrupt. + +"I am sorry you think so ill of me," he said sadly, "and I dare say I +have given you good cause. I dare say I am all the things you say--vain, +and womanish, and insolently dissatisfied with myself, and idiotically +heroic. But not in this case, I assure you. I will explain why I +thought it right to do that. You see I know myself very well now. I +know my dangers; I am not like you--I am easily swayed. Had those poems +remained in existence, had I taken them to England, I am sure I should +not have resisted the temptation of showing them to my old encouragers, +of publishing them probably; and then, after the success of my other +book, and all their grand prophecies, the critics would have had to +praise up this one too; and I should have been drifted back again into +being a poet. Now, as I wrote you several times--only, of course, you +thought it all humbug and affectation--such a poet as I could be I am +determined I will not be. It was an act of self-defence--defence of +whatever of good there may be in me." + +Baldwin groaned. "Defence of fiddlesticks! Defence of your vanity!" + +"I don't think so," replied Cyril, "and I don't think you understand me +at all in this instance. There was no vanity in this matter. You know +that since some time I have been asking myself what moral right a man +has to consume his life writing verses, when there is so much evil to +remove, and every drop of thought or feeling we have is needed to make +the great river which is to wash out this Augean stable of a world. I +tried to put the doubt behind me, and to believe in Art for Art's own +sake, and such bosh. But the doubt pricked me. And when suddenly my +uncle left me all he had, I felt I must decide. As long as I was a mere +penniless creature I might write poetry, because there seemed nothing +else for me to do. But now it is different. This money and the power it +gives are mine only as long as I live; after my death they may go to +some blackguard; so, while I have them, I must give all my energies to +doing with them all the good that I possibly can." + +"In that case better give them over to people who know best what to do +with them--societies or hospitals, or that sort of thing--and write your +verses as before. For I don't think your thoughts will add much to the +value of your money, Cyril. You've not a bit of practical head. Of +course you may, if you choose, look on idly while other people are +using your money. But I don't think it is specially worth doing." + +Cyril sighed, hesitated, and then burst out rapidly-- + +"But it is the only thing I _can_ do--do you understand? I can't write +poetry any more. Perhaps that may be the only thing for which I was ever +fit, but I am fit for it no longer. I cannot do what I have got to despise +and detest. For I do despise and detest the sort of poetry which I should +write--mere ornamental uselessness, so much tapestry work or inlaid +upholstery. You believe in Art for Art's own sake--Goethianism--that +sort of thing, I know. It is all very well for you, who have an active +practical life with your Maremma drainings and mine diggings, a life in +which art, beauty, so forth, have only their due share, as repose and +refreshment. It was all very well in former days also, when the people +for whom artists worked had a deal of struggle and misery, and required +some pure pleasure to make life endurable; but now-a-days, and with the +people for whom I should write, things are different. What is wanted +now-a-days is not art, but life. By whom do you think, would all the +beautiful useful things I could write, all the fiddle-faddle about +trees and streams and statues and love and aspiration (fine aspiration, +which never takes a practical shape!) be read? By wretched overworked +creatures, into whose life they might bring a moment of sweetness, +like a spray of apple blossom or a bunch of sweet-peas into some black +garret? Nothing of the kind. They would be read by a lot of intellectual +Sybarites, shutting themselves out, with their abominable artistic +religion, from all crude real life; they would be merely so much more +hothouse scents or exotic music (_con sordino_), to make them snooze +their lives away. Of course it is something to be a poet like those of +former days; something to be Tasso, and be read by that poor devil of a +fever-stricken watchmaker whom we met down in the plain of Lucca; but +to be a poet for the cultured world of to-day--oh, I would rather be a +French cook, and invent indigestible dishes for epicures without any +appetite remaining to them." + +So saying, Cyril jumped out of the gig, and ran up the steep last ascent +of the hill. He had persuaded himself of his moral rightness and felt +quite happy. + +Suddenly the road made a sharp bend between the overhanging rocks, grown +in all their fissures with dark ilex tufts and yellow broom and pale +pink cyclamen; it turned, and widened into a flat grass-grown place, +surrounded by cypresses on the top and ridge of the hill. Cyril ran to +the edge and gave a cry of pleasure. Below was stretched a wide strip of +Maremma swamp-land, mottled green and brown--green where the grass was +under water, brown where it was burned into cinders by the sun; with +here and there a patch of shining pond or canal; and at the extremity of +this, distinguishable from the greyish amber sky only by its superior +and intense luminousness, the sea--not blue nor green, but grey, +silvery, steel-like, as a mirror in the full sunshine. Baldwin stopped +the gig beneath the cypresses. + +"Look there," he said, pointing with his whip to a dark greenish band, +scarcely visible, which separated the land from the sea: "those are the +pine woods of Viareggio. It was into their sand and weeds that the sea +washed Shelley's body. Do you think we should be any the better off if +he had taken to practical work which he could not do, and declared that +poetry was a sort of French cookery?" + +Baldwin tied the reins to the stem of a cypress, and threw himself down +on the warm sere grass on the brow of the hill, overlooking the tangle +of olive and vine and fig-trees of the slopes below. + +"In Shelley's time," answered Cyril, leaning his head and shoulders +against one of the cypresses, and looking up into its dark branches, +compact in the centre, but delicate like feather and sparkling like +jet where their extremities stood out against the pale blue sky--"in +Shelley's time, things were rather different from what they are now. +There was a religion of progress to preach and be stoned for; there was +a cause of liberty to fight for--there were Bourbons and Lord Eldons, +and there was Greece and Spain and Italy. There was Italy still when +Mrs. Browning wrote: had she looked out of Casa Guidi windows now, on +to the hum-drum, shoulder-shrugging, penny-haggling, professorial, +municipal-councillorish Italy of to-day she could scarcely have felt in +the vein. The heroic has been done--" + +"There is Servia and Montenegro, and there are Nihilists and Democrats," +answered Baldwin. + +"I know--but we can't sing about barbarous ruffians, nor about +half-besotten, half-knavish regicides; we can't be Democrats +now-a-days--at least I can't. Would you have a man sing parliamentary +debates, or High Church squabbles, or Disestablishment, or Woman's +rights, or anti-communism? sing the superb conquests of man over nature, +&c., like your Italian friends, your steam-engine and mammoth poet +Zanella? The wonders of science!--six or seven thousand dogs and cats +being flayed, roasted, baked, disembowelled, artificially ulcerated, +galvanized on ripped-up nerves, at Government expense, in all the +laboratories of Christendom, in order to discover the soul-secreting +apparatus, and how to cure old maids of liver complaint! Thank you. My +muse aspires not thereunto. What then? Progress? But it is assured. Why, +man, we can't even sing of despair, like the good people of the year +'20, since we all know that (bating a few myriads of sufferers and a +few centuries of agony) all is going to come quite right, to be quite +comfortable in this best of all possible worlds. What then remains, +again? Look around you. There remains the poetry of beauty--oh yes, +of pure beauty, to match the newest artistic chintzes; the poetry of +artistic nirvana, of the blissful sleep of all manliness and energy, to +the faint sound (heard through dreams) of paradisiac mysticism sung to +golden lutes, or of imaginary amorous hysterics, or of symphonies in +alliteration. And this when there is so much error, so much doubt, so +much suffering, when all our forces are required to push away a corner +of the load of evil still weighing on the world: this sort of thing I +cannot take to." And Cyril fiercely plucked out a tuft of lilac-flowered +thyme, and threw it into the precipice below, as if it had been the +poetry of which he was speaking. + +"Do you know, Baldwin," went on Cyril, "you have destroyed successively +all my gods; you have shown me that my Holy Grails, in whose service, +one after another I felt happy and peaceful to live, like another +Parzival, or Galahaso, are not the sacred life-giving cup brought down +by angels, but mere ordinary vessels of brittle earth or stinking +pewter, mere more or less useful, but by no means holy things; ordinary +pots and pans, barber's basins like Mambrino's helmet, or blue china +teapots (worst degradation of all) like the Cimabue-Browns'. I believed +in the religion of Nature, and you showed me that Nature was sometimes +good and sometimes bad; that she produced the very foulness, physical +and moral, which she herself chastised men for; you showed me whole +races destined inevitably to moral perversion, and then punished for it. +So I gave up Nature. Then I took up the fashionable religion of Science, +and you showed me that it was the religion of a sort of Moloch, since it +accustomed us to acquiesce in all the evil which is part and parcel of +Nature, since it made us passive investigators into wrong when we ought +to be judges. After the positive, I threw myself into the mystic--into +the religion of all manner of mysterious connections and redemptions; +you showed me that the connections did not exist, and that all attempted +sanctification of things through mysticism was an abomination, since it +could not alter evil, and taught us to think it might be good. O my poor +Holy Grails! Then I took up the religion of love; and you proceeded to +expound to me that if love was restricted to a few worthy individuals, +it meant neglect of the world at large; and that if it meant love of +the world at large, it meant love of a great many utterly unworthy and +beastly people. You deprived me of humanitarianism, of positivism, of +mysticism; and then you did not even let me rest peaceably in pessimism, +telling me that to say that all was for the worst was as unjust as to +say that all was for the best. With a few of your curt sentences you +showed me that all these religions of mine were mere idolatries, and +that to rest in them for the sake of peace was to be utterly base. You +left me nothing but a vague religion of duty, of good; but you gave me +no means of seeing where my duty lay, of distinguishing good from evil. +You are a very useful rooter up of error, Baldwin; but you leave one's +soul as dry and barren and useless as sea shingle. You have taken away +all the falsehoods from my life, but you have not replaced them by +truths." + +Baldwin listened quietly. + +"Would you like to have the falsehoods back, Cyril?" he asked. "Would +you now like to be the holy knight, adoring and defending the pewter +basin or blue china teapot of humanitarianism, or positivism, or +mysticism, or æstheticism? And what becomes of the only religion which I +told you was the true one--the religion of good, of right? Do you think +it worthless now?" + +"I think it is the religion of the Unknown God. Where shall I find Him?" + +"In yourself, if you will look, Cyril." + +Cyril was silent for a moment. "What is right?" he said. "In the +abstract--(oh, and it is so easy to find out in the abstract, compared +to the concrete!)--in the abstract, right is to improve things in the +world, to make it better for man and beast; never to steal justice, and +always to give mercy; to do all we can which can increase happiness, +and refrain from doing all which can diminish it. That is the only +definition I can see. But how vague!--and who is to tell me what I am to +do? And when I see a faint glimmer of certainty, when I perceive what +seems to me the right which I must do, who again interferes? My friend +Baldwin, who, after preaching to me that the only true religion is the +religion of diminishing evil and increasing good for the sake of so +doing, coolly writes to me, in half-a-dozen letters, that the sole duty +of the artist is to produce good art, and that good art is art which has +no aim beyond its own perfection. Why, it is a return to my old æsthetic +fetish worship, when I thought abstract ideas of beauty would set the +world right, as Amphion's harp set the stones building themselves.... Am +I justified in saying that you merely upset my beliefs, without helping +me to build up any; yes, even when I am striving after that religion of +right doing which you nominally call yours--?" + +"You always rush to extremes, Cyril. If you would listen to, or read, my +words without letting your mind whirl off while so doing--" + +"I listen to you far too much, Baldwin," interrupted Cyril, who would +not break the thread of his own ideas; "and first I want to read you a +sonnet." + +Baldwin burst out laughing. "A sonnet! one of those burnt at Dresden--or +written in commemoration of your decision to write no more?" + +"It is not by me at all, so there's an end to your amusement. I want you +to hear it because it embodies, and very nobly, what I have felt. I have +never even seen the author, and know nothing about her except that she +is a woman." + +"A woman!" and Baldwin's tone was disagreeably expressive. + +"I know you don't believe in women poets or women artists." + +"Not much, so far, excepting Sappho and Mrs. Browning, certainly. But, +come, let's hear the sonnet. I do abominate women's verses, I confess; +but there are such multitudes of poetesses that Nature may sometimes +blunder in their production, and make one of them of the stuff intended +for a poet." + +"Well then, listen," and Cyril drew a notebook from his pocket, and read +as follows:-- + + "God sent a poet to reform His earth + But when he came and found it cold and poor + Harsh and unlovely, where each prosperous boor + Held poets light for all their heavenly birth, + He thought--Myself can make one better worth + The living in than this--full of old lore, + Music and light and love, where saints adore + And angels, all within mine own soul's girth. + But when at last he came to die, his soul + Saw Earth (flying past to Heaven) with new love, + And all the unused passion in him cried: + 'O God, your Heaven I know and weary of, + Give me this world to work in and make whole.' + God spoke: 'Therein, fool, thou hast lived and died.'" + +Cyril paused for a moment. "Do you understand, Baldwin, how that +expresses my state of feeling?" he then asked. + +"I do," answered the other, "and I understand that both you and the +author of the sonnet seem not to have understood in what manner God +intended that poets should improve the earth. And here I return to my +former remark, that when I said that the only true religion was the +religion not of nature, nor of mankind, nor of science, nor of art, but +the religion of good, and that the creation of perfect beauty is the +highest aim of the artist, I was not contradicting myself, but merely +stating two parts--a general and a particular--of the same proposition. +I don't know what your definition of right living may be; mine, the more +I think over the subject, has come to be this:--the destruction of the +greatest possible amount of evil and the creation of the greatest +possible amount of good in the world. And this is possible only by the +greatest amount of the best and most complete activity, and the greatest +amount of the best activity is possible only when everything is seen in +its right light, in order that everything may be used in its right +place. I have always preached to you that life must be activity; but +activity defeats itself if misapplied; it becomes a mere Danaides' work +of filling bottomless casks--pour and pour and pour in as much as you +will, the cask will always be empty. Now, in this world there are two +things to be done, and two distinct sets of people to do them: the one +work is the destruction of evil, the other the creation of good. Mind, I +say the _creation_ of good, for I consider that to do good--that is to +say, to act rightly--is not necessarily the same as to _create_ good. +Every one who does his allotted work is doing good; but the man who +tends the sick, or defends the oppressed, or discovers new truths, is +not creating good, but destroying evil--destroying evil in one of a +hundred shapes, as sickness, or injustice, or falsehood. But he merely +removes, he does not give; he leaves men as poor or as rich as they +would have been, had not disease, or injustice, or error stolen away +some of their life. The man who creates good is the one who not merely +removes pain, but adds pleasure to our lives. Through him we are +absolutely the richer. And this creator of good, as distinguished from +destroyer of evil, is, above all other men, the artist. The scientific +thinker may add pleasure to our lives, but in reality this truth of his +is valuable, not for the pleasure it gives, but for the pain it removes. +Science is warfare; we may consider it as a kind of sport, but in +reality it is a hunting down of the most dangerous kind of wild +animal--falsehood. A great many other things may give pleasure to our +lives--all our healthy activities, upper or lower, must; but the lower +ones are already fully exercised, and, if anything, require restraint; +so that French cooks and erotic poets ought rather to be exterminated +as productive of evil than encouraged as creative of good. And moral +satisfaction and love give us the best pleasures of all; but these are +pleasures which are not due to any special class created on purpose +for their production. Oh, I don't say that any artist can give you +the pleasure you have in knowing yourself to be acting rightly, or in +sympathizing and receiving sympathy; but the artist is the instrument, +the machine constructed to produce the only pleasures which can come +near these. Every one of us can destroy evil and create pleasure, in a +sort of incidental, amateurish way, within our own immediate circle; +but as the men of thought and of action are the professional destroyers +of evil, so the artists are the professional creators of good--they +work not for those immediately around them, but for the world at large. +So your artist is your typical professional creator of pleasure; he +is fitted out, as other men are not, to do this work; he is made of +infinitely finer stuff than other men, not as a whole man, but as an +artist: he has much more delicate hearing, much keener sight, much +defter fingers, much farther-reaching voice than other men; he is +specially prepared to receive and transmit impressions which would be +as wasted on other creatures, as the image in the camera on unprepared, +ordinary paper. Now, what I maintain is simply this, that if, according +to my definition, the object of destroying as much evil and creating as +much good can be attained only by the greatest activity rightly applied, +it is evident that a man endowed to be an artist--that is to say, a +creator of good for the whole world--is simply failing in his duty by +becoming a practical worker; that is to say, an amateur destroyer of +evil. What shall we say of this artist? We shall say that, in order +to indulge in the moral luxury, the moral amusement, of removing an +imperceptible amount of pain, he has defrauded the world of the immense +and long-lasting pleasure placed in his charge to give; we shall say +that, in order to feel himself a little virtuous, this man has simply +acted like a cheat and a thief." + +Baldwin had spoken rapidly and earnestly, with a sort of uniform or only +gradually rising warmth, very different from the hesitating, fluctuating +sort of passion of his companion. There was a short silence; Cyril was +still seated under the tall, straight cypress, whose fallen fruit, like +carved balls of wood, strewed the sere grass, and whose compact hairy +trunk gave out a resinous scent, more precious and strange than that +of the fir: he felt that he was momentarily crushed, but had a vague +sense that there lurked somewhere reasons, and very potent ones, which +prevented his friend being completely victorious; and Baldwin was +patiently waiting for him to muster his ideas into order before +continuing the discussion. A slight breeze from the over-clouded sea +sent a shiver across the olives into the ravine below, turning their +feathery tops into a silver ripple, as of a breaking wave; the last +belated cicalas, invisible in the thick plumy branches of the cypresses, +sawed slowly and languidly in the languid late afternoon; and from +the farms hidden in the olive yards of the slope came faint sounds of +calling voices and barking dogs--just sound enough to make the stillness +more complete. "All that is very true," said Cyril at last, "and yet--I +don't know how to express it--I feel that there is still remaining to me +all my reason for doubt and dissatisfaction. You say that artistic work +is morally justifiable to the artist, since he is giving pleasure to +others. From this point of view you are perfectly right. But what I +feel is, that the pleasure which the artist thus gives is not morally +valuable to those who enjoy it. Do you follow? I mean that the +artist may be nobly and generously employed, and yet, by some fatal +contradiction, the men and women who receive his gifts are merely +selfishly gratified. He might not, perhaps, be better employed than in +giving pleasure, but they might surely be better employed than in merely +receiving it; and thus the selfishness of the enjoyment of the gift +seems to diminish the moral value of giving it. When an artist gives to +other men an hour of mere enjoyment, I don't know whether he ought to +be quite proud or not." + +Baldwin merely laughed. "It is droll to see what sort of hypermoral +scruples some people indulge in now-a-days. So, your sense of the +necessity of doing good is so keen that you actually feel wretched at +the notion of your neighbours being simply happy, and no more, for an +hour. You are not sure whether, by thus taking them away for a moment +from the struggle with evil, letting them breathe and rest in the middle +of the battle, you may not be making them sin and be sinning yourself! +Why, my dear Cyril, if you condemn humanity to uninterrupted struggle +with evil, you create evil instead of destroying it; if mankind could +be persuaded to give up all of what you would call useless and selfish +pleasure, it would very soon become so utterly worn out and disheartened +as to be quite powerless to resist evil. If this is the system on which +poets would reform the world, it is very fortunate that they don't think +of it till they are flying to heaven." + +"I can't make it out. You seem to be in the right, Baldwin, and yet I +still seem to be justified in sticking to my ideas," said Cyril. "Do you +see," he went on, "you have always preached to me that the highest aim +of the artist is the perfection of his own work; you have always told me +that art cannot be as much as it should if any extra-artistic purpose be +given to it. And while listening to you I have felt persuaded that all +this was most perfectly true. But then, an hour later, I have met the +same idea--the eternal phrase of art for art's own sake--in the mouths +and the books of men I completely despised; men who seemed to lose sight +of all the earnestness and duty of life, who had even what seemed to +me very base ideas about art itself, and at all events debased it by +associating it with effeminate, selfish, sensual mysticism. So that the +idea of art for art's own sake has come to have a disgusting meaning to +me." + +Baldwin had risen from the grass, and untied the horse from the trunk of +the cypress. + +"There is a storm gathering," he said, pointing to the grey masses of +cloud, half-dissolved, which were gathering everywhere; "if we can get +to one of the villages on the coast without being half-drowned while +crossing the swamps, we shall be lucky. Get in, and we can discuss art +for art's own sake, and anything else you please, on the way." + +In a minute the gig was rattling down the hill, among the great blasted +grey olives, and the vines with reddening foliage, and the farm-houses +with their fig and orange trees, their great tawny pumpkins lying +in heaps on the threshing-floor, and their autumn tapestry of +strung-together maize hanging massy and golden from the eaves to +the ground. + +Baldwin resumed the subject where they had left it: "My own experience +is, that the men who go in for art for art's own sake, do so mainly from +a morbid shrinking from all the practical and moral objects which other +folk are apt to set up as the aim of art; in reality, they do not want +art, nor the legitimate pleasures of art: they want the sterile pleasure +of perceiving mere ingenuity and dexterity of handling; they hanker +vaguely after imaginary sensuous stimulation, spiced with all manner of +mystical rubbish, after some ineffable half-nauseous pleasure in strange +mixtures of beauty and nastiness; they enjoy above all things dabbling +and dipping alternately in virtue and vice, as in the steam and iced +water of a Turkish bath.... In short, these creatures want art not for +its own sake, but for the sake of excitement which the respectabilities +of society do not permit their obtaining, except in imaginative form. As +to art, real art, they treat it much worse than the most determined +utilitarian: the utilitarians turn art into a drudge; these æsthetic +folk make her into a pander and a prostitute. My reason for restricting +art to artistic aims is simply my principle that if things are to be +fully useful they must be restricted to their real use, according to the +idea of Goethe's Duke of Ferrara:-- + + 'Nicht alles dienet uns auf gleiche Weise; + Wer vieles brauchen will, gebrauche jedes + In seiner Art, so ist er wohl bedient.' + +I want art in general not to meddle with the work of any of our other +energies, for the same reason that I want each art in particular not to +meddle with the work of any other art. Sculpture cannot do the same as +painting, nor painting the same as music, nor music the same as poetry; +and by attempting anything beyond its legitimate sphere each sacrifices +what it, and no other, can do. So, also, art in general has a definite +function in our lives; and if it attempts to perform the work of +philosophy, or practical benevolence, or science, or moralizing, or +anything not itself, it will merely fail in that, and neglect what it +could do." + +"Oh yes," continued Baldwin after a minute, as they passed into the +twilight of a wood of old olives, grey, silvery, mysterious, rising tier +above tier on either side of the road, a faint flicker of yellow light +between their feathery branches. "Oh yes, I don't doubt that were I a +writer, and were I to expound my life-and-art philosophy to the world, +the world would tax me with great narrowness! Things are always too +narrow for people when they are kept in their place--kept within duty +and reason. Of course there is an infinite grandeur in chaos--in a +general wandering among the Unknown, in an universal straining and +hankering after the Impossible; it is grand to see the arts writhing and +shivering to atoms, like caged vipers, in their impotence to do what +they cannot. Only it would be simpler to let those do it who can; and my +system is the only one which can work. Despair is fine, and Nirvâna is +fine; but successful and useful activity is a good deal finer. Wherefore +I shall always say--'Each in his place and to his work;' and you, +therefore, my dear Cyril, to yours, which is poetry." + +"I think your philosophy is quite right, Baldwin, only--only, somehow, I +can't get it to suit my moral condition," answered Cyril. "I do feel +quite persuaded that sculptors must not try to be painters, nor +musicians try to be poets, nor any of them try to be anything beyond +what they are. It is all quite rational, and right, and moral, but still +I am not satisfied about poetry. You see a poet is not quite in the same +case as any other sort of artist. The musician, inasmuch as musician, +knows only notes, has power only over sounds; and the painter similarly +as to form and colours; if either be something more, it is inasmuch as +he is a mere man, not an artist. But a poet, inasmuch as he is a poet, +knows, sees, feels a great many things which have a practical and moral +meaning: just because he is a poet, he knows that there is something +beyond poetry; he knows that there are in the world such things as +justice and injustice, good and evil, purity and foulness: he knows all +this, which the mere musician, the mere painter, does not--and knowing +it, perceiving, feeling, understanding it, with more intensity than +other men, is he to sweep it all out of his sight? is he to say to +justice and injustice, good and evil, purity and foulness, 'I know you, +but my work lies not with you?' Is he to do this? Oh, Baldwin, if he be +a man and an honest one, he surely cannot: he cannot set aside these +ideas and devote himself to his art for its own sake." + +Baldwin listened attentively to the passionate words of his companion, +and twitching at a sprig of olive as a branch swept across their heads +in their rapid movement through the wood, he answered quietly: + +"He will not set aside the ideas of justice and injustice, of good and +evil, of purity and impurity, Cyril. He will make use of them even as +the musician uses his sounds, or the painter uses his colours. Such +ideas are at least one-half of the poet's material, of the stuff out of +which he creates--the half which belongs exclusively to him, which he +does not share with any other artist; the half which gives poetry a +character in many respects different from that of painting or music. I +have always laughed at the Ruskinian idea of morality or immorality in +architecture, or painting, or music, and said that their morality and +immorality were beauty and ugliness. I have done so because moral ideas +don't enter into the arts of line, or colour, or sound, but only into +the subjects to which their visible and audible works are (usually +arbitrarily) attached. But with poetry the case is different; and if +the poet has got a keener perception (or ought to have) of right and +wrong than other men, it is because a sense of moral right and wrong is +required in his art, as a sense of colour is required in painting. I +have said 'art for art's own sake,' but I should have been more precise +in saying 'art for beauty's sake.' Now, in poetry, one half of beauty +and ugliness is purely ethical, and if the poet who deals with this +half, the half which comprises human emotion and action, has no sense +of right and wrong, he will fail as signally as some very dexterous +draughtsman, who should have no sense of physical beauty and ugliness, +and spend his time making wonderful drawings of all manner of diseased +growths. Of course, you may be a poet who does _not_ deal with the human +element, who writes only about trees and rivers, and in this case your +notions of right and wrong are as unnecessary to you as an artist as +they would be to a landscape painter. You use them in your life, but not +in your art. But as soon as a poet deals with human beings, and their +feelings and doings, he must have a correct sense of what, in such +feelings and doings, is right and what is wrong. And if he have not this +sense, he will not be in the same case as the painter or musician who is +deficient in the sense of pictorial or musical right and wrong. The +wise folk who have examined into our visual and acoustic nerves seem +to think, what to me seems extremely probable, that the impression of +æsthetic repulsion which we get from badly combined lines, or colours, +or sounds, is a sort of admonition that such combinations are more or +less destructive to our nerves of sight or of hearing; so, similarly, +the quite abstract aversion which we feel to an immoral effect in +literature, seems to me to be the admonition (while we are still +Platonically viewing the matter, and have not yet come personally into +contact with it) that our moral sense--what I may call our nerves of +right and wrong--is being disintegrated by this purely intellectual +contact with evil. And, moreover, our nerves of right and wrong are, +somehow, much less well protected than our visual or acoustic nerves: +they seem to be more on the surface of our nature, and they are much +more easily injured: it takes a good deal of bad painting and bad music +to deprave a man's eye or ear, and more than we can well conceive to +make him blind or deaf; but it takes less than we think of base +literature to injure a man's moral perception, to make him see and hear +moral things completely wrong. You see the good, simple, physical senses +look after themselves--are in a way isolated; but the moral sense is a +very complex matter, and interfered with in every possible manner by the +reason, the imagination, the bodily senses--so that injuring it through +any of these is extremely easy. And the people whom bad painting or +bad music had made half-blind or half-deaf would be less dangerous to +themselves and to others than those who had been made half-immoral by +poetry." + +"But at that rate," said Cyril, "we should never be permitted to write +except about moral action; if the morally right is the same for the poet +as the pictorially right for the painter. Baldwin, I think, I fear, that +all these are mere extemporized arguments for the purpose of making me +satisfied with poetry, which I never shall be again, I feel persuaded." + +"Not at all," answered Baldwin. "I mean that the moral right or wrong of +poetry is not exactly what you mean. If we were bound never to write +except about good people, there would be an end to half the literature +of the world." + +"That is exactly what I saw, and what showed me the hollowness of your +theory, Baldwin." + +"Because you mistook my theory. There could be no human action or +interest if literature were to avoid all representation of evil: no more +tragedy, at any rate, and no more novels. But you must remember that the +impression given by a play or a poem is not the same as that given by a +picture or statue. The picture or statue is all we see; if it be ugly, +the impression is ugly. But in a work of literature we see not only the +actors and their actions, but the manner in which they are regarded by +the author; and in this manner of regarding them lies the morality or +immorality. You may have as many villains as you please, and the +impression may still be moral; and you may have as many saints as you +please, and the impression may still be immoral." + +The road had suddenly emerged out of the olive woods covering the lowest +hill ranges, and in a few minutes they were driving through a perfect +desert. The road, a narrow white ribbon, stretched across a great flat +tract of country: field after field of Indian corn, stripped of its +leaves and looking like regiments of spindles, and of yellowish green +grass, half under water; on either side a ditch full of water-lilies, +widening into sedge-fringed canals, in which the hay of coarse long +grass was stacked in boats for sheer want of dry soil, or expanding into +shallow patches of water scarcely covering the grass, and reflecting, +against the green of the meadow below, the boldly peaked marble +mountains of Carrara, bare, intensely ribbed, veined, and the blue sky +and rainy black clouds. Green brown fields, tufts of reed, hill and sky +reflected in the inundated grass--nothing more, not a house, or shed, or +tree for miles around--in front only the stormy horizon where it touched +the sea. + +"This is beautiful," cried Cyril. "I should like to come and live here. +It is much lovelier and more peaceful than all the woods and valleys in +creation." + +Baldwin laughed. "It might be a good beginning for final Nirvâna," he +said. "These are the sea-swamps, the _padule_, where the serene Republic +of Lucca sent its political offenders. You were locked up in a tower, +the door bricked up, with food enough to last till your keeper came back +once a fortnight; the malaria did the rest." + +"It is like some of our modern literature," answered Cyril, with a +shudder; "Maremma poetry--we have that sort of thing, too." + +"By the way," went on Baldwin; "I don't think we quite came to the end +of our discussion about what a poet ought to do with his moral +instincts, if he has any." + +"I know," answered Cyril, "and _I_ have meanwhile returned to my +previous conclusion that, now that all great singable strifes are at +an end, poetry cannot satisfy the moral cravings of a man." + +"You think so?" asked Baldwin, looking rather contemptuously at his +companion. "You think so? Well, therein lies your mistake. I think, on +the contrary, that poetry requires more moral sense and energy than most +men can or will give to it. Do you know what a poet has to deal with, +at least a poet who does not confine himself to mere description of +inanimate things? He has to deal with the passions and actions of +mankind--that is to say, with a hundred problems of right and wrong. Of +course, men who have deliberately made up their mind on any question +of right and wrong, are not shaken by anything in a book; nay, they +probably scarcely remark it. But if you remember that in the inner life +of every man there must be moments of doubt and hesitation, there must +be problems vaguely knocking about, you will understand that for every +man there is the danger that in such a moment of doubt his eyes may fall +upon a sentence in a book--a sentence to other men trivial--which will +settle that doubt for ever, rightly or wrongly. There are few of us +so strong that the moment does not come when we would ask, as a good +Catholic does of a confessor, what is right and what is wrong, and take +the answer which is one of the two that have been struggling within +himself, as definite; and to us, who do not go to confession, a book, +any book casually taken up, may be this terribly powerful spiritual +director. People used to exaggerate the influence of books, because they +imagined that they could alter already settled opinions; now-a-days I +deliberately think that they underrate this influence, because they +forget how it may settle fluctuating opinion. The power of literature +is in this way very great." + +"It has been formerly--yes, I grant it," answered Cyril; "but it is no +longer what it was; in our cut-and-dry days it is necessarily smaller." + +"On the contrary, much greater now than perhaps almost at any other +time. These are not cut-and-dry days, Cyril, but the very reverse; you +must not let yourself be deceived by a certain superficial regularity, +by railway journeys and newspapers, and a general civilization of +hand-books and classes. In reality there is more room for indirect moral +perversion or enervation in our days than there has been for a good +while; for the upsetting of ideas, the infiltration of effete or foreign +modes of thought and feeling, is much greater in this quiet nineteenth +century than it was, for instance, in the Renaissance or the eighteenth +century. With all their scepticism, the people of those days had a great +fund of tradition about everything; they were floating about a good +deal, I admit, but they were fully persuaded of the existence of certain +very solid moral rocks, to which they might always tie their boat when +it grew over-rough; rocks of religion or deistic mysticism, or of social +_convenances_, which we have now discovered to be by no means granite, +but some sort of sea deposit, of hardened sand, whose formation we +understand and no longer rely upon. The most arrant sceptics of the past +had always one great safety, that they were in a groove; they saw, +understood, sympathized with only their own civilization. What they +thought right they had never seen questioned--they never imagined any +one could regard as wrong; hence the most liberal thinkers of former +days always strike us, with their blindness to all but their own +civilization, as such Philistines. Things have changed since then; +they began to change already, as soon as men began to look at other +civilizations; and the suggestive first-fruit of this early ethnographic +eclecticism may be seen in Diderot's very beastly books: he found that +the South Sea Islanders had not, on the subject of incest, the same +views as Christian folk; whereupon it struck him that those views +might be due to prejudice. It was not the development of the natural +sciences, but rather of the historic and ethnographic, which upset +people's ideas; it was the discovery of how our institutions, moral and +social (hitherto regarded as come straight from heaven), had formed +themselves, and how they were subject to variation. Speaking of poets, +look at a pure man, I believe a very pure man, Shelley, if you want to +understand the necessity of poets having a greater solidity of moral +judgment than the mere Jones and Browns who stick to their shop, and are +not troubled with theories. Add to the influence of scientific doubt, +of the doubt created by books on the origin of ideas and institutions +(showing of what moonshine they are often made), the utterly confusing +effect of our modern literary eclecticism, our comprehension and +sympathy with so many and hostile states of civilization, our jumbling +together of antique and mediæval, of barbarous and over-ripe and effete +civilizations, our intellectual and moral absorption of incompatible +past stages of thought and feeling, with the follies and vices inherent +in each;--sum up all this, and you will see that, with our science +and our culture, our self-swamping with other folk's ideas, we are +infinitely less morally steady than the good sceptics of the days of +Voltaire, who always believed in the supremacy of their own century, +their own country, their own institutions, their own conventionalities; +who were in danger only from their own follies and uncertainties, while +we are in danger from the follies and uncertainties of every past +century from which we have inherited. And you will see, if you look, +that that sceptical eighteenth century, which was very much more +credulous and conservative than ours, was very little divided and upset +in its ideas; certain things were universally admitted, and certain +other things universally rejected; in that day there was always the +master of the ceremonies--Propriety. He knew exactly what could be +permitted: in the dining-room, drunkards yelling filthy jests; in the +drawing-room, polite gentlemen stalking or tripping through their +minuets. It is different now-a-days." + +Cyril nodded. "I understand what you mean," he said; "but I don't see +the application yet." + +"Well," answered Baldwin, "I will show you one instance of the +application. Have you ever thought over the question of--how shall I +call it?--the ethics of the indecent?" + +Cyril stared. "No, it never struck me that there were any. I don't write +indecent things, it doesn't amuse me. I feel not the smallest desire to +do so; if anything, I feel rather sick at such things; that is all." + +"That is all for you, but not all for other people. You don't feel +attracted to write on some subjects; well, other people not only feel +attracted, but imagine that it is their duty even if they are not." + +"They are swine; I have nothing to do with them." And Cyril looked as if +he had settled the matter. + +"But they are not swine; at least, not all of them; or they are not +entirely swine, by any means," insisted Baldwin. "You are not going to +tell me that a man like Walt Whitman is a mere pig. Still there are +things of his which to you are simply piggish. Either Whitman is a beast +or you are a prude." + +"That depends upon difference of nature," said Cyril quickly, vaguely +desirous of putting an end to a discussion which brought forward an +anomaly. + +"That is merely repeating what I said," replied Baldwin. "But in reality +I think it is _not_ a difference of nature. I think it depends on a +difference of reasoned opinion; in short, upon a sophistication of ideas +on the part of Whitman. I think it depends in him and the really pure +men who uphold his abominations upon a simple logical misconception; a +confusion of the fact that certain phenomena have been inevitable, with +the supposition that those same certain phenomena are therefore +desirable--a confusion between what has been, and could not help being, +and what may be and ought to be. It is the attempt to solve a moral +problem by an historical test." + +"I don't understand in the least, Baldwin." + +"Why, thus: our modern familiarity with the intellectual work of all +times and races has made people perceive that in past days indecency was +always part and parcel of literature, and that to try to weed it out +is to completely alter the character of at least a good half of the +literature of the past. Hence, some of us moderns, shaken as we are in +all our conventional ideas, have argued that this so-called indecency +is a legitimate portion of all literature, and that the sooner it is +re-introduced into that of the present the better, if our literature is +to be really vital and honest. Now, these people do not perceive that +the literature of the past contained indecencies, merely because, +being infinitely less self-conscious, less responsible than now, the +literature of those days contained fragments of every portion of the +civilization which produced it. For besides what I might call absolute +indecency, in the sense of pruriency, the literature of the past is full +of filth pure and simple, like some Eastern town; a sure proof this, +that if certain subjects which we taboo were not tabooed then, it was +not from any conscious notion of their legitimacy, but from a general +habit of making literature, like the street of some Oriental or mediæval +town, the scene of every sort of human action, important or trifling, +noble or vile; regarding it as the place for which the finest works were +painted or carved, and into which all the slops were emptied. Hence, in +our wanderings through the literature of the past, our feet are for +ever stumbling into pools of filth, while our eyes are seeking for the +splendid traceries, the gorgeous colours above; our stomachs are turned +by stenches even while we are peeping in at some wonderful rose garden +or fruit orchard. I think you might almost count on your fingers the +books up to the year 1650, in which you are sure of encountering no +beastliness--choice gardens or bowers of the soul, or sacred chapels +kept carefully tidy and pure--viz., Milton, Spenser, the _Vita Nuova_, +Petrarch, Tasso--things, you see, mainly sacred or spiritualistic--sort +of churches where only devotion of some sort goes on; but if we go out +to where there is real life, life complete and thoughtless--Shakspeare, +Rabelais, Molière, Ariosto, Cervantes, Aristophanes, Horace--the evil +odours meet us again at every step. Well, now-a-days this has all been +misunderstood. People have imagined that an inevitable nuisance of the +past ought also to be a deliberately chosen nuisance of the present: a +line of argument which appears to me to be similar to that of a man, +who, because the people of Lisbon used, in the days of my grandfather, +to practise a very primitive system of sewerage, should recommend that +the inhabitants of modern London should habitually empty their slops on +to the heads of passers-by. I am crude? Well, it is by calling nasty +things by beautiful names that we are able to endure their existence. I +think that people who should attempt such literary revivals ought to be +fined, as the more practical revivers of old traditions certainly would +be." + +Cyril paused a moment. "I think that these sort of offenders, like +Whitman, are not evil-doers, but merely snobs: they offend not good +morals, but good taste." + +"That's just such an artistic and well-bred distinction as I should +expect from you," answered Baldwin, rather contemptuously. "I wonder +what that word 'good taste' signifies to your mind? Everything and +nothing. They are offenders against good taste, you say. Well, let +us see how. If I hang a bright green curtain close to a bright blue +wall-paper, you will say it is bad taste; if I set Gray's 'Elegy' to +one of Strauss's waltzes, that is bad taste also; and if I display all +my grand furniture and plate (supposing I had it) to my poor neighbour, +whose chintz chair is all torn, and who breakfasts out of a cup without +a handle, that also is bad taste. Each for a good reason, and a +different one; in each case I am inflicting an injury, too slight and +inadvertent to be sin, against something: the green curtain and blue +paper combination pains your eye; the Gray's 'Elegy' and Strauss's waltz +combination annoys your common sense; the contrast between my riches and +your poverty inflicts a wound on your feelings; you see that all sins +against taste are merely a hurting of something in somebody. So that, if +writing indecent poems is an offence against good taste, it means that +it also inflicts some such injury. That injury is simply, as the world +has vaguely felt all along, an injury to your neighbour's morals." + +"But," put in Cyril, "such a man as Whitman has no immoral intention, +nor is he immoral in the sense that Ariosto and Byron are sometimes +immoral. The man is not a libertine, but a realist. He wishes people to +live clean lives; all he says is, that everything which is legitimate, +innocent, necessary in life, is also legitimate and innocent in +literature. And although I should rather select other subjects to write +about, and would rather he did so likewise, I cannot deny that there is +logic in saying that there can be no harm in speaking of that which +there is no harm in doing." + +"Yes," said Baldwin, "that is just the argument of such men. And the +answer is simply that there are things which are intended to be done and +_not_ to be spoken about. What you call logic is no logic at all, but +a mere appeal to ignorance. It so happens that the case is exactly +reversed--that there are a great many things which there is not the +smallest immorality in speaking about, and which it would be the most +glaring immorality to do. No one shrinks from talking about murder or +treachery; nay, even in the very domain of sexual relations there need +not be the smallest immorality, nothing at all perverting, in a play +which, like the whole Orestes trilogy, or _Othello_, or _Faust_, turns +upon adultery or seduction; no one also has the slightest instinct of +immorality in talking about the most fearful wholesale massacres. Yet +the world at large, ever since it has had any ideas of good and evil, +has had an instinct of immorality in talking of that without which not +one of us would exist, that which society sanctions and the church +blesses. And this exactly because it is as natural as murder--of which +we speak freely--is the contrary. For, exactly because certain instincts +are so essential and indispensable, Nature has made them so powerful and +excitable; there is no fear of their being too dormant, but there is +fear of their being too active, and the consequences of their excess +are so hideously dangerous to Nature itself, so destructive of all the +higher powers, of all the institutions of humanity; the over-activity of +the impulses to which we owe our birth is so ruinous of all that for +which we are born, social, domestic, and intellectual good, nay, to +physical existence itself, that Nature even has found it necessary to +restrain them by a counter-instinct--purity, chastity--such as has not +been given us to counteract the other physical instincts, as that of +eating, which can at most injure an individual glutton, but not affect +the general social order. Hence, the slightest artificial stimulus is a +danger to mankind, and the giving thereof a crime; for the experience of +all times tells us what modern psychology is beginning to explain--viz., +the strange connection between the imagination and the senses, the +hitherto mysterious power of awakening physical desires, of almost +reproducing sensation, possessed by the mind, even as the mention of +dainty food is said to make the mouth water, and the description of a +surgical operation to make the nerves wince. So that the old intuition, +now called conventionalism, which connects indecency with immorality, is +entirely justified. Crime may be spoken of just because it is crime, and +our nature recoils therefrom; indeed, I think that now-a-days, when our +destructive instinct (except in small boys and professors of physiology) +is becoming effete, there has ceased to be any very demoralizing +influence in talking even of horrors. But the immorality of indecency is +quite unlike the immorality of--how shall I distinguish?--of ordinary +immorality. In the case of the latter the mischief lies in the +sophistication of the reason or the perversion of the sympathies; as, +for instance, in Machiavel's 'Prince,' or any of a hundred French +novels. In the former case, that of indecency, the immorality lies in +the risk of inducing a mood which may lead to excess--that is, to evil. +And, as a rule, I think this inducing of a mood is the commonest source +of moral danger, whether the mood be a sensual or a destructive one." + +"I don't see how you make that out; although I now understand what at +first seemed to me mere inexplicable instincts--founded on nothing." + +"Some things are inexplicable, perhaps, but be sure instincts are not +founded on nothing. Misconceptions are mere false conceptions; but a +good half of what people call social convention is based upon a +perfectly correct conception, only mankind has forgotten what that +conception was. Well, I should place the various sorts of demoralization +of which literature is capable in this order: No. 1, and least +dangerous, sophistication of judgment; No. 2, and more dangerous, +perversion of sympathy; No. 3, and most dangerous, inducement of +questionable frame of mind. And I place them thus because it seems to me +that this is the order of facility, and, consequently, universality; I +mean that fewest people can be found who depend sufficiently on their +deliberate ideas, and most effort is required to sophisticate them; +whereas, least effort is required, and most effect produced, in the +matter of inducing a mood; the perversion of sympathy is half-way. Of +course, if we could imagine (as once or twice has actually been the +case) that the moral ideas of a whole people were sophisticated, that +would be the worst, because the least remediable; but, in the first +place, people act but little from ideas, or few persons do, and it +is difficult to alter people's ideas; and, in the second place, the +sophistication of conscience of single individuals is kept in check by +the steadfastness of the mass of mankind, and, consequently, as in such +men as Diderot, reduced to mere talk, without corresponding action. But +a mood is easily induced without the reason even perceiving it, and +the more necessary the mood is to nature, the more easily it will be +aroused--the more unnatural an evil, the less danger of it; the more an +evil is the mere excess of the necessary, the more danger there is of +it." + +"It is curious how you marshal ideas into their right places," said +Cyril. "There remains one thing to be said about the ethics of +impropriety. The people who go in for writing upon subjects which thirty +years ago would have distinctly been forbidden, do not all of them write +as Whitman does: they are not all what I should call openly beastly. +They do their best, on the contrary, to spiritualize the merely animal." + +"That is just the most mischievous thing they could possibly do," +interrupted Baldwin. "I know the sort of poets you mean. They are the +folk who say that things are pure or impure, holy or foul, according as +we view them. They are not the brutal, straightforward, naturalistic +school; they are the mystico-sensual. Of the two, they are infinitely +the worse. For the straightforward naturalistic hogs generally turn your +stomach before they have had a chance of doing you any harm; but these +persuade themselves and you that, while you are just gloating over +sensual images, you are improving your soul. They call brute desire +passion, and love lust, and prostitution marriage, and the body the +soul. Oh! I know them; they are the worst pests we have in literature." + +"But I don't think they are intentionally immoral, Baldwin." + +"Do you think any writer ever was intentionally immoral, Cyril?" + +"Well, I mean that these men really intend doing good. They think that +if only some subjects be treated seriously, without any sniggering or +grimacing, there ceases to be any harm in them. They say that they wish +to rescue from out of the mire where prudery has thrown it, that which +is clean in itself; they wish to show that the whole of Nature is holy; +they wish to purify by sanctifying." + +Baldwin listened with a smile of contempt. "Of course such words seem +very fine," he said; "but a thing is either holy or is not holy: all +the incense of poetry and all the hocus-pocus words of mysticism cannot +alter its nature by a title. And woe betide us if we once think that +any such ceremony of sanctification can take place; woe betide us if +we disguise the foul as the innocent, or the merely indifferent as the +holy! There is in Nature a great deal which is foul: in that which men +are pleased to call unnatural, because Nature herself chastises it after +having produced it: there is in Nature an infinite amount of abominable +necessity and abominable possibility, which we have reason and +conscience to separate from that which within Nature itself is innocent +or holy. Mind, I say innocent _or_ holy; for innocence and holiness are +very different things. All our appetites, within due limits, are +innocent, but they are not therefore holy; and that is just what +mystico-sensual poetry fails to perceive, and in giving innocence the +rank of holiness it makes it sinful. Do you know what is the really +holy? It is that of which the world possesses too little, and can +never possess too much: it is justice, charity, heroism, self-command, +truthfulness, lovingness, beauty, genius--these things are holy. Place +them, if you will, on a poetic altar, that all men may see them, and +know them, and love them, and seek after them life-long without ever +wearying. But do not enshrine in poetic splendours the merely innocent; +that which bestows no merit on its possessor, that which we share with +every scoundrel and every animal, that which is so universal that it +must for ever be kept in check, and which, unless thus checked by that +in ourselves which is truly holy, will degrade us lower than beasts. +For in so doing--in thus attempting to glorify that in which there is +nothing glorious--you make men think that self-indulgence is sanctity, +you let them consume their lives in mere acquiescence with their lusts +and laziness, while all around is raging the great battle between +good and evil. Worst of all, in giving them this worship of a mystic +Ashtaroth or Belial, you hide from them the knowledge of the true God, +of the really and exclusively holy, of good, truth, beauty, to know and +receive which into our soul we must struggle lifelong with the world and +with ourselves; yes, struggle for the sake of the really holy with that +mere innocence which is for ever threatening to become guilt." + +Baldwin paused; then resumed after a moment: "I believe that mankind +as it exists, with whatever noble qualities it possesses, has been +gradually evolved out of a very inferior sort of mankind or brutekind, +and will, I hope, be evolved into a very superior sort of mankind. And I +believe, as science teaches us, that this has been so far effected, and +will be further effected henceforward, by an increased activity of those +nobler portions of us which have been developed as it were by their own +activity; I believe, in short, that we can improve only by becoming +more and more different from the original brutes that we were. I have +said this to explain to you my feelings towards a young poet of my +acquaintance, who is very sincerely smitten with the desire to improve +mankind; and has deliberately determined to devote a very fine talent to +the glorification of what he calls pure passion, pure in the sense that +it can be studied in its greatest purity from the cats on the house +tops." + +Cyril made a grimace of disgust. + +"No, indeed," continued Baldwin, "that poet is not one of the +æsthetic-sensual lot you seem to think. He is pure, conscientious, +philanthropic; but he is eminently unreasoning. He is painfully +impressed by the want of seriousness and holiness with which mankind +regards marriage, and his ambition is to set mankind right on this +subject, even as another young poet-philanthropist tried to improve +family relations in his 'Laon and Cythna.' Now, if you were required +to use your poetical talents in order to raise the general view of +marriage, in order to show the sanctity of the love of a man and a +woman, how would you proceed?" + +"I have often thought about that," answered Cyril; "but it has been done +over and over again, and I think with most deliberate solemnity and +beauty by Schiller and Goethe in the 'Song of the Bell' and in 'Hermann +and Dorothea.' Well, I think that poetry can do good work in this line +only if the poet see where the real holiness of such love lies; in the +love not of the male and the female, but of the man and the woman. For +there is nowhere, I think, greater room for moral beauty and dignity +than in the choosing by a man of the one creature from whom only death +can separate him; of the one friend, not of a phase of his life, but of +his whole life; of the one soul which will grow and mature always by the +side of his, and having blossomed and borne fruit of good, will gently +fade and droop together with his. But this is not the most holy part of +the choice, for he is choosing also the mother of his children, the +woman who is to give half their nature, half their training, to what +children must mean to every honest man: the one chance he possesses of +living as he would have wished to have lived, of being what he should +wish to have been, his one chance of redeeming his errors, of fulfilling +his hopes, of realizing in a measure his own ideals. And to me such a +choice, and love in the sense of such a choice, become not merely coldly +deliberate, but passionately instinctive, are holy with the holiness +that, as you say, is the only real one; holy in all it implies of +recognized beauty and goodness, of trust and hope, of all the excellence +of which it is at least the supposed forerunner; and its holiness is +that upon which all other holiness, all the truthfulness and justice +and beauty and goodness of mankind, depends. This is how I view the +sanctity of the love between man and woman; how all the greatest poets, +from Homer to Schiller, and from Schiller to Mrs. Browning, have viewed +it; and it is the only possible view that I can conceive." + +Baldwin nodded. "This is how I also see the question. But my young +poet is not satisfied with this: he wishes to make men believe in the +holiness of that which is no more holy, and far oftener tends to be +unholy, than eating or drinking; and in order to make mankind adore, he +lavishes all his artistic powers on the construction of an æsthetical +temple wherein to enshrine, on the preparation of poetic incense with +which to surround, this species of holiness, carefully separated from +any extraneous holiness, such as family affection, intellectual +appreciation, moral sympathy; left in its complete unmixed simplicity of +brute appetite and physical longing and physical rapture; and the temple +which he constructs out of all that is beautiful in the world is a +harlot's chamber; and the incense which he cunningly distils out of all +the sights and sounds of Nature are filthy narcotics, which leave the +moral eyes dim, and the moral nerves tremulous, and the moral muscle +unstrung. In his desire to moralize he demoralizes; in his desire to +sanctify one item of life, he casts aside, he overlooks, forgets, all +that which in life is already possessed of holiness. Thus my young poet, +in wishing to improve mankind, to raise it, undoes for the time being +that weary work of the hundreds of centuries which have slowly changed +lust into love, the male and female into a man and a woman, the life of +the body into the life of the soul; poetry, one of the highest human +products, has, as it were, undone the work of evolution; poetry, which +is essentially a thing of the self-conscient intellect, has taken us +back to the time when creatures with two legs and no tail could not +speak, but only whine and yell and sob--a mode of converse, by the way, +more than sufficient for the intercourse of what he is pleased to call +the typical Bride and Bridegroom." + +They had got out of the strange expanse of brown and green swamp, and +after traversing a strip of meagre redeemed land, with stunted trees and +yellowish vines, had reached the long narrow line of pine woods which +met the beach. They passed slowly through the midst of the woods, +brushing the rain-drops off the short, bright, green pines, their wheels +creaking over the slippery fallen needles embedded in the sand; while +the setting sun fell in hazy yellow beams through the brushwood, making +the crisp tree-tufts sparkle like green spun-glass, and their scaly +trunks flush rosy; and the stormy sea roared on the sands close by. + +"I think your young poet ought to be birched," remarked Cyril; "and if +anything could add to my aversion, not for poetry, but for the poetic +profession, this would which you have just told me. You see how right I +was in saying that I would have more moral satisfaction in being a +French cook than in being a poet." + +"By no means," answered Baldwin. "In the first place, my young poet +ought not to be birched; he ought to be made to reflect, to ask himself +seriously and simply, in plain prose, what ideal of life he has been +setting before his readers. He ought to be shown that a poet, inasmuch +as he is the artist whose material is human feeling and action, is not +as free an artist as the mere painter, or sculptor, or composer; he +ought to be made to understand that now-a-days, when the old rules of +conduct, religious and social, are for ever being questioned, every man +who writes of human conduct is required, is bound, to have sound ideas +on the subject: that, because now-a-days, for better or for worse, +poetry is no longer the irresponsible, uncontrolled, helter-skelter +performance of former times, but a very self-conscious, wide-awake, +deliberate matter, it can do both much more harm and much more good than +it could do before." + +They were slowly driving along the beach, among the stunted pine shoots +and the rough grass and the yellow bindweed half buried in the sand, +and the heaps of sea-blackened branches, and bits of wood and uncouth +floating rubbish which the waves had deposited, with a sort of ironical +regularity, in a neat band upon the shore; down here on the coast the +storm had already broken, and the last thin rain was still falling, +dimpling the grey sand. The sun was just going to emerge from amidst +the thick blue-black storm-clouds and descend into a clear space, like +molten amber, above the black, white-crested, roaring sea; it descended +slowly, an immense pale luminous globe, gilding the borders of the +piled-up clouds above it, gilding the sheen of the waves and the wet +sand of the shore; and as it descended, the clouds gathered above it +into a vast canopy, a tawny orange diadem or reef of peaked vapours +encircling the liquid topaz in which the sun moved; tawnier became this +garland, larger the free sky, redder the black storm masses above; till +at last the reddening rays of the sun enlarged and divided into immense +beams of rosy light, cutting away the dark and leaving uncovered a rent +of purest blue. At last the yellow globe touched the black line of the +horizon, gilding the waters; then sank behind it and disappeared. The +wreath of vapours glowed golden, the pall of heaped-up storm-clouds +flushed purple, and bright yellow veinings, like filaments of gold, +streaked the pale amber where the sun had disappeared. The amber grew +orange, the tawny purple, the purple a lurid red, as of masses of +flame-lit smoke; all around, the sky blackened, until at last there +remained only one pile of livid purple clouds hanging over a streak of +yellow sky, and gradually dying away into black, with but here and there +a death-like rosy patch, mirrored deadlier red in the wet sand of the +beach. The two friends remained silent, like men listening to the last +bars, rolling out in broad succession of massy, gradually resolving +chords, of some great requiem mass--silent even for a while after all +was over. Then Cyril asked, pointing to a row of houses glimmering white +along the dark lines of coast, below the great marble crags of Carrara, +rising dim in the twilight-- + +"Is that the place where my friends will pick me up?" + +"Yes," answered Baldwin, "that's the place. You will be picked up there +if you choose." + +"I must, you know." And Cyril looked astonished, as if for the first +time it struck him that there might be no _must_ in the matter. "I +must--at least, I suppose I ought to--go back to England with them." + +"You know that best," replied Baldwin, shortly. "But before we get +there I want to finish what we were saying about the moral value of +poetry, if you don't mind. I gave you the instance of Whitman and the +mystico-sensual school merely because it is one of the most evident; +but it is only one of many I could give you of the truth of what I +said, that if a poet, inasmuch as he is a poet, has--what the painter, +or sculptor, or musician, inasmuch as they are such, have not--a keener +sense of moral right and wrong than other men, it is because his +art requires it. Consider what it is deliberately to treat of human +character and emotion and action; consider what a strange chaos, +an often inextricable confusion of clean and foul, of healthy and +pestilent, you get among, in penetrating into the life of the human +soul; consider that the poet must pick his way through all this, amidst +very loathsome dangers which he often cannot foresee; and not alone, +but carrying in his moral arms the soul of his reader--of each of his +thousands of readers--a soul which, if he see not clearly his way, if he +miss his footing, or tread in the soft, sinking soil (soft with filthy +bogs), may be bespattered and soiled, perhaps for ever--may be sucked +into the swamp pool or poisoned by the swamp air; and that he must thus +carry, not one soul, but thousands of souls, unknown to him--souls in +many cases weak, sometimes already predisposed to some loathsome moral +malady, and which, by a certain amount of contact with what to the poet +himself might be innocuous, may be condemned to life-long disease. I do +not think that the poet's object is to moralize mankind; but I think +that the materials with which he must work are such that, while +practising his art, he may unconsciously do more mischief than all the +professed moralists in Christendom can consciously do good. The poet +is the artist, remember, who deliberately chooses as material for +his art the feelings and actions of man; he is the artist who plays +his melodies, not on catgut strings or metal stops, but upon human +passions; and whose playing touches not a mere mechanism of fibres and +membranes like the ear, but the human soul, which in its turn feels and +acts; he is the artist who, if he blunders, does not merely fatigue a +nerve, or paralyze for a moment a physical sense, but injures the whole +texture of our sympathies and deafens our conscience. And I ask you, +does such an artist, playing on such an instrument, not require moral +feeling far stronger and keener than that of any other man, who, if he +mistake evil for good, injures only himself and the few around him? You +have been doubting, Cyril, whether poetry is sufficient work for a man +who feels the difference between good and evil; you might more worthily +doubt whether any man knows good from evil with instinct sure enough to +suffice him as a poet. You thought poetry morally below you: are you +certain that you are morally up to its level?" + +Cyril looked vaguely about him: at the black sea breaking on the +twilight sands, at the dark outline of pine-wood against the pale sky, +at the distant village lights--vaguely, and as if he saw nothing of it +all. The damp sea breeze blew in their faces, the waves moaned sullenly, +the pines creaked in the wind; the moon, hidden behind clouds, slowly +silvered into light their looser, outer folds, then emerged, spreading a +broad white sheen on the sands and the water. + +"Are you still too good for poetry?" asked Baldwin; "or--has poetry +become too good for you?" + +"I don't know," answered Cyril, in the tone of a man before whose mental +eyes things are taking a new shape. "I don't know--perhaps." + + + + +POSTSCRIPT OR APOLOGY. + + +I have had the sense that now, before these foregoing pages be +definitely printed--before what have been living thoughts and feelings +be irrevocably composed and stiffened, embalmed, distinctly and +unmistakably prepared to last, as things are permitted to last, only in +death--I have had the sense that while yet I can, I must say one or two +more things. But now, I can scarcely tell why, it seems to me as if +there could by no means be anything to say. It is a mood, due to the +moment and place. All about me there is broad, scarce-flickering shadow +on the grass, and stirring of sunlit tree-tops and vague buzzing of +bees in the limes; and across the low ivied wall comes from the black, +crumbly-stoned chapel faint music of organ and white-sounding voices, +which swells and pierces through the silence (as a green reed bud swells +and pierces its soft scaly core) and dies away, making you suddenly very +conscious of twitter of sparrows and chucking of jackdaws; bringing +suddenly close home to you, with the silence, a sense of solid reality. +So, instead of saying what I wished, it seems to me most evident that +there is nothing to say, that there scarcely could have been anything +worth saying. It is enervate, I suppose; but so it is. I wonder how any +one can ever have felt inclined to write about art--how art can ever +have been worth writing about. Everything around seems so incomparably +more interesting does it not, than art; so entirely beyond the power +of writing to convey or imitate. Above, high up, there are two great +branches of lime, apparently printed distinctly on to the pale blue sky, +black wood dividing and subdividing and projecting, green leaves and +light yellow blossom, the sun shining straight through; it seems so +simple. But try and paint it: those two branches, which seem at first so +well-defined, so close together, so closely clapped against the sky, do +you now see how far apart they really are, how separated by a gulf of +luminous air, how freely suspended, poised, at infinite distance, in the +far receding pale blue; those green leaves and yellow blossoms, which +are not green nor yellow, but something shadowy and at the same time +luminous, are clearly defined and yet undefinable; the sunshine which we +thought at first one plain beam of light is now a white, vague sheen, a +shimmer; now one light spark, one tremulous star between the leaves, or +a waving network of rays, long, then short, white, coloured, iridescent, +shaking, shifting, dancing. Paint it, describe it if you have a mind to, +my friend the poet, my friend the painter; I have not. + +This is one of those moments when reality, and the enjoyment thereof, +fill one with a sense, self-contemptuous, sceptical, almost cynical, and +yet pleasureable and stoically self-flattering in the recognition of +our own importance, a pervading illogical sense of the futility, the +unreality, the museum-glass-case uselessness of art. It seems as if art +were enjoyed because it has been produced, not produced because it is to +be enjoyed; as if mankind had acquired an elaborate pleasure in its +own works because they are its own works; as if all of us, instead of +passively receiving the impression of beauty in the same way that we +passively perceive the rustle of the branches, the twitter of the birds, +the light upon the grass, our soul staying quietly, as it were, at home, +and receiving these things as visits from nature; went forth, when art +appeals to us, on a sort of journey or grand tour, well provided with +guide-book knowledge, schooled beforehand which road to take, what +turnings of feeling to expect, what baggage of poetic and historic +association to lug with us, what little mole-hill eminences of thought +and feeling to stand upon, morally on tiptoe, looking down upon an +artistic scene upon which we have never before set eyes, and which is +yet as well-known, as drearily familiar to us as is the inside of our +pocket. + +Such is my present mood; fickle, contradictory, unworthy, slightly +apostatising and blasphemous to my own deeper convictions, to my own +written ideas, you say; you, my friend, the poet, who insist upon people +being steadfast, unchangeable in all their feelings, because you poets +keep your own moods quite steady, as photographers keep their victims, +until you have taken the concentrated likeness, and can shift your souls +into another equally steadfast, unchangeable pose. Such is my present +mood, and you may call me what names you please for having it. All that +concerns me is that most certainly this present mood of mine happens to +be the one, of all others, in which I am least likely to be able to +muster up those two or three remarks upon art with which I ought to +conclude, and finally despatch into the limbo of things printed this +collection of studies. The things must be said. If I carry my papers +home, sit down at my table, fix my eyes upon the patterned wall-paper, +I shall, in all probability, get back within five minutes all that the +usual ideas, the usual feelings about art, in the contemplation of that +patterned blankness; all that phantasmagoria of art appreciation for +which we carry all the necessary mechanism, self-manufactured (yet very +neat) out of fragments of culture and philosophy, in a sort of little +travelling case appended to our soul. A fact this, which is suggestive; +for does not our modern, imaginative appreciation of art, do not all +those wondrous beautiful and horrible dreams and nightmares, suggested +to us by a quite plain and unsuggestive picture, statue, or piece of +music, depend a little upon our contemplation of the methodical, zig-zag +and twirligig patterned vacuity of modern life? For I suspect that, in +former days (I confess I do not know exactly when), art may have been +perceived pretty much in the same manner in which we perceive nature: +that the enjoyed perception of a beautiful statue, of a picture, of a +grand song, may have come interrupting, with pleasant interludes of +quiet self-unconscious pleasure, the matter-of-fact, but not monotonous +business of life; even as my work now, my conscientious, deliberate, +attempted work, is for ever being interrupted by the flicker of the +lime-leaf shadows, light and clear, on my paper, by the breeze which +sweeps the branches and carries away the drying manuscript on the grass. + +Now it seems to me quite evident that art cannot be any such thing, as +long as its enjoyment or supposed enjoyment is a sort of deliberate +mental gymnastics, which our desire for well-balanced activity, or our +wish to display a certain unnecessary gracefulness of intellectual +motions, impose upon us; setting aside a certain portion of our time for +counteracting, in the artistic gymnasiums (rows of soaped poles, and +hurdles, and ladders, and expanses of padded floor, quite as unlike as +may be from the climbable trees and jumpable brooks which we ought +to meet in our walks), called galleries, concerts, etc., the direful +slackening of our muscles and stiffening of our joints, almost +inevitable in our cramped intellectual shop life of to-day. We writhe, +clinging with arms and legs, up the soaped poles of æsthetic feeling, +slipping and rising again, straining and twisting, to plop down at last +on to the padding and the sawdust; we dangle, with constrained grace, +high in æsthetic contemplation, flying, with a clutching swing, from +idea to idea: distant, oscillating in mid air, like so many trapeze +acrobats; and then we think that an hour or so, every now and then, of +such exercise is all (except brutal slumber) that can be required as +repose in our intellectual life. For we are all of us getting more +and more into the habit of enjoying, not so much art, as the feelings +and thoughts, the theories and passions, for which we make it the +excuse. "Nay," you will say "you yourself have written, are printing, +correcting, and publishing a whole volume of whims and ideas about +art, you yourself are for ever theorising and becoming angry on the +subject--what right have you to object thereto in others?" + +None, perhaps; I have never pretended that I am not as bad as my +neighbours; but the whole gist of these my theorisings is that people +should try and take art more simply than they do; that, if not called +upon to try and persuade others to simpler courses, they should not +theorise themselves. By theorising, I mean, incorrectly perhaps, all +manner of irrelevant fantasticating, whether it take the shape of +seeking in art for hidden psychological meanings or moral values, or of +using art merely as a suggestion of images and emotions, the perception +of which infallibly interferes with, and sometimes entirely replaces, +the perception of the art itself. To you, I know, all that I have +written seems extremely narrow, seems to limit excessively the powers of +art, the enjoyments we can derive therefrom. But I think otherwise; I +understand fully that, in the first place, there is included, under the +general name of art, the result of ever so many intellectual activities: +activities of mere psychological perception, of mere mechanical +imitation and handling, which, though belonging quite equally to other +concerns, such as science or handicraft, are yet pleasurable both to him +who exerts and to him who perceives them; I understand that there are +so many different sorts of pictures, statues, and poems, and so many +different kinds of minds to see and read them; I see that so many +questions of mental and physical why and how are connected with every +sort of visible or audible thing, that there is nothing, however utterly +bad and idiotic and abortive, among the productions of mankind (and, +consequently, among the things called works of art), out of which some +sort of intellect may not derive very keen enjoyment. The enjoyment, +however, may be merely similar to that with which a physiologist studies +a disease, or a psychologist a form of vice; and, to my mind, this sort +of enjoyment, which does not depend upon any perception of beauty, is no +more artistic than would be that of such men of science. And my wish is +merely that such pleasure be not substituted where there is an object +to afford, or a mind to receive, the mere simple, honest pleasure in +beauty. Moreover, with regard to your imputation of narrowness, I +think, on the contrary, that, could we break ourselves of our habit of +replacing or alloying real artistic interests with irrelevant matters, +we should (and this is to my mind a great reason for so doing) be +ridding ourselves of a great number of imaginary restrictions to our +enjoyment. For in many, nay, most artistic things there is, in greater +or less degree, beauty and enjoyableness; nor should we always despise +the less, since we cannot always obtain the greater. I do not mean +that all art is equally valuable; such intellectual democracy, Walt. +Whitmanish assertion of the equality of body and soul, good and +evil, high and low, being just the most brutal rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul +dishonesty that I know; but I think that in most art there is something +valuable, and that we ought to make the most of it, and doubtless +should, did not our eternal theorising interfere, with its arbitrary +standard and requirements. Were we guided solely by our feelings, we +should not be ashamed of taking a certain pleasure in the half-dapper, +half-grotesque stone nymphs and tritons, with golden-lichened tresses +and beards of green pond ooze, who smirk among the ill-clipped hedges, +and puff at their horns among the flags and lilies of every abandoned +Prince-Bishop or Margrave's garden, where the apricots ripen against the +palace wall, and the old portraits fade behind the blistered palace +shutters; we should not be ashamed of being just a little the better +pleased for some common dance tune, heard vaguely, and between our work, +from the neighbouring houses; we should not be ashamed of liking our +village church all the more for the atrocious stained glass which we +have decried as vandalism, when the sunlight falls rosy, and golden, +and green, through its monstrosities on to the extremely chaste, but +excessively dreary, grey arches and pillars. We should not be so +hypocritical to ourselves, so exclusive in our adoration of only the +best pictures, and statues, and music, to appreciate rightly whose +great merit we ought (but do not), to appreciate also the small, more +appreciable merit of the less perfect things of art. When, instead of +enjoying, we fantasticate in theory, we not only remove a proportion of +our attention from the work in hand, but also exclude ourselves from +getting the good we might from other things; one man will positively +whip his soul out of enjoying the sweet solemnity of Claude's sea +sunsets, the tragedy pomp of Poussin's black rustling ilex-groves, +and ominous green evening skies, because he seeks in painting a moral +sincerity which is incompatible with a false shadow or a lumpishly +rendered cloud. Another man thinks music ought to be the expression +of dramatic passion, and closes his ears to the splendours of poor +Rossini's vocal arabesques, theory-blinded to the sense that the powers +of creating beauty of the composer of _Tristram_, is after all akin to +the beauty making genius of the composer of _Semiramis_. Meanwhile, he +who merely enjoys is able to enjoy; is able (oh wonder of wonders) to be +what the man of theories never can be: just, because he can be grateful +for every amount of bestowed good. + +There is another objection which you may make, which (though perhaps +unformulated) you certainly will feel, against me and my book. You have +an uncomfortable sense that in some way, although our artistic life may +gain, a certain amount of life which goes on in or about art--we do not +clearly know which--is being cramped: a life of the fancy and feelings, +which weave between ourselves and the things which surround us and the +things which are absent, between the present moment and the long-gone +past, strange crossed and recrossed threads, webs of association, +infinitely fine, iridescently connected by almost invisible filaments, +floating and oscillating in the vacuum of our lives, for ever changing, +breaking; reknotting their sensitive filaments. For in most of the +things which we see and hear with free, unpractical mind in the moments +when we belong to ourselves and to the present, there exists a capacity +for importance, nay for fascination, quite independent of beauty and of +the pleasures which beauty can give. There is in such things more than +what they can give alike to every one; there is also what they can give +to each separate; they have, besides the clear language of form, which +is equally intelligible to all men, a half articulate language for every +individual man, a language of associations, vague, poor, if you will, +broken by something which might be a laugh or a sob; an imperfect +irrational language, which is yet, even when spoken by some trifling +thing, by a bar or two of trivial melody, by a door such as we have many +times passed through, or a chair such as we have looked at when not, +as now, empty; by a mere scent or touch; is yet, this mumble-jumble +language, more dear to us than all the eloquence and poetry which our +soul hears from a great work of art. I grant you all this. But I do not +think that such things need be interfered with by looking at art simply +and with straightforwardness; interfered with they cannot be. Nor could +I wish it to be otherwise. For in some ways I do think that almost +better than the mere perception of the work of another, than the mere +perception of statue or picture or poem, is this evolving from out of +ourselves of vague beauty and goodness: our fancy and our feelings do +not create anything enduring, but they are active, they create. You +artists, you poets must be broad awake, for you can and are bound to +give to us the sober realities of beauty; but we who cannot, we can yet +sometimes dream, if but for a moment, of an intangible, vague fairyland; +and of this we must not be cheated. Out of the broken, fragmentary +realities of life there must arise, ever and again for all of us, +strange involuntary visions, which have greater power over us, more +charm for us, than all the art in the world. And of such things art has +no right to be jealous; they are beyond it. And thus, I will confess to +you, as I fasten together these last pages of my book, and rise from the +grass, sere in the sunshine, and sprinkled with daisies in the shadow +of each tree, I will confess to you that more nearly appealing to me, +dearer also, than antique bas-relief or song of Mozart, has been the +vague remembrance, evoked by trivial word or sight, of that early winter +afternoon on the ilex girded battlements of Belcaro, looking down upon +the sere oak-woods, flushed by the low sun, upon the hazy olive slopes +and walls and towers of Siena. And, moreover, I will even confess (as +severest self-chastisement to a writer on art, as complete expiation of +æsthetic dogmatism and fantastications), while we walk across the warm +grass and out through the low archway of black and flakewise crumbling +stone, that I foresee that many a time in the future there will arise +between me and the fresco or picture at which I am looking, a vision +of this old world garden, of the ivied chapel buttress, the flowering +lime, the daisied grass, the copper beech leaves, ruddy and diaphanous, +against the pale, moist English sky; that, sometimes, there will +come into my head something--something ill-defined, pleasurable, +painful--which will make me read only with my eyes; which will make me +(worst humiliation) lose the thread of my theories, of my thoughts, of +my sentence. And, after this confession, I think I can say no more. + + OXFORD, _July 21, 1881._ + + + _S. Cowan and Co., Strathmore Press, Perth._ + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE + +In a very few cases, missing punctuation has been added, mainly full +stops. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + +On the whole, Vernon Lee's quirky spellings have been retained; they +include, but are not limited to, words like spirt, feretting, devine, +charnal, langour, irridescent, crenelated, crotchetty, tomatos, boddices, +putrifying, braggadoccio, Monna Lisa, trellise, Lionardo, Lorenzo dei +Medici. + +The following changes were made to the text: + +statutes became statues in the sentence: + What like are these statues? + +The name Wohlgemuth was misspelled as Wohlgemüth and has been corrected; +similarly, Walpürgisnacht was changed to Walpurgisnacht. + +A superfluous "or" was deleted from the phrase "more or or less" in the +passage: + (...)he should invent a more or less casuistic reason (...) + +A quotation from Goethe's play "Torquato Tasso" was corrected in keeping +with the German original. Lee quotes it as follows, presumably from +memory: + + 'Nicht alles dienet uns auf gleicher Weise: + Wer viel gebrauchen will, gebrauche jedes + Nach seiner Art: so ist er wohl bedient.' + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Belcaro, by Vernon Lee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELCARO *** + +***** This file should be named 32337-8.txt or 32337-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/3/32337/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + +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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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: Belcaro + Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions + +Author: Vernon Lee + +Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32337] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELCARO *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<h1>BELCARO</h1> +<p> </p> +<h5>BEING</h5> +<p> </p> +<h3>ESSAYS ON SUNDRY ÆSTHETICAL QUESTIONS,</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h5>BY</h5> +<h2>VERNON LEE,</h2> +<h6>AUTHOR OF "STUDIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY."</h6> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><span class="small">LONDON:</span><br /> +<span class="small">W. SATCHELL & CO.,</span><br /> +<span class="small">12 TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.</span></p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"><span class="small"><i>TO</i></span><br /><br /> +<span class="big"><b>A. MARY F. ROBINSON.</b></span></p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="Contents"> +<tr><th align="center" colspan="2"><big>CONTENTS</big></th></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">I. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch1">THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">II. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch2">THE CHILD IN THE VATICAN.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">III. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch3">ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">IV. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch4">FAUSTUS AND HELENA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">V. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch5">CHAPELMASTER KREISLER.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VI. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch6">CHERUBINO.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VII. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch7">IN UMBRIA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VIII. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch8">RUSKINISM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">IX. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch9">A DIALOGUE ON POETIC MORALITY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">X. </td><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#ch10">POSTSCRIPT OR APOLOGY.</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<p class="noindent">I have to thank the Editors of the <i>Cornhill</i> and of <i>Fraser's +Magazines</i>, and of the <i>Contemporary Review</i>, for kind permission +to republish such of these studies as have previously +appeared in print.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch1" id="ch1"></a>THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE.</h3> + +<h5>TO ONE OF MY READERS—THE FIRST AND EARLIEST.</h5> +<p> </p> + +<p>A little while ago I told you that I wished this collection +of studies to be more especially yours: so now I +send it you, a bundle of proofs and of MS., to know +whether you will have it. I wish I could give you what +I have written in the same complete way that a painter +would give you one of his sketches; that a singer, singing +for you alone, might give you his voice and his art; +for a dedication is but a drop of ink on a large white +sheet, and conveys but a sorry notion of property. +Now, this book is intended to be really yours; yours in +the sense that, were it impossible for more than one +copy of it to exist, that one copy I should certainly give +to you. Because these studies represent the ideas I +have so far been able to work out for myself about art, +considered not historically, but in its double relation to +the artist and the world for whom he works; ideas +which it is my highest ambition should influence those +young enough and powerful enough to act upon them; +and, this being the case, my first thought is to place +them before you: it is, you see, a matter of conversion, +and the nearest, most difficult, most desired convert, is +yourself.</p> + +<p>To you, therefore, before any one else, must I explain +what manner of book this is, what are its origin and its +aims. And first, the meaning of its title. Logically, +this title means nothing; it is a mere negation, a mere +arbitrary combination of letters chosen from sheer despair +to find any name which should tell, what this title +certainly does not, what is the contents of the volume. +Yet, a meaning the name has: a meaning of association. +For, even as a snatch of melody will sometimes, for no +apparent reason, haunt us while we are about any particular +work, follow us while we are travelling through +a definite tract of country (as, two years since, Wagner's +Spinning Chorus travelled with me from Mantua to +Verona, and from Verona to Venice) in such a way that +the piece of work, the tract of country, bring with their +recollection the haunting tune to our mind; so, also, +during the time of making up this volume, I have been +haunted by the remembrance of that winter afternoon, +when last we were together, on the battlements of +Belcaro. Perhaps (if we must seek a reason), because, +while driving to the strange, isolated villa castle, up and +down, and round and round the hills of ploughed-up +russet earth, and pale pink leafless brushwood, and +bright green pine-woods, where every sharp road-turning +surprises one with a sudden glimpse of Siena, astride, +with towers and walls and cupolas, on her high, solitary +ridge; while dashing up the narrow hedged lanes +whose sere oak and ilex branches brushed across our +faces; or, while looking down from the half-fortified old +place on to the endless, vague, undulating Sienese fields +and oak-woods; perhaps, because at that moment I may, +unconscious to myself, have had a vague first desire to +put together more of the helter-skelter contents of the +notes over which we had been looking, and give it you +in some intelligible shape. Perhaps this may have +served to set up the association; or perhaps it was +something wholly different, unguessed, trumpery, inscrutable. +Be this as it may, the fact remains that during +the dull months of planning and putting together +this book, I have been haunted, as by a melody, by the +remembrance, the vision, the consciousness of that afternoon, +warm and hazy, of early December, on the battlements +of Belcaro castle, when we looked down over the +top of the dense mural crown of sprouting pale green +acorned ilex on to the hills and ravines, with the sere +oak-woods reddened with the faint flush of sun-light, and +the vague, white thinned olives and isolated golden-leaved +oaks, and distant solitary belfries and castles; away +towards Siena, grey on the horizon, beneath the grey, +pinked, wet cloud masses, lurid and mysterious like +Beccafumi's frescos, as if the clouds, if one looked at +them long, might gather into clustered angels with +palm-shaped wings and flushed faces and reddened pale +locks. Thus have I been haunted by this remembrance, +this inner sight, this single moment continuing, in a way, +to exist alongside of so many and various other +moments; so that, when it has come to giving a name +to this book, I find that there is already indissolubly +associated with it, the name of Belcaro.</p> + +<p>So far of the title: now of the book itself, of what it +is, and why it is such. When, two summers since, I +wrote the last pages of my first book, it was, in a way, +as if I had been working out the plans of another dead +individual. The myself who had, almost as a child, been +insanely bewitched by the composers and singers, the +mask actors and pedants, and fine ladies and fops, the +whole ghostly turn-out of the Italian 18th century; who +had, for years, in the bustle of self-culture, I might +almost say, of childish education, never let slip an opportunity +of adding a new microscopic dab of colour to +the beloved, quaint, and ridiculous and pathetic century-portrait +which I carried in my mind; this myself, thus +smitten with the Italian 18th century, had already +ceased to exist. Another myself had come instead, to +whom this long accumulated 18th century lore had been +bequeathed, but who would never have taken the pains, +or had the patience, to collect it; who carried out with +a sort of filial piety the long cherished plan of making +into a book all that inherited material, seeing the while +in this 18th century lore what the original collector had +never guessed: illustrations, partial explanations, of +questions of artistic genesis and evolution, of artistic +right and wrong, which were for ever being discussed +within me. This new myself, this heir to the task of +putting into shape the historical materials collected by +an extinct individuality, is the myself by whom has been +written this present book: this present book represents the +thoughts, the problems, the doubts, the solutions, which +were haunting me while writing that first book from +which this new one so completely differs. To plan, to +work for such a book as that first one, seems to me now +about the most incomprehensible of all things; to care +for one particular historical moment, to study the details +of one particular civilisation, to worry about finding out +the exact when and how of any definite event; above +all, to feel (as I felt) any desire to teach any specified +thing to anybody; all this has become unintelligible +to my sympathies of to-day. And it is natural: +natural in mental growth that we are, to some extent, +professorial and professorially self-important and engrossed, +before becoming restlessly and sceptically +studious: we may teach some things before we even +know the desire of learning others. Thus I, from my +small magisterial chair or stool of 18th century-expounder, +have descended and humbly gone to school as +a student of æsthetics.</p> + +<p>To school, where, and with whom? A little to books, +and this (excepting a few psychological works not bearing +directly upon my subject) with but small profit; +mainly to art itself, to pictures and statues and music +and poetry, to my own feelings and my own thoughts; +studying, in seemingly desultory fashion, in discussions +with my friends and with myself. This volume <span class="smallcaps">Belcaro</span> +is the first fruit of these attempts at knowing: it is not the +Sir-Oracle manual of a professor, with all in its right +place, understood or misunderstood, truth and error all +neatly systematised for the teaching of others; but +rather the scholar's copy book, the fragmentary and +somewhat helter-skelter notes of what, in his listenings +and questionings, he has been able to understand, and +which he hands over to his fellow-pupils, who may have +understood as much of the lessons as himself, but have +in all probability understood different portions or in +different ways. Such a collection of notes this volume +most unmetaphorically is: it is literally a selection of +such pages out of my commonplace books as seemed +(though written at various moments) to converge upon +given points of æsthetical discussion; to coalesce, conglomerate +naturally, and to admit of some sort of setting, +or resetting. I say setting or resetting, because these +thoughts, these questionings, these discussions, though +in their written shape merely copied out from a confusion +of quite heterogeneous notes, have nearly all had, while +they were living, while thought or asked or discussed, +a real setting of some sort. For the ideas have come +mainly in the presence of works of art, or in discussions +with friends: they have come, sometimes unperceived at +the moment, together with the sight of a picture, the +hearing of a bar or two of music, the reading of an +accidentally met, familiar quotation; a reason, a long +sought explanation has been suddenly struck out by a +sentence, a word from a friend. Oh yes, a setting they +have had, these ideas, such as they are: a real, living, +shimmering setting of tones and looks, and jests and +passion, and anecdote and illustration, and irrelevant +streakings and veinings of description and story; a +setting too of place and time and personality. For they +have come out of real desultory talks: re-echoed by the +bare walls of glaring galleries and sounding statue cells; +or whispered on the steps before the withdrawn curtain +of some altar-piece, while the faint mass bell tinkled +from distant chapels, or great waves of litany responses +rushed roaring down the nave, and broke in short repeated +echoes against the pillars of the aisle; or, never +clearly begun or ended, between one piece of music and +another, with the hands still on the keys, and the eyes +still on the score; talks desultory, digressive, broken off +by the withdrawing of the curtain from a fresh picture, +by the prelude of another piece, by a cart blocking up +the street or a cat in behind a window grating; by something +often utterly trumpery, senseless and for the +moment all important. And they have come also, +these scattered ideas, in long discussions, rambling but +eager (their seriousness shivered ever and anon by a +sudden grotesque image or cutting answer, or inane +pun, or diverted off, no one knew how, into anecdotes or +folk tales), in the fire-lit winter afternoons, with the +crackle of wood and the crackling of sparks; or, in the +August-heated, shuttered room, with the midday drowsy +silence brought home more completely by the never +flagging saw of the cicalas on the vine-bearing poplars, +by the uniform clatter of the wooden frame crushing the +brittle silvery hemp straw in the dark courtyard outside. +This manner of setting they have had; and a far finer +than any that could artificially be given to them. In +order to endure, they had, these ideas, to be removed +out of all this living frame-work; to be written down, +that is to say, to be made quite lifeless and inorganic, +and dry and stiff, like some stuffed animal or bird. +And when it came to sorting them, to preparing +them to show to other folk; the vague melancholy sense +of how different they now looked, my poor art thoughts +all dreary in their abstractness, from what they had +been when they had first come into my head; this sense +of difference made me wish and try to replace them in a +setting, an artificial one, which should in a manner be +equivalent to that original real setting of place and +moment, and individuality and digression: equivalent +as an acre of garden, with artificial rocks, streams, +groves, grottoes, places for losing your way, flower-beds +etc., is equivalent for all the country you can travel over +in five or six years. I have done as best I could, merely +to satisfy my own strong feeling that art questions +should always be discussed in the presence of some definite +work of art, if art and its productions are not to become +mere abstractions, logical counters wherewith to reckon; +also, that discussions should be, what real discussions +are, a gradual unravelling of tangled questions, either +alone or with others' assistance, not a mere exposition +of a cut and dry system. I have always, in putting together +these notes, had a vision of pictures or statues or +places, had a sound of music in my mind, or a page of +a book in my memory; I have always thought, in +arranging these discussions, of the real individuals with +whom I should most willingly have them: I have always +felt that some one else was by my side to whom I +was showing, explaining, answering; hence, the use of the +second person plural, of which I have vainly tried to be +rid: it is not the oracular <i>we</i> of the printed book, it is +the <i>we</i> of myself and those with whom, for whom, I am +speaking; it is the constantly felt dualism of myself and +my companion.</p> + +<p>Thus much of the form into which, as the only one +which, however imperfectly, suited my liking, I have +worked these notes, taken from out of the confusion of +my commonplace books. Now, as to the notes, or rather +as to the ideas which they embody. These ideas, I repeat, +are not a system; they are mere fragmentary thinkings +out of æsthetic questions. Yet, they have, taken +altogether, a certain uniformity of tendency, a certain +logical shape: they look like a system. But if a logical +shape they have, it is not because they have been +deliberately fitted into each other, but because they +have been homogeneously evolved; if a system they +appear, it is because the same individual mind, in its +attempt to solve a series of closely allied problems, +must solve them in a self-consistent way. Hence, while +dreading beyond all things to cramp my still growing, +and therefore altering, ideas in the limits of a system, I +find that I have, nevertheless, evolved for myself a series +of answers to separate questions, which constitute a sort +of art-philosophy. An art-philosophy entirely unabstract, +unsystematic, essentially personal, because +evolved unconsciously, under the pressure of personal +circumstances, and to serve the requirements of personal +tendencies. I have, of course, read a good deal about +art, perhaps more than other people; and I have consciously +and unconsciously assimilated a good deal of +the books that I read; but I have never deliberately accepted +(except in the domain of art-history and evolution, +of which I have not treated in this book which +deals only of art in its connection with the individual +artist and his public) a whole theory, and set myself either +to developing or correcting it: the ideas of others enter +largely into the answers to my self-questionings, but +they do so because they had become part and parcel of +my own thought; and the questions and their answers +have always been asked by myself and answered by +myself. For, with respect to æsthetic training, I have +been circumstanced differently from most writers on the +subject, nay, from most readers of our generation. I +was taught as little about art, I heard as little talk about +pictures, statues, or music, as any legendary calvinist +child of the 17th century; I jostled art of one kind or +another as much as any child well can: I was familiar +with art, cared about it (to the extent of requiring it) +before well knowing that art existed: reversing the +training of these days of culture and eclecticism and +philosophy, according to which one usually knows all +about art, all about its history, ethics, philosophy, schools, +epochs, moral value, poetic meaning, and so forth, before +one knows art itself, long before one cares a jot for it. +To me, art was neither a technical study, nor a philosophic +puzzle, nor a rhetorical theme, nor a fashionable +craze: it was something natural, familiar; indifferent at +first, then enjoyed; only later read and thought about. +It was only when I began to read what other people had +thought and felt on the subject, that I began to discover +(with surprise and awe) that there was something rare, +wonderful, exotic, sublime, mysterious, ineffable about +art. I read a great many books about all the arts, and +about each art in particular, from Plato to Lessing, from +Reynolds to Taine, from Hegel to Ruskin; I read, +re-read, annotated, extracted, compared, refuted; I filled +copy books with transcendental, romantic, and positivistic +æsthetics; I began to feel, to understand art and +all its wonderful mysteries; I began to be able to express +in words all the vague sublimities which I felt. +Any one reading my notes, hearing my conversation, +would have sworn that I was destined to become an art +philosopher. But it was not to be. Much as I read, +copied, annotated, analysed, imitated, I could not really +take in any of the things which I read; or if I took +them in, they would remain pure literary flourishes. As +soon as I got back into the presence of art itself, all my +carefully acquired artistic philosophy, mystic, romantic, +or transcendental, was forgotten: I looked at pictures +and statues, and saw in them mere lines and colours, +pleasant or unpleasant; I listened to music, and when, +afterwards, I asked myself what strange moods it had +awakened in my soul, what wondrous visions it had conjured +up in my mind, I discovered that, during that +period of listening, my mind had been a complete blank, +and that all I could possibly recollect were notes. My +old original prosaic, matter-of-fact feeling about art, as +something simple, straightforward, enjoyable, always +persisted beneath all the metaphysics and all the lyrism +with which I tried to crush it. I continued, indeed, to +study art, to think about what it really was; but +gradually I perceived that this thinking of mine, instead +of developing my faculties for seeing in art all the +wonderful things seen in it by others, tended more and +more to confirm my original childish impression that art +was a simple thing to be simply enjoyed. My thinking +was mainly negative: instead of discovering new things +in art, I discovered every day the absence in it of some +of the strange properties with which I had learned to +invest it; I perceived more and more distinctly that half +of the ideas of æstheticians had merely served to hide +the real nature of the art about which they wrote; I +understood that while analysing psychological meanings +in pictures, they were shutting their eyes to the form and +the colour; that while they were dreaming about woods +and lakes, and love and death, they were not listening +to the music. I gradually took in the fact that most +writers on art were simply substituting psychological or +mystic or poetic enjoyment, due to their own literary +activities, for the simple artistic enjoyment which was +alone and solely afforded by art itself. I saw that the +more value any work of art possessed in itself, and the +greater the amount of pleasure which it could afford, the +more extraneous and impertinent was the sort of interest +with which æstheticians tried to invest it. I +became aware that writers, being unable to awaken with +their machinery of thoughts and feelings and words the +activities awakened by the intrinsic qualities, visible or +audible, of statues or pictures or music, had unconsciously +substituted an appeal to other mental activities +with which the works of art had at best but little +connection. This gradual discovery amused me, but +it also made me indignant. Had mankind appeared to +me to be merely placidly enjoying as artistic effects +those which were not artistic effects at all, it would have +been a mere matter for amusement; but it seemed to me +that as a consequence of this mankind was entirely +missing much of the enjoyment which art could give, +and, moreover, which could be given only by art. Besides, +art was for ever attempting really to produce those +imaginary, imagined effects: sculpture was trying to +give psychological amusement, music was trying to play +tragedies and paint landscapes, and write religious meditations; +and in so doing art was incapacitating itself for +its real work, even as mankind was incapacitating itself +for appreciating the real powers of art. Hence, in so far +as I thought at all about art in its absolute relations to +artist and public (as distinguished from art as a psychological, +historical, merely scientific study) my thoughts +all tended towards getting rid of those foreign, extra-artistic, +irrelevant interests which æstheticians have +since the beginning of time interposed between art and +those who are intended to enjoy it; my work has, unconsciously +enough, been to logically justify that perfectly +simple, direct connection between art and ourselves, +which was the one I had felt, as a child, before +learning all the wonderful fantastications of art philosophers. +My own art philosophy is therefore simply to +try and enjoy in art what art really contains, to obtain +from art all that it can give, by refraining from asking +it to give what it cannot. To this end have tended all +those most harum-scarum notes, written during the last +six years, which I have here collected and tried to group +according to the particular art, or the particular portion +of an art, to which they referred. Some are about +painting, some about music, some about poetry, some +about art in general, some inextricably combined +and mixed up with other subjects. They have been +written at different times, hence with varying amount +of experience and information; occasionally they may +even be contradictory in a trifle. Thus, when I +wrote the notes on musical expression incorporated in +the essay called after Hoffmann's Kapell-Meister +Kreisler, I was not yet acquainted with the discoveries +of Mr. Herbert Spencer on the subject; discoveries +which have infinitely cleared my ideas, and which serve +to correct, in the adjoining essay called <i>Cherubino</i>, much +that was vague, and perhaps equivocal, in my earlier +notes. Had I been constructing a system, I should +have recast all the old (or suppressed all the new); but I +am merely collecting notes, so I have let them stand as +they were written. My object is not to teach others, +but to show them how far I have taught myself, and +how far they may teach themselves. I must always return +to my comparison of the copy books of the boy attending +a course of lectures: this is not all that I conceive +can be said on the subject; it is merely as much as I have +been able to understand thereof; and the more I have +listened and questioned, the more what I have understood +has become connected within itself and seemed to +indicate connections with unstudied problems belonging +to different orders of thought. Thus, after having +thought and written only about art; about what each +art can and cannot do, about the relations of the various +arts amongst each other and to their artists, I have +gradually found myself thinking and writing about what +art as a whole can do and should do; about the relations +between all art and life taken as a whole: after the +purely æsthetical questions has come the question, no +æsthetical question this time—what value, in this world +of good and evil, of doubt and certainty, of action and inaction, +in this world struggling for physical and social +and moral good, what value have æsthetical questions at +all? And with these notes, written latest of all, and +threatening to divert me more than they should from +my present field of study to the wider, nobler, far more +intricate and dangerous field of ethics, I have thought it +best to close my book; since these latest notes supply +the explanation—felt all along, but only vaguely +formulated till now—of my whole æsthetic, because of +my whole philosophic, tendencies: the greatest amount +of good work to be obtained from everything, and this +possible only by all being seen in its right light, and consequently +used in its right place.</p> + +<p>This is what my new book is, and this is how such it +has come to be. And just because it is what it is, +because it is not a mere piece of work, not a mere something +made by me and thrust away, in its systematic cut +and dryness, from my living personality; but a certain +proportion of my growing, altering, enlarging, disjointed, +helter-skelter thoughts, of the thoughts which come to +me whether I will or not; because it is not a real book +but a collection of notes, do I wish it to be read by you. +So now I tie together and make a packet of all the +pages of proofs and sheets of MS., and send it all to +you. The summer has come round: the tall grass, +brocaded like some rough, rich mediæval stuff, with +yellow buttercups and blue sage flowers, is already beginning +to be scythed and raked away; the last clusters +of hawthorn, which, a few days since, still stood out +white and crisp against the blue of the sky, fall to pieces +as soon as one tries to gather them; the Tuscan country +has already got its summer sheen of pale green poppied +wheat, and pale green budding vine, and dim +blue distance, and pervading faint yellow haze; the +hills of Siena are green with sprouting arbutus and +ilex and fern and hellebore bells; the oakwoods that +we saw russet under the reddening light, are in tender, +yellowish new leaf; the olives are in blossom from +which we broke the fruit-laden twigs; it seems so long, +so very long, since that soft grey winter day when last +we were together, looking down from the battlements of +the old Sienese villa; and yet the memory of that +winter day seems as real as the present reality of this +summer one; and haunts me still, as I write these +words, even as it has haunted me throughout the putting +together of this book, which I have called, from that +haunting remembrance, and, perhaps, a little also that +the association might make it more pleasant in your +eyes, by the name of that strange, isolated, ilex-circled +castle villa of Belcaro. And now, unroll the tight-rolled +manuscript and smooth out the rumpled proof sheets; +read, and tell me whether or not what you have read is +ever to be read by any one else.</p> + +<p> +<span class="smallcaps">Florence</span>, <i>May, 1881</i>. +</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch2" id="ch2"></a>THE CHILD IN THE VATICAN.</h3> +<p> </p> + +<p>There were a lot of children in the Vatican this morning: +small barbarians scarce out of the nursery, who +should have been at home, at their lessons, or reading +fairy books, or carpentering, or doll-educating, or boat-sailing, +or amusing themselves in the hundred nondescript +ways which we seem to forget (remembering only +ready-made toys and ready-made stories) when we grow +up. Some were left to their own devices, and scampered, +chattering and laughing, through the gallery; +jumping up three steps at a time, clambering up to +windows, running round isolated statues, feretting into +all the little nook and corner rooms, peeping into the +lidless sarcophagi and the great porphyry baths, with the +rough-hewn rings and lions' heads. The others were +being led by their elders: talking in whispers, or silent: +demure, weary, vacant, staring about with dreary, vague +little faces; these, who were not permitted to rush about +like the others, seemed chilled, numbed by a sort of +wonder unaccompanied by curiosity, oppressed by a +sense of indefineable desolation. And, indeed, it is a +desolate place, this Vatican, with its long, bleak, glaring +corridors; its half-lit, chill, resounding halls; its damp +little Belvedere Court, where green lichen fills up the +fissured pavement; a dreary labyrinth of brick and +mortar, a sort of over-ground catacomb of stones, constructed +in our art-studying, rather than art-loving times +where once—when Michael Angelo was stretched painting +on the creaking scaffolding slung from the roof of +the Sixtine—the poppies waved scarlet among the +trailing vines of the pope's orchard, and the white +butterflies, like wind-blown blossoms, swarmed in the tall +grass beneath the bending apple trees, and the fire-flies +danced in luminous spirals among the wild rose-hedges. +A dismal scientific piece of ostentation, like all galleries; +a place where art is arranged and ticketed and made +dingy and lifeless even as are the plants in a botanic collection. +Eminently a place of exile; or worse, of captivity, +for all this people of marble: these athletes and +nymphs and satyrs, and warriors and poets and gods, +who once stood, each in happy independence, against a +screen of laurel or ilex branches, or on the sun-heated +gable of a temple, where the grass waved in the fissures +and the swallows nested, or in a cresset-lit, incense-dim +chapel, or high against the blue sky above the bustle of +the market place; poor stone captives cloistered in +monastic halls and cells, or arranged, like the skeletons +of Capuchins, in endless rows of niche, shelf, and bracket. +Galleries are necessary things, to save pictures and +statues (or the little remaining of them) from candle +smoke, sacristans' ladders, damp, worms, and street boys, +but they are evil necessities; and the sense of a sort of +negative vandalism always clings to them, specially to +the galleries of statues, so uninhabited, so utterly +sepulchral. Going to a gallery of sculpture, we must be +prepared to isolate what we wish to enjoy, to make for +it a fitting habitation in our fancy: it is like going to +read a page of Homer, or the Georgics, or Shelley, in +some great musty, dusty library, redolent of crumbling +parchment and forgotten rubbish. Such is this Vatican, +even for us accustomed to it and knowing what we do +and do not want: for us grown-up creatures, familiar +with such matters, and with powers of impression quite +deadened by culture. What, therefore, must not this +Vatican be for a child: a quite small, ignorant barbarian +such as has never before set its feet in a gallery, to whom +art and antiquity have been mere names, to whom all +this world of tintless stone can give but a confused, huge, +overpowering impression of dreariness and vacuity. An +impression composed of negative things: of silence and +absence of colour, of lifelessness, of not knowing what +it all is or all means; a sense of void and of unattractive +mystery which chills, numbs the little soul into a sort of +emotionless, inactive discomfort. What we were, how +we felt, how we understood and vaguely guessed things, +as children, we can none of us know. The recollection of +ourselves when we were so different from ourselves, +this tradition handed down from a dim, far-off +creature of whom we know, without feeling it, that he, +was our <i>ego</i>, this mysterious tradition remains to us only +in fragments, has been printed into our memory only by +desultory patches: at one point we can read, at another +the ink has not taken; we know as distinctly as the sensation +and impressions of this very morning this or that +sensation or impression of so many, many years ago; +and we ask ourselves at the same time—"how did such +another thing affect our mind?"—with the utter hopelessness +of answer with which we should try to look into +the soul of a dog or a cat. Thus it is with our small +barbarian child in the Vatican: how did it feel? Alas, +we should, in order to know, first have to find that little +obscure, puzzled soul again; and where is it gone? +this thing which may once have been ourselves, whither +has it disappeared, when has it been extinguished? So +we can only speculate and reconstruct on a general +basis. Certain it is that to this child, to any child, this +Vatican must have been the most desolate, the most +unintelligible of places. For, strange as it may seem, +this clear and simple art of sculpture, born when the +world was young and had not yet learned to +think and talk in symbolical riddles, this apparently +so outspoken art is, to the childish soul of our +days, the most silent art of any. To the child, the +modern child, it is speechless; it knows not a word of +the language understood by the child's fancy. For this +fancy language of our modern child is the language of +colour, of movement, of sound, of suggestion, of all the +broken words of modern thought and feeling: and the +statue has none of these. The child does not recognise +in it anything familiar: these naked, or half-naked, limbs +are things which the child has never seen, at least, never +observed; they do not, in their unfamiliarity, their +vagueness, constitute an individual character; the dress, +the furrowed face, the coloured hair, the beard, these are +the things which the child knows, and by which it recognises; +but in these vague, white things, with their +rounded white cheek, and clotted white hair, with their +fold of white drapery about them, the child recognises +nothing: men? women? it does not ask: for it, they +are mere things, figures cut out of stone. And thus, in +their vagueness, their unfamiliarity, they seem also to be +all alike, even as, on first acquaintance, we sometimes +ask ourselves whether those sisters or brothers we know +are four or only three; for in the unknown there is no +diversity. Mysterious things, therefore, these statues for +the child; but theirs is a mystery of mere vacuity, one +which does not haunt, does not seek a solution. For +they are dull things, in their dirty whiteness: they are +doing nothing, these creatures, merely standing or sitting +or leaning, they are looking at nothing with their +pupilless white eyes, they have no story to tell, no name +to be asked. The child does not say to them, as to the +people in pictures, the splendid people in strange +colours, and holding strange things, "Who are you? why +are you doing that?" It does not even ask or answer +itself whether these white things, who seem to be all the +same, are dead or alive: they are not ghosts, they are +things which, for aught the child knows or cares, have +never been born and never will die. A negation, oppressive +and depressing, that is all; and in the infinite +multitude of statues in such a place as this Vatican, +their sense must become actively painful to the child. +Hence, the children we meet either rush headlong +through corridor and hall, looking neither to the right +nor to the left, or let themselves be passively led +through, listless, depressed, glancing vaguely about, +looking wistfully at the little glimpses of sunlit garden +outside, at the clipped box hedges and trim orange trees +in the court of the Pine Cone. For there, outside, is life, +movement, green; little hedged beds to run round; +fountains to be made to spirt aside by sticking fingers +into their pipes; walls on which to walk balanced, and +benches to jump over: there is field and food for the +child's fancy, and here, within, among all these cut +stones, there is none.</p> + +<p>Hence it is that the child, who will one day become +ourselves, rarely cares to return to these sculpture +galleries; or, if it care to return to any, it is to mixed +galleries like those of Florence, where, instead of the +statues, it looks at the pictures. And out of pictures, +out of the coarse blurs of colour in picture-books, out +of the black, huddled, infinitively suggestive engravings +in bible and book of travel; out of fine glossy +modern pictures which represent a definite place, or +tell a definite story; out of all this, confused with +haunting impressions, of things seen or heard of +(the strange, deeply significant sights and words of our +childhood), do we get our original, never really alterable +ideas and feelings about art; for much as we may clip, +trim, and bedizen our minds with borrowed things, we +can never change, never even recast its solid material: +a compact, and seemingly homogeneous soul mass, made +up of tightly-pressed, crushed odds and ends of impression; +broken, confused, pounded bits of the sights and +sounds and emotions of our childhood. To the statues +we return only quite late, when this long-formed, long-moulded +soul of ours has been well steeped in every sort +of eclectic and artificial culture; has been saturated with +modern art and modern criticism, with mysticism and +realism and sentiment and cynicism, with Dante and +Zola, and Mozart and Wagner and Offenbach, saturated, +with every kind of critically distilled æsthetic essence, +till there is not a flavour and not a scent, good or bad, +sweet or foul, which may not be perceived in this strange +soul of ours. Then we return to the statues; and, having +imbibed (like all things) a certain amount of Hellenic, +Pagan, antique feeling, we try also to assimilate the +spirit of the statues of Phidias or Praxiteles; we expound +the civilisation, the mode of thought; we trace +the differences of school, we approve and condemn, we +speak marvellously well, with subtlety or passion; we +imagine all manner of occult, ineffable virtues and vices +in this antique art, we dabble deliciously in alternate +purity and impurity (this being the perfection of artistic +pleasure), as we even occasionally, for a few moments, feel +actual, simple, unreasoning, wholesome pleasure in the +sight of the old broken marbles. All this we do, and +most often are therewith satisfied. Yet if, weighing our +artistic likings and dislikings, comparing together our +feelings towards so many and so various manifestations, +trying to determine what is fresh and wholesome food to +our depraved æsthetic (and æsthetico-moral) palate, +and what is mere highly flavoured, spicy or nauseous +drug-stuff, if, in such a moment of doubt, we ask ourselves, +overheard by no one, whether in reality this +antique art is, in the life of our feelings, at all important, +comforting, influential? we shall, for the most part, +whisper back to ourselves that it is not so in the very +least. But could it ever have been? Could this, or any +art have been for us more than merely one of a hundred +feebly enjoyed, more or less exotic mental luxuries; +than an historic fossil, by study of which, as with the +bone of a pterodactyl or an ichthyosaurus, we can +amuse ourselves reconstructing the appearance and +habits of a long dead, once living civilisation? Or +might these statues have been much more to us? Might +they, perhaps, have shaped and trained our souls with +their unspoken lessons?</p> + +<p>Well, once upon a time (let us invent a fairy tale), a +child was brought to the Vatican: just such an one, only +perhaps a trifle more wayward, than those we met +this morning, demurely led about, or scampering through +the galleries: its name signifies nothing, suffice it that +it was a child. Now, it so happened, that upon that day +the statues (who, as our forefathers of the middle ages +knew) are merely stone imprisoned demons, dethroned +gods of antiquity, were bent upon getting some small +amount of amusement in their dreary lives: all the more +dreary since the great joyful hope of restoration in the +hearts of men which they had conceived when Winckelmann +and Goethe came to them and adored, had been +slowly disappointed by seeing that what men cared for +was not them, but merely their own impertinent theories +and grandiloquent speeches. The Statue-demons were +sick of the bitter amusement of watching the follies of +their pretended or deluded worshippers. So they sorely +wanted excitement, diversion of some sort; and in their +idleness, they capriciously determined to amuse themselves, +no longer with grown men, but with children. +So, as a toy for the moment, they singled out this particular +child we are speaking of, who was wandering +wearily through the gallery, overpowered like its companions +by the sense of negativeness, of greyness, of +silence, of want of character and movement and story, +and as it passed them, the statue-demons looked at each +other with their pupilless eyes, as much as to say: "This +is the one we shall take," and determined to cast a spell +upon it which would make it theirs. How they did is +more than any of us can tell: there was a little gurgling +fountain in the garden outside, where a broken-snouted +dragon spirted a trickle of water through the +maiden-hair choking up the basin, and of this water the child did +drink a little in the palm of its hand, the rest running +up its sleeve; there was also an old noseless Vertumnus +in a corner, on whose pedestal a great tuft of wild grass +had shot up, and round whose arms and neck an ivy +plant had cast its green trailing leaves; and one of these +bitter glossy leaves that child did certainly munch; but +whether the charm was in the water or the leaf, or in +neither, and only a mysterious spell, a sort of invisible +winged seed of passion which they cast direct into that +little soul, no one may ever decide. Be it as it may, +the child remained for a while conscious of nothing at +all, never dreaming that it had in any way come in contact +with that demon world imprisoned in the stone. It +lived its child life of romping and day dreams and +lessons and punishments, and, with its companions, +fretted to get away from this dreary, horrible Rome of +the popes: this warm, wet place with its sordid houses, +its ruins embedded in filth and nettles; its tawdry, stuffy +churches, filled with snuffling of monks and jig-quavering +of strange, cracked, sickening-sweet voices; its whole +atmosphere of decay and sloth, as of a great marsh-pond, +sprinkled with bright green weed and starred +with flaunting nauseous yellow lilies. The child +wondered at all these things: dug bits of porphyry and +serpentine out of gutters, collected pieces of potshard +from the Palatine; read and re-read the stories of shipwrecks +and red Indians and volcanoes: played in dressing-gowns +and shawls, at processions of cardinals and prelates, +and, with yelling companions in pinafores and +napkins, at church music, with tremendous time-beating +with rolls of paper; laughed and pouted and quarrelled +as children do; quite unconscious of being the chosen +one, the changeling, the victim of the statues. But little +by little, into its everyday life, stole strange symptoms; +sometimes there would come like a sudden stop, as of a +boat caught in the rushes, a consciousness of immobility +in the midst of swirling, flowing movement, a giddy +brain-swimming feeling; and then things went on +again just as before. But the symptoms returned, and +others with them. What was the matter? A vagueness, +a want; a seeking, a clinging, but seeking for, +clinging to the unknown. In the evenings of early +spring, when the children had returned from their +scrambling walks, and were waiting for supper, chattering, +looking at books, or strumming tunes; this child would +watch the bank of melting colours, crimson, and smoke-purple +and gold, left by the sun behind the black dome +of St. Peter's; and as the white vapours rose from the +town below and gathered on the roofs like a veil, it +would feel a vague, acheless pain within it; and at any +stray, trifling word or bar of dance music, its eyes and +its whole little soul would fill with a mist of tears. The +spell cast by the statues was not idle, the mysterious +philter which they had poured into it was working +throughout that childish soul: the child was in love; in +love with what it had hated; in love intensely, passionately, +with Rome. And as a part of Rome it loved, +blindly, for no other reason, that desolate Vatican; to the +statues it returned, and in a way, grew up in their presence. +And one day the child looked at itself, and perceived +that it was a child no longer; knew all of a sudden, +that in those drowsy years of childish passion and +day dreams, it had been learning something which others +did not know. For it heard one day a few pages of a +symphony of Mozart's; the first it had ever heard save +much more modern music; and those bars of symphony +were intelligible words, conveyed to the child a secret. +And the secret was: "we are the brethren, the sounding +ones of the statues: and all we who are brethren, +whether in stone, or sound, or colour, or written word, +shall to thee speak in such a way that thou recognise us, +and distinguish us from others; and thou shalt love and +believe only in us and those of our kin." Then the +child went forth from the Vatican, and went in among +the pictures, and among the poems and the music, and +did indeed find that all those who were of the same kin +as the statues spoke to it intelligible words, and returned +its love by making it happy. This came of the statues +having had the whim of giving to that child the love +potion which had made it love Rome.</p> + +<p>All this is a fairy tale, a very meagre one indeed, +quite inferior to any told us by nurse or peasant woman; +but a fairy tale nevertheless; for, of course, we all know +that statues cannot give love philters, nor children fall +in love with towns, nor symphonies talk about having +brothers in marble or colour. All this is rubbish of the +same sort as the dancing water, the singing apple, the +dragon Fafner's blood which made Sigurd understand +the language of the birds, the enchanted lake into which +Charlemagne sat gazing out his life, because of the ring +cast into it; mere rubbish, and, consequently, not to +be examined into or reasoned about. But as the wise +men of to-day tell us that in all our nursery tales +(Heaven forbid that anything so appalling be true) +there is a hidden, sensible meaning; perhaps, also, there +may be one in this absurd little story of the child in the +Vatican, and that we may see. And so, now, we must +be serious and examine methodically into the matter.</p> + +<p>To grow up in the presence of the statues; to become +acquainted with antique art long before any other; to +perceive the beauty and enjoyableness of a statue +before seeking for the beauty and enjoyableness of a +picture or a piece of music; this is the reverse of the +artistic training which every individual man or woman +obtains consciously or unconsciously in our own day; +for we begin with the art born nearest our time, then +proceed to those further; we go from music to painting, +and from painting to sculpture. But humanity at +large received the opposite training in the last four-and-twenty +centuries, since humanity knew beauty in the +statue before knowing beauty in the picture, and beauty +in the picture before beauty in music. The first +standard of artistic right and wrong (since architecture, +being a thing partly for use, and only partly for beauty, +has a mixed morality of its own) was the standard +of sculpture. Let us see what that was, and how we +must alter and enlarge it (as humankind has done), +in order to obtain the standard of right and wrong +in painting and that in music. The statues, in our +fairy tale, told the child that they had brethren in sound, +brethren which, knowing them, he should also know +from the resemblance. But first, what like are these +first born of art, these statues? What is this character +in them which, found in the younger things, in painting +and music, shall show that even these are of the same +stock as the statues? What like are these <ins title="original has statutes">statues</ins>? +What a question! it is perfectly insulting to any one +of us most æsthetic creatures. What like are these +statues? Does any of us require to ask or to be taught +that? And to begin with, the very question is a gross +error, an unendurable blunder: statues, antique statues…. +You think that so simple, do you? You think, +perhaps, like the people of the sixteenth century, that +there is only one kind of antique statue; know, most +impudent of ignoramuses, that there are innumerable +sorts of statues and antique statues, there are good +statues and bad statues, and early statues and late +statues, there are Dedalian statues and Æginete +statues, and immediately pre-Phidian and Phidian, and +immediately post-Phidian and Praxitelian statues, and +statues of the school of Pergamus, and statues of the +school of Rhodes, and Græco-Roman statues, and +statues of the Græco-Egyptian revival under Hadrian, +and statues…. Enough, enough! We have been +talking of the teachings of the statues themselves, of +the lesson which they, with their unchangeable attitude +and gesture, their lines and curves and lights and +shadows of body, their folds and plaits of drapery, have +silently, slowly taught to a child; and the statues themselves, +who have never read Winckelmann, nor Quatremère, +nor Ottfried Müller, do not know all these +wondrous classifications of schools of which (with their +infinite advantage of teaching us to admire only one +or two schools, and abominate all the others as barbarous, +decaying, Græculan, etc., without even looking +at them) we are so justly proud. Oh, yes, the statues +which taught the child were a very mixed company, +such as the carefully-trained of our day, who can endure +only Phidias, and next to Phidias, only Clodion or +Carpeaux, would scarcely like to know at all. Not +Phidian, all of them, nor even, alas, Praxitelian; they +were not the Elgin marbles nor the Venus of Milo, sole +objects of the feeble love of us good, learned folk; they +were those extremely harum-scarum statues of the +Vatican: a few of them copies of lost, irreproachable +originals, like the Doryphoros, the Minerva, the Amazon, +the Satyr; a certain number of impostors of now exploded +reputation, the Apollo, the Laocoon, the +Antinous, and a whole host of quite despicable others, +of every degree of lateness of epoch and baseness of +work. And what is still worse, the child was taught, +not merely by this multifarious company, but by heaven +knows what dreadful statues besides; things to shudder +at, things, hewn stones (for the right-minded cannot call +them statues) out in gardens, noseless, armless things +under artificial ruined temples, in niches of clipped box, +or half-swathed up with ivy and creeping roses. All +these said to that child that, although some of them +were quite artistic patricians and princes, and others the +merest ragtag and bobtail, nay, unspeakable ruffians and +outcasts, they yet belonged to the same stock, they all +being antique; and that all of them, according to their +degree and power, some in unspoken words perfect as any +of Plato's, and others in horrible, jumbled slang, malaprop +gibberish, would teach him the same lesson, if he +would listen to them all: the lesson of their own nature +and kinship. And from all of them, insensibly, slowly, +without archæologic or æsthetic formulæ, in the simple +manner in which children learn all that is most important +to know, this child learned. So that, without +desire for archæologic and æsthetic answers, we now ask, +referring to this lesson learnt by the child—-"What like +<i>are</i> the statues?" What like? Why, of course—well, +they are like—like—like—what in the world should +statues <i>be</i> like?—things cannot be defined in that cut +and dry fashion—why, statues are like—. In short, +such questions can neither be asked nor answered by +intelligent folk. They can be put only by people who +believe in love philters and symphonies which talk, and +children who fall in love with towns; idiotic questions +like "Why should there be sin?"—and "Why love our +neighbours when they are nasty?"—which only children +ask—questions to answer which as they deserve, you +had better get hold of your eternal fairy-story child, +and ask him what the statues said they were like. Nay, +do not lose all patience. And see, since you think that +the question, "What like are the statues" is fit to be +answered only by the child of the fairy tale, we will +pretend, for a moment, that the fairy tale is true, and +play, for your benefit, the part of that child. And the +things which that child would have learned, scarce +consciously, in the course of its own growth, and during +years of familiarity with all this host of statues, we will +try and explain in an hour or so, by examining together +a single work of ancient sculpture. This work is the +Niobe group; and we have chosen it, after a little +thought, for the purpose, because, from the complication +of the story and of the group itself, it will enable us to +illustrate a greater number of points than could well be +done in the examination of isolated antique figures, or +groups of merely two or three, such as there are plenty +of here in Rome. But the Niobe is not in Rome, you +will say; why not take some statue or group of statues +here in the Vatican? Because the Niobe can teach us +most in least time; and because also, you need not think +of the group as it stands in the gallery in Florence. +Indeed, you must not think of that group at all, spread +out as it is, in idiotic confusion, round the walls of Peter +Leopold's oblong hall. What you must think of, look +at, is this—See: here we have all the figures composing +the group, very fairly copied in terra-cotta, the largest +not much longer than your arm; and these figures we +have placed, according to their relative size, in this +rough wooden model of the triangular gable of a Greek +temple; following approximately the design of the +restored temple front which Cockerell made years ago +for the Florentine gallery.</p> + +<p>Come and stand at a little distance from the table on +which the wooden gable and statues are set. So, now we +can get an idea (which in the gallery we cannot) of the +general effect of the group. It seems so simple, but it +is not: it is in sculpture something like what a fugue is +in music: it is a homogeneous form due to the extremely +skilful co-ordination of various forms; it is a harmonious +whole, because the parts are combined just at the point +where their diversities coalesce. For, as the various +voices of the fugue, some subtly insinuating themselves +half whispered, while the others are thundering their +loudest or already dying away into silence, meet and +weave together various fragments of the same melody, +so also do the figures of the group, some standing, +some reclining, some kneeling, some rising, some draped, +some nude, meet our sight in various ways so as to constitute +in their variety, one great pattern; balance each +other on opposite sides of the gable, slope and taper +down towards the extremities, grow and rise higher towards +the middle where the vertex of the triangular +temple front, the triumphant centre of the rhythm and +harmony of lines, is formed by the majestic, magnificent +mother between her two eldest, most beautiful daughters. +And now, think no more of this terra-cotta than, having +learned the shape of a hymn by Bach or a psalm by +Marcello on the piano, you would think of the poor +miserable piano-notes which you hear with your ears, instead +of the mass of voices which you hear with your +fancy. Think of this Niobe group, twice humansized, +standing on the weather-mellowed, delicately painted +marble temple front; the amber-tinted figures against +the dark hollow formed by the projecting roof; the sunshine +drawing on the black back-ground, as with a +luminous pencil, the great solemn masses of light and +shadow, the powerfully rhythmed attitudes, the beautiful +combinations of lines and light and shade produced by +the gesture, which now raises, now drops the drapery, +opposing to the large folds, heavy and severe, the minute, +most supple, and most subtle plaits; and to the strong +broken shadows of the drapery, the shining smoothness +of the nude. Think of that, and remember then the +single figures in their best examples, the mother and +eldest daughter of Florence, the headless younger +daughter of the Vatican, the exquisite dying boy of +Munich; and think, by recollecting these dispersed +noblest copies, what must the lost original have been. And +thus, looking at the little rough terra-cotta model, and +magnifying it in fancy into the great superb group such +as it must have stood on the temple, there comes home +to us, filling, expanding our mind, an almost ineffable +sense of perfection of line and curve, and light and shade, +perfection as of the sweeping wave of some great mountain, +distant and deep blue against the pale sky; perfection +as of the pearled edge of the tiny pink cyclamen +petal; as of the single small voice, swelling and +diminishing in crisp exquisiteness every little turn and +shake, and again as of the many chords of multitudinous +voices rolling out in great joyous sound billows; perfection +of whole in harmony and graduation of perfect +parts: perfection of visible form.</p> + +<p>But by the side of this overwhelming positive sense of +beauty there creeps into our consciousness an irritating +little sense of negation. For the more intense becomes our +perception of the form, the vaguer becomes our recollection +of the subject; the strong imaginative realization of the +story of Niobe, conjured up by the mere mention of her +name, dwindles to nothing in the presence of the group +representing the chief incident of history; the skrieks +and desperate scuffling of feet, which we had heard in our +fancy, gradually die into silence; our senses cease to +shrink with horror, our sympathies cease to vibrate with +pity, as we look upon this visible embodiment of the +terrible tragedy. We are no longer feeling emotion; we +are merely perceiving beauty. How has this come to +pass? Shall we look into ourselves and analyze in the +darkness of our consciousness? Nay, rather first look +for an explanation in the materially visible, the clear, +easily examined work of art. Come and look at the +group once more: this time not to understand its beauty, +but to understand why there is in it nothing beyond this +beauty.</p> + +<p>Certainly, the group answers very well to the general +idea of the massacre of the Niobides: the figures +have the attitudes of men and women overtaken by a +sudden danger against which they seek, but vainly, to +shield themselves: the mother clasps the cowering, +clinging, youngest girl, and tries to cover her with her +mantle, her arms, her whole body, to let the child melt +into herself and be lost; the youngest son sinks, panting +and helpless, on to one knee; the eldest daughter bends +forward to throw her veil over a dead brother; the +younger daughter mechanically raises her draped arm +to ward off the shafts from her face; another son hastens +away, looking bewildered around him, trying to see from +which side come the arrows, which come from all sides. +All this is perfectly correct in expression; we are bound +to admit that these are the probable movements and +gestures of people situated like Niobe and her children. +We cannot find fault with anything, yet we feel a vague +sense of unreality. Unreality to ourselves? Nay, +rather, unreality to the artist: we perceive, little by little, +that everyone of these evident indications of a catastrophe +is connected with a grand gesture, a noble fold, a harmonious +combination of masses: the mother raising +the arm covered with her cloak and clasping the child +with the other, produces thereby a magnificent contrast +between the round, bunched fold of the mantle, and +the straight, narrow folds of her skirt, nay, between the +simple and ample drapery covering her own bosom, and +the minute clinging crinkles on the back of the little +one; the wounded youth sinks down in such a way as to +display the grand muscles of his throat and shoulders; +the girl covering her naked dead brother, forms with +him, a powerfully-balanced mass of brightly-lit nude +and broken, shadow-furrowed drapery; and all the remaining +children stoop and cower and stretch forth +their arms in such a way as to produce the inclination of +the two sides of the triangle crowning the temple. +Moreover, the pathetic, upward movement of the +mother's head, by slightly drawing down the jaw, and +in upturning the eyes, contracting the brows into a +triangular furrow, accentuates the grandeur of the grand +features, and prevents the light from above falling upon +a mere flat expanse of cheek and forehead; the eldest +daughter stooping tenderly over the dead boy produces, +in so doing, an incomparable curve of neck and +shoulders; and thus, with all the other figures, the +gesture is invariably productive of a definite beauty of +form. And, on the other hand, there is not present a +single one of the gestures or attitudes which would +certainly produce definite ugliness of form, and would +yet be as appropriate and inevitable to the situation as +these. There is not, in this group, any movement, any +effect, of which we could decidedly say that it would not +arise in a scene like this; but, in a scene like this, there +would certainly be a great many movements and effects +which cannot be found in the group. Hence, the +dramatic expression of the work is essentially negative: +in the mind of the artist the realisation of the scene, +the bringing home of the story, has been a purely +secondary thing, and therefore the realisation of the +scene, the bringing home of the story, is secondary +also to us, the spectators. The impression produced +in us is exactly corresponding to the interest dominant +in the artist: he has cared for the subject only inasmuch +as it afforded suggestions for beautiful forms; and we +therefore have perceived the beautiful forms, and forgotten +the subject. The object of the artist has been, +whether or not he formulated it clearly to himself, not to +bring home the situation to the fancy; not to awaken +an emotion; but to present to the eye and the mind a +mere beautiful form. And that such has been his +object, is the first and main lesson which we have +learned from the Niobe group, as it was the first and +main lesson learned by the child of our fairy tale from +the innumerable statues which, during those long years +in the Vatican, were its silent teachers.</p> + +<p>To present to the eye and the mind a mere beautiful +form, this seems a terrible low and limited definition of +the aim of a great artist, of a whole great national art. +Surely not this. The aim of the artist, of the innumerable +artists constituting antique art, must have been +nobler: the form for them must have been the mere +physical embodiment of the ideas and the presentation +of the beautiful idea must have been their real object. +You think so? well; the child of our fairy tale pretends +that the statues told him the contrary; told him that +form was the real artistic aim, and that the idea was +arranged, clipped, sometimes even mangled, to make it +fit the form. We can judge for ourselves. You say +<i>idea</i>, and oppose it to form; hence, the <i>idea</i> is, we must +presume, what the <i>form</i> is not, and since the form is the +sensible, the visible, the concrete, the outwardly existing, +the idea must be the invisible, the abstract, the merely +intellectually existing. In this sense, what is the <i>idea</i>, +the abstract intellectual conception of the Niobe group? +Merely the fact of the slaughtering of the Niobides by +Apollo and Artemis in the presence of their mother, +keep this fact (if you can) in your mind without mentally +investing with any shape the Niobides, the gods, +or the mother; conceiving the mere bare fact, without +conceiving what it would look like; do this and when +you have succeeded, as far as any creature not born +blind can succeed, you will have the <i>idea</i> of the Niobe +group. Such an idea does not require for its conception +that you be a great sculptor; indeed you understand +that for the idea to be nothing beyond an idea, it requires +a man born blind, that is to say, totally deficient, +that activity of plastic conception which is possessed in +the highest degree by the artist. Now what is the product +of that very plastic activity of mind which the +artist possesses in the highest degree, and which you +required to deaden in yourself in order to conceive the +<i>idea</i> in its perfect abstract purity, what is that product +of plastic activity? what is it which is for ever hovering +before your mental vision, getting between you and the +mere idea, interfering with the abstract conception, +turning that abstract idea into something (even in your +mind) concrete, perceptible by the senses? That something +was the <i>form</i>. When you involuntarily said to +yourself—"the mother looked in such a way, the sons in +such another," this that you were conceiving was no +longer the mere <i>idea</i>, it was the <i>form</i>: not the action, +but the visible appearance presented by the action. To +conceive the mere <i>idea</i>, all plastic fancy must be in +abeyance; to conceive the <i>form</i>, all plastic fancy must +be active; and as the artist is the man in whom plastic +fancy is more than usually active, that which the artist +conceives is not the idea, but the form: not the abstract +intellectual side of the action, but the concrete, the +visible. The idea, the fact of the action, and all its non-visible, +psychological details, come to the artist from +without; the knowledge that Niobe saw her children +slaughtered by the gods, and the psychological inferences +therefrom that Niobe, being a mother, and mothers +feeling anguish at the sufferings of their children, must +have undergone great anguish at thus seeing her children +slaughtered—this fact by its psychologic developments, +comes from without to the artist, it may come from the +same individual man of whom the artist is a portion, but +even in this case it comes equally from without the +artist; if Mr. Rossetti invent a story about a Blessed +Damozel, and then paint a picture representing her +looking down from heaven, the story, the idea of the +Blessed Damozel is given by Mr. Rossetti, the poet, that +is the man who conceives facts and their psychologic +developments, to Mr. Rossetti, the painter, that is the +man who conceives the visible appearance of actions; +the two artists happen to be united in one person, but +they are two distinct artists nevertheless, and the painter +is <i>not</i> the artist who conceives the idea of the action, but +the one who conceives the <i>form</i> of the action. Thus, +the artist is the man who conceives the form. Now, +since his activity is entirely limited to the form, since, +as an artist, he can produce only the form, how is this +artist to do what behoves every man and every artist: +his best? How is he to give the world the greatest +possible benefit of his special endowment? Evidently, +since his endowment is for the creation of form, the result +of the greatest activity of his endowment will be +seen in the form; if he do his best, he will do his best +with the only thing which, inasmuch as he is an artist, +he can control, namely, the form. But how do his best, +with the form? Clearly, by making the form as good as +possible. Good in what way? Shall we say as expressive +as possible? Nay, but the expressiveness is a mere +correspondence between the idea and the form, it is not +an inherent quality of the form itself; given only the +form, without the idea, we cannot judge of its expressiveness: +to judge whether or not the Niobe group is expressive, +we must first be told that which it might or +might not express; the idea, the fact and its psychologic +developments, which do not lie within the domain of the +man of mere form. Thus the goodness of the form +must not be a fittingness to something outside and +separate from the form, it must be intrinsic in the form +itself. And what is this excellence which can be intrinsic +to the form, which can be fully appreciated in the +contemplation of that mere form, which requires no comparison +with anything outside the form? Not expressiveness, +we have seen; not likeness, for that, like expressiveness, +is an extrinsic quality of which we can +judge only by bringing into comparison something besides +this form; still less fittingness to some material or +moral use. We must look for the intrinsic possibilities +of form, that is for the effect which the form can, without +intermediary or collateral help, produce upon the +spectator; shall we say clearness? Clearness is an intrinsic +quality of form, but it is not an ultimate quality. +That a form is clear means that we can see it well; but +the question remains, why should we care to see it well? +what is the intrinsic quality of form in obtaining which +the artist is doing the utmost which, in his capacity of +mere artist, he can do? What is that which can make +it desirable for us to see clearly a form isolated from any +extraneous interest of expressiveness, resemblance or +utility? That highest intrinsic quality of form is beauty; +and the highest merit of the artist, of the mere form +creator, is to make form which is beautiful.</p> + +<p>Can the Niobe teach us more? Has your Vatican +child learned any more from the statues? you ask, +contemptuous at this definition, narrow, as must be all +definitions of duty. Perhaps the Niobe may teach us +next how this highest artistic quality of beauty, this sole +aim of the artist, is to be attained? Be not so contemptuous. +The Niobe can teach us something about +the mode of attaining to this end; it cannot, indeed, +teach us what to do, for the knowledge of that, the +knowledge of how to combine lines and curves and +lights and shades, is the secret belonging to the artist, +to be taught and learned only by himself; but it can +teach us what not to do, teach us the conditions without +which those combinations of lines and curves and lights +and shades, cannot be created. Let us return to the +Niobe once more: let us see the group clearly in its +general composition, and then, with the group before us, +let us ask ourselves what plastic form is conceived in +our imagination when there comes home to it the mere +abstract idea of the sudden massacre of the Niobides, by +Apollo and Artemis. Nothing, perhaps, very clear +at first, but clearer if we try to draw what we see or +to describe it in words. In the first place, we see, more +or less vaguely, according to our imaginative endowment, +a scene of very great confusion and horror: +figures wildly shuffling to and fro, clutching at each +other, writhing, grimacing with convulsed agony, shrieking, +yelling, howling; we see horrible wounds, rent, raw +flesh, arrows sticking in torn muscles, dragging forth +hideous entrails, spirting and gushing and trickling of +blood; we see the mother, agonised into almost beast-like +rage and terror, the fourteen boys and girls, the god +and the goddess adjusting their shafts and drawing their +bows; we see all, murderous divinities, writhing victims, +impotent, anguished mother. If we see it, how much +more fully and more clearly, in every detail, is it not +seen in the mind of the sculptor, of the man whose +special gift is the conception of visible appearances? +Oh, yes, he sees it: here the mother, here the elder +daughters, there the other children, further off, Apollo +and Artemis, sees how each stands, moves, looks, sees +the convulsed features, the rumpled garments, the fear, +the pain, the anger, the hopelessness, the pitilessness. +He takes three planks, nails together their extremities: +this is the gable of the temple, the triangular cavity +or box into which he must fit his group; then, with +thumb and fingers, roughly moulds a certain number of +clay puppets, places them in the triangular box, removes +them, alters them, replaces them, takes them out once +more, throws some away, elaborates others; works for +hours, days, weeks, till we return to his workshop, +and find a number of models, tiny moulded dolls in the +plank triangle; large statuettes, half-finished, roughly-worked +heads—drawings, perhaps, of parts of the group. +And we examine it all. It is the rudiment of the +Niobe group. But see: of all those things which we +saw in our fancy, which the artist, being an artist, must +have seen with infinitely more completeness and clearness, +only a portion has here been reproduced. Of all +the movements and gestures there remain but a very +few: the convulsions, the writhings, and grimacings are +gone; there is no trampling, no clutching, no howling, +no grimacing, there are no quivering limbs, or disembowelled +bodies. Why so? Ask the artist. Because, +he will answer, all those movements and gestures were +radically ugly; because all that howling and grimacing +in agony entirely ruined the beauty of the features; +because the situation could not be adequately represented, +except to the utter detriment of the form. +Hence, of all the movements and gestures which had +presented themselves to his inner vision, at the first +mention of the story of Niobe, the artist has rejected +those which were at all detrimental to the beauty of the +form, and accepted those others which were conducive +thereto. He has cast aside a whole portion of the +real appearance of the event, because it interfered with +his, perhaps unspoken and unformulated, but instinctively +imperious artistic aim: to create beautiful +form.</p> + +<p>But this is not all. He has left out something else +which was a most essential, nay, an all important part of +his first mental vision of the scene. He has actually left +out—guess what—some son or daughter of Niobe?—has +run counter to the tradition of the seven girls and seven +boys?—oh, in comparison, that would be nothing. He +has actually and absolutely left out the god and goddess—left +out the murderers from the representation of the +murder. Why in the world has he done this? Granting +that he need not transfer to his group all the terrible +details he has seen in his mind, why should he leave out +Apollo and Artemis? They need not be convulsed, or +writhing, or grimacing; on the contrary, they ought to be +quite calm and passionless in their cruel beauty. There +is nothing unbeautiful in Apollo and Artemis surely. +No: not in Apollo and Artemis, taken in themselves; but +in Apollo and Artemis considered as part of this group. +Listen: we will explain. Since Apollo and Artemis are, +between them, slaughtering all the Niobides, closing them +in with their arrows, it is obvious that Apollo and +Artemis must be placed in such a manner as to command +the whole family of Niobides; there must be no Niobides +behind them, for that would mean that there are Niobides +who are out of danger and can escape. So the god and +goddess must be placed in one of three ways: either +back to back in the very centre of the group, each +shooting down one half of the family; or else entirely +separated, each at one extremity of the group, so as to +face each other and enclose all the Niobides between +them; or else above the Niobides, floating in mid air +and raining down arrows like hail. Now, which of these +three arrangements shall the sculptor select? He rejects +at once the plan of placing the god and goddess back +to back in the centre of the group, and we agree with +him; for the two figures, thus applied to each other, each +more or less in profile, would form the most ludicrous +double-headed Janus. Place, then, Apollo at one end +and Artemis at the other. There is nothing ugly in that, +is there? There would not be were the sculptor modelling +the oblong bas-relief of a sarcophagus; but there +would be something very ugly now that, as it happens, +he is modelling a group for the triangular gable of a +temple. For, as the sides of the triangle slope sharply +down, the figures beneath them necessarily become +smaller and less erect in proportion to their distance +from the vertex; so the god and goddess, if placed at the +extremity of the group, must be flattened down in the +acute angles of the base, must crouch and squat with +their bows barely on a level with the knees of their +victims. So this arrangement will not do; there remains +the third plan of placing Apollo and Artemis above the +Niobides. This is an admirable idea: the vertex of the +triangle is filled by the floating figures of the gods, who +appear calm, beautiful, mysterious, showering down +death from inaccessible heaven. Will this do? Alas, +much less than either of the others. The arrangement +would be beautiful if the triangle of the gable, instead of +being filled with a group of statues, were walled up, +plastered, and could be painted on in fresco. The colour, +light and shade, and perspective of painting, by creating a +seeming depth of back-ground, by hiding one figure partially +behind another, so as to make them appear not in +actual contact, by piling up ætherial clouds or waving light +draperies, would permit the artist to show the Niobides +on solid ground below, and the gods in the air, high, +distant above. But the sculptor, without any such +means, could only suspend Apollo and Artemis (at +tremendous expense of iron clamps) in such a way that +they should seem to be standing on the shoulders of the +Niobides; or interpose between them a thick bolster of +marble clouds, a massive flutter of streaming marble +draperies. Now do you think that the marble clouds and +the marble fluttering drapery would be conducive to the +beauty of the group, to the perfection of visible forms? +Certainly not. And, therefore, Apollo and Artemis, gods +though they are and chief actors in the story, have +simply been left out in this its artistic representation.</p> + +<p>For beauty of form has a double origin: it is not +only an intellectual conception, but also a physical embodiment; +and the intellectual conception is altered by +the nature of the material in which it is embodied. The +abstract form which will be infinitely delicate and life-like +in the brown clay, which receives every minute dimple +and crease from the finger of the artist, which presents a +soft, uniform tint to the spectator; this same abstract +form will be coarse and lifeless in the purple speckled +porphyry, against whose hard grain the chisel is blunted, +and the mottled colour and salt-like sparkle of which +hide from the eye the real relations of line and curve, of +concave and projection. The Mercury who, in the green +bronze, floats upwards like a bubble, would jump like a +clodhopper in the dingy white plaster. And these, remark, +are differences only in one category of material +and handling; change the sort of material and manner +of handling and the differences become still greater. +Statues, whether in clay, bronze, porphyry, or plaster, +are always similar in the fact of being wholly free—round +as Vasari calls them—of being interfered with by +no complications of shadows like the figures of a high, +middle or bas-relief; hence, as soon as the figures cease +to be round, as soon as they are attached to a back-ground, +the whole composition is altered by the consideration +how the different degrees of projection, and the +consequent play of light and shadow, will affect the apparent +shape of the figures. And yet we are still within +the domain of sculpture. How great a difference of +form will not result when, instead of the tintless, tangible +projections of stone, we get to the mere semblance of infinite +depth and distance cunningly obtained by light +and shade, colour and perspective, on a flat surface; +where the light, instead of existing variable and confusing +outside the work, is within that very work, inside +the picture, combining, graduating every detail, making +form melt gently into form, or stand out in triumphant +relief? Thus the things which can be done in bronze +must not be attempted in porphyry, the group of statues +must be conceived differently from the bas-relief; the +picture is different from the statue; for the beauty of +form depends not only on the conception but upon the +embodiment: if the material is violent, the conception is +warped; and the same beauty can be obtained in all +the arts only by remembering that those arts are +different that, with the material and modes of handling, +must change the conception.</p> + +<p>Thus we have seen that the sculptor of the Niobe +deliberately refused to embody his complete mental +vision of the scene of massacre; that he selected among +the attitudes and gestures and expressions suggested to +him by this scene, rejected those which were inherently +ugly, and accepted those which were intrinsically beautiful; +and that he left out of his representation of the incidents +its principal actors, because he could not have introduced +them without either violating the nature of the +whole composition to which he was bound, or violating +the nature of the material in which he was working, and +by so doing sacrificing the perfection of visible form +which, being the only intrinsic quality to which his art +could independently attain, was the one object of his desires +and efforts. Such is the logical conclusion which +we have consciously and perhaps wearisomely obtained +from our analysis of the mode of conception and treatment +of the Niobe group; and such the lesson which, +unconsciously, vaguely, the child of our fairy tale must +have learned from its marble teachers in the Vatican: +That the only intrinsic perfection of art is the perfection +of form, and that such perfection is obtainable only by +boldly altering, or even casting aside, the subject with +which this form is only imaginatively, most often +arbitrarily, connected; and by humbly considering and +obeying the inherent necessities of the material in which +this form is made visible or audible. That by such +artistic laws they themselves had come into existence, +and that all other things which had come into existence +by the same laws, were their brethren, was the secret +which those statue-demons imparted to that child; the +secret which enabled it to understand those symphony +notes of Mozart's, when they said: "we also, the sounding +ones, are the brethren of the statues; and all we who +are brethren, whether in stone, or sound or colour, shall +to thee speak in such a way that thou recognize us, and +distinguish us from all others; and thou shalt love and +believe only in us and those of our kin; in return we +will give thee happiness." And this, as we have told +you, came to pass solely because the statues took the +whim of bewitching that child into falling in love with +Rome.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch3" id="ch3"></a>ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.</h3> + +<h5>THE LESSON OF A BAS-RELIEF.</h5> +<p> </p> + +<p>No Greek myth has a greater charm for our mind than +that of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the first place, we +are told by mythologists that it is a myth of the dawn, +one of those melancholy, subdued interpretations of +the eternal, hopeless separation of the beautiful light +of dawn and the beautiful light of day, which forms the +constantly recurring tragedy of nature, as the tremendous +struggle between light and darkness forms her +never-ending epic, her Iliad and Nibelungenlied. There +is more of the purely artistic element in these myths of +the dawn than in the sun myths. Those earliest poets, +primitive peoples, were interested spectators of the great +battle between day and night. The sun-hero was truly +their Achilles, their Siegfried. In fighting, he fought +for them. When he chained up the powers of darkness +the whole earth was hopeful and triumphant; when he +sank down dead, a thousand dark, vague, hideous +monsters were let loose on the world, filling men's +hearts with sickening terror; the solar warfare was +waged for and against men. The case is quite different +with respect to the dawn tragedy. If men were moved +by that, it was from pure, disinterested sympathy. The +dawn and the day were equally good and equally +beautiful; the day loved the dawn, since it pursued her +so closely, and the dawn must have loved the day in +return, since she fled so slowly and reluctantly. Why, +then, were they forbidden ever to meet? What +mysterious fate condemned the one to die at the touch +of the other—the beloved to elude the lover, the lover +to kill the beloved? This sad, sympathising question, +which the primitive peoples repeated vaguely and perhaps +scarce consciously, day after day, century after +century, at length received an answer. One answer, +then another, then yet another, as fancy took more +definite shapes. Yes, the dawn and the morning are +a pair of lovers over whom hangs an irresistible, +inscrutable fate—Cephalus and Procris, Alcestis and +Admetus, Orpheus and Eurydice.</p> + +<p>And this myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is, to our +mind, the most charming of the tales born of that +beautiful, disinterested sympathy for the dawn and the +morning, the one in which the subdued, mysterious +pathos of its origin is most perfectly preserved; in which +no fault of infidelity or jealousy, no final remission of +doom, breaks the melancholy unity of the story. In it +we have the real equivalent of that gentle, melancholy +fading away of light into light, of tint into tint. +Orpheus loses Eurydice as the day loses the dawn, +because he loves her; she has issued from Hades as +the dawn has issued from darkness; she melts away +beneath her lover's look even as the dawn vanishes +beneath the look of the day.</p> + +<p>The origin of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice +is beautiful; the myth itself, as evolved by spontaneous +poetry, is still more so, and more beautiful still are +the forms which have successively been lent it by +the poet, the sculptor, and the musician. Its own +charm adds to that of its embodiments, and the charm +of its embodiments adds in return to its own; a complete +circle of beautiful impressions, whose mysterious, +linked power it is impossible to withstand. The first +link in the chain are those lines of Virgil's, for which we +would willingly give ten Æneids, those grandly simple +lines, half-hidden in the sweet luxuriance of the fourth +book of the <i>Georgics</i>, as the exquisitely chiselled fragment +of some sylvan altar might lie half-hidden among +the long grasses and flowers, beneath the flowering bays +and dark ilexes, broken shadows of boughs and yellow +gleams of sunlight flickering fantastically across the +clear and supple forms of the sculptured marble "And +already upwards returning, he had escaped all mishaps, +and the given-back Eurydice was coming into the upper +air, walking behind him, for Proserpina had made this +condition. When, of a sudden, a madness seized on the +unwily lover—pardonable, surely, if ghosts but knew +how to pardon. He stood, and back on his Eurydice, +already in our sunlight, he looked, forgetful, alas! and +broken of will. Then was all the work undone, broken +was the compact with the unkind lord, and vainly had +he thrice heard the waters of hell sounding. Then +she—'What madness has ruined me, wretched one, +and thee, also, Orpheus? For I am called by the cruel +Fates to return, and sleep closes my swimming eyes. +So, farewell. I am borne away muffled in thick night, +stretching forth to thee (alas, thine no longer!) my +helpless hands.' She spoke, and from his sight suddenly, +even as thin smoke mingles with air, disappeared; +nor him, vainly clasping the shadows, and many things +wishing to say, did she see again." These lines suggest +a bas-relief to us, because a real bas-relief is really +connected with them in our mind, and this connection +led to a curious little incident in our æsthetic life, +which is worth narrating. The bas-relief in question +is a sufficiently obscure piece of Greek workmanship, +one of those mediocre, much-degraded works of art +with which Roman galleries abound, and among which, +though left unnoticed by the crowd that gathers round +the Apollo, or the Augustus, or the Discobolus, we +may sometimes devine a repetition of some great lost +work of antiquity, some feeble reflection of lost perfection. +It is let into the wall of a hall of the Villa +Albani, where people throng past it in search of the +rigid, pseudo-Attic Antinous. And it is as simple as +the verses of Virgil: merely three figures slightly +raised out of the flat, blank back-ground, Eurydice +between Orpheus and Hermes. The three figures stand +distinctly apart and in a row. Orpheus touches +Eurydice's veil, and her hand rests on his shoulder, +while the other hand, drooping supine, is grasped by +Hermes. There is no grouping, no embracing, no +violence of gesture—nay, scarcely any gesture at all; +yet for us there is in it a whole drama, the whole pathos +of Virgil's lines. Eurydice has returned, she is standing +beneath our sun—-<i>jam luce sub ipsa</i>—but for the last +time. Orpheus lets his lyre sink, his head drooping +towards her—<i>multa volens dicere</i>—and holds her veil, +speechless. Eurydice, her head slightly bent, raises her +eyes full upon him. In that look is her last long +farewell:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="quote"> +<tr><td>Jamque vale, feror ingenti circumdata nocte,</td></tr> +<tr><td>Invalidas tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Behind Eurydice stands Hermes, the sad, though youthful +messenger of the dead. He gently takes her hand; +it is time; he would fain stay and let the parting be +delayed for ever, but he cannot. Come, we must go. +Eurydice feels it; she is looking for the last time at +Orpheus, her head and step are prepared to turn away—<i>jamque +vale</i>. Truly this sad, sympathising messenger +of Hades is a beautiful thought, softening the horror of +the return to death.</p> + +<p>And we look up again at the bas-relief, the whole +story of Orpheus laying firmer hold of our imagination; +but as our eyes wander wistfully over the marble, they +fall, for the first time, upon a scrap of paper pasted at +the bottom of it, a wretched, unsightly, scarce legible +rag, such as insult some of the antiques in this gallery, +and on it is written:—"Antiope coi figli Anfione e +Zeto." A sudden, perplexed wonder fills our mind—wonder +succeeded by amusement. The bunglers, why, +they must have glued the wrong label on the bas-relief. +Of course! and we turn out the number of the piece in +the catalogue, the solemn, portly catalogue—full of +references to Fea, and Visconti, and Winckelmann. +Number—yes, here it is, here it is. What, again?</p> + +<p>"Antiope urging her sons, Amphion and Zethus, to +avenge her by the murder of Dirce."</p> + +<p>We put down the catalogue in considerable disgust. +What, they don't see that that is Orpheus and Eurydice! +They dare, those soulless pedants, to call <i>that</i> Antiope +with Amphion and Zethus! Ah!—and with smothered +indignation we leave the gallery. Passing through the +little ilex copse near the villa, the colossal bust of +Winckelmann meets our eyes, the heavy, clear-featured, +strong-browed head of him who first revealed the world +of ancient art. And such profanation goes on, as it +were, under his eyes, in that very Villa Albani which +he so loved, where he first grew intimate with the +antique! What would he have said to such heartless +obtuseness?</p> + +<p>We have his great work, the work which no amount +of additional learning can ever supersede, because no +amount of additional learning will ever enable us to feel +antique beauty more keenly and profoundly than he +made us feel it—we have his great work on our shelf, +and as soon as we are back at home, our mind still +working on Orpheus and Eurydice, we take it down +and search for a reference to our bas-relief. We search +all through the index in vain; then turn over the pages +where it may possibly be mentioned, again in vain; no +Orpheus and Eurydice. Ah! "A bas-relief at the +Villa Albani"—let us see what that may be. "A bas-relief," +&c., &c.—horror beyond words! The bas-relief—our +bas-relief—deliberately set down as Antiope +with Amphion and Zethus—set down as Antiope with +Amphion and Zethus, by Winckelmann himself!</p> + +<p>Yes, and he gravely states his reasons for so doing. +The situation is evidently one of great hesitation; there +is reluctance on the one hand, persuasion on the other. +Moreover, the female figure is that of a mourner, of a +supplicant, draped and half-veiled as it is; the figure +with the lyre, in the Thracian or Thessalian costume, +must necessarily be Amphion, while the other in the +loose tunic of a shepherd, must as evidently be his +brother, Zethus; and if we put together these facts, +we cannot but conclude that the subject of the +bas-relief is, as previously stated, Antiope persuading +Amphion and Zethus to avenge her on Dirce.</p> + +<p>The argument is a good one, there can be no denying +it, although it is very strange that Winckelmann should +not have perceived that the bas-relief represented +Orpheus and Eurydice. But, after all, we ask ourselves, +as the confusion in our minds gradually clears up: how +do we know that this <i>is</i> Orpheus and Eurydice, and not +Antiope and her sons? How! and the answer rises up +indignantly, Because we see to the contrary; because +we know that it must be Orpheus and Eurydice +because we feel morally persuaded that it is. But a +doubt creeps up. We are morally convinced, but +whence this conviction? Did we come to the bas-relief +not knowing what it was, and did we then cry out, overcome +by its internal evidence, that it must represent +Orpheus and Eurydice? Did we ourselves examine +and weigh the evidence as Winckelmann did? And +we confess to ourselves that we did none of these +things. But how, then, explain this intense conviction, +and the emotion awakened in us by the bas-relief? Yet +that emotion was genuine; and now we have, little by +little, to own that we had read in a book, by M. Charles +Blanc, that such and such a bas-relief at the Villa +Albani represented Orpheus and Eurydice, and that we +had accepted the assertion blindly, unscrutinisingly, +and coming to the bas-relief with that idea, did not +dream of examining into its truth. And did we not +then let our mind wander off from the bas-relief to the +story of Orpheus, and make a sort of variation on +Virgil's poem, and mistake all this for the impression +received from the bas-relief itself? May this not be the +explanation of our intense conviction? It seems as if +it were so. We have not only lost our sentimental +pleasure in the bas-relief, but we have been caught by +ourselves (most humiliating of all such positions) weaving +fantastic stories out of nothing at all, decrying great +critics for want of discernment, when we ourselves had +shown none whatever.</p> + +<p>It may have been childish, but it was natural to feel +considerable bitterness at this discovery; you may smile, +but we had lost something precious, the idea that art +was beginning to say more to us than to others, the budding +satisfaction of being no longer a stranger to the +antique, and this loss was truly bitter; nay, in the first +bitterness of the discovery, we had almost taken an aversion +to the bas-relief, as people will take an aversion to +the things about which they know themselves to have +been foolish. However, as this feeling subsided, we +began to reflect that the really worthy and dignified +course would be to attain to real certainty on the subject, +and finding that our recollection of the bas-relief was not +so perfectly distinct as to authorise a final decision, we +determined coolly to examine the work once more, and +to draw our conclusions on the spot.</p> + +<p>The following Tuesday, therefore, we started betimes +for the Villa Albani, intending to have a good hour to +ourselves before the arrival of the usual gaping visitors. +The gallery was quite empty; we drew one of the heavy +chairs robed in printed leather before the bas-relief, and +settled ourselves deliberately to examine it. We were +now strangely unbiassed on the subject, for the reaction +against our first positive mood, and the frequent turning +over one view, then the other, had left in us only a very +strong critical curiosity, the desire to unravel the tangled +reason of our previous unexplained conviction. Of +course we found that our memory had failed in one or +two particulars, that the image preserved in our mind +was not absolutely faithful, but we could discover +nothing capable of materially influencing our views. +We looked at the bas-relief again and again; strictly +speaking, there is in it nothing beyond a woman standing +between two men, of whom the one touches her veil, +and the other, to whom she turns her back, grasps her +right hand, while her left hand rests lightly on the +shoulder of the first male figure; so far there is reason +for saying that the bas-relief represents either Orpheus +and Eurydice, or Antiope and her sons; indeed, all that +could fairly be said is that it represents a woman between +two men, with one of whom she appears to be in +more or less tender converse, whereas she is paying no +attention to the other, who is taking her passively drooping +hand. There is, however, the additional circumstance +that one of the men holds a lyre and is dressed +in loose trousers and mitre-like head-dress, while the +other man wears only a short tunic, leaving the arms and +legs bare, and his head is uncovered and shows closely-cut +curly locks; the woman being entirely draped, and +her head partially covered with a veil. Now, we know +that this costume of trousers and mitre-shaped head-gear +was that of certain semi-barbarous peoples connected +with the Greeks, amongst others the Thracians +and Phrygians, while the simple tunic and the close-cut +locks were distinctive of Hellenic youths, especially those +admitted to gymnastic training. Moreover, we happen +to know that Orpheus was a Thracian, and that Hermes +on the other hand, although in one capacity conductor +of the souls to Hades, was also the patron divinity of +the Greek ephebi, of the youths engaged in gymnastic +exercises. Now, if we put together these several facts, we +perceive great likelihood of these two figures—the one +in the dress of a barbarian, which Orpheus is known to +have been, and holding a lyre, which Orpheus is known +to have played, and the other in the dress of a Greek +ephebus, which Hermes is known to have worn—of these +two figures really being intended for Orpheus and +Hermes. At the same time, we must recollect that +Amphion also is known to have worn this barbaric costume +and to have played the lyre, while his brother, +Zethus, is equally known to have worn the habit of the +ephebus; so that Winckelmann has quite as good +grounds for his assertion as we have for ours. If only +the sculptor had taken the trouble to give the figure in +the tunic a pair of winged sandals or a caduceus, or a +winged cap; then there could remain no doubt of his +being Hermes, for it is a positive fact that no one except +Hermes ever had these attributes; the doubt is +owing to the choice of insufficiently definite and distinctive +peculiarities. But it now strikes us: all this is +founded upon the supposition that we know that the +barbarians wore trousers and mitres, that Orpheus was a +sort of barbarian, that Greek ephebi wore tunics and +short-cut hair, that Hermes was a sort of ephebus, that, +moreover, he was a conductor of souls; now, supposing +we knew none or only some of these facts, which we certainly +should not, if classical dictionaries had not taught +them us, how could we argue that this is Orpheus and +that Hermes? Is the meaning of a work of Art to +depend on Lempriere and Dr. William Smith? At that +rate the sculptor might as well have let alone all such +distinctions, and merely written under one figure +<i>Orpheus</i> or <i>Amphion</i>, whichever it might be, under the +other <i>Hermes</i> or <i>Zethus</i>; this would not have presupposed +more knowledge on our part, since it seems +even easier to learn the Greek alphabet than the precise +attributes of various antique gods and demi-gods, and +then, too, no mistake would have been possible, we +should have had no choice, the figure <i>must</i> be either +Orpheus or Amphion, Hermes or Zethus, since the artist +himself said so. But this would be an admission of the +incapacity of the art or the artist, like the old device of +writing—"This is a lion," "This is a horse;" well, but, +after all, how are we able to recognise a painted lion or +a horse? Is it not, thanks to previous knowledge, to our +acquaintance with a live horse or live lion? if we had +never seen either, could we say, "This is a lion," "That +is a horse?" evidently not. But then, most people can +recognise a horse or a lion, while they cannot be expected +to recognise a person they have never seen, +especially a purely imaginary one; the case is evidently +one of degree; if we had never seen a cow, and did not +know that cows are milked, we should no more understand +the meaning of a representation of cow-milking +than we should understand the meaning of a picture of +Achilles in Scyros if we knew nothing about Achilles. +The comprehension of the subject of a work of art would +therefore seem to require certain previous information; +the work of art would seem to be unable to tell its story +itself, unless we have the key to that story. Now, this +is not the case with literature; given the comprehension +of the separate words, no further information is required +to understand the meaning, the subject of prose +or verse; Virgil's lines pre-suppose no knowledge of the +story of Orpheus, they themselves give the knowledge of +it. The difference, then, between the poem and the +bas-relief is that the story is absolutely contained in the +former, and not absolutely contained in the latter; the +story of Orpheus is part of the organic whole, of the existence +of the poem; the two are inseparable, since the +one is formed out of the other; whereas, the story of +Orpheus is separate from the organic existence of the +bas-relief, it is arbitrarily connected with it, and they +need not co-exist. What then is the bas-relief? A +meaningless thing, to which we have wilfully attached a +meaning which is not part or parcel of it—a blank sheet +of paper on which we write what comes into our head, +and which itself can tell us nothing.</p> + +<p>As we look up perplexedly at the bas-relief, which, +after having been as confused, has now become well +nigh as blank as our mind, we are startled by hearing +our name from a well-known voice behind us. A young +painter stands by our side, a creature knowing or thinking +very little beyond his pencils and brushes, serenely +unconscious of literature and science in his complete +devotion to art. A few trivial sentences are exchanged, +during which we catch our friend's eye glancing at the +bas-relief. "I never noticed that before," he remarks, +"Do you know, I like it better than anything else in this +room. Strange that I should not have noticed it +before."</p> + +<p>"It is a very interesting work," we answer; adding, +with purposely feigned decision, "Of course you see that +it represents Orpheus and Eurydice, not Antiope and +her sons."</p> + +<p>The painter, whose instinctive impression on the point +we have thus tried to elicit, seems wholly unmoved by +this remark; the fact literally passes across his mind +without in the least touching it.</p> + +<p>"Does it? Ah, what a splendid mass of drapery! +That grand, round fold and those small, fine vertical +ones. I should like to make a sketch of that."</p> + +<p>A sort of veil seems suddenly to fall off our mental +eyes; these simple, earnest words, this intense admiration +seem to have shed new light into our mind.</p> + +<p>This fellow, who knows or cares apparently nothing +whatever about either Orpheus or Antiope, has not found +the bas-relief a blank; it has spoken for him, the clear, +unmistakeable language of lines and curves, of light and +shade, a language needing no interpreters, no dictionaries; +and it has told him the fact, the fact depending on no +previous knowledge, irrefutable and eternal, that it is +beautiful. And as our eyes follow his, and we listen to +his simple, unaffected, unpoetical exclamations of admiration +at this combination of lines, or that bend of a +limb, we recognise that if poetry has its unchangeable +effects, its power which, in order to be felt, requires only +the comprehension of words; art also has its unchangeable +effects, its power, its supreme virtue, which all can +feel who have eyes and minds that can see. The bas-relief +does not necessarily tell us the story of Orpheus +and Eurydice, as Virgil's lines do, that is not inherent in +its nature as in theirs; but it tells us the fact of its beauty, +and that fact is vital, eternal, and indissolubly connected +with it.</p> + +<p>To appreciate a work of art means, therefore, to +appreciate that work of art itself, as distinguished from +appreciating something outside it, something accidentally +or arbitrarily connected with it; to appreciate Virgil's +lines means to appreciate his telling of the story of +Orpheus, his choice of words and his metre; to appreciate +the bas-relief means to appreciate the combination of +forms and lights and shades; and a person who cared +for Virgil's lines because they suggested the bas-relief +or for the bas-relief because it suggested Virgil's lines, +would equally be appreciating neither, since his pleasure +depended on something separate from the work of art +itself.</p> + +<p>Yet this is what constantly happens, and happens on +account of two very simple and legitimate movements +of the mind: that of comparison and that of association. +Let us examine what we have called, for want of a +more definite word, the movement of comparison. You +are enjoying a work of art, plastic and musical; what you +enjoy is the work of art itself, the combination of lines, +lights and shades and colours in the one case, the combination +of modulations and harmonies in the other; +now, as this enjoyment means merely the pleasing activity +of your visual and æsthetic, or acoustic and æsthetic +organism, you instinctively wish to increase the activity +in order to increase the pleasure; the increase of activity +is obtained by approximating as much as possible to the +creative activity of the original artist, by going over +every step that he has gone over, by creating the work +of art over again in the intensity of appreciation. If it +be a plastic work, you produce your pencil and brushes +and copy it; if it be a musical composition, you try and +reproduce it by means of your voice or your instrument; +and you thus obtain the highest degree of æsthetical +activity and pleasure compatible with mere appreciation. +But supposing you can neither draw, nor sing, nor play; +supposing you have only another set of faculties, those +dealing with thoughts and images, those of the artist in +words, of the writer. How will you obtain that high +degree of æsthetical activity, how will you go over the +steps of the original creator? You will find that words +cannot copy the work of art, plastic or musical; that +lines and lights and shades, or modulations and harmonies, +must be seen or heard to be appreciated; that, +in short, you have no means of absolutely reproducing +what you have seen or heard;—instinctively, unintentionally, +unconsciously, you will seek for an equivalent for +it; you will try and produce with the means at your disposal +something analogous to the work of art, you will +obtain your æsthetic activity from another set of faculties; +not being able to draw or to sing, you will think and feel, +and, in default of producing a copy, you will produce an +equivalent. But the same result is not obtainable by +different means; a painter, copying a statue, will produce +not a statue but a picture; a sculptor copying a picture +will produce a model, not a sketch; yet the difference +between the <i>modus operandi</i> of painting and sculpture is +as nothing compared with that between the <i>modus +operandi</i> of art which appeals to the eye or the ear, and +art which appeals direct to the mind; of art which deals +with visible or audible shapes, and of art which deals +with purely abstract thoughts and images. How much +greater, then, must not also be the difference in the +result! Instead of a statue you have, not a picture, but a +poem, a work of art of totally different nature from the +one which you originally tried to reproduce. Instead of +visual or audible forms, you have feelings and fancies; +and if you compare your equivalent with the original +work of art you will probably find that it has little in +common with it: you had seen a beautifully chiselled +head, and you say that you had perceived a beautiful +emotion; you had heard a lovely modulation, and you +have written that you witnessed a pathetic parting; instead +of your eye and your ear, your imagination and +feeling have been active, and the product of their activity +is a special, separate one. So, in your desire to appreciate +a work of art, you have, after a fashion, created a new +one, good or bad, and having created it, there are a +hundred chances against one that you will henceforward +perceive your creation and not the original work; that +you will no longer perceive lines or sounds, but fancies +and feelings, in short, that instead of appreciating the +work of art itself, you will appreciate merely your intellectual +equivalent of it, that is to say, something +which most distinctly and emphatically is <i>not</i> the work +of art.</p> + +<p>The process of association is even commoner: you +have taken interest in some story, or some form, your +mind has worked upon it; you are shown a work of art +whose name, often nothing more, connects it with this +story or poem, and your thoughts being full of the latter, +you apply to the work of art the remarks you had made +about the story or poem; you see in the work of art the +details of that story or poem; you look at it as a mere +illustration; very often you do not look at it at all; for +although your bodily eyes may be fixed on the picture +or statue, your intellectual eyes are busy with some +recollection or impression in your mind; it is the case +of the bas-relief of the Villa Albani, the pleasure +received from Virgil's lines being re-awakened by the +mere circumstance of the bas-relief being called, rightly +or wrongly, Orpheus and Eurydice; it is the story of a +hundred interpretations of works of art, of people seeing +a comic expression in a certain group at the Villa +Ludovisi because they imagined it to represent Papirius +and his mother, while other people found the same group +highly tragic, because they fancied it represented Electra +and Orestes; it is the old story of violent emotion, attributed +to wholly unemotional music, because the words +to which it is arbitrarily connected happen to be pathetic; +the endless story of delusions of all sorts, of associations +of feelings and ideas as accidental as those which make +certain tunes or sights depress us because we happened to +be in a melancholy mood when we first saw or heard them.</p> + +<p>What becomes of the real, inherent effect of the work +of art itself in the midst of such concatenations of fancies +and associations? How can we listen to its own magic +speech, its language of lines and colours and sounds, +when our mind is full of confused voices telling us of +different and irrelevant things? Where, at such times, +is our artistic appreciation, and what is it worth? Should +we then, if such a thing were possible, forbid such comparisons, +such associations? Should we voluntarily deprive +ourselves of all such pleasure as is not given by the +work of art itself?</p> + +<p>No, but we should restrain such impressions; we +should, as far as we can, remain conscious of the fact that +they are mere effects of comparison and association, that +they are not the work of art, but something distinct from +it, and that the work of art itself exists in the lines, tints, +lights and shades of the picture or statue, in the modulations +and harmonies of a composition, and that all the rest is +gratuitously added by ourselves. Nay, we should remember +that there could not even have been that very comparison, +that very association if there had been no previous real +artistic perception; that unless we had first cared for +Virgil's Orpheus for its own sake, we could not afterwards +have cared for the bas-relief on its account.</p> + +<p>We confess that we have ourselves become instinctively +jealous of such foreign causes of pleasure in art, jealous +because we have been pained by their constant encroachment; +the feeling may be an exaggerated one, but it is +a natural reaction. We have thus caught ourselves +almost regretting that pictures should have any subjects; +we have sometimes felt that the adaptation of music to +the drama is a sort of profanation; and all this because +we have too often observed that the subject +seemed to engross so much attention as to make people +forget the picture, and that the drama made people misinterpret +the music; and that criticism itself, instead of +checking this tendency, has done much to further it. +Yes, critics, grave and emphatic thinkers, have spoken as +if the chief merit of the painter had consisted in clearly +expressing some story, which in all probability was not +worth expressing, some dull monkish legend which his +genius alone could render tolerable; as if the chief aim +of the composer were to follow the mazes of some +wretched imbecile libretto, which has become endurable +thanks only to his notes; as if the immortal were to be +chained to the mortal, and mediocrity, inferiority, mere +trumpery fact or trumpery utility were to bridle and bestride +the divine hippogriff of art, and, like another +Astolfo, fly up on its back into the regions of immortality. +Artists themselves have been of this way of +thinking, we cannot say of feeling, for, as long as they +were true artists, their instinctive feelings must have propelled +them in a very different direction. Gluck, that +great dramatist, who was greatest when least dramatic, +thought that music was made for the sake of the drama, +that its greatest glory was to express the difference, as +he himself wrote, between a princess and a waiting-maid +between a Spartan and a Phrygian, to follow the steps +of a play as its humble retainer and commentator. Gluck +composed his music for the sake of the dramas; but, O +irony of art! the dramas are recollected only for the sake +of his music. Let the artist be humble, mistrustful of his +own art, let him believe it to be subservient to something +outside it, devote it magnanimously to some purpose +of utility, or some expression of fact, sacrifice it +throughout; it will be all in vain; if his work be excellent, +it will subordinate all to itself, it will swallow +up every other interest, throw into the shade every other +utility.</p> + +<p>One day the Pope's banker, Agostino Chigi, came to +Master Rafael of Urbino, and said to him—"I am building +a little pleasure villa in which to entertain my +friends. Baldassare Peruzzi has made the plans, +Sebastiano del Piombo has designed the arabesques, +Nanni da Udine will paint me the garlands of fruit and +flowers; it must be perfection. You shall paint me the +walls of the open hall looking out on the Tiber, that it +may be a fit place wherein to sup and make merry with +popes and cardinals and princes." "Very good," answered +Rafael.</p> + +<p>The object was to obtain a dining-hall, and the fresco +was to be there merely as an ornament; but Rafael +painted his Galatea, and behold, the hall could no +longer be used as a dining-room; every one crowded +into it to see the fresco; the hall has now become a +gallery, and the real property, less of its owners, who +cannot make use of it, than of the whole world, who +insist on entering it; the room now exists only for the +sake of the fresco, yet the fresco was originally intended +to exist only for it. This is the inevitable course of art; +we call in beauty as a servant, and see, like some strange +dæmon, it becomes the master; it may answer our call, +but we have to do its bidding.</p> + +<p>We have strayed far away from Orpheus and Eurydice, +while thus following the train of ideas suggested by +the story of the bas-relief. Yet we may return to the +subject, and use it as an illustration of our last remark. +We have said much against the common tendency +towards transporting on to a work of art an interest +not originally due to it, because, by this means, we +are apt to lose the interest which does belong to the +work of art. But, if only each could get its due, each +exert its power unimpaired, there could be nothing more +delightful than thus to enjoy the joint effect of several +works of art; not, according to the notion of certain +æsthetic visionaries—who do not see that singers cannot +be living Greek statues nor librettists poets, nor scene-painters +Poussins—in one clumsy ambiguous monster +spectacle, but in our minds, in our fancy; if, conscious +of the difference between them, we could unite in one +collection the works of various arts: people the glades +and dingles of Keats with the divinities we have seen in +marble, play upon the reed of the Praxitelian Faun the +woodland melodies of Mozart's Tamino. It would thus +be the highest reward for self-scrutinising æsthetic +humility, for honest appreciation of each art for itself, +for brave sacrifice of our own artistic whimsies and +vanities, to enable us to bring up simultaneously the +recollection of Virgil's nobly pathetic lines, of the exquisitely +simple and supple forms of the bas-relief, of +the grand and tender music of Gluck, and to unite them +in one noble pageant of the imagination, evoked by the +spell of those two names: Orpheus and Eurydice.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch4" id="ch4"></a>FAUSTUS AND HELENA.</h3> + +<h5>NOTES ON THE SUPERNATURAL IN ART.</h5> +<p> </p> + +<p>There is a story, well-known throughout the sixteenth +century, which tells how Doctor Faustus of Wittemberg, +having made over his soul to the fiend, employed him to +raise the ghost of Helen of Sparta, in order that she +might become his paramour. The story has no historic +value, no scientific meaning; it lacks the hoary dignity +of the tales of heroes and demi-gods, wrought, vague, +and colossal forms, out of cloud and sunbeam, of those +tales narrated and heard by generations of men deep +hidden in the stratified ruins of lost civilisation, carried +in the races from India to Hellas, and to Scandinavia. +Compared with them, this tale of Faustus and Helena is +paltry and brand-new; it is not a myth, nay, scarcely +a legend; it is a mere trifling incident added by +humanistic pedantry to the ever-changing mediæval +story of the man who barters his soul for knowledge, +the wizard, alchemist, philosopher, printer, Albertus, +Bacon, or Faustus. It is a part, an unessential, +subordinate fragment, valued in its day neither more +nor less than any other part of the history of Doctor +Faustus, narrated cursorily by the biographer of the +wizard, overlooked by some of the ballad rhymers, +alternately used and rejected by the playwrights of +puppet-shows; given by Marlowe himself no greater +importance than the other marvellous deeds, the juggling +tricks and magic journeys of his hero.</p> + +<p>But for us, the incident of Faustus and Helena has +a meaning, a fascination wholly different from any +other portion of the story; the other incidents owe +everything to artistic treatment: this one owes nothing. +The wizard Faustus, awaiting the hour which will give +him over to Hell, is the creation of Marlowe; Gretchen +is even more completely the creation of Goethe; the +fiend of the Englishman is occasionally grand, the +fiend of the German is throughout masterly; in all +these cases we are in the presence of true artistic work, +of stuff rendered valuable solely by the hand of the +artist, of figures well defined and finite, and limited +also in their power over the imagination. But the +group of Faustus and Helena is different; it belongs +neither to Marlowe nor to Goethe, it belongs to the +legend. It does not give the complete and limited +satisfaction of a work of art; it has the charm of the +fantastic and fitful shapes formed by the flickering +firelight or the wreathing mists; it haunts like some +vague strain of music, drowsily heard in half-sleep. +It fills the fancy, it oscillates and transforms itself; +the artist may see it, attempt to seize and embody it +for evermore in a definite and enduring shape, but +it vanishes out of his grasp, and the forms which should +have inclosed it are mere empty sepulchres, haunted +and charmed merely by the evoking power of our own +imagination. If we are fascinated by the Lady Helen +of Marlowe, walking, like some Florentine goddess, +with embroidered kirtle and madonna face, across the +study of the old wizard of Wittemberg; if we are +pleased by the stately pseudo-antique Helena of +Goethe, draped in the drapery of Thorwaldsen's statues, +and speaking the language of Goethe's own Iphigenia, +as she meets the very modern Faust, gracefully +masqued in mediæval costume; if we find in these +attempts, the one unthinking and imperfect, the other +laboured and abortive, something which delights our +fancy, it is because our thoughts wander off from them +and evoke a Faustus and Helena of our own, different +from the creations of Marlowe and of Goethe; it is +because in these definite and imperfect artistic forms, +there yet remains the suggestion of the subject with +all its power over the imagination. We forget Marlowe, +and we forget Goethe, to follow up the infinite suggestion +of the legend. We cease to see the Elizabethan +and the pseudo-antique Helen; we lift our imagination +from the book and see the mediæval street at Wittemberg, +the gabled house of Faustus, all sculptured with +quaint devices and grotesque forms of apes and cherubs +and flowers; we penetrate through the low brown +rooms, filled with musty books and mysterious ovens +and retorts, redolent with strange scents of alchemy, +to that innermost secret chamber, where the old wizard +hides, in the depths of his mediæval house, the immortal +woman, the god-born, the fatal, the beloved of Theseus +and Paris and Achilles; we are blinded by this sunshine +of Antiquity pent up in the oaken-panelled +chamber, such as Dürer might have etched; and all +around we hear circulating the mysterious rumours of +the neighbours, of the burghers and students, whispering +shyly of Dr. Faustus and his strange guest, in the beer-cellars +and in the cloisters of the old university town. +And gazing thus into the fantastic intellectual mist +which has risen up between us and the book we were +reading, be it Marlowe or Goethe, we cease, after a +while, to see Faustus or Helena, we perceive only a +chaotic fluctuation of incongruous shapes; scholars in +furred robes and caps pulled over their ears, burghers +wives with high sugar-loaf coif and slashed boddices, +with hands demurely folded over their prayer-books, +and knights in armour and immense plumes, and +haggling Jews, and tonsured monks, descended out of +panels of <ins title="original has Wohlgemüth">Wohlgemuth</ins> and the engravings of Dürer, +mingling with, changing into processions of naked +athletes on foaming short-maned horses, of draped +Athenian maidens carrying baskets and sickles, and +priests bearing oil-jars and torches, all melting into +each other, indistinct, confused, like the images in a +dream; vague crowds, phantoms following in the wake +of the spectre woman of Antiquity, beautiful, unimpassioned, +ever young, luring to Hell the wizard of the +Middle Ages.</p> + +<p>Why does all this vanish as soon as we once more fix +our eyes upon the book? Why can our fancy show us +more than can the artistic genius of Marlowe and of +Goethe? Why does Marlowe, believing in Helen as a +satanic reality, and Goethe, striving after her as an +artistic vision, equally fail to satisfy us? The question +is intricate: it requires a threefold answer, dependent +on the fact that this tale of Faustus and Helena is in +fact a tale of the supernatural—a weird and colossal +ghost-story, in which the actors are the spectre of +Antiquity, ever young, beautiful, radiant, though risen +from the putrescence of two thousand years; and the +Middle Ages, alive, but toothless, palsied, and tottering. +Why neither Marlowe nor Goethe have succeeded in +giving a satisfactory artistic shape to this tale is explained +by the necessary relations between art and the +supernatural, between our creative power and our +imaginative faculty; why Marlowe has failed in one +manner and Goethe in another is explained by the +fact that, as we said, for the first the tale was a supernatural +reality, for the second a supernatural fiction.</p> + +<p>What are the relations between art and the supernatural? +At first sight the two appear closely allied: like the +supernatural, art is born of imagination; the supernatural, +like art, conjures up unreal visions. The two have +been intimately connected during the great ages of the +supernatural, when instead of existing merely in a few +disputed traditional dogmas, and in a little discredited +traditional folklore, it constituted the whole of religion +and a great part of philosophy. Gods and demons, +saints and spectres, have afforded at least one-half of the +subjects for art. The supernatural, in the shape of religious +mythology, had art bound in its service in Antiquity +and the Middle Ages; the supernatural, in the +shape of spectral fancies, regained its dominion over art +with the advent of romanticism. From the gods of the +<i>Iliad</i> down to the Commander in <i>Don Giovanni</i>, from +the sylvan divinities of Praxiteles to the fairies of Shakespeare, +from the Furies of Æschylus to the Archangels +of Perugino, the supernatural and the artistic have constantly +appeared linked together. Yet, in reality, the +hostility between the supernatural and the artistic is well-nigh +as great as the hostility between the supernatural +and the logical. Critical reason is a solvent, it reduces +the phantoms of the imagination to their most prosaic +elements; artistic power, on the other hand, moulds and +solidifies them into distinct and palpable forms: the +synthetical definiteness of art is as sceptical as the +analytical definiteness of logic. For the supernatural is +necessarily essentially vague, and art is necessarily +essentially distinct: give shape to the vague and it +ceases to exist. The task set to the artist by the +dreamer, the prophet, the priest, the ghost-seer of all +times, is as difficult, though in the opposite sense, as +that by which the little girl in the Venetian fairy +tale sought to test the omnipotence of the emperor. +She asked him for a very humble dish, quite simple and +not costly, a pat of butter broiled on a gridiron. The +emperor desired his cook to place the butter on the gridiron +and light the fire; all was going well, when, behold! +the butter began to melt, trickled off, and vanished. +The artists were asked to paint, or model, or narrate the +supernatural; they set about the work in good conscience, +but see, the supernatural became the natural, the gods +turned into men, the madonnas into mere mothers, the +angels into armed striplings, the phantoms into mere +creatures of flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>There are in reality two sorts of supernatural, although +only one really deserves the name. A great number of +beliefs in all mythologies are in reality mere scientific +errors—abortive attempts to explain phenomena by +causes with which they have no connection—the imagination +plays not more part in them than in any other sort +of theorising, and the notions that unlucky accidents are +due to a certain man's glance, that certain formulæ will +bring rain or sunshine, that miraculous images will dispel +pestilence, and kings of England cure epilepsy, must be +classed under the head of mistaken generalizations, not +very different in point of fact from exploded scientific +theories, such as Descartes' vortices, or the innate ideas +of scholasticism. That there was a time when animals +spoke with human voice may seem to us a piece of fairy-lore, +but it was in its day a scientific hypothesis as brilliant +and satisfying as Darwin's theory of evolution. +We must, therefore, in examining the relations between +art and the supernatural, eliminate as far as possible this +species of scientific speculation, and consider only that +supernatural which really deserves the name, which is +beyond and outside the limits of the possible, the rational, +the explicable—that supernatural which is due not to +the logical faculties, arguing from wrong premises, but +to the imagination wrought upon by certain kinds of +physical surroundings. The divinity of the earlier races +is in some measure a mistaken scientific hypothesis of the +sort we have described, an attempt to explain phenomena +otherwise inexplicable. But it is much more: it is the +effect on the imagination of certain external impressions, +it is those impressions brought to a focus, personified, but +personified vaguely, in a fluctuating ever-changing manner; +the personification being continually altered, reinforced, +blurred out, enlarged, restricted by new series of +impressions from without, even as the shape which we +puzzle out of congregated cloud-masses fluctuates with +their every movement—a shifting vapour now obliterates +the form, now compresses it into greater distinctness: +the wings of the fantastic monster seem now flapping +leisurely, now extending bristling like a griffon's; at one +moment it has a beak and talons, at others a mane and +hoofs; the breeze, the sunlight, the moonbeam, form, +alter, and obliterate it. Thus is it with the supernatural: +the gods, moulded out of cloud and sunlight and darkness, +are for ever changing, fluctuating between a human +or animal shape, god or goddess, cow, ape, or horse, and +the mere natural phenomenon which impresses the fancy. +Pan is the weird, shaggy, cloven-footed shape which the +goat-herd or the huntsman has seen gliding among the +bushes in the grey twilight; his is the piping heard in +the tangle of reeds, marsh lily, and knotted nightshade +by the river side: but Pan is also the wood, with all its +sights and noises, the solitude, the gloom, the infinity of +rustling leaves, and cracking branches; he is the greenish-yellow +light stealing in amid the boughs; he is the breeze +in the foliage, the murmur of unseen waters, the mist +hanging over the damp sward, the ferns and grasses +which entangle the feet, and the briars which catch in +the hair and garments are his grasp; and the wanderer +dashes through the thickets with a sickening fear in his +heart, and sinks down on the outskirts of the forest, +gasping, with sweat-clotted hair, overcome by this glimpse +of the great god.</p> + +<p>In this constant renewal of the impressions on the fancy, +in this unceasing shaping and reshaping of its creations, +consisted the vitality of the myths of paganism, from the +scorching and pestilence-bearing gods of India to the +divinities shaped out of tempest and snowdrift of Scandinavia; +they were constantly issuing out of the elements, +renewed, changed, ever young, under the exorcism not +only of the priest and of the poet, but of the village boor; +and on this unceasing renovation depended the sway which +they maintained, without ethical importance to help them, +despite philosophy and Christianity. Christianity, born +in an age of speculation and eclecticism, removed its +divinities, its mystic figures, out of the cosmic surroundings +of paganism; it forbade the imagination to touch +or alter them, it regularised, defined, explained, placed +the Saviour, the Virgin, the saints and angels, into a kind +of supersensuous world of logic, logic adapted to Heaven, +and different therefore from the logic of earth, but logic +none the less. Christianity endowed them with certain +definite attributes, not to be found among mortals, but +analogous in a manner to mortal attributes; the Christian +supernatural system belongs mainly to the category +of mistaken scientific systems; its peculiarities are due, +not to overwrought fancy, but to overtaxed reason. Thus +the genuine supernatural was well-nigh banished by +official Christianity, regulated as it was by a sort of congress +of men of science, who eliminated, to the best of +their powers, any vagaries of the imagination which +might show themselves in their mystico-logic system. +But the imagination did work nevertheless, and the supernatural +did reappear, both within and without the Christian +system of mythology. The Heaven of theology +was too ethical, too logical, too positive, too scientific, in +accordance with the science of the Middle Ages, for the +minds of humanity at large; the scholars and learned +clergy might study and expound it, but it was insufficient +for the ignorant. The imagination reappeared +once more. To the monk arose out of the silence and +gloom of the damp, lichen-grown crypt, out of the fœtid +emanations of the charnal-house, strange forms of horror +which lurked in his steps and haunted his sleep after +fasting and scourging and vigils; devils and imps +horrible and obscene, which the chisel of the stonecutter +vainly attempted to reproduce, in their fluctuating +abomination, on the capitals and gargoyles of cloister +and cathedral. To the artisan, the weaver pent up in +some dark cellar into which the daylight stole grey and +faint from the narrow strip of blue sky between the overhanging +eaves, for him, the hungry and toil-worn and +weary of soul, there arose out of the hum of the street +above, out of the half-lit dust, the winter damp and +summer suffocation of the underground workshop, visions +and sounds of sweetness and glory, misty clusters of +white-robed angels shedding radiance around them, +swaying in mystic linked dances, mingling with the sordid +noises of toil seraphic harmonies, now near, now +dying away into distance, voices singing of the sunshine +and flowers of Paradise. And for others, for the lean +and tattered peasant, with the dull, apathetic resignation +of the starved and goaded ox or horse, sleeping on the +damp clay of his hut and eating strange flourless bread, +and stranger carrion flesh, there came a world of the +supernatural, different from that of the monk or the +artisan, at once terrifying and consoling; the divinities +cast out by Christianity, the divinities for ever newly begotten +by nature, but begotten of a nature miserably +changed, born in exile and obloquy and persecution, +fostered by the wretched and the brutified; differing +from the gods of antiquity as the desolate heath, barren +of all save stones and prickly furze and thistle, differs +from the fertile pasture-land; as the forests planted over +the cornfield, whence issue wolves, and the Baron's +harvest-trampling horses, differ from the forests which +gave their oaks and pines to Tyrian ships; divinities +warped, and crippled, grown hideous and malignant and +unhappy in the likeness of their miserable votaries.</p> + +<p>This is the real supernatural, born of the imagination +and its surroundings, the vital, the fluctuating, the potent; +and it is this which the artist of every age, from Phidias +to Giotto, from Giotto to Blake, has been called upon to +make known to the multitude. And there had been artistic +work going on unnoticed long before the time of any +painter or sculptor or poet of whom we have any record; +mankind longed from the first to embody, to fix its +visions of wonder, it set to work with rough unskilful +fingers moulding into shape its divinities. Rude work, +ugly, barbarous, blundering scratchings on walls, +kneaded clay vessels, notched sticks, nonsense rhymes; +but work nevertheless which already showed that art +and the supernatural were at variance, the beaked and +clawed figures outlined on the wall were compromises +between the man and the beast, but definite compromises, +so much and no more of the man, so much +and no more of the beast; the goddess on the clay +vessels became a mere little owl; the divinities even +in the nonsense verses were presented now as very +distinct cows, now as very distinct clouds, or very +distinct men and women; the vague, fluctuating impressions +oscillating before the imagination like the +colours of a dove's wing, or the pattern of a shot silk, +interwoven, unsteady, never completely united into one, +never completely separated into several, were rudely +seized, disentangled by art; part was taken, part thrown +aside; what remained was homogeneous, definite, unchanging; +it was what it was and could never be aught +else.</p> + +<p>Goethe has remarked, with a subjective simplicity of +irreverence which is almost comical, that as God created +man in his image, it was only fair that man, in his turn, +should create God in <i>his</i> image. But the decay of +pagan belief was not, as Hegel imagines, due to the +fact that Hellenic art was anthropomorphic. The gods +ceased to be gods not merely because they became too +like men, but because they became too like anything +definite. If the ibis on the amulet, or the owl on the +terra-cotta, represents a more vital belief in the gods than +does the Venus of Milo or the Giustiniani Minerva, it is +not because the idea of divinity is more compatible with +an ugly bird than with a beautiful woman, but because +whereas the beautiful woman, exquisitely wrought by a +consummate sculptor, occupied the mind of the artist +and of the beholder with the idea of her beauty, to the +exclusion of all else, the rudely-engraven ibis, or the +badly-modelled owlet, on the other hand, served merely +as a symbol, as the recaller of an idea; the mind did not +pause in contemplation of the bird, but wandered off in +search of the god: the goggle eyes of the owl and the +beak of the ibis were soon forgotten in the contemplation +of the vague, ever transmuted visions of phenomena +of sky and light, of semi-human and semi-bestial shapes, +of confused half-embodied forces; in short, of the supernatural. +But the human shape did most mischief to +the supernatural, merely because the human shape was +the most absolute, the most distinct of all shapes: a god +might be symbolised as a beast, but he could only be +pourtrayed as a man; and if the portrait was correct, +then the god was a man, and nothing more. Even the +most fantastic among pagan supernatural creatures, +those strange monsters who longest kept their original +dual nature—the centaurs, satyrs, and tritons—became, +beneath the chisel of the artist, mere aberrations from +the normal, rare, and curious types like certain fair-booth +phenomena, but perfectly intelligible and rational; the +very Chimæra, she who was to give her name to every +sort of unintelligible fancy, became, in the bas-reliefs +of the story of Bellerophon a mere singular mixture +between a lion, a dog, and a bird—a cross-breed which +happens not to be possible, but which an ancient might +well have conceived as adorning some distant zoological +collection. How much more rationalised were not the +divinities in whom only a peculiar shape of the eye, a +certain structure of the leg, or a definite fashion of +wearing the hair remained of their former nature. +Learned men, indeed, tell us that we need only glance +at Hera to see that she is at bottom a cow; at Apollo, +to recognise that he is but a stag in human shape: or at +Zeus, to recognise that he is, in point of fact, a lion. +Yet it remains true that we need only walk down the +nearest street to meet ten ordinary men and women +who look more like various animals than do any +antique divinities, and who can yet never be said to +be in reality cows, stags, or lions. The same applies to +the violent efforts which are constantly being made to +show in the Greek and Latin poets a distinct recollection +of the cosmic nature of the gods, construing the +very human movements, looks, and dress of divinities +into meteorological phenomena, as has been done even +by Mr. Ruskin, in his <i>Queen of the Air</i>, despite his +artist's sense, which should have warned him that no +artistic figure, like Homer's divinities, can possibly be +at the same time a woman and a whirlwind. The gods +did originally partake of the character of cosmic phenomena, +as they partook of the characters of beasts and +birds, and of every other species of transformation, +such as we may watch in dreams; but as soon as they +were artistically embodied, this transformation ceased, +the nature had to be specified in proportion as the +form became distinct; and the drapery of Pallas, +although it had inherited its purple tint from the +storm-cloud, was none the less, when it clad the +shoulders of the goddess, not a storm-cloud, but a piece +of purple linen. "What do you want of me?" asks +the artist. "A god," answers the believer. "What is +your god to be like?" asks the artist. "My god is +to be a very handsome warrior, a serene heaven, which +is occasionally overcast with clouds, which clouds are +sometimes very beneficial, and become (and so does the +god at those moments) heavy-uddered cows; at others, +they are dark, and cause annoyance, and then they +capture the god, who is the light (but he is also the +clouds, remember), and lock him up in a tower, and +then he frees himself, and he is a neighing horse, and +he is sitting on the prancing horse (which is himself, +you know, and is the sky too), in the shape of two +warriors, and also——" "May Cerberus devour you!" +cries the artist. "How can I represent all this? Do +you want a warrior, or a cow, or the heavens, or a horse, +or do you want a warrior with the hoofs of a horse and +the horns of a cow? Explain, for, by Juno, I can give +you only one of these at a time."</p> + +<p>Thus, in proportion as the gods were subjected to +artistic manipulation, whether by sculptor or poet, they +lost their supernatural powers. A period there doubtless +was when the gods stood out quite distinct from nature, +and yet remained connected with it, as the figures of a +high relief stand out from the background; but gradually +they were freed from the chaos of impressions which +had given them birth, and then, little by little, they +ceased to be gods; they were isolated from the world of +the wonderful, they were respectfully shelved off into the +region of the ideal, where they were contemplated, admired, +discussed, but not worshipped even like their +statues by Praxiteles and their pictures by Parrhasius. +The divinities who continued to be reverenced were the +rustic divinities and the foreign gods and goddesses; the +divinities which had been safe from the artistic desecration +of the cities, and the divinities which were +imported from hieratic, unartistic countries like Egypt +and Syria; on the one hand, the gods shaped with the +pruning-knife out of figwood, and stained with ochre or +wine-lees, grotesque mannikins, standing like scarecrows, +in orchard or corn-field, to which the peasants crowded in +devout procession, leading their cleanly-dressed little +ones, and carrying gifts of fruit and milk, while the listless +Tibullus, fresh from sceptical Rome, looked on from +his doorstep, a vague, childish veneration stealing over +his mind; on the other hand, the monstrous goddesses, +hundred-breasted or ibis-headed, half hidden in the +Syrian and Egyptian temples, surrounded by mysterious +priests, swarthy or effeminate, in mitres and tawny robes, +jangling their sistra and clashing their cymbals, moving +in mystic or frenzied dances, weird, obscene, and unearthly, +to the melancholy drone of Phrygian or Egyptian +music, sending a shudder through the atheist Catullus, +and filling his mind with ghastly visions of victims of +the great goddess, bleeding, fainting, lashed on to madness +by the wrath of the terrible divinity. These were +the last survivors of paganism, and to their protection +clung the old gods of Greece and Rome, reduced to +human level by art, stripped naked by sculptor and poet +and muffling themselves in the homely or barbaric garments +of low-born or outlandish usurpers; art had been +a worse enemy than scepticism: Apelles and Scopas had +done more mischief than Epicurus.</p> + +<p>Christian art was, perhaps, more reverent in intention, +but not less desecrating in practice; even the Giottesques +turned Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints, into mere Florentine +men and women; even Angelico himself, although +a saint, was unable to show Paradise except as a flowery +meadow, under a highly gilded sky, through which +moved ladies and youths in most artistic but most +earthly embroidered garments; and Hell except as a +very hot place where men and women were being boiled +and broiled and baked and fried and roasted by very +comic little weasel-snouted fiends, which on a carnival +car would have made Florentines roar with laughter. +The real supernatural was in the cells of fever-stricken, +starved visionaries; it was in the contagious awe of the +crowd sinking down at the sight of the stained napkin +of Bolsena; in that soiled piece of linen was Christ, and +God, and Paradise; in that and not in the panels of +Angelico and Perugino, or in the frescoes of Signorelli +and Filippino.</p> + +<p>Why? Because the supernatural is nothing but ever-renewed +impressions, ever-shifting fancies; and that art +is the definer, the embodier, the analytic and synthetic +force of form. Every artistic embodiment of impressions +or fancies implies isolation of those impressions or fancies, +selection, combination and balancing of them; that +is to say, diminution—nay, destruction of their inherent +power. As, in order to be moulded, the clay must be +separated from the mound; as, in order to be carved, the +wood must be cut off from the tree; as, in order to be +re-shaped by art, the mass of atoms must be rudely +severed; so also the mental elements of art, the mood, +the fancy must be severed from the preceding and succeeding +moods or fancies; artistic manipulation requires +that its intellectual, like its tangible materials, cease to +be vital, but the materials, mental or physical, are not +only deprived of vitality and power of self-alteration; +they are combined in given proportions, the action of +the one on the other destroys in great part the special +power of each; art is proportion, and proportion is restriction. +Last of all, but most important, these isolated, +no longer vital materials, neutralised by each other, are +further reduced to insignificance by becoming parts of a +whole conception; their separate meaning is effaced by +the general meaning of the work of art; art bottles +lightning to use it as white colour, and measures out +thunder by the beat of the chapel-master's roll of notes. +But art does not merely restrict impressions and fancies +within the limits of form; in its days of maturity and +independence it restricts yet closer within the limits of +beauty. Partially developed art, still unconscious of its +powers and aims, still in childish submission to religion, +sets to work conscientiously, with no other object than to +embody the supernatural; if the supernatural suffers in +the act of embodiment, if the fluctuating fancies which +are Zeus or Pallas are limited and curtailed, rendered +logical and prosaic even in the wooden pre-historic idol +or the roughly kneaded clay owlet, it is by no choice of +the artist—his attempt is abortive, because it is thwarted +by the very nature of his art. But when art is mature, +things are different; the artist, conscious of his powers, +instinctively recognising the futility of aiming at the +embodiment of the supernatural, dragged by an irresistible +longing to the display of his skill, to the imitation +of the existing and to the creation of beauty, ceases to +strain after the impossible and refuses to attempt anything +beyond the possible. The art, which was before a +mere insufficient means, is now an all-engrossing aim; +unconsciously, perhaps, to himself, the artist regards the +subject merely as a pretext for the treatment; and +where the subject is opposed to such treatment as he +desires, he sacrifices it. He may be quite as conscientious +as his earliest predecessor, but his conscience has become +an artistic conscience, he sees only as much as is within +art's limits; the gods, or the saints, which were cloudy +and supernatural to the artist of immature art, are definite +and artistic to the artist of mature art; he can +think, imagine, feel only in a given manner; his religious +conceptions have taken the shape of his artistic creations; +art has destroyed the supernatural, and the artist has +swallowed up the believer. The attempts at supernatural +effects are almost always limited to a sort of symbolical +abbreviation, which satisfies the artist and his public +respecting the subject of the work, and lends it a traditional +association of the supernatural; a few spikes +round the head of a young man are all that remains of +the solar nature of Apollo; the little budding horns and +pointed ears of the satyr must suffice to recall that he was +once a mystic fusion of man and beast and forest; a +gilded disc behind the head is all that shows that Giotto's +figures are immortals in glory; and a pair of wings is all +that explains that Perugino's St. Michael is not a mere +dainty mortal warrior; the highest mysteries of Christianity +are despatched with a triangle and an open book, +to draw which Raphael might employ his colour-grinder, +while he himself drew the finely-draped baker's daughter +from Trastevere.</p> + +<p>In all these cases the artist refused to grapple with +the supernatural, and dismissed it with a mere stereotyped +symbol, not more artistic than the names which +he might have engraved beneath each figure. Religious +associations were thus awakened without the artist, +whether of the time of Pericles or of the time of Leo X., +giving himself further trouble; the diffusion of religious +ideas and feeling spared art from being religious. Let +us, therefore, in order to judge fairly of what art can or +cannot do for the supernatural, seek for one of the very +rare instances in which the artist has had no symbolical +abbreviations at his disposal, and has been obliged, if he +would awaken any idea in the mind of the spectator, to +do so by means of his artistic creations. The number of +such exceptional instances is extremely limited in the +great art of antiquity and the Renaissance, when artistic +subjects were almost always traditionally religious or +plainly realistic, and consequently intelligible at first +sight. There is, however, an example, and that example +is a masterpiece. It is the engraving by Agostino Veneziano, +after a lost drawing by Raphael, generally called +"Lo Stregozzo," and representing a witch going to the +Sabbath. Through a swampy country, amidst rank and +barren vegetation, sweeps the triumphal procession—strange, +beautiful, and ghastly; a naked boy dashes +headlong in front, bestriding a long-haired he-goat, and +blowing a horn, little stolen children packed behind on +his saddle; on he dashes, across the tufts of marsh-lily +and bulrush, across the stagnant-pools of water, clearing +the way and announcing his mistress the witch. She +thrones, old, parched, lank, high on the top of an unearthly +car, made of the spine and ribs of some antediluvian +creature, with springs and traces of ghastly jaw and +collar and thigh bones, supported on either side by +galloping skeletons, skeletons made up of skeletons, of +all that is strangest in the bones and beaks of beasts and +birds, on which ride young fauns and satyrs. To her +chariot, by a yoke of human bones, are harnessed two +stalwart naked youths, and two others sustain its plough-like +end; grand, magnificently moving figures, bounding +forward like wild horses, the unearthly carriage swinging +and creaking as they go. And, as they go, brushing +through the high, dry, maremma-grass, the witch cowers +on her chariot, clutching in one hand a heap of babies, +in the other a vessel filled with fire, whose smoke, +mingling with her long, dishevelled hair, floats behind, +sweeping through the rank vegetation, curling and eddying +into vague, strange semblances of lions, apes, chimæras. +Forward dashes the outrunner on his goat, onward +bound the naked litter-bearers; up gallop the fauns and +satyrs on the fleshless, monstrous carcases; up and down +sways the creaking, cracking chariot of bones; one +moment more, and the wild, splendid, hideous triumph +will have swept out of sight, leaving behind only trampled +marsh-plants and a trail of fantastic, lurid smoke among +the ruffled, moaning reeds and grasses.</p> + +<p>Such is Raphael's <i>Stregozzo</i>. It is a master-piece of +drawing and of pictorial fancy, it is perhaps the highest +achievement of great art in the direction of the supernatural: +for Dürer is often hideous, Rembrandt always +obscure, and the moderns, like Blake and Doré, distinctly +run counter to the essential nature of art in their +attempts after vagueness. When once told the subject +of the print, by Agostino Veneziano, our imagination +easily flies off on to the track of the supernatural; but, +in so doing, it leaves the work behind, and on return to +it we experience a return to the natural. If, on the +other hand, we are not told the subject of the print, we +very possibly see nothing supernatural in it: there are +splendid figures worthy of Michael Angelo, and grotesque +fancies, in the shape of the skeletons and coach of bones, +worthy of Leonardo; as a whole, the print is striking, +beautiful, and problematic, but it falls short of the effect +which would be produced by the mere words "a witch +riding through a marsh on a chariot of bones," if left to +insinuate themselves into the imagination. Of the +really supernatural, there is in it but one touch: and that +in the only part of the drawing which is left vague; it is +the confused shapes assumed by the eddying smoke +among the rushes. All the rest is outside the region of +the supernatural: it is problematic in subject, but clear, +harmonious, and beautiful in treatment; the imagination +may wander off from it, but in its presence it must remain +passive. With this masterpiece we would fain +compare a picture which seems to deal with a cognate +subject; a picture as suggestive as it is absolutely +artistically worthless. We saw it once, many years ago, +among a heap of rubbishy smudges at a picture-dealer's +in Rome, and we have never forgotten it—a picture +painted by some German smearer of the early sixteenth +century; very ugly, stupid, and unattractive; ill drawn, +ill composed, of a uniform hard, vulgar brown. It represented, +with no attempt at perspective, a level country +spread out like a map, dotted here and there with little +spired and turretted towns, also a castle or two, a few +trees and some rivers, disposed with a child's satisfaction +with their mere indication, as much as to say—"here is +a town, there is a castle." Some peasants were represented +working in the fields, a little train of horsemen +coming out of a castle, and near one of the chess-board +castles a grass plot with half-a-dozen lit stakes, to which +tiny figures were carrying faggots, while men-at-arms +and burghers, no bigger than flies, looked on. In the +foreground of the great flat expanse lay a boor, a fellow +dressed like a field-labourer, in heavy sleep on the +ground. Round him on the grass were marked curious +circles, and in them was moving a strange figure, in +cloak and helmet, with clawed wings and horns, leering +horridly, moving round on tiptoe, his arms outstretched, +as if gradually encircling the sleeper in order to pounce +upon him; despite the complete absence of artistic skill, +the gradual inevitable approach of the demon, the irresistible +network of circles with which he was surrounding +his prey, was perfectly indicated. Above, in the sky, +two figures, half demon, half dragon, floated leisurely, +like a moored boat, as if a guard of the devil below. +What is the exact subject of this picture? No one can +tell; but its meaning is intense for the imagination, it +has the frightful suggestiveness of some old book on +witchcraft, prosaic and curt; of a page opened at random +of Sprenger's <i>Malleus Malificarum</i>. Yes; over the +plain, the towns, and castles, monotonous and dull, the +fiends are hovering; even over the stakes where their +votaries are being burnt; and see, the peasant asleep in +the field, with his spade and hoe beside him, is being +surrounded by magic circles, by the invisible nets of the +demon, who prowls round him like a kite ready to +pounce on to its quarry.</p> + +<p>Why is there no need to write the word <i>witchcraft</i> +beneath this picture? Why can this nameless smearer +succeed where Raphael has failed? Because he is content +to suggest to the imagination, and lets it create for +itself its world of the supernatural; because he is not an +artist, and because Raphael is; because he suggests +everything and shows nothing, while Raphael creates, +defines, perfects, gives form to that which is by its nature +formless.</p> + +<p>If we would bring home to ourselves this action of art +on the supernatural, we must examine the only species +of supernatural which still retains vitality, and can still +be deprived of it by art. That which remains to us of the +imaginative workings of the past is traditional and well-nigh +effete: we have poems and pictures, Vedic hymns, +Hebrew psalms, and Egyptian symbols; we have folklore +and dogma; remnants of the supernatural, some +labelled in our historic museums, where they are scrutinised, +catalogue and eye-glass in hand; others dusty on +altars and in chapels, before which we uncover our heads +and cast down our eyes: relics of dead and dying faiths, +of which some are daily being transferred from the church +to the museum; art cannot deprive any of these of that +imaginative life and power which they have long ceased +to possess. We have forms of the supernatural in which +we believe from acquiescence of habit, but they are not +vital; we have a form of the supernatural in which, from +logic and habit, we disbelieve, but which is vital; and +this form of the supernatural is the ghostly. We none +of us believe in ghosts as logical possibilities, but we +most of us conceive them as imaginative probabilities; we +can still feel the ghostly, and thence it is that a ghost is +the only thing which can in any respect replace for us +the divinities of old, and enable us to understand, if only +for a minute, the imaginative power which they possessed, +and of which they were despoiled not only by logic, but +by art. By <i>ghost</i> we do not mean the vulgar apparition +which is seen or heard in told or written tales; we mean +the ghost which slowly rises up in our mind, the haunter +not of corridors and staircases, but of our fancies. Just +as the gods of primitive religions were the undulating, +bright heat which made mid-day solitary and solemn as +midnight; the warm damp, the sap-riser and expander +of life; the sad dying away of the summer, and the leaden, +suicidal sterility of winter; so the ghost, their only +modern equivalent, is the damp, the darkness, the silence, +the solitude; a ghost is the sound of our steps through a +ruined cloister, where the ivy-berries and convolvulus +growing in the fissures sway up and down among the sculptured +foliage of the windows, it is the scent of mouldering +plaster and mouldering bones from beneath the broken +pavement; a ghost is the bright moonlight against which +the cypresses stand out like black hearse-plumes, in which +the blasted grey olives and the gnarled fig-trees stretch +their branches over the broken walls like fantastic, +knotted, beckoning fingers, and the abandoned villas on +the outskirts of Italian towns, with the birds flying in +and out of the unglazed windows, loom forth white and +ghastly; a ghost is the long-closed room of one long +dead, the faint smell of withered flowers, the rustle of +long-unmoved curtains, the yellow paper and faded ribbons +of long-unread letters … each and all of these +things, and a hundred others besides, according to our +nature, is a ghost, a vague feeling we can scarcely +describe, a something pleasing and terrible which invades +our whole consciousness, and which, confusedly embodied, +we half dread to see behind us, we know not in what +shape, if we look round.</p> + +<p>Call we in our artist, or let us be our own artist; +embody, let us see or hear this ghost, let it become visible +or audible to others besides ourselves; paint us that +vagueness, mould into shape that darkness, modulate +into chords that silence—tell us the character and history +of those vague beings … set to work boldly or cunningly. +What do we obtain? A picture, a piece of +music, a story; but the ghost is gone. In its stead we +get oftenest the mere image of a human being; call it a +ghost if you will, it is none. And the more complete +the artistic work, the less remains of the ghost. Why +do those stories affect us most in which the ghost is +heard but not seen? Why do those places affect us most +of which we merely vaguely know that they are haunted? +Why most of all those which look as if they might be +haunted? Why, as soon as a figure is seen, is the charm +half-lost? And why, even when there is a figure, is it kept +so vague and mist-like? Would you know Hamlet's +father for a ghost unless he told you he was one? and +can you remember it long while he speaks in mortal words? +and what would be Hamlet's father without the terrace +of Elsinore, the hour, and the moonlight? Do not these +embodied ghosts owe what little effect they still possess +to their surroundings, and are not the surroundings the +real ghost?</p> + +<p>Throw sunshine on to them, and what remains? +Thus we have wandered through the realm of the supernatural +in a manner neither logical nor business-like, for +logic and business-likeness are rude qualities, and scare +away the ghostly; very far away do we seem to have +rambled from Dr. Faustus and Helen of Sparta; but in +this labyrinth of the fantastic there are sudden unexpected +turns—and see, one of these has suddenly +brought us back into their presence. For we have seen +why the supernatural is always injured by artistic treatment, +why therefore the confused images evoked in our +mind by the mere threadbare tale of Faustus and Helena +are superior in imaginative power to the picture carefully +elaborated and shown us by Goethe. We can now +understand why under his hand the infinite charm of the +weird meeting of antiquity and the Middle Ages has +evaporated. We can explain why the strange fancy of +the classic <ins title="original has Walpürgis">Walpurgis-night</ins>, in the second part of <i>Faust</i>, +at once stimulates the imagination and gives it nothing. +If we let our mind dwell on that mysterious Pharsalian +plain, with its glimmering fires and flamelets alone breaking +the darkness, where Faust and Mephistopheles wandering +about meet the spectres of antiquity, shadowy in +the gloom—the sphinxes crouching, the sirens, the dryads +and oreads, the griffons and cranes flapping their +unseen wings overhead; where Faust springs on the +back of Chiron, and as he is borne along sickens for sudden +joy when the centaur tells him that Helen has been +carried on that back, has clasped that neck; when we let +our mind work on all this, we are charmed by the weird +meetings, the mysterious shapes which elbow us; but let +us take up the volume and we return to barren prose, +without colour or perfume. Yet Goethe felt the supernatural +as we feel it, as it can be felt only in days of disbelief, +when the more logical we become in our ideas, +the more we view nature as a prosaic machine constructed +by no one in particular, the more poignantly, on the +other hand, do we feel the delight of the transient belief in +the vague and the impossible; the greater the distinctness +with which we see and understand all around us, the +greater the longing for a momentary half-light in which +forms may appear stranger, grander, vaguer than they +are. We moderns seek in the world of the supernatural +a renewal of the delightful semi-obscurity of vision and +keenness of fancy of our childhood; when a glimpse into +fairyland was still possible, when things appeared in +false lights, brighter, more important, more magnificent +than now. Art indeed can afford us calm and clear +enjoyment of the beautiful—enjoyment serious, self-possessed, +wide-awake, such as befits mature intellects; +but no picture, no symphony, no poem, can give us that +delight, that delusory, imaginative pleasure which we +received as children from a tawdry engraving or a +hideous doll; for around that doll there was an atmosphere +of glory. In certain words, in certain sights, in +certain snatches of melody, words, sights, and sounds +which we now recognise as trivial, commonplace, and +vulgar, there was an ineffable meaning; they were spells +which opened doors into realms of wonder; they were +precious in proportion as they were misappreciated. +We now appreciate and despise; we see, we no longer +imagine. And it is to replace this uncertainty of vision, +this liberty of seeing in things much more than there is, +which belongs to man and to mankind in this childhood, +which compensated the Middle Ages for starvation and +pestilence, and compensates the child for blows and +lessons, it is to replace this that we crave after the +supernatural, the ghostly—no longer believed, but still +felt. It was from this sickness of the prosaic, this turning +away from logical certainty, that the men of the end +of the eighteenth and the beginning of this century, the +men who had finally destroyed belief in the religious +supernatural, who were bringing light with new sciences +of economy, philology, and history—Schiller, Goethe, +Herder, Coleridge—left the lecture-room and the laboratory, +and set gravely to work on ghostly tales and +ballads. It was from this rebellion against the tyranny +of the possible that Goethe was charmed with that culmination +of all impossibilities, that most daring of ghost +stories, the story of Faustus and Helena. He felt the +seduction of the supernatural, he tried to embody it—and +he failed.</p> + +<p>The case was different with Marlowe. The bringing +together of Faustus and Helena had no special meaning +for the man of the sixteenth century, too far from antiquity +and too near the Middle Ages to perceive as we do +the strange difference between them; and the supernatural +had no fascination in a time when it was all permeating +and everywhere mixed with prose. The whole +play of <i>Dr. Faustus</i> is conceived in a thoroughly realistic +fashion; it is tragic, but not ghostly. To Marlowe's +audience, and probably to Marlowe himself, despite his +atheistic reputation, the story of Faustus's wonders and +final damnation was quite within the realm of the possible; +the intensity of the belief in the tale is shown by +the total absence of any attempt to give it dignity or +weirdness. Faustus evokes Lucifer with a pedantic +semi-biblical Latin speech; he goes about playing the +most trumpery conjuror's tricks—snatching with invisible +hands the food from people's lips, clapping horns and tails +on to courtiers for the Emperor's amusement, letting his +legs be pulled off like boots, selling wisps of straw as +horses, doing and saying things which could appear tragic +and important, nay, even serious, only to people who +took every second cat for a witch, who burned their +neighbours for vomiting pins, who suspected devils at +every turn, as the great witch-expert Sprenger shows +them in his horribly matter-of-fact manual. We +moderns, disbelieving in devilries, would require the +most elaborately romantic and poetic accessories—a +splendid lurid back-ground, a magnificent Byronian invocation +of the fiend. The Mephistophilis of Marlowe, +in those days when devils still dwelt in people, required +none of Goethe's wit or poetry; the mere fact of +his being a devil, with the very real association of flame +and brimstone in this world and the next, was sufficient +to inspire interest in him; whereas in 1800, with Voltaire's +novels and Hume's treatises on the table, a dull +devil was no more endurable than any other sort of bore. +The very superiority of Marlowe is due to this absence +of weirdness, to this complete realism; the last scene of +the English play is infinitely above the end of the second +part of <i>Faust</i> in tragic grandeur, just because Goethe +made abortive attempts, after a conscious and artificial +supernatural, while Marlowe was satisfied with perfect +reality of situation. The position of Faustus, when the +years of his pact have expired, and he awaits midnight, +which will give him over to Lucifer, is as thoroughly +natural in the eyes of Marlowe as is in the eyes of Shelley +the position of Beatrice Cenci awaiting the moment of +execution. The conversation between Faustus and the +scholars, after he has made his will, is terribly life-like: +they disbelieve at first, pooh-pooh his danger; then, half-convinced, +beg that a priest may be fetched; but Faustus +cannot deal with priests. He bids them, in agony, go +pray in the next room. "Aye, pray for me, pray for me, +and what noise soever you hear, come not unto me, for +nothing can save me…. Gentlemen, farewell; if I +live till morning, I'll visit you; if not, Faustus is gone to +hell." Faustus remains alone for the one hour which +separates him from his doom; he clutches at the +passing time, he cries to the hours to stop with no +rhetorical figure of speech, but with a terrible reality of +agony:</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> + <tr><td align="center">Let this hour be but</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">A year, a month, a week, a natural day,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">That Faustus may repent and save his soul.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p>Time to repent, time to recoil from the horrible gulf into +which he is being sucked; Christ, will Christ's blood not +save him? He would leap up to heaven and cling fast, +but Lucifer drags him down. He would seek annihilation +in nature, be sucked into its senseless, feelingless mass +… and, meanwhile, the time is passing, the interval of +respite is shrinking and dwindling. Would that he were +a soulless brute and might perish, or that at least eternal +hell were finite—a thousand, a hundred thousand years +let him suffer, but not for ever and without end! Midnight +begins striking. With convulsive agony he exclaims +as the rain patters against the window:</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">O soul, be changed into small water-drops,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>But the twelfth stroke sounds; Lucifer and his crew +enter; and when next morning the students, frightened +by the horrible tempest and ghastly noises of the night, +enter his study, they find Faustus lying dead, torn and +mangled by the demon. All this is not supernatural +in our sense; such scenes as this were real for Marlowe +and his audience. Such cases were surely not unfrequent; +more than one man certainly watched through +such a night in hopeless agony, conscious, like Faustus, +of pact with the fiend—awaiting, with earth and heaven +shut and bolted against him, eternal hell.</p> + +<p>In this story of Doctor Faustus, which, to Marlowe +and his contemporaries, was not a romance but a reality, +the episode of the evoking of Helen is extremely +secondary in interest. To raise a dead woman was +not more wonderful than to turn wisps of straw into +horses, and it was perhaps considered the easier of the +two miracles; the sense of the ordinary ghostly is +absent, and the sense that Helen is the ghost of a whole +long-dead civilisation, that sense which is for us the +whole charm of the tale, could not exist in the sixteenth +century. Goethe's Faust feels for Helen as Goethe +himself might have felt, as Winckelmann felt for a lost +antique statue, as Schiller felt for the dead Olympus: a +passion intensely imaginative and poetic, born of deep +appreciation of antiquity, the essentially modern, +passionate, nostalgic craving for the past. In Marlowe's +play, on the contrary, Faustus and the students evoke +Helen from a confused pedantic impression that an +ancient lady must be as much superior to a modern +lady as an ancient poem, be it even by Statius or +Claudian, must be superior to a modern poem—it is a +humanistic fancy of the days of the revival of letters. +But, by a strange phenomenon, Marlowe, once realising +what Helen means, that she is the fairest of women, +forgets the scholarly interest in her. Faustus, once in +presence of the wonderful woman, forgets that he had +summoned her up to gratify his and his friends' +pedantry; he sees her, loves her, and bursts out into +the splendid tirade full of passionate fancy:</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Her lips suck forth my soul! See, where it flies!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And all is dross that is not Helena.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I will be Paris, and for love of thee,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And I will combat with weak Menelaus,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And then return to Helen for a kiss.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">When he appeared to hapless Semele;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">More lovely than the monarch of the sky</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In wanton Arethusa's azure arms;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And none but thou shalt be my paramour.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>This is real passion for a real woman, a woman very +different from the splendid semi-vivified statue of +Goethe, the Helen with only the cold, bloodless, intellectual +life which could be infused by enthusiastic +studies of ancient literature and art, gleaming bright +like marble or a spectre. This Helena of Marlowe +is no antique; the Elizabethan dramatist, like the +painter of the fifteenth century, could not conceive the +purely antique, despite all the translating of ancient +writers, and all the drawing from ancient marbles. One +of the prose versions of the story of Faustus, contains a +quaint account of Helen, which sheds much light on +Marlowe's conception:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>This lady appeared before them in a most rich gowne of purple +velvet, costly imbrodered; her haire hanged downe loose, as faire +as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached downe to +her hammes; having most amorous cole-black eyes, a sweet and +pleasant round face, with lips as red as a cherry; her cheeks of a +rose colour, her mouth small, her neck white like a swan; tall and +slender of personage; in summe, there was no imperfect place in +her; she looked around about with a rolling hawk's eye, a smiling +and wanton countenance, which neerehand inflamed the hearts +of all the students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a +spirit, which make them lightly passe away such fancies.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>This fair dame in the velvet embroidered gown, with +the long, hanging hair, this Helen of the original +Faustus legend, is antique only in name; she belongs to +the race of mediæval and modern women—the Lauras, +Fiammettas, and Simonettas of Petrarch, Boccaccio, +and Lorenzo dei Medici; she is the sister of that slily +sentimental coquette, the Monna Lisa of Leonardo. +The strong and simple women of Homer, and even of +Euripides, majestic and matronly even in shame, would +repudiate this slender, smiling, ogling beauty; Briseis, +though the captive of Achilles' spear, would turn with +scorn from her. The antique woman has a dignity due +to her very inferiority and restrictedness of position; +she has the simplicity, the completeness, the absence of +everything suggestive of degradation, like that of some +stately animal, pure in its animal nature. The modern +woman, with more freedom and more ideal, rarely +approaches to this character; she is too complex to be +perfect, she is frail because she has an ideal, she is +dubious because she is free, she may fall because she +may rise. Helen deserted Menelaus and brought ruin +upon Troy, therefore, in the eyes of Antiquity, she was +the victim of fate, she might be unruffled, spotless, +majestic; but to the man of the sixteenth century she +was merely frail and false. The rolling hawk's eye and +the wanton smile of the old legend-monger would have +perplexed Homer, but they were necessary for Marlowe; +his Helen was essentially modern, he had probably no +inkling that an antique Helen as distinguished from a +modern could exist. In the paramour of Faustus he +saw merely the most beautiful woman, some fair and +wanton creature, dressed not in chaste and majestic +antique drapery, but in fantastic garments of lawn, like +those of Hero in his own poem:</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Where Venus, in her naked glory strove</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">To please the careless and disdainful eyes</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Of proud Adonis, that before her lies;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Her kirtle blue….</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">From whence her veil reached to the ground beneath;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Some slim and dainty goddess of Botticelli, very +mortal withal, long and sinuous, tightly clad in brocaded +garments and clinging cobweb veils, beautiful +with the delicate, diaphanous beauty, rather emaciated +and hectic, of high rank, and the conscious, elaborate +fascination of a woman of fashion—a creature whom, +like the Gioconda, Leonardo might have spent years in +decking and painting, ever changing the ornaments and +ever altering the portrait; to whom courtly poets like +Bembo and Castiglione might have written scores of +sonnets and canzoni to her hands, her eyes, her hair, her +lips, a fanciful inventory to which she listened languidly +under the cypresses of Florentine gardens. Some such +being, even rarer and more dubious for being an exotic +in the England of Elizabeth, was Marlowe's Helen; +such, and not a ghostly figure, descended from a +pedestal, white and marble-like in her unruffled drapery, +walking with solid step and unswerving, placid glance +through the study, crammed with books, and vials, and +strange instruments, of the mediæval wizard of Wittenberg. +Marlowe deluded himself as well as Faustus, and +palmed off on to him a mere modern lady. To raise a +real spectre of the antique is a craving of our own +century; Goethe attempted to do it and failed, for +what reasons we have seen; but we have all of us the +charm wherewith to evoke for ourselves a real Helena, +on condition that, unlike Faustus and unlike Goethe, +we seek not to show her to others, and remain satisfied +if the weird and glorious figure haunt only our own +imagination.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch5" id="ch5"></a>CHAPELMASTER KREISLER.</h3> + +<h5>A STUDY OF MUSICAL ROMANTICISTS.</h5> +<p> </p> + +<p>There is nothing stranger in the world than music: it +exists only as sound, is born of silence and dies away +into silence, issuing from nothing and relapsing into +nothing; it is our own creation, yet it is foreign to ourselves; +we draw it from out of the silent wood and the +silent metal, it lives in our own breath, yet it seems to +come to us from a distant land which we shall never see, +and to tell us of things we shall never know. It is for +ever striving to tell us something, for ever imploring us +to listen and to understand; we listen, we strain, we try +to take in its vague meaning; it is telling us sweet and +mighty secrets, letting drop precious talismanic words; +we guess, but do not understand. And shall we never +understand? May we never know wherefore the joy, +wherefore the sadness? Can we not subtilise our minds, +go forth with our heart and fancy as interpreters, and +distinguish in the wreathing melodies and entangled +chords some words of superhuman emotion, even as the +men of other ages distinguished in the sighing oak woods +and the rustling reeds the words of the great gods of +nature?</p> + +<p>To us music is no longer what it was to our grandfathers, +a mere pleasing woof of meaningless pattern; +we have left those times far behind, times whose great +masters were prophets uttering mere empty sounds to +their contemporaries; we have shaken off the dust of +the schools of counterpoint, we have thrown aside the +mechanical teachings of the art; for us music has become +an audible, quivering fata morgana of life, the embodiment +of the intangible, the expression of the inexplicable, +the realisation of the impossible. And it has become a +riddle, a something we would fain understand but cannot, +a spell of our own devising which we cannot +decipher; we sit listening to it as we sit looking into +the deep, dreamy eyes of an animal, full of some mute +language, which we vainly strive to comprehend.</p> + +<p>The animal seems as though it could say much if only +it could speak; so also music would seem to contain far +deeper meanings than any spoken word, to be fraught +with emotion deeper than we can feel: it could confide +so much if we could understand. Yet the animal is but +an animal, with some of our virtues and some of our +vices, infinitely more ignorant than we are; dumb, not +because we cannot understand, but because he cannot +speak. And may it not be the same with music? May +not music be intellectually inscrutable because it is intellectually +meaningless?</p> + +<p>The idea is one from which we shrink; but are we +right in shrinking from it? Cannot music be noble in +itself apart from any meaning it conveys? Cannot we +be satisfied with what it certainly is, without thinking of +what it may be? It would seem to be so; it is the +spirit of our culture to strain restlessly after the unknown, +for ever to seek after the hidden, to reject the visible and +tangible. We yearn to penetrate through the blue of +the summer evening, to thread our way among the +sun-gilded clouds; yet the blue heaven, if we rise into it, is +mere tintless air; the clouds, if we can touch them, are +mere dull vapour. And so also we would fain seek a +meaning in those fair sounds which are fairer than any +meaning they could contain; we would break down in +rude analysis the splendours of <i>Don Giovanni</i> only to +discover beneath them the story of a punished Lovelace; +we would tear to shreds a glorious fugue of Bach for the +satisfaction of hearing the Jews yelling for Barabbas.</p> + +<p>This is our tendency, this our way of enjoying the +great art of other days: to care not for itself, but for +what it suggests, nay, most often for the suggestion of +the mere name of the work of art, for there is no punished +Lovelace in Mozart's melodies, no Barabbas in +Bach's fugues, there is nothing but beautiful forms made +out of sounds. The old prosaic masters of the past, +who worked at a picture or a statue or an opera as a +cobbler works at a pair of shoes, never thought of suggesting +anything to us: they gave something substantial, +something intrinsically valuable, a well-shaped figure, a +richly tinted canvas, a boldly modulated piece of music; +to produce that and no more had been their object, it +was all they could give, and their contemporaries were +satisfied with it. Their art was their trade, pursued +conscientiously, diligently, intelligently, sometimes with +that superior degree of intelligence we call genius, but it +was their trade and no more. They themselves were +as prosaic as any artisan, and no more saw vague poetry +in their works, though these were the <i>Olympic Jove</i>, the +<i>School of Athens</i>, or the <i>Messiah</i>, than does the potter in +his pot or the smith in his iron; all they saw was that +their works were beautiful, as the potter sees that his pot +is round and smooth, and the smith that his blade is +bright and sharp. For the rest they were terribly prosaic, +terribly given up to the mechanical interests of their art +and the material interests of their lives, as you may +see them in Vasari, in the lives of Handel, of Bach, +of Haydn, of Mozart, of the last of true, unpoetic +musicians, Rossini, and as you would doubtless see the +unknown sculptors of antiquity if you could see them +at all.</p> + +<p>But the time came when the world, which had lived +off prose most heartily ever since the Middle Ages, grew +sick of such coarse mental food, and longed for unsubstantial +poetic ambrosia; the fact is, it was morally sick, +and took its strong intellectual food in disgust, and fancied +and yearned for impossible things, as sick men do. And +in its loathing for the common, the simple, the healthy, +the world took to eating the intellectual opium of +romanticism; it enjoyed and was plunged for awhile +in ineffable delights, such as only weakness can feel and +poison afford; the universe seemed to expand, the imagination +to grow colossal, the feelings to become supernaturally +subtle; all limits were removed, all impossibilities +became possibilities; the fancy roamed over endless and +ever varying tracts, and soared up into the clouds of the +unintelligible, and dived into the bottomless abyss of +chaos: all things quivered with a strange new life, with +a life in other lives, with an unceasing, ever changing +life; everything was not only itself but something else: +all was greater, higher, deeper, brighter, darker, sweeter, +bitterer, more ineffable than itself; it was a paradise of +Mahomet, of Buddha, of Dante; it was enjoyment keen, +subtle, intoxicating, which made the fancy swim, the +senses ache, and the soul faint. Then came the reaction, +the inevitable after-effect of the drug—depression, langour, +palsy, convulsion.</p> + +<p>About seventy years ago a great humourist, who +frittered away a quaint and fantastic genius in etching +grimacing caricatures, and scribbling gaunt ghost stories, +the once popular, now almost forgotten, Hoffmann, +looked on at this crisis in musical history, at this first intoxication +of romanticism; sympathised with its poetry, +its ludicrousness, and its sadness; embodied them all in +one grotesque, pathetic figure, and for the first and last +time in his life produced a masterpiece. The masterpiece +is his poor, half-mad musician, Johannes Kreisler, +"chapelmaster and cracked <i>musicus</i> par excellence," as +he signs his letters, the artist of incomplete genius, of +broken career, of poetic dreams and crazy fancies, who +used to go about dressed in a coat the colour of C sharp +minor, with an E major coloured collar. And of all the +glimpses Hoffmann has given us of Chapelmaster +Kreisler, none is so weirdly suggestive as that in which +we see him improvising on the piano at his club of +friends. The friends had met one evening expressly to +hear Kreisler's extemporary performance, and he was +just on the point of sitting down to the instrument, when +one of the company recollected that a lever had on a +previous occasion refused to do its duty. He took up a +light, and began his search for the refractory lever; when +suddenly, as he leaned over the interior of the piano a +heavy pair of brass snuffers crashed down from the +candlestick on to the strings, of which half a dozen instantly +snapped. The company began to exclaim at this +unlucky accident, which would deprive them of the +promised performance; but Chapelmaster Kreisler bade +them be of good cheer, for they should still hear what +was in his mind, as the bass strings remained intact.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Kreisler put on his little red skull cap and his Chinese dressing-gown, +and sat down to the piano, while a trusty friend extinguished +all the lights, so that the room remained in utter darkness. Then, +with the muffling pedal down, Kreisler struck the full chord of A +flat major, and spoke:</p> + +<p>"What is it that murmurs so strangely, so sweetly, around me? +Invisible wings seem to be heaving up and down. I am swimming +in perfume laden air. But the perfume shines forth in flaming, +mysteriously linked circles. Lovely spirits are moving their golden +pinions in ineffably splendid sounds and harmonies."</p> + +<p><i>Chord of A flat minor (mezzo forte).</i> "Ah, they are bearing me +off into the land of eternal desire, but even as they carry me, pain +awakes in my heart, and tries to escape, tearing my bosom with +violence."</p> + +<p><i>Chord of E major (third), forte.</i> "They have given me a splendid +crown, but that which sparkles and lightens in its diamonds are +the thousand tears which I shed; and in the gold shine the flames +which are devouring me. Valour and power, strength and faith, +for him who is called on to reign in the kingdom of spirits."</p> + +<hr class="tiny" /> + +<p><i>B major (accentuato).</i> "What a gay life in field and woodland +in the sweet springtide! All the flutes and pipes, which have lain +frozen to death in dusty corners throughout the winter, have now +awakened and remembered their best beloved melodies, which they +trill cheerfully like the birds in the air."</p> + +<p><i>B major with the diminished seventh (smanioso).</i> "A warm +west wind comes sullenly complaining, like some mysterious secret, +through the wood, and wherever it brushes past, the fir trees murmur, +the beeches murmur to each other: 'Wherefore has our +friend grown so sad?'"</p> + +<p><i>E flat major (forte).</i> "Follow him, follow him! His dress is +green like the dark wood—sweet sounds of horns are his sighing +words. Hearest him murmuring behind the bushes? Hearest +thou the sound? The sound of horns, full of delight and sadness? +'Tis he! up and meet him."</p> + +<p><i>D third, fourth, sixth, chord (piano).</i> "Life plays its mocking +game in all manner of fashions. Wherefore desire? Wherefore +hope? Wherefore demand?"</p> + +<p><i>C major (third) chord (fortissimo).</i> "Let us rather dance over +the open graves in wild rejoicing. Let us shout for joy, those beneath +cannot hear it. Hurrah, hurrah! Dance and jollity; the +devil is riding in with drums and trumpets."</p> + +<p><i>C minor chords (ff. in rapid succession).</i> "Knowest thou him +not? Knowest thou him not? See, he stretches forth his burning +claw to my heart! He masks himself in all sorts of absurd grimaces—as +a free huntsman, as a concert director, tapeworm doctor, <i>ricco +mercante</i>; he pitches snuffers into the strings to prevent my playing! +Kreisler, Kreisler, shake thyself up? Seest thou it hiding, the pale +ghost with the red burning eyes, stretching out its clawy, bony hand +from beneath its torn mantle—shaking the crown of straw on its +smooth bald skull? It is Madness! Johannes, be brave! Mad, mad, +witch-revelry of life, wherefore shakest thou me so in thy whirling +dance? Can I not escape? Is there no grain of dust in the universe +on which, diminished to a fly, I can save myself from thee, horrible +torturing phantom? Desist, Desist! I will behave. My manners +shall be the very best. <i>Hony soit qui mal y pense.</i> Only let me +believe the devil to be a <i>galantuomo</i>! I curse song and music; I +lick thy feet like the drunken Caliban; free me only from my torments! +Aï! Aï! abominable one! Thou hast trodden down all my flowers: +not a blade of grass still greens in the terrible desert—</p> + +<p>Dead! Dead! Dead!…"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>When Chapelmaster Kreisler ended, all were silent; +poetry, passionate, weird, and grotesque, had poured +from their friend's lips; a strange nightmare pageant +had swept by them, beautiful and ghastly, like a mad +Brocken medley of the triumph of Dionysos and the +dance of Death.</p> + +<p>They were all silent—all save one, and that one said: +"This is all very fine, but I was told we were to have +music; a good, sensible sonata of Haydn's—would have +been much more the thing than all this." He was a +Philistine, no doubt, but he was right; a good, sensible +sonata of Haydn's—nay, the stiffest, driest, most wooden +fugue ever written by the most crabbed professor of counterpoint +would have been far more satisfactory for +people who expected music. A most fantastic rhapsody +they had indeed heard, but it had been a spoken +one, and the best strings of the piano had remained hanging +snapped and silent during the performance.</p> + +<p>Poor Chapelmaster Kreisler! He has long been forgotten +by the world in general, and even those few that +still are acquainted with his weird portrait, smile at it as +at a relic of a far distant time, when life and art and all +other things looked strangely different from how they +look now. Yet the crazy musician of Hoffmann is but +the elder brother of all our modern composers. With +the great masters of the last century, Haydn, Mozart, +Cimarosa, who were scarcely in their graves when he improvised +his great word fantasia, he has no longer any +connection with our own musicians, born half a century +after his end, he is closely linked, for, like him, they are +romanticists. They do not indeed wear C sharp minor +coloured coats, nor do they improvise in the dark on +pianos with broken strings; they are perfectly sane and +conscious of all their doings; yet, all the same, they are +but Kreisler's younger brothers. Like the poor chapelmaster +of Hoffmann, music itself has a fantastic madness +in it; like him, it has been crazed by disappointment, +by jealousy, by impotent rage at finding that it cannot +now do what it once did, and cannot yet do what will +never be done; like Kreisler it deals no longer with +mere sequences of melody and harmony, but with +thoughts, feelings, and images, hopes and fears and despair, +with wild chaotic visions of splendour and of +ghastliness. But the position of our music differs from +that of Kreisler in this much, that no friendly pair of +snuffers crashes on to the strings and makes them fly +asunder; that, while Kreisler spoke, our music can only +play its fancies and whimsies; and that, instead of hearing +intelligible spoken words, we hear only musical +sounds which are gibberish and chaos.</p> + +<p>For the time when men sought in music only for +music's own loveliness is gone by; and the time has +come when all the arts trespass on each other's ground, +and, worst of all, when the arts which can give and show +envy poetry, the art which can neither give nor show +but only suggest, and when, for the sake of such suggestion, +they would cheat us of all the real gifts—gifts +of noble forms of line and colour, and sweet woofs of +melody and harmony which they once gave us. The +composer now wishes to make you see and feel all that +he sees and feels in his imagination, the woods and seas, +the joys and sorrows, all the confused day-dreams, sweet +and drowsy, all the nightmare orgies which may pass +through his brain; the sound has become the mere +vehicle for this, the weak, vague language which he can +only stammer and we can only divine; the artist breaks +violently against the restraint of form, thinking to attain +the unattainable beyond its limits, and sinks down +baffled and impotent amidst ruin.</p> + +<p>We are apt to think of music as of a sort of speech +until, on examination, we find it has no defined meaning +either for the speaker or for the listener. In reality, +music and speech are as different and as separate as +architecture and painting, as wholly opposed to each +other as only those two things can be which, having +started from the same point, have travelled in completely +opposite directions, like the two great rivers +which, originating on the same alp, flow respectively to +the north, and to the south, each acquiring a separate +character on its way—the one as the blue river of Germany, +ending amidst the tide-torn sandbanks of the +North Sea; the other as the green river of Provence, +dying amidst the stagnant pools and fever-haunted +marshes of the Mediterranean. As long as the Rhine +and the Rhone are not yet Rhine and Rhone, but merely +pools of snow-water among the glaciers, so long are they +indistinguishable; but as soon as separated into distinct +streams, their dissimilarity grows with every mile of +their diverging course. So as to speech and music: as +long as both exist only in embryo in the confused cries +and rude imitations of the child or of the primitive +people, they cannot be distinguished; but as soon as +they can be called either speech or music, they become +unlike and increase in dissimilarity in proportion as +they develop. The cry and the imitative sound become, +on the one hand, a word which, however rude, begins to +have an arbitrary meaning, and, on the other hand, a +song which, however uncouth, has no positive meaning; +the word, as it develops, acquires a more precise and +abstract signification, becomes more and more of a +symbol; the song, as it develops, loses definite meaning, +becomes more and more a complete unsymbolical form, +until at length the word, having become a thing for use, +a mere means of communication, ceases to require vocal +utterance, and turns into a written sign; while the song, +having become an object of mere pleasure, requires more +and more musical development, and is transported from +the lips of man to the strings of an instrument. But +while speech and music are thus diverging, while the one +is becoming more and more of an arbitrary symbol conveying +an abstract idea, and the other is growing more +and more into an artistic form conveying no idea, but +pleasing the mind merely by its concrete form—while +this divergence is taking place, a corresponding movement +accompanies it which removes both speech and +music farther and farther from their common origin: the +cry of passion and the imitative sound. The Rhone +and the Rhine are becoming not only less like each +other, but as the one becomes green and the other blue, +so also are both losing all trace of the original dull white +of the snow water. In the word, the cry and the imitation +are being effaced by arbitrary, symbolical use, by +that phonetic change which shows how little a word as +it exists for us retains of its original character; in the +song they are being subdued by constant attempts at +obtaining a more distinct and symmetrical shape, by the +development of the single sounds and their arrangement +with a view to pleasing the ear and mind. Yet both +retain the power of resuming to a limited extent their +original nature; but in proportion as the word or the +song resumes the characteristics of the cry or of the +imitation does each lose its own slowly elaborated value, +the word as a suggester of thought, the song as a presenter +of form. Now, in so far as the word is a word, or +the song a song, its effect on the emotions is comparatively +small: the word can awaken emotion only as +a symbol, that is, indirectly and merely suggestively; +the song can awaken emotion only inasmuch as it yet +partakes of the nature of the brute cry or rude imitation. +Thus, while language owes its emotional effects to the +ideas arbitrarily connected with it, music owes its power +over the heart to its sensuous elements as given by +nature. But music exists as an art, that is to say, as an +elaboration of the human mind, only inasmuch as those +sensuous brute elements are held in check and measure, +are made the slaves of an intellectual conception. The +very first step in the formation of the art is the subjection +of the emotional cry or the spontaneous imitation +to a process of acoustic mensuration, by which the +irregular sound becomes the regular, definite <i>note</i>; the +second step is the subjection of this already artificial +sound to mensuration of time, by which it is made +rhythmical; the third step is the subjection of this +rhythmical sound to a comparative mensuration with +other sounds, by which we obtain harmony; the last +step is adjustment of this artificially obtained note and +rhythm and harmony into that symmetrical and intellectually +appreciable form which constitutes the work +of art, for art begins only where the physical elements +are subjected to an intellectual process, and it exists +completely only where they abdicate their independence +and become subservient to an intellectual design.</p> + +<p>Music is made up of two elements: the intellectual and +the sensuous on the one hand, of that which is conceived +by the mind and perceived by the mind (for our +ears perceive only the separate constituent sounds of a +tune, but not the tune itself); on the other hand, of that +which is produced by the merely physical and +appreciated by the merely physical, by the nerves of hearing, +through which it may, but only indirectly, affect the +mind. Now if, from an artistic point of view, we must +protest against any degradation of the merely sensuous +part, it is because such a degradation would involve a +corresponding one in the intellectual part, because the +physical basis must be intact and solid before we can +build on it an intellectual structure, because the physical +element through which mentality is perceived must be +perfect in order that the mental manifestation be equally +so; but the physical must always remain a mere basis, +a mere vehicle for the mental. The enjoyment obtainable +from the purely physical part may indeed be very +great and very valuable, but it is a mere physical enjoyment; +and the pleasure we derive from a fine voice, as +distinguished from a fine piece or a fine interpretation, +is as wholly unartistic as that which we receive from a ripe +peach or a cool breeze: it is a purely sensuous pleasure, +given us ready-made by nature, to give or to perceive +which requires no mentality, in which there is no human +intention, and consequently no art. Now, the effect of +the cry or of the imitation, and that of certain other +manifestations of sound, such as tone, pitch, volume, +rhythm, major or minor intervals, which are cognate with, +but independent of, the cry or the imitation—the effect +of all this is an entirely sensuous one, an effect of unintelligent +matter on the nerves, not of calculating intelligence +on the mind, and it is to these physical effects, and +not to the mentally elaborated form, that music owes +its peculiar power of awaking or even of suggesting +emotion.</p> + +<p>That this is the case is shown by various circumstances. +The ancients, who, as is now proved beyond +dispute, possessed very little of the intellectual part of +music, little of what we should deem its form, enjoyed +its emotional effects to a far higher degree than could +we in our present musical condition; the stories of +Timotheus, Terpander, and other similar ones, being at +least founded on fact, as is evident from the continual +allusions of Greek writers to the moral or immoral effect +of the art, and their violent denunciations of people +whose only social crime was to have added a string to a +lyre or a hole to a flute. We ourselves have constant +opportunities of remarking the intense emotional effects +due to mere pitch, tone, and rhythm; that is to say, to +the merely physical qualities of number, nature, and repetition +of musical vibrations. We have all been cheered +by the trumpet and depressed by the hautboy; we have +felt a wistful melancholy steal over us while listening to +the drone of the bagpipe and the quaver of the flute of +the pifferari at the shrine; we have felt our heart beat +and our breath halt on catching the first notes of an +organ as we lifted the entrance curtain of some great +cathedral; we have known nothing more utterly harrowing +than a hurdy-gurdy playing a cheerful tune, or a +common accordion singing out a waltz or a polka. Nay, +it is worthy of remark that the instruments capable of +the greatest artistic development are just those which +possess least this power over the nerves: the whole violin +and harpsichord tribe, the human voice when sound and +natural—saying least themselves, are capable of saying +most for others; whereas the trumpet, the accordion, the +harp, the zither, are condemned by their very expressiveness +to a hopeless inferiority; they produce an effect +spontaneously by their mere tone; the artist can produce +on them but that effect, and can scarcely heighten even +it. A musical critic of the beginning of this century, +Giuseppe Carpani, wishing to defend Rossini from the +accusation of being unemotional, boldly laid down the +principle that it never is the composer who makes +people cry, but the author of the words and the singer. +As to the composer, he can only please, but not move.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Never (he says) were people more moved than by a certain scene +in Metastasio's <i>Araserse</i>, set by Mortellari, and sung by the famous +Pacchierotti (about 1780); and do you think perhaps that it was +Mortellari, who made them cry? Mortellari, the stupidest mediocrity, +<i>Dio l'abbia in gloria!</i> No, it was Metastasio and Pacchierotti, +the verse and the voice.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>This was a mere absurd exaggeration, and a mere +captious plea for Rossini, who, had he only had Metastasio +to write the words and Pacchierotti to sing, would +doubtless have moved the whole universe to tears, with +"Di tanti palpiti." Yet in this exaggeration, an important +truth has been struck out. This truth is that the +writer of the libretto, having at his disposal the clear, idea-suggesting +word, can bring up a pathetic situation before +the mind; that the singer, having at his command the +physical apparatus for producing an effect on the nerves, +can sensuously awaken emotion; while the composer, +possessing neither the arbitrary idea-suggesting word, +nor the nerve-moving sound, but only the artistic form, +can please to the utmost, but move only to a limited +degree.</p> + +<p>Thus, there is a once popular but now deservedly +forgotten air in the <i>Romeo e Giulietta</i> of Zingarelli, which +some seventy years ago possessed the most miraculous +power over what people called the heart, and especially +over the not too sensitive one of Napoleon, who, whenever +it was sung by his favourite Crescentini, invariably +burst into tears. The extraordinary part of the matter +is that this air happens to be peculiarly insipid, without +any very definite expression, but, on the whole, of a sort +of feeble cheerfulness, and certainly is the last piece that +we should judge capable of such deeply emotional effects. +But the situation of Romeo is an intensely pathetic one, +and it is probable that the singer's voice may have possessed +some strange power over the nerves, something of +the purely sensuous pathos of an accordion or a zither, +especially in the long, gradually diminished notes, "fine +by degrees and beautifully less," which move like an +Æolian harp. But, if the pathetic effect of "Ombra +adorata" could not be ascribed to the composition +neither could it be ascribed to the interpretation. For +this sensuous pathos, though enhanced by the singer's +intellectual qualities, in no way depends upon them; the +intellect can make him graduate and improve the form +of a piece, all that which is perceived by the mind, but it +has no influence on the nerves; Crescentini's musical intelligence +may have enabled him to make "Ombra +adorata" a beautiful song, but only his physical powers +of voice could have enabled him to make it a pathetic +one.</p> + +<p>As these physical elements are the material out of +which artistic forms are moulded by the musician, he +necessarily deals with and disposes of those powers over +the nerves which are inherent in them. When he creates +a musical form out of minor intervals, he necessarily +gives that form something of the melancholy effect of +such intervals; when he composes a piece with the +peculiar rhythm of a march, he necessarily gives his piece +some of the inspiriting power of that rhythm; when he +employs a hautboy or a trumpet, he necessarily lends his +work some of the depressing quality of the hautboy or +some of the cheering quality of the trumpet. Thus the +intellectually conceived and perceived forms are invested +with the power over the nerves peculiar to certain of the +physical elements of music; but it is in those component +physical elements, and not in the forms into which they +are disposed, that lies the emotional force of the art. +Nor is this all: the physical elements, inasmuch as they +are subdued and regulated and neutralized by one +another in the intellectual form, are inevitably deprived +of the full vigour of their emotional power; the artistic +form has tamed and curbed them, has forbidden their +freely influencing the nerves, while at the same time it—the +form—has exerted its full sway over the mind. +The mountains have been hewn into terraces, the +forests have been clipped into gardens, the waves have +been constrained into fountains, the thunder has been +tuned down into musical notes; nature has submitted +to man, and has abdicated her power into his hands. The +stormy reign of instinctive feeling has come to an end; +the serene reign of art has begun.</p> + +<p>In order to see these sensuous elements of music in +their unmixed purity, in their unbridled strength, we +must descend to the lowest stages of the art, compared +with whose emotional effects those of modern music are +as nothing, and least of all in the classic periods of the +art; but even in modern music, what really strong emotional +effects there may be are due to a momentary +suspension of artistic activity, to a momentary return to +the formless, physically touching music of early ages. +The most emotional thing ever written by Mozart is the +exclamation of Donna Elvira, when, after leaving Don +Giovanni at his ill-omened supper, she is met on the +staircase by the statue of the commander; this exclamation +is but one high, detached note, formless, meaningless, +which pierces the nerves like a blade; submit even +this one note to artistic action, bid the singer gradually +swell and diminish it, and you at once rob it of its terrible +power. This is Mozart's most emotional stroke; +but was a Mozart, nay, was any musician, necessary for +its conception? Would not that cry have been the same +if surrounded by true music? A contrary example, but +to the same effect, is afforded by Gluck in his great scene +of Orpheus at the gate of Hades, which may have moved +our great-grandfathers, accustomed to fugues and minuets +and <i>rigaudons</i>, but which seems coldly beautiful as some +white antique group to us, accustomed as we are to romantic +art. The <i>No!</i> of the Furies loses all its effects +by being worked into a definite musical form, by being +locked into the phrase begun by Orpheus; it is merely +a constituent note and no more, until after some time it +is repeated detached, and without any reference to the +main melody sung by Orpheus: at first it is part of a +work of art, later it becomes a mere brute shout, and +then, and then only, does it obtain a really moving character.</p> + +<p>When these potent physical elements are held in subjection +by artistic form, emotion may be suggested, more +or less vaguely, but only suggested: we perceive them +in the fabric which imprisons them, and we perceive their +power, but it is as we should perceive the power of a tiger +chained up behind a grating: we remember and imagine +what it has been and might be, but we no longer feel it; +for us to again feel it, the artistic form must be torn down; +the physical elements unchained, and then, and then +only, shall we tremble once more before them. Mozart +may be on his door-step as a regiment passes: he may +feel the inspiring, courage-awakening effect of its rough +rhythm and discordant, screeching trumpets: he may go +upstairs, sit down to his piano, make use of all those +sensuous elements, of the rhythm and of the wind instruments, +which have stirred him in that regimental +music: he may use them in a piece professedly suggested +by that music; the piece will be "Non più andrai," and +a masterpiece. We shall be reminded of military music +by it, and we shall be aware of the fact that its rhythm +and accompaniment are martial; we shall even call it a +martial piece; but will it stir us, will it make us step out +and feel soldier-like as would the coarsest regimental +trumpets? Jommelli may enter a cathedral as the bells +are tolling to mass, and all seems undulating and heaving +beneath their swing; he may feel the awful effect of those +simple, shapeless sounds: he may listen to their suggestion +and frame the opening of his Mass for the Dead +on that deep monotonous sway; he will produce a +masterpiece, the wondrous <i>Introitus</i> of his Requiem, in +which we shall indeed recognize something of the solemn +rhythm of the bells, something that will awaken in us +the recollection of that moment when the cathedral +towers seemed to rock to their movement, and the aisles +re-echoed their roar, and when even miles away in the +open country the clear deep toll floated across the silent +fields; but that effect itself we shall never hear in the +music. The artist has used the already existing emotional +elements for his own purposes, but those purposes +are artistic ones; they aim at delighting the mind, not +at tickling the nerves.</p> + +<p>The composer, therefore, inasmuch as he deprives the +emotional elements of music of their freedom and force +of action, cannot possibly produce an effect on the emotions +at all to be compared with that spontaneously +afforded by nature; he can imitate the rush of waters or +the sob of despair only so distantly and feebly that the +effect of either is well-nigh lost, and even for such an +imitation he must endanger the artistic value of his work, +which is safe only when it is the artist's sole aim and object. +The most that the composer can legitimately do +is to suggest a given emotion by employing in his intellectual +structure such among the physical elements of +his art as would in a state of complete freedom awaken +that given emotion; he may choose such sensuous elements +as would inspire melancholy, or joy, or serenity; +he may reject any contrary element or any incongruous +effect, and he may thus produce what we shall call a +pathetic piece, or a cheerful piece, or a solemn piece.</p> + +<p>But this pathetic, cheerful, or solemn character depends +not upon the intellectual forms imagined by the composer, +but upon the sensuous elements afforded by nature; +and the artistic activity of the composer consists in the +conception of those forms, not in the selection of those +physical elements. When, therefore, a composer is said +to express the words which he is setting, he does so by +means not of the creation of artistic forms, but by the +selection of sensuous materials; the suggestion of an +emotion analogous to that conveyed by the words is due +not to the piece itself, but to its physical constituents; +wherefore the artistic value of the composition in no way +depends upon its adaptation to the words with which it +is linked. There is no more common mistake, nor one +which more degrades artistic criticism, than the supposition +that the merit of "He was despised and rejected of +men," or of "Fin ch'an del vino," depends upon their +respective suitableness to the words: the most inferior +musician would perceive that such and such physical +elements were required to suggest a mental condition in +harmony with either of these verbal expressions of feeling; +the most inferior musician could have given us a +piece as melancholy as "He was despised," or as cheerful +as "Fin ch'an del vino," but—and here lies the unique +test of artistic worth—only Handel could have given us +so beautiful a melancholy piece as the one, and only +Mozart so beautiful a cheerful piece as the other. As it +is with the praise, so likewise is it with the blame: a +composer who sets a cheerful piece to dismal words, or +a dismal piece to cheerful words, may be reprehensible +for not reflecting that the mind thus receives together +two contrary impressions, and he may be condemned for +want of logic and good sense; but not a word can be +said against his artistic merit, any more than we could +say a word against the artistic merit of the great iron-worker +of the Renaissance, who closed the holy place +where lies the Virgin's sacred girdle with a screen of +passion flowers, in whose petals hide goats and ducks, +on whose tendrils are balanced pecking cranes, and in +the curling leaves of which little naked winged Cupids +are drawing their bows and sharpening their arrows even +as in the bas-reliefs of a pagan sarcophagus. In the free +and spontaneous activity of musical conception, the +composer may forget the words he is setting, as the +painter may forget the subject he is painting in the +fervour of plastic imagination; for the musician conceives +not emotions, but modulations; and the painter +conceives not actions, but gestures and attitudes. +Thence it comes that Mozart has made regicide Romans +storm and weep as he would have made Zerlina and +Cherubino laugh, just as Titian made Magdalen smite +her breast in the wilderness with the smile of Flora on +her feast-day; hence that confusion in all save form, +that indifference to all save beauty, which characterises +all the great epochs of art, that sublime jumble of times +and peoples, of tragic and comic, that motley crowding +together of satyrs and anchorites, of Saracens and ancient +Romans, of antique warriors and mediæval burghers, +of Gothic tracery and Grecian arabesque, of Theseus and +Titania, of Puck and Bottom, that great masquerade of +art which we, poor critics, would fain reduce to law and +rule, to chronological and ethnological propriety.</p> + +<p>Those times are gone by: we wish to make every +form correspond with an idea; we wish to be told a story +by the statue, by the picture, most of all by that which can +least tell it—by music. We forget that music is neither +a symbol which can convey an abstract thought, nor a +brute cry which can express an instinctive feeling; we +wish to barter the power of leaving in the mind an indelible +image of beauty for the miserable privilege of +awakening the momentary recollection of one of nature's +sounds, or the yet more miserable one of sending a +momentary tremor through the body; we would rather +compare than enjoy, and rather weep than admire. +Therefore we try to force music to talk a language which +it does not speak and which we do not understand; and +succeed only in making it babble like a child or rave +like a madman, obtaining nothing but unintelligible and +incoherent forms in our anxiety to obtain intelligible +and logical thoughts. We forget that great fact, forever +overlooked by romanticism, that poetry and music are +essentially distinct in their nature; that Chapelmaster +Kreisler's improvisation was not played but spoken; and +that had not the snuffers fallen into the piano, had not +the strings snapped asunder, Hoffmann would have had +to record, not a grandly grotesque series of images, but a +succession of formless and meaningless chords.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch6" id="ch6"></a>CHERUBINO.</h3> + +<h5>A PSYCHOLOGICAL ART FANCY.</h5> +<p> </p> + +<p>It is a strange and beautiful fact that whatsoever is +touched by genius, no matter how humble in itself, becomes +precious and immortal. This wrinkled old woman +is merely one of thousands like herself, who have sat +and will sit by the great porcelain stove of the Dutch +backshop, their knitting or their bible on their knees. +There is nothing to make her recollected; yet we know +her after two centuries, even as if we had seen her alive, +because, with a few blurred lines and shadows hastily +scratched on his etching plate, it pleased the whim of +Master Rembrandt to pourtray her. And this little +commonplace Frankfurt shopkeeper's maiden, in her +stiff little cap and starched frill, who should remember +her? Yet she is familiar to us all, because she struck +the boyish fancy of Goethe. For even as the fact of its +once having sparkled on the waistcoat of Mozart makes +us treasure up a tarnished brass button; and as the +notion of their having been planted by the hand of +Michael Angelo made us mourn the cutting down of a +clump of sear and rusty old cypresses, so also the fact of +having been noticed, noted down by genius, with brush, +or pen, or chisel, makes into relics men and things +which would else have been forgotten; because the +stroke of that pen, or brush, or chisel removes them +from the perishable world of reality to the deathless +world of fancy. Nay, even the beautiful things, the +perfect, physically or morally, of the world, those which +called forth admiration and love as long as they existed: +Antinous and Monna Lisa, Beatrice and Laura, would +now be but a handful of nameless dust, were it not for +the artists and poets who have made them live again and +for ever: the deeds and sufferings of the Siegfrieds and +Cids, of the Desdemonas and Francescas, would have +died away had they not been filched out of the world of +reality into the world of fiction. And even as the +perishable, the humble, the insignificant reality becomes +enduring and valuable by the touch of genius; so also in +the very world of fiction itself the intellectual creations +of one man may be raised to infinitely higher regions by +the hand of another, may be transported into the kingdom +of another and nobler art, and there be seen more +universally and surrounded by a newly acquired radiance. +In this manner the tale of Romeo and Juliet, graciously +and tenderly narrated by the old Italian story-teller, was +transfigured by Shakespeare and enshrined in all the +splendours of Elizabethan poetry; the figure of Psyche, +delicately graceful in the little romance of Apuleius, reappeared, +enlarged and glorified by the hand of Raphael, +on the walls of the Farnesina; and thus also our Cherubino, +the fanciful and brilliant creature of Beaumarchais, +is known to most of us far less in his original shape than +in the vague form woven out of subtle melodies to which +Mozart has given the page's name. Mozart has, as it +were, taken away Cherubino from Beaumarchais; he has, +for the world at large, substituted for the page of the +comedy the page of the opera. Beaumarchais could +give us clear-spoken words, dialogue and action, a visible +and tangible creature; and Mozart could give only a +certain arrangement of notes, a certain amount of rhythm +and harmony, a vague, speechless, shapeless thing; yet +much more than the written words do those notes represent +to our fancy the strange and fascinating little +figure, the wayward, the amorous, the prankish, the +incarnation of childishness, of gallantry, of grace, of fun, +and of mischief, the archetype of pages—the page +Cherubino. What could music do for Cherubino? of +what means could it dispose to reproduce this type, +this figure? and how did, how should music have disposed +of those means? About this fantastic and +brilliant little jackanapes of a page centres a curious +question of artistic anomaly, of artistic power, and of +artistic duty.</p> + +<p>The part of Cherubino: the waywardness, the love, the +levity, the audacity, the timidity, the maturity and +immaturity of the page's feelings, are all concentrated +by the admirable ingenuity of the Venetian D'Aponte, +who arranged Beaumarchais's play for Mozart's music, +into one air, the air sung by Cherubino in that very +equivocal interview with the Countess and Susanna, so +rudely to be broken by the thundering rap of the Count +at the door. The air is "Voi che sapete"—Cherubino's +description, half to the noble and sentimental lady, half +to the flippant and laughing waiting-maid, of the curious +symptoms, the mysterious hankerings, and attractions +which the boy has of late begun to experience—symptoms +of which he is half ashamed, as calculated to +bring down laughter and boxes on the ear, and half +proud, mischievously conscious that they make him a +personage for all this womankind. Every one has heard +"Voi che sapete" sung a hundred times by dozens of +singers in dozens of fashions, till it has become in the +recollection a sort of typical jumble of all these various +readings; but we once chanced to hear a reading of +"Voi che sapete" which has remained strangely distinct +and separate in our remembrance; which made that +performance of the hackneyed piece remain isolated in +our mind, almost as if the air had never before or never +since been heard by us. The scene of the performance +has remained in our memory as a whole, because the +look, the attitude, the face of the performer seemed to +form a whole, a unity of expression and character, with the +inflexions of the voice and the accentuation of the words. +She was standing by the piano: a Spanish Creole, but, +instead of the precocious, overblown magnificence of +tropical natures, with a something almost childlike +despite seriousness, something inflexible, unexpanded, +unripe about her; quite small, slender, infinitely slight +and delicate; standing perfectly straight and motionless +in her long, tight dress of ashy rose colour; her little +dark head with its tight coils of ebony hair perfectly +erect; her great dark violet-circled eyes, with their perfect +ellipse of curved eyebrow meeting curved eyelash, +black and clear against the pale, ivory-tinted cheek, +looking straight before her; self-unconscious, concentrated, +earnest, dignified, with only a faint fluttering +smile, to herself, not to the audience, about the mouth. +She sang the page's song in a strange voice, sweet and +crisp, like a Cremonese violin, with a bloom of youth, +scarcely mature yet perfect, like the honey dust of the +vine-flower; sang the piece with an unruffled serenity, +with passion, no limpness or languor, but passion restrained, +or rather undeveloped; with at most a scarcely +perceptible hesitation and reticence of accent, as of +budding youthful emotion; her voice seeming in some +unaccountable manner to move in a higher, subtler +stratum of atmosphere, as it dextrously marked, rounded +off, kissed away each delicate little phrase. When she +had done, she gave a slight bow with her proud little +head, half modestly and half contemptuously, as, with +her rapid, quiet movement, she resumed her seat; she +probably felt that despite the applause, her performance +did not really please. No one criticised, for there was +something that forbade criticism in this solemn little +creature; and every one applauded, for every one felt +that her singing had been admirable. But there was no +warmth of admiration, no complete satisfaction: she had +sung with wonderful delicacy and taste and feeling; her +performance had been exquisitely finished, perfect; but +something familiar, something essential had been missing. +She had left out Cherubino: she had completely forgotten +and passed over the page.</p> + +<p>How was it? How could it be that the something +which we felt was the nature of the page, the something +which even the coarsest, poorest performers had brought +out in this piece, had completely disappeared in this +wonderfully perfect rendering by this subtle little singer? +Perhaps the rendering had been only materially perfect: +perhaps it was merely the exquisite tone of the voice, +the wonderful neatness of execution which had given it +an appearance of completeness; perhaps the real meaning +of the music had escaped her; perhaps there was +behind all this perfection of execution only a stolid +dulness of nature, to which the genius of Mozart was +not perceptible. None of all these possibilities and probabilities: +the chief characteristic of the performance +was exactly the sense of perfect musical intuition, of +subtle appreciation of every little intonation, the sense +that this docile and exquisite physical instrument was +being played upon by a keen and unflinching artistic +intelligence. The more you thought over it, the more +you compared this performance with any other performance +of the piece, the more also did you feel convinced +that this was the right, the only right reading of +the piece; that this strange, serious little dark creature +had given you the whole, the perfection of Mozart's conception; +no, there could be no doubt of it, this and this +alone was Mozart's idea of "Voi che sapete." Mozart's +idea? the whole of Mozart's conception? here, in this +delicate, dignified, idyllic performance? The whole? +Why then, where, if this was the whole of Mozart's conception, +where was Cherubino, where was the page? +Why, nowhere. Now that the song had been presented +to us in its untampered perfection, that the thought of +the composer was clear to us—now that we could begin +to analyse the difference between this performance and +the performances of other singers—we began to see, +vaguely at first and not without doubts of our powers of +sight, but to see, and more and more distinctly the +longer we looked, that Cherubino was not in Mozart's +work, but merely in Beaumarchais. A very singular +conclusion to arrive at, but one not to be shirked: +Cherubino had passed into the words of Mozart's Italian +libretto, he had passed into the dress, the face, the +feature, the action of the thousands of performers who +had sung the "Marriage of Figaro" on the stage; but +he had not passed into Mozart's notes; and because he +had not entered into those notes, that subtle and serious +little Spaniard, who had seen and understood so well the +meaning and beauty of Mozart's music, had known +nothing of Cherubino.</p> + +<p>Now, after all this discussion respecting his presence +and his absence, let us stay awhile and examine into the +being of this Cherubino, so familiar and so immediately +missed by us; let us look at the page, whom the clever +playwright D'Aponte transported, with extraordinary +success, out of the French comedy into the Italian opera +text. Very familiar to all of us, yet, like the things +most familiar, rather vaguely; seen often and in various +lights, fluctuating consequently in our memory, as distinguished +from the distinct and steadfast image of +things seen only once and printed off at a stroke on to +our mind. At the first glance, when we see him sitting +at the feet of the Countess, singing her his love songs, he +seems a delicate poetic exotic, whose presence takes us +quite aback in the midst of the rouged and pigtailed +philosophy, the stucco and tinsel sentimentality of the +French eighteenth century. In these rooms, all decorated +by Boucher and Fragonard, in this society redolent +with the theories of Diderot and the jests of Voltaire, this +page, this boy who is almost a girl, with his ribbons and +his ballads, his blushes, his guitar, and his rapier, appears +like a thing of long past days, or of far distant countries; +a belated brother of Shakspeare's Cesario and Fletcher's +Bellario, a straggler from the Spain of Lope de Vega, +who has followed M. Caron de Beaumarchais, ex-watchmaker +and ex-musicmaster to Mesdames the daughters +of Louis XV., from Madrid, and leaped suddenly on to +the planks of the Comédie Française … a ghost of +some mediæval boy page, some little Jehan de Saintré +killed crusading with his lady's name on his lips. Or is +not Cherubino rather a solitary forerunner of romanticism, +stumbled untimely into this France of Marie Antoinette; +some elder brother of Goethe's Mignon … +nay, perhaps Mignon herself, disguised as or metamorphosed +into a boy…. But let us look well at him: +let him finish his song and raise his audacious eyes; let +him rise and be pulled to and fro, bashful with false +bashfulness half covering his mischievous, monkish impudence, +while Susanna is mumming him up in petticoats +and kerchiefs; let us look at him again now, and +we shall see that he is no Jehan de Saintré, no male +Mignon, no Viola in boy's clothes, no sweetly pure little +romantic figure, but an impertinent, precocious little +Lovelace, a serio-comic little jackanapes, sighing and +weeping only to giggle and pirouette on his heels the +next moment. From the Countess he will run to the +gardener's daughter, from her to the waiting-maid, to +the duenna, to all womankind; he is a professed lady-killer +and woman-teaser of thirteen. There is indeed +something graceful and romantic in the idea of this +pretty child consoling, with his poetical, absurd love, the +poor, neglected, ill-used lady. But then he has been +smuggled in by that dubious Abigail, Susanna; the +sentimental, melancholy Countess is amused by dressing +him up in women's clothes; and when, in the midst of +the masquerade, the voice of the Count is heard without, +the page is huddled away into a closet, his presence is +violently denied, and the Countess admits her adored +though fickle lord with a curious, conscious, half-guilty +embarrassment. We feel vaguely that Shakspeare would +never have introduced his boy Ganymede or his page +Cesario into that dressing-room of the Countess Almaviva; +that the archly jesting Maria would never have +dreamed of amusing the Lady Olivia with such mummings; +we miss in this proudly sentimental lady, in this +sly waiting-woman, in this calf-loving dressed-up boy +the frank and boisterous merriment of Portia and Nerissa +in their escapades and mystifications; there is in all this +too much locking of doors and drawing of curtains, too +much whispered giggling, too little audible laughter; +there hangs an indefinable sense of impropriety about +the whole scene. No, no, this is no delicate and gracious +young creature of the stock of Elizabethan pages, no +sweet exotic in the France of 1780; this Cherubino is +merely a graceful, coquettish little Greuze figure, with +an equivocal simplicity, an ogling <i>naïveté</i>, a smirking +bashfulness, a hidden audacity of corruption; a creature +of Sterne or Marivaux, tricked out in imitation Mediæval +garb, with the stolen conscious wink of the eye, the +would-be childlike smile, tinged with leer, of eighteenth +century gallantry. He is an impertinent, effeminate, +fondled, cynical little jackanapes; the youngest, childish, +monkeyish example, at present merely comic and contemptible, +of the miserable type of young lovers given +to France by the eighteenth century; the <i>enfant du +siècle</i>, externally a splendid, brilliant, triumphant success, +internally a miserable, broken, unmanned failure; the +child initiated into life by cynicism, the youth educated +to love by adultery; corrupt unripeness; the most +miserable type of demoralisation ever brought into +literature, the type of Fortunio and Perdican, and of +their author Alfred de Musset; a type which the Elizabethans, +with their Claudios and Giovannis, could not +have conceived; which the Spaniards, with their Don +Juans and Ludovic Enios, would have despised, they +who had brought on to the stage profligacy which +bearded death and hell, turning with contempt from +profligacy which could be chastised only with the birch. +Cherubino is this: his love is no poetic and silly passion +for a woman much older than himself, before whom he +sinks on his knees as before a goddess; it is the instinct +of the lady-killer, the instinct of adventures, the consciousness +in this boy of thirteen that all womankind is +his destined prey, his game, his quarry. And womankind +instinctively understands and makes the Lovelace +of thirteen its darling, its toy, its kitten, its pet monkey, +all whose grimacings and coaxings and impertinences +may be endured, enjoyed, encouraged. He is the graceful, +brilliant, apish Ariel or Puck of the society whose +Mirandas and Titanias are Julie and Manon Lescaut; +he is the page of the French eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>Such is, when we analyse him, the page Cherubino; +looking at him carelessly, with the carelessness of familiarity, +these various peculiarities escape our notice; they +merge into each other and into the whole figure. But +although we do not perceive them consciously and in +detail, we take in, vaguely and unconsciously, their total +effect: we do not analyse Cherubino and classify his +qualities, we merely take him in as a general type. And +it is this confused and familiar entity which we call the +page, and which we expect to have brought home to us +as soon as we hear the first notes, as we see the title of +"Voi che sapete." It is this entity, this character thus +vaguely conceived, which forms for us an essential part +of Mozart's music; and whose absence from that music +made us feel as if, despite the greatest musical perfection, +Mozart's idea were not completely given to us. +Yet, in reality, this psychological combination called +Cherubino does not exist in the work of Mozart. It exists +only by the side of it. We speak of the "Marriage +of Figaro" as Mozart's work; we are accustomed to +think of the Countess, of Figaro, of Susanna, of Cherubino +as belonging to Mozart; but in reality only one +half of the thing we call the "Marriage of Figaro" belongs +to Mozart—that half which consists in melodies +and harmonies; and as it happens, it is not in that, but +in the other half belonging to Beaumarchais and +D'Aponte, the half consisting of words and their suggestions +of character, of expression and of movement, that +really exists, either the Countess, or Figaro, or Susanna, +or Cherubino. Those notes, which alone are Mozart's +and which are nothing more than notes, have been heard +by us in the mouths of many women dressed and acting +as Beaumarchais's characters; they have been heard by +us associated to the words of Beaumarchais; they have +been heard delivered with the dramatic inflections suggested +not by themselves but by those words; and thus, +by mere force of association, of slovenly thought and +active fancy, we are accustomed to consider all these +characters as existing in the music of Mozart, as being +part and parcel of Mozart's conception; and when we +are presented with those notes, which, to the musician +Mozart, were merely notes without those dramatic inflections +suggested solely by Beaumarchais's words, when +we hear in "Voi che sapete" only Mozart's half of the +work, we are disappointed and indignant, and cry out +that the composer's idea has been imperfectly rendered.</p> + +<p>Cherubino, we say, is not in Mozart's half of the work; +he is in the words, not in the music. Is this a fault or a +merit? is it impotence in the art or indifference in the +artist? Could Mozart have given us Cherubino? and if +able, ought he to have given him? The question is +double; a question of artistic dynamics, and a question +of artistic ethics: the question what can art do; and the +question what art ought to do. The first has been +answered by the scientific investigations of our own +scientific times; the second has been answered by the +artistic practice of the truly artistic days of music. The +questions are strangely linked together, and yet strangely +separate; and woe betide us if we receive the answer to +the one question as the answer to the other; if we let +the knowledge of what things are serve us instead of the +instinct of what things should do; if we let scientific +analysis step into the place of ethical or æsthetical judgment; +and if, in the domain of art or of morals we think +to substitute a system of alembics and microscopes for +that strange intangible mechanism which science tells us +does not exist, and which indeed science can never see +or clutch, our soul. For science has a singular contempt +for all that is without its domain; it seeks for truth, but +when truth baffles and eludes it, science will turn towards +falsehood; it will deny what it cannot prove, and call +God himself a brain-phantom because he cannot be +vivisected. So, when logic, which can solve only logical +propositions, remains without explanation before the +dicta of the moral and æsthetic parts of us, it simply +denies the existence of such dicta and replaces them by +its own formulæ; if we ask for the aim of things and +actions, it tells us their origin; if we trustingly ask when +we should admire beauty and love virtue, it drops the +rainbow into its crucible to discover its chemical components, +and dissects the brain of a saint to examine the +shape of its convolutions; it meets admiration and love +with experiment and analysis, and, where we are required +to judge, tells us we can only examine. Thus, as +in ethics, so also in æsthetics, modern philosophy has +given us the means instead of the aim, the analysis instead +of the judgment; let us therefore ask it only how +much of human character and emotion music <i>can</i> express; +the question how much of it music <i>ought</i> to +express must be answered by something else: by that +artistic instinct whose composition and mechanism and +origin scientific psychology may perhaps some day explain, +but whose unformulated, inarticulate, half-unconscious +dicta all the scientific and logical formulæ in +the world can never replace. As yet, however, we have +to deal only with the question how much of human +character and emotion music can express, and by what +means it does so; and here modern psychology, or +rather the genius of Herbert Spencer, is able to answer +us. Why does dance music cheer us, and military music +inspirit us, and sacred music make us solemn? A +vague sense of the truth made æstheticians answer, for +well-nigh two centuries, "by the force of association." +Dance music cheers us because we are accustomed +to hear it in connection with laughing and quips +and cranks; military music inspirits us because we are +accustomed to hear it in connection with martial +movements and martial sights; sacred music depresses us +because we are accustomed to hear it at moments when +we are contemplating our weakness and mortality; +'tis a mere matter of association. To this easy-going +way of disposing of the problem there was an evident +and irrefutable objection: but why should we be accustomed +to hear a given sort of music in connection with +these various conditions of mind? Why should dance +music, and martial music, and sacred music all have +a perfectly distinct character, which forbade, from the +very first, their being exchangeable? If it is a matter +of association of ideas, tell us why such characters +could have been kept distinct before the association +of ideas could have begun to exist? To this objection +there was no reply; the explanation of musical +expression by means of association of ideas seemed +utterly hollow; yet the confused idea of such an association +persisted. For it was, after all, the true explanation. +If we ask modern psychology the reason of the +specific characters of the various sorts of music, we +shall again be answered: it is owing to the association +of ideas. But the two answers, though apparently +identical, are in fact radically different. The habit +of association existed, according to the old theory, +between various mental conditions and various sorts of +music, because the two were usually found in connection; +hence no explanation why, before habit had created +the association, there should have been any connection, +and, there being no connection, no explanation why the +habit and consequently the mental association should +ever have been formed. According to the modern +theory, on the contrary, the habit of association is not +between the various mental conditions and the various +styles of music; but between specific mental conditions +and specific sounds and movements, which sounds and +movements, being employed as the constituent elements +of music, give to the musical forms into which they have +been artistically arranged that inevitable suggestion of a +given mental condition which is due to memory, and +become, by repetition during thousands of years, an instinct +ingrained in the race and inborn in the individual, +a recognition rapid and unconscious, that certain audible +movements are the inevitable concomitants of certain +moral conditions. The half-unconscious memory become +part and parcel of the human mind, that, just as certain +mental conditions induce a movement in the muscles +which brings tears into the eye or a knot into the throat, +so also certain audible movements are due to the muscular +tension resulting from mental buoyancy, and certain +others to the muscular relaxation due to mental +depression, this half-unconscious memory, this instinct, +this inevitable association of ideas, generated long before +music existed even in the most rudimentary condition, +carried with the various elements of pitch, movement, +sonority, and proportion into the musical forms constructed +out of these elements, this unconscious association +of ideas, this integrated recollection of the inevitable +connection between certain sounds and certain passions +is the one main cause and explanation of the expressiveness +of music. And when to it we have added the conscious +perception, due to actual comparison, of the +resemblance between certain modes of musical delivery +and certain modes of ordinary speaking accentuation, +between certain musical movements and certain +movements of the body in gesticulation; when we have completed +the instinctive recognition of passion, which makes +us cry or jump, we know not why, by the rapidly +reasoned recognition of resemblance between the utterance +of the art and the utterance of human life, which, +when we listen for instance to a recitative, makes us say, +"This sentence is absolutely correct in expression," or, +"No human being ever said such a thing in such a +manner;" when we have the instinctive perception of +passion, and the conscious perception of imitation; and +we have added to these two the power of tone and harmony, +neither of them connected in any way with the +expression of emotion, but both rendering us, by their +nervous stimulant, infinitely more sensitive to its expression; +when we have all this, we have all the elements +which the musician can employ to bring home to +us a definite state of mind; all the mysterious unspoken, +unwritten words by means of which Mozart can describe +to us what Beaumarchais has described in clear, logical, +spoken, written words—the page Cherubino.</p> + +<p>Now let us see how much of Cherubino can be shown +us by these mere musical means. Cherubino is childish, +coquettish, sentimental, amorous, timid, audacious, fickle; +he is self-conscious and self-unconscious, passionately +troubled in mind, impudently cool in manner; he is +brazen, calm, shy, fluttered; all these things together. +Sometimes in rapid alternation, sometimes all together +in the same moment; and in all this he is perfectly consistent, +he is always one and the same creature. How +does the playwright contrive to make us see all this? +By means of combinations of words expressing one or +more of these various characteristics, by subtle phrases +woven out of different shades of feeling, which glance in +irridescent hues like a shot silk, which are both one thing +and another; by means also of various emotions cunningly +adapted to the exact situation, from the timid +sentimentality before the countess, down to the audacious +love-making with the waiting-maid; by means, in short, +of a hundred tiny strokes, of words spoken by the page +and of the page, by means of dexterously combined +views of the boy himself, and of the reflection of the boy +in the feelings of those who surround him. Thus far the +mere words in the book; but these words in the book +suggest a thousand little inflections of voice, looks, gestures, +movements, manners of standing and walking, +flutter of lips and sparkle of eyes, which exist clear +though imaginary in the mind of the reader, and become +clearer, visible, audible in the concrete representation of +the actor.</p> + +<p>Thus Cherubino comes to exist. A phantom of the +fancy, a little figure from out of the shadow land of +imagination, but present to our mind as is this floor upon +which we tread, alive as is this pulse throbbing within +us. Ask the musician to give us all this with his mere +pitch, and rhythm and harmony and sonority; bid him +describe all this in his language. Alas! in the presence +of such a piece of work the musician is a mere dumb +cripple, stammering unintelligible sounds, tottering +through abortive gestures, pointing we know not whither, +asking we know not for what. Passionate music? And +is not Othello passionate? Coquettish music? and is +not Susanna coquettish? Tender music? and is not +Orpheus tender? Cool music? and is not Judas Maccabæus +cool? Impudent music? And is not the snatch +of dance tune of a Parisian grisette impudent? And +which of these sorts of music shall fit our Cherubino, be +our page? Shall we fuse, in wonderful nameless abomination +of nonsense, all these different styles, these different +suggestions, or shall, as in a masquerade, this dubious +Cherubino never seen with his own face and habit, appear +successively in the musical trappings of Othello, of +Orpheus, of Susanna, of Judas Maccabæus, and of the +Grisette? Shall we, by means of this fusion, or this +succession of musical incongruities, have got one inch +nearer to Cherubino? Shall we, in listening to the mere +wordless combination of sounds, be able to say, as we +should with the book or the actors before us, this is +Cherubino? What, then, can music give us, with all its +powers of suggestion and feeling, if it cannot give us +this? It can give us one thing, not another: it can give +us emotion, but it cannot give us the individual whom +the emotion possesses. With its determined relations +between the audible movement and the psychical movement, +it can give us only musical gesture, but never +musical portrait; the gesture of composure or of violence, +the solemn tread of self-possessed melody, the scuffling +of frantically rushing up and down, of throbbing, quivering, +gasping, passion-broken musical phrases; it can give +us the rhythm which prances and tosses in victory, and +the rhythm which droops, and languishes, and barely +drags itself along for utter despair. All this it can give +us, even as the painter can give the ecstatic bound-forwards +of Signorelli's "Calling of the Blessed," or the +weary, dreary enfolding in gloomy thought of Michael +Angelo's "Jeremiah:" this much, which we can only +call gesture, and which expresses only one thing, a mood. +Let the hopeful heroes of Signorelli, stretching forth impetuous +arms towards Paradise, only lose sight of the +stately viol-playing angels who guide them, let them +suddenly see above them the awful sword of the corsleted +Angel of Judgment, and they will sink, and grovel, and +writhe and their now up-turned faces will be draggled +in the dust; let the trumpet of warfare and triumph +shrill in the ear of Michael Angelo's "Jeremiah," and the +dreary dream will be shaken off; he will leap up, and the +compressed hand-gagged mouth will open with the yell +of battle; let only the emotion change, and the whole +gesture, the attitude, plastic or musical, must change +also; the already existing, finite, definite work will no +longer suffice; we must have a new picture, or statue, or +piece of music. And in these inexplicit arts of mere +suggestion, we cannot say, as in the explicit art of +poetry, this grovelling wretch is a proud and hopeful +spirit; this violent soldier is a vague dreamer; this +Othello, who springs on Desdemona like a wild beast, +loves her as tenderly as a mother does her child. Unliterary +art, plastic or musical, is inexorable: the man +who grovels is no proud man; the man who fells down +to the right and left, is no dreamer; the man whose whole +soul is wrath and destruction, is no lover; the mood is the +mood; art can give only it; and the general character, +the connection between moods, the homogeneous something +which pervades every phase of passion, however +various, escapes the powers of all save the art which can +speak and explain. How then obtain our Cherubino, +our shiftiest and most fickle of pages? How? Why, +by selecting just one of his very many moods, the one +which is nearest allied to fickleness and volubility; the +mood which must most commonly be the underlying, +the connecting one, the mood into which all his swagger +and sentiment sooner or later resolve; the tone of voice +into which his sobs will quickest be lost, the attitude +which will soonest replace the defiant strut; the frame +of mind which, though one and indivisible itself, is the +nearest to instability: levity.</p> + +<p>Let Cherubino sing words of tenderness and passion, +of audacity and shyness, to only one sort of music, to +light and careless music; let the jackanapes be for ever +before us, giggling and pirouetting in melody and rhythm; +it will not be Cherubino, the whole Cherubino; it will be +only a miserable fragmentary indication of him, but it +will be the right indication; the psychological powers of +music do not go far, but thus far they can go. Analysis +of the nature of musical expression has shown us how +much it may accomplish; the choice of the artist alone +can tell us how much it should accomplish; the scientific +investigation is at an end, the artistic judgment must +begin. Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, here +are your means of musical expression, and here is the +thing to be expressed; on careful examination it appears +distinctly that the only way in which, with your melodies, +rhythms, and harmonies, you can give us, not a copy, but +a faint indicative sketch, something approaching the +original as much as four lines traced in the alley sand of +your Schloss Mirabell Gardens at Salzburg resemble the +general aspect of the Mirabell Palace; that the only +way in which you can give us such a distantly approximative….</p> + +<p>Signor Maestro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vice-Chapelmaster +of His Most Reverend Highness the +Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, has meanwhile sat down +at his table near his thin-legged spinet, with the bird-cage +above and the half-emptied beer-glass at his side; and +his pen is going scratch, scratch, scratch as loud as +possible.</p> + +<p>"The only way in which you can possibly give us +such a distantly approximative copy of the page Cherubino +as shown" … (Scratch, scratch, scratch goes the +pen on the rough music paper), "as shown in the words +of Beaumarchais and of your librettist D'Aponte, is to +compose music of the degree of levity required to express +the temper <i>jackanapes</i>."</p> + +<p>The Chapelmaster Mozart's pen gives an additional +triumphant creak as its point bends in the final flourish +of the word <i>finis</i>; Chapelmaster Mozart looks up—</p> + +<p>"What was that you were saying about jackanapes? +Oh, yes, to be sure, you were saying that literary folks +who try to prescribe to musicians are jackanapes, weren't +you? Now, do me the favour, when you go out, just take +this to the theatre copyist; they are waiting in a hurry +for Cherubino's song…. Yes, that was all very interesting +about the jackanapes and all the things music can +express…. Who would have thought that musical +expression is all that? Lord, Lord, what a fine thing it +is to have a reasoning head and know all about the +fundamental moods of people's characters! My dear +sir, why don't you print a treatise on the musical interpretation +of the jackanapes and send it to the University +of Vienna for a prize? that would be a treatise for you! +Only do be a good creature and take this song at once +to the copyist…. I assure you I consider you the +finest musical philosopher in Christendom."</p> + +<p>The blotted, still half-wet sheet of note paper is +handed across by Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus +Mozart. It is the manuscript of "Voi che sapete."</p> + +<p>"But dearest Chapelmaster Mozart, the air which you +have just written appears to be not in the least degree +light—it is even extremely sentimental. How can you, +with such phrases, express the Cherubino of Beaumarchais?"</p> + +<p>"And who, my dear Mr. Music Philosopher, who the +deuce told you that I wanted to express the Cherubino +of Beaumarchais?"</p> + +<p>Chapelmaster Mozart, rising from his table, walks up +and down the room with his hands crossed beneath his +snuff-coloured coat-tails, humming to himself—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">Voi che sapete che cosa è amor,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Donne, vedete s'io l'ho nel cor,</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">and stops before the cage hanging in the window, and +twitching the chickweed through the wires, says—</p> + +<p>"Twee! twee! isn't that a fine air we have just composed, +little canary-bird, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Twee! twee!" answers the canary.</p> + +<p>Mozart has willed it so: there is no possible appeal +against his decision; his artistic sense would not listen +to our logic; our arguments could not attain him, for he +simply shook from off his feet the dust of logic-land, and +calmly laughed defiance from the region of artistic form, +where he had it all his own way, and into which we poor +wretches can never clamber. So here is the page's song +irrevocably sentimental; and Mozart has been in his +grave ninety years; and we know not why, but we do +shrink from calling in Offenbach or Lecocq to rewrite that +air in true jackanapsian style. What can be done? +There still remains another hope.</p> + +<p>For the composer, as we have seen, could give us—as +could the painter or the sculptor—only one mood at +a time; for he could give us only one homogeneous +artistic form. But this artistic form exists so far only +in the abstract, in the composer's brain or on the paper. +To render it audible we require the performer; on the +performer depends the real, absolute presence of the +work; or, rather, to the performer is given the task of +creating a second work, of applying on to the abstract +composition the living inflexions and accentuations of +the voice. And here, again, the powers of musical expression, +of awaking association by means of sounds or +manner of giving out sounds such as we recognize, automatically +or consciously, to accompany the emotion that +is to be conveyed; here again these powers are given to +the artist to do therewith what he choose. This second +artist, this performer, is not so free indeed as the first +artist, the composer; he can longer choose among the +large means of expression the forms of melody and +rhythm, the concatenation of musical phrases; but there +are still left to him the minor modes of expression, the +particular manner of setting forth these musical forms, +of treating this rhythm; the notes are there, and their +general relations to one another, but on him depends the +choice of the relative stress on the notes, of the tightening +or slackening of their relations; of the degree of +importance to be given to the various phrases. The +great outline cartoon is there, but the cunning lights and +shades, transitions, abrupt or insensible, from tint to +tint, still remain to be filled up. A second choice of +mood is left to the singer. And see! here arises a +strange complication: the composer having in his work +chosen one mood, and the singer another, we obtain in +the fusion or juxtaposition of the two works, of the two +moods, that very thing we desired, that very shimmer +and oscillation of character which the poet could give, +that dualism of nature required for Cherubino. What +is Cherubino? A sentimental jackanapes. Mozart in +his notes has given us the sentiment, and now we can +get the levity from the performer—unthought-of combination, +in which the very irrational, illogical choice +made by the composer will help us. Here are Mozart's +phrases, earnest, tender, noble—Mozart's love song fit +for a Bellario or a Romeo; now let this be sung quickly, +lightly, with perverse musical head-tossing and tripping +and ogling, let this passion be gabbled out flippantly, +impudently—and then, in this perfect mixture of the +noble and ignoble, of emotion and levity, of poetry and +prose, we shall have, at last, the page of Beaumarchais. +A brilliant combination, a combination which, thus +reasoned out, seems so difficult to conceive; yet one +which the instinct of half, nay, of nearly all the performers +in creation would suggest. A page? A jackanapes? +Sing the music as befits him; giggle and ogle, +and pirouette, and languish out Mozart's music: an +universal idea now become part and parcel of tradition: +the only new version possible being to give more or less +of the various elements of giggling, ogling, pirouetting, +and languishing; to slightly vary the style of jackanapes.</p> + +<p>But no, another version did remain possible: that +strange version given by that strange solemn little +Spanish singer, after whose singing of "Voi che sapete" +we all felt dissatisfied, and asked each other, "What has +she done with the page?" That wonderful reading of +the piece in which every large outline was so grandly +and delicately traced, every transition so subtly graduated +or marked, every little ornament made to blossom +out beneath the touch of the singular crisp, sweet voice: +that reading which left out the page. Was it the +blunder of an idealess vocal machine? or the contradictory +eccentricity of a seeker after impossible novelty? +Was it simply the dullness of a sullen, soulless little +singer? Surely not. She was neither an idealess vocal +machine, nor a crotchetty seeker for new readings, nor a +soulless sullen little creature; she was a power in art. +A power, alas! wasted for ever, of little or no profit to +others or herself; a beautiful and delicate artistic plant +uprooted just as it was bursting into blossom, and +roughly thrown to wither in the sterile dust of common +life, while all around the insolent weeds lift up their +prosperous tawdry heads. Of this slender little dark +creature, with the delicate stern face of the young +Augustus, not a soul will ever remember the name. +She will not even have enjoyed the cheap triumphs of +her art, the applause which endures two seconds, and +the stalkless flowers which wither in a day; the clapping +which interrupts the final flourish, the tight-packed nosegays +which thump down before the feet, of every fiftieth-rate +mediocrity. Yet the artistic power will have been +there, though gone to waste in obscurity: and the singer +will have sung, though only for a day, and for that day +unnoticed. Nothing can alter that. And nothing can +alter the fact that, while the logical heads of all the +critics, and the soulless throats of all the singers in +Christendom have done their best, and ever will do their +best to give us a real musical Cherubino, a real sentimental +whipper-snapper of a page, this utterly unnoticed little +singer did persist in leaving out the page most completely +and entirely. Why? Had you asked her, she would +have been the last person in the world capable of answering +the question. Did she consider the expression of +such a person as Cherubino a prostitution of the art? +Had she some theory respecting the propriety of dramatic +effects in music? Not in the very least; she considered +nothing and theorised about nothing: she probably never +had such a thing as a thought in the whole course of her +existence. She had only an unswerving artistic instinct, +a complete incapacity of conceiving the artistically +wrong, an imperious unreasoning tendency to do +the artistically right. She had read Mozart's air, understood +its exquisite proportions, created it afresh in her +appreciation, and she sang it in such a way as to make +its beauty more real, more complete. She had unconsciously +carried out the design of the composer, fulfilled +all that could be fulfilled, perfected the mere music of +Mozart's air. And as in Mozart's air there was and +could be (inasmuch as it was purely beautiful) no page +Cherubino, so also in her singing of the air there was +none: Mozart had chosen, and she had abided by his +choice.</p> + +<p>Such is the little circle of fact and argument. We +have seen what means the inherent nature of music +afforded to composer and performer for the expression +of Beaumarchais's Cherubino; and we have seen the +composer, and the performer who was true to the composer, +both choose, instead of expressing an equivocal +jackanapes, to produce and complete a beautiful work of +art. Were they right or were they wrong? Criticism, +analysis, has said all it could, given all its explanations; +artistic feeling only remains to judge, to condemn, or to +praise: this one fact remains, that in the work of the +great composer, we have found only certain lovely +patterns made out of sounds; but in them, or behind +them, not a vestige of the page Cherubino.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch7" id="ch7"></a>IN UMBRIA.</h3> + +<h5>A STUDY OF ARTISTIC PERSONALITY.</h5> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">… grande, austera, verde,</td><td>   </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Da le montagne digradanti in cerchio,</td><td>   </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" colspan="2">L'Umbria guarda.—<span class="smallcaps">Carducci</span>.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>The autumn sun is declining over the fields and oak-woods +and vineyards of Umbria, where—in the wide +undulating valley, inclosed by high rounded hills, bleak +or dark with ilex, each with its strange terraced white +city, Assisi, Spello, Spoleto, Todi—the Tiber winds lazily +along, pale green, limpid, scarce rippled over its yellow +pebbles, screened by long rows of reeds, and thinned, +yellowing poplars, reflecting dimly the sky and trees, the +pointed mediæval bridges and the crenelated towers on +its banks; so clear and placid that you can scarcely +bring home to yourself that this can really be the Tiber +of Rome, the turbid mass of yellow water which eddies +sullen and mournful round the ship-shaped island, along +by Vesta's temple, beneath the cypressed Aventine, and +away into the desolate Campagna. Gradually, as the +sun sinks, the valley of the Tiber fills with golden light +moving along, little by little, travelling slowly up the +wooded hillocks; covering the bluish mountains of Somma +and Subasio with a purple flush, making the white towns +rosy on their flanks, and then dying away into the pale +amber horizon, rosy where it touches the hill, pearly, +then bluish where it merges imperceptibly into the upper +sky. Bluer and bluer become the hills, deeper and +deeper the at first faint amber; the valley is filled with +grey-blue mist; the hills stand out dark blue, cold, and +massive; the sky above becomes a livid rose colour; +there is scarcely a filament of cloud, and only a streak of +golden orange where the sun has disappeared. There is +a sudden stillness, as when the last chords of a great +symphony have died out. All the way up the hill on +which stands Perugia we meet the teams of huge oxen, +not merely white, but milky, with great, deep, long-lashed +eyes, swaying from side to side with their load of +wine-vats; and the peasants returning home from +ploughing up the last corn stubble. All is peaceful and +very solemn, more so than after sunset in other places, +in this sweet and austere Umbria, the fit home of the +Christian revival of the early Middle Ages. And it +makes us think, this beautiful and solemn evening, of +the little book which epitomises all the emotions of this +new birth, of this charming new childhood of humanity, +when the feelings of men seem to have somewhat of the +dewy freshness of dawn. The book is the "Fioretti di +San Francesco," a collection of legends and examples +relating to the cycle of St. Francis of Assisi by some +monk or monks of the end of the thirteenth century. +Flowerets they may well be called—flowers such as +might grow, green and white-starred and delicately +pearled with gold, in the thick grass across which dance +Angelico's groups of the Blessed. Yet with a certain +humanness, a certain reality and naturalness of sweetness, +such as the great paradise painter, with his fleshless +madonnas, his glory of radiant, unearthly draperies and +golden skies, never could have conceived. A singular +charm of simplicity and lucidness in this little book; no +fever visions or unhealthy glories; an earnestness not +without humour: there is nothing grim or absurd in the +credulity and asceticism of these Umbrian saints. The +asceticism is so gentle and tender, the credulity so +childish and poetical, that the ridiculous itself ceases to +be so. These monks, so far from being engrossed with +the care of their own souls, or weighed down by the +dread of hell, seemed to have awakened with perfect +hope and faith in celestial goodness, with perfect desire +to love all around them in the most literal sense: religion +for them is love and reliance on love. The gentleness +with which they admonish the sinning and back-sliding, +the confidence in the inner goodness of man, +from whose soiled surface all evil may be washed, extends +in these men to the whole of creation, and makes +them fraternise with beasts and birds, as is shown, with +a delicate, slightly humorous grace, in the stories of St. +Francis and the turtle doves, and of the ferocious wolf +"Frate Lupo" of Gubbio, whom rather than kill, it +pleased the saint to bring round to harmlessness by fair +words, expostulations, and faithfully kept promises, expecting +from the wolf fidelity to his word as much as +from a human being. There is in this little book a +vague, floating, permeating life of affection, of love unbounded +by difference of species. Communion with all +men, with Christ, with angels, with doves, and with +wolves; the force of love bringing down God and raising +up brutes to the level of these saints. And as we think +over the little book we feel in a way as if we, to whom +Francis and his companions are mere mortal men, and +the tales of the "Fioretti" mere beautiful fancies, hollow +and sad for their very sweetness, were looking down +upon a sort of holy land, as we look down in the white +twilight upon the misty undulations of this solemn and +beautiful Umbria.</p> + +<p>A serene country, neither rugged and barren, nor flat +and fertile, not the grey, sharp Florentine valley, whose +thin soil must be irrigated and ploughed, and on whose +hillsides the carefully nurtured olives are stunted with +winter wind and summer scorchings, where every outline +is clear and bone-like in that same hard, light atmosphere +which, as Vasari says, makes all appear hard and +clear and logical to the minds of the Florentines. Not +the endless flatness and fruitfulness of Lombardy, where +the mists steam up in the evening golden round the +great misty golden descending sun-ball, and the buildings +flush like the cheeks of Correggio's joy-drunken seraphs, +and the thin, clear outline of the rows of poplars looks +against the sky like the outshaken golden hair combed +into minute filaments of one of Lionardo's women. +Nor the dreary wastes of sere oakwoods and livid sand-hills +of Orvieto; nor the sea of lush vegetation gilded by +the sun, merging into the vaporous damp blue sky of the +plain of Lucca. None of these things is the Tiber valley, +not harsh nor poor nor luxuriant; sober and restrained, +without excess or scantness, an undulating country of +pale and modest tints, and, save in the distant Apennine +tops, of simple outline, with what glory of colours it may +have, due mainly to sky and sunset of cloud, and even +in that more chaste than other parts of Italy; neither +poor nor rich; without the commerce of Lombardy or the +industry of Tuscany, wholly without any intellectual +movement, rural, believing, with but little of the imported +influence of reviving Paganism, and still much of the +clinging moral atmosphere of Christian contemplation +and ecstacy of the days of St. Francis. Such is this +isolated Tiber valley, whose skies and whose legends are +so perfectly in harmony, and in it was born, of the +country and of the traditions, a special, isolated school +of art.</p> + +<p>Is it a school or a man?—A school concentrated in +one man, or a man radiating into a school. There are a +great many men all about the one man Perugino, masters +or pupils; the first seem so many bungled attempts +to be what he is, the second so many disintegrations of +him. Even the more powerful individualities are lost in +his presence; at Perugia we know nothing of the real +Pinturicchio, the bright, vain, thoughtless painters of the +pageant scenes, brilliant like pages of Boiardo's fairy +tales, on the walls of the Sienese Library. Raphael is +no separate individual, has no personal qualities before +he leaves Perugia. Everything is Perugino, in more or +less degree. The whole town, nay, the surrounding +country, is one vast studio in which his themes are being +developed, his works being copied, his tricks being imitated. +A score of artists of talent, one or two like Lo +Spagna and the young Raphael, of first-rate powers, and +a host of mere mechanical drudges, give us, in all Perugia, +nothing new, nothing individual, no impression which we +can disentangle from the general, all-pervading impression +given by the one man Perugino. The country, +physical and moral, has exhausted itself in this one +artistic manifestation. One not merely, but unique and +one-sided. What Perugino has done has been done by +no other master; and what Perugino has done is only +one thing, and that to all eternity. The sense of complete +absence of variety, of difference; the impression of +all being reduced to the minimum of everything, the +vague consciousness that all here is one, isolated and +indivisible, which haunts us all through the churches and +galleries of Perugia, pursues us likewise through all the +works of the school, that is to say, of Perugino himself. +This unique school, consisting in reality of a single man, +possesses only one theme, one type, one idea, one feeling; +it does, it attempts but one thing, and that one +thing means isolation, concentration, elimination of all +but one single mood.</p> + +<p>It is the painting of solitude; of the isolated soul, +alone, unaffected by any other, unlinked in any work, or +feeling, or suffering, with any other soul, nay even with +any physical thing. The men and women of Perugino +are the most completely alone that any artist ever +painted, alone though in fours, or fives, or in crowds. +Their relations to each other are purely architectural: it +is a matter of mere symmetry, even as it is with the +mouldings or carvings of the frame which surrounds +them. Superficially, taken merely as so many columns, +or half-arches of the pinnacled whole of the composition, +they are, in his larger works, more rigorously related to +each other than are the figures of any other painter of +severely architectural groups; compared with Perugino, +the figures in Bellini's or Mantegna's most solemn altarpieces +are irrelevant to each other: one saint is turning +too much aside, another looking too much on his neighbour. +Not so with Perugino: his figures are all in relation +to one another. The scarf floating in strange +snakelike convolutions, from the shoulder of the one angel +flying, cutting across the pale blue air as a skater cuts +across the ice, floats and curls in distinct reference to the +ribbons which twist, like lilac or yellow scrolls, about the +head and neck of the other angel; the lute, with down-turned +bulb, of the one seraph, his shimmering purple or +ultramarine robe clinging in tight creases round his feet +in the breeze of heaven, is rigorously balanced by the viol, +upturned against the stooping head, of his fellow-seraph; +the white-bearded anchorite stretches forth his right foot +in harmony with the outstretched left foot of the scarlet-robed +cardinal; the dainty arch-angelic warrior drolly +designated as Scipio, or Cincinnatus on the wall of the +Money Changer's Hall turns his delicate, quaintly-crested +head, and raises his vague-looking eyes to match +the upturned plumed head of the other celestial knight. +All the figures are distinctly connected with each other; +but they are connected as are the pillarets, various, but +different, which balance each other in length and thickness +and character, a twisted with a twisted one, a twin, +strangely linked pair with another such, on the symmetrically +sloping front of some Lombard cathedral; the +connection is purely outer, purely architectural; and the +solitude of each figure as a human being, as a body and +a mind, is only the more complete. There is no grouping +in these cunningly balanced altarpieces; there is no +common employment or movement, no action or reaction. +Angels and warriors and saints and sibyls +stand separate, the one never touching the other, apart, +each alone against the pale greenish background. They +may look, the one towards the other, but they never see +each other. They exist quite single and isolated, each +unconscious that there is any other. Another—indeed, +there is no other; in reality, every one is in complete +solitude; it is only the canvas which makes them appear +in the same place. They are not in the same place, or +rather there is no place; the soft green field, the blue +hills, darkening against the greenish evening sky, the +spare, thinly leaved little trees, the white tower in the +distance, this little piece of Umbrian country has +nothing to do with any of them. They are nowhere; +or rather each taken singly is nowhere. Place, like subject +and action, has been eliminated; everything has, +which possibly could. The very bodies seem reduced +to the least possible: there is no interest in them: all is +concentrated upon the delicate nervous hands, on the +faces; in the faces, upon eyes and mouth, till the whole +face seems scarcely more than tremulous lips, half parted, +raised vividly to kiss, to suck in the impalpable; than +dilating pupils, straining vaguely to seize, to absorb, to +burn into themselves the invisible. It is the embodiment, +with only as little body as is absolutely required, +of a soul; and that soul simplified, rarefied into only one +condition of being: beatitude of contemplation. As +place and action have been eliminated, so also has time: +they will for ever remain, alone, in the same attitude; +they will never move, never change, never cease; there +exists for them no other occupation or possibility. And as +the bodies are separate, isolated from all physical objects, +so is the soul: it touches no other human soul, touches no +earthly interest: it is alone, motionless, space and time and +change have ceased for it: contemplating, absorbing for +all eternity that which the eye cannot see, nor the hand +touch nor the will influence, the mysterious, the ineffable.</p> + +<p>Are they really saints and angels, and prophets and +sibyls? Surely not—for all such act or suffer; for each +of these there is a local habitation, and a definite duty. +These strange creatures of Perugino's are not supernatural +beings in the same sense as are those robed +in iridescent, impalpable glory of Angelico; or those +others, clothed in more than human muscle and sinew, +of the vault of the Sixtine. What are they? Not +visions become concrete, but the act of vision personified. +They are not the objects of religious feeling; they are +its most abstract, intense reality. Yes, they are reality. +They are no far-fetched fancies of the artist. They are +souls and soul-saturated, soul-moulded bodies which he +saw around him. For in that Umbria of the dying +fifteenth century—where the old cities, their old freedom +and industry and commerce well-nigh dwindled to +nothing, had shrunk each on its mountain-side into mere +huge barracks of mercenary troopers or strongholds of +military bandit nobles, continually besieged and sacked +and heaped with massacre by rival families and rival +factions; where in the open country, the villagers, pent-up +in fortified farms and barns, were burnt, women and +children, with the stored-up fodder, or slaughtered and +cast in heaps into the Tiber, and every year the tangled +brushwood of ilex and oak and briars encroached further +upon the devastated cornfields and oliveyards, and the +wolves and foxes roamed nearer and nearer to the cities—in +this terrible barbarous Umbria of the days of Cæsar +Borgia, the soul developed to strange unearthly perfection. +It developed by the force of antagonism and +isolation. This city of Perugia, which was governed by +the most ferocious and treacherous little mercenary +captains; whose dark precipitous streets were full of broil and +bloodshed, and whose palaces full of evil, forbidden lust +and family conspiracy, was one of the most pious in all +Italy. Wondrous miraculous preachers, inspired and +wild, were for ever preaching in the midst of the iniquity; +holy monks and nuns were for ever seeing visions and +curing the incurable; churches and hospitals were being +erected throughout town and country; novices crowded +the ever-increasing convents. Sensitive souls were +sickened by the surrounding wickedness, and terrified +lest it should triumph over them; resist it, bravely expose +themselves to it, prevent or mitigate the evil of +others they dared not: a moral plague was thick in the +air, and those who would escape infection must needs +fly, take refuge in strange spiritual solitude, in isolated +heights where the moral air was rarefied and icy. Of +the perfectly human, sociable devotion of the days of St. +Francis, of the active benevolence and righteousness, +there was now no question: the wolves had become too +frightfully numerous and ravenous to be preached to like +that Brother Wolf of the <i>Flowerets of St. Francis</i>. Active +good there could now no longer be: the pure soul became +inactive, passive, powerless over the evil around, +contemplating for ever a distant, ineffable excellence; +aspiring, sterile, and meagre, at being absorbed into that +glory of perfect virtue at which it was for ever gazing. +This solitary and inactive devotion, raised far above this +world, is the feeling out of which are moulded those +scarce embodied souls of Perugino's. Those emaciated +hectic young faces, absorbed in one ineffable passion, +which in their weakness and intensity are so infinitely +feminine, are indeed mainly the faces of women—of those +noble and holy ladies like Atalanta Baglioni, living in +moral solitude among their turbulent clan of evil fathers +and brothers and husbands: the victims, or worse, the +passive spectators, the passive accomplices, of iniquity of +all sorts, whom the grand old chronicler, Matarazzo, +shows by glimpses, walking through the blood and lust-soiled +houses of the brilliant and horrible Gianpavolos +and Semonettos and Griffones of Perugia, pure and +patient like nuns, and as secluded in mind as in any +cloister. Theirs are these faces, and at the same time +the faces which vaguely, confusedly looked down upon +them, glorified reflections of their own, from above. +These creatures of Perugino's are what every great +artist's works must be—at once the portrait of those for +whom he paints, and the portrait of their ideals, that is, +of their intenser selves. He is the painter of the city +where, in the Italian Renaissance, the unmixed devotional +feeling, innate in the country of St. Francis, untroubled +by Florentine scepticism or Lombard worldly +sense, thrust back and concentrated upon itself by surrounding +brutal wickedness, existed most intense; he is +the painter of this kind of devotion. The very daintiness +of accessory, the delicate embroidered robes, the long +fringed scarves, the embossed armour, light and pliable +like silk, which cannot wound the tender young archangels, +the carefully waved and curled hair—all this is +the religious luxuriousness of nuns and novices, the one +vent for all love of beauty and ease and costliness of the +poor delicate creatures, worn and galled by their shapeless +hair cloth, living and sleeping in the dreary whitewashed +cell. This is unmixed devotion, religious +contemplation and aspiration absolutely separated from +any other sort of moral feeling; there is the destructive +wrath of righteousness in the prophets of Michael Angelo, +and the gentleness of candour and charity in the Florentine +virgins of Raphael; there is the serenity and solemnity +of moral wisdom in Bellini, and the sweetness and +cordiality of domestic love in Titian; there is even the +half-animal motherly love in Correggio; there is, in almost +all the schools of Italian painting, some character of +human goodness; but in Perugino there is none of these +things. Nothing but the one all-absorbing, abstract, +devotional feeling—intense passive contemplation of the +unattainable good; souls purged of every human desire +or will, isolated from all human affection and action, +raised above the limits of time and space; souls which +have long ceased to be human beings and can never +become angels, hovering, half pained, half joyful, in a +limbo of endless spiritual desire.</p> + +<p>Such is the work. Let us seek the master. Pietro +Vannucci, of Città della Pieve, surnamed Perugino, Petrus +de Castro Plebis, as he signed himself, lived, as tradition +has it, in a very good house in Via Deliziosa. Via +Deliziosa is one of the many quiet little paved lanes of +Perugia, steep and tortuous, looking up at whose rough +scarred houses you forever see overgrown plants of white +starred basil or grey marjoram bursting out of broken +ewers and pipkins on the boards before the high windows, +or trails of mottled red and green tomatos, or +long crimson-tasselled sprays of carnation dangling along +the broken, blackened masonry, crevassed and held +together by iron clamps; where, at every sudden turn, +you get, through some black and oozy archway, a glimpse +of green sun-gilded vineyard and distant hills, hazy and +blue through the yellow summer air. Here, in the best +part of the town, Perugino had his house and his workshop. +In the house, full of precious stuffs and fine linen +and plate and everything which a wealthy burgher could +desire, lived the handsome wife of the master, for whom +he was for ever designing and ordering new clothes, and +whose beautiful hair he loved himself to dress in strange +fantastic diadems and helmets of minute plaits and +waves and curls, that she might go through the town as +magnificent and quaintly attired as any noble lady of +the Baglionis or Antinoris or Della Staffas. In the workshop +was the master and a host of pupils: Giannicola +Manni, Doni, the Alfani, Tiberio d'Assisi; the exquisite +anonymous stranger, of whom we know only as John the +Spaniard, and perhaps that gentle fair feminine boy +from Urbino, whom, in half-womanish gear and with +wonderful delicate feathers and jewels in his hair, +Perugino painted among the prophets in the Money +Changer's Hall. A workshop indeed. Not merely the +studio of a master and his pupils, but an enormous manufactory +of works of devotional art; the themes of Perugino, +the same saints, the same madonnas, the same angels, in +the same groups, for ever repeated in large and small, +some mere copies, others slightly varied or composed of +various incoherent portions, by the pupil; some half by +the master, half by the pupil, some possibly touched up +by him, one or two wholly from his own exquisite hand. +Things of all degrees of merit and execrableness, to suit +the richest and the poorest; all could be had at that +workshop, for Master Pietro had the monopoly of the +art, good bad, or indifferent, of the country. You could +order designs for wood carvings or silver ware; you +could hire church banners, of which store was kept to be +let out for processions at so much the hour. You could +obtain men to set up triumphal arches of cardboard, and +invent moulds for ornamental sweetmeats, like those of +Astorre Baglioni's wedding; patterns, doubtless also for +embroidery and armour embossing; you could have a +young Raphael Santi set to repeating some Marriage of +the Virgin for a Sforza or a Baglioni, or some tattered +smearer to copy a copy of some madonna for a village +church; or you could commission the master himself to +go to Rome and paint a wall of Pope Sixtus's Chapel. +For there never was a manufactory of art carried on +more methodically or satisfactorily than this one. There +never was a commercial speculator who knew so well +how much good and bad he could afford and venture to +give; who knew his public so thoroughly. He had, in +his youth and poverty, invented, discovered (which shall +we call it?) the perfection of devotional painting, that +which perfectly satisfied his whole pious Umbria, and +every pious man or woman of more distant parts: a +certain number of types, a certain expression, a certain +mode of grouping, a certain manner of colouring which +constituted a perfect whole; a conception to embody +which most completely he had in his youth worked like a +slave, seeking, perfecting all that which belonged to the +style: the clear, delicate colour, the exquisite, never excessive +finish, the infinitely delicate modelling of finger +and wrist, of eyelid and lip, the diaphanous sheen of +light, soft, scarcely coloured hair on brow and temple and +cheek; he had coolly turned away from everything else. +The problems of anatomy, of perspective, of light and +shade, and of grouping, at which in Florence he had seen +men like Pollaiolo, Ghirlandaio, Filippino, Lionardo +wasting their youth, he never even glanced at. No real +bodies were required for his saints as long as he could give +them the right, wistful faces; no tangible background, +no well-defined composition. All this was unnecessary; +and he wanted only the necessary. When he had got +the amount and sort of skill required for this narrow +style, he stopped; when he had invented the three or +four types of faces, attitude, and composition, he ceased +inventing. He had the means of making a fortune. +All that remained was to organise his mechanism, to +arrange that splendid system of repeating, arranging, +altering, copying, on the part of himself and his scholars, +by which he could, without further enlarging style or +ideas, furnish Umbria and Italy with the pure devotional +painting it required, in whatever amount and of whatever +degree of excellence it might wish. He succeeded. +True, other artists sneered at him, like that young Buonarroti, +who had called him a blunderer; true, the +Florentines complained that when he painted their fresco +for them at S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, he had +cheated them, giving mere copies of works they had had +from him twenty years before. About the judgment of +other painters he cared not a fig; success was the only +test; to the Florentines he calmly answered that as +those figures had pleased them twenty years before, they +ought to please them now; that he at least was not going +to seek anything new as long as the old sufficed. For +men who grew old in constant attempts after new styles, +new muscles, new draperies, like Signorelli yonder labouring +solitary on the rock of Orvieto, spending years in +cramming new figures into spaces which he, Perugino, +would have finished in a month with six isolated saints +and a bit of blue sky; or frittered away time in endless +sketches, endless cooking of new paints and trying of +new washes, like Lionardo da Vinci: or who ruined +themselves buying bits of old marble to copy, like crazy +Mantegna at Mantua; for all such men as these Perugino +must have had a supreme contempt. As long as money +came in, all was right; new ideas, improvements, all +such things were mere rubbish. Thus he probably +preached to his pupils, and kept them carefully to their +task of multiplying his own works, till his school became +sterile and imbecile; and the young Raphael, in disgust, +left him and begged the Lady Giovanna della Rovere +for a letter to the Gonfaloniere Soderini, which should +open to him the doors of the Florentine schools. With +what contempt must not Master Perugino have looked +after this departing young Raphael; with what cynical +amusement he must have heard how the young fool, +once successful, kept for ever altering his style, wearing +his frail life out, meditating and working himself into +the hectic broken creature whom Marc-Antonio has +etched, seated, fagged and emaciated on the steps before +his work. We can imagine how Perugino descanted on all +this folly to the other young men in his workshop. For he +was a cynical man as well as a grasping: he saw no wisdom +beyond the desire for money and comfort. He had begun +life almost a beggar, sleeping on a chest, going without +food, in tatters, giving himself no respite from drudgery, +sustained by one idea, one wish!—to be rich. And rich +he had become; he had built houses on speculation at +Florence, to let them out; and had farms at Città della +Pieve, and land near Perugia. He had obtained all he +had ever desired or could conceive desirable: safety from +poverty. In other things he did not believe: not in an +after life, nor in God, nor in good; all these ideas, says +Vasari, could never enter into his porphyry hard brain, +"This Peter placed all his hopes in the good things +of fortune, and for money would have made any evil +bargain."</p> + +<p>This is how Vasari has shown us Perugino. The +unique painter of archangels and seraphs appears a base +commercial speculator, a cynic, an atheist: the sort of +man whom you could imagine transfigured into a shabby +pettifogging Faustus, triumphing over the fiend by +making over to him, in return for solid ducats, a bond +mortgaging a soul which he knew himself never to have +possessed. Some people may say, as learned folk are +forever saying now-a-days, that all this is pure slander on +the part of Vasari; and indeed, what satisfactory historical +villain shall we soon possess, at the rate of present +learned rehabilitations? Be this as it may, there remains +for the present the typical contrast between this +man and his works; and looking at it, other contrasts +between noble art and grovelling artists vaguely occur to +us, and we ask ourselves, Can it be? Can a pure and +exquisite work be produced by a base nature? Can +such anomaly exist—must the mental product not be +stained by the vileness of the mind which has conceived +it? Must we, together with a precious and noble gift +taken from a hand we should shrink from touching, accept +the disheartening, the debasing conclusion, that in +art purity may spring from foulness, and the excellent be +born of the base? It is a conclusion from which we instinctively +shrink, feeling, rather than absolutely +understanding, that it seems to strip the holiness from art, the +worthiness, nay, almost the innocence, from our enjoyment. +We feel towards any beautiful work of art something +akin to love: a sort of desire to absorb it into our +soul, to raise ourselves to it, to be with it in some manner +united; and thus the mere thought that all this may +be sprung from out of unworthiness, that this noble century-enduring +work may be the sister of who knows how +many long dead base thoughts and desires and resolves +born together with it in the nature of its maker—this +idea of contamination of origin, makes us shudder and +suspect…. Alas, how many of us, of the better and +nobler of us, have not often sickened for a moment as +the thought quivered across their mind of the foulness +out of which the noblest of our art has arisen. But instinctively +we have struck down the half-formulated idea +as we dash away any suspicion against that which we +love, and which our love tells us must be good. And +thus, as a rule, we have persuaded ourselves that, though +by a horrible fatality our greatest art—in sculpture, and +painting, and music, and poetry, has oftenest belonged +not to a simple and austere state of society, to the strong +manly days of Greece or Rome, to the first times of +Christian abnegation and martyrdom, to the childlike +angelic revival of mediæval Christianity, to the solemn +self-concentration of Huguenot France or Puritan +England, that it has not sprung out of the straightforward +purity of periods of moral regeneration, but rather +from out of the ferment, nay, the putrescence, of many-sided, +perplexed, anomalous times of social dissolution. +That although our greatest art seems thus undeniably to +have arisen in corrupt times, yet the individuals to whom +we proximately owe have been the nobler and purer of +their day. Nay, we almost persuade ourselves that in +those dubious times of doubt and dissolution, the spotless, +the unshaken were in a way divinely selected, like +so many vestal virgins, to cherish in isolation the holy +fire of art. And we call up to our minds men noble and +pure, like Michael Angelo and Beethoven: we eagerly +treasure up like relics anecdotes showing the gentleness +and generosity of men like Lionardo and Mozart: trifling +tales of caged-birds let loose, or of poor fellow-workers +assisted, which, in our desire to trace art back to a noble +origin, seem to shed so much light upon the production +of a great picture or great symphony. And yet, even as +the words leave our lips, words so sincerely consoling, +we seem to catch in our voice an unintentional inflexion +of deriding scepticism. So much light! these tales of +mere ordinary goodness, such as we might hear (did we +care) of so many a dull and blundering artisan, or vacant +idler, these tales shed so much light upon the production +of great works of art! A sort of reasoning devil +seems to possess us, to twitch our little morsels of unreasoned +consolation, of sanctifying, mystical half-reasoning +away from our peace-hungry souls. And he +says: "What of Perugino? What of so many undeniable +realities which this Perugino of ours, even if the +purest myth, so completely typifies? How did this +cynic, this atheist, come to paint these saints? You say +that he was no cynic, no atheist, that it is all vile slander." +Well, I won't dispute that: perhaps he <i>was</i> a saint after +all. I will even grant that he was. But in return +for the concession, let us examine whether the saints +could not have been equally well painted by the traditional, +unrehabilitated Perugino, Vasari's Perugino—not +the real one, oh no, I will admit not the real one—by +the typical Perugino; the man "of exceeding little religion, +who could never be got to believe in the soul's +immortality; nay, with arguments suited to his porphyry +intellect, obstinately refused all good paths; who placed +all his hopes in the goods of fortune and for money +would have consented to any evil compact." Nay, even +by a Perugino a good deal worse.</p> + +<p>An ugly, impertinent little reasoning fiend within us; +but now-a-days we have lost the formula of exorcism for +this kind of devil, and listen we must; indignantly, and +with mind well made up to find all his arguments completely +false. Think over the matter, now that idea is +once started, we can no longer help. So let us discuss it +with ourselves, within ourselves, the place where most +discussion must ever go on. Let us sit here on the low-broken +brick parapet, which seems to prevent all this +rough, black Perugia from precipitating itself, a mass of +huddled, strangled lanes, into the ravine below; sit with +the grey, berry-laden olives, and twisted sere-leaved fig-trees +with their little brown bursting fruit, pushing their +branches up from the orchard on the steep below, where +the women dawdle under the low evening sun, sickle in +hand, mowing up the long juicy grass, tearing out +wreath after wreath, of vine and clematis, spray after +spray of feathery bluish fennel, till their wheel-shaped +crammed baskets look as if destined for some sylvan +god's altar, rather than to be emptied out into the +sweltering darkness before the cows mewed up in the +thatched hut yonder by the straw-stack and the lavender +and rose-hedged tank.</p> + +<p>The question which, we scarcely know how, has thus +been started within us, and which, (like all similar questions) +develops itself almost automatically in our mind, +without much volition and merely a vague feeling of discomfort, +until it have finally taken shape and left our +consciousness for the limbo of decided points, this question +is simply: What are the relations between the +character of the work of art and the character of the +artist who creates it? To what extent may we infer +from the peculiar nature of the one the peculiar nature +of the other? Such, if we formulate it, is the question, +and the answer thereunto seems obvious: that as the +peculiarity of the fruit depends, <i>cæteris paribus</i>, upon the +peculiarity of the tree (itself due in part to soil and temperature +and similar external circumstances), so also +must the peculiarity of the spiritual product be due to +the peculiarities of the spiritual whole of which it is +born. And thus, in inverted order of ideas, the definite +character of the fruit proves the character of the tree, +the result argues the origin: there must exist a necessary +relation between the product and that which has +produced. If then we find a definite quality in the works +of an artist, we have a right to suppose that corresponding +qualities existed in the artist himself: if the picture, +or symphony, or poem be noble, and noble moreover +with a special sort of nobility, then noble also, and noble +with that special sort of nobility must be the artistic +organism, the artist, by whom it was painted, or composed +or written. And this once granted (which we +cannot help granting), we must inevitably conclude that +the man Perugino, who painted those wonderful intense +types of complete renunciation of the world, could not in +reality have been the worldly, unconscientious atheist +described by Vasari. So, at least, it would seem. But +tarry awhile. We have decided on analogy, and by a +sort of instinct of cause and effect, that the work must +correspond in its main qualities with the main qualities +of the artist, of the artistic organism by which it is produced. +Mark what we have said: of the artist, or artistic +organism. Now what is this artistic organism, this +artist? An individual, a man, surely? Yes, and no. +The artist and the man are not the same: the artist is +only part of the man; how much of him, depends upon +the art in which he is a worker. The work is produced +by the man, but not by the whole of him; only by that +portion which we call the artist; and how much that +portion is, what relation it bears to the whole man, we +can ascertain by asking ourselves what faculties are required +for the production of a work of art. And thus +we soon get to a new question. The faculties required +for the production of a work of art may be divided into +two classes; those which directly and absolutely produce +it, and those which are required to enable the production +to take place without interference from contrary parts of +the individual nature. These secondary qualities, merely +protective as it were, are the moral qualities common, in +greater or less degree, to all workers: concentration, +patience, determination, desire of improvement; they are +not artistic in themselves, and are not more requisite to +the artist than to the thinker, or statesman, or merchant, +or soldier, to preserve his very different mental powers +from the disturbing influence of laziness, or fickleness, or +any more positive tendencies, vices or virtues, which +might interfere with the development of his talents. +And of these purely protective qualities only so much +need exist as the relative strength of the artistic faculty +and of the unartistic tendencies of the individual require +in order that the former be protected from the latter; +and thus it comes that where the artistic endowment has +been out of all proportion large, as in the case of such a +man as Rossini, it has been able to produce the most +excellent work without much of what we should call +moral fibre: the man was lazy and voluptuous, but he +was, above all, musical; it was easier for him to be musically +active than to be merely dissipated and inactive: +the artistic instincts were the strongest, and were passively +followed. When these moral qualities, merely protective +and secondary in art, are developed beyond the degree +requisite for mere protection of the artistic faculties (a +degree small in proportion to the magnitude of the artistic +instinct), they become ruling characteristics of the +whole individual nature, and influence all the actions of +the man as distinguished from the artist: they make +him as inflexible in the pursuit of the non-artistic aims +of life as in that of mere excellence in his own art. The +timorous and slothful Andrea del Sarto is quite as +complete an artist as the eager and inquisitive Lionardo +da Vinci; but, whereas Andrea's activity stops short at +the limits of his powers of painting, the increasing +laboriousness and never satisfied curiosity of Lionardo +extend, on the contrary, to all manner of subjects quite +disconnected with his real art. When once the glorious +fresco of the Virgin, seated like a happier Niobe, by +the mealsack, has been properly finished in the cloister +of the Servites, Andrea goes home and crouches beneath +the violence of his wife, or to the tavern to seek feeble +consolation. But when, after never-ending alterations +and additional touches, Lionardo at length permits +Paolo Giocondo to carry home the portrait of his dubious, +fascinating wife, he sets about mathematical problems or +chemical experiments, offers to build fortresses for Cæsar +Borgia, manufactures a wondrous musical instrument like +the fleshless skull of a horse and learns to play thereon, +or writes treatises on anatomy: there is in him a desire, a +capacity for work greater than even his subtle and fantasticating +style of art can ever fully employ. Such are +the non-artistic qualities required, merely as protectors +from interference, for the production of a work of art: +the same these, whatever the art, as they are the same if, +instead of art, we consider science, or commerce, or any +other employment. The artistic, the really directly +productive qualities, differ of course according to the art +to which the work belongs, differ not only in nature but +also in number. For there are some arts in which the +work is produced by a very small number of faculties; +others where it requires a very complex machine, which +we call a whole individuality: and here we find ourselves +back again before our original question, to what extent +the personality of an artist influences the character of +his work. We have got back to the anomaly typified by +Perugino; back to it, and as completely without an +answer to the problem as we were on starting. We +have been losing our time, going round and round a +question merely to find ourselves at our original starting-point. +Not so: going round the question indeed, but in +constantly narrowing circles, which will dwindle, let us +hope, till we find ourselves on the only indivisible centre, +which is the solution of the problem. For there are many +questions which are like the towns of this same Umbria +of Perugino: built upon the brink of a precipice, walled +round with a wall of unhewn rock, seeming so near if we +look up at them from the ravine below, and see every +roof, and cypress-tree, and pillared balcony; but which +we cannot approach by scaling the unscalable, sheer +precipice, but must slowly wind round from below, +circling up and down endless undulations of vineyard and +oakwood, coming for ever upon a tantalising glimpse of +towers and walls, for ever seemingly close above us, and +yet forever equally distant; till at last, by a sharp turn +of the gradually ascending road, we find ourselves before +the unexpected gates of the city. And thus we have +approached a little nearer to the solution of the question. +We have, in our wanderings, left behind one part of the +ground. We have admitted that the work of art is produced +not by the man, but merely by that portion of +him which we call the artist; we have even dimly +foreseen that the case may be that in one art the +artist, that is to say, the art-producing organism, +comprises nearly the whole of the mere individual: +that the artistic part is very nearly the complete human +whole. Now, in order to approach nearer our final +conclusion, namely, whether the man Perugino could +have painted those saints and those angels had he +really been the mercenary atheist of Vasari, we must set +afresh to examine what, in the various arts, are the +portions of an individual necessary to constitute the +mere artist, that is to say, the producer of a work of art.</p> + +<p>But stop again. Are we quite sure that we know what +we mean when we say "a work of art?" Are we quite +sure that we may not, without knowing it, be talking of +two things under one name? Surely not: when we +apply the word to one of Perugino's archangels, we certainly +refer to one whole object. So far, certainly, +we mean (let us put it in the crudest way) a certain +amount of colour laid on to a canvas in such a manner, +and with such arrangements of tints and shadows, that +it presents to our eyes and mind a certain form, a form +which we define, from its resemblance to other forms +made out of flesh and bone, the face and body of a young +man; a form which, owing to certain constitutional +peculiarities and engrained habits of our mind, we also +declare to a given extent beautiful. This form, moreover, +distinctly recalls to our mind real forms which experience +has taught us to associate with the idea of moral purity, +self-forgetfulness, piety; simply because we have noticed +or been told since our infancy that persons with such +bodily aspects are usually pure, self-forgetful and pious; +because, without our knowing it, thousands of painters +have accustomed us by giving us such forms as the +portraits of saints to consider this physical type as +distinctly saintly. This perception, that the form into +which the colours on Perugino's canvas have been combined +is such as we are accustomed to think of in connection +with saintliness, immediately awakens in our mind +a whole train of associations: we not merely see with our +physical eyes the combination of colours and lines constituting +the form, but with our mental eyes we rapidly and +half unconsciously glance over all the occupations, aspirations, +habits of such a creature as we conceive this +form to belong to. We not merely see the delicate, thin, +pale lips, thrown back head and neck, and the wide-opened, +dilated, greyish eyes; we imagine in our mind +the vague delights after which those lips are thirsting as +the half-closed pale flowers thirst for the rain-drops, the +ecstasy of fulfilled hope which makes the veins of the +neck pulse and the head fall back in weariness of inner +quivering; the confused glory of heaven after which +those wide-opened eyes are straining; while our bodily +sight is resting on the mere coloured surface of Perugino's +picture, our mental sight is wandering across all the past +and future of this strange being whose bodily semblance +the artist has suddenly thrust upon us. All this is what +we vaguely think of when we speak of a work of art. +Perhaps we can so little disentangle our impressions and +our fancies that their combination may thus be treated +as a unity. But this unity is a dualism: the mere colour +arrangement constituting the form which we see with +our bodily eyes, and with our bodily eyes find beautiful, +is one half; and the whole moral apparition, conjured +up by association and imagination, is the other. And, +as far as so infinitely interwoven a dualism can be divided, +coarsely, and leaving or taking too much on one +side or the other, we can divide this dual existence into +that which has been given to us by the artist, the visible, +material form; and that which association, recollection, +fancy, has been added by ourselves to the artist's work. +Of this dualism, therefore, of impression and fancy, only +that portion of the work of art which is absolutely visible +and concrete; the form, whether it exist in combined +colour and shadow, or marble mass, as in the plastic arts, +or in partially combined and partially successive sounds, +as in music, only this form is really given by the artist, +is that which, with reference to his productive power, we +can call the work of art. He may, it is true, have +deliberately chosen that form which should lead us to such +associations of ideas, but in so far he has been acting not +as the artist, but as a sort of foreshadowed spectator or +listener; he has, before taking up his own work with the +mere material, visible, tangible, audible realities of the +art, stepped into the place to be occupied by ourselves, +and foreseen, by his knowledge of the effects which he +can produce, by his experience of what associations are +awakened by each of his various forms, the imaginative +activities which his yet unfinished work will call for in +those who see or hear it. But he will, in so doing, be +deliberately or unconsciously leaving his own work, forestalling +ours: nay, the artist who says to himself, "Now +I will paint a soul in a condition of ecstasy," is in reality +transforming himself into the customer who would enter +his workshop and say, "Paint me a figure such as your +experience tells you suggests to beholders the idea of +religious enthusiasm; copy the features of any religious +enthusiast of your acquaintance, or put together such +dispersed features as seem to you indicative of that +temper of mind." All this, while the real artistic work +has not begun; for that begins when the artist first +places before his easel the model for his archangel: +either the delicate, hectic, little girlish novice-boy, or the +distinct outline of the armed young angel existing in his +mind and requiring only to be printed off into concrete +existence. Thus, in our examination of the amount of +an artist's personality which can go into his work, we +must remember that this work is merely the externally +existing, definite, finite form, and not the ideas of emotions +which, by the power of association, that form may +awaken in ourselves. What the artist gives is merely +the arrangement of lines and colours in a given manner, +which may, as in painting, resemble an already existing +natural object; or, as in architecture and pattern +decoration, resemble no already existing natural object; +the arrangement of sounds which may, as in a +dramatic air, recall the inflexions proper to a given +emotion, or, as in a formal fugue, recall no emotional inflexions +whatever. This, and not any train of thoughts +awakened by this possibly but not necessarily existing +resemblance to an already known natural object, or to +an already known sort of emotional voice inflexion, is +what is given by the artist, and this is artistic form, the +absolutely, objectively existing work of art. And now +we may examine what mental faculties, in the various +arts, are required for the production of this work: what +portions of the whole individual man are included or +excluded in that smaller, more limited individual whom +we call the artist. Let us investigate the point by a sort +of experiment: by stripping away, one by one, those +qualities of an ideal individual which are not necessary +for the production of the various kinds of artistic work; +let us separate and afterwards, if need be, select and reunite +the qualities which are required and those which +are not required to make up a poet, a painter, a sculptor, +or a musician.</p> + +<p>And first we must create our ideal man, who contains +within him the stuff of every kind of artist, the faculties +of producing every kind of artistic work. First, a word +about this ideal man, and about the manner in which he +differs from other men. He differs in completeness, in +balance, in intensity. For almost every one of us has +some mental faculty so imperfectly developed that we +may say that it does not exist: it exists indeed, and +perhaps not without a certain necessary effect, but as +with a single solitary instrument in a powerful orchestra +of dozens of every other kind of instruments, this effect +is not consciously perceived. And the faculties which +we do possess are rarely of very remarkable strength and +intensity: we have enough of them for our ordinary +wants of life, but not necessarily more. Our sense of +hearing is sufficient to distinguish the voice of one friend +from another, but not always sufficient to be able to enjoy +music, still less often to perform, least often of all to +compose. And similarly with every other mental +faculty: most men can follow a simple argument, some +a more complex one, but few can reason out unaided a +complicated proposition. Now the creative degree in +any faculty is the most intense in its development. The +painter is the man who receives the largest number of +most delicately complete visional impressions; the musician +the man who receives the largest number of most +delicately complete audible impressions: to the painter +everything is a shape, a colour; to the musician everything +is a sound; the whole universe, to the thinker, is +but a concatenation of logical propositions. Thus, our +ideal man must, at starting, possess every higher faculty, +developed to the most intense degree, and every one of +them developed equally: for out of him is to be made +every kind of artist. Here, then, we have our ideal man: +he possesses in the highest degree, and in the most perfect +balance, all the emotional, logical, and perceptive +powers of the mind; he is, if you choose, the abstract +creature (never existing, and never, alas! to exist), the +all beautiful, all powerful, perfect fiction, which we call +<i>humanity</i>; and with him is our work. He is perfectly +balanced, he is a mere abstraction: for these two reasons +he is, so far, inactive; we cannot, with the best will in +the world, imagine his doing anything as long as he can +do everything: he will, in all probability, merely passively +enjoy. Before he can create, we must alter him. And +he is to create, remember, not as a statesman or a handicraftsman, +but as an artist: he is to deal not with +realities, but with fictions; he is not to touch our material +interests, he is merely to evoke for us a series of phantom +sights or sounds, of phantom men and women. Therefore, +our first act must be to diminish, by at least a half, all +the practical sides of his nature, so that no practical +activities divert him from his purely ideal field. So that +it be for him infinitely more natural to think, to feel, to +imitate, to combine impressions, than to be of any immediate +use in the world; so that the mere employment of +his powers be his furthest aim, without thinking what +effect that employment will have upon the real condition +of himself or of others. This much we have done: we +have obtained a creature whose interest is never purely +practical. But this will not suffice. We must diminish +by at least a quarter his mere logical powers, thus rendering +him far more inclined to view things as concrete, +living manifestations, than as logical abstractions. This +has served to prevent his being diverted into metaphysic +or scientific speculations: there is now no longer any +fear of his becoming a psychologist instead of a poet, a +mathematician or physicist instead of a painter or a +composer: things now interest him no longer for their +practical bearing, nor for their abstract meaning: he +cares for them not as forces, nor as ideas, but as forms, +as visions. And this time we have, as it were, rough-hewn +our artist. But what artist? He is, it is true, +mainly attracted by the mere contemplation of things +apart from practical or scientific interests, but he is +equally attracted by all sorts of visions: he receives +every kind of impression. This time, again, he will, from +perfect balance, remain inactive. We must throw his +faculties a little into disorder, we must, at random, diminish +here in order (relatively) to increase there: let us, +for instance, diminish by a trifle his faculty for manipulating +colours or masses of stone, his faculty for conceiving +sounds in succession and in combination; let us, in +short, make it a little difficult for him to be a painter or +sculptor or musician.</p> + +<p>What will he be, this first made artist of ours? this +creature, clipped in all the mere practically scientific instincts, +only that his whole intense personality may be +given more completely, more absolutely to the world of +artistic phantoms? Before breaking up this huge psychological +snow-man, this ungainly monster roughly +moulded into caricature shape by awkward removing of +material here and adding on there, before dashing it back +into the limbo of used up and unformed similes, let us +ask ourselves what artist he vaguely resembles: what is +the artist thus formed, it would seem, of a mere intense +human being; of all the faculties of our nature, only +more subtle and powerful, and working not in the world +of practical realities, nor of abstract truths, but in that of +imaginary forms? The answer comes instinctively, unhesitatingly +to all of us: this universal artist, this artistic +organism which contains the whole intensified individual, +is the poet. Nay: why call him poet? why reserve this +supreme place of artist not of colours or sounds, but of +spoken emotion, and perception, and action, for the man +whose words are grouped into metrical shape? Is it this +metrical shape, this mere enveloping form perceived +merely by the ear, this monotonous, rudimentary music, +so paltry by the side of the musician's real music, is it +this which requires for its production that wondrous +combination of faculties, that whole intensified human +individuality? For those same faculties, that same intensified +individuality, will act and bear fruit in the man +who lets his words drift on, unmetrical, in mere spoken +manner. And yet he shall be accounted less, and shall +cede to the other, who can measure his words into verses, +and couple them into rhyme. Surely there is injustice +in this. Wherefore, I pray you, should you, my friend, +my beloved little child poet, with the keen eyes and +eager lips of Keats, who sit (in fancy at least) here by +my side on the rough wall overlooking the orchard ravine +at Perugia, drowsily listening (as poets listen to prose) +to our discussion, wherefore should you, the poet, be +worth more than I, the prose writer, merely inasmuch as +you are the one and I am the other? Why be surrounded, +even in my eyes, by a sort of ideal halo; why +pointed out by my own secret instinct as the artist? All +this must be mere folly, prejudice, dried old forms of +thought handed down from the days when poets were +priests and lawgivers and prophets, when their very +credit depended upon their not being solely what you +modern poets are; all this is a mere historic myth, in +which the world continues foolishly to believe, letting +itself be told from generation to generation, till the idea +has become engrained in its mode of thinking, that the +poet is a special creature, a thing of finer mould, in whose +life, and movements, and feelings it expects something +different from the rest of humanity; in whose eyes it +seeks a dim reflection, in whose voice a distant echo of +the colours and sounds of that fairyland out of which he +has come as a changeling into the world of realities. +Infatuation and injustice. But no! mankind at large is +right in its ideas, but as it usually is, without knowing +why it has them: right in giving instinctively this place +of artist of the merely suggested, as distinguished from +the absolutely seen or heard forms of other arts, to the +poet alone. For the poet is, in the kingdom of words, +the real, complete artist. The artistic external form +which he gives to his creations removes them out of the +domain of the practically useful, or the scientifically interesting. +This metrical setting enables the poet to +show a part, to make perfect the tiniest thing; to give +complete significance, complete beauty, and eternal life +to a perception, an emotion, an image which cannot be +expanded beyond the fourteen lines of a sonnet; while +the poor prose writer, reduced to being a mere smith or +mechanist, can do nothing with any stray gem he may +cut, knows not how to set it, and is forced in despair to +stick it clumsily into some unwieldy utensil or implement, +some pot out of which to drink knowledge, or +some shield to ward off disaster. The prose writer is +for ever being driven to seek employment outside +the land of pure art. Therefore, the poet is truly the +exclusive artist in words; or rather the exclusive artist +in words must needs become the poet; if the man +feel that he cannot hammer wearily at some clumsy +ornamented piece of furniture, some bastard of artistic +uselessness and practical utility, that he cannot write +histories, or ethical disquisitions or psychological studies +(waxworks of spiritual pathology, technically called +novels), in order to bury in them the delicate artistic +fragments which he spontaneously produces; then that +man will assuredly learn the manner of making metrical +settings; that man, that word artist will infallibly become +a poet: nay, he is one. Thus, the poet is in reality +the artist who suggests emotions, and actions, and sights, +and sounds, as the painter is the artist who shows +coloured shapes, and the musician the artist who creates +forms made of sounds. The poet, therefore, is the artist +into whose work there enters, or can enter, the greatest +number of fragments of his whole personality: for his +works are made up of all that which his nature perceives +and evolves and desires: of the forests and fields, and +sea and skies which have printed their likenesses on +his mind; of the faces and movements of the men and +women whom he has known, nay, of whom once perhaps, +only once in his life, he has caught a never forgotten +glimpse; of the events which have taken place +before his eyes, or of which he has been told; of the +emotions and passions which he has felt hidden in himself +or seen burst out in others; of all that he can see, feel, +hear, conceive, imagine. He is the man who assimilates +most, initiates most, perceives most of all that passes +within and without him, and unites it all in a homogeneous +outer shape: nothing for him is waste: not the +hard, scaly first shoot of the reed, pale green, which +catches his feet as he walks on the riverside, across the +grass, half sere, half renovated by spring; not the scent +of first raindrops on the upturned mould of the fields; +not the sentence read at random in a book opened by +accident; not the sudden, never-recurring look in the +eyes of one beloved; not the base appetite which he has +hidden away, trampled back out of sight of his own consciousness; +not the preposterous ideal which his vanity +may have shown him for one second; not anything, +however small or however large, however common or +however rare, not anything inanimate or feeling, not +anything in life or in death, not anything which can be +seen, or heard, or felt, or understood, which may not be +moulded by the poet into some form which will have +meaning and charm, and eternal value for all men. +The poet is the man who receives a greater number of +more intense impressions than any other man; he is, of +all creatures, the most sensitive in the whole of his +being; for the whole of his being is at once the raw +material, and the forming mechanism of the work of art. +This is the ideal, the universal poet, the type: of him +every individual poet represents a limited portion, and +is a fresh repartition of faculties, a fresh combination +and proportion of material and mechanism, due to the +accident of race, of time, of birth, of education. The +typical poet assimilates and reproduces everything; and +each fragment of this type, each individual, differs from +every other individual in that which is assimilated and +reproduced by him: the one feels more, the other sees +more, the third imagines more; and each feels, sees, and +imagines, according to what external things have been +put within reach of his feelings, his sight, his fancy. +As, therefore, the typical poet is the whole type of +humanity affording material and acting as manipulative +apparatus to produce the work of art, so also the +individual poet is the individual man, moulding into shape +all the qualities which are strongest in his nature. All +the qualities, let us however mark, which are indisputedly +dominant; often, therefore, only the better, and in only +the lowest tempers the worst. For, remembering what +we noticed about moral faculties of will which protect +the artistic workings from the interference of other parts +of our nature, we may see that it must often happen that +a noble spirit may be able to keep out of his mere abstract +creations those baser instincts (which though recognized +with shame) he is unable to subdue in practice; +his works show him as he would desire himself to be, as +he, alas! has not the strength to be in reality; let us not, +therefore, complain of those who are unable to live up to +their conceptions, for they have given to us their better +part, and kept for themselves, with bitterness and shame, +their worse.</p> + +<p>The poet, therefore, is the artist into whose work +there enters the greatest proportion of his individual +nature; if he be flippant in temper his works cannot be +earnest; if he be impure his writings cannot be actively +pure; the distinctive features of his nature must be reflected +in his work, since his work is made out of and by +his nature. Now let us proceed. We had constructed +a sort of typical giant, promising all the powers and +qualities of all humanity; and this, by the gradually +stripping away of some of these human powers, we had +reduced to the condition of typical poet. Now let us +continue our work. Of course there are kinds of poetry +which form links with other intellectual work; and to +obtain these we must remove such faculties as do not +enter into them: separate from the artist those qualities +which belong only to the man. There is first of all that +great poetical anomaly the drama, for which, it would +seem, that less of the writer's own personality is required +than for any other form; for the dramatist stands half +way between the artist and the psychologist; he can obtain +innumerable varieties of character and feeling merely +by his reasoning powers, not by any personal experience. +He is a sort of synthetic metaphysician, who can construct +the saint, the villain, the simpleton, the knave, not +out of anything within himself, but out of the very +elements of these characters which he has obtained by +analysis; hence it is that, while we can from their works +reconstruct the character of poets like Milton, or Wordsworth, +or Leopardi, or Musset, we remain wholly ignorant +of the personality of Shakespeare; he cannot be all +that he shows us, and in the doubt he remains none of it +at all. Let us put aside therefore this anomalous artist, +and continue stripping away some of the purely emotional +characters of our typical colossus. We shall soon +meet the last and simplest form of poet—the mere describer; +of his aspirations and emotions we know but +little; we know only of his tastes, his preferences for certain +sights and sounds. He cares for the sea, or the +woods, or the fields, or the skies; he is very near being +a mere thing of eyes and ears. Yet not wholly; for he +perceives not only the colour and movement of the +waves, but their sound, their briny scent; he perceives +not only the green and tawny tints of leaves and moss, +he hears the crackling of the brushwood, the rustling of +the boughs, the confused hum of bees, the faint murmur +of waters; nay, in the waves and in the woods he perceives +something more, vague resemblances to other +things; vague expressions of mood and feeling which, +when the waters rush in, make his heart leap; when the +grey light steals in among the branches, sends a sadness +throughout him. Nay, in this artist, in this simplest, +least human sort of poet, there remains yet an infinite +amount of the human individuality, of its passions and +desires. Let us tear away, throw aside this last amount +of human feeling, reduce our typical artist to mere intense +powers of seeing. Shall we still have wherewith +to obtain any work at all? will this rarified, simplified +mentality be much above a mere feelingless optic +machine? Let us see. Here we have a creature out of +which we have removed as much as possible of all +human qualities: a creature which can perceive with infinite +keenness and reproduce with the most perfect exactitude, +every little subtle line and tint and shadow +which escapes other men; a creature whose delicate +perception vibrates with delight at every harmonious +combination, and writhes, as if it would shatter to atoms, +at every displeasing mixture of lines or colours. A living +and most sensitive organism which feels, thinks +everything as form and colour, fostered with the utmost +care by other such organisms, themselves nurtured into +intensity more intense than that with which they were +born; for ever put in contact with the visual objects +which are, let us remember, the air it breathes, the food +it assimilates until this visual organism becomes beyond +compare perfect in its power of perceiving and reproducing. +Then, imagine this abstract being, this quivering +thing of sight, placed in the midst of a country of austere, +delicate lines, and solemn yet diaphanous tints; among +the undulating fields and oakwoods, beneath the pearly +sky of Umbria; imagine that before it are placed, as the +creatures most precious and lovely, the creatures whose +likeness must for ever be copied in all its intensity, +youths, young women, old men, delicate and emaciate +with solitude and maceration, with eyes grown dilated +and bright from straining to see the glorious visions, the +celestial day-dreams which flit across their mind; with +lips grown tremulous and eager with passionate longing +for constantly expected, never-coming bliss; always +alone, inactive, with listless limbs and workless hands, in +the bare, unadorned cell or oratory; or if, coming forth, +walking through the streets, passing through the crowd +(giving way with awe), erect, self-engrossed, seeing and +hearing nothing around, like one entranced. Let us +imagine this organism, thus perfect for perceiving and +reproducing all that it sees, for ever in the presence of +such lines and colours, such faces and figures as these; +and then let us ask ourselves what this quite abstract, +unhuman power will produce, what this artist, who is +completely divested of all that which belongs merely to +the man, would paint. What would that be, that work +thus produced? What save those delicate, wan angels +and saints and apostles, standing in solitary contemplation +and ecstasy, those scarcely embodied souls, raised +beyond the bounds of time and space, concentrated, absorbed +in longing for heavenly perfection? And if this +subtle visual organism, nurtured among these sights, +should happen to be lodged in the same body with a +sordid, base, cynical temper, can it be altered thereby? +Surely not. The eye has seen, the hand has reproduced—seen +and reproduced that which surrounds them—and +inevitably, fatally, although eye and hand belonged to +the man "who placed all his hopes in the good things of +fortune, into whose porphyry brain no idea of good could +enter, who for money would have concluded any evil +bargain," the work thus produced by this commonplace, +grasping atheist, Peter Perugino, must be the ideal of all +purely devotional art. He was an atheist and a cynic, +but he was a great painter, and lived in Umbria, in the +country of sweet and austere hills and valleys, in the +country whose moral air was still scented by the +"flowerets of St. Francis."</p> + +<p>This is the end of our long wandering up and down, +round and round, the question of artistic personality, +even as we must wander up and down, round and round, +before we can reach any of these strange Umbrian towns. +And, as after long journeying, when we enter the city, +and find that that which seemed a castle, a grand, +princely town, all walled and towered and battlemented, +is in reality only a large, rough village, with blackened +houses and fissured church steeples, a place containing +nothing of any interest: so also in this case, when we +have finally reached our paltry conclusion that this +painter of saints was no saint himself, we must admit to +ourselves that to arrive at this conclusion was scarcely +our real object; even as while travelling through this +country of Perugino we make our guide confess that +what, in all this expedition, we were meant to see and +enjoy, was not the paltry, deceptive hill-top village, but +the sere-brown oakwoods, tinged russet by the sun, the +grey olive hills through which we have slowly ascended, +and the glimpses of undulating grey-green country and +distant wave-blue mountains which we have had at every +new turn of our long and up-hill road.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch8" id="ch8"></a>RUSKINISM.</h3> + +<h5>THE WOULD-BE STUDY OF A CONSCIENCE</h5> +<p> </p> + +<p>I give a place to the following pages, because, for all +the difference of form, this essay is of the same sort, has +had the same kind of origin, as the so seemingly incongruous +studies with which it is bound up. For this also +is the rough putting together of notes made at various +times and in various phases of study; it is a series of +self-questionings and answers, of problems, perhaps only +half-formulated and half-solved, which have arisen round +one man, one artist, one art philosophy, even as in the +adjoining essays they have arisen around some one statue, +or song, or picture; self-questionings and problems, these +present ones, not of æsthetic right and wrong suggested +by a given work of art, but of moral fitness and unfitness +suggested by the doubts, the divisions, the mistakes, +by the comprehension (or, if you prefer, the misapprehension) +of the conscience of perhaps the greatest +and strangest artist of our days.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>John Ruskin stands quite isolated among writers on art. +His truths and his errors are alike of a far higher sort +than the truths and errors of his fellow-workers: they +are truths and errors not of mere fact, nor of mere +reasoning, but of tendency, of moral attitude; and +his philosophy is of far greater importance than any +other system of æsthetics, because it is not the philosophy +of the genius, evolution or meaning of any art +or of all art, but the philosophy of the legitimacy or +illegitimacy of all and every art. In the case of every +other writer on art the evils due to a false system are, +in proportion to the great interests of our lives and of +the life around, but very paltry evils: the evils of misconceiving +the relations between various masters and +various schools, and the causes of various artistic phenomena; +the evils of misappreciating a work or a form of +art, of preferring an inferior picture, or statue or piece of +music, to a superior one; the evils of buying fluttering +St. Theresas of Bernini rather than noble goddesses of +Scopas; of ornamenting our houses with plaster dragons, +grimacing toothless masks, and meagre lines of lintel and +clumsy agglomerations of columns, rather than with the +leaf and flower moulding, the noble arches and dainty +cornices of mediæval art; the evils in short of not understanding +quite well or of not appreciating quite correctly. +Very important evils within the limited sphere of our +artistic interests, and which we must not neglect to +eradicate; but evils such as cannot deeply trouble our +whole nature, or seriously damage our whole lives. +Such is the case with the æsthetic systems, with the +truths and errors of men like Winckelmann, Lessing, +Hegel, or Taine; but it is not so with the æsthetic system +of Ruskin. For the theories of all other writers on +art deal only with the meaning and value of one work or +school of art compared with another work or school; +they deal only with the question how much of our liking +or disliking should we give to this art or to that; they +are all true or false within the region allotted to art. +But the theories of Ruskin deal with the comparative +importance of artistic concerns and the other concerns +of our lives: they deal with the problem, how much of +our thoughts and our energies we have a right to give to +art, and for what reasons we may give any portion of +them: it deals with the question of the legitimacy not of +one kind of artistic enjoyment more than another, but of +the enjoyment of art at all.</p> + +<p>The question may at first sight seem futile from its +very magnitude: unnecessary because it has so long +been answered. In the first moment many of us may +answer with contempt that the thinking men and women +of to-day are not ascetics of the Middle Ages, nor utilitarians +of the 18th century, nor Scotch Calvinists, that +they should require to be taught that beauty is neither +sinful nor useless, that enjoyment of art is not foul self-indulgence +nor childish pastime. And so at first it seems. +The thinking men and women of our day are not any of +these things, and do not require to be answered these +questions. But though these scruples and doubts no +longer trouble us, we, in our nineteenth century, are yet +not entirely at peace in our hearts. For, just in proportion +as the old religious faith is dying out, we are feeling +the necessity to create a new; as the old vocations +of belief are becoming fewer and further between, the +new vocations of duty are becoming commoner; as the +old restrictions of the written law are melting away, so +there appears the new restriction of the unwritten law, +the law of our emancipated conscience; and the less we +go to our priests, the more do we go to our own inner selves +to know what we may do and what we should sacrifice: +with our daily growing liberty, grows and must grow, to +all the nobler among us, our responsibility. Nay, the +more we realise that we have but this one brief life +wherein to act and to expiate, the more earnestly do we +ask ourselves to what use we should put the little that is +vouchsafed us. And thus it comes to pass that there +exist among us many who, seeing the evil around them, +seeing the infinitude of falsehood which requires to be +dispelled and of pain which requires to be alleviated, and +of injustice which requires to be destroyed, must occasionally +pause and ask themselves what right they have +to give all, or any, of their limited time and thought and +energy to the mere enjoyment of the beautiful, when +there exists on all sides evil which it seems to require +unlimited effort to quell. Many there must be, and every +day more, who are harried by their love of art and their +sense of duty, who daily ask themselves the question +which first arose, nearly forty years ago, in the mind of +John Ruskin; and which, settled by false answers, has recurred +to him ever and anon, and has shaken and +shattered the very system which was intended to answer +it for ever.</p> + +<p>John Ruskin has been endowed as have been very few +men as an artist, a critic, and a moralist; in the immense +chaotic mass, the constantly altered and constantly propped +up ruins of an impossible system, which constitute +the bulk of his writings, he has taught us more of the +subtle reasons of art, he has reproduced with his pen +more of the beauty of physical nature, and he has made +us feel more profoundly the beauty of moral nature, than +has, perhaps, been done separately by any critic, or +artist, or moralist of his day. He has possessed within +himself two very perfect characters, has been fitted out +for two very noble missions:—the creation of beauty and +the destruction of evil; and of these two halves each +has been warped; of these two missions each has been +hampered; warped and hampered by the very nobility +of the man's nature: by his obstinate refusal to compromise +with the reality of things, by his perpetual resistance +to the evidence of his reason, by his heroic and +lamentable clinging to his own belief in harmony where +there is discord, in perfection where there is imperfection. +There are natures which cannot be coldly or +resignedly reasonable, which, despite all possible demonstration, +cannot accept evil as a necessity and injustice +as a fact; which must believe their own heart rather +than their own reason; and when we meet such natures, +we in our cold wisdom must look upon them with pity, +perhaps, and regret, but with admiration and awe and +envy. Such a nature is that of John Ruskin. He belongs, +it is true, to a generation which is rapidly passing +away; he is the almost isolated champion of creeds and +ideas which have ceased even to be discussed among the +thinking part of our nation; he is a believer not only in +Good and in God, but in Christianity, in the Bible, in +Protestantism; he is, in many respects, a man left far +behind by the current of modern thought; but he is, +nevertheless, and unconsciously, perhaps, to himself, the +greatest representative of the highly developed and conflicting +ethical and æsthetical nature which is becoming +more common in proportion as men are taking to think +and feel for themselves; his is the greatest example of +the strange battles and compromises which are daily +taking place between our moral and our artistic halves; +and the history of his aspirations and his errors is the +type of the inner history of many a humbler thinker and +humbler artist around us.</p> + +<p>When, nearly forty years ago, Ruskin first came before +the world with the wonderful book—wonderful in sustained +argument and description, and in obscure, half +crazy, half prophetic utterances—called <i>Modern Painters</i>, +it was felt that a totally new power had entered the +region of artistic analysis. It was not the subtle sympathy +with line and curve, with leaf and moulding, nor +the wondrous power of reproducing with mere words the +depths of sky and sea, the radiancies of light and the +flame and smoulder of cloud; it was not his critical insight +nor his artistic faculty which drew to him at once +the souls of a public so different, in its universality, from +the small eclectic bands which surround other æstheticians; +it was the feeling, in all who read his books, that +this man was giving a soul to the skies and seas; that +he was breathing human feeling into every carved stone +and painted canvas; that he was bidding capital and +mosaic, nay, every rudest ornament hewn by the humblest +workman, to speak to men with the voice of their +own heart; that for the first time there had been brought +into the serene and egotistic world of art the passion, +the love, and the wrath of righteousness. He came into +it as an apostle and a reformer, but as an apostle and a +reformer strangely different from Winckelmann and +Schlegel, from Lessing and Goethe. For, while attacking +the architecture of Palladio and the painting of +Salvator Rosa; while expounding the landscapes of +Turner and the churches of Verona, he was not merely +demolishing false classicism and false realism, not merely +vindicating a neglected artist or a wronged school: he +was come to sweep usurping evil out of the kingdom of +art, and to reinstate as its sole sovereign no human +craftsman, but God himself.</p> + +<p>God or Good: for to Ruskin the two words have but +one meaning. God and Good must receive the whole +domain of art; it must become the holy of holies, the +temple and citadel of righteousness. To do this was the +avowed mission of this strange successor, haughty and +humble, and tender and wrathful, of the pagan Winckelmann, +of the coldly serene Goethe. How came John +Ruskin by this mission, or why should his mission differ +so completely from that of all his fellows? Why should +he insist upon the necessity of morally sanctifying art, +instead of merely æsthetically reforming it? Why was +it not enough for him that artistic pleasure should be innocent, +without trying to make it holy? Because, for +Ruskin's nature, compounded of artist and moralist, +artistic engagement was a moral danger, a distraction +from his duty—for Ruskin was not the mere artist, who, +powerless outside his art, may, because he can only, give +his whole energies to it; he was not the mere moralist +who, indifferent to art, can give it a passing glance without +interrupting for a moment his work of good; he felt +himself endowed to struggle for righteousness and bound +to do so, and he felt himself also irresistibly attracted +by mere beauty. To the moral nature of the man this +mere beauty, which threatened to absorb his existence, +became positively sinful; while he knew that evil was +raging without requiring all his energies to quell it, +every minute, every thought diverted from the cause of +good was so much gain for the cause of evil; innocence, +mere negative good, there could not be, as long as there +remained positive evil. Thus it appeared to Ruskin. +This strange knight-errant of righteousness, conscious of +his heaven endowed strength, felt that during every half-hour +of delay in the Armida's garden of art, new rootlets +were being put forth, new leaves were being unfolded by +the enchanted forest of error which overshadowed and +poisoned the earth, and which it was his work to hew +and burn down; that every moment of reluctant farewell +from the weird witch of beauty meant a fresh outrage, +an additional defiling of the holy of holies to rescue +which he had received his strong muscle and his sharp +weapons. Thus, refusing to divide his time and thoughts +between his moral work and his artistic, Ruskin must +absolutely and completely abandon the latter; if art +seemed to him not merely a waste of power, but an absolute +danger for his nobler side, there evidently was no +alternative but to abjure it for ever. But a man cannot +thus abandon his own field, abjure the work for which +he is specially fitted; he may mortify, and mutilate and +imprison his body, but he cannot mortify or mutilate his +mind, he cannot imprison his thoughts. John Ruskin +was drawn irresistibly towards art because he was +specially organised for it. The impossible cannot be +done: nature must find a vent, and the artistic half of +Ruskin's mind found its way of eluding the apparently +insoluble difficulty: his desire reasoned, and his desire +was persuaded. A revelation came to him: he was +neither to compromise with sin nor to renounce his own +nature. For it struck him suddenly that this irresistible +craving for the beautiful, which he would have silenced +as a temptation of evil, was in reality the call to his +mission; that this domain of art, which he had felt +bound to abandon, was in reality the destined field for +his moral combats, the realm which he must reconquer +for God and for Good. Ruskin had considered art as +sinful as long as it was only negatively innocent: by the +strange logic of desire he made it positively righteous, +actively holy; what he had been afraid to touch, he suddenly +perceived that he was commanded to handle. He +had sought for a solution of his own doubts, and the +solution was the very gospel which he was to preach to +others; the truth which had saved him was the truth +which he must proclaim. And that truth, which had +ended Ruskin's own scruples, was that the basis of art +is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or unpleasant, +but must be lawful or unlawful, that every +legitimate artistic enjoyment is due to the perception of +moral propriety, that every artistic excellence is a moral +virtue, every artistic fault is a moral vice; that noble art +can spring only from noble feeling, that the whole system +of the beautiful is a system of moral emotions, moral +selections, and moral appreciation; and that the aim and +end of art is the expression of man's obedience to God's +will, and of his recognition of God's goodness.</p> + +<p>Such was the solution of Ruskin's scruples respecting +his right of giving to art the time and energies he might +have given to moral improvement; and such the æsthetical +creed which he felt bound, by conviction and by the +necessity of self-justification, to develop into a system +and to apply to every single case. The notion of +making beauty not merely a vague emanation from the +divinity, as in the old platonic philosophies, but a direct +result, an infallible concomitant of moral excellence; of +making the physical the mere reflexion of the moral, is +indeed a very beautiful and noble idea; but it is a false +idea. For—and this is one of the points which Ruskin +will not admit—the true state of things is by no means +always the noblest or the most beautiful; our longing +for ineffable harmony is no proof that such harmony +exists: the phantom of perfection which hovers before +us is often not the mirage of some distant reality, but a +mere vain shadow projected by our own desires, which +we must follow, but may never obtain. In the soul of +all of us exists, oftenest fragmentary and blurred, a plan +of harmony and perfection which must serve us as guide +in our workings, in our altering and rebuilding of things; +but we must not expect that with this plan should +coincide the actual arrangements of nature; we must beware +lest we use as a map of the earth into which we +have been created the map of the heaven which we seek +to create; for we shall find that the ways are different, +we shall go astray bewildered and in bitterness, we shall +sit down in despair in this country which is evil where it +should have been good, arid where it should have been +fruitful, and we shall uselessly weep or rage until all the +time for our journeyings and workings is over, and death +has come to ask how much we have done. Sin and Pain and +Injustice are realities, and what is worse, they are necessities: +they are not despite Nature, but through Nature; +destructive forces perhaps, but which Nature requires for +her endless work of construction; punished perhaps in +the individual wretch devoted to them, but ordered +nevertheless by that same punishing power which requires +them. And worse still, evil and good are not opponents, +they are not for ever destroying each other's +work, for ever marshalled in battle against each other; +they are combined though hostile, used in the same great +work of action and reaction: together they build and +destroy, together they are knit in closest and most +twisted bonds of cause and effect; bonds so close, so inextricably +crossed and recrossed that severing one of them, +tearing and cutting them asunder, it seems as if the +whole universe would crash down upon us. In this +world of reality where evil leads to good and life to +death; where harmonies are imperfect, there is no unvarying +correspondence between things, no necessary +genesis of good from good, and evil from evil. There is +much conflict and much isolation. And thus the world +of the physically beautiful is isolated from the world of +the morally excellent: there is sometimes correspondence +between them, and sometimes conflict, but both +accidental and due to no inner affinity, but only to exterior +causes: most often there is no relation at all. For the +qualities of right and wrong, and of beautiful and ugly, +and our perceptions of them, belong to different parts of +our being, even as to a yet different part of our being belong +our perception of true and false, that is, of existing +and non-existing. A true thing need by no means be a +good or a beautiful thing: that generations of men are +doomed to sin and misery is no good fact; that millions +of putrifying bodies lie beneath the ground is no beautiful +fact, but both are nevertheless true facts, true with +that truth of which science, had it perception of good +and of beauty as well as mere perception of truth, should +say, "I recognize, but I shudder"—And thus also is it +with the good and the beautiful: they have no connection +except that, each in its kingdom, is the best, the desirable, +that for which we should all strive, that for which +the whole of nature, despite its inextricable evils, seems +to crave and to struggle. A pure state of soul is like a +pure state of body: a morbid craving is like a disease; a +noble moral attitude is like a noble physical attitude: +moral excellence and physical beauty are both the +healthy, the perfect; but they are the healthy, the perfect, +in two totally different halves of nature, and we perceive +and judge them by totally different organisms. +Whence our moral instincts have come, or how they +ever entered into the scheme of a world in which there +is so much to shock them; how the preference for the +good of others was ever evolved out of the preference for +the good of self is a question most speedily solved by the +men of science who seek the reasons why Christ is good +and the thinned gold-leaved poplars by the river are beautiful, +in the living nerves of ripped-up beasts; this much is +evident that moral instinct judges that part of actions +which is neither to be felt with our hands, nor to be +seen with our eyes, nor to be tasted or heard or smelt: +it judges and finds good or evil certain qualities or combinations +of qualities which do not materially exist: +things which though they have as real an existence as +anything which can be tasted or sniffed or fingered, have +yet a purely intellectual existence, can be found only by +those mysterious senses which, even as touch and hearing, +and smell and taste and sight, put us in communication +with the physical world outside us, put us far more +wonderfully in communication with the moral world +within us. The qualities constituting physical beauty, +on the other hand, are, to a large extent at least, perceived +by our physical senses: there is indeed a point +where the mere nerve sensations no longer serve to +explain æsthetical likings or dislikings, where, on the other +hand, the addition of mere logical considerations of fitness +seem insufficient to account for phenomena, where, +in short, we are forced to have recourse to a very confused +and at present untenable idea of inherited habits and +love of proportion, but it nevertheless remains evident +that physical beauty is a thing perceived through the +physical senses and concretely extant in the world +around us. We say that a character is morally good because +certain actions or words reveal to us the existence of +certain tendencies and habits of feeling which (no matter +how instituted) satisfy and delight our moral nature, +because there is between these tendencies of feeling and +our moral nature a mysterious affinity, which may depend +on nerve cells or on logical arguments, but does +not in the least resemble either. But when we say that +a tree is beautiful, it is because, in the first instance, its +mere sensation-giving qualities, taken separately, affect +us agreeably in our various physical parts: the colour +stimulating or soothing our colour nerves, the size, enabling +our visual nerves to take in its shape agreeably; +its shadyness, which even as a mere suggestion, pleases +our tactile nerves, its rustle, which pleasantly moves our +nerves of hearing; and even if we admit that the perception +that the tree as a whole is beautiful, as distinguished +from certain of its qualities being agreeable, depends +upon something higher and more recondite than +mere nerve tickle, even then it remains that whatever +abstract instinct of beauty we may possess, it is only +through physical sensations that this instinct is reached; +and that a man born blind cannot perceive beauty of +colours nor a man born deaf beauty of sounds, simply +because the physical receptive organs of sight and sound +are wanting. Thus, in short, beauty is a physical quality, +as goodness is a moral quality: and if they are in a way +equivalents, beauty being physical goodness, and goodness +moral beauty, it is exactly because each has a +separate sphere in which each respectively, represents +the best. That beauty is in itself physical, is a point +which few have denied: that beautiful curves and harmonies +are moral qualities very few have asserted. But +few have as yet been willing to admit that beauty is a +quality independent of goodness, independent sometimes +to the extent of hostility: that it is as independent of +moral excellence as is logical correctness. Yet thus it +is; and thus all of us must vaguely feel; all those who +think, must closely perceive it to be. There is no justice, +no charity, no moral excellence in physical beauty. It +is a negative thing. If it refuses to associate with evil, +to dwell in the putrid corpse or in the face of the murderer, +it is because physical beauty is a concomitant of +physical purity and health, and decaying corpses are always +unhealthy, while evil souls nearly always leave +ugly marks on the bodies: but the putrescent corpse and +the murderer's face are both ugly because they are physically +wrong, not because they are morally abominable. +Beauty, in itself, is neither morally good nor morally bad: +it is æsthetically good, even as virtue is neither æsthetically +good nor æsthetically bad, but morally good. Beauty +is pure, complete, egotistic: it has no other value than +its being beautiful. This is a bitter thing to say, a cruel +confession on the part of one whose love and whose chief +interest is the beautiful, to make to himself: this that his +beloved and much studied Beautiful, which is his happiness +and his study, has no moral value: that above this +superb and fascinating thing, there are things which are +better, nobler, more necessary, and for whose sake, in +case of conflict, this adored quality must be trampled +under foot. A bitter confession; but the truth is the +truth, and must be admitted; to ourselves first of all. +It is, as we have said, one of the wicked anomalies of +this world that the true, the existing, is at variance with +that which we should wish to exist: we cannot replace +with impunity the ugly, the cruel, the mean truth by the +charming, the generous fancy; if we do so, we must be +prepared to break with all truth, or to compromise with +all falsehood: we shall create an evil a hundredfold +worse than the one we wished to avoid. We are afraid +of a truth which jars upon our sense of the morally desirable: +we invent and accept a lie, plausible and noble; +and behold! in a moment we are surrounded by a logical +work of falsehood, which must be for ever torn and +for ever patched up if any portion of truth is to enter.</p> + +<p>Such has been the case with John Ruskin; he shrank +from owning to himself what we have just recognized, +with reluctance, indeed, and sorrow, that the beautiful +to whose study and creation he was so irresistibly drawn, +had no moral value; that in the great battle between +good and evil, beauty remained neutral, passive, serenely +egotistic. It was necessary for him that beauty should +be more than passively innocent: he must make it +actively holy. Only a moral meaning could make art +noble; and as, in the deep-rooted convictions of Ruskin, +art was noble, a moral meaning must be found. The +whole of the philosophy of art must be remodelled upon +an ethical basis; a moral value must everywhere +sanction the artistic attraction. And thus Ruskin came to +construct a strange system of falsehood, in which moral +motives applied to purely physical actions, moral meanings +given to the merely æsthetically significant, moral +consequences drawn from absolutely unethical decisions; +even the merest coincidences in historical and artistic +phenomena, nay, even in the mere growth of various +sorts of plants, nay, even the most ludicrously applied +biblical texts, were all dragged forward and combined +into a wondrous legal summing-up for the beatification +of art; the sense of the impossibility of rationally referring +certain æsthetical phenomena to ethical causes +producing in this lucid and noble thinker a sort of +frenzy, a wild impulse to solve irrational questions by +direct appeals for an oracular judgment of God, to be +sought for in the most trumpery coincidences of accidents; +so that the man who has understood most of +the subtle reasons of artistic beauty, who has grasped +most completely the psychological causes of great art +and poor art, is often reduced to answer his perplexities +by a sort of æsthetico-moral key and bible divination, or +heads-win tails-lose, toss-up decision. The main pivots +of Ruskin's system are, however, but few: first, the assertion +that all legitimate artistic action is governed by +moral considerations, is the direct putting in practice of +the commandments of God; and secondly, that all +pleasure in the beautiful is the act of appreciating the +goodness and wisdom of God. These two main theories +completely balance one another; between them, and +with the occasional addition of mystic symbolism, they +must explain the whole question of artistic right and +wrong. Now for Ruskin artistic right and wrong is not +only a very complex, but, in many respects, a very fluctuating +question; in order to see how complex and how +fluctuating, we must remember what Ruskin is, and what +are his aims. Ruskin is no ordinary æsthetician, interested +in art only inasmuch as it is a subject for +thought, untroubled in the framing of histories, psychological +systems of art philosophy by any personal likings +and dislikings; Ruskin is essentially an artist, he thinks +about art because he feels about art, and his sole object +is morally to justify his artistic sympathies and aversions, +morally to justify his caring about art at all. With +him the instinctive likings and dislikings are the original +motor, the system is there only for their sake. He cannot, +therefore, like Lessing, or Hegel, or Taine, quietly +shove aside any phenomenon of artistic preference which +does not happen to fit into his system; he could, like +Hegel, assign an inferior rank to painting, because painting +has to fall into the category assigned to romantic, +that is to say, imperfect art; he could not, like Taine, +deliberately stigmatise music as a morbid art because it +had arisen, according to his theory, in a morbid state of +society; with Ruskin everything must finally yield to +the testimony of his artistic sense: everything which he +likes must be legitimated, everything which he dislikes +must be condemned; and for this purpose the system of +artistic morality must for ever be altered, annotated, provided +with endless saving-clauses, and special cases. +And all this the more especially as, in the course of his +studies, Ruskin frequently perceives that things which +on superficial acquaintance displeased him, are in reality +delightful, in consequence of which discovery a new +legislation is required to annul their previous condemnation +and provide for their due honour. Thus, having +conceived a perhaps exaggerated aversion (due, in great +part, to the injustice of his adversaries) to the manner of +representing the nature of certain Dutch painters of the +17th century, Ruskin immediately formulated a theory +that minute imitation of nature was base and sinful; and +when he conceived a perhaps equally exaggerated admiration +for the works of certain extremely careful and +even servile English painters of our own times, he was +forced to formulate an explanatory theory that minuteness +of work was conscientious, appreciative, and distinctly +holy. Had he been satisfied with mere artistic +value, he need only have said that the Dutch pictures +were ugly, and the English pictures beautiful; but having +once established all artistic judgment upon an ethical +basis, it became urgent that he should invent a more <ins title="original has or or">or</ins> +less casuistic reason, something not unlike the <i>distinguo</i> +by means of which the Jesuit moralists rendered +innocent in their powerful penitents what they had declared +sinful in less privileged people, to explain that, +under certain circumstances, minute imitation was the +result of insolence and apathy, and in other cases the +sign of humility and appreciation. Again, having been +instinctively impressed by the coldness and insipidity of +the schools of art which ostensibly refused to copy individual +nature, and professed to reproduce only the +more important and essential character of things, Ruskin +annihilated these idealistic conventionalists by a charge +of impious contempt for the details of individual peculiarities +which God had been pleased to put into his +work; and when, on the other hand, his growing love +for mediæval art and for mysticism began to draw him +towards the Giottesque and even the pre-Giottesque +artists, who left out of their work all except the absolutely +essential and typical traits, Ruskin sanctified +their conventionalism as the result of preference for the +merely spiritual and morally interesting portion of the +subject. The fact that the over refinement of the idealists +of the 16th century ended in insipidity because it +was due to a general organic decline in the art, and that +the rudeness of the conventional artists of the 14th century +possessed a certain nobility because it was merely +a momentary incapacity in a rapidly progressing art; +this fact, and with it the knowledge that the development +and decline of every art is due to certain necessities +of general change, all that explains the life of any and +every art, completely escapes Ruskin on account of his +explanation by moral motives. In this way Ruskin has +constructed a whole system of artistic ethics, extremely +contradictory and, as we have remarked, bearing as great +a resemblance to the text book, full of <i>distinguos</i> and +<i>directions of the intention</i> of one of Pascal's Jesuits as a +very morally pure and noble work can bear to a very +base and depraved one. And throughout this system +scattered fragmentarily throughout his various books, +every artistic merit or demerit is disposed of as a virtuous +action or a crime; the moral principle established for +the explanation of one case naturally involving the prejudgment +of another case; and the whole system explaining +by moral delinquencies the artistic inferiority +of a given time or people, and, on the other hand, +attributing the moral and social ruin of a century or a +nation to the artistic abominations it had perpetrated. +The arrangements of lintels and columns, the amount of +incrustation of coloured marble on to brick, the degree +to which window traceries may be legitimately attenuated +and curled, the value of Greek honeysuckle patterns +as compared with Gothic hedge-rose ornaments, all these +and a thousand other questions of mere excellence of +artistic effect, are discussed on the score of their morality +or baseness, of their truthfulness, or justice, or humility; +and Ruskin's madness against any kind of cheating or +deception goes to the length, in one memorable passage +in the <i>Seven Lamps of Architecture</i>, of condemning Correggio's +ceiling of St. Paolo at Parma because, as real +children might be climbing in a real vine trellise above +our heads, there is possibility of deception and of sin; +whereas, as none of us expect to see the heavens open +above us, there is no possibility of deception, and consequently +no sin in Correggio's glory of angels in the +Parma Cathedral; thus absolving on the score of +morality a rather confused and sprawling composition, +and condemning as immoral one of the most graceful +and childlike works of the Renaissance. The result of +this system of explaining all artistic phenomena by +ethical causes is, as we have remarked, that the real +cause of any phenomenon, the explanation afforded us +by history, is entirely overlooked or even ignominiously +rejected. Thus Ruskin attributes the decay of Gothic +architecture to "one endeavour to assume, in excessive +flimsiness of tracery, the semblance of what it was not"—to +its having "sacrificed a single truth." Now the +violation of the nature and possibilities of the material, +what Ruskin in ethical language calls the endeavour to +trick, was not the cause but the effect of a gradual decline +in the art. The lace work of 15th century Gothic +is not a <i>lie</i>, it is an effete form. The perfect forms had +been obtained, and as the growth of the art could not +be checked, imperfect ones naturally succeeded them; +the workman had hewn enough, had diminished the +stone surfaces sufficiently, had carved the leafage as +much as was compatible with beauty; the succeeding +generations of workmen continued to work, and what +happened? They hewed away too much, they diminished +the stone surface too much, they carved the leafage too +deep, each generation cutting away more and more, until +the whole fabric had reached such a degree of flimsiness +that, had not the Renaissance swept its cobwebs +away, they would have been torn to shreds by the Gothic +artists themselves. An art corrupts and dies of its own +vital principles, as does every other living and changing +thing, as a flower withers of its own life: you begin by +chipping, you end, as in Gothic architecture, by chipping +into nothingness. You begin with grouping: you end +with grouping, like Michelangiolo and Parmegianno, +into knots and lumps; you begin by raising your figures +out of the background: you end, like Ghiberti, by tying +them on with the narrowest slip of bronze; you begin +with modulating: you end, like Raff, Brahms, and other +Wagnerists, by modulating into chaos. Art, if it lives, +must grow, and if it grows it must grow old and die. +And this fact gradually, though instinctively, beginning +to be felt by all thinkers on art, Ruskin, with his theory +of moral æsthetics, could never recognize. For him the +corruption of the art is due to the moral corruption of +the artist: if the artist remained truthfully modest, the +perfection of the art would continue indefinitely.</p> + +<p>Again, the necessity of referring all good art to morality +and all bad art to immorality, obliges Ruskin to +postulate that every period which has produced bad art +has been a period of moral decay. The artistic habits +which displease him must be a direct result of a vicious +way of feeling and acting in all things: the decay of +Venetian architecture and sculpture must be distinctly +referable to the decay of Venetian morality in the 15th +century; and the final corruption and ruin of the state +must be traced to the moral obliquity which caused +Venetians to adopt pseudo-classic forms in the Riva façade +of the Ducal palace; moral degradation and artistic +degradation, acting and re-acting on each other, bring +about, according to Ruskin, political ruin; the iniquities +of the men who became apostates to Gothic architecture +are visited upon their distant descendants, upon the +Venetians of the days of Campo Formio. Now here +again the ethical basis induces a complete historical +misconception, a misconception not only in the history +of art, but also in the history of civilization. For, just +as his system of moral sin and artistic punishment blinds +Ruskin to the necessities of change and decay in art, so, +also, it prevents his seeing the inevitable necessity of +political growth and decline. Ruskin seeks the cause of +the fall of Venice in moral corruption manifested, or +supposed to be manifested, in art; but the cause of the +fall of Venice must be sought elsewhere. Look at this +lagoon, this Adriatic, this Mediterranean: in the 14th +century they are the source of the greatness of the Zenos +and Pisanis; three or four hundred years later they will +be the cause of the pettiness of the Morosinis and +Emos. In the present, in this time of Dandolo, into +which Ruskin has led us, it is to them that Venice owes +the humiliation of Barbarossa in the porch of St. Mark's; +to them in the future will be owed the triumph of +Bonaparte and the tricolour waving from the flagstaff of +the square. For in the middle ages the sea means the +Mediterranean and the Baltic, the two great navigable, +wealth-yielding lakes, and around them arises prosperity: +Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, Lübeck, Dantzig, Brehmen; +the men who live on the shores of the Mediterranean +take the riches of the East and of India, and conquer +Greece and the islands, and grow rich; and on this strip +of marshland keep armies which can cope with the united +forces of Europe. Such is the sea of the middle ages. +But the sea of modern times is the ocean; give the +means of navigating that, give to the barbarians who inhabit +its coasts just enough civilization to build a ship +and steer it, and those barbarians, yes, the boors of +Frisia, the savages of England, and of Normandy, and +of Portugal, will become the masters of the world, and +Venetians and Genoese shall be their puppets, and the +Mediterranean their pond. Since to the commerce of +the Mediterranean they will oppose the commerce of the +ocean, to the riches of Greece, of Asia Minor, Persia, and +Egypt, the riches of Mexico and Peru, of India and of +China, which will flow into the banks of London, of +Lisbon, of Antwerp, and which will create armies to +sweep all Italy out of the field. The Ocean has superseded +the Mediterranean, the boundless the bounded; +this is the explanation of the fall of Venice, of her +political torpor and her consequent vices. It is a law +of nature that the small and sheltered spots shall suffice +while civilization is small, but that as it grows it will +seek a wider field, and its original homes be abandoned. +A small country, a small sea, made Greece and Italy +greatest in antiquity and the middle ages; a small +country, a narrow sea, make them smallest in modern +times. And when the first galley of Prince Henry, the +first pinnace of Amsterdam or London, nay, the first +little Norman craft set sail for St. Brandan's Isle, the +fate of Venice was sealed; Lodovico Manin, and Casanova, +and Bonaparte, and Campo Formio, all that in +Venetian history can mean corruption and disgrace, all +was irrevocably fixed; the geographical chance which +had raised the palaces of Venice has also caused them +to moulder; time which made has also unmade, for life +is movement and movement is change. That immorality +is not the cause but the effect of political decline is as +little conceived by Ruskin as that neither the one nor +the other can be produced by artistic degradation; in +his system which makes artistic inferiority the visible expression +of moral corruption, and national misfortune its +direct punishment, there can be no room for any of the +great laws of development and decay which historical +science is now beginning to perceive. All things must +be carried on upon the miraculous system of Sunday +school books, where planks of bridges give way from +the cogent mechanical reason that the little boys passing +over them have just been telling lies or stealing apples; +God is for ever busy unbolting trapdoors beneath the +feet of the iniquitous and rolling stones down on the +heads of blasphemers. And this same necessity of condemning +morally a period whose artistic work in any +particular line is æsthetically worthless in Ruskin's judgment, +not only leads him into the most absurd misappreciation +of the moral value of a time, but entirely +forbids his recognizing the fact that the decay of one art +is frequently coincident with, and in some measure due +to, the efflorescence of another. The independent development +of painting required the decay of the architecture +of the middle ages, whose symbolical, purely +decorative tendency condemned painting to be a sort of +allegorical or narrative Arabesque; whose well defined +arches might not be broken through by daring perspective, +whose delicate cornices might not enclose more +than a mere rigid and simply tinted mosaic, or mosaic-like +fresco. When, therefore, painting arose mature in +the 16th century, architecture was necessarily crumbling. +But to Ruskin the 16th century, being the century of +bad architecture, is hopelessly immoral, and being immoral, +its painting, Raphael, Michel Angelo, Correggio, +all except a few privileged Venetians, must needs be +swept away as so much rubbish; while the very imperfect +painting of the Giottesques, because it belongs to a +time whose morality must be high since its architecture +is good, is considered as the ideal of pictorial art. +Again, Ruskin perceives that the whole plastic art of +the 18th century, architecture, sculpture, and painting, +are as bad as bad can be; the cause must necessarily be +found not in the inevitable decline of all plastic art since +the Renaissance, but in the fiendish wickedness of the +18th century, that abominable age which first taught +men the meaning of justice as distinguished from mercy, +of humanity as distinguished from charity: which first +taught us not to shrink from evil but to combat it. And +thus, because the 18th century is proved by its smirking +furbelowed goddesses and handkerchief-cravatted urns to +be utterly, morally, abominable, the one great art which +flourished in this period, the glorious music of Bach, +and Gluck, and Marcello, and Mozart, must necessarily +be silently carted off to the dust heap of artistic baseness.</p> + +<p>Thus the radical falsehood of the ethical system of +æsthetics warps the whole of Ruskin's view of the genius +and evolution of art, of its relations with national morality +and political supremacy. But it does more than +this. It warps also Ruskin's view of art itself; its +sophisms force him to contradict, to stifle his own +artistic instincts. For if, as Ruskin has established, we +are not permitted to love the beautiful for its own sake, +but only because it is supposed to represent a certain +moral excellence, that moral excellence must be the sole +valuable portion, and equally artistically valuable when +separated from the beautiful; while the beautiful must +in itself be worthless, and consequently dangerous. The +absolutely ugly must, if it awaken virtuous emotion, +have a greater artistic value than the beautiful if it +awaken none; the macerated hermits, the lepers and +cripples of the middle ages must be artistically preferable +to the healthy and beautiful athletes of antiquity; compassion +for the physically horrible is more virtuous than +the desire for the physically beautiful, therefore Ruskin +would replace the one by the other; forgetting, even as +the middle ages forgot, that the beautiful, the healthy, +are the best and happiest for all of us; that we are given +sympathy with the physically evil only that we may endure +its contact long enough to transform it into the +physically good: that we compassionate disease only +that we may cure it.</p> + +<p>Thus this sophisticated sense of duty, which, applied +to artistic interests where it has no place, has merely +caused injustice of all sorts, and falsehood and unceasing +contradiction: which has condemned the artistically +pure for its juxta-position with the morally impure: +which has preferred the inferior in art because it +answered to the definition of the superior in morals: +which has placed Giotto above Michel Angelo because +the second could paint and the first only imagine: which +has condemned Greek art as long as it seemed beautiful +and acquitted it when it appeared ugly: which has +legitimated colour art with one verse of the bible and +anathematised linear art with another: which has so +often rejected the excellent in art because it wanted the +excellent in conduct: which has come to the point of +preferring that disease and putrefaction which, in the +physical world, are equivalent to sin and corruption in the +moral—this sophisticated sense of morality, originally +intended to sanction all that which in art is sanctioned +by its mere innocence and delightfulness, has at length +destroyed the very artistic system which it was to sustain. +For the divine elements of justice, and mercy, and +honour, cannot be wasted in this world; entrapped and +imprisoned in order to consecrate by their presence the +already holy, rendered sterile and useless among those +artistic things with which they have no concern, they +have at last sought for their field of action, for their +legitimate objects, and have burst forth, shattering +the whole edifice of art philosophy in which they +were enclosed, mere useless talismans. And it has +come home to Ruskin, once and again, that this virtue +thus expended upon cornices and lintels, upon lines +and colours, while evil raged outside, is no virtue: that +this sanctified art is not holy; that, direct our intentions +as we may, think of God as much as we like, we cannot +make art one whit the less passive and egotistic; it has +come home to him, and with the noble candour of doubt +which is his logical weakness and his moral strength, he +has confessed that he had never known one man really +and exclusively devoted to mere moral good, who cared +for art at all. The elaborate system of ethical æsthetics, +the ingeniously far-fetched explanations of physical +beauty by moral excellence, the triumphant decision +that art is the kingdom of God, has, after all and at last, +failed to redeem the beautiful in the eyes of Ruskin. +He has seen a ragged creature die of starvation on a +dung heap; and all the cathedrals of Christendom, all +the resplendent Turners and saintly Giottos in the world +have seemed to him black and hideous. He has argued +and stormed, and patched up once more his tattered +theories, and talked more than ever of beauty being +virtue, and its appreciation religion, and God being in +all fair things; but all this latter talk has been vain; +into the midst of art discussions have for ever crept +doubts whether art should be at all. The placid paradise +of art, whose every flower and grass blade is a +generous thought, whose every fruit is a noble action, +where every bubbling of waters and every bird's song is +a hymn to the goodness of God, has become suspicious +to its own creator now that he realises by what it is surrounded; +to live in this sweet and noble impossible +paradise, where beauty is the mere visible expression of +virtue, while the foul world-swamp is stealthily being +eaten into, washed away, absorbed by the surrounding +flood of hell: is this not a sin, this quiet dwelling in +holiness, and a worse sin than any being committed in +the darkness and jostle below?</p> + +<p>In this way has Ruskin, one of the greatest thinkers +on art and on ethics, made morality sterile and art base +in his desire to sanctify the one by the other. Sterile +and base, indeed, only theoretically: for the instinct of +the artist and of the moralist has ever broken out in +noble self-contradiction, in beautiful irrelevancies; in +those wonderful, almost prophetic passages which seem +to make our souls more keen towards beauty and more +hardy for good. But all this is incidental, this which is +in reality Ruskin's great and useful work. He has made +art more beautiful and men better without knowing it—accidentally, +without premeditation, in words which are +like the eternal truths, grand and exquisite, which lie +fragmentary and embedded in every system of theology; +the complete and systematic is worthless and even dangerous, +for it is false; the irrelevant, the contradictory, +is precious, because it is true to our better part. Ruskin +has loved art instinctively, fervently, for its own sake; but +he has constantly feared lest this love should be sinful +or at least base. Like Augustine, he dreads that the +Devil maybe lurking in the beautiful sunshine; lest evil +be hidden in those beautiful shapes which distract his +thoughts from higher subjects of good and God; he +trembles lest the beautiful should trouble his senses and +his fancy, and make him forget his promises to the Almighty. +He perceives that pleasure in art is more or +less sensuous and selfish; he is afraid lest some day he +be called upon to account for the moments he has not +given to others, and be chastised for having permitted +his mind to follow the guidance of his senses; he trembles +and repeats the praise of God, the anathema of +pride, he mumbles confused words about "corrupt earth"—and +"sinful man,"—even while looking at his works of +art, as some anchorite of old may instinctively have +passed his fingers across his beads and stammered out +an <i>Ave</i> when some sight of beauty crossed his path and +made his heart leap with unwonted pleasure. Ruskin +must tranquillize his conscience about art; he must persuade +himself that he is justified in employing his +thoughts about it; and lest it be a snare of the demon, +he must make it a service of God. He must persuade +himself that all the pleasure he derives from art is the +pleasure in obeying God, in perceiving his goodness: that +the pleasure he derives from a flower is pleasure not in +its curves and colours and scent, but in its adaptation to +its work, in its enjoyment of existence; that the enjoyment +he derives from a grand view is enjoyment of the +kindness of God, and the enjoyment in the sight of a +noble face is enjoyment of the expression of harmony +with God's will; in short, all artistic pleasure must become +an act of adoration, otherwise, a jealous God, or a +jealous conscience, will smite him for abandoning the +true altar for some golden calf fashioned by man and +inhabited by Satan. And to this constant moralising, +hallowing, nay, purifying of art, are due, as we have seen, +the greater number of Ruskin's errors; his system is false, +and only evil can spring from it; it is a pretence at a +perfection which does not exist, and which, like the pretence +at the superhuman virtue of the anchorite and mystic, +must end in lamentable folly: in making men lie to +their own heart because they have sought to clothe all +that is really pure in a false garb of sanctity and have +blushed at its naked reality; because it makes a return +to nature a return to sin, since what is natural has +been forbidden and what is innocent has been crookedly +obtained; because it tries to make us think we are +nothing but soul, and therefore turns us to brutes when +we remember that we are also body, and devils when we +perceive that we are also reason. Because, in short, it is +a lie, and only falsehood can be born of it. For, in his +constant reference to a spiritual meaning, Ruskin has +not only wasted and sterilised our moral impulses, but +has reduced art to mere foulness; in his constant sanctifying +of beauty he makes it appear impure. Above all, +in his unceasing attempt to attach a moral meaning to +physical beauty, he has lost sight of, he has denied, the +great truth that all that which is innocent is moral; that +the morality of art is an independent quality equivalent +to, but separate from, the morality of action; that beauty +is the morality of the physical, as morality is the beauty +of the spiritual; that as the moral sense hallows the +otherwise egotistic relations of man to man, so also +the æsthetic sense hallows the otherwise brutish relations +of man to matter; that separately but in harmony, +equally but differently, these two faculties make our lives +pure and noble. All this Ruskin has forgotten: he has +made the enjoyment of mere beauty a base pleasure, requiring +a moral object to purify it, and in so doing +he has destroyed its own purifying power; he has +sanctified the already holy, and defiled with holy water, +which implies foulness, the dwelling of holiness.</p> + +<p>This is the lesson to be derived from the attempt at +noble self-delusion which Ruskin has practised upon +himself. There is not in the world that harmony and +perfection, nay, that analogy of good to good and evil to +evil for which our higher nature seeks. As we have +said, there is contradiction and anomaly: anomaly the +most horrible, since our logical sense must accept it, and +our moral sense cannot: anomaly of good springing +from evil, and evil from good, of pollution of the noble +and hallowing of the foul by the force of inevitable +sequence. There is also isolation of one sort of good +from the other, and clashing of their interests. All this +there is, and against it all our moral sense must for ever +protest, and against it, whether free in our endeavour or +merely pushed on by the universal necessity, we must +struggle. We must seek for ever to resolve the discord +between good and good, to disentangle the meshes of +good and evil, to destroy the dreadful anomaly of things. +But we can do so, however partially, we can really +wish to do so, only if we have the courage to see that +the lamentable discord and the horrible tangle do exist: +only if we do not shrink from the battlefield of reality +into an enervating Capua of moral idealism. And thus +we should admit that only morality is really moral, and +only virtue really virtuous; that physical beauty intrinsically +possesses but an æsthetic value quite separate +from all moral value; that above it must always remain +a more generous world of feeling and endeavour. If we +do not shrink from this painful truth we shall see that +physical beauty and its egotistic enjoyment have yet a +moral value of their own: the value of being, in the +lives of others, absolute pleasure, the giving of which is +positive good. For in this world all is not completed +when we have destroyed evil; it must be replaced by +good. We must all of us work, but we must work in +different ways. One half of us are the destroyers of +evil, the wrestlers with all that is wrong in itself or begets +wrong, falsehood, injustice, disease, misery; sent to +extirpate the bad, laboriously to weed it out blade by +blade, or boldly to plough and burn it up by the sheaf, +the field, the acre. But when this half of active mankind +has done its work, what would remain? A mere joyless +desert of painless vacuity; and the other half of the +workers must come and sow and plant absolute good, +positive joy in this redeemed life soil; nay, even while +the work of destruction is far from completed, and most +of all, perhaps, then, do we require that in the very +shadow of the yet deep-rooted evil, the little tufts of +good should rise up, and console and strengthen us with +their sight and their scent. And of all these kinds of +egotistic good which we must needs sow while evil is +being cleared away, art is one of the noblest and most +necessary; and woe betide those who, having the power +of creating beauty, would leave their allotted work and +join the destroyers of falsehood and of evil. The +amount of absolute good in the world is comparatively +small, and we must seek to increase it for ever; but increased +it cannot be except by the full employment of +our activities, and our activities can be fully employed +only in their own proper sphere. In every artist there +is a man, and the moral perfection of the man is more +important than the artistic perfection of the artist; but, +in as far as the artist is an artist, he must be satisfied to +do well in his art. For, though art has no moral meaning, +it has a moral value; art is happiness, and to bestow +happiness is to create good.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch9" id="ch9"></a>A DIALOGUE ON POETIC MORALITY.</h3> + +<h5>God sent a poet to reform His earth.—<span class="smallcaps">A. Mary F. Robinson</span>.</h5> +<p> </p> + +<p>"And meanwhile, what have you written?" asked +Baldwin, tickling the flies with his whip from off the +horse's head, as they slowly ascended, in the autumn +afternoon, the hill of Montetramito, which with its ilex +and myrtle-grown black rocks, and its crumbling +mounds, where the bright green spruce pine clings to the +washed-away scarlet sand, separates the green and fertile +plain of Lucca from the marshes of the Pisan sea-shore. +The two friends had met only an hour or so before at +the foot of the Apennine pass, and would part in not +much more again. "And what have you written?" repeated +Baldwin.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," answered the younger man, drearily, leaning +back languidly in the rickety little carriage. +"Nothing, or rather too much; I don't know which. Is +trash too much or too little? Anyhow, there's none of it +remaining. I thrust all my manuscripts into my stove +at Dresden, and the chimney took fire in consequence. +That's the tragic history of all my poetical labours of +the last two years." And Cyril, lying back in the carriage +with his arms folded beneath his head, smiled half-sadly, +half whimsically in the face of his friend.</p> + +<p>But Baldwin did not laugh.</p> + +<p>"Cyril," he answered, "do you remember on a birthday +of yours—you were a tiny boy, brought up like a +girl, with curls and beautiful hands—one of your sisters +dared you to throw your presents into the garden well, +and you did it, before a number of admiring little girls: +you felt quite a hero or a little saint, didn't you? And +then my little hero was suddenly collared by a big boy +fresh from school, who was his friend Baldwin, and who +pulled his ears soundly and told him to respect people's +presents a little more. Do you remember that? Well; +I now see that, with all your growing up, and writing, +and philosophising, and talking about duty and self-sacrifice, +you are just the self-same womanish and uncontrolled +<i>poseur</i>, the same romantic braggadoccio that +you were at seven. I have no patience with you!" +And Baldwin whisked the whip angrily at the flies.</p> + +<p>"Mere conceit: effeminate heroics again!" he went +on. "Oh no, we must do the very best! Be Shakespeare +at least! Anything short of that would be derogatory +to our kingly nature! no idea of selecting the +good (because in whatever you do there must be talent), +and trying to develop it; no idea of doing the best with +what gifts you have! For you are not going to tell me +that two years of your work was mere rubbish—contained +nothing of value. But, in point of fact, you don't +care sufficiently for your art to be satisfied to be the +most you can; 'tis mere vanity with you."</p> + +<p>Cyril became very red, but did not interrupt.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry you think so ill of me," he said sadly, +"and I dare say I have given you good cause. I dare say +I am all the things you say—vain, and womanish, and +insolently dissatisfied with myself, and idiotically heroic. +But not in this case, I assure you. I will explain why I +thought it right to do that. You see I know myself +very well now. I know my dangers; I am not like +you—I am easily swayed. Had those poems remained +in existence, had I taken them to England, I am sure I +should not have resisted the temptation of showing +them to my old encouragers, of publishing them probably; +and then, after the success of my other book, +and all their grand prophecies, the critics would have had +to praise up this one too; and I should have been +drifted back again into being a poet. Now, as I wrote +you several times—only, of course, you thought it all +humbug and affectation—such a poet as I could be I +am determined I will not be. It was an act of self-defence—defence +of whatever of good there may be in +me."</p> + +<p>Baldwin groaned. "Defence of fiddlesticks! Defence +of your vanity!"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," replied Cyril, "and I don't think +you understand me at all in this instance. There was +no vanity in this matter. You know that since some +time I have been asking myself what moral right a man +has to consume his life writing verses, when there is so +much evil to remove, and every drop of thought or feeling +we have is needed to make the great river which is +to wash out this Augean stable of a world. I tried to +put the doubt behind me, and to believe in Art for Art's +own sake, and such bosh. But the doubt pricked me. +And when suddenly my uncle left me all he had, I felt I +must decide. As long as I was a mere penniless creature +I might write poetry, because there seemed nothing +else for me to do. But now it is different. This money +and the power it gives are mine only as long as I live; +after my death they may go to some blackguard; so, +while I have them, I must give all my energies to doing +with them all the good that I possibly can."</p> + +<p>"In that case better give them over to people who +know best what to do with them—societies or hospitals, +or that sort of thing—and write your verses as before. +For I don't think your thoughts will add much to the +value of your money, Cyril. You've not a bit of practical +head. Of course you may, if you choose, look on +idly while other people are using your money. But I +don't think it is specially worth doing."</p> + +<p>Cyril sighed, hesitated, and then burst out rapidly—</p> + +<p>"But it is the only thing I <i>can</i> do—do you understand? +I can't write poetry any more. Perhaps that may be +the only thing for which I was ever fit, but I am fit for it +no longer. I cannot do what I have got to despise and +detest. For I do despise and detest the sort of poetry +which I should write—mere ornamental uselessness, so +much tapestry work or inlaid upholstery. You believe +in Art for Art's own sake—Goethianism—that sort of +thing, I know. It is all very well for you, who have an +active practical life with your Maremma drainings and +mine diggings, a life in which art, beauty, so forth, have +only their due share, as repose and refreshment. It was +all very well in former days also, when the people for +whom artists worked had a deal of struggle and misery, +and required some pure pleasure to make life endurable; +but now-a-days, and with the people for whom I should +write, things are different. What is wanted now-a-days +is not art, but life. By whom do you think, would all +the beautiful useful things I could write, all the fiddle-faddle +about trees and streams and statues and love and +aspiration (fine aspiration, which never takes a practical +shape!) be read? By wretched overworked creatures, +into whose life they might bring a moment of sweetness, +like a spray of apple blossom or a bunch of sweet-peas +into some black garret? Nothing of the kind. They +would be read by a lot of intellectual Sybarites, shutting +themselves out, with their abominable artistic religion, +from all crude real life; they would be merely so much +more hothouse scents or exotic music (<i>con sordino</i>), to +make them snooze their lives away. Of course it is +something to be a poet like those of former days; something +to be Tasso, and be read by that poor devil of a +fever-stricken watchmaker whom we met down in the +plain of Lucca; but to be a poet for the cultured world +of to-day—oh, I would rather be a French cook, and invent +indigestible dishes for epicures without any appetite +remaining to them."</p> + +<p>So saying, Cyril jumped out of the gig, and ran up +the steep last ascent of the hill. He had persuaded himself +of his moral rightness and felt quite happy.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the road made a sharp bend between the +overhanging rocks, grown in all their fissures with dark +ilex tufts and yellow broom and pale pink cyclamen; it +turned, and widened into a flat grass-grown place, surrounded +by cypresses on the top and ridge of the hill. +Cyril ran to the edge and gave a cry of pleasure. Below +was stretched a wide strip of Maremma swamp-land, +mottled green and brown—green where the grass was +under water, brown where it was burned into cinders by +the sun; with here and there a patch of shining pond +or canal; and at the extremity of this, distinguishable +from the greyish amber sky only by its superior and +intense luminousness, the sea—not blue nor green, but +grey, silvery, steel-like, as a mirror in the full sunshine. +Baldwin stopped the gig beneath the cypresses.</p> + +<p>"Look there," he said, pointing with his whip to a +dark greenish band, scarcely visible, which separated the +land from the sea: "those are the pine woods of +Viareggio. It was into their sand and weeds that the +sea washed Shelley's body. Do you think we should +be any the better off if he had taken to practical work +which he could not do, and declared that poetry was a +sort of French cookery?"</p> + +<p>Baldwin tied the reins to the stem of a cypress, and +threw himself down on the warm sere grass on the brow +of the hill, overlooking the tangle of olive and vine and +fig-trees of the slopes below.</p> + +<p>"In Shelley's time," answered Cyril, leaning his head +and shoulders against one of the cypresses, and looking +up into its dark branches, compact in the centre, but +delicate like feather and sparkling like jet where their +extremities stood out against the pale blue sky—"in +Shelley's time, things were rather different from what +they are now. There was a religion of progress to +preach and be stoned for; there was a cause of liberty +to fight for—there were Bourbons and Lord Eldons, and +there was Greece and Spain and Italy. There was Italy +still when Mrs. Browning wrote: had she looked out of +Casa Guidi windows now, on to the hum-drum, shoulder-shrugging, +penny-haggling, professorial, municipal-councillorish +Italy of to-day she could scarcely have felt +in the vein. The heroic has been done—"</p> + +<p>"There is Servia and Montenegro, and there are +Nihilists and Democrats," answered Baldwin.</p> + +<p>"I know—but we can't sing about barbarous ruffians, +nor about half-besotten, half-knavish regicides; we can't +be Democrats now-a-days—at least I can't. Would you +have a man sing parliamentary debates, or High Church +squabbles, or Disestablishment, or Woman's rights, or +anti-communism? sing the superb conquests of man +over nature, &c., like your Italian friends, your steam-engine +and mammoth poet Zanella? The wonders of +science!—six or seven thousand dogs and cats being +flayed, roasted, baked, disembowelled, artificially ulcerated, +galvanized on ripped-up nerves, at Government +expense, in all the laboratories of Christendom, in order +to discover the soul-secreting apparatus, and how to cure +old maids of liver complaint! Thank you. My muse +aspires not thereunto. What then? Progress? But it +is assured. Why, man, we can't even sing of despair, +like the good people of the year '20, since we all know +that (bating a few myriads of sufferers and a few centuries +of agony) all is going to come quite right, to be +quite comfortable in this best of all possible worlds. +What then remains, again? Look around you. There +remains the poetry of beauty—oh yes, of pure beauty, to +match the newest artistic chintzes; the poetry of artistic +nirvana, of the blissful sleep of all manliness and energy, +to the faint sound (heard through dreams) of paradisiac +mysticism sung to golden lutes, or of imaginary amorous +hysterics, or of symphonies in alliteration. And this +when there is so much error, so much doubt, so much +suffering, when all our forces are required to push away +a corner of the load of evil still weighing on the world: +this sort of thing I cannot take to." And Cyril fiercely +plucked out a tuft of lilac-flowered thyme, and threw it +into the precipice below, as if it had been the poetry of +which he was speaking.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Baldwin," went on Cyril, "you have +destroyed successively all my gods; you have shown me +that my Holy Grails, in whose service, one after another +I felt happy and peaceful to live, like another Parzival, or +Galahaso, are not the sacred life-giving cup brought down +by angels, but mere ordinary vessels of brittle earth or +stinking pewter, mere more or less useful, but by no +means holy things; ordinary pots and pans, barber's +basins like Mambrino's helmet, or blue china teapots +(worst degradation of all) like the Cimabue-Browns'. I +believed in the religion of Nature, and you showed me +that Nature was sometimes good and sometimes bad; +that she produced the very foulness, physical and moral, +which she herself chastised men for; you showed me +whole races destined inevitably to moral perversion, and +then punished for it. So I gave up Nature. Then I +took up the fashionable religion of Science, and you +showed me that it was the religion of a sort of Moloch, +since it accustomed us to acquiesce in all the evil which +is part and parcel of Nature, since it made us passive investigators +into wrong when we ought to be judges. +After the positive, I threw myself into the mystic—into +the religion of all manner of mysterious connections and +redemptions; you showed me that the connections did +not exist, and that all attempted sanctification of things +through mysticism was an abomination, since it could +not alter evil, and taught us to think it might be good. +O my poor Holy Grails! Then I took up the religion +of love; and you proceeded to expound to me that if +love was restricted to a few worthy individuals, it meant +neglect of the world at large; and that if it meant love +of the world at large, it meant love of a great many +utterly unworthy and beastly people. You deprived me +of humanitarianism, of positivism, of mysticism; and +then you did not even let me rest peaceably in pessimism, +telling me that to say that all was for the worst was as +unjust as to say that all was for the best. With a few of +your curt sentences you showed me that all these religions +of mine were mere idolatries, and that to rest in +them for the sake of peace was to be utterly base. You +left me nothing but a vague religion of duty, of good; +but you gave me no means of seeing where my duty lay, +of distinguishing good from evil. You are a very useful +rooter up of error, Baldwin; but you leave one's soul as +dry and barren and useless as sea shingle. You have +taken away all the falsehoods from my life, but you have +not replaced them by truths."</p> + +<p>Baldwin listened quietly.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to have the falsehoods back, Cyril?" +he asked. "Would you now like to be the holy knight, +adoring and defending the pewter basin or blue china +teapot of humanitarianism, or positivism, or mysticism, +or æstheticism? And what becomes of the only religion +which I told you was the true one—the religion of good, +of right? Do you think it worthless now?"</p> + +<p>"I think it is the religion of the Unknown God. +Where shall I find Him?"</p> + +<p>"In yourself, if you will look, Cyril."</p> + +<p>Cyril was silent for a moment. "What is right?" he +said. "In the abstract—(oh, and it is so easy to find +out in the abstract, compared to the concrete!)—in the +abstract, right is to improve things in the world, to make +it better for man and beast; never to steal justice, and +always to give mercy; to do all we can which can increase +happiness, and refrain from doing all which can +diminish it. That is the only definition I can see. But +how vague!—and who is to tell me what I am to do? +And when I see a faint glimmer of certainty, when I +perceive what seems to me the right which I must do, +who again interferes? My friend Baldwin, who, after +preaching to me that the only true religion is the religion +of diminishing evil and increasing good for the sake of +so doing, coolly writes to me, in half-a-dozen letters, that +the sole duty of the artist is to produce good art, and that +good art is art which has no aim beyond its own perfection. +Why, it is a return to my old æsthetic fetish worship, +when I thought abstract ideas of beauty would set +the world right, as Amphion's harp set the stones building +themselves…. Am I justified in saying that you +merely upset my beliefs, without helping me to build up +any; yes, even when I am striving after that religion of +right doing which you nominally call yours—?"</p> + +<p>"You always rush to extremes, Cyril. If you would +listen to, or read, my words without letting your mind +whirl off while so doing—"</p> + +<p>"I listen to you far too much, Baldwin," interrupted +Cyril, who would not break the thread of his own ideas; +"and first I want to read you a sonnet."</p> + +<p>Baldwin burst out laughing. "A sonnet! one of those +burnt at Dresden—or written in commemoration of your +decision to write no more?"</p> + +<p>"It is not by me at all, so there's an end to your +amusement. I want you to hear it because it embodies, +and very nobly, what I have felt. I have never even +seen the author, and know nothing about her except that +she is a woman."</p> + +<p>"A woman!" and Baldwin's tone was disagreeably +expressive.</p> + +<p>"I know you don't believe in women poets or women +artists."</p> + +<p>"Not much, so far, excepting Sappho and Mrs. +Browning, certainly. But, come, let's hear the sonnet. +I do abominate women's verses, I confess; but there are +such multitudes of poetesses that Nature may sometimes +blunder in their production, and make one of them of the +stuff intended for a poet."</p> + +<p>"Well then, listen," and Cyril drew a notebook from +his pocket, and read as follows:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left"> "God sent a poet to reform His earth</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> But when he came and found it cold and poor</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Harsh and unlovely, where each prosperous boor</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Held poets light for all their heavenly birth,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> He thought—Myself can make one better worth</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> The living in than this—full of old lore,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Music and light and love, where saints adore</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And angels, all within mine own soul's girth.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> But when at last he came to die, his soul</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Saw Earth (flying past to Heaven) with new love,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And all the unused passion in him cried:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> 'O God, your Heaven I know and weary of,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Give me this world to work in and make whole.'</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> God spoke: 'Therein, fool, thou hast lived and died.'"</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Cyril paused for a moment. "Do you understand, +Baldwin, how that expresses my state of feeling?" he +then asked.</p> + +<p>"I do," answered the other, "and I understand that +both you and the author of the sonnet seem not to have +understood in what manner God intended that poets +should improve the earth. And here I return to my +former remark, that when I said that the only true religion +was the religion not of nature, nor of mankind, +nor of science, nor of art, but the religion of good, and +that the creation of perfect beauty is the highest aim of +the artist, I was not contradicting myself, but merely +stating two parts—a general and a particular—of the +same proposition. I don't know what your definition of +right living may be; mine, the more I think over the +subject, has come to be this:—the destruction of the +greatest possible amount of evil and the creation of the +greatest possible amount of good in the world. And +this is possible only by the greatest amount of the best +and most complete activity, and the greatest amount of +the best activity is possible only when everything is seen +in its right light, in order that everything may be used in +its right place. I have always preached to you that life +must be activity; but activity defeats itself if misapplied; +it becomes a mere Danaides' work of filling +bottomless casks—pour and pour and pour in as much +as you will, the cask will always be empty. Now, in +this world there are two things to be done, and two distinct +sets of people to do them: the one work is the +destruction of evil, the other the creation of good. Mind, +I say the <i>creation</i> of good, for I consider that to do good—that +is to say, to act rightly—is not necessarily the +same as to <i>create</i> good. Every one who does his allotted +work is doing good; but the man who tends the sick, or +defends the oppressed, or discovers new truths, is not +creating good, but destroying evil—destroying evil in +one of a hundred shapes, as sickness, or injustice, or +falsehood. But he merely removes, he does not give; +he leaves men as poor or as rich as they would have +been, had not disease, or injustice, or error stolen away +some of their life. The man who creates good is the +one who not merely removes pain, but adds pleasure to +our lives. Through him we are absolutely the richer. +And this creator of good, as distinguished from destroyer +of evil, is, above all other men, the artist. The scientific +thinker may add pleasure to our lives, but in reality this +truth of his is valuable, not for the pleasure it gives, but +for the pain it removes. Science is warfare; we may +consider it as a kind of sport, but in reality it is a +hunting down of the most dangerous kind of wild animal—falsehood. +A great many other things may give +pleasure to our lives—all our healthy activities, upper or +lower, must; but the lower ones are already fully exercised, +and, if anything, require restraint; so that French +cooks and erotic poets ought rather to be exterminated +as productive of evil than encouraged as creative of +good. And moral satisfaction and love give us the best +pleasures of all; but these are pleasures which are not +due to any special class created on purpose for their production. +Oh, I don't say that any artist can give you +the pleasure you have in knowing yourself to be acting +rightly, or in sympathizing and receiving sympathy; +but the artist is the instrument, the machine constructed +to produce the only pleasures which can come near +these. Every one of us can destroy evil and create +pleasure, in a sort of incidental, amateurish way, within +our own immediate circle; but as the men of thought +and of action are the professional destroyers of evil, so +the artists are the professional creators of good—they +work not for those immediately around them, but for +the world at large. So your artist is your typical professional +creator of pleasure; he is fitted out, as other +men are not, to do this work; he is made of infinitely +finer stuff than other men, not as a whole man, but as +an artist: he has much more delicate hearing, much +keener sight, much defter fingers, much farther-reaching +voice than other men; he is specially prepared to receive +and transmit impressions which would be as wasted on +other creatures, as the image in the camera on unprepared, +ordinary paper. Now, what I maintain is simply +this, that if, according to my definition, the object of destroying +as much evil and creating as much good can be +attained only by the greatest activity rightly applied, it +is evident that a man endowed to be an artist—that is +to say, a creator of good for the whole world—is simply +failing in his duty by becoming a practical worker; that +is to say, an amateur destroyer of evil. What shall we +say of this artist? We shall say that, in order to indulge +in the moral luxury, the moral amusement, of removing +an imperceptible amount of pain, he has defrauded the +world of the immense and long-lasting pleasure placed +in his charge to give; we shall say that, in order to feel +himself a little virtuous, this man has simply acted like +a cheat and a thief."</p> + +<p>Baldwin had spoken rapidly and earnestly, with a sort +of uniform or only gradually rising warmth, very different +from the hesitating, fluctuating sort of passion of +his companion. There was a short silence; Cyril was +still seated under the tall, straight cypress, whose fallen +fruit, like carved balls of wood, strewed the sere grass, +and whose compact hairy trunk gave out a resinous +scent, more precious and strange than that of the fir: he +felt that he was momentarily crushed, but had a vague +sense that there lurked somewhere reasons, and very +potent ones, which prevented his friend being completely +victorious; and Baldwin was patiently waiting for him +to muster his ideas into order before continuing the discussion. +A slight breeze from the over-clouded sea sent +a shiver across the olives into the ravine below, turning +their feathery tops into a silver ripple, as of a breaking +wave; the last belated cicalas, invisible in the thick +plumy branches of the cypresses, sawed slowly and +languidly in the languid late afternoon; and from the +farms hidden in the olive yards of the slope came faint +sounds of calling voices and barking dogs—just sound +enough to make the stillness more complete. "All that +is very true," said Cyril at last, "and yet—I don't know +how to express it—I feel that there is still remaining to +me all my reason for doubt and dissatisfaction. You +say that artistic work is morally justifiable to the artist, +since he is giving pleasure to others. From this point +of view you are perfectly right. But what I feel is, that +the pleasure which the artist thus gives is not morally +valuable to those who enjoy it. Do you follow? I +mean that the artist may be nobly and generously employed, +and yet, by some fatal contradiction, the men +and women who receive his gifts are merely selfishly +gratified. He might not, perhaps, be better employed +than in giving pleasure, but they might surely be +better employed than in merely receiving it; and thus +the selfishness of the enjoyment of the gift seems +to diminish the moral value of giving it. When an +artist gives to other men an hour of mere enjoyment, +I don't know whether he ought to be quite proud or +not."</p> + +<p>Baldwin merely laughed. "It is droll to see what sort +of hypermoral scruples some people indulge in now-a-days. +So, your sense of the necessity of doing good is +so keen that you actually feel wretched at the notion of +your neighbours being simply happy, and no more, for +an hour. You are not sure whether, by thus taking +them away for a moment from the struggle with evil, +letting them breathe and rest in the middle of the +battle, you may not be making them sin and be sinning +yourself! Why, my dear Cyril, if you condemn +humanity to uninterrupted struggle with evil, you create +evil instead of destroying it; if mankind could be persuaded +to give up all of what you would call useless and +selfish pleasure, it would very soon become so utterly +worn out and disheartened as to be quite powerless to +resist evil. If this is the system on which poets would +reform the world, it is very fortunate that they don't +think of it till they are flying to heaven."</p> + +<p>"I can't make it out. You seem to be in the right, +Baldwin, and yet I still seem to be justified in sticking +to my ideas," said Cyril. "Do you see," he went on, +"you have always preached to me that the highest aim +of the artist is the perfection of his own work; you have +always told me that art cannot be as much as it should +if any extra-artistic purpose be given to it. And while +listening to you I have felt persuaded that all this was +most perfectly true. But then, an hour later, I have met +the same idea—the eternal phrase of art for art's own +sake—in the mouths and the books of men I completely +despised; men who seemed to lose sight of all the earnestness +and duty of life, who had even what seemed to me +very base ideas about art itself, and at all events debased +it by associating it with effeminate, selfish, sensual mysticism. +So that the idea of art for art's own sake has +come to have a disgusting meaning to me."</p> + +<p>Baldwin had risen from the grass, and untied the +horse from the trunk of the cypress.</p> + +<p>"There is a storm gathering," he said, pointing to the +grey masses of cloud, half-dissolved, which were gathering +everywhere; "if we can get to one of the villages on +the coast without being half-drowned while crossing the +swamps, we shall be lucky. Get in, and we can discuss +art for art's own sake, and anything else you please, on +the way."</p> + +<p>In a minute the gig was rattling down the hill, among +the great blasted grey olives, and the vines with reddening +foliage, and the farm-houses with their fig and orange +trees, their great tawny pumpkins lying in heaps on the +threshing-floor, and their autumn tapestry of strung-together +maize hanging massy and golden from the +eaves to the ground.</p> + +<p>Baldwin resumed the subject where they had left it: +"My own experience is, that the men who go in for art +for art's own sake, do so mainly from a morbid shrinking +from all the practical and moral objects which other +folk are apt to set up as the aim of art; in reality, they +do not want art, nor the legitimate pleasures of art: +they want the sterile pleasure of perceiving mere ingenuity +and dexterity of handling; they hanker vaguely +after imaginary sensuous stimulation, spiced with all +manner of mystical rubbish, after some ineffable half-nauseous +pleasure in strange mixtures of beauty and +nastiness; they enjoy above all things dabbling and dipping +alternately in virtue and vice, as in the steam and +iced water of a Turkish bath…. In short, these creatures +want art not for its own sake, but for the sake of +excitement which the respectabilities of society do not +permit their obtaining, except in imaginative form. As +to art, real art, they treat it much worse than the most +determined utilitarian: the utilitarians turn art into a +drudge; these æsthetic folk make her into a pander and +a prostitute. My reason for restricting art to artistic +aims is simply my principle that if things are to be +fully useful they must be restricted to their real use, according +to the idea of Goethe's Duke of Ferrara:—</p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">'Nicht alles dienet uns auf gleiche Weise;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Wer vieles brauchen will, gebrauche jedes</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> In seiner Art, so ist er wohl bedient.'</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>I want art in general not to meddle with the work of +any of our other energies, for the same reason that I +want each art in particular not to meddle with the work +of any other art. Sculpture cannot do the same as +painting, nor painting the same as music, nor music the +same as poetry; and by attempting anything beyond +its legitimate sphere each sacrifices what it, and no other, +can do. So, also, art in general has a definite function +in our lives; and if it attempts to perform the work of +philosophy, or practical benevolence, or science, or +moralizing, or anything not itself, it will merely fail in +that, and neglect what it could do."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," continued Baldwin after a minute, as they +passed into the twilight of a wood of old olives, grey, +silvery, mysterious, rising tier above tier on either side +of the road, a faint flicker of yellow light between their +feathery branches. "Oh yes, I don't doubt that were I +a writer, and were I to expound my life-and-art philosophy +to the world, the world would tax me with great +narrowness! Things are always too narrow for people +when they are kept in their place—kept within duty and +reason. Of course there is an infinite grandeur in chaos—in +a general wandering among the Unknown, in an +universal straining and hankering after the Impossible; +it is grand to see the arts writhing and shivering to +atoms, like caged vipers, in their impotence to do what +they cannot. Only it would be simpler to let those do it +who can; and my system is the only one which can work. +Despair is fine, and Nirvâna is fine; but successful and +useful activity is a good deal finer. Wherefore I shall +always say—'Each in his place and to his work;' and +you, therefore, my dear Cyril, to yours, which is poetry."</p> + +<p>"I think your philosophy is quite right, Baldwin, only—only, +somehow, I can't get it to suit my moral condition," +answered Cyril. "I do feel quite persuaded that +sculptors must not try to be painters, nor musicians try +to be poets, nor any of them try to be anything beyond +what they are. It is all quite rational, and right, and +moral, but still I am not satisfied about poetry. You +see a poet is not quite in the same case as any other +sort of artist. The musician, inasmuch as musician, +knows only notes, has power only over sounds; and the +painter similarly as to form and colours; if either be +something more, it is inasmuch as he is a mere man, not +an artist. But a poet, inasmuch as he is a poet, knows, +sees, feels a great many things which have a practical +and moral meaning: just because he is a poet, he knows +that there is something beyond poetry; he knows that +there are in the world such things as justice and injustice, +good and evil, purity and foulness: he knows all +this, which the mere musician, the mere painter, does +not—and knowing it, perceiving, feeling, understanding +it, with more intensity than other men, is he to sweep it +all out of his sight? is he to say to justice and injustice, +good and evil, purity and foulness, 'I know you, but my +work lies not with you?' Is he to do this? Oh, Baldwin, +if he be a man and an honest one, he surely cannot: +he cannot set aside these ideas and devote himself to his +art for its own sake."</p> + +<p>Baldwin listened attentively to the passionate words +of his companion, and twitching at a sprig of olive as a +branch swept across their heads in their rapid movement +through the wood, he answered quietly:</p> + +<p>"He will not set aside the ideas of justice and injustice, +of good and evil, of purity and impurity, Cyril. +He will make use of them even as the musician uses his +sounds, or the painter uses his colours. Such ideas are +at least one-half of the poet's material, of the stuff out of +which he creates—the half which belongs exclusively to +him, which he does not share with any other artist; the +half which gives poetry a character in many respects +different from that of painting or music. I have always +laughed at the Ruskinian idea of morality or immorality +in architecture, or painting, or music, and said that their +morality and immorality were beauty and ugliness. I +have done so because moral ideas don't enter into the +arts of line, or colour, or sound, but only into the subjects +to which their visible and audible works are (usually +arbitrarily) attached. But with poetry the case is +different; and if the poet has got a keener perception (or +ought to have) of right and wrong than other men, it is +because a sense of moral right and wrong is required in +his art, as a sense of colour is required in painting. I +have said 'art for art's own sake,' but I should have been +more precise in saying 'art for beauty's sake.' Now, in +poetry, one half of beauty and ugliness is purely ethical, +and if the poet who deals with this half, the half which +comprises human emotion and action, has no sense of +right and wrong, he will fail as signally as some very +dexterous draughtsman, who should have no sense of +physical beauty and ugliness, and spend his time making +wonderful drawings of all manner of diseased growths. +Of course, you may be a poet who does <i>not</i> deal with the +human element, who writes only about trees and rivers, +and in this case your notions of right and wrong are as +unnecessary to you as an artist as they would be to a +landscape painter. You use them in your life, but not +in your art. But as soon as a poet deals with human +beings, and their feelings and doings, he must have a +correct sense of what, in such feelings and doings, is right +and what is wrong. And if he have not this sense, he +will not be in the same case as the painter or musician +who is deficient in the sense of pictorial or musical right +and wrong. The wise folk who have examined into our +visual and acoustic nerves seem to think, what to me +seems extremely probable, that the impression of æsthetic +repulsion which we get from badly combined lines, or +colours, or sounds, is a sort of admonition that such combinations +are more or less destructive to our nerves of +sight or of hearing; so, similarly, the quite abstract +aversion which we feel to an immoral effect in literature, +seems to me to be the admonition (while we are still +Platonically viewing the matter, and have not yet come +personally into contact with it) that our moral sense—what +I may call our nerves of right and wrong—is being +disintegrated by this purely intellectual contact with +evil. And, moreover, our nerves of right and wrong are, +somehow, much less well protected than our visual or +acoustic nerves: they seem to be more on the surface of +our nature, and they are much more easily injured: it +takes a good deal of bad painting and bad music to deprave +a man's eye or ear, and more than we can well +conceive to make him blind or deaf; but it takes less +than we think of base literature to injure a man's moral +perception, to make him see and hear moral things completely +wrong. You see the good, simple, physical +senses look after themselves—are in a way isolated; but +the moral sense is a very complex matter, and interfered +with in every possible manner by the reason, the imagination, +the bodily senses—so that injuring it through +any of these is extremely easy. And the people whom +bad painting or bad music had made half-blind or half-deaf +would be less dangerous to themselves and to others +than those who had been made half-immoral by poetry."</p> + +<p>"But at that rate," said Cyril, "we should never be +permitted to write except about moral action; if the +morally right is the same for the poet as the pictorially +right for the painter. Baldwin, I think, I fear, that all +these are mere extemporized arguments for the purpose +of making me satisfied with poetry, which I never shall +be again, I feel persuaded."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," answered Baldwin. "I mean that the +moral right or wrong of poetry is not exactly what you +mean. If we were bound never to write except about +good people, there would be an end to half the literature +of the world."</p> + +<p>"That is exactly what I saw, and what showed me +the hollowness of your theory, Baldwin."</p> + +<p>"Because you mistook my theory. There could be +no human action or interest if literature were to avoid +all representation of evil: no more tragedy, at any rate, +and no more novels. But you must remember that the +impression given by a play or a poem is not the same as +that given by a picture or statue. The picture or statue +is all we see; if it be ugly, the impression is ugly. But +in a work of literature we see not only the actors and +their actions, but the manner in which they are regarded +by the author; and in this manner of regarding them +lies the morality or immorality. You may have as many +villains as you please, and the impression may still be +moral; and you may have as many saints as you please, +and the impression may still be immoral."</p> + +<p>The road had suddenly emerged out of the olive +woods covering the lowest hill ranges, and in a few +minutes they were driving through a perfect desert. The +road, a narrow white ribbon, stretched across a great flat +tract of country: field after field of Indian corn, stripped +of its leaves and looking like regiments of spindles, and +of yellowish green grass, half under water; on either +side a ditch full of water-lilies, widening into sedge-fringed +canals, in which the hay of coarse long grass was +stacked in boats for sheer want of dry soil, or expanding +into shallow patches of water scarcely covering the grass, +and reflecting, against the green of the meadow below, +the boldly peaked marble mountains of Carrara, bare, +intensely ribbed, veined, and the blue sky and rainy +black clouds. Green brown fields, tufts of reed, hill and +sky reflected in the inundated grass—nothing more, not +a house, or shed, or tree for miles around—in front only +the stormy horizon where it touched the sea.</p> + +<p>"This is beautiful," cried Cyril. "I should like to +come and live here. It is much lovelier and more peaceful +than all the woods and valleys in creation."</p> + +<p>Baldwin laughed. "It might be a good beginning for +final Nirvâna," he said. "These are the sea-swamps, the +<i>padule</i>, where the serene Republic of Lucca sent its political +offenders. You were locked up in a tower, the door +bricked up, with food enough to last till your keeper +came back once a fortnight; the malaria did the rest."</p> + +<p>"It is like some of our modern literature," answered +Cyril, with a shudder; "Maremma poetry—we have that +sort of thing, too."</p> + +<p>"By the way," went on Baldwin; "I don't think we +quite came to the end of our discussion about what a +poet ought to do with his moral instincts, if he has any."</p> + +<p>"I know," answered Cyril, "and <i>I</i> have meanwhile +returned to my previous conclusion that, now that all +great singable strifes are at an end, poetry cannot satisfy +the moral cravings of a man."</p> + +<p>"You think so?" asked Baldwin, looking rather contemptuously +at his companion. "You think so? Well, +therein lies your mistake. I think, on the contrary, that +poetry requires more moral sense and energy than most +men can or will give to it. Do you know what a poet +has to deal with, at least a poet who does not confine +himself to mere description of inanimate things? He +has to deal with the passions and actions of mankind—that +is to say, with a hundred problems of right and +wrong. Of course, men who have deliberately made up +their mind on any question of right and wrong, are not +shaken by anything in a book; nay, they probably +scarcely remark it. But if you remember that in the +inner life of every man there must be moments of doubt +and hesitation, there must be problems vaguely knocking +about, you will understand that for every man there is +the danger that in such a moment of doubt his eyes may +fall upon a sentence in a book—a sentence to other men +trivial—which will settle that doubt for ever, rightly or +wrongly. There are few of us so strong that the +moment does not come when we would ask, as a good +Catholic does of a confessor, what is right and what +is wrong, and take the answer which is one of the +two that have been struggling within himself, as +definite; and to us, who do not go to confession, a +book, any book casually taken up, may be this terribly +powerful spiritual director. People used to exaggerate +the influence of books, because they imagined that they +could alter already settled opinions; now-a-days I deliberately +think that they underrate this influence, because +they forget how it may settle fluctuating opinion. The +power of literature is in this way very great."</p> + +<p>"It has been formerly—yes, I grant it," answered +Cyril; "but it is no longer what it was; in our cut-and-dry +days it is necessarily smaller."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, much greater now than perhaps +almost at any other time. These are not cut-and-dry +days, Cyril, but the very reverse; you must not let +yourself be deceived by a certain superficial regularity, +by railway journeys and newspapers, and a general +civilization of hand-books and classes. In reality there +is more room for indirect moral perversion or enervation +in our days than there has been for a good while; +for the upsetting of ideas, the infiltration of effete or +foreign modes of thought and feeling, is much greater in +this quiet nineteenth century than it was, for instance, in +the Renaissance or the eighteenth century. With all +their scepticism, the people of those days had a great +fund of tradition about everything; they were floating +about a good deal, I admit, but they were fully persuaded +of the existence of certain very solid moral rocks, to which +they might always tie their boat when it grew over-rough; +rocks of religion or deistic mysticism, or of +social <i>convenances</i>, which we have now discovered to be +by no means granite, but some sort of sea deposit, of +hardened sand, whose formation we understand and no +longer rely upon. The most arrant sceptics of the past +had always one great safety, that they were in a groove; +they saw, understood, sympathized with only their own +civilization. What they thought right they had never +seen questioned—they never imagined any one could +regard as wrong; hence the most liberal thinkers of +former days always strike us, with their blindness to all +but their own civilization, as such Philistines. Things +have changed since then; they began to change already, +as soon as men began to look at other civilizations; and +the suggestive first-fruit of this early ethnographic +eclecticism may be seen in Diderot's very beastly books: +he found that the South Sea Islanders had not, on the +subject of incest, the same views as Christian folk; +whereupon it struck him that those views might be due +to prejudice. It was not the development of the natural +sciences, but rather of the historic and ethnographic, +which upset people's ideas; it was the discovery of how +our institutions, moral and social (hitherto regarded as +come straight from heaven), had formed themselves, and +how they were subject to variation. Speaking of poets, +look at a pure man, I believe a very pure man, Shelley, +if you want to understand the necessity of poets having +a greater solidity of moral judgment than the mere +Jones and Browns who stick to their shop, and are not +troubled with theories. Add to the influence of scientific +doubt, of the doubt created by books on the origin of ideas +and institutions (showing of what moonshine they are often +made), the utterly confusing effect of our modern literary +eclecticism, our comprehension and sympathy with so +many and hostile states of civilization, our jumbling +together of antique and mediæval, of barbarous and over-ripe +and effete civilizations, our intellectual and moral +absorption of incompatible past stages of thought and +feeling, with the follies and vices inherent in each;—sum +up all this, and you will see that, with our science +and our culture, our self-swamping with other folk's +ideas, we are infinitely less morally steady than the +good sceptics of the days of Voltaire, who always +believed in the supremacy of their own century, their +own country, their own institutions, their own conventionalities; +who were in danger only from their own +follies and uncertainties, while we are in danger from +the follies and uncertainties of every past century from +which we have inherited. And you will see, if you look, +that that sceptical eighteenth century, which was very +much more credulous and conservative than ours, was +very little divided and upset in its ideas; certain things +were universally admitted, and certain other things +universally rejected; in that day there was always the +master of the ceremonies—Propriety. He knew exactly +what could be permitted: in the dining-room, drunkards +yelling filthy jests; in the drawing-room, polite gentlemen +stalking or tripping through their minuets. It is +different now-a-days."</p> + +<p>Cyril nodded. "I understand what you mean," he +said; "but I don't see the application yet."</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Baldwin, "I will show you one +instance of the application. Have you ever thought +over the question of—how shall I call it?—the ethics of +the indecent?"</p> + +<p>Cyril stared. "No, it never struck me that there were +any. I don't write indecent things, it doesn't amuse me. +I feel not the smallest desire to do so; if anything, I feel +rather sick at such things; that is all."</p> + +<p>"That is all for you, but not all for other people. +You don't feel attracted to write on some subjects; well, +other people not only feel attracted, but imagine that it +is their duty even if they are not."</p> + +<p>"They are swine; I have nothing to do with them." +And Cyril looked as if he had settled the matter.</p> + +<p>"But they are not swine; at least, not all of them; or +they are not entirely swine, by any means," insisted +Baldwin. "You are not going to tell me that a man +like Walt Whitman is a mere pig. Still there are things +of his which to you are simply piggish. Either Whitman +is a beast or you are a prude."</p> + +<p>"That depends upon difference of nature," said Cyril +quickly, vaguely desirous of putting an end to a discussion +which brought forward an anomaly.</p> + +<p>"That is merely repeating what I said," replied Baldwin. +"But in reality I think it is <i>not</i> a difference of +nature. I think it depends on a difference of reasoned +opinion; in short, upon a sophistication of ideas on the +part of Whitman. I think it depends in him and the +really pure men who uphold his abominations upon a +simple logical misconception; a confusion of the fact +that certain phenomena have been inevitable, with the +supposition that those same certain phenomena are +therefore desirable—a confusion between what has been, +and could not help being, and what may be and ought +to be. It is the attempt to solve a moral problem by an +historical test."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand in the least, Baldwin."</p> + +<p>"Why, thus: our modern familiarity with the intellectual +work of all times and races has made people +perceive that in past days indecency was always part +and parcel of literature, and that to try to weed it out +is to completely alter the character of at least a good +half of the literature of the past. Hence, some of us +moderns, shaken as we are in all our conventional ideas, +have argued that this so-called indecency is a legitimate +portion of all literature, and that the sooner it is re-introduced +into that of the present the better, if our literature +is to be really vital and honest. Now, these people +do not perceive that the literature of the past contained +indecencies, merely because, being infinitely less self-conscious, +less responsible than now, the literature of those +days contained fragments of every portion of the civilization +which produced it. For besides what I might call +absolute indecency, in the sense of pruriency, the literature +of the past is full of filth pure and simple, like some +Eastern town; a sure proof this, that if certain subjects +which we taboo were not tabooed then, it was not from +any conscious notion of their legitimacy, but from a +general habit of making literature, like the street of +some Oriental or mediæval town, the scene of every sort +of human action, important or trifling, noble or vile; +regarding it as the place for which the finest works were +painted or carved, and into which all the slops were +emptied. Hence, in our wanderings through the literature +of the past, our feet are for ever stumbling into +pools of filth, while our eyes are seeking for the splendid +traceries, the gorgeous colours above; our stomachs are +turned by stenches even while we are peeping in at some +wonderful rose garden or fruit orchard. I think you +might almost count on your fingers the books up to the +year 1650, in which you are sure of encountering no +beastliness—choice gardens or bowers of the soul, or +sacred chapels kept carefully tidy and pure—viz., +Milton, Spenser, the <i>Vita Nuova</i>, Petrarch, Tasso—things, +you see, mainly sacred or spiritualistic—sort of +churches where only devotion of some sort goes on; but +if we go out to where there is real life, life complete and +thoughtless—Shakspeare, Rabelais, Molière, Ariosto, +Cervantes, Aristophanes, Horace—the evil odours meet +us again at every step. Well, now-a-days this has all +been misunderstood. People have imagined that an inevitable +nuisance of the past ought also to be a deliberately +chosen nuisance of the present: a line of +argument which appears to me to be similar to that of a +man, who, because the people of Lisbon used, in the +days of my grandfather, to practise a very primitive +system of sewerage, should recommend that the +inhabitants of modern London should habitually empty +their slops on to the heads of passers-by. I am crude? +Well, it is by calling nasty things by beautiful names +that we are able to endure their existence. I think that +people who should attempt such literary revivals ought +to be fined, as the more practical revivers of old traditions +certainly would be."</p> + +<p>Cyril paused a moment. "I think that these sort of +offenders, like Whitman, are not evil-doers, but merely +snobs: they offend not good morals, but good taste."</p> + +<p>"That's just such an artistic and well-bred distinction +as I should expect from you," answered Baldwin, rather +contemptuously. "I wonder what that word 'good taste' +signifies to your mind? Everything and nothing. They +are offenders against good taste, you say. Well, let us +see how. If I hang a bright green curtain close to a +bright blue wall-paper, you will say it is bad taste; if I +set Gray's 'Elegy' to one of Strauss's waltzes, that is +bad taste also; and if I display all my grand furniture +and plate (supposing I had it) to my poor neighbour, +whose chintz chair is all torn, and who breakfasts out of +a cup without a handle, that also is bad taste. Each for +a good reason, and a different one; in each case I am +inflicting an injury, too slight and inadvertent to be sin, +against something: the green curtain and blue paper +combination pains your eye; the Gray's 'Elegy' and +Strauss's waltz combination annoys your common sense; +the contrast between my riches and your poverty inflicts +a wound on your feelings; you see that all sins against +taste are merely a hurting of something in somebody. +So that, if writing indecent poems is an offence against +good taste, it means that it also inflicts some such +injury. That injury is simply, as the world has vaguely +felt all along, an injury to your neighbour's morals."</p> + +<p>"But," put in Cyril, "such a man as Whitman has no +immoral intention, nor is he immoral in the sense that +Ariosto and Byron are sometimes immoral. The man +is not a libertine, but a realist. He wishes people to live +clean lives; all he says is, that everything which is legitimate, +innocent, necessary in life, is also legitimate and +innocent in literature. And although I should rather +select other subjects to write about, and would rather he +did so likewise, I cannot deny that there is logic in saying +that there can be no harm in speaking of that which +there is no harm in doing."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Baldwin, "that is just the argument of +such men. And the answer is simply that there are +things which are intended to be done and <i>not</i> to be +spoken about. What you call logic is no logic at all, +but a mere appeal to ignorance. It so happens that the +case is exactly reversed—that there are a great many +things which there is not the smallest immorality in +speaking about, and which it would be the most glaring +immorality to do. No one shrinks from talking about +murder or treachery; nay, even in the very domain of +sexual relations there need not be the smallest immorality, +nothing at all perverting, in a play which, like +the whole Orestes trilogy, or <i>Othello</i>, or <i>Faust</i>, turns +upon adultery or seduction; no one also has the slightest +instinct of immorality in talking about the most fearful +wholesale massacres. Yet the world at large, ever since +it has had any ideas of good and evil, has had an instinct +of immorality in talking of that without which not one +of us would exist, that which society sanctions and the +church blesses. And this exactly because it is as +natural as murder—of which we speak freely—is the +contrary. For, exactly because certain instincts are so +essential and indispensable, Nature has made them so +powerful and excitable; there is no fear of their being +too dormant, but there is fear of their being too active, +and the consequences of their excess are so hideously +dangerous to Nature itself, so destructive of all the +higher powers, of all the institutions of humanity; the +over-activity of the impulses to which we owe our birth +is so ruinous of all that for which we are born, social, +domestic, and intellectual good, nay, to physical existence +itself, that Nature even has found it necessary to +restrain them by a counter-instinct—purity, chastity—such +as has not been given us to counteract the other +physical instincts, as that of eating, which can at most +injure an individual glutton, but not affect the general +social order. Hence, the slightest artificial stimulus is a +danger to mankind, and the giving thereof a crime; for +the experience of all times tells us what modern psychology +is beginning to explain—viz., the strange connection +between the imagination and the senses, the hitherto +mysterious power of awakening physical desires, of almost +reproducing sensation, possessed by the mind, even +as the mention of dainty food is said to make the mouth +water, and the description of a surgical operation to +make the nerves wince. So that the old intuition, now +called conventionalism, which connects indecency with +immorality, is entirely justified. Crime may be spoken +of just because it is crime, and our nature recoils therefrom; +indeed, I think that now-a-days, when our destructive +instinct (except in small boys and professors of +physiology) is becoming effete, there has ceased to be +any very demoralizing influence in talking even of +horrors. But the immorality of indecency is quite unlike +the immorality of—how shall I distinguish?—of +ordinary immorality. In the case of the latter the mischief +lies in the sophistication of the reason or the +perversion of the sympathies; as, for instance, in Machiavel's +'Prince,' or any of a hundred French novels. +In the former case, that of indecency, the immorality +lies in the risk of inducing a mood which may lead to +excess—that is, to evil. And, as a rule, I think this inducing +of a mood is the commonest source of moral +danger, whether the mood be a sensual or a destructive +one."</p> + +<p>"I don't see how you make that out; although I now +understand what at first seemed to me mere inexplicable +instincts—founded on nothing."</p> + +<p>"Some things are inexplicable, perhaps, but be sure +instincts are not founded on nothing. Misconceptions +are mere false conceptions; but a good half of what +people call social convention is based upon a perfectly +correct conception, only mankind has forgotten what that +conception was. Well, I should place the various sorts +of demoralization of which literature is capable in this +order: No. 1, and least dangerous, sophistication of +judgment; No. 2, and more dangerous, perversion of +sympathy; No. 3, and most dangerous, inducement of +questionable frame of mind. And I place them thus +because it seems to me that this is the order of facility, +and, consequently, universality; I mean that fewest +people can be found who depend sufficiently on their +deliberate ideas, and most effort is required to sophisticate +them; whereas, least effort is required, and most +effect produced, in the matter of inducing a mood; the +perversion of sympathy is half-way. Of course, if we +could imagine (as once or twice has actually been the +case) that the moral ideas of a whole people were +sophisticated, that would be the worst, because the least +remediable; but, in the first place, people act but little +from ideas, or few persons do, and it is difficult to alter +people's ideas; and, in the second place, the sophistication +of conscience of single individuals is kept in check +by the steadfastness of the mass of mankind, and, consequently, +as in such men as Diderot, reduced to mere +talk, without corresponding action. But a mood is easily +induced without the reason even perceiving it, and the +more necessary the mood is to nature, the more easily it +will be aroused—the more unnatural an evil, the less +danger of it; the more an evil is the mere excess of the +necessary, the more danger there is of it."</p> + +<p>"It is curious how you marshal ideas into their right +places," said Cyril. "There remains one thing to be +said about the ethics of impropriety. The people who +go in for writing upon subjects which thirty years ago +would have distinctly been forbidden, do not all of them +write as Whitman does: they are not all what I should +call openly beastly. They do their best, on the contrary, +to spiritualize the merely animal."</p> + +<p>"That is just the most mischievous thing they could +possibly do," interrupted Baldwin. "I know the sort of +poets you mean. They are the folk who say that things +are pure or impure, holy or foul, according as we view +them. They are not the brutal, straightforward, naturalistic +school; they are the mystico-sensual. Of the +two, they are infinitely the worse. For the straightforward +naturalistic hogs generally turn your stomach +before they have had a chance of doing you any harm; +but these persuade themselves and you that, while you +are just gloating over sensual images, you are improving +your soul. They call brute desire passion, and love lust, +and prostitution marriage, and the body the soul. Oh! +I know them; they are the worst pests we have in +literature."</p> + +<p>"But I don't think they are intentionally immoral, +Baldwin."</p> + +<p>"Do you think any writer ever was intentionally immoral, +Cyril?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I mean that these men really intend doing +good. They think that if only some subjects be treated +seriously, without any sniggering or grimacing, there +ceases to be any harm in them. They say that they +wish to rescue from out of the mire where prudery has +thrown it, that which is clean in itself; they wish to +show that the whole of Nature is holy; they wish to +purify by sanctifying."</p> + +<p>Baldwin listened with a smile of contempt. "Of +course such words seem very fine," he said; "but a +thing is either holy or is not holy: all the incense of +poetry and all the hocus-pocus words of mysticism cannot +alter its nature by a title. And woe betide us if we +once think that any such ceremony of sanctification can +take place; woe betide us if we disguise the foul as the +innocent, or the merely indifferent as the holy! There +is in Nature a great deal which is foul: in that which +men are pleased to call unnatural, because Nature herself +chastises it after having produced it: there is in Nature +an infinite amount of abominable necessity and abominable +possibility, which we have reason and conscience to +separate from that which within Nature itself is innocent +or holy. Mind, I say innocent <i>or</i> holy; for innocence +and holiness are very different things. All our appetites, +within due limits, are innocent, but they are not therefore +holy; and that is just what mystico-sensual poetry +fails to perceive, and in giving innocence the rank of +holiness it makes it sinful. Do you know what is the +really holy? It is that of which the world possesses too +little, and can never possess too much: it is justice, +charity, heroism, self-command, truthfulness, lovingness, +beauty, genius—these things are holy. Place them, if +you will, on a poetic altar, that all men may see them, +and know them, and love them, and seek after them life-long +without ever wearying. But do not enshrine in +poetic splendours the merely innocent; that which +bestows no merit on its possessor, that which we share +with every scoundrel and every animal, that which is so +universal that it must for ever be kept in check, and +which, unless thus checked by that in ourselves which is +truly holy, will degrade us lower than beasts. For in so +doing—in thus attempting to glorify that in which there +is nothing glorious—you make men think that self-indulgence +is sanctity, you let them consume their lives in +mere acquiescence with their lusts and laziness, while all +around is raging the great battle between good and evil. +Worst of all, in giving them this worship of a mystic +Ashtaroth or Belial, you hide from them the knowledge +of the true God, of the really and exclusively holy, of +good, truth, beauty, to know and receive which into our +soul we must struggle lifelong with the world and with +ourselves; yes, struggle for the sake of the really holy +with that mere innocence which is for ever threatening +to become guilt."</p> + +<p>Baldwin paused; then resumed after a moment: "I +believe that mankind as it exists, with whatever noble +qualities it possesses, has been gradually evolved out of +a very inferior sort of mankind or brutekind, and will, I +hope, be evolved into a very superior sort of mankind. +And I believe, as science teaches us, that this has been +so far effected, and will be further effected henceforward, +by an increased activity of those nobler portions of us +which have been developed as it were by their own +activity; I believe, in short, that we can improve only +by becoming more and more different from the original +brutes that we were. I have said this to explain to you +my feelings towards a young poet of my acquaintance, +who is very sincerely smitten with the desire to improve +mankind; and has deliberately determined to devote a +very fine talent to the glorification of what he calls pure +passion, pure in the sense that it can be studied in its +greatest purity from the cats on the house tops."</p> + +<p>Cyril made a grimace of disgust.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed," continued Baldwin, "that poet is not +one of the æsthetic-sensual lot you seem to think. He +is pure, conscientious, philanthropic; but he is eminently +unreasoning. He is painfully impressed by the want of +seriousness and holiness with which mankind regards +marriage, and his ambition is to set mankind right on +this subject, even as another young poet-philanthropist +tried to improve family relations in his 'Laon and +Cythna.' Now, if you were required to use your poetical +talents in order to raise the general view of marriage, in +order to show the sanctity of the love of a man and a +woman, how would you proceed?"</p> + +<p>"I have often thought about that," answered Cyril; +"but it has been done over and over again, and I think +with most deliberate solemnity and beauty by Schiller +and Goethe in the 'Song of the Bell' and in 'Hermann +and Dorothea.' Well, I think that poetry can do good +work in this line only if the poet see where the real holiness +of such love lies; in the love not of the male and +the female, but of the man and the woman. For there +is nowhere, I think, greater room for moral beauty and +dignity than in the choosing by a man of the one +creature from whom only death can separate him; of +the one friend, not of a phase of his life, but of his whole +life; of the one soul which will grow and mature always +by the side of his, and having blossomed and borne fruit +of good, will gently fade and droop together with his. +But this is not the most holy part of the choice, for he is +choosing also the mother of his children, the woman +who is to give half their nature, half their training, to +what children must mean to every honest man: the one +chance he possesses of living as he would have wished +to have lived, of being what he should wish to have been, +his one chance of redeeming his errors, of fulfilling his +hopes, of realizing in a measure his own ideals. And to +me such a choice, and love in the sense of such a choice, +become not merely coldly deliberate, but passionately +instinctive, are holy with the holiness that, as you say, is +the only real one; holy in all it implies of recognized +beauty and goodness, of trust and hope, of all the excellence +of which it is at least the supposed forerunner; +and its holiness is that upon which all other holiness, all +the truthfulness and justice and beauty and goodness of +mankind, depends. This is how I view the sanctity of +the love between man and woman; how all the greatest +poets, from Homer to Schiller, and from Schiller to Mrs. +Browning, have viewed it; and it is the only possible +view that I can conceive."</p> + +<p>Baldwin nodded. "This is how I also see the question. +But my young poet is not satisfied with this: he +wishes to make men believe in the holiness of that which +is no more holy, and far oftener tends to be unholy, than +eating or drinking; and in order to make mankind +adore, he lavishes all his artistic powers on the construction +of an æsthetical temple wherein to enshrine, on the +preparation of poetic incense with which to surround, +this species of holiness, carefully separated from any extraneous +holiness, such as family affection, intellectual +appreciation, moral sympathy; left in its complete unmixed +simplicity of brute appetite and physical longing +and physical rapture; and the temple which he constructs +out of all that is beautiful in the world is a +harlot's chamber; and the incense which he cunningly +distils out of all the sights and sounds of Nature are +filthy narcotics, which leave the moral eyes dim, and the +moral nerves tremulous, and the moral muscle unstrung. +In his desire to moralize he demoralizes; in his desire to +sanctify one item of life, he casts aside, he overlooks, +forgets, all that which in life is already possessed of +holiness. Thus my young poet, in wishing to improve +mankind, to raise it, undoes for the time being that +weary work of the hundreds of centuries which have +slowly changed lust into love, the male and female into +a man and a woman, the life of the body into the life of +the soul; poetry, one of the highest human products, +has, as it were, undone the work of evolution; poetry, +which is essentially a thing of the self-conscient intellect, +has taken us back to the time when creatures with two +legs and no tail could not speak, but only whine and +yell and sob—a mode of converse, by the way, more +than sufficient for the intercourse of what he is pleased +to call the typical Bride and Bridegroom."</p> + +<p>They had got out of the strange expanse of brown and +green swamp, and after traversing a strip of meagre redeemed +land, with stunted trees and yellowish vines, had +reached the long narrow line of pine woods which met +the beach. They passed slowly through the midst of +the woods, brushing the rain-drops off the short, bright, +green pines, their wheels creaking over the slippery +fallen needles embedded in the sand; while the setting +sun fell in hazy yellow beams through the brushwood, +making the crisp tree-tufts sparkle like green spun-glass, +and their scaly trunks flush rosy; and the stormy sea +roared on the sands close by.</p> + +<p>"I think your young poet ought to be birched," remarked +Cyril; "and if anything could add to my aversion, +not for poetry, but for the poetic profession, this would +which you have just told me. You see how right I was +in saying that I would have more moral satisfaction in +being a French cook than in being a poet."</p> + +<p>"By no means," answered Baldwin. "In the first +place, my young poet ought not to be birched; he ought +to be made to reflect, to ask himself seriously and simply, +in plain prose, what ideal of life he has been setting before +his readers. He ought to be shown that a poet, +inasmuch as he is the artist whose material is human +feeling and action, is not as free an artist as the mere +painter, or sculptor, or composer; he ought to be made +to understand that now-a-days, when the old rules of conduct, +religious and social, are for ever being questioned, +every man who writes of human conduct is required, is +bound, to have sound ideas on the subject: that, because +now-a-days, for better or for worse, poetry is no longer +the irresponsible, uncontrolled, helter-skelter performance +of former times, but a very self-conscious, wide-awake, +deliberate matter, it can do both much more +harm and much more good than it could do before."</p> + +<p>They were slowly driving along the beach, among the +stunted pine shoots and the rough grass and the yellow +bindweed half buried in the sand, and the heaps of sea-blackened +branches, and bits of wood and uncouth floating +rubbish which the waves had deposited, with a sort +of ironical regularity, in a neat band upon the shore; +down here on the coast the storm had already broken, +and the last thin rain was still falling, dimpling the grey +sand. The sun was just going to emerge from amidst +the thick blue-black storm-clouds and descend into a clear +space, like molten amber, above the black, white-crested, +roaring sea; it descended slowly, an immense pale luminous +globe, gilding the borders of the piled-up clouds +above it, gilding the sheen of the waves and the wet sand +of the shore; and as it descended, the clouds gathered +above it into a vast canopy, a tawny orange diadem or +reef of peaked vapours encircling the liquid topaz in +which the sun moved; tawnier became this garland, +larger the free sky, redder the black storm masses above; +till at last the reddening rays of the sun enlarged and +divided into immense beams of rosy light, cutting away +the dark and leaving uncovered a rent of purest blue. +At last the yellow globe touched the black line of the +horizon, gilding the waters; then sank behind it and +disappeared. The wreath of vapours glowed golden, the +pall of heaped-up storm-clouds flushed purple, and bright +yellow veinings, like filaments of gold, streaked the pale +amber where the sun had disappeared. The amber grew +orange, the tawny purple, the purple a lurid red, as of +masses of flame-lit smoke; all around, the sky blackened, +until at last there remained only one pile of livid purple +clouds hanging over a streak of yellow sky, and gradually +dying away into black, with but here and there a death-like +rosy patch, mirrored deadlier red in the wet sand of +the beach. The two friends remained silent, like men +listening to the last bars, rolling out in broad succession +of massy, gradually resolving chords, of some great +requiem mass—silent even for a while after all was over. +Then Cyril asked, pointing to a row of houses glimmering +white along the dark lines of coast, below the great +marble crags of Carrara, rising dim in the twilight—</p> + +<p>"Is that the place where my friends will pick me up?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Baldwin, "that's the place. You will +be picked up there if you choose."</p> + +<p>"I must, you know." And Cyril looked astonished, as +if for the first time it struck him that there might be no +<i>must</i> in the matter. "I must—at least, I suppose I ought +to—go back to England with them."</p> + +<p>"You know that best," replied Baldwin, shortly. "But +before we get there I want to finish what we were saying +about the moral value of poetry, if you don't mind. I +gave you the instance of Whitman and the mystico-sensual +school merely because it is one of the most +evident; but it is only one of many I could give you of +the truth of what I said, that if a poet, inasmuch as he is +a poet, has—what the painter, or sculptor, or musician, +inasmuch as they are such, have not—a keener sense of +moral right and wrong than other men, it is because his +art requires it. Consider what it is deliberately to treat +of human character and emotion and action; consider +what a strange chaos, an often inextricable confusion of +clean and foul, of healthy and pestilent, you get among, in +penetrating into the life of the human soul; consider that +the poet must pick his way through all this, amidst very +loathsome dangers which he often cannot foresee; and not +alone, but carrying in his moral arms the soul of his reader—of +each of his thousands of readers—a soul which, if he +see not clearly his way, if he miss his footing, or tread in +the soft, sinking soil (soft with filthy bogs), may be bespattered +and soiled, perhaps for ever—may be sucked +into the swamp pool or poisoned by the swamp air; and +that he must thus carry, not one soul, but thousands of +souls, unknown to him—souls in many cases weak, sometimes +already predisposed to some loathsome moral +malady, and which, by a certain amount of contact with +what to the poet himself might be innocuous, may be +condemned to life-long disease. I do not think that the +poet's object is to moralize mankind; but I think that +the materials with which he must work are such that, +while practising his art, he may unconsciously do more +mischief than all the professed moralists in Christendom +can consciously do good. The poet is the artist, remember, +who deliberately chooses as material for his art the +feelings and actions of man; he is the artist who plays +his melodies, not on catgut strings or metal stops, but +upon human passions; and whose playing touches not a +mere mechanism of fibres and membranes like the ear, +but the human soul, which in its turn feels and acts; he +is the artist who, if he blunders, does not merely fatigue +a nerve, or paralyze for a moment a physical sense, but +injures the whole texture of our sympathies and deafens +our conscience. And I ask you, does such an artist, +playing on such an instrument, not require moral feeling +far stronger and keener than that of any other man, who, +if he mistake evil for good, injures only himself and the +few around him? You have been doubting, Cyril, +whether poetry is sufficient work for a man who feels the +difference between good and evil; you might more +worthily doubt whether any man knows good from evil +with instinct sure enough to suffice him as a poet. You +thought poetry morally below you: are you certain that +you are morally up to its level?"</p> + +<p>Cyril looked vaguely about him: at the black sea +breaking on the twilight sands, at the dark outline of pine-wood +against the pale sky, at the distant village lights—vaguely, +and as if he saw nothing of it all. The damp +sea breeze blew in their faces, the waves moaned sullenly, +the pines creaked in the wind; the moon, hidden behind +clouds, slowly silvered into light their looser, outer folds, +then emerged, spreading a broad white sheen on the +sands and the water.</p> + +<p>"Are you still too good for poetry?" asked Baldwin; +"or—has poetry become too good for you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," answered Cyril, in the tone of a man +before whose mental eyes things are taking a new shape. +"I don't know—perhaps."</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="ch10" id="ch10"></a>POSTSCRIPT OR APOLOGY.</h3> +<p> </p> + +<p>I have had the sense that now, before these foregoing +pages be definitely printed—before what have been living +thoughts and feelings be irrevocably composed and +stiffened, embalmed, distinctly and unmistakably prepared +to last, as things are permitted to last, only in +death—I have had the sense that while yet I can, I +must say one or two more things. But now, I can +scarcely tell why, it seems to me as if there could by no +means be anything to say. It is a mood, due to the +moment and place. All about me there is broad, scarce-flickering +shadow on the grass, and stirring of sunlit tree-tops +and vague buzzing of bees in the limes; and across +the low ivied wall comes from the black, crumbly-stoned +chapel faint music of organ and white-sounding voices, +which swells and pierces through the silence (as a green +reed bud swells and pierces its soft scaly core) and dies +away, making you suddenly very conscious of twitter of +sparrows and chucking of jackdaws; bringing suddenly +close home to you, with the silence, a sense of solid +reality. So, instead of saying what I wished, it seems +to me most evident that there is nothing to say, that +there scarcely could have been anything worth saying. +It is enervate, I suppose; but so it is. I wonder how +any one can ever have felt inclined to write about art—how +art can ever have been worth writing about. Everything +around seems so incomparably more interesting +does it not, than art; so entirely beyond the power of +writing to convey or imitate. Above, high up, there are +two great branches of lime, apparently printed distinctly +on to the pale blue sky, black wood dividing and subdividing +and projecting, green leaves and light yellow +blossom, the sun shining straight through; it seems so +simple. But try and paint it: those two branches, which +seem at first so well-defined, so close together, so closely +clapped against the sky, do you now see how far apart +they really are, how separated by a gulf of luminous air, +how freely suspended, poised, at infinite distance, in the +far receding pale blue; those green leaves and yellow +blossoms, which are not green nor yellow, but something +shadowy and at the same time luminous, are clearly defined +and yet undefinable; the sunshine which we +thought at first one plain beam of light is now a white, +vague sheen, a shimmer; now one light spark, one +tremulous star between the leaves, or a waving network +of rays, long, then short, white, coloured, iridescent, +shaking, shifting, dancing. Paint it, describe it if you +have a mind to, my friend the poet, my friend the +painter; I have not.</p> + +<p>This is one of those moments when reality, and the enjoyment +thereof, fill one with a sense, self-contemptuous, +sceptical, almost cynical, and yet pleasureable and +stoically self-flattering in the recognition of our own importance, +a pervading illogical sense of the futility, the +unreality, the museum-glass-case uselessness of art. It +seems as if art were enjoyed because it has been produced, +not produced because it is to be enjoyed; as if +mankind had acquired an elaborate pleasure in its own +works because they are its own works; as if all of us, +instead of passively receiving the impression of beauty +in the same way that we passively perceive the rustle of +the branches, the twitter of the birds, the light upon the +grass, our soul staying quietly, as it were, at home, and +receiving these things as visits from nature; went forth, +when art appeals to us, on a sort of journey or grand +tour, well provided with guide-book knowledge, schooled +beforehand which road to take, what turnings of feeling +to expect, what baggage of poetic and historic association +to lug with us, what little mole-hill eminences of +thought and feeling to stand upon, morally on tiptoe, +looking down upon an artistic scene upon which we +have never before set eyes, and which is yet as well-known, +as drearily familiar to us as is the inside of our +pocket.</p> + +<p>Such is my present mood; fickle, contradictory, unworthy, +slightly apostatising and blasphemous to my +own deeper convictions, to my own written ideas, you +say; you, my friend, the poet, who insist upon people +being steadfast, unchangeable in all their feelings, because +you poets keep your own moods quite steady, as +photographers keep their victims, until you have taken +the concentrated likeness, and can shift your souls into +another equally steadfast, unchangeable pose. Such is +my present mood, and you may call me what names you +please for having it. All that concerns me is that most +certainly this present mood of mine happens to be the +one, of all others, in which I am least likely to be able +to muster up those two or three remarks upon art with +which I ought to conclude, and finally despatch into the +limbo of things printed this collection of studies. The +things must be said. If I carry my papers home, sit +down at my table, fix my eyes upon the patterned wall-paper, +I shall, in all probability, get back within five +minutes all that the usual ideas, the usual feelings about +art, in the contemplation of that patterned blankness; +all that phantasmagoria of art appreciation for which +we carry all the necessary mechanism, self-manufactured +(yet very neat) out of fragments of culture and +philosophy, in a sort of little travelling case appended to +our soul. A fact this, which is suggestive; for does not +our modern, imaginative appreciation of art, do not all +those wondrous beautiful and horrible dreams and nightmares, +suggested to us by a quite plain and unsuggestive +picture, statue, or piece of music, depend a little upon +our contemplation of the methodical, zig-zag and twirligig +patterned vacuity of modern life? For I suspect +that, in former days (I confess I do not know exactly +when), art may have been perceived pretty much in the +same manner in which we perceive nature: that the enjoyed +perception of a beautiful statue, of a picture, of a +grand song, may have come interrupting, with pleasant +interludes of quiet self-unconscious pleasure, the matter-of-fact, +but not monotonous business of life; even as my +work now, my conscientious, deliberate, attempted work, +is for ever being interrupted by the flicker of the lime-leaf +shadows, light and clear, on my paper, by the breeze +which sweeps the branches and carries away the drying +manuscript on the grass.</p> + +<p>Now it seems to me quite evident that art cannot be +any such thing, as long as its enjoyment or supposed +enjoyment is a sort of deliberate mental gymnastics, +which our desire for well-balanced activity, or our wish +to display a certain unnecessary gracefulness of intellectual +motions, impose upon us; setting aside a certain +portion of our time for counteracting, in the artistic +gymnasiums (rows of soaped poles, and hurdles, and +ladders, and expanses of padded floor, quite as unlike as +may be from the climbable trees and jumpable brooks +which we ought to meet in our walks), called galleries, +concerts, etc., the direful slackening of our muscles and +stiffening of our joints, almost inevitable in our cramped +intellectual shop life of to-day. We writhe, clinging +with arms and legs, up the soaped poles of æsthetic feeling, +slipping and rising again, straining and twisting, to +plop down at last on to the padding and the sawdust; +we dangle, with constrained grace, high in æsthetic contemplation, +flying, with a clutching swing, from idea to +idea: distant, oscillating in mid air, like so many +trapeze acrobats; and then we think that an hour or so, +every now and then, of such exercise is all (except brutal +slumber) that can be required as repose in our intellectual +life. For we are all of us getting more and more +into the habit of enjoying, not so much art, as the feelings +and thoughts, the theories and passions, for which +we make it the excuse. "Nay," you will say "you yourself +have written, are printing, correcting, and publishing +a whole volume of whims and ideas about art, you yourself +are for ever theorising and becoming angry on the +subject—what right have you to object thereto in others?"</p> + +<p>None, perhaps; I have never pretended that I am +not as bad as my neighbours; but the whole gist of +these my theorisings is that people should try and take +art more simply than they do; that, if not called upon +to try and persuade others to simpler courses, they +should not theorise themselves. By theorising, I mean, +incorrectly perhaps, all manner of irrelevant fantasticating, +whether it take the shape of seeking in art for hidden +psychological meanings or moral values, or of using art +merely as a suggestion of images and emotions, the perception +of which infallibly interferes with, and sometimes +entirely replaces, the perception of the art itself. To +you, I know, all that I have written seems extremely +narrow, seems to limit excessively the powers of art, the +enjoyments we can derive therefrom. But I think otherwise; +I understand fully that, in the first place, there is +included, under the general name of art, the result of +ever so many intellectual activities: activities of mere +psychological perception, of mere mechanical imitation +and handling, which, though belonging quite equally to +other concerns, such as science or handicraft, are yet +pleasurable both to him who exerts and to him who perceives +them; I understand that there are so many different +sorts of pictures, statues, and poems, and so many +different kinds of minds to see and read them; I see +that so many questions of mental and physical why and +how are connected with every sort of visible or audible +thing, that there is nothing, however utterly bad and +idiotic and abortive, among the productions of mankind +(and, consequently, among the things called works +of art), out of which some sort of intellect may not derive +very keen enjoyment. The enjoyment, however, may +be merely similar to that with which a physiologist +studies a disease, or a psychologist a form of vice; and, +to my mind, this sort of enjoyment, which does not depend +upon any perception of beauty, is no more artistic +than would be that of such men of science. And my +wish is merely that such pleasure be not substituted +where there is an object to afford, or a mind to receive, +the mere simple, honest pleasure in beauty. Moreover, +with regard to your imputation of narrowness, I think, +on the contrary, that, could we break ourselves of our +habit of replacing or alloying real artistic interests with +irrelevant matters, we should (and this is to my mind a +great reason for so doing) be ridding ourselves of a great +number of imaginary restrictions to our enjoyment. For +in many, nay, most artistic things there is, in greater or +less degree, beauty and enjoyableness; nor should we +always despise the less, since we cannot always obtain +the greater. I do not mean that all art is equally +valuable; such intellectual democracy, Walt. Whitmanish +assertion of the equality of body and soul, good and +evil, high and low, being just the most brutal rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul +dishonesty that I know; but I think that +in most art there is something valuable, and that we +ought to make the most of it, and doubtless should, did +not our eternal theorising interfere, with its arbitrary +standard and requirements. Were we guided solely by +our feelings, we should not be ashamed of taking a certain +pleasure in the half-dapper, half-grotesque stone nymphs +and tritons, with golden-lichened tresses and beards of +green pond ooze, who smirk among the ill-clipped +hedges, and puff at their horns among the flags and +lilies of every abandoned Prince-Bishop or Margrave's +garden, where the apricots ripen against the palace wall, +and the old portraits fade behind the blistered palace +shutters; we should not be ashamed of being just a little +the better pleased for some common dance tune, heard +vaguely, and between our work, from the neighbouring +houses; we should not be ashamed of liking our village +church all the more for the atrocious stained glass which +we have decried as vandalism, when the sunlight falls +rosy, and golden, and green, through its monstrosities on +to the extremely chaste, but excessively dreary, grey +arches and pillars. We should not be so hypocritical to +ourselves, so exclusive in our adoration of only the best +pictures, and statues, and music, to appreciate rightly +whose great merit we ought (but do not), to appreciate +also the small, more appreciable merit of the less perfect +things of art. When, instead of enjoying, we fantasticate +in theory, we not only remove a proportion of our attention +from the work in hand, but also exclude ourselves +from getting the good we might from other things; one +man will positively whip his soul out of enjoying the +sweet solemnity of Claude's sea sunsets, the tragedy pomp +of Poussin's black rustling ilex-groves, and ominous +green evening skies, because he seeks in painting a moral +sincerity which is incompatible with a false shadow or a +lumpishly rendered cloud. Another man thinks music +ought to be the expression of dramatic passion, and +closes his ears to the splendours of poor Rossini's vocal +arabesques, theory-blinded to the sense that the powers +of creating beauty of the composer of <i>Tristram</i>, is after +all akin to the beauty making genius of the composer +of <i>Semiramis</i>. Meanwhile, he who merely enjoys is +able to enjoy; is able (oh wonder of wonders) to be +what the man of theories never can be: just, because he +can be grateful for every amount of bestowed good.</p> + +<p>There is another objection which you may make, +which (though perhaps unformulated) you certainly will +feel, against me and my book. You have an +uncomfortable sense that in some way, although our artistic +life may gain, a certain amount of life which goes on in +or about art—we do not clearly know which—is being +cramped: a life of the fancy and feelings, which weave +between ourselves and the things which surround us and +the things which are absent, between the present +moment and the long-gone past, strange crossed and +recrossed threads, webs of association, infinitely fine, +iridescently connected by almost invisible filaments, +floating and oscillating in the vacuum of our lives, for +ever changing, breaking; reknotting their sensitive filaments. +For in most of the things which we see and +hear with free, unpractical mind in the moments when +we belong to ourselves and to the present, there exists a +capacity for importance, nay for fascination, quite independent +of beauty and of the pleasures which beauty +can give. There is in such things more than what they +can give alike to every one; there is also what they can +give to each separate; they have, besides the clear +language of form, which is equally intelligible to all men, +a half articulate language for every individual man, a +language of associations, vague, poor, if you will, broken +by something which might be a laugh or a sob; an imperfect +irrational language, which is yet, even when +spoken by some trifling thing, by a bar or two of trivial +melody, by a door such as we have many times passed +through, or a chair such as we have looked at when not, +as now, empty; by a mere scent or touch; is yet, this +mumble-jumble language, more dear to us than all the +eloquence and poetry which our soul hears from a great +work of art. I grant you all this. But I do not think +that such things need be interfered with by looking at +art simply and with straightforwardness; interfered with +they cannot be. Nor could I wish it to be otherwise. +For in some ways I do think that almost better than +the mere perception of the work of another, than the +mere perception of statue or picture or poem, is this +evolving from out of ourselves of vague beauty and +goodness: our fancy and our feelings do not create anything +enduring, but they are active, they create. You +artists, you poets must be broad awake, for you can and +are bound to give to us the sober realities of beauty; +but we who cannot, we can yet sometimes dream, if but +for a moment, of an intangible, vague fairyland; and of +this we must not be cheated. Out of the broken, fragmentary +realities of life there must arise, ever and again +for all of us, strange involuntary visions, which have +greater power over us, more charm for us, than all the +art in the world. And of such things art has no right +to be jealous; they are beyond it. And thus, I will confess +to you, as I fasten together these last pages of my +book, and rise from the grass, sere in the sunshine, and +sprinkled with daisies in the shadow of each tree, I will +confess to you that more nearly appealing to me, dearer +also, than antique bas-relief or song of Mozart, has been +the vague remembrance, evoked by trivial word or sight, +of that early winter afternoon on the ilex girded battlements +of Belcaro, looking down upon the sere oak-woods, +flushed by the low sun, upon the hazy olive +slopes and walls and towers of Siena. And, moreover, I +will even confess (as severest self-chastisement to a writer +on art, as complete expiation of æsthetic dogmatism and +fantastications), while we walk across the warm grass and +out through the low archway of black and flakewise +crumbling stone, that I foresee that many a time in the +future there will arise between me and the fresco or +picture at which I am looking, a vision of this old world +garden, of the ivied chapel buttress, the flowering lime, +the daisied grass, the copper beech leaves, ruddy and +diaphanous, against the pale, moist English sky; that, +sometimes, there will come into my head something—something +ill-defined, pleasurable, painful—which will +make me read only with my eyes; which will make me +(worst humiliation) lose the thread of my theories, of my +thoughts, of my sentence. And, after this confession, I +think I can say no more.</p> + +<p> +<span class="smallcaps"><small>Oxford</small></span>, <i><small>July 21, 1881</small></i>.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<p class="noindent"> +<i><span class="small">S. Cowan and Co., Strathmore Press, Perth.</span></i> +</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<table class="sm" border="0" style="background-color: #E6F6FA; margin: 0 auto" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4" summary="NOTES"> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> + <div class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</div> + +<p class="noindent" style="background-color: #E6F6FA">In a very few cases, missing punctuation has been added, mainly full +stops. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.<br /> +<br /> +On the whole, Vernon Lee's quirky spellings have been retained; they +include, but are not limited to, words like spirt, feretting, devine, +charnal, langour, irridescent, crenelated, crotchetty, tomatos, boddices, +putrifying, braggadoccio, Monna Lisa, trellise, Lionardo, Lorenzo dei +Medici.<br /> +<br /> +The following changes were made and are identified in the +body of the text by a grey dotted underline:</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">What like are these statutes?</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">What like are these <i>statues?</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">Wohlgemüth</td> +<td align="left" valign="top"><i>Wohlgemuth</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">Walpürgisnacht</td> +<td align="left" valign="top"><i>Walpurgisnacht</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top" class="w50">(…) he should invent a more or or less casuistic reason (…)</td> +<td align="left" valign="top">(…) he should invent a more <i>or</i> less casuistic reason (…)</td> +</tr> + +<tr><td align="left" colspan="2">A quotation from Goethe's play "Torquato Tasso" was corrected in keeping +with the German original. Lee quotes it as follows, presumably from +memory:</td></tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> +<div class="center"> + <table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="text"> + <tr><td align="left">'Nicht alles dienet uns auf gleicher Weise:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wer viel gebrauchen will, gebrauche jedes</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Nach seiner Art: so ist er wohl bedient.'</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Belcaro, by Vernon Lee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELCARO *** + +***** This file should be named 32337-h.htm or 32337-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/3/32337/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + +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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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: Belcaro + Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions + +Author: Vernon Lee + +Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32337] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELCARO *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + + + + + + + + +BELCARO + + +BEING + + +ESSAYS ON SUNDRY AESTHETICAL QUESTIONS, + + +BY +VERNON LEE, +AUTHOR OF "STUDIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY." + + + +LONDON: +W. SATCHELL & CO., +12 TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. + + + + +_TO_ + +A. MARY F. ROBINSON. + + + + + CONTENTS. + PAGE + + I. THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE 1 + II. THE CHILD IN THE VATICAN 17 + III. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 49 + IV. FAUSTUS AND HELENA 70 + V. CHAPELMASTER KREISLER 106 + VI. CHERUBINO 129 + VII. IN UMBRIA 156 + VIII. RUSKINISM 197 + IX. A DIALOGUE ON POETIC MORALITY 230 + X. POSTSCRIPT OR APOLOGY 275 + + +I have to thank the Editors of the _Cornhill_ and of _Fraser's +Magazines_, and of the _Contemporary Review_, for kind permission to +republish such of these studies as have previously appeared in print. + + + + +THE BOOK AND ITS TITLE. + +TO ONE OF MY READERS--THE FIRST AND EARLIEST. + + +A little while ago I told you that I wished this collection of studies +to be more especially yours: so now I send it you, a bundle of proofs +and of MS., to know whether you will have it. I wish I could give you +what I have written in the same complete way that a painter would give +you one of his sketches; that a singer, singing for you alone, might +give you his voice and his art; for a dedication is but a drop of ink on +a large white sheet, and conveys but a sorry notion of property. Now, +this book is intended to be really yours; yours in the sense that, were +it impossible for more than one copy of it to exist, that one copy I +should certainly give to you. Because these studies represent the ideas +I have so far been able to work out for myself about art, considered not +historically, but in its double relation to the artist and the world for +whom he works; ideas which it is my highest ambition should influence +those young enough and powerful enough to act upon them; and, this being +the case, my first thought is to place them before you: it is, you see, +a matter of conversion, and the nearest, most difficult, most desired +convert, is yourself. + +To you, therefore, before any one else, must I explain what manner +of book this is, what are its origin and its aims. And first, the +meaning of its title. Logically, this title means nothing; it is a mere +negation, a mere arbitrary combination of letters chosen from sheer +despair to find any name which should tell, what this title certainly +does not, what is the contents of the volume. Yet, a meaning the name +has: a meaning of association. For, even as a snatch of melody will +sometimes, for no apparent reason, haunt us while we are about any +particular work, follow us while we are travelling through a definite +tract of country (as, two years since, Wagner's Spinning Chorus +travelled with me from Mantua to Verona, and from Verona to Venice) in +such a way that the piece of work, the tract of country, bring with +their recollection the haunting tune to our mind; so, also, during the +time of making up this volume, I have been haunted by the remembrance of +that winter afternoon, when last we were together, on the battlements of +Belcaro. Perhaps (if we must seek a reason), because, while driving to +the strange, isolated villa castle, up and down, and round and round the +hills of ploughed-up russet earth, and pale pink leafless brushwood, and +bright green pine-woods, where every sharp road-turning surprises one +with a sudden glimpse of Siena, astride, with towers and walls and +cupolas, on her high, solitary ridge; while dashing up the narrow hedged +lanes whose sere oak and ilex branches brushed across our faces; or, +while looking down from the half-fortified old place on to the endless, +vague, undulating Sienese fields and oak-woods; perhaps, because at +that moment I may, unconscious to myself, have had a vague first desire +to put together more of the helter-skelter contents of the notes over +which we had been looking, and give it you in some intelligible shape. +Perhaps this may have served to set up the association; or perhaps it +was something wholly different, unguessed, trumpery, inscrutable. Be +this as it may, the fact remains that during the dull months of planning +and putting together this book, I have been haunted, as by a melody, by +the remembrance, the vision, the consciousness of that afternoon, warm +and hazy, of early December, on the battlements of Belcaro castle, when +we looked down over the top of the dense mural crown of sprouting pale +green acorned ilex on to the hills and ravines, with the sere oak-woods +reddened with the faint flush of sun-light, and the vague, white thinned +olives and isolated golden-leaved oaks, and distant solitary belfries +and castles; away towards Siena, grey on the horizon, beneath the grey, +pinked, wet cloud masses, lurid and mysterious like Beccafumi's frescos, +as if the clouds, if one looked at them long, might gather into +clustered angels with palm-shaped wings and flushed faces and reddened +pale locks. Thus have I been haunted by this remembrance, this inner +sight, this single moment continuing, in a way, to exist alongside of so +many and various other moments; so that, when it has come to giving a +name to this book, I find that there is already indissolubly associated +with it, the name of Belcaro. + +So far of the title: now of the book itself, of what it is, and why it +is such. When, two summers since, I wrote the last pages of my first +book, it was, in a way, as if I had been working out the plans of +another dead individual. The myself who had, almost as a child, been +insanely bewitched by the composers and singers, the mask actors and +pedants, and fine ladies and fops, the whole ghostly turn-out of the +Italian 18th century; who had, for years, in the bustle of self-culture, +I might almost say, of childish education, never let slip an opportunity +of adding a new microscopic dab of colour to the beloved, quaint, and +ridiculous and pathetic century-portrait which I carried in my mind; +this myself, thus smitten with the Italian 18th century, had already +ceased to exist. Another myself had come instead, to whom this long +accumulated 18th century lore had been bequeathed, but who would never +have taken the pains, or had the patience, to collect it; who carried +out with a sort of filial piety the long cherished plan of making into a +book all that inherited material, seeing the while in this 18th century +lore what the original collector had never guessed: illustrations, +partial explanations, of questions of artistic genesis and evolution, +of artistic right and wrong, which were for ever being discussed within +me. This new myself, this heir to the task of putting into shape the +historical materials collected by an extinct individuality, is the +myself by whom has been written this present book: this present book +represents the thoughts, the problems, the doubts, the solutions, which +were haunting me while writing that first book from which this new one +so completely differs. To plan, to work for such a book as that first +one, seems to me now about the most incomprehensible of all things; to +care for one particular historical moment, to study the details of one +particular civilisation, to worry about finding out the exact when and +how of any definite event; above all, to feel (as I felt) any desire to +teach any specified thing to anybody; all this has become unintelligible +to my sympathies of to-day. And it is natural: natural in mental +growth that we are, to some extent, professorial and professorially +self-important and engrossed, before becoming restlessly and sceptically +studious: we may teach some things before we even know the desire of +learning others. Thus I, from my small magisterial chair or stool of +18th century-expounder, have descended and humbly gone to school as a +student of aesthetics. + +To school, where, and with whom? A little to books, and this (excepting +a few psychological works not bearing directly upon my subject) with but +small profit; mainly to art itself, to pictures and statues and music +and poetry, to my own feelings and my own thoughts; studying, in +seemingly desultory fashion, in discussions with my friends and with +myself. This volume BELCARO is the first fruit of these attempts at +knowing: it is not the Sir-Oracle manual of a professor, with all in its +right place, understood or misunderstood, truth and error all neatly +systematised for the teaching of others; but rather the scholar's copy +book, the fragmentary and somewhat helter-skelter notes of what, in his +listenings and questionings, he has been able to understand, and which +he hands over to his fellow-pupils, who may have understood as much of +the lessons as himself, but have in all probability understood different +portions or in different ways. Such a collection of notes this volume +most unmetaphorically is: it is literally a selection of such pages out +of my commonplace books as seemed (though written at various moments) +to converge upon given points of aesthetical discussion; to coalesce, +conglomerate naturally, and to admit of some sort of setting, or +resetting. I say setting or resetting, because these thoughts, these +questionings, these discussions, though in their written shape merely +copied out from a confusion of quite heterogeneous notes, have nearly +all had, while they were living, while thought or asked or discussed, +a real setting of some sort. For the ideas have come mainly in the +presence of works of art, or in discussions with friends: they have +come, sometimes unperceived at the moment, together with the sight +of a picture, the hearing of a bar or two of music, the reading of +an accidentally met, familiar quotation; a reason, a long sought +explanation has been suddenly struck out by a sentence, a word from a +friend. Oh yes, a setting they have had, these ideas, such as they are: +a real, living, shimmering setting of tones and looks, and jests and +passion, and anecdote and illustration, and irrelevant streakings and +veinings of description and story; a setting too of place and time and +personality. For they have come out of real desultory talks: re-echoed +by the bare walls of glaring galleries and sounding statue cells; or +whispered on the steps before the withdrawn curtain of some altar-piece, +while the faint mass bell tinkled from distant chapels, or great waves +of litany responses rushed roaring down the nave, and broke in short +repeated echoes against the pillars of the aisle; or, never clearly +begun or ended, between one piece of music and another, with the hands +still on the keys, and the eyes still on the score; talks desultory, +digressive, broken off by the withdrawing of the curtain from a fresh +picture, by the prelude of another piece, by a cart blocking up the +street or a cat in behind a window grating; by something often utterly +trumpery, senseless and for the moment all important. And they have come +also, these scattered ideas, in long discussions, rambling but eager +(their seriousness shivered ever and anon by a sudden grotesque image or +cutting answer, or inane pun, or diverted off, no one knew how, into +anecdotes or folk tales), in the fire-lit winter afternoons, with the +crackle of wood and the crackling of sparks; or, in the August-heated, +shuttered room, with the midday drowsy silence brought home more +completely by the never flagging saw of the cicalas on the vine-bearing +poplars, by the uniform clatter of the wooden frame crushing the brittle +silvery hemp straw in the dark courtyard outside. This manner of setting +they have had; and a far finer than any that could artificially be given +to them. In order to endure, they had, these ideas, to be removed out of +all this living frame-work; to be written down, that is to say, to be +made quite lifeless and inorganic, and dry and stiff, like some stuffed +animal or bird. And when it came to sorting them, to preparing them to +show to other folk; the vague melancholy sense of how different they +now looked, my poor art thoughts all dreary in their abstractness, from +what they had been when they had first come into my head; this sense +of difference made me wish and try to replace them in a setting, an +artificial one, which should in a manner be equivalent to that original +real setting of place and moment, and individuality and digression: +equivalent as an acre of garden, with artificial rocks, streams, groves, +grottoes, places for losing your way, flower-beds etc., is equivalent +for all the country you can travel over in five or six years. I have +done as best I could, merely to satisfy my own strong feeling that art +questions should always be discussed in the presence of some definite +work of art, if art and its productions are not to become mere +abstractions, logical counters wherewith to reckon; also, that +discussions should be, what real discussions are, a gradual unravelling +of tangled questions, either alone or with others' assistance, not a +mere exposition of a cut and dry system. I have always, in putting +together these notes, had a vision of pictures or statues or places, had +a sound of music in my mind, or a page of a book in my memory; I have +always thought, in arranging these discussions, of the real individuals +with whom I should most willingly have them: I have always felt that +some one else was by my side to whom I was showing, explaining, +answering; hence, the use of the second person plural, of which I have +vainly tried to be rid: it is not the oracular _we_ of the printed book, +it is the _we_ of myself and those with whom, for whom, I am speaking; +it is the constantly felt dualism of myself and my companion. + +Thus much of the form into which, as the only one which, however +imperfectly, suited my liking, I have worked these notes, taken from +out of the confusion of my commonplace books. Now, as to the notes, or +rather as to the ideas which they embody. These ideas, I repeat, are not +a system; they are mere fragmentary thinkings out of aesthetic questions. +Yet, they have, taken altogether, a certain uniformity of tendency, a +certain logical shape: they look like a system. But if a logical shape +they have, it is not because they have been deliberately fitted into +each other, but because they have been homogeneously evolved; if a +system they appear, it is because the same individual mind, in its +attempt to solve a series of closely allied problems, must solve them +in a self-consistent way. Hence, while dreading beyond all things to +cramp my still growing, and therefore altering, ideas in the limits +of a system, I find that I have, nevertheless, evolved for myself a +series of answers to separate questions, which constitute a sort of +art-philosophy. An art-philosophy entirely unabstract, unsystematic, +essentially personal, because evolved unconsciously, under the pressure +of personal circumstances, and to serve the requirements of personal +tendencies. I have, of course, read a good deal about art, perhaps more +than other people; and I have consciously and unconsciously assimilated +a good deal of the books that I read; but I have never deliberately +accepted (except in the domain of art-history and evolution, of which I +have not treated in this book which deals only of art in its connection +with the individual artist and his public) a whole theory, and set +myself either to developing or correcting it: the ideas of others enter +largely into the answers to my self-questionings, but they do so because +they had become part and parcel of my own thought; and the questions and +their answers have always been asked by myself and answered by myself. +For, with respect to aesthetic training, I have been circumstanced +differently from most writers on the subject, nay, from most readers of +our generation. I was taught as little about art, I heard as little talk +about pictures, statues, or music, as any legendary calvinist child of +the 17th century; I jostled art of one kind or another as much as any +child well can: I was familiar with art, cared about it (to the extent +of requiring it) before well knowing that art existed: reversing the +training of these days of culture and eclecticism and philosophy, +according to which one usually knows all about art, all about its +history, ethics, philosophy, schools, epochs, moral value, poetic +meaning, and so forth, before one knows art itself, long before one +cares a jot for it. To me, art was neither a technical study, nor a +philosophic puzzle, nor a rhetorical theme, nor a fashionable craze: it +was something natural, familiar; indifferent at first, then enjoyed; +only later read and thought about. It was only when I began to read +what other people had thought and felt on the subject, that I began +to discover (with surprise and awe) that there was something rare, +wonderful, exotic, sublime, mysterious, ineffable about art. I read a +great many books about all the arts, and about each art in particular, +from Plato to Lessing, from Reynolds to Taine, from Hegel to Ruskin; I +read, re-read, annotated, extracted, compared, refuted; I filled copy +books with transcendental, romantic, and positivistic aesthetics; I began +to feel, to understand art and all its wonderful mysteries; I began to +be able to express in words all the vague sublimities which I felt. Any +one reading my notes, hearing my conversation, would have sworn that I +was destined to become an art philosopher. But it was not to be. Much as +I read, copied, annotated, analysed, imitated, I could not really take +in any of the things which I read; or if I took them in, they would +remain pure literary flourishes. As soon as I got back into the presence +of art itself, all my carefully acquired artistic philosophy, mystic, +romantic, or transcendental, was forgotten: I looked at pictures and +statues, and saw in them mere lines and colours, pleasant or unpleasant; +I listened to music, and when, afterwards, I asked myself what strange +moods it had awakened in my soul, what wondrous visions it had conjured +up in my mind, I discovered that, during that period of listening, my +mind had been a complete blank, and that all I could possibly recollect +were notes. My old original prosaic, matter-of-fact feeling about art, +as something simple, straightforward, enjoyable, always persisted +beneath all the metaphysics and all the lyrism with which I tried to +crush it. I continued, indeed, to study art, to think about what it +really was; but gradually I perceived that this thinking of mine, +instead of developing my faculties for seeing in art all the wonderful +things seen in it by others, tended more and more to confirm my original +childish impression that art was a simple thing to be simply enjoyed. +My thinking was mainly negative: instead of discovering new things +in art, I discovered every day the absence in it of some of the strange +properties with which I had learned to invest it; I perceived more and +more distinctly that half of the ideas of aestheticians had merely served +to hide the real nature of the art about which they wrote; I understood +that while analysing psychological meanings in pictures, they were +shutting their eyes to the form and the colour; that while they were +dreaming about woods and lakes, and love and death, they were not +listening to the music. I gradually took in the fact that most writers +on art were simply substituting psychological or mystic or poetic +enjoyment, due to their own literary activities, for the simple artistic +enjoyment which was alone and solely afforded by art itself. I saw that +the more value any work of art possessed in itself, and the greater +the amount of pleasure which it could afford, the more extraneous and +impertinent was the sort of interest with which aestheticians tried to +invest it. I became aware that writers, being unable to awaken with +their machinery of thoughts and feelings and words the activities +awakened by the intrinsic qualities, visible or audible, of statues or +pictures or music, had unconsciously substituted an appeal to other +mental activities with which the works of art had at best but little +connection. This gradual discovery amused me, but it also made me +indignant. Had mankind appeared to me to be merely placidly enjoying as +artistic effects those which were not artistic effects at all, it would +have been a mere matter for amusement; but it seemed to me that as a +consequence of this mankind was entirely missing much of the enjoyment +which art could give, and, moreover, which could be given only by art. +Besides, art was for ever attempting really to produce those imaginary, +imagined effects: sculpture was trying to give psychological amusement, +music was trying to play tragedies and paint landscapes, and write +religious meditations; and in so doing art was incapacitating itself +for its real work, even as mankind was incapacitating itself for +appreciating the real powers of art. Hence, in so far as I thought +at all about art in its absolute relations to artist and public (as +distinguished from art as a psychological, historical, merely scientific +study) my thoughts all tended towards getting rid of those foreign, +extra-artistic, irrelevant interests which aestheticians have since the +beginning of time interposed between art and those who are intended to +enjoy it; my work has, unconsciously enough, been to logically justify +that perfectly simple, direct connection between art and ourselves, +which was the one I had felt, as a child, before learning all the +wonderful fantastications of art philosophers. My own art philosophy is +therefore simply to try and enjoy in art what art really contains, to +obtain from art all that it can give, by refraining from asking it to +give what it cannot. To this end have tended all those most harum-scarum +notes, written during the last six years, which I have here collected +and tried to group according to the particular art, or the particular +portion of an art, to which they referred. Some are about painting, +some about music, some about poetry, some about art in general, some +inextricably combined and mixed up with other subjects. They have been +written at different times, hence with varying amount of experience and +information; occasionally they may even be contradictory in a trifle. +Thus, when I wrote the notes on musical expression incorporated in the +essay called after Hoffmann's Kapell-Meister Kreisler, I was not yet +acquainted with the discoveries of Mr. Herbert Spencer on the subject; +discoveries which have infinitely cleared my ideas, and which serve to +correct, in the adjoining essay called _Cherubino_, much that was vague, +and perhaps equivocal, in my earlier notes. Had I been constructing a +system, I should have recast all the old (or suppressed all the new); +but I am merely collecting notes, so I have let them stand as they were +written. My object is not to teach others, but to show them how far I +have taught myself, and how far they may teach themselves. I must always +return to my comparison of the copy books of the boy attending a course +of lectures: this is not all that I conceive can be said on the subject; +it is merely as much as I have been able to understand thereof; and the +more I have listened and questioned, the more what I have understood has +become connected within itself and seemed to indicate connections with +unstudied problems belonging to different orders of thought. Thus, after +having thought and written only about art; about what each art can and +cannot do, about the relations of the various arts amongst each other +and to their artists, I have gradually found myself thinking and writing +about what art as a whole can do and should do; about the relations +between all art and life taken as a whole: after the purely aesthetical +questions has come the question, no aesthetical question this time--what +value, in this world of good and evil, of doubt and certainty, of action +and inaction, in this world struggling for physical and social and moral +good, what value have aesthetical questions at all? And with these notes, +written latest of all, and threatening to divert me more than they +should from my present field of study to the wider, nobler, far more +intricate and dangerous field of ethics, I have thought it best to +close my book; since these latest notes supply the explanation--felt +all along, but only vaguely formulated till now--of my whole aesthetic, +because of my whole philosophic, tendencies: the greatest amount of good +work to be obtained from everything, and this possible only by all being +seen in its right light, and consequently used in its right place. + +This is what my new book is, and this is how such it has come to be. And +just because it is what it is, because it is not a mere piece of work, +not a mere something made by me and thrust away, in its systematic cut +and dryness, from my living personality; but a certain proportion of my +growing, altering, enlarging, disjointed, helter-skelter thoughts, of +the thoughts which come to me whether I will or not; because it is not +a real book but a collection of notes, do I wish it to be read by you. +So now I tie together and make a packet of all the pages of proofs and +sheets of MS., and send it all to you. The summer has come round: the +tall grass, brocaded like some rough, rich mediaeval stuff, with yellow +buttercups and blue sage flowers, is already beginning to be scythed +and raked away; the last clusters of hawthorn, which, a few days since, +still stood out white and crisp against the blue of the sky, fall to +pieces as soon as one tries to gather them; the Tuscan country has +already got its summer sheen of pale green poppied wheat, and pale green +budding vine, and dim blue distance, and pervading faint yellow haze; +the hills of Siena are green with sprouting arbutus and ilex and fern +and hellebore bells; the oakwoods that we saw russet under the reddening +light, are in tender, yellowish new leaf; the olives are in blossom from +which we broke the fruit-laden twigs; it seems so long, so very long, +since that soft grey winter day when last we were together, looking down +from the battlements of the old Sienese villa; and yet the memory of +that winter day seems as real as the present reality of this summer one; +and haunts me still, as I write these words, even as it has haunted me +throughout the putting together of this book, which I have called, +from that haunting remembrance, and, perhaps, a little also that the +association might make it more pleasant in your eyes, by the name of +that strange, isolated, ilex-circled castle villa of Belcaro. And now, +unroll the tight-rolled manuscript and smooth out the rumpled proof +sheets; read, and tell me whether or not what you have read is ever to +be read by any one else. + + FLORENCE, _May, 1881_. + + + + +THE CHILD IN THE VATICAN. + + +There were a lot of children in the Vatican this morning: small +barbarians scarce out of the nursery, who should have been at home, +at their lessons, or reading fairy books, or carpentering, or +doll-educating, or boat-sailing, or amusing themselves in the hundred +nondescript ways which we seem to forget (remembering only ready-made +toys and ready-made stories) when we grow up. Some were left to their +own devices, and scampered, chattering and laughing, through the +gallery; jumping up three steps at a time, clambering up to windows, +running round isolated statues, feretting into all the little nook and +corner rooms, peeping into the lidless sarcophagi and the great porphyry +baths, with the rough-hewn rings and lions' heads. The others were being +led by their elders: talking in whispers, or silent: demure, weary, +vacant, staring about with dreary, vague little faces; these, who were +not permitted to rush about like the others, seemed chilled, numbed +by a sort of wonder unaccompanied by curiosity, oppressed by a sense +of indefineable desolation. And, indeed, it is a desolate place, this +Vatican, with its long, bleak, glaring corridors; its half-lit, chill, +resounding halls; its damp little Belvedere Court, where green lichen +fills up the fissured pavement; a dreary labyrinth of brick and +mortar, a sort of over-ground catacomb of stones, constructed in our +art-studying, rather than art-loving times where once--when Michael +Angelo was stretched painting on the creaking scaffolding slung from +the roof of the Sixtine--the poppies waved scarlet among the trailing +vines of the pope's orchard, and the white butterflies, like wind-blown +blossoms, swarmed in the tall grass beneath the bending apple trees, and +the fire-flies danced in luminous spirals among the wild rose-hedges. +A dismal scientific piece of ostentation, like all galleries; a place +where art is arranged and ticketed and made dingy and lifeless even as +are the plants in a botanic collection. Eminently a place of exile; or +worse, of captivity, for all this people of marble: these athletes and +nymphs and satyrs, and warriors and poets and gods, who once stood, each +in happy independence, against a screen of laurel or ilex branches, +or on the sun-heated gable of a temple, where the grass waved in the +fissures and the swallows nested, or in a cresset-lit, incense-dim +chapel, or high against the blue sky above the bustle of the market +place; poor stone captives cloistered in monastic halls and cells, or +arranged, like the skeletons of Capuchins, in endless rows of niche, +shelf, and bracket. Galleries are necessary things, to save pictures and +statues (or the little remaining of them) from candle smoke, sacristans' +ladders, damp, worms, and street boys, but they are evil necessities; +and the sense of a sort of negative vandalism always clings to them, +specially to the galleries of statues, so uninhabited, so utterly +sepulchral. Going to a gallery of sculpture, we must be prepared to +isolate what we wish to enjoy, to make for it a fitting habitation in +our fancy: it is like going to read a page of Homer, or the Georgics, +or Shelley, in some great musty, dusty library, redolent of crumbling +parchment and forgotten rubbish. Such is this Vatican, even for us +accustomed to it and knowing what we do and do not want: for us grown-up +creatures, familiar with such matters, and with powers of impression +quite deadened by culture. What, therefore, must not this Vatican be +for a child: a quite small, ignorant barbarian such as has never before +set its feet in a gallery, to whom art and antiquity have been mere +names, to whom all this world of tintless stone can give but a confused, +huge, overpowering impression of dreariness and vacuity. An impression +composed of negative things: of silence and absence of colour, of +lifelessness, of not knowing what it all is or all means; a sense of +void and of unattractive mystery which chills, numbs the little soul +into a sort of emotionless, inactive discomfort. What we were, how we +felt, how we understood and vaguely guessed things, as children, we can +none of us know. The recollection of ourselves when we were so different +from ourselves, this tradition handed down from a dim, far-off creature +of whom we know, without feeling it, that he, was our _ego_, this +mysterious tradition remains to us only in fragments, has been printed +into our memory only by desultory patches: at one point we can read, at +another the ink has not taken; we know as distinctly as the sensation +and impressions of this very morning this or that sensation or +impression of so many, many years ago; and we ask ourselves at the same +time--"how did such another thing affect our mind?"--with the utter +hopelessness of answer with which we should try to look into the soul +of a dog or a cat. Thus it is with our small barbarian child in the +Vatican: how did it feel? Alas, we should, in order to know, first +have to find that little obscure, puzzled soul again; and where is +it gone? this thing which may once have been ourselves, whither has it +disappeared, when has it been extinguished? So we can only speculate and +reconstruct on a general basis. Certain it is that to this child, to +any child, this Vatican must have been the most desolate, the most +unintelligible of places. For, strange as it may seem, this clear and +simple art of sculpture, born when the world was young and had not yet +learned to think and talk in symbolical riddles, this apparently so +outspoken art is, to the childish soul of our days, the most silent art +of any. To the child, the modern child, it is speechless; it knows not +a word of the language understood by the child's fancy. For this fancy +language of our modern child is the language of colour, of movement, of +sound, of suggestion, of all the broken words of modern thought and +feeling: and the statue has none of these. The child does not recognise +in it anything familiar: these naked, or half-naked, limbs are things +which the child has never seen, at least, never observed; they do not, +in their unfamiliarity, their vagueness, constitute an individual +character; the dress, the furrowed face, the coloured hair, the beard, +these are the things which the child knows, and by which it recognises; +but in these vague, white things, with their rounded white cheek, and +clotted white hair, with their fold of white drapery about them, the +child recognises nothing: men? women? it does not ask: for it, they are +mere things, figures cut out of stone. And thus, in their vagueness, +their unfamiliarity, they seem also to be all alike, even as, on first +acquaintance, we sometimes ask ourselves whether those sisters or +brothers we know are four or only three; for in the unknown there is no +diversity. Mysterious things, therefore, these statues for the child; +but theirs is a mystery of mere vacuity, one which does not haunt, does +not seek a solution. For they are dull things, in their dirty whiteness: +they are doing nothing, these creatures, merely standing or sitting or +leaning, they are looking at nothing with their pupilless white eyes, +they have no story to tell, no name to be asked. The child does not say +to them, as to the people in pictures, the splendid people in strange +colours, and holding strange things, "Who are you? why are you doing +that?" It does not even ask or answer itself whether these white things, +who seem to be all the same, are dead or alive: they are not ghosts, +they are things which, for aught the child knows or cares, have never +been born and never will die. A negation, oppressive and depressing, +that is all; and in the infinite multitude of statues in such a place +as this Vatican, their sense must become actively painful to the child. +Hence, the children we meet either rush headlong through corridor and +hall, looking neither to the right nor to the left, or let themselves +be passively led through, listless, depressed, glancing vaguely about, +looking wistfully at the little glimpses of sunlit garden outside, at +the clipped box hedges and trim orange trees in the court of the Pine +Cone. For there, outside, is life, movement, green; little hedged beds +to run round; fountains to be made to spirt aside by sticking fingers +into their pipes; walls on which to walk balanced, and benches to jump +over: there is field and food for the child's fancy, and here, within, +among all these cut stones, there is none. + +Hence it is that the child, who will one day become ourselves, rarely +cares to return to these sculpture galleries; or, if it care to return +to any, it is to mixed galleries like those of Florence, where, instead +of the statues, it looks at the pictures. And out of pictures, out of +the coarse blurs of colour in picture-books, out of the black, huddled, +infinitively suggestive engravings in bible and book of travel; out of +fine glossy modern pictures which represent a definite place, or tell a +definite story; out of all this, confused with haunting impressions, of +things seen or heard of (the strange, deeply significant sights and +words of our childhood), do we get our original, never really alterable +ideas and feelings about art; for much as we may clip, trim, and bedizen +our minds with borrowed things, we can never change, never even recast +its solid material: a compact, and seemingly homogeneous soul mass, +made up of tightly-pressed, crushed odds and ends of impression; +broken, confused, pounded bits of the sights and sounds and emotions +of our childhood. To the statues we return only quite late, when this +long-formed, long-moulded soul of ours has been well steeped in every +sort of eclectic and artificial culture; has been saturated with modern +art and modern criticism, with mysticism and realism and sentiment and +cynicism, with Dante and Zola, and Mozart and Wagner and Offenbach, +saturated, with every kind of critically distilled aesthetic essence, +till there is not a flavour and not a scent, good or bad, sweet or foul, +which may not be perceived in this strange soul of ours. Then we return +to the statues; and, having imbibed (like all things) a certain amount +of Hellenic, Pagan, antique feeling, we try also to assimilate the +spirit of the statues of Phidias or Praxiteles; we expound the +civilisation, the mode of thought; we trace the differences of school, +we approve and condemn, we speak marvellously well, with subtlety or +passion; we imagine all manner of occult, ineffable virtues and vices +in this antique art, we dabble deliciously in alternate purity and +impurity (this being the perfection of artistic pleasure), as we even +occasionally, for a few moments, feel actual, simple, unreasoning, +wholesome pleasure in the sight of the old broken marbles. All this +we do, and most often are therewith satisfied. Yet if, weighing our +artistic likings and dislikings, comparing together our feelings towards +so many and so various manifestations, trying to determine what is fresh +and wholesome food to our depraved aesthetic (and aesthetico-moral) +palate, and what is mere highly flavoured, spicy or nauseous drug-stuff, +if, in such a moment of doubt, we ask ourselves, overheard by no one, +whether in reality this antique art is, in the life of our feelings, at +all important, comforting, influential? we shall, for the most part, +whisper back to ourselves that it is not so in the very least. But could +it ever have been? Could this, or any art have been for us more than +merely one of a hundred feebly enjoyed, more or less exotic mental +luxuries; than an historic fossil, by study of which, as with the +bone of a pterodactyl or an ichthyosaurus, we can amuse ourselves +reconstructing the appearance and habits of a long dead, once living +civilisation? Or might these statues have been much more to us? Might +they, perhaps, have shaped and trained our souls with their unspoken +lessons? + +Well, once upon a time (let us invent a fairy tale), a child was +brought to the Vatican: just such an one, only perhaps a trifle more +wayward, than those we met this morning, demurely led about, or +scampering through the galleries: its name signifies nothing, suffice it +that it was a child. Now, it so happened, that upon that day the statues +(who, as our forefathers of the middle ages knew) are merely stone +imprisoned demons, dethroned gods of antiquity, were bent upon getting +some small amount of amusement in their dreary lives: all the more +dreary since the great joyful hope of restoration in the hearts of men +which they had conceived when Winckelmann and Goethe came to them and +adored, had been slowly disappointed by seeing that what men cared +for was not them, but merely their own impertinent theories and +grandiloquent speeches. The Statue-demons were sick of the bitter +amusement of watching the follies of their pretended or deluded +worshippers. So they sorely wanted excitement, diversion of some sort; +and in their idleness, they capriciously determined to amuse themselves, +no longer with grown men, but with children. So, as a toy for the +moment, they singled out this particular child we are speaking of, +who was wandering wearily through the gallery, overpowered like its +companions by the sense of negativeness, of greyness, of silence, of +want of character and movement and story, and as it passed them, the +statue-demons looked at each other with their pupilless eyes, as much as +to say: "This is the one we shall take," and determined to cast a spell +upon it which would make it theirs. How they did is more than any of us +can tell: there was a little gurgling fountain in the garden outside, +where a broken-snouted dragon spirted a trickle of water through the +maiden-hair choking up the basin, and of this water the child did drink +a little in the palm of its hand, the rest running up its sleeve; there +was also an old noseless Vertumnus in a corner, on whose pedestal a +great tuft of wild grass had shot up, and round whose arms and neck an +ivy plant had cast its green trailing leaves; and one of these bitter +glossy leaves that child did certainly munch; but whether the charm was +in the water or the leaf, or in neither, and only a mysterious spell, +a sort of invisible winged seed of passion which they cast direct into +that little soul, no one may ever decide. Be it as it may, the child +remained for a while conscious of nothing at all, never dreaming that it +had in any way come in contact with that demon world imprisoned in the +stone. It lived its child life of romping and day dreams and lessons and +punishments, and, with its companions, fretted to get away from this +dreary, horrible Rome of the popes: this warm, wet place with its sordid +houses, its ruins embedded in filth and nettles; its tawdry, stuffy +churches, filled with snuffling of monks and jig-quavering of strange, +cracked, sickening-sweet voices; its whole atmosphere of decay and +sloth, as of a great marsh-pond, sprinkled with bright green weed and +starred with flaunting nauseous yellow lilies. The child wondered at +all these things: dug bits of porphyry and serpentine out of gutters, +collected pieces of potshard from the Palatine; read and re-read +the stories of shipwrecks and red Indians and volcanoes: played in +dressing-gowns and shawls, at processions of cardinals and prelates, +and, with yelling companions in pinafores and napkins, at church music, +with tremendous time-beating with rolls of paper; laughed and pouted and +quarrelled as children do; quite unconscious of being the chosen one, +the changeling, the victim of the statues. But little by little, into +its everyday life, stole strange symptoms; sometimes there would come +like a sudden stop, as of a boat caught in the rushes, a consciousness +of immobility in the midst of swirling, flowing movement, a giddy +brain-swimming feeling; and then things went on again just as before. +But the symptoms returned, and others with them. What was the matter? +A vagueness, a want; a seeking, a clinging, but seeking for, clinging +to the unknown. In the evenings of early spring, when the children had +returned from their scrambling walks, and were waiting for supper, +chattering, looking at books, or strumming tunes; this child would watch +the bank of melting colours, crimson, and smoke-purple and gold, left by +the sun behind the black dome of St. Peter's; and as the white vapours +rose from the town below and gathered on the roofs like a veil, it would +feel a vague, acheless pain within it; and at any stray, trifling word +or bar of dance music, its eyes and its whole little soul would fill +with a mist of tears. The spell cast by the statues was not idle, the +mysterious philter which they had poured into it was working throughout +that childish soul: the child was in love; in love with what it had +hated; in love intensely, passionately, with Rome. And as a part of Rome +it loved, blindly, for no other reason, that desolate Vatican; to the +statues it returned, and in a way, grew up in their presence. And one +day the child looked at itself, and perceived that it was a child no +longer; knew all of a sudden, that in those drowsy years of childish +passion and day dreams, it had been learning something which others did +not know. For it heard one day a few pages of a symphony of Mozart's; +the first it had ever heard save much more modern music; and those bars +of symphony were intelligible words, conveyed to the child a secret. And +the secret was: "we are the brethren, the sounding ones of the statues: +and all we who are brethren, whether in stone, or sound, or colour, or +written word, shall to thee speak in such a way that thou recognise us, +and distinguish us from others; and thou shalt love and believe only in +us and those of our kin." Then the child went forth from the Vatican, +and went in among the pictures, and among the poems and the music, and +did indeed find that all those who were of the same kin as the statues +spoke to it intelligible words, and returned its love by making it +happy. This came of the statues having had the whim of giving to that +child the love potion which had made it love Rome. + +All this is a fairy tale, a very meagre one indeed, quite inferior to +any told us by nurse or peasant woman; but a fairy tale nevertheless; +for, of course, we all know that statues cannot give love philters, nor +children fall in love with towns, nor symphonies talk about having +brothers in marble or colour. All this is rubbish of the same sort as +the dancing water, the singing apple, the dragon Fafner's blood which +made Sigurd understand the language of the birds, the enchanted lake +into which Charlemagne sat gazing out his life, because of the ring cast +into it; mere rubbish, and, consequently, not to be examined into or +reasoned about. But as the wise men of to-day tell us that in all our +nursery tales (Heaven forbid that anything so appalling be true) there +is a hidden, sensible meaning; perhaps, also, there may be one in this +absurd little story of the child in the Vatican, and that we may see. +And so, now, we must be serious and examine methodically into the +matter. + +To grow up in the presence of the statues; to become acquainted +with antique art long before any other; to perceive the beauty +and enjoyableness of a statue before seeking for the beauty and +enjoyableness of a picture or a piece of music; this is the reverse of +the artistic training which every individual man or woman obtains +consciously or unconsciously in our own day; for we begin with the art +born nearest our time, then proceed to those further; we go from music +to painting, and from painting to sculpture. But humanity at large +received the opposite training in the last four-and-twenty centuries, +since humanity knew beauty in the statue before knowing beauty in the +picture, and beauty in the picture before beauty in music. The first +standard of artistic right and wrong (since architecture, being a thing +partly for use, and only partly for beauty, has a mixed morality of its +own) was the standard of sculpture. Let us see what that was, and how we +must alter and enlarge it (as humankind has done), in order to obtain +the standard of right and wrong in painting and that in music. The +statues, in our fairy tale, told the child that they had brethren in +sound, brethren which, knowing them, he should also know from the +resemblance. But first, what like are these first born of art, these +statues? What is this character in them which, found in the younger +things, in painting and music, shall show that even these are of the +same stock as the statues? What like are these statues? What a question! +it is perfectly insulting to any one of us most aesthetic creatures. +What like are these statues? Does any of us require to ask or to be +taught that? And to begin with, the very question is a gross error, an +unendurable blunder: statues, antique statues.... You think that so +simple, do you? You think, perhaps, like the people of the sixteenth +century, that there is only one kind of antique statue; know, most +impudent of ignoramuses, that there are innumerable sorts of statues +and antique statues, there are good statues and bad statues, and early +statues and late statues, there are Dedalian statues and AEginete +statues, and immediately pre-Phidian and Phidian, and immediately +post-Phidian and Praxitelian statues, and statues of the school of +Pergamus, and statues of the school of Rhodes, and Graeco-Roman statues, +and statues of the Graeco-Egyptian revival under Hadrian, and statues.... +Enough, enough! We have been talking of the teachings of the statues +themselves, of the lesson which they, with their unchangeable attitude +and gesture, their lines and curves and lights and shadows of body, +their folds and plaits of drapery, have silently, slowly taught to a +child; and the statues themselves, who have never read Winckelmann, +nor Quatremere, nor Ottfried Mueller, do not know all these wondrous +classifications of schools of which (with their infinite advantage of +teaching us to admire only one or two schools, and abominate all the +others as barbarous, decaying, Graeculan, etc., without even looking at +them) we are so justly proud. Oh, yes, the statues which taught the +child were a very mixed company, such as the carefully-trained of our +day, who can endure only Phidias, and next to Phidias, only Clodion or +Carpeaux, would scarcely like to know at all. Not Phidian, all of them, +nor even, alas, Praxitelian; they were not the Elgin marbles nor the +Venus of Milo, sole objects of the feeble love of us good, learned folk; +they were those extremely harum-scarum statues of the Vatican: a few of +them copies of lost, irreproachable originals, like the Doryphoros, the +Minerva, the Amazon, the Satyr; a certain number of impostors of now +exploded reputation, the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Antinous, and a whole +host of quite despicable others, of every degree of lateness of epoch +and baseness of work. And what is still worse, the child was taught, not +merely by this multifarious company, but by heaven knows what dreadful +statues besides; things to shudder at, things, hewn stones (for the +right-minded cannot call them statues) out in gardens, noseless, armless +things under artificial ruined temples, in niches of clipped box, or +half-swathed up with ivy and creeping roses. All these said to that +child that, although some of them were quite artistic patricians and +princes, and others the merest ragtag and bobtail, nay, unspeakable +ruffians and outcasts, they yet belonged to the same stock, they all +being antique; and that all of them, according to their degree and +power, some in unspoken words perfect as any of Plato's, and others +in horrible, jumbled slang, malaprop gibberish, would teach him the +same lesson, if he would listen to them all: the lesson of their own +nature and kinship. And from all of them, insensibly, slowly, without +archaeologic or aesthetic formulae, in the simple manner in which children +learn all that is most important to know, this child learned. So +that, without desire for archaeologic and aesthetic answers, we now +ask, referring to this lesson learnt by the child--"What like +_are_ the statues?" What like? Why, of course--well, they are +like--like--like--what in the world should statues _be_ like?--things +cannot be defined in that cut and dry fashion--why, statues are like--. +In short, such questions can neither be asked nor answered by +intelligent folk. They can be put only by people who believe in love +philters and symphonies which talk, and children who fall in love with +towns; idiotic questions like "Why should there be sin?"--and "Why love +our neighbours when they are nasty?"--which only children ask--questions +to answer which as they deserve, you had better get hold of your eternal +fairy-story child, and ask him what the statues said they were like. +Nay, do not lose all patience. And see, since you think that the +question, "What like are the statues" is fit to be answered only by the +child of the fairy tale, we will pretend, for a moment, that the fairy +tale is true, and play, for your benefit, the part of that child. And +the things which that child would have learned, scarce consciously, in +the course of its own growth, and during years of familiarity with all +this host of statues, we will try and explain in an hour or so, by +examining together a single work of ancient sculpture. This work is the +Niobe group; and we have chosen it, after a little thought, for the +purpose, because, from the complication of the story and of the group +itself, it will enable us to illustrate a greater number of points than +could well be done in the examination of isolated antique figures, or +groups of merely two or three, such as there are plenty of here in Rome. +But the Niobe is not in Rome, you will say; why not take some statue or +group of statues here in the Vatican? Because the Niobe can teach us +most in least time; and because also, you need not think of the group as +it stands in the gallery in Florence. Indeed, you must not think of that +group at all, spread out as it is, in idiotic confusion, round the walls +of Peter Leopold's oblong hall. What you must think of, look at, is +this--See: here we have all the figures composing the group, very fairly +copied in terra-cotta, the largest not much longer than your arm; and +these figures we have placed, according to their relative size, in this +rough wooden model of the triangular gable of a Greek temple; following +approximately the design of the restored temple front which Cockerell +made years ago for the Florentine gallery. + +Come and stand at a little distance from the table on which the wooden +gable and statues are set. So, now we can get an idea (which in the +gallery we cannot) of the general effect of the group. It seems so +simple, but it is not: it is in sculpture something like what a fugue +is in music: it is a homogeneous form due to the extremely skilful +co-ordination of various forms; it is a harmonious whole, because the +parts are combined just at the point where their diversities coalesce. +For, as the various voices of the fugue, some subtly insinuating +themselves half whispered, while the others are thundering their loudest +or already dying away into silence, meet and weave together various +fragments of the same melody, so also do the figures of the group, +some standing, some reclining, some kneeling, some rising, some draped, +some nude, meet our sight in various ways so as to constitute in their +variety, one great pattern; balance each other on opposite sides of the +gable, slope and taper down towards the extremities, grow and rise +higher towards the middle where the vertex of the triangular temple +front, the triumphant centre of the rhythm and harmony of lines, is +formed by the majestic, magnificent mother between her two eldest, most +beautiful daughters. And now, think no more of this terra-cotta than, +having learned the shape of a hymn by Bach or a psalm by Marcello on +the piano, you would think of the poor miserable piano-notes which you +hear with your ears, instead of the mass of voices which you hear with +your fancy. Think of this Niobe group, twice humansized, standing +on the weather-mellowed, delicately painted marble temple front; the +amber-tinted figures against the dark hollow formed by the projecting +roof; the sunshine drawing on the black back-ground, as with a luminous +pencil, the great solemn masses of light and shadow, the powerfully +rhythmed attitudes, the beautiful combinations of lines and light and +shade produced by the gesture, which now raises, now drops the drapery, +opposing to the large folds, heavy and severe, the minute, most supple, +and most subtle plaits; and to the strong broken shadows of the drapery, +the shining smoothness of the nude. Think of that, and remember then the +single figures in their best examples, the mother and eldest daughter of +Florence, the headless younger daughter of the Vatican, the exquisite +dying boy of Munich; and think, by recollecting these dispersed noblest +copies, what must the lost original have been. And thus, looking at the +little rough terra-cotta model, and magnifying it in fancy into the +great superb group such as it must have stood on the temple, there comes +home to us, filling, expanding our mind, an almost ineffable sense of +perfection of line and curve, and light and shade, perfection as of the +sweeping wave of some great mountain, distant and deep blue against the +pale sky; perfection as of the pearled edge of the tiny pink cyclamen +petal; as of the single small voice, swelling and diminishing in crisp +exquisiteness every little turn and shake, and again as of the many +chords of multitudinous voices rolling out in great joyous sound +billows; perfection of whole in harmony and graduation of perfect +parts: perfection of visible form. + +But by the side of this overwhelming positive sense of beauty there +creeps into our consciousness an irritating little sense of negation. +For the more intense becomes our perception of the form, the vaguer +becomes our recollection of the subject; the strong imaginative +realization of the story of Niobe, conjured up by the mere mention of +her name, dwindles to nothing in the presence of the group representing +the chief incident of history; the skrieks and desperate scuffling of +feet, which we had heard in our fancy, gradually die into silence; our +senses cease to shrink with horror, our sympathies cease to vibrate with +pity, as we look upon this visible embodiment of the terrible tragedy. +We are no longer feeling emotion; we are merely perceiving beauty. How +has this come to pass? Shall we look into ourselves and analyze in the +darkness of our consciousness? Nay, rather first look for an explanation +in the materially visible, the clear, easily examined work of art. Come +and look at the group once more: this time not to understand its beauty, +but to understand why there is in it nothing beyond this beauty. + +Certainly, the group answers very well to the general idea of the +massacre of the Niobides: the figures have the attitudes of men and +women overtaken by a sudden danger against which they seek, but vainly, +to shield themselves: the mother clasps the cowering, clinging, youngest +girl, and tries to cover her with her mantle, her arms, her whole body, +to let the child melt into herself and be lost; the youngest son sinks, +panting and helpless, on to one knee; the eldest daughter bends forward +to throw her veil over a dead brother; the younger daughter mechanically +raises her draped arm to ward off the shafts from her face; another son +hastens away, looking bewildered around him, trying to see from which +side come the arrows, which come from all sides. All this is perfectly +correct in expression; we are bound to admit that these are the probable +movements and gestures of people situated like Niobe and her children. +We cannot find fault with anything, yet we feel a vague sense of +unreality. Unreality to ourselves? Nay, rather, unreality to the +artist: we perceive, little by little, that everyone of these evident +indications of a catastrophe is connected with a grand gesture, a noble +fold, a harmonious combination of masses: the mother raising the arm +covered with her cloak and clasping the child with the other, produces +thereby a magnificent contrast between the round, bunched fold of the +mantle, and the straight, narrow folds of her skirt, nay, between the +simple and ample drapery covering her own bosom, and the minute clinging +crinkles on the back of the little one; the wounded youth sinks +down in such a way as to display the grand muscles of his throat +and shoulders; the girl covering her naked dead brother, forms with +him, a powerfully-balanced mass of brightly-lit nude and broken, +shadow-furrowed drapery; and all the remaining children stoop and cower +and stretch forth their arms in such a way as to produce the inclination +of the two sides of the triangle crowning the temple. Moreover, the +pathetic, upward movement of the mother's head, by slightly drawing +down the jaw, and in upturning the eyes, contracting the brows into a +triangular furrow, accentuates the grandeur of the grand features, and +prevents the light from above falling upon a mere flat expanse of cheek +and forehead; the eldest daughter stooping tenderly over the dead boy +produces, in so doing, an incomparable curve of neck and shoulders; and +thus, with all the other figures, the gesture is invariably productive +of a definite beauty of form. And, on the other hand, there is not +present a single one of the gestures or attitudes which would certainly +produce definite ugliness of form, and would yet be as appropriate and +inevitable to the situation as these. There is not, in this group, any +movement, any effect, of which we could decidedly say that it would not +arise in a scene like this; but, in a scene like this, there would +certainly be a great many movements and effects which cannot be found in +the group. Hence, the dramatic expression of the work is essentially +negative: in the mind of the artist the realisation of the scene, the +bringing home of the story, has been a purely secondary thing, and +therefore the realisation of the scene, the bringing home of the story, +is secondary also to us, the spectators. The impression produced in us +is exactly corresponding to the interest dominant in the artist: he +has cared for the subject only inasmuch as it afforded suggestions for +beautiful forms; and we therefore have perceived the beautiful forms, +and forgotten the subject. The object of the artist has been, whether or +not he formulated it clearly to himself, not to bring home the situation +to the fancy; not to awaken an emotion; but to present to the eye and +the mind a mere beautiful form. And that such has been his object, is +the first and main lesson which we have learned from the Niobe group, as +it was the first and main lesson learned by the child of our fairy tale +from the innumerable statues which, during those long years in the +Vatican, were its silent teachers. + +To present to the eye and the mind a mere beautiful form, this seems a +terrible low and limited definition of the aim of a great artist, of a +whole great national art. Surely not this. The aim of the artist, of the +innumerable artists constituting antique art, must have been nobler: the +form for them must have been the mere physical embodiment of the ideas +and the presentation of the beautiful idea must have been their real +object. You think so? well; the child of our fairy tale pretends that +the statues told him the contrary; told him that form was the real +artistic aim, and that the idea was arranged, clipped, sometimes even +mangled, to make it fit the form. We can judge for ourselves. You say +_idea_, and oppose it to form; hence, the _idea_ is, we must presume, +what the _form_ is not, and since the form is the sensible, the visible, +the concrete, the outwardly existing, the idea must be the invisible, +the abstract, the merely intellectually existing. In this sense, what +is the _idea_, the abstract intellectual conception of the Niobe group? +Merely the fact of the slaughtering of the Niobides by Apollo and +Artemis in the presence of their mother, keep this fact (if you can) in +your mind without mentally investing with any shape the Niobides, the +gods, or the mother; conceiving the mere bare fact, without conceiving +what it would look like; do this and when you have succeeded, as far as +any creature not born blind can succeed, you will have the _idea_ of +the Niobe group. Such an idea does not require for its conception that +you be a great sculptor; indeed you understand that for the idea to +be nothing beyond an idea, it requires a man born blind, that is to +say, totally deficient, that activity of plastic conception which is +possessed in the highest degree by the artist. Now what is the product +of that very plastic activity of mind which the artist possesses in the +highest degree, and which you required to deaden in yourself in order to +conceive the _idea_ in its perfect abstract purity, what is that product +of plastic activity? what is it which is for ever hovering before your +mental vision, getting between you and the mere idea, interfering with +the abstract conception, turning that abstract idea into something (even +in your mind) concrete, perceptible by the senses? That something was +the _form_. When you involuntarily said to yourself--"the mother looked +in such a way, the sons in such another," this that you were conceiving +was no longer the mere _idea_, it was the _form_: not the action, but +the visible appearance presented by the action. To conceive the mere +_idea_, all plastic fancy must be in abeyance; to conceive the _form_, +all plastic fancy must be active; and as the artist is the man in +whom plastic fancy is more than usually active, that which the artist +conceives is not the idea, but the form: not the abstract intellectual +side of the action, but the concrete, the visible. The idea, the fact +of the action, and all its non-visible, psychological details, come +to the artist from without; the knowledge that Niobe saw her children +slaughtered by the gods, and the psychological inferences therefrom that +Niobe, being a mother, and mothers feeling anguish at the sufferings of +their children, must have undergone great anguish at thus seeing her +children slaughtered--this fact by its psychologic developments, comes +from without to the artist, it may come from the same individual man of +whom the artist is a portion, but even in this case it comes equally +from without the artist; if Mr. Rossetti invent a story about a Blessed +Damozel, and then paint a picture representing her looking down from +heaven, the story, the idea of the Blessed Damozel is given by Mr. +Rossetti, the poet, that is the man who conceives facts and their +psychologic developments, to Mr. Rossetti, the painter, that is the +man who conceives the visible appearance of actions; the two artists +happen to be united in one person, but they are two distinct artists +nevertheless, and the painter is _not_ the artist who conceives the idea +of the action, but the one who conceives the _form_ of the action. Thus, +the artist is the man who conceives the form. Now, since his activity is +entirely limited to the form, since, as an artist, he can produce only +the form, how is this artist to do what behoves every man and every +artist: his best? How is he to give the world the greatest possible +benefit of his special endowment? Evidently, since his endowment is +for the creation of form, the result of the greatest activity of his +endowment will be seen in the form; if he do his best, he will do his +best with the only thing which, inasmuch as he is an artist, he can +control, namely, the form. But how do his best, with the form? Clearly, +by making the form as good as possible. Good in what way? Shall we +say as expressive as possible? Nay, but the expressiveness is a mere +correspondence between the idea and the form, it is not an inherent +quality of the form itself; given only the form, without the idea, we +cannot judge of its expressiveness: to judge whether or not the Niobe +group is expressive, we must first be told that which it might or might +not express; the idea, the fact and its psychologic developments, which +do not lie within the domain of the man of mere form. Thus the goodness +of the form must not be a fittingness to something outside and separate +from the form, it must be intrinsic in the form itself. And what is +this excellence which can be intrinsic to the form, which can be fully +appreciated in the contemplation of that mere form, which requires no +comparison with anything outside the form? Not expressiveness, we have +seen; not likeness, for that, like expressiveness, is an extrinsic +quality of which we can judge only by bringing into comparison something +besides this form; still less fittingness to some material or moral use. +We must look for the intrinsic possibilities of form, that is for the +effect which the form can, without intermediary or collateral help, +produce upon the spectator; shall we say clearness? Clearness is an +intrinsic quality of form, but it is not an ultimate quality. That a +form is clear means that we can see it well; but the question remains, +why should we care to see it well? what is the intrinsic quality of form +in obtaining which the artist is doing the utmost which, in his capacity +of mere artist, he can do? What is that which can make it desirable +for us to see clearly a form isolated from any extraneous interest of +expressiveness, resemblance or utility? That highest intrinsic quality +of form is beauty; and the highest merit of the artist, of the mere form +creator, is to make form which is beautiful. + +Can the Niobe teach us more? Has your Vatican child learned any more +from the statues? you ask, contemptuous at this definition, narrow, as +must be all definitions of duty. Perhaps the Niobe may teach us next how +this highest artistic quality of beauty, this sole aim of the artist, is +to be attained? Be not so contemptuous. The Niobe can teach us something +about the mode of attaining to this end; it cannot, indeed, teach us +what to do, for the knowledge of that, the knowledge of how to combine +lines and curves and lights and shades, is the secret belonging to the +artist, to be taught and learned only by himself; but it can teach us +what not to do, teach us the conditions without which those combinations +of lines and curves and lights and shades, cannot be created. Let us +return to the Niobe once more: let us see the group clearly in its +general composition, and then, with the group before us, let us ask +ourselves what plastic form is conceived in our imagination when there +comes home to it the mere abstract idea of the sudden massacre of the +Niobides, by Apollo and Artemis. Nothing, perhaps, very clear at first, +but clearer if we try to draw what we see or to describe it in words. +In the first place, we see, more or less vaguely, according to our +imaginative endowment, a scene of very great confusion and horror: +figures wildly shuffling to and fro, clutching at each other, writhing, +grimacing with convulsed agony, shrieking, yelling, howling; we see +horrible wounds, rent, raw flesh, arrows sticking in torn muscles, +dragging forth hideous entrails, spirting and gushing and trickling +of blood; we see the mother, agonised into almost beast-like rage and +terror, the fourteen boys and girls, the god and the goddess adjusting +their shafts and drawing their bows; we see all, murderous divinities, +writhing victims, impotent, anguished mother. If we see it, how much +more fully and more clearly, in every detail, is it not seen in the +mind of the sculptor, of the man whose special gift is the conception +of visible appearances? Oh, yes, he sees it: here the mother, here +the elder daughters, there the other children, further off, Apollo +and Artemis, sees how each stands, moves, looks, sees the convulsed +features, the rumpled garments, the fear, the pain, the anger, the +hopelessness, the pitilessness. He takes three planks, nails together +their extremities: this is the gable of the temple, the triangular +cavity or box into which he must fit his group; then, with thumb and +fingers, roughly moulds a certain number of clay puppets, places them in +the triangular box, removes them, alters them, replaces them, takes them +out once more, throws some away, elaborates others; works for hours, +days, weeks, till we return to his workshop, and find a number of +models, tiny moulded dolls in the plank triangle; large statuettes, +half-finished, roughly-worked heads--drawings, perhaps, of parts of the +group. And we examine it all. It is the rudiment of the Niobe group. But +see: of all those things which we saw in our fancy, which the artist, +being an artist, must have seen with infinitely more completeness +and clearness, only a portion has here been reproduced. Of all the +movements and gestures there remain but a very few: the convulsions, the +writhings, and grimacings are gone; there is no trampling, no clutching, +no howling, no grimacing, there are no quivering limbs, or disembowelled +bodies. Why so? Ask the artist. Because, he will answer, all those +movements and gestures were radically ugly; because all that howling and +grimacing in agony entirely ruined the beauty of the features; because +the situation could not be adequately represented, except to the utter +detriment of the form. Hence, of all the movements and gestures which +had presented themselves to his inner vision, at the first mention of +the story of Niobe, the artist has rejected those which were at all +detrimental to the beauty of the form, and accepted those others which +were conducive thereto. He has cast aside a whole portion of the real +appearance of the event, because it interfered with his, perhaps +unspoken and unformulated, but instinctively imperious artistic aim: +to create beautiful form. + +But this is not all. He has left out something else which was a most +essential, nay, an all important part of his first mental vision of the +scene. He has actually left out--guess what--some son or daughter of +Niobe?--has run counter to the tradition of the seven girls and seven +boys?--oh, in comparison, that would be nothing. He has actually and +absolutely left out the god and goddess--left out the murderers from +the representation of the murder. Why in the world has he done this? +Granting that he need not transfer to his group all the terrible details +he has seen in his mind, why should he leave out Apollo and Artemis? +They need not be convulsed, or writhing, or grimacing; on the contrary, +they ought to be quite calm and passionless in their cruel beauty. There +is nothing unbeautiful in Apollo and Artemis surely. No: not in Apollo +and Artemis, taken in themselves; but in Apollo and Artemis considered +as part of this group. Listen: we will explain. Since Apollo and Artemis +are, between them, slaughtering all the Niobides, closing them in with +their arrows, it is obvious that Apollo and Artemis must be placed in +such a manner as to command the whole family of Niobides; there must be +no Niobides behind them, for that would mean that there are Niobides who +are out of danger and can escape. So the god and goddess must be placed +in one of three ways: either back to back in the very centre of the +group, each shooting down one half of the family; or else entirely +separated, each at one extremity of the group, so as to face each other +and enclose all the Niobides between them; or else above the Niobides, +floating in mid air and raining down arrows like hail. Now, which of +these three arrangements shall the sculptor select? He rejects at once +the plan of placing the god and goddess back to back in the centre of +the group, and we agree with him; for the two figures, thus applied to +each other, each more or less in profile, would form the most ludicrous +double-headed Janus. Place, then, Apollo at one end and Artemis at the +other. There is nothing ugly in that, is there? There would not be were +the sculptor modelling the oblong bas-relief of a sarcophagus; but there +would be something very ugly now that, as it happens, he is modelling +a group for the triangular gable of a temple. For, as the sides of +the triangle slope sharply down, the figures beneath them necessarily +become smaller and less erect in proportion to their distance from the +vertex; so the god and goddess, if placed at the extremity of the group, +must be flattened down in the acute angles of the base, must crouch and +squat with their bows barely on a level with the knees of their victims. +So this arrangement will not do; there remains the third plan of placing +Apollo and Artemis above the Niobides. This is an admirable idea: the +vertex of the triangle is filled by the floating figures of the gods, +who appear calm, beautiful, mysterious, showering down death from +inaccessible heaven. Will this do? Alas, much less than either of the +others. The arrangement would be beautiful if the triangle of the +gable, instead of being filled with a group of statues, were walled up, +plastered, and could be painted on in fresco. The colour, light and +shade, and perspective of painting, by creating a seeming depth of +back-ground, by hiding one figure partially behind another, so as to +make them appear not in actual contact, by piling up aetherial clouds or +waving light draperies, would permit the artist to show the Niobides on +solid ground below, and the gods in the air, high, distant above. But +the sculptor, without any such means, could only suspend Apollo and +Artemis (at tremendous expense of iron clamps) in such a way that +they should seem to be standing on the shoulders of the Niobides; or +interpose between them a thick bolster of marble clouds, a massive +flutter of streaming marble draperies. Now do you think that the marble +clouds and the marble fluttering drapery would be conducive to the +beauty of the group, to the perfection of visible forms? Certainly not. +And, therefore, Apollo and Artemis, gods though they are and chief +actors in the story, have simply been left out in this its artistic +representation. + +For beauty of form has a double origin: it is not only an intellectual +conception, but also a physical embodiment; and the intellectual +conception is altered by the nature of the material in which it is +embodied. The abstract form which will be infinitely delicate and +life-like in the brown clay, which receives every minute dimple and +crease from the finger of the artist, which presents a soft, uniform +tint to the spectator; this same abstract form will be coarse and +lifeless in the purple speckled porphyry, against whose hard grain the +chisel is blunted, and the mottled colour and salt-like sparkle of which +hide from the eye the real relations of line and curve, of concave and +projection. The Mercury who, in the green bronze, floats upwards like a +bubble, would jump like a clodhopper in the dingy white plaster. And +these, remark, are differences only in one category of material and +handling; change the sort of material and manner of handling and the +differences become still greater. Statues, whether in clay, bronze, +porphyry, or plaster, are always similar in the fact of being wholly +free--round as Vasari calls them--of being interfered with by no +complications of shadows like the figures of a high, middle or +bas-relief; hence, as soon as the figures cease to be round, as soon as +they are attached to a back-ground, the whole composition is altered +by the consideration how the different degrees of projection, and the +consequent play of light and shadow, will affect the apparent shape +of the figures. And yet we are still within the domain of sculpture. +How great a difference of form will not result when, instead of the +tintless, tangible projections of stone, we get to the mere semblance +of infinite depth and distance cunningly obtained by light and shade, +colour and perspective, on a flat surface; where the light, instead of +existing variable and confusing outside the work, is within that very +work, inside the picture, combining, graduating every detail, making +form melt gently into form, or stand out in triumphant relief? Thus the +things which can be done in bronze must not be attempted in porphyry, +the group of statues must be conceived differently from the bas-relief; +the picture is different from the statue; for the beauty of form depends +not only on the conception but upon the embodiment: if the material is +violent, the conception is warped; and the same beauty can be obtained +in all the arts only by remembering that those arts are different that, +with the material and modes of handling, must change the conception. + +Thus we have seen that the sculptor of the Niobe deliberately refused +to embody his complete mental vision of the scene of massacre; that he +selected among the attitudes and gestures and expressions suggested +to him by this scene, rejected those which were inherently ugly, and +accepted those which were intrinsically beautiful; and that he left out +of his representation of the incidents its principal actors, because he +could not have introduced them without either violating the nature of +the whole composition to which he was bound, or violating the nature of +the material in which he was working, and by so doing sacrificing the +perfection of visible form which, being the only intrinsic quality to +which his art could independently attain, was the one object of his +desires and efforts. Such is the logical conclusion which we have +consciously and perhaps wearisomely obtained from our analysis of the +mode of conception and treatment of the Niobe group; and such the lesson +which, unconsciously, vaguely, the child of our fairy tale must have +learned from its marble teachers in the Vatican: That the only intrinsic +perfection of art is the perfection of form, and that such perfection +is obtainable only by boldly altering, or even casting aside, the +subject with which this form is only imaginatively, most often +arbitrarily, connected; and by humbly considering and obeying the +inherent necessities of the material in which this form is made visible +or audible. That by such artistic laws they themselves had come into +existence, and that all other things which had come into existence +by the same laws, were their brethren, was the secret which those +statue-demons imparted to that child; the secret which enabled it to +understand those symphony notes of Mozart's, when they said: "we also, +the sounding ones, are the brethren of the statues; and all we who are +brethren, whether in stone, or sound or colour, shall to thee speak in +such a way that thou recognize us, and distinguish us from all others; +and thou shalt love and believe only in us and those of our kin; in +return we will give thee happiness." And this, as we have told you, +came to pass solely because the statues took the whim of bewitching +that child into falling in love with Rome. + + + + +ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. + +THE LESSON OF A BAS-RELIEF. + + +No Greek myth has a greater charm for our mind than that of Orpheus and +Eurydice. In the first place, we are told by mythologists that it is a +myth of the dawn, one of those melancholy, subdued interpretations of +the eternal, hopeless separation of the beautiful light of dawn and the +beautiful light of day, which forms the constantly recurring tragedy of +nature, as the tremendous struggle between light and darkness forms +her never-ending epic, her Iliad and Nibelungenlied. There is more of +the purely artistic element in these myths of the dawn than in the +sun myths. Those earliest poets, primitive peoples, were interested +spectators of the great battle between day and night. The sun-hero was +truly their Achilles, their Siegfried. In fighting, he fought for them. +When he chained up the powers of darkness the whole earth was hopeful +and triumphant; when he sank down dead, a thousand dark, vague, hideous +monsters were let loose on the world, filling men's hearts with +sickening terror; the solar warfare was waged for and against men. The +case is quite different with respect to the dawn tragedy. If men were +moved by that, it was from pure, disinterested sympathy. The dawn and +the day were equally good and equally beautiful; the day loved the dawn, +since it pursued her so closely, and the dawn must have loved the day +in return, since she fled so slowly and reluctantly. Why, then, were +they forbidden ever to meet? What mysterious fate condemned the one to +die at the touch of the other--the beloved to elude the lover, the +lover to kill the beloved? This sad, sympathising question, which the +primitive peoples repeated vaguely and perhaps scarce consciously, day +after day, century after century, at length received an answer. One +answer, then another, then yet another, as fancy took more definite +shapes. Yes, the dawn and the morning are a pair of lovers over whom +hangs an irresistible, inscrutable fate--Cephalus and Procris, Alcestis +and Admetus, Orpheus and Eurydice. + +And this myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is, to our mind, the most charming +of the tales born of that beautiful, disinterested sympathy for the dawn +and the morning, the one in which the subdued, mysterious pathos of its +origin is most perfectly preserved; in which no fault of infidelity or +jealousy, no final remission of doom, breaks the melancholy unity of +the story. In it we have the real equivalent of that gentle, melancholy +fading away of light into light, of tint into tint. Orpheus loses +Eurydice as the day loses the dawn, because he loves her; she has issued +from Hades as the dawn has issued from darkness; she melts away beneath +her lover's look even as the dawn vanishes beneath the look of the day. + +The origin of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is beautiful; the myth +itself, as evolved by spontaneous poetry, is still more so, and more +beautiful still are the forms which have successively been lent it by +the poet, the sculptor, and the musician. Its own charm adds to that +of its embodiments, and the charm of its embodiments adds in return to +its own; a complete circle of beautiful impressions, whose mysterious, +linked power it is impossible to withstand. The first link in the chain +are those lines of Virgil's, for which we would willingly give ten +AEneids, those grandly simple lines, half-hidden in the sweet luxuriance +of the fourth book of the _Georgics_, as the exquisitely chiselled +fragment of some sylvan altar might lie half-hidden among the long +grasses and flowers, beneath the flowering bays and dark ilexes, broken +shadows of boughs and yellow gleams of sunlight flickering fantastically +across the clear and supple forms of the sculptured marble "And already +upwards returning, he had escaped all mishaps, and the given-back +Eurydice was coming into the upper air, walking behind him, for +Proserpina had made this condition. When, of a sudden, a madness seized +on the unwily lover--pardonable, surely, if ghosts but knew how to +pardon. He stood, and back on his Eurydice, already in our sunlight, +he looked, forgetful, alas! and broken of will. Then was all the work +undone, broken was the compact with the unkind lord, and vainly had he +thrice heard the waters of hell sounding. Then she--'What madness has +ruined me, wretched one, and thee, also, Orpheus? For I am called by the +cruel Fates to return, and sleep closes my swimming eyes. So, farewell. +I am borne away muffled in thick night, stretching forth to thee (alas, +thine no longer!) my helpless hands.' She spoke, and from his sight +suddenly, even as thin smoke mingles with air, disappeared; nor him, +vainly clasping the shadows, and many things wishing to say, did she +see again." These lines suggest a bas-relief to us, because a real +bas-relief is really connected with them in our mind, and this +connection led to a curious little incident in our aesthetic life, which +is worth narrating. The bas-relief in question is a sufficiently obscure +piece of Greek workmanship, one of those mediocre, much-degraded works +of art with which Roman galleries abound, and among which, though left +unnoticed by the crowd that gathers round the Apollo, or the Augustus, +or the Discobolus, we may sometimes divine a repetition of some great +lost work of antiquity, some feeble reflection of lost perfection. It +is let into the wall of a hall of the Villa Albani, where people throng +past it in search of the rigid, pseudo-Attic Antinous. And it is as +simple as the verses of Virgil: merely three figures slightly raised out +of the flat, blank back-ground, Eurydice between Orpheus and Hermes. +The three figures stand distinctly apart and in a row. Orpheus touches +Eurydice's veil, and her hand rests on his shoulder, while the other +hand, drooping supine, is grasped by Hermes. There is no grouping, no +embracing, no violence of gesture--nay, scarcely any gesture at all; yet +for us there is in it a whole drama, the whole pathos of Virgil's lines. +Eurydice has returned, she is standing beneath our sun--_jam luce sub +ipsa_--but for the last time. Orpheus lets his lyre sink, his head +drooping towards her--_multa volens dicere_--and holds her veil, +speechless. Eurydice, her head slightly bent, raises her eyes full +upon him. In that look is her last long farewell:-- + + Jamque vale, feror ingenti circumdata nocte, + Invalidas tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas. + +Behind Eurydice stands Hermes, the sad, though youthful messenger of +the dead. He gently takes her hand; it is time; he would fain stay and +let the parting be delayed for ever, but he cannot. Come, we must go. +Eurydice feels it; she is looking for the last time at Orpheus, her +head and step are prepared to turn away--_jamque vale_. Truly this sad, +sympathising messenger of Hades is a beautiful thought, softening the +horror of the return to death. + +And we look up again at the bas-relief, the whole story of Orpheus +laying firmer hold of our imagination; but as our eyes wander wistfully +over the marble, they fall, for the first time, upon a scrap of paper +pasted at the bottom of it, a wretched, unsightly, scarce legible rag, +such as insult some of the antiques in this gallery, and on it is +written:--"Antiope coi figli Anfione e Zeto." A sudden, perplexed wonder +fills our mind--wonder succeeded by amusement. The bunglers, why, they +must have glued the wrong label on the bas-relief. Of course! and we +turn out the number of the piece in the catalogue, the solemn, portly +catalogue--full of references to Fea, and Visconti, and Winckelmann. +Number--yes, here it is, here it is. What, again? + +"Antiope urging her sons, Amphion and Zethus, to avenge her by the +murder of Dirce." + +We put down the catalogue in considerable disgust. What, they don't see +that that is Orpheus and Eurydice! They dare, those soulless pedants, +to call _that_ Antiope with Amphion and Zethus! Ah!--and with smothered +indignation we leave the gallery. Passing through the little ilex copse +near the villa, the colossal bust of Winckelmann meets our eyes, the +heavy, clear-featured, strong-browed head of him who first revealed the +world of ancient art. And such profanation goes on, as it were, under +his eyes, in that very Villa Albani which he so loved, where he first +grew intimate with the antique! What would he have said to such +heartless obtuseness? + +We have his great work, the work which no amount of additional learning +can ever supersede, because no amount of additional learning will ever +enable us to feel antique beauty more keenly and profoundly than he made +us feel it--we have his great work on our shelf, and as soon as we are +back at home, our mind still working on Orpheus and Eurydice, we take it +down and search for a reference to our bas-relief. We search all through +the index in vain; then turn over the pages where it may possibly be +mentioned, again in vain; no Orpheus and Eurydice. Ah! "A bas-relief +at the Villa Albani"--let us see what that may be. "A bas-relief," &c., +&c.--horror beyond words! The bas-relief--our bas-relief--deliberately +set down as Antiope with Amphion and Zethus--set down as Antiope with +Amphion and Zethus, by Winckelmann himself! + +Yes, and he gravely states his reasons for so doing. The situation is +evidently one of great hesitation; there is reluctance on the one hand, +persuasion on the other. Moreover, the female figure is that of a +mourner, of a supplicant, draped and half-veiled as it is; the figure +with the lyre, in the Thracian or Thessalian costume, must necessarily +be Amphion, while the other in the loose tunic of a shepherd, must as +evidently be his brother, Zethus; and if we put together these facts, +we cannot but conclude that the subject of the bas-relief is, as +previously stated, Antiope persuading Amphion and Zethus to avenge her +on Dirce. + +The argument is a good one, there can be no denying it, although it +is very strange that Winckelmann should not have perceived that the +bas-relief represented Orpheus and Eurydice. But, after all, we ask +ourselves, as the confusion in our minds gradually clears up: how do +we know that this _is_ Orpheus and Eurydice, and not Antiope and her +sons? How! and the answer rises up indignantly, Because we see to the +contrary; because we know that it must be Orpheus and Eurydice because +we feel morally persuaded that it is. But a doubt creeps up. We are +morally convinced, but whence this conviction? Did we come to the +bas-relief not knowing what it was, and did we then cry out, overcome by +its internal evidence, that it must represent Orpheus and Eurydice? Did +we ourselves examine and weigh the evidence as Winckelmann did? And we +confess to ourselves that we did none of these things. But how, then, +explain this intense conviction, and the emotion awakened in us by +the bas-relief? Yet that emotion was genuine; and now we have, little +by little, to own that we had read in a book, by M. Charles Blanc, +that such and such a bas-relief at the Villa Albani represented +Orpheus and Eurydice, and that we had accepted the assertion blindly, +unscrutinisingly, and coming to the bas-relief with that idea, did not +dream of examining into its truth. And did we not then let our mind +wander off from the bas-relief to the story of Orpheus, and make a sort +of variation on Virgil's poem, and mistake all this for the impression +received from the bas-relief itself? May this not be the explanation of +our intense conviction? It seems as if it were so. We have not only lost +our sentimental pleasure in the bas-relief, but we have been caught by +ourselves (most humiliating of all such positions) weaving fantastic +stories out of nothing at all, decrying great critics for want of +discernment, when we ourselves had shown none whatever. + +It may have been childish, but it was natural to feel considerable +bitterness at this discovery; you may smile, but we had lost something +precious, the idea that art was beginning to say more to us than to +others, the budding satisfaction of being no longer a stranger to the +antique, and this loss was truly bitter; nay, in the first bitterness +of the discovery, we had almost taken an aversion to the bas-relief, +as people will take an aversion to the things about which they know +themselves to have been foolish. However, as this feeling subsided, we +began to reflect that the really worthy and dignified course would +be to attain to real certainty on the subject, and finding that our +recollection of the bas-relief was not so perfectly distinct as to +authorise a final decision, we determined coolly to examine the work +once more, and to draw our conclusions on the spot. + +The following Tuesday, therefore, we started betimes for the Villa +Albani, intending to have a good hour to ourselves before the arrival of +the usual gaping visitors. The gallery was quite empty; we drew one of +the heavy chairs robed in printed leather before the bas-relief, and +settled ourselves deliberately to examine it. We were now strangely +unbiassed on the subject, for the reaction against our first positive +mood, and the frequent turning over one view, then the other, had left +in us only a very strong critical curiosity, the desire to unravel the +tangled reason of our previous unexplained conviction. Of course we +found that our memory had failed in one or two particulars, that the +image preserved in our mind was not absolutely faithful, but we could +discover nothing capable of materially influencing our views. We looked +at the bas-relief again and again; strictly speaking, there is in it +nothing beyond a woman standing between two men, of whom the one touches +her veil, and the other, to whom she turns her back, grasps her right +hand, while her left hand rests lightly on the shoulder of the first +male figure; so far there is reason for saying that the bas-relief +represents either Orpheus and Eurydice, or Antiope and her sons; indeed, +all that could fairly be said is that it represents a woman between two +men, with one of whom she appears to be in more or less tender converse, +whereas she is paying no attention to the other, who is taking her +passively drooping hand. There is, however, the additional circumstance +that one of the men holds a lyre and is dressed in loose trousers and +mitre-like head-dress, while the other man wears only a short tunic, +leaving the arms and legs bare, and his head is uncovered and shows +closely-cut curly locks; the woman being entirely draped, and her +head partially covered with a veil. Now, we know that this costume of +trousers and mitre-shaped head-gear was that of certain semi-barbarous +peoples connected with the Greeks, amongst others the Thracians and +Phrygians, while the simple tunic and the close-cut locks were +distinctive of Hellenic youths, especially those admitted to gymnastic +training. Moreover, we happen to know that Orpheus was a Thracian, and +that Hermes on the other hand, although in one capacity conductor of +the souls to Hades, was also the patron divinity of the Greek ephebi, of +the youths engaged in gymnastic exercises. Now, if we put together these +several facts, we perceive great likelihood of these two figures--the +one in the dress of a barbarian, which Orpheus is known to have been, +and holding a lyre, which Orpheus is known to have played, and the other +in the dress of a Greek ephebus, which Hermes is known to have worn--of +these two figures really being intended for Orpheus and Hermes. At the +same time, we must recollect that Amphion also is known to have worn +this barbaric costume and to have played the lyre, while his brother, +Zethus, is equally known to have worn the habit of the ephebus; so that +Winckelmann has quite as good grounds for his assertion as we have for +ours. If only the sculptor had taken the trouble to give the figure in +the tunic a pair of winged sandals or a caduceus, or a winged cap; then +there could remain no doubt of his being Hermes, for it is a positive +fact that no one except Hermes ever had these attributes; the doubt +is owing to the choice of insufficiently definite and distinctive +peculiarities. But it now strikes us: all this is founded upon the +supposition that we know that the barbarians wore trousers and mitres, +that Orpheus was a sort of barbarian, that Greek ephebi wore tunics and +short-cut hair, that Hermes was a sort of ephebus, that, moreover, he +was a conductor of souls; now, supposing we knew none or only some of +these facts, which we certainly should not, if classical dictionaries +had not taught them us, how could we argue that this is Orpheus and that +Hermes? Is the meaning of a work of Art to depend on Lempriere and Dr. +William Smith? At that rate the sculptor might as well have let alone +all such distinctions, and merely written under one figure _Orpheus_ +or _Amphion_, whichever it might be, under the other _Hermes_ or +_Zethus_; this would not have presupposed more knowledge on our part, +since it seems even easier to learn the Greek alphabet than the precise +attributes of various antique gods and demi-gods, and then, too, no +mistake would have been possible, we should have had no choice, the +figure _must_ be either Orpheus or Amphion, Hermes or Zethus, since the +artist himself said so. But this would be an admission of the incapacity +of the art or the artist, like the old device of writing--"This is a +lion," "This is a horse;" well, but, after all, how are we able to +recognise a painted lion or a horse? Is it not, thanks to previous +knowledge, to our acquaintance with a live horse or live lion? if we had +never seen either, could we say, "This is a lion," "That is a horse?" +evidently not. But then, most people can recognise a horse or a lion, +while they cannot be expected to recognise a person they have never +seen, especially a purely imaginary one; the case is evidently one of +degree; if we had never seen a cow, and did not know that cows are +milked, we should no more understand the meaning of a representation +of cow-milking than we should understand the meaning of a picture of +Achilles in Scyros if we knew nothing about Achilles. The comprehension +of the subject of a work of art would therefore seem to require certain +previous information; the work of art would seem to be unable to tell +its story itself, unless we have the key to that story. Now, this is +not the case with literature; given the comprehension of the separate +words, no further information is required to understand the meaning, the +subject of prose or verse; Virgil's lines pre-suppose no knowledge of +the story of Orpheus, they themselves give the knowledge of it. The +difference, then, between the poem and the bas-relief is that the story +is absolutely contained in the former, and not absolutely contained +in the latter; the story of Orpheus is part of the organic whole, of +the existence of the poem; the two are inseparable, since the one is +formed out of the other; whereas, the story of Orpheus is separate +from the organic existence of the bas-relief, it is arbitrarily connected +with it, and they need not co-exist. What then is the bas-relief? A +meaningless thing, to which we have wilfully attached a meaning which is +not part or parcel of it--a blank sheet of paper on which we write what +comes into our head, and which itself can tell us nothing. + +As we look up perplexedly at the bas-relief, which, after having been as +confused, has now become well nigh as blank as our mind, we are startled +by hearing our name from a well-known voice behind us. A young painter +stands by our side, a creature knowing or thinking very little beyond +his pencils and brushes, serenely unconscious of literature and science +in his complete devotion to art. A few trivial sentences are exchanged, +during which we catch our friend's eye glancing at the bas-relief. "I +never noticed that before," he remarks, "Do you know, I like it better +than anything else in this room. Strange that I should not have noticed +it before." + +"It is a very interesting work," we answer; adding, with purposely +feigned decision, "Of course you see that it represents Orpheus and +Eurydice, not Antiope and her sons." + +The painter, whose instinctive impression on the point we have thus +tried to elicit, seems wholly unmoved by this remark; the fact literally +passes across his mind without in the least touching it. + +"Does it? Ah, what a splendid mass of drapery! That grand, round fold +and those small, fine vertical ones. I should like to make a sketch of +that." + +A sort of veil seems suddenly to fall off our mental eyes; these simple, +earnest words, this intense admiration seem to have shed new light into +our mind. + +This fellow, who knows or cares apparently nothing whatever about either +Orpheus or Antiope, has not found the bas-relief a blank; it has spoken +for him, the clear, unmistakeable language of lines and curves, of light +and shade, a language needing no interpreters, no dictionaries; and it +has told him the fact, the fact depending on no previous knowledge, +irrefutable and eternal, that it is beautiful. And as our eyes follow +his, and we listen to his simple, unaffected, unpoetical exclamations +of admiration at this combination of lines, or that bend of a limb, we +recognise that if poetry has its unchangeable effects, its power which, +in order to be felt, requires only the comprehension of words; art also +has its unchangeable effects, its power, its supreme virtue, which all +can feel who have eyes and minds that can see. The bas-relief does not +necessarily tell us the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, as Virgil's lines +do, that is not inherent in its nature as in theirs; but it tells us the +fact of its beauty, and that fact is vital, eternal, and indissolubly +connected with it. + +To appreciate a work of art means, therefore, to appreciate that work +of art itself, as distinguished from appreciating something outside it, +something accidentally or arbitrarily connected with it; to appreciate +Virgil's lines means to appreciate his telling of the story of Orpheus, +his choice of words and his metre; to appreciate the bas-relief means to +appreciate the combination of forms and lights and shades; and a person +who cared for Virgil's lines because they suggested the bas-relief or +for the bas-relief because it suggested Virgil's lines, would equally be +appreciating neither, since his pleasure depended on something separate +from the work of art itself. + +Yet this is what constantly happens, and happens on account of two very +simple and legitimate movements of the mind: that of comparison and that +of association. Let us examine what we have called, for want of a more +definite word, the movement of comparison. You are enjoying a work of +art, plastic and musical; what you enjoy is the work of art itself, the +combination of lines, lights and shades and colours in the one case, +the combination of modulations and harmonies in the other; now, as +this enjoyment means merely the pleasing activity of your visual and +aesthetic, or acoustic and aesthetic organism, you instinctively wish to +increase the activity in order to increase the pleasure; the increase +of activity is obtained by approximating as much as possible to the +creative activity of the original artist, by going over every step +that he has gone over, by creating the work of art over again in the +intensity of appreciation. If it be a plastic work, you produce your +pencil and brushes and copy it; if it be a musical composition, you try +and reproduce it by means of your voice or your instrument; and you +thus obtain the highest degree of aesthetical activity and pleasure +compatible with mere appreciation. But supposing you can neither draw, +nor sing, nor play; supposing you have only another set of faculties, +those dealing with thoughts and images, those of the artist in words, of +the writer. How will you obtain that high degree of aesthetical activity, +how will you go over the steps of the original creator? You will find +that words cannot copy the work of art, plastic or musical; that lines +and lights and shades, or modulations and harmonies, must be seen or +heard to be appreciated; that, in short, you have no means of absolutely +reproducing what you have seen or heard;--instinctively, unintentionally, +unconsciously, you will seek for an equivalent for it; you will try and +produce with the means at your disposal something analogous to the work +of art, you will obtain your aesthetic activity from another set of +faculties; not being able to draw or to sing, you will think and feel, +and, in default of producing a copy, you will produce an equivalent. But +the same result is not obtainable by different means; a painter, copying +a statue, will produce not a statue but a picture; a sculptor copying a +picture will produce a model, not a sketch; yet the difference between +the _modus operandi_ of painting and sculpture is as nothing compared +with that between the _modus operandi_ of art which appeals to the eye +or the ear, and art which appeals direct to the mind; of art which deals +with visible or audible shapes, and of art which deals with purely +abstract thoughts and images. How much greater, then, must not also +be the difference in the result! Instead of a statue you have, not a +picture, but a poem, a work of art of totally different nature from +the one which you originally tried to reproduce. Instead of visual or +audible forms, you have feelings and fancies; and if you compare your +equivalent with the original work of art you will probably find that it +has little in common with it: you had seen a beautifully chiselled head, +and you say that you had perceived a beautiful emotion; you had heard a +lovely modulation, and you have written that you witnessed a pathetic +parting; instead of your eye and your ear, your imagination and feeling +have been active, and the product of their activity is a special, +separate one. So, in your desire to appreciate a work of art, you have, +after a fashion, created a new one, good or bad, and having created it, +there are a hundred chances against one that you will henceforward +perceive your creation and not the original work; that you will no +longer perceive lines or sounds, but fancies and feelings, in short, +that instead of appreciating the work of art itself, you will appreciate +merely your intellectual equivalent of it, that is to say, something +which most distinctly and emphatically is _not_ the work of art. + +The process of association is even commoner: you have taken interest in +some story, or some form, your mind has worked upon it; you are shown a +work of art whose name, often nothing more, connects it with this story +or poem, and your thoughts being full of the latter, you apply to the +work of art the remarks you had made about the story or poem; you see +in the work of art the details of that story or poem; you look at it +as a mere illustration; very often you do not look at it at all; for +although your bodily eyes may be fixed on the picture or statue, your +intellectual eyes are busy with some recollection or impression in your +mind; it is the case of the bas-relief of the Villa Albani, the pleasure +received from Virgil's lines being re-awakened by the mere circumstance +of the bas-relief being called, rightly or wrongly, Orpheus and Eurydice; +it is the story of a hundred interpretations of works of art, of people +seeing a comic expression in a certain group at the Villa Ludovisi +because they imagined it to represent Papirius and his mother, while +other people found the same group highly tragic, because they fancied it +represented Electra and Orestes; it is the old story of violent emotion, +attributed to wholly unemotional music, because the words to which it +is arbitrarily connected happen to be pathetic; the endless story of +delusions of all sorts, of associations of feelings and ideas as +accidental as those which make certain tunes or sights depress us +because we happened to be in a melancholy mood when we first saw or +heard them. + +What becomes of the real, inherent effect of the work of art itself in +the midst of such concatenations of fancies and associations? How can +we listen to its own magic speech, its language of lines and colours +and sounds, when our mind is full of confused voices telling us of +different and irrelevant things? Where, at such times, is our artistic +appreciation, and what is it worth? Should we then, if such a thing +were possible, forbid such comparisons, such associations? Should we +voluntarily deprive ourselves of all such pleasure as is not given by +the work of art itself? + +No, but we should restrain such impressions; we should, as far as +we can, remain conscious of the fact that they are mere effects of +comparison and association, that they are not the work of art, but +something distinct from it, and that the work of art itself exists in +the lines, tints, lights and shades of the picture or statue, in the +modulations and harmonies of a composition, and that all the rest is +gratuitously added by ourselves. Nay, we should remember that there +could not even have been that very comparison, that very association +if there had been no previous real artistic perception; that unless we +had first cared for Virgil's Orpheus for its own sake, we could not +afterwards have cared for the bas-relief on its account. + +We confess that we have ourselves become instinctively jealous of such +foreign causes of pleasure in art, jealous because we have been pained +by their constant encroachment; the feeling may be an exaggerated one, +but it is a natural reaction. We have thus caught ourselves almost +regretting that pictures should have any subjects; we have sometimes +felt that the adaptation of music to the drama is a sort of profanation; +and all this because we have too often observed that the subject seemed +to engross so much attention as to make people forget the picture, and +that the drama made people misinterpret the music; and that criticism +itself, instead of checking this tendency, has done much to further it. +Yes, critics, grave and emphatic thinkers, have spoken as if the chief +merit of the painter had consisted in clearly expressing some story, +which in all probability was not worth expressing, some dull monkish +legend which his genius alone could render tolerable; as if the chief +aim of the composer were to follow the mazes of some wretched imbecile +libretto, which has become endurable thanks only to his notes; as if the +immortal were to be chained to the mortal, and mediocrity, inferiority, +mere trumpery fact or trumpery utility were to bridle and bestride the +divine hippogriff of art, and, like another Astolfo, fly up on its back +into the regions of immortality. Artists themselves have been of this +way of thinking, we cannot say of feeling, for, as long as they were +true artists, their instinctive feelings must have propelled them in a +very different direction. Gluck, that great dramatist, who was greatest +when least dramatic, thought that music was made for the sake of the +drama, that its greatest glory was to express the difference, as he +himself wrote, between a princess and a waiting-maid between a Spartan +and a Phrygian, to follow the steps of a play as its humble retainer and +commentator. Gluck composed his music for the sake of the dramas; but, O +irony of art! the dramas are recollected only for the sake of his music. +Let the artist be humble, mistrustful of his own art, let him believe +it to be subservient to something outside it, devote it magnanimously +to some purpose of utility, or some expression of fact, sacrifice it +throughout; it will be all in vain; if his work be excellent, it will +subordinate all to itself, it will swallow up every other interest, +throw into the shade every other utility. + +One day the Pope's banker, Agostino Chigi, came to Master Rafael of +Urbino, and said to him--"I am building a little pleasure villa in +which to entertain my friends. Baldassare Peruzzi has made the plans, +Sebastiano del Piombo has designed the arabesques, Nanni da Udine will +paint me the garlands of fruit and flowers; it must be perfection. You +shall paint me the walls of the open hall looking out on the Tiber, +that it may be a fit place wherein to sup and make merry with popes +and cardinals and princes." "Very good," answered Rafael. + +The object was to obtain a dining-hall, and the fresco was to be there +merely as an ornament; but Rafael painted his Galatea, and behold, the +hall could no longer be used as a dining-room; every one crowded into +it to see the fresco; the hall has now become a gallery, and the real +property, less of its owners, who cannot make use of it, than of the +whole world, who insist on entering it; the room now exists only for the +sake of the fresco, yet the fresco was originally intended to exist only +for it. This is the inevitable course of art; we call in beauty as a +servant, and see, like some strange daemon, it becomes the master; it may +answer our call, but we have to do its bidding. + +We have strayed far away from Orpheus and Eurydice, while thus following +the train of ideas suggested by the story of the bas-relief. Yet we may +return to the subject, and use it as an illustration of our last remark. +We have said much against the common tendency towards transporting on to +a work of art an interest not originally due to it, because, by this +means, we are apt to lose the interest which does belong to the work +of art. But, if only each could get its due, each exert its power +unimpaired, there could be nothing more delightful than thus to enjoy +the joint effect of several works of art; not, according to the notion +of certain aesthetic visionaries--who do not see that singers cannot be +living Greek statues nor librettists poets, nor scene-painters +Poussins--in one clumsy ambiguous monster spectacle, but in our minds, +in our fancy; if, conscious of the difference between them, we could +unite in one collection the works of various arts: people the glades +and dingles of Keats with the divinities we have seen in marble, play +upon the reed of the Praxitelian Faun the woodland melodies of Mozart's +Tamino. It would thus be the highest reward for self-scrutinising +aesthetic humility, for honest appreciation of each art for itself, for +brave sacrifice of our own artistic whimsies and vanities, to enable us +to bring up simultaneously the recollection of Virgil's nobly pathetic +lines, of the exquisitely simple and supple forms of the bas-relief, of +the grand and tender music of Gluck, and to unite them in one noble +pageant of the imagination, evoked by the spell of those two names: +Orpheus and Eurydice. + + + + +FAUSTUS AND HELENA. + +NOTES ON THE SUPERNATURAL IN ART. + + +There is a story, well-known throughout the sixteenth century, which +tells how Doctor Faustus of Wittemberg, having made over his soul to the +fiend, employed him to raise the ghost of Helen of Sparta, in order that +she might become his paramour. The story has no historic value, no +scientific meaning; it lacks the hoary dignity of the tales of heroes +and demi-gods, wrought, vague, and colossal forms, out of cloud and +sunbeam, of those tales narrated and heard by generations of men deep +hidden in the stratified ruins of lost civilisation, carried in the +races from India to Hellas, and to Scandinavia. Compared with them, +this tale of Faustus and Helena is paltry and brand-new; it is not a +myth, nay, scarcely a legend; it is a mere trifling incident added by +humanistic pedantry to the ever-changing mediaeval story of the man who +barters his soul for knowledge, the wizard, alchemist, philosopher, +printer, Albertus, Bacon, or Faustus. It is a part, an unessential, +subordinate fragment, valued in its day neither more nor less than any +other part of the history of Doctor Faustus, narrated cursorily by the +biographer of the wizard, overlooked by some of the ballad rhymers, +alternately used and rejected by the playwrights of puppet-shows; given +by Marlowe himself no greater importance than the other marvellous +deeds, the juggling tricks and magic journeys of his hero. + +But for us, the incident of Faustus and Helena has a meaning, a +fascination wholly different from any other portion of the story; the +other incidents owe everything to artistic treatment: this one owes +nothing. The wizard Faustus, awaiting the hour which will give him over +to Hell, is the creation of Marlowe; Gretchen is even more completely +the creation of Goethe; the fiend of the Englishman is occasionally +grand, the fiend of the German is throughout masterly; in all these +cases we are in the presence of true artistic work, of stuff rendered +valuable solely by the hand of the artist, of figures well defined and +finite, and limited also in their power over the imagination. But the +group of Faustus and Helena is different; it belongs neither to Marlowe +nor to Goethe, it belongs to the legend. It does not give the complete +and limited satisfaction of a work of art; it has the charm of the +fantastic and fitful shapes formed by the flickering firelight or the +wreathing mists; it haunts like some vague strain of music, drowsily +heard in half-sleep. It fills the fancy, it oscillates and transforms +itself; the artist may see it, attempt to seize and embody it for +evermore in a definite and enduring shape, but it vanishes out of his +grasp, and the forms which should have inclosed it are mere empty +sepulchres, haunted and charmed merely by the evoking power of our own +imagination. If we are fascinated by the Lady Helen of Marlowe, walking, +like some Florentine goddess, with embroidered kirtle and madonna face, +across the study of the old wizard of Wittemberg; if we are pleased +by the stately pseudo-antique Helena of Goethe, draped in the drapery +of Thorwaldsen's statues, and speaking the language of Goethe's own +Iphigenia, as she meets the very modern Faust, gracefully masqued in +mediaeval costume; if we find in these attempts, the one unthinking and +imperfect, the other laboured and abortive, something which delights +our fancy, it is because our thoughts wander off from them and evoke a +Faustus and Helena of our own, different from the creations of Marlowe +and of Goethe; it is because in these definite and imperfect artistic +forms, there yet remains the suggestion of the subject with all its +power over the imagination. We forget Marlowe, and we forget Goethe, to +follow up the infinite suggestion of the legend. We cease to see the +Elizabethan and the pseudo-antique Helen; we lift our imagination from +the book and see the mediaeval street at Wittemberg, the gabled house of +Faustus, all sculptured with quaint devices and grotesque forms of apes +and cherubs and flowers; we penetrate through the low brown rooms, +filled with musty books and mysterious ovens and retorts, redolent with +strange scents of alchemy, to that innermost secret chamber, where the +old wizard hides, in the depths of his mediaeval house, the immortal +woman, the god-born, the fatal, the beloved of Theseus and Paris and +Achilles; we are blinded by this sunshine of Antiquity pent up in the +oaken-panelled chamber, such as Duerer might have etched; and all around +we hear circulating the mysterious rumours of the neighbours, of the +burghers and students, whispering shyly of Dr. Faustus and his strange +guest, in the beer-cellars and in the cloisters of the old university +town. And gazing thus into the fantastic intellectual mist which has +risen up between us and the book we were reading, be it Marlowe or +Goethe, we cease, after a while, to see Faustus or Helena, we perceive +only a chaotic fluctuation of incongruous shapes; scholars in furred +robes and caps pulled over their ears, burghers wives with high +sugar-loaf coif and slashed boddices, with hands demurely folded over +their prayer-books, and knights in armour and immense plumes, and +haggling Jews, and tonsured monks, descended out of panels of Wohlgemuth +and the engravings of Duerer, mingling with, changing into processions of +naked athletes on foaming short-maned horses, of draped Athenian maidens +carrying baskets and sickles, and priests bearing oil-jars and torches, +all melting into each other, indistinct, confused, like the images in a +dream; vague crowds, phantoms following in the wake of the spectre woman +of Antiquity, beautiful, unimpassioned, ever young, luring to Hell the +wizard of the Middle Ages. + +Why does all this vanish as soon as we once more fix our eyes upon the +book? Why can our fancy show us more than can the artistic genius of +Marlowe and of Goethe? Why does Marlowe, believing in Helen as a satanic +reality, and Goethe, striving after her as an artistic vision, equally +fail to satisfy us? The question is intricate: it requires a threefold +answer, dependent on the fact that this tale of Faustus and Helena is in +fact a tale of the supernatural--a weird and colossal ghost-story, in +which the actors are the spectre of Antiquity, ever young, beautiful, +radiant, though risen from the putrescence of two thousand years; and +the Middle Ages, alive, but toothless, palsied, and tottering. Why +neither Marlowe nor Goethe have succeeded in giving a satisfactory +artistic shape to this tale is explained by the necessary relations +between art and the supernatural, between our creative power and our +imaginative faculty; why Marlowe has failed in one manner and Goethe in +another is explained by the fact that, as we said, for the first the +tale was a supernatural reality, for the second a supernatural fiction. + +What are the relations between art and the supernatural? At first sight +the two appear closely allied: like the supernatural, art is born of +imagination; the supernatural, like art, conjures up unreal visions. +The two have been intimately connected during the great ages of the +supernatural, when instead of existing merely in a few disputed +traditional dogmas, and in a little discredited traditional folklore, it +constituted the whole of religion and a great part of philosophy. Gods +and demons, saints and spectres, have afforded at least one-half of the +subjects for art. The supernatural, in the shape of religious mythology, +had art bound in its service in Antiquity and the Middle Ages; the +supernatural, in the shape of spectral fancies, regained its dominion +over art with the advent of romanticism. From the gods of the _Iliad_ +down to the Commander in _Don Giovanni_, from the sylvan divinities of +Praxiteles to the fairies of Shakespeare, from the Furies of AEschylus +to the Archangels of Perugino, the supernatural and the artistic have +constantly appeared linked together. Yet, in reality, the hostility +between the supernatural and the artistic is well-nigh as great as the +hostility between the supernatural and the logical. Critical reason +is a solvent, it reduces the phantoms of the imagination to their +most prosaic elements; artistic power, on the other hand, moulds and +solidifies them into distinct and palpable forms: the synthetical +definiteness of art is as sceptical as the analytical definiteness of +logic. For the supernatural is necessarily essentially vague, and art is +necessarily essentially distinct: give shape to the vague and it ceases +to exist. The task set to the artist by the dreamer, the prophet, the +priest, the ghost-seer of all times, is as difficult, though in the +opposite sense, as that by which the little girl in the Venetian fairy +tale sought to test the omnipotence of the emperor. She asked him for a +very humble dish, quite simple and not costly, a pat of butter broiled +on a gridiron. The emperor desired his cook to place the butter on the +gridiron and light the fire; all was going well, when, behold! the +butter began to melt, trickled off, and vanished. The artists were asked +to paint, or model, or narrate the supernatural; they set about the work +in good conscience, but see, the supernatural became the natural, the +gods turned into men, the madonnas into mere mothers, the angels into +armed striplings, the phantoms into mere creatures of flesh and blood. + +There are in reality two sorts of supernatural, although only one really +deserves the name. A great number of beliefs in all mythologies are in +reality mere scientific errors--abortive attempts to explain phenomena +by causes with which they have no connection--the imagination plays not +more part in them than in any other sort of theorising, and the notions +that unlucky accidents are due to a certain man's glance, that certain +formulae will bring rain or sunshine, that miraculous images will dispel +pestilence, and kings of England cure epilepsy, must be classed under +the head of mistaken generalizations, not very different in point of +fact from exploded scientific theories, such as Descartes' vortices, or +the innate ideas of scholasticism. That there was a time when animals +spoke with human voice may seem to us a piece of fairy-lore, but it +was in its day a scientific hypothesis as brilliant and satisfying +as Darwin's theory of evolution. We must, therefore, in examining +the relations between art and the supernatural, eliminate as far as +possible this species of scientific speculation, and consider only +that supernatural which really deserves the name, which is beyond and +outside the limits of the possible, the rational, the explicable--that +supernatural which is due not to the logical faculties, arguing from +wrong premises, but to the imagination wrought upon by certain kinds of +physical surroundings. The divinity of the earlier races is in some +measure a mistaken scientific hypothesis of the sort we have described, +an attempt to explain phenomena otherwise inexplicable. But it is +much more: it is the effect on the imagination of certain external +impressions, it is those impressions brought to a focus, personified, +but personified vaguely, in a fluctuating ever-changing manner; the +personification being continually altered, reinforced, blurred out, +enlarged, restricted by new series of impressions from without, even as +the shape which we puzzle out of congregated cloud-masses fluctuates +with their every movement--a shifting vapour now obliterates the form, +now compresses it into greater distinctness: the wings of the fantastic +monster seem now flapping leisurely, now extending bristling like a +griffon's; at one moment it has a beak and talons, at others a mane +and hoofs; the breeze, the sunlight, the moonbeam, form, alter, and +obliterate it. Thus is it with the supernatural: the gods, moulded out +of cloud and sunlight and darkness, are for ever changing, fluctuating +between a human or animal shape, god or goddess, cow, ape, or horse, and +the mere natural phenomenon which impresses the fancy. Pan is the weird, +shaggy, cloven-footed shape which the goat-herd or the huntsman has seen +gliding among the bushes in the grey twilight; his is the piping heard +in the tangle of reeds, marsh lily, and knotted nightshade by the river +side: but Pan is also the wood, with all its sights and noises, the +solitude, the gloom, the infinity of rustling leaves, and cracking +branches; he is the greenish-yellow light stealing in amid the boughs; +he is the breeze in the foliage, the murmur of unseen waters, the mist +hanging over the damp sward, the ferns and grasses which entangle the +feet, and the briars which catch in the hair and garments are his grasp; +and the wanderer dashes through the thickets with a sickening fear in +his heart, and sinks down on the outskirts of the forest, gasping, with +sweat-clotted hair, overcome by this glimpse of the great god. + +In this constant renewal of the impressions on the fancy, in this +unceasing shaping and reshaping of its creations, consisted the vitality +of the myths of paganism, from the scorching and pestilence-bearing gods +of India to the divinities shaped out of tempest and snowdrift of +Scandinavia; they were constantly issuing out of the elements, renewed, +changed, ever young, under the exorcism not only of the priest and of +the poet, but of the village boor; and on this unceasing renovation +depended the sway which they maintained, without ethical importance to +help them, despite philosophy and Christianity. Christianity, born in +an age of speculation and eclecticism, removed its divinities, its +mystic figures, out of the cosmic surroundings of paganism; it forbade +the imagination to touch or alter them, it regularised, defined, +explained, placed the Saviour, the Virgin, the saints and angels, into +a kind of supersensuous world of logic, logic adapted to Heaven, and +different therefore from the logic of earth, but logic none the less. +Christianity endowed them with certain definite attributes, not to be +found among mortals, but analogous in a manner to mortal attributes; the +Christian supernatural system belongs mainly to the category of mistaken +scientific systems; its peculiarities are due, not to overwrought fancy, +but to overtaxed reason. Thus the genuine supernatural was well-nigh +banished by official Christianity, regulated as it was by a sort of +congress of men of science, who eliminated, to the best of their powers, +any vagaries of the imagination which might show themselves in their +mystico-logic system. But the imagination did work nevertheless, and the +supernatural did reappear, both within and without the Christian system +of mythology. The Heaven of theology was too ethical, too logical, too +positive, too scientific, in accordance with the science of the Middle +Ages, for the minds of humanity at large; the scholars and learned +clergy might study and expound it, but it was insufficient for the +ignorant. The imagination reappeared once more. To the monk arose out of +the silence and gloom of the damp, lichen-grown crypt, out of the foetid +emanations of the charnal-house, strange forms of horror which lurked +in his steps and haunted his sleep after fasting and scourging and +vigils; devils and imps horrible and obscene, which the chisel of +the stonecutter vainly attempted to reproduce, in their fluctuating +abomination, on the capitals and gargoyles of cloister and cathedral. +To the artisan, the weaver pent up in some dark cellar into which the +daylight stole grey and faint from the narrow strip of blue sky between +the overhanging eaves, for him, the hungry and toil-worn and weary of +soul, there arose out of the hum of the street above, out of the +half-lit dust, the winter damp and summer suffocation of the underground +workshop, visions and sounds of sweetness and glory, misty clusters of +white-robed angels shedding radiance around them, swaying in mystic +linked dances, mingling with the sordid noises of toil seraphic +harmonies, now near, now dying away into distance, voices singing of +the sunshine and flowers of Paradise. And for others, for the lean and +tattered peasant, with the dull, apathetic resignation of the starved +and goaded ox or horse, sleeping on the damp clay of his hut and eating +strange flourless bread, and stranger carrion flesh, there came a world +of the supernatural, different from that of the monk or the artisan, at +once terrifying and consoling; the divinities cast out by Christianity, +the divinities for ever newly begotten by nature, but begotten of a +nature miserably changed, born in exile and obloquy and persecution, +fostered by the wretched and the brutified; differing from the gods of +antiquity as the desolate heath, barren of all save stones and prickly +furze and thistle, differs from the fertile pasture-land; as the forests +planted over the cornfield, whence issue wolves, and the Baron's +harvest-trampling horses, differ from the forests which gave their +oaks and pines to Tyrian ships; divinities warped, and crippled, grown +hideous and malignant and unhappy in the likeness of their miserable +votaries. + +This is the real supernatural, born of the imagination and its +surroundings, the vital, the fluctuating, the potent; and it is this +which the artist of every age, from Phidias to Giotto, from Giotto to +Blake, has been called upon to make known to the multitude. And there +had been artistic work going on unnoticed long before the time of any +painter or sculptor or poet of whom we have any record; mankind longed +from the first to embody, to fix its visions of wonder, it set to work +with rough unskilful fingers moulding into shape its divinities. Rude +work, ugly, barbarous, blundering scratchings on walls, kneaded clay +vessels, notched sticks, nonsense rhymes; but work nevertheless which +already showed that art and the supernatural were at variance, the +beaked and clawed figures outlined on the wall were compromises between +the man and the beast, but definite compromises, so much and no more of +the man, so much and no more of the beast; the goddess on the clay +vessels became a mere little owl; the divinities even in the nonsense +verses were presented now as very distinct cows, now as very distinct +clouds, or very distinct men and women; the vague, fluctuating +impressions oscillating before the imagination like the colours of a +dove's wing, or the pattern of a shot silk, interwoven, unsteady, never +completely united into one, never completely separated into several, +were rudely seized, disentangled by art; part was taken, part thrown +aside; what remained was homogeneous, definite, unchanging; it was what +it was and could never be aught else. + +Goethe has remarked, with a subjective simplicity of irreverence which +is almost comical, that as God created man in his image, it was only +fair that man, in his turn, should create God in _his_ image. But the +decay of pagan belief was not, as Hegel imagines, due to the fact that +Hellenic art was anthropomorphic. The gods ceased to be gods not merely +because they became too like men, but because they became too like +anything definite. If the ibis on the amulet, or the owl on the +terra-cotta, represents a more vital belief in the gods than does the +Venus of Milo or the Giustiniani Minerva, it is not because the idea of +divinity is more compatible with an ugly bird than with a beautiful +woman, but because whereas the beautiful woman, exquisitely wrought by a +consummate sculptor, occupied the mind of the artist and of the beholder +with the idea of her beauty, to the exclusion of all else, the +rudely-engraven ibis, or the badly-modelled owlet, on the other hand, +served merely as a symbol, as the recaller of an idea; the mind did not +pause in contemplation of the bird, but wandered off in search of the +god: the goggle eyes of the owl and the beak of the ibis were soon +forgotten in the contemplation of the vague, ever transmuted visions of +phenomena of sky and light, of semi-human and semi-bestial shapes, of +confused half-embodied forces; in short, of the supernatural. But the +human shape did most mischief to the supernatural, merely because the +human shape was the most absolute, the most distinct of all shapes: a +god might be symbolised as a beast, but he could only be pourtrayed +as a man; and if the portrait was correct, then the god was a man, +and nothing more. Even the most fantastic among pagan supernatural +creatures, those strange monsters who longest kept their original dual +nature--the centaurs, satyrs, and tritons--became, beneath the chisel of +the artist, mere aberrations from the normal, rare, and curious types +like certain fair-booth phenomena, but perfectly intelligible and +rational; the very Chimaera, she who was to give her name to every sort +of unintelligible fancy, became, in the bas-reliefs of the story of +Bellerophon a mere singular mixture between a lion, a dog, and a bird--a +cross-breed which happens not to be possible, but which an ancient might +well have conceived as adorning some distant zoological collection. How +much more rationalised were not the divinities in whom only a peculiar +shape of the eye, a certain structure of the leg, or a definite fashion +of wearing the hair remained of their former nature. Learned men, +indeed, tell us that we need only glance at Hera to see that she is at +bottom a cow; at Apollo, to recognise that he is but a stag in human +shape: or at Zeus, to recognise that he is, in point of fact, a lion. +Yet it remains true that we need only walk down the nearest street to +meet ten ordinary men and women who look more like various animals than +do any antique divinities, and who can yet never be said to be in +reality cows, stags, or lions. The same applies to the violent efforts +which are constantly being made to show in the Greek and Latin poets a +distinct recollection of the cosmic nature of the gods, construing the +very human movements, looks, and dress of divinities into meteorological +phenomena, as has been done even by Mr. Ruskin, in his _Queen of the +Air_, despite his artist's sense, which should have warned him that no +artistic figure, like Homer's divinities, can possibly be at the same +time a woman and a whirlwind. The gods did originally partake of the +character of cosmic phenomena, as they partook of the characters of +beasts and birds, and of every other species of transformation, such as +we may watch in dreams; but as soon as they were artistically embodied, +this transformation ceased, the nature had to be specified in proportion +as the form became distinct; and the drapery of Pallas, although it had +inherited its purple tint from the storm-cloud, was none the less, when +it clad the shoulders of the goddess, not a storm-cloud, but a piece +of purple linen. "What do you want of me?" asks the artist. "A god," +answers the believer. "What is your god to be like?" asks the artist. +"My god is to be a very handsome warrior, a serene heaven, which +is occasionally overcast with clouds, which clouds are sometimes +very beneficial, and become (and so does the god at those moments) +heavy-uddered cows; at others, they are dark, and cause annoyance, and +then they capture the god, who is the light (but he is also the clouds, +remember), and lock him up in a tower, and then he frees himself, and he +is a neighing horse, and he is sitting on the prancing horse (which is +himself, you know, and is the sky too), in the shape of two warriors, +and also----" "May Cerberus devour you!" cries the artist. "How can I +represent all this? Do you want a warrior, or a cow, or the heavens, or +a horse, or do you want a warrior with the hoofs of a horse and the +horns of a cow? Explain, for, by Juno, I can give you only one of these +at a time." + +Thus, in proportion as the gods were subjected to artistic manipulation, +whether by sculptor or poet, they lost their supernatural powers. A +period there doubtless was when the gods stood out quite distinct from +nature, and yet remained connected with it, as the figures of a high +relief stand out from the background; but gradually they were freed from +the chaos of impressions which had given them birth, and then, little by +little, they ceased to be gods; they were isolated from the world of +the wonderful, they were respectfully shelved off into the region of +the ideal, where they were contemplated, admired, discussed, but not +worshipped even like their statues by Praxiteles and their pictures +by Parrhasius. The divinities who continued to be reverenced were the +rustic divinities and the foreign gods and goddesses; the divinities +which had been safe from the artistic desecration of the cities, and the +divinities which were imported from hieratic, unartistic countries like +Egypt and Syria; on the one hand, the gods shaped with the pruning-knife +out of figwood, and stained with ochre or wine-lees, grotesque mannikins, +standing like scarecrows, in orchard or corn-field, to which the +peasants crowded in devout procession, leading their cleanly-dressed +little ones, and carrying gifts of fruit and milk, while the listless +Tibullus, fresh from sceptical Rome, looked on from his doorstep, a +vague, childish veneration stealing over his mind; on the other hand, +the monstrous goddesses, hundred-breasted or ibis-headed, half hidden +in the Syrian and Egyptian temples, surrounded by mysterious priests, +swarthy or effeminate, in mitres and tawny robes, jangling their sistra +and clashing their cymbals, moving in mystic or frenzied dances, weird, +obscene, and unearthly, to the melancholy drone of Phrygian or Egyptian +music, sending a shudder through the atheist Catullus, and filling his +mind with ghastly visions of victims of the great goddess, bleeding, +fainting, lashed on to madness by the wrath of the terrible divinity. +These were the last survivors of paganism, and to their protection clung +the old gods of Greece and Rome, reduced to human level by art, stripped +naked by sculptor and poet and muffling themselves in the homely or +barbaric garments of low-born or outlandish usurpers; art had been a +worse enemy than scepticism: Apelles and Scopas had done more mischief +than Epicurus. + +Christian art was, perhaps, more reverent in intention, but not less +desecrating in practice; even the Giottesques turned Christ, the Virgin, +and the Saints, into mere Florentine men and women; even Angelico +himself, although a saint, was unable to show Paradise except as a +flowery meadow, under a highly gilded sky, through which moved ladies +and youths in most artistic but most earthly embroidered garments; and +Hell except as a very hot place where men and women were being boiled +and broiled and baked and fried and roasted by very comic little +weasel-snouted fiends, which on a carnival car would have made +Florentines roar with laughter. The real supernatural was in the cells +of fever-stricken, starved visionaries; it was in the contagious awe of +the crowd sinking down at the sight of the stained napkin of Bolsena; in +that soiled piece of linen was Christ, and God, and Paradise; in that +and not in the panels of Angelico and Perugino, or in the frescoes of +Signorelli and Filippino. + +Why? Because the supernatural is nothing but ever-renewed impressions, +ever-shifting fancies; and that art is the definer, the embodier, the +analytic and synthetic force of form. Every artistic embodiment of +impressions or fancies implies isolation of those impressions or +fancies, selection, combination and balancing of them; that is to say, +diminution--nay, destruction of their inherent power. As, in order to +be moulded, the clay must be separated from the mound; as, in order +to be carved, the wood must be cut off from the tree; as, in order to +be re-shaped by art, the mass of atoms must be rudely severed; so also +the mental elements of art, the mood, the fancy must be severed from +the preceding and succeeding moods or fancies; artistic manipulation +requires that its intellectual, like its tangible materials, cease to +be vital, but the materials, mental or physical, are not only deprived +of vitality and power of self-alteration; they are combined in given +proportions, the action of the one on the other destroys in great +part the special power of each; art is proportion, and proportion is +restriction. Last of all, but most important, these isolated, no longer +vital materials, neutralised by each other, are further reduced to +insignificance by becoming parts of a whole conception; their separate +meaning is effaced by the general meaning of the work of art; art +bottles lightning to use it as white colour, and measures out thunder by +the beat of the chapel-master's roll of notes. But art does not merely +restrict impressions and fancies within the limits of form; in its days +of maturity and independence it restricts yet closer within the limits +of beauty. Partially developed art, still unconscious of its powers +and aims, still in childish submission to religion, sets to work +conscientiously, with no other object than to embody the supernatural; +if the supernatural suffers in the act of embodiment, if the fluctuating +fancies which are Zeus or Pallas are limited and curtailed, rendered +logical and prosaic even in the wooden pre-historic idol or the roughly +kneaded clay owlet, it is by no choice of the artist--his attempt is +abortive, because it is thwarted by the very nature of his art. But +when art is mature, things are different; the artist, conscious of +his powers, instinctively recognising the futility of aiming at the +embodiment of the supernatural, dragged by an irresistible longing to +the display of his skill, to the imitation of the existing and to the +creation of beauty, ceases to strain after the impossible and refuses +to attempt anything beyond the possible. The art, which was before a +mere insufficient means, is now an all-engrossing aim; unconsciously, +perhaps, to himself, the artist regards the subject merely as a pretext +for the treatment; and where the subject is opposed to such treatment +as he desires, he sacrifices it. He may be quite as conscientious as +his earliest predecessor, but his conscience has become an artistic +conscience, he sees only as much as is within art's limits; the gods, or +the saints, which were cloudy and supernatural to the artist of immature +art, are definite and artistic to the artist of mature art; he can +think, imagine, feel only in a given manner; his religious conceptions +have taken the shape of his artistic creations; art has destroyed the +supernatural, and the artist has swallowed up the believer. The attempts +at supernatural effects are almost always limited to a sort of symbolical +abbreviation, which satisfies the artist and his public respecting the +subject of the work, and lends it a traditional association of the +supernatural; a few spikes round the head of a young man are all that +remains of the solar nature of Apollo; the little budding horns and +pointed ears of the satyr must suffice to recall that he was once a +mystic fusion of man and beast and forest; a gilded disc behind the head +is all that shows that Giotto's figures are immortals in glory; and a +pair of wings is all that explains that Perugino's St. Michael is not a +mere dainty mortal warrior; the highest mysteries of Christianity are +despatched with a triangle and an open book, to draw which Raphael might +employ his colour-grinder, while he himself drew the finely-draped +baker's daughter from Trastevere. + +In all these cases the artist refused to grapple with the supernatural, +and dismissed it with a mere stereotyped symbol, not more artistic than +the names which he might have engraved beneath each figure. Religious +associations were thus awakened without the artist, whether of the time +of Pericles or of the time of Leo X., giving himself further trouble; +the diffusion of religious ideas and feeling spared art from being +religious. Let us, therefore, in order to judge fairly of what art +can or cannot do for the supernatural, seek for one of the very rare +instances in which the artist has had no symbolical abbreviations at his +disposal, and has been obliged, if he would awaken any idea in the mind +of the spectator, to do so by means of his artistic creations. The +number of such exceptional instances is extremely limited in the great +art of antiquity and the Renaissance, when artistic subjects were almost +always traditionally religious or plainly realistic, and consequently +intelligible at first sight. There is, however, an example, and that +example is a masterpiece. It is the engraving by Agostino Veneziano, +after a lost drawing by Raphael, generally called "Lo Stregozzo," +and representing a witch going to the Sabbath. Through a swampy +country, amidst rank and barren vegetation, sweeps the triumphal +procession--strange, beautiful, and ghastly; a naked boy dashes headlong +in front, bestriding a long-haired he-goat, and blowing a horn, little +stolen children packed behind on his saddle; on he dashes, across the +tufts of marsh-lily and bulrush, across the stagnant-pools of water, +clearing the way and announcing his mistress the witch. She thrones, +old, parched, lank, high on the top of an unearthly car, made of the +spine and ribs of some antediluvian creature, with springs and traces +of ghastly jaw and collar and thigh bones, supported on either side by +galloping skeletons, skeletons made up of skeletons, of all that is +strangest in the bones and beaks of beasts and birds, on which ride +young fauns and satyrs. To her chariot, by a yoke of human bones, +are harnessed two stalwart naked youths, and two others sustain its +plough-like end; grand, magnificently moving figures, bounding forward +like wild horses, the unearthly carriage swinging and creaking as they +go. And, as they go, brushing through the high, dry, maremma-grass, the +witch cowers on her chariot, clutching in one hand a heap of babies, +in the other a vessel filled with fire, whose smoke, mingling with +her long, dishevelled hair, floats behind, sweeping through the rank +vegetation, curling and eddying into vague, strange semblances of +lions, apes, chimaeras. Forward dashes the outrunner on his goat, onward +bound the naked litter-bearers; up gallop the fauns and satyrs on the +fleshless, monstrous carcases; up and down sways the creaking, cracking +chariot of bones; one moment more, and the wild, splendid, hideous +triumph will have swept out of sight, leaving behind only trampled +marsh-plants and a trail of fantastic, lurid smoke among the ruffled, +moaning reeds and grasses. + +Such is Raphael's _Stregozzo_. It is a master-piece of drawing and of +pictorial fancy, it is perhaps the highest achievement of great art in +the direction of the supernatural: for Duerer is often hideous, Rembrandt +always obscure, and the moderns, like Blake and Dore, distinctly +run counter to the essential nature of art in their attempts after +vagueness. When once told the subject of the print, by Agostino +Veneziano, our imagination easily flies off on to the track of the +supernatural; but, in so doing, it leaves the work behind, and on return +to it we experience a return to the natural. If, on the other hand, we +are not told the subject of the print, we very possibly see nothing +supernatural in it: there are splendid figures worthy of Michael Angelo, +and grotesque fancies, in the shape of the skeletons and coach of bones, +worthy of Leonardo; as a whole, the print is striking, beautiful, and +problematic, but it falls short of the effect which would be produced by +the mere words "a witch riding through a marsh on a chariot of bones," +if left to insinuate themselves into the imagination. Of the really +supernatural, there is in it but one touch: and that in the only part +of the drawing which is left vague; it is the confused shapes assumed +by the eddying smoke among the rushes. All the rest is outside the +region of the supernatural: it is problematic in subject, but clear, +harmonious, and beautiful in treatment; the imagination may wander +off from it, but in its presence it must remain passive. With this +masterpiece we would fain compare a picture which seems to deal +with a cognate subject; a picture as suggestive as it is absolutely +artistically worthless. We saw it once, many years ago, among a heap +of rubbishy smudges at a picture-dealer's in Rome, and we have never +forgotten it--a picture painted by some German smearer of the early +sixteenth century; very ugly, stupid, and unattractive; ill drawn, ill +composed, of a uniform hard, vulgar brown. It represented, with no +attempt at perspective, a level country spread out like a map, dotted +here and there with little spired and turretted towns, also a castle or +two, a few trees and some rivers, disposed with a child's satisfaction +with their mere indication, as much as to say--"here is a town, there +is a castle." Some peasants were represented working in the fields, a +little train of horsemen coming out of a castle, and near one of the +chess-board castles a grass plot with half-a-dozen lit stakes, to which +tiny figures were carrying faggots, while men-at-arms and burghers, +no bigger than flies, looked on. In the foreground of the great flat +expanse lay a boor, a fellow dressed like a field-labourer, in heavy +sleep on the ground. Round him on the grass were marked curious circles, +and in them was moving a strange figure, in cloak and helmet, with +clawed wings and horns, leering horridly, moving round on tiptoe, his +arms outstretched, as if gradually encircling the sleeper in order to +pounce upon him; despite the complete absence of artistic skill, the +gradual inevitable approach of the demon, the irresistible network of +circles with which he was surrounding his prey, was perfectly indicated. +Above, in the sky, two figures, half demon, half dragon, floated +leisurely, like a moored boat, as if a guard of the devil below. What +is the exact subject of this picture? No one can tell; but its meaning +is intense for the imagination, it has the frightful suggestiveness +of some old book on witchcraft, prosaic and curt; of a page opened at +random of Sprenger's _Malleus Malificarum_. Yes; over the plain, the +towns, and castles, monotonous and dull, the fiends are hovering; even +over the stakes where their votaries are being burnt; and see, the +peasant asleep in the field, with his spade and hoe beside him, is being +surrounded by magic circles, by the invisible nets of the demon, who +prowls round him like a kite ready to pounce on to its quarry. + +Why is there no need to write the word _witchcraft_ beneath this +picture? Why can this nameless smearer succeed where Raphael has failed? +Because he is content to suggest to the imagination, and lets it create +for itself its world of the supernatural; because he is not an artist, +and because Raphael is; because he suggests everything and shows +nothing, while Raphael creates, defines, perfects, gives form to that +which is by its nature formless. + +If we would bring home to ourselves this action of art on the +supernatural, we must examine the only species of supernatural which +still retains vitality, and can still be deprived of it by art. +That which remains to us of the imaginative workings of the past is +traditional and well-nigh effete: we have poems and pictures, Vedic +hymns, Hebrew psalms, and Egyptian symbols; we have folklore and dogma; +remnants of the supernatural, some labelled in our historic museums, +where they are scrutinised, catalogue and eye-glass in hand; others +dusty on altars and in chapels, before which we uncover our heads and +cast down our eyes: relics of dead and dying faiths, of which some are +daily being transferred from the church to the museum; art cannot +deprive any of these of that imaginative life and power which they have +long ceased to possess. We have forms of the supernatural in which we +believe from acquiescence of habit, but they are not vital; we have a +form of the supernatural in which, from logic and habit, we disbelieve, +but which is vital; and this form of the supernatural is the ghostly. We +none of us believe in ghosts as logical possibilities, but we most of +us conceive them as imaginative probabilities; we can still feel the +ghostly, and thence it is that a ghost is the only thing which can in +any respect replace for us the divinities of old, and enable us to +understand, if only for a minute, the imaginative power which they +possessed, and of which they were despoiled not only by logic, but by +art. By _ghost_ we do not mean the vulgar apparition which is seen or +heard in told or written tales; we mean the ghost which slowly rises up +in our mind, the haunter not of corridors and staircases, but of our +fancies. Just as the gods of primitive religions were the undulating, +bright heat which made mid-day solitary and solemn as midnight; the warm +damp, the sap-riser and expander of life; the sad dying away of the +summer, and the leaden, suicidal sterility of winter; so the ghost, +their only modern equivalent, is the damp, the darkness, the silence, +the solitude; a ghost is the sound of our steps through a ruined +cloister, where the ivy-berries and convolvulus growing in the fissures +sway up and down among the sculptured foliage of the windows, it is the +scent of mouldering plaster and mouldering bones from beneath the broken +pavement; a ghost is the bright moonlight against which the cypresses +stand out like black hearse-plumes, in which the blasted grey olives and +the gnarled fig-trees stretch their branches over the broken walls like +fantastic, knotted, beckoning fingers, and the abandoned villas on +the outskirts of Italian towns, with the birds flying in and out of +the unglazed windows, loom forth white and ghastly; a ghost is the +long-closed room of one long dead, the faint smell of withered flowers, +the rustle of long-unmoved curtains, the yellow paper and faded ribbons +of long-unread letters ... each and all of these things, and a hundred +others besides, according to our nature, is a ghost, a vague feeling we +can scarcely describe, a something pleasing and terrible which invades +our whole consciousness, and which, confusedly embodied, we half dread +to see behind us, we know not in what shape, if we look round. + +Call we in our artist, or let us be our own artist; embody, let us see +or hear this ghost, let it become visible or audible to others besides +ourselves; paint us that vagueness, mould into shape that darkness, +modulate into chords that silence--tell us the character and history +of those vague beings ... set to work boldly or cunningly. What do we +obtain? A picture, a piece of music, a story; but the ghost is gone. In +its stead we get oftenest the mere image of a human being; call it a +ghost if you will, it is none. And the more complete the artistic work, +the less remains of the ghost. Why do those stories affect us most in +which the ghost is heard but not seen? Why do those places affect us +most of which we merely vaguely know that they are haunted? Why most +of all those which look as if they might be haunted? Why, as soon as a +figure is seen, is the charm half-lost? And why, even when there is a +figure, is it kept so vague and mist-like? Would you know Hamlet's +father for a ghost unless he told you he was one? and can you remember +it long while he speaks in mortal words? and what would be Hamlet's +father without the terrace of Elsinore, the hour, and the moonlight? Do +not these embodied ghosts owe what little effect they still possess to +their surroundings, and are not the surroundings the real ghost? + +Throw sunshine on to them, and what remains? Thus we have wandered +through the realm of the supernatural in a manner neither logical nor +business-like, for logic and business-likeness are rude qualities, +and scare away the ghostly; very far away do we seem to have rambled +from Dr. Faustus and Helen of Sparta; but in this labyrinth of the +fantastic there are sudden unexpected turns--and see, one of these has +suddenly brought us back into their presence. For we have seen why the +supernatural is always injured by artistic treatment, why therefore +the confused images evoked in our mind by the mere threadbare tale of +Faustus and Helena are superior in imaginative power to the picture +carefully elaborated and shown us by Goethe. We can now understand why +under his hand the infinite charm of the weird meeting of antiquity and +the Middle Ages has evaporated. We can explain why the strange fancy +of the classic Walpurgis-night, in the second part of _Faust_, at once +stimulates the imagination and gives it nothing. If we let our mind +dwell on that mysterious Pharsalian plain, with its glimmering fires and +flamelets alone breaking the darkness, where Faust and Mephistopheles +wandering about meet the spectres of antiquity, shadowy in the +gloom--the sphinxes crouching, the sirens, the dryads and oreads, the +griffons and cranes flapping their unseen wings overhead; where Faust +springs on the back of Chiron, and as he is borne along sickens for +sudden joy when the centaur tells him that Helen has been carried on +that back, has clasped that neck; when we let our mind work on all this, +we are charmed by the weird meetings, the mysterious shapes which elbow +us; but let us take up the volume and we return to barren prose, without +colour or perfume. Yet Goethe felt the supernatural as we feel it, as it +can be felt only in days of disbelief, when the more logical we become +in our ideas, the more we view nature as a prosaic machine constructed +by no one in particular, the more poignantly, on the other hand, +do we feel the delight of the transient belief in the vague and +the impossible; the greater the distinctness with which we see and +understand all around us, the greater the longing for a momentary +half-light in which forms may appear stranger, grander, vaguer than they +are. We moderns seek in the world of the supernatural a renewal of +the delightful semi-obscurity of vision and keenness of fancy of our +childhood; when a glimpse into fairyland was still possible, when things +appeared in false lights, brighter, more important, more magnificent +than now. Art indeed can afford us calm and clear enjoyment of the +beautiful--enjoyment serious, self-possessed, wide-awake, such as befits +mature intellects; but no picture, no symphony, no poem, can give us +that delight, that delusory, imaginative pleasure which we received as +children from a tawdry engraving or a hideous doll; for around that doll +there was an atmosphere of glory. In certain words, in certain sights, +in certain snatches of melody, words, sights, and sounds which we now +recognise as trivial, commonplace, and vulgar, there was an ineffable +meaning; they were spells which opened doors into realms of wonder; +they were precious in proportion as they were misappreciated. We now +appreciate and despise; we see, we no longer imagine. And it is to +replace this uncertainty of vision, this liberty of seeing in things +much more than there is, which belongs to man and to mankind in this +childhood, which compensated the Middle Ages for starvation and +pestilence, and compensates the child for blows and lessons, it is to +replace this that we crave after the supernatural, the ghostly--no +longer believed, but still felt. It was from this sickness of the +prosaic, this turning away from logical certainty, that the men of +the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of this century, the men +who had finally destroyed belief in the religious supernatural, who +were bringing light with new sciences of economy, philology, and +history--Schiller, Goethe, Herder, Coleridge--left the lecture-room and +the laboratory, and set gravely to work on ghostly tales and ballads. It +was from this rebellion against the tyranny of the possible that Goethe +was charmed with that culmination of all impossibilities, that most +daring of ghost stories, the story of Faustus and Helena. He felt the +seduction of the supernatural, he tried to embody it--and he failed. + +The case was different with Marlowe. The bringing together of Faustus +and Helena had no special meaning for the man of the sixteenth century, +too far from antiquity and too near the Middle Ages to perceive as we +do the strange difference between them; and the supernatural had no +fascination in a time when it was all permeating and everywhere +mixed with prose. The whole play of _Dr. Faustus_ is conceived in a +thoroughly realistic fashion; it is tragic, but not ghostly. To +Marlowe's audience, and probably to Marlowe himself, despite his +atheistic reputation, the story of Faustus's wonders and final damnation +was quite within the realm of the possible; the intensity of the belief +in the tale is shown by the total absence of any attempt to give +it dignity or weirdness. Faustus evokes Lucifer with a pedantic +semi-biblical Latin speech; he goes about playing the most trumpery +conjuror's tricks--snatching with invisible hands the food from people's +lips, clapping horns and tails on to courtiers for the Emperor's +amusement, letting his legs be pulled off like boots, selling wisps of +straw as horses, doing and saying things which could appear tragic and +important, nay, even serious, only to people who took every second +cat for a witch, who burned their neighbours for vomiting pins, who +suspected devils at every turn, as the great witch-expert Sprenger shows +them in his horribly matter-of-fact manual. We moderns, disbelieving +in devilries, would require the most elaborately romantic and poetic +accessories--a splendid lurid back-ground, a magnificent Byronian +invocation of the fiend. The Mephistophilis of Marlowe, in those days +when devils still dwelt in people, required none of Goethe's wit +or poetry; the mere fact of his being a devil, with the very real +association of flame and brimstone in this world and the next, was +sufficient to inspire interest in him; whereas in 1800, with Voltaire's +novels and Hume's treatises on the table, a dull devil was no more +endurable than any other sort of bore. The very superiority of Marlowe +is due to this absence of weirdness, to this complete realism; the last +scene of the English play is infinitely above the end of the second +part of _Faust_ in tragic grandeur, just because Goethe made abortive +attempts, after a conscious and artificial supernatural, while Marlowe +was satisfied with perfect reality of situation. The position of +Faustus, when the years of his pact have expired, and he awaits +midnight, which will give him over to Lucifer, is as thoroughly natural +in the eyes of Marlowe as is in the eyes of Shelley the position of +Beatrice Cenci awaiting the moment of execution. The conversation +between Faustus and the scholars, after he has made his will, is +terribly life-like: they disbelieve at first, pooh-pooh his danger; +then, half-convinced, beg that a priest may be fetched; but Faustus +cannot deal with priests. He bids them, in agony, go pray in the next +room. "Aye, pray for me, pray for me, and what noise soever you hear, +come not unto me, for nothing can save me.... Gentlemen, farewell; if I +live till morning, I'll visit you; if not, Faustus is gone to hell." +Faustus remains alone for the one hour which separates him from his +doom; he clutches at the passing time, he cries to the hours to stop +with no rhetorical figure of speech, but with a terrible reality of +agony: + + Let this hour be but + A year, a month, a week, a natural day, + That Faustus may repent and save his soul. + +Time to repent, time to recoil from the horrible gulf into which he +is being sucked; Christ, will Christ's blood not save him? He would +leap up to heaven and cling fast, but Lucifer drags him down. He would +seek annihilation in nature, be sucked into its senseless, feelingless +mass ... and, meanwhile, the time is passing, the interval of respite is +shrinking and dwindling. Would that he were a soulless brute and might +perish, or that at least eternal hell were finite--a thousand, a hundred +thousand years let him suffer, but not for ever and without end! +Midnight begins striking. With convulsive agony he exclaims as the rain +patters against the window: + + O soul, be changed into small water-drops, + And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found. + +But the twelfth stroke sounds; Lucifer and his crew enter; and when next +morning the students, frightened by the horrible tempest and ghastly +noises of the night, enter his study, they find Faustus lying dead, torn +and mangled by the demon. All this is not supernatural in our sense; +such scenes as this were real for Marlowe and his audience. Such cases +were surely not unfrequent; more than one man certainly watched through +such a night in hopeless agony, conscious, like Faustus, of pact with +the fiend--awaiting, with earth and heaven shut and bolted against him, +eternal hell. + +In this story of Doctor Faustus, which, to Marlowe and his contemporaries, +was not a romance but a reality, the episode of the evoking of Helen +is extremely secondary in interest. To raise a dead woman was not more +wonderful than to turn wisps of straw into horses, and it was perhaps +considered the easier of the two miracles; the sense of the ordinary +ghostly is absent, and the sense that Helen is the ghost of a whole +long-dead civilisation, that sense which is for us the whole charm of +the tale, could not exist in the sixteenth century. Goethe's Faust +feels for Helen as Goethe himself might have felt, as Winckelmann felt +for a lost antique statue, as Schiller felt for the dead Olympus: a +passion intensely imaginative and poetic, born of deep appreciation of +antiquity, the essentially modern, passionate, nostalgic craving for +the past. In Marlowe's play, on the contrary, Faustus and the students +evoke Helen from a confused pedantic impression that an ancient lady +must be as much superior to a modern lady as an ancient poem, be it +even by Statius or Claudian, must be superior to a modern poem--it is +a humanistic fancy of the days of the revival of letters. But, by a +strange phenomenon, Marlowe, once realising what Helen means, that she +is the fairest of women, forgets the scholarly interest in her. Faustus, +once in presence of the wonderful woman, forgets that he had summoned +her up to gratify his and his friends' pedantry; he sees her, loves her, +and bursts out into the splendid tirade full of passionate fancy: + + Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, + And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? + Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss! + Her lips suck forth my soul! See, where it flies! + Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. + Here will I dwell, for Heaven is in these lips, + And all is dross that is not Helena. + I will be Paris, and for love of thee, + Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked; + And I will combat with weak Menelaus, + And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; + Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel, + And then return to Helen for a kiss. + Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; + Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter + When he appeared to hapless Semele; + More lovely than the monarch of the sky + In wanton Arethusa's azure arms; + And none but thou shalt be my paramour. + +This is real passion for a real woman, a woman very different from the +splendid semi-vivified statue of Goethe, the Helen with only the cold, +bloodless, intellectual life which could be infused by enthusiastic +studies of ancient literature and art, gleaming bright like marble +or a spectre. This Helena of Marlowe is no antique; the Elizabethan +dramatist, like the painter of the fifteenth century, could not conceive +the purely antique, despite all the translating of ancient writers, and +all the drawing from ancient marbles. One of the prose versions of the +story of Faustus, contains a quaint account of Helen, which sheds much +light on Marlowe's conception: + + This lady appeared before them in a most rich gowne of purple + velvet, costly imbrodered; her haire hanged downe loose, as faire + as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached downe to her + hammes; having most amorous cole-black eyes, a sweet and pleasant + round face, with lips as red as a cherry; her cheeks of a rose + colour, her mouth small, her neck white like a swan; tall and + slender of personage; in summe, there was no imperfect place in her; + she looked around about with a rolling hawk's eye, a smiling and + wanton countenance, which neerehand inflamed the hearts of all the + students, but that they persuaded themselves she was a spirit, which + make them lightly passe away such fancies. + +This fair dame in the velvet embroidered gown, with the long, hanging +hair, this Helen of the original Faustus legend, is antique only in +name; she belongs to the race of mediaeval and modern women--the Lauras, +Fiammettas, and Simonettas of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Lorenzo dei +Medici; she is the sister of that slily sentimental coquette, the Monna +Lisa of Leonardo. The strong and simple women of Homer, and even +of Euripides, majestic and matronly even in shame, would repudiate +this slender, smiling, ogling beauty; Briseis, though the captive of +Achilles' spear, would turn with scorn from her. The antique woman has +a dignity due to her very inferiority and restrictedness of position; +she has the simplicity, the completeness, the absence of everything +suggestive of degradation, like that of some stately animal, pure in +its animal nature. The modern woman, with more freedom and more ideal, +rarely approaches to this character; she is too complex to be perfect, +she is frail because she has an ideal, she is dubious because she is +free, she may fall because she may rise. Helen deserted Menelaus and +brought ruin upon Troy, therefore, in the eyes of Antiquity, she was the +victim of fate, she might be unruffled, spotless, majestic; but to the +man of the sixteenth century she was merely frail and false. The rolling +hawk's eye and the wanton smile of the old legend-monger would have +perplexed Homer, but they were necessary for Marlowe; his Helen was +essentially modern, he had probably no inkling that an antique Helen as +distinguished from a modern could exist. In the paramour of Faustus he +saw merely the most beautiful woman, some fair and wanton creature, +dressed not in chaste and majestic antique drapery, but in fantastic +garments of lawn, like those of Hero in his own poem: + + The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn; + Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove + Where Venus, in her naked glory strove + To please the careless and disdainful eyes + Of proud Adonis, that before her lies; + Her kirtle blue.... + Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath + From whence her veil reached to the ground beneath; + Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves + Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives. + +Some slim and dainty goddess of Botticelli, very mortal withal, long and +sinuous, tightly clad in brocaded garments and clinging cobweb veils, +beautiful with the delicate, diaphanous beauty, rather emaciated and +hectic, of high rank, and the conscious, elaborate fascination of a +woman of fashion--a creature whom, like the Gioconda, Leonardo might +have spent years in decking and painting, ever changing the ornaments +and ever altering the portrait; to whom courtly poets like Bembo and +Castiglione might have written scores of sonnets and canzoni to her +hands, her eyes, her hair, her lips, a fanciful inventory to which she +listened languidly under the cypresses of Florentine gardens. Some such +being, even rarer and more dubious for being an exotic in the England +of Elizabeth, was Marlowe's Helen; such, and not a ghostly figure, +descended from a pedestal, white and marble-like in her unruffled +drapery, walking with solid step and unswerving, placid glance through +the study, crammed with books, and vials, and strange instruments, of +the mediaeval wizard of Wittenberg. Marlowe deluded himself as well as +Faustus, and palmed off on to him a mere modern lady. To raise a real +spectre of the antique is a craving of our own century; Goethe attempted +to do it and failed, for what reasons we have seen; but we have all +of us the charm wherewith to evoke for ourselves a real Helena, on +condition that, unlike Faustus and unlike Goethe, we seek not to show +her to others, and remain satisfied if the weird and glorious figure +haunt only our own imagination. + + + + +CHAPELMASTER KREISLER. + +A STUDY OF MUSICAL ROMANTICISTS. + + +There is nothing stranger in the world than music: it exists only as +sound, is born of silence and dies away into silence, issuing from +nothing and relapsing into nothing; it is our own creation, yet it is +foreign to ourselves; we draw it from out of the silent wood and the +silent metal, it lives in our own breath, yet it seems to come to us +from a distant land which we shall never see, and to tell us of things +we shall never know. It is for ever striving to tell us something, for +ever imploring us to listen and to understand; we listen, we strain, we +try to take in its vague meaning; it is telling us sweet and mighty +secrets, letting drop precious talismanic words; we guess, but do not +understand. And shall we never understand? May we never know wherefore +the joy, wherefore the sadness? Can we not subtilise our minds, go +forth with our heart and fancy as interpreters, and distinguish in +the wreathing melodies and entangled chords some words of superhuman +emotion, even as the men of other ages distinguished in the sighing oak +woods and the rustling reeds the words of the great gods of nature? + +To us music is no longer what it was to our grandfathers, a mere +pleasing woof of meaningless pattern; we have left those times far +behind, times whose great masters were prophets uttering mere empty +sounds to their contemporaries; we have shaken off the dust of the +schools of counterpoint, we have thrown aside the mechanical teachings +of the art; for us music has become an audible, quivering fata morgana +of life, the embodiment of the intangible, the expression of the +inexplicable, the realisation of the impossible. And it has become a +riddle, a something we would fain understand but cannot, a spell of our +own devising which we cannot decipher; we sit listening to it as we sit +looking into the deep, dreamy eyes of an animal, full of some mute +language, which we vainly strive to comprehend. + +The animal seems as though it could say much if only it could speak; so +also music would seem to contain far deeper meanings than any spoken +word, to be fraught with emotion deeper than we can feel: it could +confide so much if we could understand. Yet the animal is but an animal, +with some of our virtues and some of our vices, infinitely more ignorant +than we are; dumb, not because we cannot understand, but because he +cannot speak. And may it not be the same with music? May not music be +intellectually inscrutable because it is intellectually meaningless? + +The idea is one from which we shrink; but are we right in shrinking from +it? Cannot music be noble in itself apart from any meaning it conveys? +Cannot we be satisfied with what it certainly is, without thinking of +what it may be? It would seem to be so; it is the spirit of our culture +to strain restlessly after the unknown, for ever to seek after the +hidden, to reject the visible and tangible. We yearn to penetrate +through the blue of the summer evening, to thread our way among the +sun-gilded clouds; yet the blue heaven, if we rise into it, is mere +tintless air; the clouds, if we can touch them, are mere dull vapour. +And so also we would fain seek a meaning in those fair sounds which are +fairer than any meaning they could contain; we would break down in rude +analysis the splendours of _Don Giovanni_ only to discover beneath them +the story of a punished Lovelace; we would tear to shreds a glorious +fugue of Bach for the satisfaction of hearing the Jews yelling for +Barabbas. + +This is our tendency, this our way of enjoying the great art of other +days: to care not for itself, but for what it suggests, nay, most often +for the suggestion of the mere name of the work of art, for there is no +punished Lovelace in Mozart's melodies, no Barabbas in Bach's fugues, +there is nothing but beautiful forms made out of sounds. The old prosaic +masters of the past, who worked at a picture or a statue or an opera as +a cobbler works at a pair of shoes, never thought of suggesting anything +to us: they gave something substantial, something intrinsically +valuable, a well-shaped figure, a richly tinted canvas, a boldly +modulated piece of music; to produce that and no more had been their +object, it was all they could give, and their contemporaries were +satisfied with it. Their art was their trade, pursued conscientiously, +diligently, intelligently, sometimes with that superior degree of +intelligence we call genius, but it was their trade and no more. They +themselves were as prosaic as any artisan, and no more saw vague poetry +in their works, though these were the _Olympic Jove_, the _School of +Athens_, or the _Messiah_, than does the potter in his pot or the smith +in his iron; all they saw was that their works were beautiful, as the +potter sees that his pot is round and smooth, and the smith that his +blade is bright and sharp. For the rest they were terribly prosaic, +terribly given up to the mechanical interests of their art and the +material interests of their lives, as you may see them in Vasari, in +the lives of Handel, of Bach, of Haydn, of Mozart, of the last of true, +unpoetic musicians, Rossini, and as you would doubtless see the unknown +sculptors of antiquity if you could see them at all. + +But the time came when the world, which had lived off prose most +heartily ever since the Middle Ages, grew sick of such coarse mental +food, and longed for unsubstantial poetic ambrosia; the fact is, it was +morally sick, and took its strong intellectual food in disgust, and +fancied and yearned for impossible things, as sick men do. And in its +loathing for the common, the simple, the healthy, the world took to +eating the intellectual opium of romanticism; it enjoyed and was plunged +for awhile in ineffable delights, such as only weakness can feel and +poison afford; the universe seemed to expand, the imagination to grow +colossal, the feelings to become supernaturally subtle; all limits were +removed, all impossibilities became possibilities; the fancy roamed over +endless and ever varying tracts, and soared up into the clouds of the +unintelligible, and dived into the bottomless abyss of chaos: all things +quivered with a strange new life, with a life in other lives, with an +unceasing, ever changing life; everything was not only itself but +something else: all was greater, higher, deeper, brighter, darker, +sweeter, bitterer, more ineffable than itself; it was a paradise +of Mahomet, of Buddha, of Dante; it was enjoyment keen, subtle, +intoxicating, which made the fancy swim, the senses ache, and the +soul faint. Then came the reaction, the inevitable after-effect of the +drug--depression, langour, palsy, convulsion. + +About seventy years ago a great humourist, who frittered away a quaint +and fantastic genius in etching grimacing caricatures, and scribbling +gaunt ghost stories, the once popular, now almost forgotten, Hoffmann, +looked on at this crisis in musical history, at this first intoxication +of romanticism; sympathised with its poetry, its ludicrousness, and +its sadness; embodied them all in one grotesque, pathetic figure, +and for the first and last time in his life produced a masterpiece. +The masterpiece is his poor, half-mad musician, Johannes Kreisler, +"chapelmaster and cracked _musicus_ par excellence," as he signs his +letters, the artist of incomplete genius, of broken career, of poetic +dreams and crazy fancies, who used to go about dressed in a coat the +colour of C sharp minor, with an E major coloured collar. And of all +the glimpses Hoffmann has given us of Chapelmaster Kreisler, none is so +weirdly suggestive as that in which we see him improvising on the piano +at his club of friends. The friends had met one evening expressly to +hear Kreisler's extemporary performance, and he was just on the point of +sitting down to the instrument, when one of the company recollected that +a lever had on a previous occasion refused to do its duty. He took up a +light, and began his search for the refractory lever; when suddenly, as +he leaned over the interior of the piano a heavy pair of brass snuffers +crashed down from the candlestick on to the strings, of which half a +dozen instantly snapped. The company began to exclaim at this unlucky +accident, which would deprive them of the promised performance; but +Chapelmaster Kreisler bade them be of good cheer, for they should still +hear what was in his mind, as the bass strings remained intact. + + Kreisler put on his little red skull cap and his Chinese + dressing-gown, and sat down to the piano, while a trusty friend + extinguished all the lights, so that the room remained in utter + darkness. Then, with the muffling pedal down, Kreisler struck the + full chord of A flat major, and spoke: + + "What is it that murmurs so strangely, so sweetly, around me? + Invisible wings seem to be heaving up and down. I am swimming + in perfume laden air. But the perfume shines forth in flaming, + mysteriously linked circles. Lovely spirits are moving their golden + pinions in ineffably splendid sounds and harmonies." + + _Chord of A flat minor (mezzo forte)._ "Ah, they are bearing me off + into the land of eternal desire, but even as they carry me, pain + awakes in my heart, and tries to escape, tearing my bosom with + violence." + + _Chord of E major (third), forte._ "They have given me a splendid + crown, but that which sparkles and lightens in its diamonds are the + thousand tears which I shed; and in the gold shine the flames which + are devouring me. Valour and power, strength and faith, for him who + is called on to reign in the kingdom of spirits." + + * * * * * + + _B major (accentuato)._ "What a gay life in field and woodland in + the sweet springtide! All the flutes and pipes, which have lain + frozen to death in dusty corners throughout the winter, have now + awakened and remembered their best beloved melodies, which they + trill cheerfully like the birds in the air." + + _B major with the diminished seventh (smanioso)._ "A warm west wind + comes sullenly complaining, like some mysterious secret, through + the wood, and wherever it brushes past, the fir trees murmur, the + beeches murmur to each other: 'Wherefore has our friend grown so + sad?'" + + _E flat major (forte)._ "Follow him, follow him! His dress is green + like the dark wood--sweet sounds of horns are his sighing words. + Hearest him murmuring behind the bushes? Hearest thou the sound? + The sound of horns, full of delight and sadness? 'Tis he! up and + meet him." + + _D third, fourth, sixth, chord (piano)._ "Life plays its mocking + game in all manner of fashions. Wherefore desire? Wherefore hope? + Wherefore demand?" + + _C major (third) chord (fortissimo)._ "Let us rather dance over the + open graves in wild rejoicing. Let us shout for joy, those beneath + cannot hear it. Hurrah, hurrah! Dance and jollity; the devil is + riding in with drums and trumpets." + + _C minor chords (ff. in rapid succession)._ "Knowest thou him not? + Knowest thou him not? See, he stretches forth his burning claw to my + heart! He masks himself in all sorts of absurd grimaces--as a free + huntsman, as a concert director, tapeworm doctor, _ricco mercante_; + he pitches snuffers into the strings to prevent my playing! Kreisler, + Kreisler, shake thyself up? Seest thou it hiding, the pale ghost + with the red burning eyes, stretching out its clawy, bony hand + from beneath its torn mantle--shaking the crown of straw on its + smooth bald skull? It is Madness! Johannes, be brave! Mad, mad, + witch-revelry of life, wherefore shakest thou me so in thy whirling + dance? Can I not escape? Is there no grain of dust in the universe on + which, diminished to a fly, I can save myself from thee, horrible + torturing phantom? Desist, Desist! I will behave. My manners shall be + the very best. _Hony soit qui mal y pense._ Only let me believe the + devil to be a _galantuomo_! I curse song and music; I lick thy feet + like the drunken Caliban; free me only from my torments! Ai! Ai! + abominable one! Thou hast trodden down all my flowers: not a blade of + grass still greens in the terrible desert-- + + Dead! Dead! Dead!..." + +When Chapelmaster Kreisler ended, all were silent; poetry, passionate, +weird, and grotesque, had poured from their friend's lips; a strange +nightmare pageant had swept by them, beautiful and ghastly, like a mad +Brocken medley of the triumph of Dionysos and the dance of Death. + +They were all silent--all save one, and that one said: "This is all very +fine, but I was told we were to have music; a good, sensible sonata of +Haydn's--would have been much more the thing than all this." He was a +Philistine, no doubt, but he was right; a good, sensible sonata of +Haydn's--nay, the stiffest, driest, most wooden fugue ever written by +the most crabbed professor of counterpoint would have been far more +satisfactory for people who expected music. A most fantastic rhapsody +they had indeed heard, but it had been a spoken one, and the best +strings of the piano had remained hanging snapped and silent during the +performance. + +Poor Chapelmaster Kreisler! He has long been forgotten by the world in +general, and even those few that still are acquainted with his weird +portrait, smile at it as at a relic of a far distant time, when life and +art and all other things looked strangely different from how they look +now. Yet the crazy musician of Hoffmann is but the elder brother of all +our modern composers. With the great masters of the last century, Haydn, +Mozart, Cimarosa, who were scarcely in their graves when he improvised +his great word fantasia, he has no longer any connection with our own +musicians, born half a century after his end, he is closely linked, for, +like him, they are romanticists. They do not indeed wear C sharp minor +coloured coats, nor do they improvise in the dark on pianos with broken +strings; they are perfectly sane and conscious of all their doings; yet, +all the same, they are but Kreisler's younger brothers. Like the poor +chapelmaster of Hoffmann, music itself has a fantastic madness in it; +like him, it has been crazed by disappointment, by jealousy, by impotent +rage at finding that it cannot now do what it once did, and cannot yet +do what will never be done; like Kreisler it deals no longer with mere +sequences of melody and harmony, but with thoughts, feelings, and +images, hopes and fears and despair, with wild chaotic visions of +splendour and of ghastliness. But the position of our music differs from +that of Kreisler in this much, that no friendly pair of snuffers crashes +on to the strings and makes them fly asunder; that, while Kreisler +spoke, our music can only play its fancies and whimsies; and that, +instead of hearing intelligible spoken words, we hear only musical +sounds which are gibberish and chaos. + +For the time when men sought in music only for music's own loveliness +is gone by; and the time has come when all the arts trespass on each +other's ground, and, worst of all, when the arts which can give and show +envy poetry, the art which can neither give nor show but only suggest, +and when, for the sake of such suggestion, they would cheat us of all +the real gifts--gifts of noble forms of line and colour, and sweet woofs +of melody and harmony which they once gave us. The composer now wishes +to make you see and feel all that he sees and feels in his imagination, +the woods and seas, the joys and sorrows, all the confused day-dreams, +sweet and drowsy, all the nightmare orgies which may pass through his +brain; the sound has become the mere vehicle for this, the weak, vague +language which he can only stammer and we can only divine; the artist +breaks violently against the restraint of form, thinking to attain the +unattainable beyond its limits, and sinks down baffled and impotent +amidst ruin. + +We are apt to think of music as of a sort of speech until, on +examination, we find it has no defined meaning either for the speaker or +for the listener. In reality, music and speech are as different and as +separate as architecture and painting, as wholly opposed to each other +as only those two things can be which, having started from the same +point, have travelled in completely opposite directions, like the two +great rivers which, originating on the same alp, flow respectively to +the north, and to the south, each acquiring a separate character on its +way--the one as the blue river of Germany, ending amidst the tide-torn +sandbanks of the North Sea; the other as the green river of Provence, +dying amidst the stagnant pools and fever-haunted marshes of the +Mediterranean. As long as the Rhine and the Rhone are not yet Rhine and +Rhone, but merely pools of snow-water among the glaciers, so long are +they indistinguishable; but as soon as separated into distinct streams, +their dissimilarity grows with every mile of their diverging course. +So as to speech and music: as long as both exist only in embryo in the +confused cries and rude imitations of the child or of the primitive +people, they cannot be distinguished; but as soon as they can be called +either speech or music, they become unlike and increase in dissimilarity +in proportion as they develop. The cry and the imitative sound become, +on the one hand, a word which, however rude, begins to have an arbitrary +meaning, and, on the other hand, a song which, however uncouth, has no +positive meaning; the word, as it develops, acquires a more precise and +abstract signification, becomes more and more of a symbol; the song, as +it develops, loses definite meaning, becomes more and more a complete +unsymbolical form, until at length the word, having become a thing for +use, a mere means of communication, ceases to require vocal utterance, +and turns into a written sign; while the song, having become an object +of mere pleasure, requires more and more musical development, and is +transported from the lips of man to the strings of an instrument. But +while speech and music are thus diverging, while the one is becoming +more and more of an arbitrary symbol conveying an abstract idea, and the +other is growing more and more into an artistic form conveying no idea, +but pleasing the mind merely by its concrete form--while this divergence +is taking place, a corresponding movement accompanies it which removes +both speech and music farther and farther from their common origin: the +cry of passion and the imitative sound. The Rhone and the Rhine are +becoming not only less like each other, but as the one becomes green and +the other blue, so also are both losing all trace of the original dull +white of the snow water. In the word, the cry and the imitation are +being effaced by arbitrary, symbolical use, by that phonetic change +which shows how little a word as it exists for us retains of its +original character; in the song they are being subdued by constant +attempts at obtaining a more distinct and symmetrical shape, by the +development of the single sounds and their arrangement with a view to +pleasing the ear and mind. Yet both retain the power of resuming to a +limited extent their original nature; but in proportion as the word or +the song resumes the characteristics of the cry or of the imitation does +each lose its own slowly elaborated value, the word as a suggester of +thought, the song as a presenter of form. Now, in so far as the word is +a word, or the song a song, its effect on the emotions is comparatively +small: the word can awaken emotion only as a symbol, that is, indirectly +and merely suggestively; the song can awaken emotion only inasmuch as +it yet partakes of the nature of the brute cry or rude imitation. Thus, +while language owes its emotional effects to the ideas arbitrarily +connected with it, music owes its power over the heart to its sensuous +elements as given by nature. But music exists as an art, that is to say, +as an elaboration of the human mind, only inasmuch as those sensuous +brute elements are held in check and measure, are made the slaves of an +intellectual conception. The very first step in the formation of the art +is the subjection of the emotional cry or the spontaneous imitation to +a process of acoustic mensuration, by which the irregular sound becomes +the regular, definite _note_; the second step is the subjection of this +already artificial sound to mensuration of time, by which it is made +rhythmical; the third step is the subjection of this rhythmical sound to +a comparative mensuration with other sounds, by which we obtain harmony; +the last step is adjustment of this artificially obtained note and +rhythm and harmony into that symmetrical and intellectually appreciable +form which constitutes the work of art, for art begins only where the +physical elements are subjected to an intellectual process, and it +exists completely only where they abdicate their independence and become +subservient to an intellectual design. + +Music is made up of two elements: the intellectual and the sensuous on +the one hand, of that which is conceived by the mind and perceived by +the mind (for our ears perceive only the separate constituent sounds of +a tune, but not the tune itself); on the other hand, of that which is +produced by the merely physical and appreciated by the merely physical, +by the nerves of hearing, through which it may, but only indirectly, +affect the mind. Now if, from an artistic point of view, we must protest +against any degradation of the merely sensuous part, it is because such +a degradation would involve a corresponding one in the intellectual +part, because the physical basis must be intact and solid before we can +build on it an intellectual structure, because the physical element +through which mentality is perceived must be perfect in order that the +mental manifestation be equally so; but the physical must always remain +a mere basis, a mere vehicle for the mental. The enjoyment obtainable +from the purely physical part may indeed be very great and very +valuable, but it is a mere physical enjoyment; and the pleasure we +derive from a fine voice, as distinguished from a fine piece or a fine +interpretation, is as wholly unartistic as that which we receive from a +ripe peach or a cool breeze: it is a purely sensuous pleasure, given us +ready-made by nature, to give or to perceive which requires no +mentality, in which there is no human intention, and consequently no +art. Now, the effect of the cry or of the imitation, and that of certain +other manifestations of sound, such as tone, pitch, volume, rhythm, +major or minor intervals, which are cognate with, but independent of, +the cry or the imitation--the effect of all this is an entirely sensuous +one, an effect of unintelligent matter on the nerves, not of calculating +intelligence on the mind, and it is to these physical effects, and not +to the mentally elaborated form, that music owes its peculiar power of +awaking or even of suggesting emotion. + +That this is the case is shown by various circumstances. The ancients, +who, as is now proved beyond dispute, possessed very little of the +intellectual part of music, little of what we should deem its form, +enjoyed its emotional effects to a far higher degree than could we in +our present musical condition; the stories of Timotheus, Terpander, and +other similar ones, being at least founded on fact, as is evident from +the continual allusions of Greek writers to the moral or immoral effect +of the art, and their violent denunciations of people whose only social +crime was to have added a string to a lyre or a hole to a flute. We +ourselves have constant opportunities of remarking the intense emotional +effects due to mere pitch, tone, and rhythm; that is to say, to the +merely physical qualities of number, nature, and repetition of musical +vibrations. We have all been cheered by the trumpet and depressed by the +hautboy; we have felt a wistful melancholy steal over us while listening +to the drone of the bagpipe and the quaver of the flute of the pifferari +at the shrine; we have felt our heart beat and our breath halt on +catching the first notes of an organ as we lifted the entrance curtain +of some great cathedral; we have known nothing more utterly harrowing +than a hurdy-gurdy playing a cheerful tune, or a common accordion +singing out a waltz or a polka. Nay, it is worthy of remark that the +instruments capable of the greatest artistic development are just those +which possess least this power over the nerves: the whole violin and +harpsichord tribe, the human voice when sound and natural--saying least +themselves, are capable of saying most for others; whereas the trumpet, +the accordion, the harp, the zither, are condemned by their very +expressiveness to a hopeless inferiority; they produce an effect +spontaneously by their mere tone; the artist can produce on them but +that effect, and can scarcely heighten even it. A musical critic of the +beginning of this century, Giuseppe Carpani, wishing to defend Rossini +from the accusation of being unemotional, boldly laid down the principle +that it never is the composer who makes people cry, but the author of +the words and the singer. As to the composer, he can only please, but +not move. + + Never (he says) were people more moved than by a certain scene in + Metastasio's _Araserse_, set by Mortellari, and sung by the famous + Pacchierotti (about 1780); and do you think perhaps that it was + Mortellari, who made them cry? Mortellari, the stupidest mediocrity, + _Dio l'abbia in gloria!_ No, it was Metastasio and Pacchierotti, the + verse and the voice. + +This was a mere absurd exaggeration, and a mere captious plea for +Rossini, who, had he only had Metastasio to write the words and +Pacchierotti to sing, would doubtless have moved the whole universe to +tears, with "Di tanti palpiti." Yet in this exaggeration, an important +truth has been struck out. This truth is that the writer of the +libretto, having at his disposal the clear, idea-suggesting word, can +bring up a pathetic situation before the mind; that the singer, having +at his command the physical apparatus for producing an effect on the +nerves, can sensuously awaken emotion; while the composer, possessing +neither the arbitrary idea-suggesting word, nor the nerve-moving sound, +but only the artistic form, can please to the utmost, but move only to a +limited degree. + +Thus, there is a once popular but now deservedly forgotten air in +the _Romeo e Giulietta_ of Zingarelli, which some seventy years ago +possessed the most miraculous power over what people called the heart, +and especially over the not too sensitive one of Napoleon, who, whenever +it was sung by his favourite Crescentini, invariably burst into tears. +The extraordinary part of the matter is that this air happens to be +peculiarly insipid, without any very definite expression, but, on the +whole, of a sort of feeble cheerfulness, and certainly is the last piece +that we should judge capable of such deeply emotional effects. But the +situation of Romeo is an intensely pathetic one, and it is probable +that the singer's voice may have possessed some strange power over the +nerves, something of the purely sensuous pathos of an accordion or a +zither, especially in the long, gradually diminished notes, "fine by +degrees and beautifully less," which move like an AEolian harp. But, if +the pathetic effect of "Ombra adorata" could not be ascribed to the +composition neither could it be ascribed to the interpretation. For +this sensuous pathos, though enhanced by the singer's intellectual +qualities, in no way depends upon them; the intellect can make him +graduate and improve the form of a piece, all that which is perceived by +the mind, but it has no influence on the nerves; Crescentini's musical +intelligence may have enabled him to make "Ombra adorata" a beautiful +song, but only his physical powers of voice could have enabled him to +make it a pathetic one. + +As these physical elements are the material out of which artistic forms +are moulded by the musician, he necessarily deals with and disposes of +those powers over the nerves which are inherent in them. When he creates +a musical form out of minor intervals, he necessarily gives that form +something of the melancholy effect of such intervals; when he composes +a piece with the peculiar rhythm of a march, he necessarily gives his +piece some of the inspiriting power of that rhythm; when he employs +a hautboy or a trumpet, he necessarily lends his work some of the +depressing quality of the hautboy or some of the cheering quality of +the trumpet. Thus the intellectually conceived and perceived forms are +invested with the power over the nerves peculiar to certain of the +physical elements of music; but it is in those component physical +elements, and not in the forms into which they are disposed, that lies +the emotional force of the art. Nor is this all: the physical elements, +inasmuch as they are subdued and regulated and neutralized by one +another in the intellectual form, are inevitably deprived of the full +vigour of their emotional power; the artistic form has tamed and curbed +them, has forbidden their freely influencing the nerves, while at the +same time it--the form--has exerted its full sway over the mind. The +mountains have been hewn into terraces, the forests have been clipped +into gardens, the waves have been constrained into fountains, the +thunder has been tuned down into musical notes; nature has submitted to +man, and has abdicated her power into his hands. The stormy reign of +instinctive feeling has come to an end; the serene reign of art has +begun. + +In order to see these sensuous elements of music in their unmixed +purity, in their unbridled strength, we must descend to the lowest +stages of the art, compared with whose emotional effects those of modern +music are as nothing, and least of all in the classic periods of the +art; but even in modern music, what really strong emotional effects +there may be are due to a momentary suspension of artistic activity, to +a momentary return to the formless, physically touching music of early +ages. The most emotional thing ever written by Mozart is the exclamation +of Donna Elvira, when, after leaving Don Giovanni at his ill-omened +supper, she is met on the staircase by the statue of the commander; this +exclamation is but one high, detached note, formless, meaningless, which +pierces the nerves like a blade; submit even this one note to artistic +action, bid the singer gradually swell and diminish it, and you at once +rob it of its terrible power. This is Mozart's most emotional stroke; +but was a Mozart, nay, was any musician, necessary for its conception? +Would not that cry have been the same if surrounded by true music? A +contrary example, but to the same effect, is afforded by Gluck in his +great scene of Orpheus at the gate of Hades, which may have moved our +great-grandfathers, accustomed to fugues and minuets and _rigaudons_, +but which seems coldly beautiful as some white antique group to us, +accustomed as we are to romantic art. The _No!_ of the Furies loses +all its effects by being worked into a definite musical form, by being +locked into the phrase begun by Orpheus; it is merely a constituent note +and no more, until after some time it is repeated detached, and without +any reference to the main melody sung by Orpheus: at first it is part of +a work of art, later it becomes a mere brute shout, and then, and then +only, does it obtain a really moving character. + +When these potent physical elements are held in subjection by artistic +form, emotion may be suggested, more or less vaguely, but only +suggested: we perceive them in the fabric which imprisons them, and we +perceive their power, but it is as we should perceive the power of a +tiger chained up behind a grating: we remember and imagine what it has +been and might be, but we no longer feel it; for us to again feel it, +the artistic form must be torn down; the physical elements unchained, +and then, and then only, shall we tremble once more before them. Mozart +may be on his door-step as a regiment passes: he may feel the inspiring, +courage-awakening effect of its rough rhythm and discordant, screeching +trumpets: he may go upstairs, sit down to his piano, make use of all +those sensuous elements, of the rhythm and of the wind instruments, +which have stirred him in that regimental music: he may use them in a +piece professedly suggested by that music; the piece will be "Non piu +andrai," and a masterpiece. We shall be reminded of military music by +it, and we shall be aware of the fact that its rhythm and accompaniment +are martial; we shall even call it a martial piece; but will it stir us, +will it make us step out and feel soldier-like as would the coarsest +regimental trumpets? Jommelli may enter a cathedral as the bells are +tolling to mass, and all seems undulating and heaving beneath their +swing; he may feel the awful effect of those simple, shapeless sounds: +he may listen to their suggestion and frame the opening of his Mass for +the Dead on that deep monotonous sway; he will produce a masterpiece, +the wondrous _Introitus_ of his Requiem, in which we shall indeed +recognize something of the solemn rhythm of the bells, something that +will awaken in us the recollection of that moment when the cathedral +towers seemed to rock to their movement, and the aisles re-echoed their +roar, and when even miles away in the open country the clear deep toll +floated across the silent fields; but that effect itself we shall never +hear in the music. The artist has used the already existing emotional +elements for his own purposes, but those purposes are artistic ones; +they aim at delighting the mind, not at tickling the nerves. + +The composer, therefore, inasmuch as he deprives the emotional elements +of music of their freedom and force of action, cannot possibly produce +an effect on the emotions at all to be compared with that spontaneously +afforded by nature; he can imitate the rush of waters or the sob of +despair only so distantly and feebly that the effect of either is +well-nigh lost, and even for such an imitation he must endanger the +artistic value of his work, which is safe only when it is the artist's +sole aim and object. The most that the composer can legitimately do is +to suggest a given emotion by employing in his intellectual structure +such among the physical elements of his art as would in a state of +complete freedom awaken that given emotion; he may choose such sensuous +elements as would inspire melancholy, or joy, or serenity; he may reject +any contrary element or any incongruous effect, and he may thus produce +what we shall call a pathetic piece, or a cheerful piece, or a solemn +piece. + +But this pathetic, cheerful, or solemn character depends not upon the +intellectual forms imagined by the composer, but upon the sensuous +elements afforded by nature; and the artistic activity of the composer +consists in the conception of those forms, not in the selection of those +physical elements. When, therefore, a composer is said to express the +words which he is setting, he does so by means not of the creation +of artistic forms, but by the selection of sensuous materials; the +suggestion of an emotion analogous to that conveyed by the words is due +not to the piece itself, but to its physical constituents; wherefore the +artistic value of the composition in no way depends upon its adaptation +to the words with which it is linked. There is no more common mistake, +nor one which more degrades artistic criticism, than the supposition +that the merit of "He was despised and rejected of men," or of "Fin +ch'an del vino," depends upon their respective suitableness to the +words: the most inferior musician would perceive that such and such +physical elements were required to suggest a mental condition in harmony +with either of these verbal expressions of feeling; the most inferior +musician could have given us a piece as melancholy as "He was despised," +or as cheerful as "Fin ch'an del vino," but--and here lies the unique +test of artistic worth--only Handel could have given us so beautiful a +melancholy piece as the one, and only Mozart so beautiful a cheerful +piece as the other. As it is with the praise, so likewise is it with the +blame: a composer who sets a cheerful piece to dismal words, or a dismal +piece to cheerful words, may be reprehensible for not reflecting that +the mind thus receives together two contrary impressions, and he may be +condemned for want of logic and good sense; but not a word can be said +against his artistic merit, any more than we could say a word against +the artistic merit of the great iron-worker of the Renaissance, who +closed the holy place where lies the Virgin's sacred girdle with a +screen of passion flowers, in whose petals hide goats and ducks, on +whose tendrils are balanced pecking cranes, and in the curling leaves of +which little naked winged Cupids are drawing their bows and sharpening +their arrows even as in the bas-reliefs of a pagan sarcophagus. In the +free and spontaneous activity of musical conception, the composer may +forget the words he is setting, as the painter may forget the subject +he is painting in the fervour of plastic imagination; for the musician +conceives not emotions, but modulations; and the painter conceives not +actions, but gestures and attitudes. Thence it comes that Mozart has +made regicide Romans storm and weep as he would have made Zerlina and +Cherubino laugh, just as Titian made Magdalen smite her breast in +the wilderness with the smile of Flora on her feast-day; hence that +confusion in all save form, that indifference to all save beauty, which +characterises all the great epochs of art, that sublime jumble of times +and peoples, of tragic and comic, that motley crowding together of +satyrs and anchorites, of Saracens and ancient Romans, of antique +warriors and mediaeval burghers, of Gothic tracery and Grecian arabesque, +of Theseus and Titania, of Puck and Bottom, that great masquerade of art +which we, poor critics, would fain reduce to law and rule, to +chronological and ethnological propriety. + +Those times are gone by: we wish to make every form correspond with an +idea; we wish to be told a story by the statue, by the picture, most of +all by that which can least tell it--by music. We forget that music is +neither a symbol which can convey an abstract thought, nor a brute cry +which can express an instinctive feeling; we wish to barter the power +of leaving in the mind an indelible image of beauty for the miserable +privilege of awakening the momentary recollection of one of nature's +sounds, or the yet more miserable one of sending a momentary tremor +through the body; we would rather compare than enjoy, and rather weep +than admire. Therefore we try to force music to talk a language which +it does not speak and which we do not understand; and succeed only in +making it babble like a child or rave like a madman, obtaining nothing +but unintelligible and incoherent forms in our anxiety to obtain +intelligible and logical thoughts. We forget that great fact, forever +overlooked by romanticism, that poetry and music are essentially +distinct in their nature; that Chapelmaster Kreisler's improvisation was +not played but spoken; and that had not the snuffers fallen into the +piano, had not the strings snapped asunder, Hoffmann would have had to +record, not a grandly grotesque series of images, but a succession of +formless and meaningless chords. + + + + +CHERUBINO. + +A PSYCHOLOGICAL ART FANCY. + + +It is a strange and beautiful fact that whatsoever is touched by genius, +no matter how humble in itself, becomes precious and immortal. This +wrinkled old woman is merely one of thousands like herself, who have sat +and will sit by the great porcelain stove of the Dutch backshop, their +knitting or their bible on their knees. There is nothing to make her +recollected; yet we know her after two centuries, even as if we had +seen her alive, because, with a few blurred lines and shadows hastily +scratched on his etching plate, it pleased the whim of Master Rembrandt +to pourtray her. And this little commonplace Frankfurt shopkeeper's +maiden, in her stiff little cap and starched frill, who should remember +her? Yet she is familiar to us all, because she struck the boyish fancy +of Goethe. For even as the fact of its once having sparkled on the +waistcoat of Mozart makes us treasure up a tarnished brass button; +and as the notion of their having been planted by the hand of Michael +Angelo made us mourn the cutting down of a clump of sear and rusty +old cypresses, so also the fact of having been noticed, noted down by +genius, with brush, or pen, or chisel, makes into relics men and things +which would else have been forgotten; because the stroke of that pen, +or brush, or chisel removes them from the perishable world of reality +to the deathless world of fancy. Nay, even the beautiful things, the +perfect, physically or morally, of the world, those which called forth +admiration and love as long as they existed: Antinous and Monna Lisa, +Beatrice and Laura, would now be but a handful of nameless dust, were +it not for the artists and poets who have made them live again and +for ever: the deeds and sufferings of the Siegfrieds and Cids, of the +Desdemonas and Francescas, would have died away had they not been +filched out of the world of reality into the world of fiction. And +even as the perishable, the humble, the insignificant reality becomes +enduring and valuable by the touch of genius; so also in the very world +of fiction itself the intellectual creations of one man may be raised to +infinitely higher regions by the hand of another, may be transported +into the kingdom of another and nobler art, and there be seen more +universally and surrounded by a newly acquired radiance. In this manner +the tale of Romeo and Juliet, graciously and tenderly narrated by the +old Italian story-teller, was transfigured by Shakespeare and enshrined +in all the splendours of Elizabethan poetry; the figure of Psyche, +delicately graceful in the little romance of Apuleius, reappeared, +enlarged and glorified by the hand of Raphael, on the walls of the +Farnesina; and thus also our Cherubino, the fanciful and brilliant +creature of Beaumarchais, is known to most of us far less in his +original shape than in the vague form woven out of subtle melodies +to which Mozart has given the page's name. Mozart has, as it were, +taken away Cherubino from Beaumarchais; he has, for the world at +large, substituted for the page of the comedy the page of the opera. +Beaumarchais could give us clear-spoken words, dialogue and action, a +visible and tangible creature; and Mozart could give only a certain +arrangement of notes, a certain amount of rhythm and harmony, a vague, +speechless, shapeless thing; yet much more than the written words do +those notes represent to our fancy the strange and fascinating little +figure, the wayward, the amorous, the prankish, the incarnation of +childishness, of gallantry, of grace, of fun, and of mischief, the +archetype of pages--the page Cherubino. What could music do for +Cherubino? of what means could it dispose to reproduce this type, this +figure? and how did, how should music have disposed of those means? +About this fantastic and brilliant little jackanapes of a page centres a +curious question of artistic anomaly, of artistic power, and of artistic +duty. + +The part of Cherubino: the waywardness, the love, the levity, the +audacity, the timidity, the maturity and immaturity of the page's +feelings, are all concentrated by the admirable ingenuity of the +Venetian D'Aponte, who arranged Beaumarchais's play for Mozart's music, +into one air, the air sung by Cherubino in that very equivocal interview +with the Countess and Susanna, so rudely to be broken by the thundering +rap of the Count at the door. The air is "Voi che sapete"--Cherubino's +description, half to the noble and sentimental lady, half to the +flippant and laughing waiting-maid, of the curious symptoms, the +mysterious hankerings, and attractions which the boy has of late begun +to experience--symptoms of which he is half ashamed, as calculated to +bring down laughter and boxes on the ear, and half proud, mischievously +conscious that they make him a personage for all this womankind. Every +one has heard "Voi che sapete" sung a hundred times by dozens of singers +in dozens of fashions, till it has become in the recollection a sort of +typical jumble of all these various readings; but we once chanced to +hear a reading of "Voi che sapete" which has remained strangely distinct +and separate in our remembrance; which made that performance of the +hackneyed piece remain isolated in our mind, almost as if the air +had never before or never since been heard by us. The scene of the +performance has remained in our memory as a whole, because the look, +the attitude, the face of the performer seemed to form a whole, a unity +of expression and character, with the inflexions of the voice and the +accentuation of the words. She was standing by the piano: a Spanish +Creole, but, instead of the precocious, overblown magnificence of +tropical natures, with a something almost childlike despite seriousness, +something inflexible, unexpanded, unripe about her; quite small, +slender, infinitely slight and delicate; standing perfectly straight +and motionless in her long, tight dress of ashy rose colour; her little +dark head with its tight coils of ebony hair perfectly erect; her great +dark violet-circled eyes, with their perfect ellipse of curved eyebrow +meeting curved eyelash, black and clear against the pale, ivory-tinted +cheek, looking straight before her; self-unconscious, concentrated, +earnest, dignified, with only a faint fluttering smile, to herself, not +to the audience, about the mouth. She sang the page's song in a strange +voice, sweet and crisp, like a Cremonese violin, with a bloom of youth, +scarcely mature yet perfect, like the honey dust of the vine-flower; +sang the piece with an unruffled serenity, with passion, no limpness or +languor, but passion restrained, or rather undeveloped; with at most a +scarcely perceptible hesitation and reticence of accent, as of budding +youthful emotion; her voice seeming in some unaccountable manner to move +in a higher, subtler stratum of atmosphere, as it dextrously marked, +rounded off, kissed away each delicate little phrase. When she had done, +she gave a slight bow with her proud little head, half modestly and half +contemptuously, as, with her rapid, quiet movement, she resumed her +seat; she probably felt that despite the applause, her performance +did not really please. No one criticised, for there was something +that forbade criticism in this solemn little creature; and every one +applauded, for every one felt that her singing had been admirable. But +there was no warmth of admiration, no complete satisfaction: she had +sung with wonderful delicacy and taste and feeling; her performance had +been exquisitely finished, perfect; but something familiar, something +essential had been missing. She had left out Cherubino: she had +completely forgotten and passed over the page. + +How was it? How could it be that the something which we felt was the +nature of the page, the something which even the coarsest, poorest +performers had brought out in this piece, had completely disappeared in +this wonderfully perfect rendering by this subtle little singer? Perhaps +the rendering had been only materially perfect: perhaps it was merely +the exquisite tone of the voice, the wonderful neatness of execution +which had given it an appearance of completeness; perhaps the real +meaning of the music had escaped her; perhaps there was behind all this +perfection of execution only a stolid dulness of nature, to which the +genius of Mozart was not perceptible. None of all these possibilities +and probabilities: the chief characteristic of the performance was +exactly the sense of perfect musical intuition, of subtle appreciation +of every little intonation, the sense that this docile and exquisite +physical instrument was being played upon by a keen and unflinching +artistic intelligence. The more you thought over it, the more you +compared this performance with any other performance of the piece, the +more also did you feel convinced that this was the right, the only right +reading of the piece; that this strange, serious little dark creature +had given you the whole, the perfection of Mozart's conception; no, +there could be no doubt of it, this and this alone was Mozart's idea of +"Voi che sapete." Mozart's idea? the whole of Mozart's conception? +here, in this delicate, dignified, idyllic performance? The whole? Why +then, where, if this was the whole of Mozart's conception, where was +Cherubino, where was the page? Why, nowhere. Now that the song had been +presented to us in its untampered perfection, that the thought of +the composer was clear to us--now that we could begin to analyse the +difference between this performance and the performances of other +singers--we began to see, vaguely at first and not without doubts of our +powers of sight, but to see, and more and more distinctly the longer +we looked, that Cherubino was not in Mozart's work, but merely in +Beaumarchais. A very singular conclusion to arrive at, but one not to +be shirked: Cherubino had passed into the words of Mozart's Italian +libretto, he had passed into the dress, the face, the feature, the +action of the thousands of performers who had sung the "Marriage of +Figaro" on the stage; but he had not passed into Mozart's notes; and +because he had not entered into those notes, that subtle and serious +little Spaniard, who had seen and understood so well the meaning and +beauty of Mozart's music, had known nothing of Cherubino. + +Now, after all this discussion respecting his presence and his absence, +let us stay awhile and examine into the being of this Cherubino, so +familiar and so immediately missed by us; let us look at the page, whom +the clever playwright D'Aponte transported, with extraordinary success, +out of the French comedy into the Italian opera text. Very familiar to +all of us, yet, like the things most familiar, rather vaguely; seen +often and in various lights, fluctuating consequently in our memory, as +distinguished from the distinct and steadfast image of things seen only +once and printed off at a stroke on to our mind. At the first glance, +when we see him sitting at the feet of the Countess, singing her his +love songs, he seems a delicate poetic exotic, whose presence takes us +quite aback in the midst of the rouged and pigtailed philosophy, the +stucco and tinsel sentimentality of the French eighteenth century. In +these rooms, all decorated by Boucher and Fragonard, in this society +redolent with the theories of Diderot and the jests of Voltaire, this +page, this boy who is almost a girl, with his ribbons and his ballads, +his blushes, his guitar, and his rapier, appears like a thing of +long past days, or of far distant countries; a belated brother of +Shakspeare's Cesario and Fletcher's Bellario, a straggler from the +Spain of Lope de Vega, who has followed M. Caron de Beaumarchais, +ex-watchmaker and ex-musicmaster to Mesdames the daughters of Louis +XV., from Madrid, and leaped suddenly on to the planks of the Comedie +Francaise ... a ghost of some mediaeval boy page, some little Jehan de +Saintre killed crusading with his lady's name on his lips. Or is not +Cherubino rather a solitary forerunner of romanticism, stumbled untimely +into this France of Marie Antoinette; some elder brother of Goethe's +Mignon ... nay, perhaps Mignon herself, disguised as or metamorphosed +into a boy.... But let us look well at him: let him finish his song and +raise his audacious eyes; let him rise and be pulled to and fro, bashful +with false bashfulness half covering his mischievous, monkish impudence, +while Susanna is mumming him up in petticoats and kerchiefs; let us look +at him again now, and we shall see that he is no Jehan de Saintre, no +male Mignon, no Viola in boy's clothes, no sweetly pure little romantic +figure, but an impertinent, precocious little Lovelace, a serio-comic +little jackanapes, sighing and weeping only to giggle and pirouette +on his heels the next moment. From the Countess he will run to the +gardener's daughter, from her to the waiting-maid, to the duenna, to all +womankind; he is a professed lady-killer and woman-teaser of thirteen. +There is indeed something graceful and romantic in the idea of this +pretty child consoling, with his poetical, absurd love, the poor, +neglected, ill-used lady. But then he has been smuggled in by that +dubious Abigail, Susanna; the sentimental, melancholy Countess is amused +by dressing him up in women's clothes; and when, in the midst of the +masquerade, the voice of the Count is heard without, the page is huddled +away into a closet, his presence is violently denied, and the Countess +admits her adored though fickle lord with a curious, conscious, +half-guilty embarrassment. We feel vaguely that Shakspeare would never +have introduced his boy Ganymede or his page Cesario into that +dressing-room of the Countess Almaviva; that the archly jesting Maria +would never have dreamed of amusing the Lady Olivia with such mummings; +we miss in this proudly sentimental lady, in this sly waiting-woman, in +this calf-loving dressed-up boy the frank and boisterous merriment of +Portia and Nerissa in their escapades and mystifications; there is in +all this too much locking of doors and drawing of curtains, too much +whispered giggling, too little audible laughter; there hangs an +indefinable sense of impropriety about the whole scene. No, no, this is +no delicate and gracious young creature of the stock of Elizabethan +pages, no sweet exotic in the France of 1780; this Cherubino is merely a +graceful, coquettish little Greuze figure, with an equivocal simplicity, +an ogling _naivete_, a smirking bashfulness, a hidden audacity of +corruption; a creature of Sterne or Marivaux, tricked out in imitation +Mediaeval garb, with the stolen conscious wink of the eye, the would-be +childlike smile, tinged with leer, of eighteenth century gallantry. He +is an impertinent, effeminate, fondled, cynical little jackanapes; the +youngest, childish, monkeyish example, at present merely comic and +contemptible, of the miserable type of young lovers given to France by +the eighteenth century; the _enfant du siecle_, externally a splendid, +brilliant, triumphant success, internally a miserable, broken, unmanned +failure; the child initiated into life by cynicism, the youth educated +to love by adultery; corrupt unripeness; the most miserable type of +demoralisation ever brought into literature, the type of Fortunio +and Perdican, and of their author Alfred de Musset; a type which +the Elizabethans, with their Claudios and Giovannis, could not have +conceived; which the Spaniards, with their Don Juans and Ludovic Enios, +would have despised, they who had brought on to the stage profligacy +which bearded death and hell, turning with contempt from profligacy +which could be chastised only with the birch. Cherubino is this: his +love is no poetic and silly passion for a woman much older than +himself, before whom he sinks on his knees as before a goddess; it +is the instinct of the lady-killer, the instinct of adventures, the +consciousness in this boy of thirteen that all womankind is his destined +prey, his game, his quarry. And womankind instinctively understands and +makes the Lovelace of thirteen its darling, its toy, its kitten, its pet +monkey, all whose grimacings and coaxings and impertinences may be +endured, enjoyed, encouraged. He is the graceful, brilliant, apish Ariel +or Puck of the society whose Mirandas and Titanias are Julie and Manon +Lescaut; he is the page of the French eighteenth century. + +Such is, when we analyse him, the page Cherubino; looking at him +carelessly, with the carelessness of familiarity, these various +peculiarities escape our notice; they merge into each other and into the +whole figure. But although we do not perceive them consciously and in +detail, we take in, vaguely and unconsciously, their total effect: we do +not analyse Cherubino and classify his qualities, we merely take him in +as a general type. And it is this confused and familiar entity which we +call the page, and which we expect to have brought home to us as soon as +we hear the first notes, as we see the title of "Voi che sapete." It is +this entity, this character thus vaguely conceived, which forms for us +an essential part of Mozart's music; and whose absence from that music +made us feel as if, despite the greatest musical perfection, Mozart's +idea were not completely given to us. Yet, in reality, this psychological +combination called Cherubino does not exist in the work of Mozart. It +exists only by the side of it. We speak of the "Marriage of Figaro" as +Mozart's work; we are accustomed to think of the Countess, of Figaro, +of Susanna, of Cherubino as belonging to Mozart; but in reality only +one half of the thing we call the "Marriage of Figaro" belongs to +Mozart--that half which consists in melodies and harmonies; and as +it happens, it is not in that, but in the other half belonging to +Beaumarchais and D'Aponte, the half consisting of words and their +suggestions of character, of expression and of movement, that really +exists, either the Countess, or Figaro, or Susanna, or Cherubino. Those +notes, which alone are Mozart's and which are nothing more than notes, +have been heard by us in the mouths of many women dressed and acting as +Beaumarchais's characters; they have been heard by us associated to the +words of Beaumarchais; they have been heard delivered with the dramatic +inflections suggested not by themselves but by those words; and thus, by +mere force of association, of slovenly thought and active fancy, we are +accustomed to consider all these characters as existing in the music of +Mozart, as being part and parcel of Mozart's conception; and when we +are presented with those notes, which, to the musician Mozart, were +merely notes without those dramatic inflections suggested solely by +Beaumarchais's words, when we hear in "Voi che sapete" only Mozart's +half of the work, we are disappointed and indignant, and cry out that +the composer's idea has been imperfectly rendered. + +Cherubino, we say, is not in Mozart's half of the work; he is in the +words, not in the music. Is this a fault or a merit? is it impotence +in the art or indifference in the artist? Could Mozart have given us +Cherubino? and if able, ought he to have given him? The question is +double; a question of artistic dynamics, and a question of artistic +ethics: the question what can art do; and the question what art ought +to do. The first has been answered by the scientific investigations +of our own scientific times; the second has been answered by the +artistic practice of the truly artistic days of music. The questions are +strangely linked together, and yet strangely separate; and woe betide us +if we receive the answer to the one question as the answer to the other; +if we let the knowledge of what things are serve us instead of the +instinct of what things should do; if we let scientific analysis step +into the place of ethical or aesthetical judgment; and if, in the domain +of art or of morals we think to substitute a system of alembics and +microscopes for that strange intangible mechanism which science tells us +does not exist, and which indeed science can never see or clutch, our +soul. For science has a singular contempt for all that is without its +domain; it seeks for truth, but when truth baffles and eludes it, +science will turn towards falsehood; it will deny what it cannot prove, +and call God himself a brain-phantom because he cannot be vivisected. +So, when logic, which can solve only logical propositions, remains +without explanation before the dicta of the moral and aesthetic parts of +us, it simply denies the existence of such dicta and replaces them by +its own formulae; if we ask for the aim of things and actions, it tells +us their origin; if we trustingly ask when we should admire beauty and +love virtue, it drops the rainbow into its crucible to discover its +chemical components, and dissects the brain of a saint to examine the +shape of its convolutions; it meets admiration and love with experiment +and analysis, and, where we are required to judge, tells us we can only +examine. Thus, as in ethics, so also in aesthetics, modern philosophy +has given us the means instead of the aim, the analysis instead of the +judgment; let us therefore ask it only how much of human character and +emotion music _can_ express; the question how much of it music _ought_ +to express must be answered by something else: by that artistic instinct +whose composition and mechanism and origin scientific psychology may +perhaps some day explain, but whose unformulated, inarticulate, +half-unconscious dicta all the scientific and logical formulae in the +world can never replace. As yet, however, we have to deal only with the +question how much of human character and emotion music can express, and +by what means it does so; and here modern psychology, or rather the +genius of Herbert Spencer, is able to answer us. Why does dance music +cheer us, and military music inspirit us, and sacred music make us +solemn? A vague sense of the truth made aestheticians answer, for +well-nigh two centuries, "by the force of association." Dance music +cheers us because we are accustomed to hear it in connection with +laughing and quips and cranks; military music inspirits us because we +are accustomed to hear it in connection with martial movements and +martial sights; sacred music depresses us because we are accustomed to +hear it at moments when we are contemplating our weakness and mortality; +'tis a mere matter of association. To this easy-going way of disposing +of the problem there was an evident and irrefutable objection: but why +should we be accustomed to hear a given sort of music in connection with +these various conditions of mind? Why should dance music, and martial +music, and sacred music all have a perfectly distinct character, which +forbade, from the very first, their being exchangeable? If it is a +matter of association of ideas, tell us why such characters could have +been kept distinct before the association of ideas could have begun to +exist? To this objection there was no reply; the explanation of musical +expression by means of association of ideas seemed utterly hollow; yet +the confused idea of such an association persisted. For it was, after +all, the true explanation. If we ask modern psychology the reason of the +specific characters of the various sorts of music, we shall again be +answered: it is owing to the association of ideas. But the two answers, +though apparently identical, are in fact radically different. The habit +of association existed, according to the old theory, between various +mental conditions and various sorts of music, because the two were +usually found in connection; hence no explanation why, before habit had +created the association, there should have been any connection, and, +there being no connection, no explanation why the habit and consequently +the mental association should ever have been formed. According to the +modern theory, on the contrary, the habit of association is not between +the various mental conditions and the various styles of music; but +between specific mental conditions and specific sounds and movements, +which sounds and movements, being employed as the constituent elements +of music, give to the musical forms into which they have been +artistically arranged that inevitable suggestion of a given mental +condition which is due to memory, and become, by repetition during +thousands of years, an instinct ingrained in the race and inborn in the +individual, a recognition rapid and unconscious, that certain audible +movements are the inevitable concomitants of certain moral conditions. +The half-unconscious memory become part and parcel of the human mind, +that, just as certain mental conditions induce a movement in the muscles +which brings tears into the eye or a knot into the throat, so also +certain audible movements are due to the muscular tension resulting from +mental buoyancy, and certain others to the muscular relaxation due to +mental depression, this half-unconscious memory, this instinct, this +inevitable association of ideas, generated long before music existed +even in the most rudimentary condition, carried with the various +elements of pitch, movement, sonority, and proportion into the musical +forms constructed out of these elements, this unconscious association +of ideas, this integrated recollection of the inevitable connection +between certain sounds and certain passions is the one main cause and +explanation of the expressiveness of music. And when to it we have added +the conscious perception, due to actual comparison, of the resemblance +between certain modes of musical delivery and certain modes of ordinary +speaking accentuation, between certain musical movements and certain +movements of the body in gesticulation; when we have completed the +instinctive recognition of passion, which makes us cry or jump, we know +not why, by the rapidly reasoned recognition of resemblance between the +utterance of the art and the utterance of human life, which, when we +listen for instance to a recitative, makes us say, "This sentence is +absolutely correct in expression," or, "No human being ever said such +a thing in such a manner;" when we have the instinctive perception of +passion, and the conscious perception of imitation; and we have added to +these two the power of tone and harmony, neither of them connected in +any way with the expression of emotion, but both rendering us, by their +nervous stimulant, infinitely more sensitive to its expression; when we +have all this, we have all the elements which the musician can employ to +bring home to us a definite state of mind; all the mysterious unspoken, +unwritten words by means of which Mozart can describe to us what +Beaumarchais has described in clear, logical, spoken, written words--the +page Cherubino. + +Now let us see how much of Cherubino can be shown us by these mere +musical means. Cherubino is childish, coquettish, sentimental, amorous, +timid, audacious, fickle; he is self-conscious and self-unconscious, +passionately troubled in mind, impudently cool in manner; he is brazen, +calm, shy, fluttered; all these things together. Sometimes in rapid +alternation, sometimes all together in the same moment; and in all this +he is perfectly consistent, he is always one and the same creature. +How does the playwright contrive to make us see all this? By means +of combinations of words expressing one or more of these various +characteristics, by subtle phrases woven out of different shades of +feeling, which glance in irridescent hues like a shot silk, which are +both one thing and another; by means also of various emotions cunningly +adapted to the exact situation, from the timid sentimentality before the +countess, down to the audacious love-making with the waiting-maid; by +means, in short, of a hundred tiny strokes, of words spoken by the page +and of the page, by means of dexterously combined views of the boy +himself, and of the reflection of the boy in the feelings of those who +surround him. Thus far the mere words in the book; but these words +in the book suggest a thousand little inflections of voice, looks, +gestures, movements, manners of standing and walking, flutter of lips +and sparkle of eyes, which exist clear though imaginary in the mind of +the reader, and become clearer, visible, audible in the concrete +representation of the actor. + +Thus Cherubino comes to exist. A phantom of the fancy, a little figure +from out of the shadow land of imagination, but present to our mind as +is this floor upon which we tread, alive as is this pulse throbbing +within us. Ask the musician to give us all this with his mere pitch, +and rhythm and harmony and sonority; bid him describe all this in his +language. Alas! in the presence of such a piece of work the musician is +a mere dumb cripple, stammering unintelligible sounds, tottering through +abortive gestures, pointing we know not whither, asking we know not for +what. Passionate music? And is not Othello passionate? Coquettish music? +and is not Susanna coquettish? Tender music? and is not Orpheus tender? +Cool music? and is not Judas Maccabaeus cool? Impudent music? And is not +the snatch of dance tune of a Parisian grisette impudent? And which of +these sorts of music shall fit our Cherubino, be our page? Shall we +fuse, in wonderful nameless abomination of nonsense, all these different +styles, these different suggestions, or shall, as in a masquerade, +this dubious Cherubino never seen with his own face and habit, appear +successively in the musical trappings of Othello, of Orpheus, of +Susanna, of Judas Maccabaeus, and of the Grisette? Shall we, by means of +this fusion, or this succession of musical incongruities, have got one +inch nearer to Cherubino? Shall we, in listening to the mere wordless +combination of sounds, be able to say, as we should with the book or the +actors before us, this is Cherubino? What, then, can music give us, with +all its powers of suggestion and feeling, if it cannot give us this? +It can give us one thing, not another: it can give us emotion, but it +cannot give us the individual whom the emotion possesses. With its +determined relations between the audible movement and the psychical +movement, it can give us only musical gesture, but never musical +portrait; the gesture of composure or of violence, the solemn tread of +self-possessed melody, the scuffling of frantically rushing up and down, +of throbbing, quivering, gasping, passion-broken musical phrases; it can +give us the rhythm which prances and tosses in victory, and the rhythm +which droops, and languishes, and barely drags itself along for utter +despair. All this it can give us, even as the painter can give the +ecstatic bound-forwards of Signorelli's "Calling of the Blessed," or +the weary, dreary enfolding in gloomy thought of Michael Angelo's +"Jeremiah:" this much, which we can only call gesture, and which +expresses only one thing, a mood. Let the hopeful heroes of Signorelli, +stretching forth impetuous arms towards Paradise, only lose sight of the +stately viol-playing angels who guide them, let them suddenly see above +them the awful sword of the corsleted Angel of Judgment, and they will +sink, and grovel, and writhe and their now up-turned faces will be +draggled in the dust; let the trumpet of warfare and triumph shrill in +the ear of Michael Angelo's "Jeremiah," and the dreary dream will be +shaken off; he will leap up, and the compressed hand-gagged mouth will +open with the yell of battle; let only the emotion change, and the whole +gesture, the attitude, plastic or musical, must change also; the already +existing, finite, definite work will no longer suffice; we must have a +new picture, or statue, or piece of music. And in these inexplicit arts +of mere suggestion, we cannot say, as in the explicit art of poetry, +this grovelling wretch is a proud and hopeful spirit; this violent +soldier is a vague dreamer; this Othello, who springs on Desdemona +like a wild beast, loves her as tenderly as a mother does her child. +Unliterary art, plastic or musical, is inexorable: the man who grovels +is no proud man; the man who fells down to the right and left, is no +dreamer; the man whose whole soul is wrath and destruction, is no lover; +the mood is the mood; art can give only it; and the general character, +the connection between moods, the homogeneous something which pervades +every phase of passion, however various, escapes the powers of all save +the art which can speak and explain. How then obtain our Cherubino, our +shiftiest and most fickle of pages? How? Why, by selecting just one of +his very many moods, the one which is nearest allied to fickleness and +volubility; the mood which must most commonly be the underlying, the +connecting one, the mood into which all his swagger and sentiment sooner +or later resolve; the tone of voice into which his sobs will quickest be +lost, the attitude which will soonest replace the defiant strut; the +frame of mind which, though one and indivisible itself, is the nearest +to instability: levity. + +Let Cherubino sing words of tenderness and passion, of audacity and +shyness, to only one sort of music, to light and careless music; let the +jackanapes be for ever before us, giggling and pirouetting in melody and +rhythm; it will not be Cherubino, the whole Cherubino; it will be only +a miserable fragmentary indication of him, but it will be the right +indication; the psychological powers of music do not go far, but thus +far they can go. Analysis of the nature of musical expression has shown +us how much it may accomplish; the choice of the artist alone can tell +us how much it should accomplish; the scientific investigation is at an +end, the artistic judgment must begin. Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus +Mozart, here are your means of musical expression, and here is the thing +to be expressed; on careful examination it appears distinctly that the +only way in which, with your melodies, rhythms, and harmonies, you +can give us, not a copy, but a faint indicative sketch, something +approaching the original as much as four lines traced in the alley sand +of your Schloss Mirabell Gardens at Salzburg resemble the general aspect +of the Mirabell Palace; that the only way in which you can give us such +a distantly approximative.... + +Signor Maestro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vice-Chapelmaster of His Most +Reverend Highness the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, has meanwhile sat +down at his table near his thin-legged spinet, with the bird-cage above +and the half-emptied beer-glass at his side; and his pen is going +scratch, scratch, scratch as loud as possible. + +"The only way in which you can possibly give us such a distantly +approximative copy of the page Cherubino as shown" ... (Scratch, +scratch, scratch goes the pen on the rough music paper), "as shown in +the words of Beaumarchais and of your librettist D'Aponte, is to compose +music of the degree of levity required to express the temper +_jackanapes_." + +The Chapelmaster Mozart's pen gives an additional triumphant creak as +its point bends in the final flourish of the word _finis_; Chapelmaster +Mozart looks up-- + +"What was that you were saying about jackanapes? Oh, yes, to be sure, +you were saying that literary folks who try to prescribe to musicians +are jackanapes, weren't you? Now, do me the favour, when you go out, +just take this to the theatre copyist; they are waiting in a hurry +for Cherubino's song.... Yes, that was all very interesting about the +jackanapes and all the things music can express.... Who would have +thought that musical expression is all that? Lord, Lord, what a fine +thing it is to have a reasoning head and know all about the fundamental +moods of people's characters! My dear sir, why don't you print a +treatise on the musical interpretation of the jackanapes and send it to +the University of Vienna for a prize? that would be a treatise for you! +Only do be a good creature and take this song at once to the copyist.... +I assure you I consider you the finest musical philosopher in +Christendom." + +The blotted, still half-wet sheet of note paper is handed across by +Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is the manuscript of "Voi che +sapete." + +"But dearest Chapelmaster Mozart, the air which you have just written +appears to be not in the least degree light--it is even extremely +sentimental. How can you, with such phrases, express the Cherubino of +Beaumarchais?" + +"And who, my dear Mr. Music Philosopher, who the deuce told you that I +wanted to express the Cherubino of Beaumarchais?" + +Chapelmaster Mozart, rising from his table, walks up and down the room +with his hands crossed beneath his snuff-coloured coat-tails, humming to +himself-- + + Voi che sapete che cosa e amor, + Donne, vedete s'io l'ho nel cor, + +and stops before the cage hanging in the window, and twitching the +chickweed through the wires, says-- + +"Twee! twee! isn't that a fine air we have just composed, little +canary-bird, eh?" + +"Twee! twee!" answers the canary. + +Mozart has willed it so: there is no possible appeal against his +decision; his artistic sense would not listen to our logic; our +arguments could not attain him, for he simply shook from off his feet +the dust of logic-land, and calmly laughed defiance from the region of +artistic form, where he had it all his own way, and into which we poor +wretches can never clamber. So here is the page's song irrevocably +sentimental; and Mozart has been in his grave ninety years; and we know +not why, but we do shrink from calling in Offenbach or Lecocq to rewrite +that air in true jackanapsian style. What can be done? There still +remains another hope. + +For the composer, as we have seen, could give us--as could the painter +or the sculptor--only one mood at a time; for he could give us only one +homogeneous artistic form. But this artistic form exists so far only in +the abstract, in the composer's brain or on the paper. To render it +audible we require the performer; on the performer depends the real, +absolute presence of the work; or, rather, to the performer is given +the task of creating a second work, of applying on to the abstract +composition the living inflexions and accentuations of the voice. And +here, again, the powers of musical expression, of awaking association +by means of sounds or manner of giving out sounds such as we recognize, +automatically or consciously, to accompany the emotion that is to +be conveyed; here again these powers are given to the artist to do +therewith what he choose. This second artist, this performer, is not +so free indeed as the first artist, the composer; he can longer choose +among the large means of expression the forms of melody and rhythm, the +concatenation of musical phrases; but there are still left to him the +minor modes of expression, the particular manner of setting forth these +musical forms, of treating this rhythm; the notes are there, and their +general relations to one another, but on him depends the choice of the +relative stress on the notes, of the tightening or slackening of their +relations; of the degree of importance to be given to the various +phrases. The great outline cartoon is there, but the cunning lights and +shades, transitions, abrupt or insensible, from tint to tint, still +remain to be filled up. A second choice of mood is left to the singer. +And see! here arises a strange complication: the composer having in his +work chosen one mood, and the singer another, we obtain in the fusion or +juxtaposition of the two works, of the two moods, that very thing we +desired, that very shimmer and oscillation of character which the poet +could give, that dualism of nature required for Cherubino. What +is Cherubino? A sentimental jackanapes. Mozart in his notes has +given us the sentiment, and now we can get the levity from the +performer--unthought-of combination, in which the very irrational, +illogical choice made by the composer will help us. Here are Mozart's +phrases, earnest, tender, noble--Mozart's love song fit for a Bellario +or a Romeo; now let this be sung quickly, lightly, with perverse musical +head-tossing and tripping and ogling, let this passion be gabbled out +flippantly, impudently--and then, in this perfect mixture of the noble +and ignoble, of emotion and levity, of poetry and prose, we shall +have, at last, the page of Beaumarchais. A brilliant combination, a +combination which, thus reasoned out, seems so difficult to conceive; +yet one which the instinct of half, nay, of nearly all the performers in +creation would suggest. A page? A jackanapes? Sing the music as befits +him; giggle and ogle, and pirouette, and languish out Mozart's music: an +universal idea now become part and parcel of tradition: the only new +version possible being to give more or less of the various elements of +giggling, ogling, pirouetting, and languishing; to slightly vary the +style of jackanapes. + +But no, another version did remain possible: that strange version given +by that strange solemn little Spanish singer, after whose singing of +"Voi che sapete" we all felt dissatisfied, and asked each other, "What +has she done with the page?" That wonderful reading of the piece in +which every large outline was so grandly and delicately traced, every +transition so subtly graduated or marked, every little ornament made to +blossom out beneath the touch of the singular crisp, sweet voice: that +reading which left out the page. Was it the blunder of an idealess vocal +machine? or the contradictory eccentricity of a seeker after impossible +novelty? Was it simply the dullness of a sullen, soulless little singer? +Surely not. She was neither an idealess vocal machine, nor a crotchetty +seeker for new readings, nor a soulless sullen little creature; she was +a power in art. A power, alas! wasted for ever, of little or no profit +to others or herself; a beautiful and delicate artistic plant uprooted +just as it was bursting into blossom, and roughly thrown to wither in +the sterile dust of common life, while all around the insolent weeds +lift up their prosperous tawdry heads. Of this slender little dark +creature, with the delicate stern face of the young Augustus, not a soul +will ever remember the name. She will not even have enjoyed the cheap +triumphs of her art, the applause which endures two seconds, and the +stalkless flowers which wither in a day; the clapping which interrupts +the final flourish, the tight-packed nosegays which thump down before +the feet, of every fiftieth-rate mediocrity. Yet the artistic power will +have been there, though gone to waste in obscurity: and the singer will +have sung, though only for a day, and for that day unnoticed. Nothing +can alter that. And nothing can alter the fact that, while the logical +heads of all the critics, and the soulless throats of all the singers +in Christendom have done their best, and ever will do their best to +give us a real musical Cherubino, a real sentimental whipper-snapper of +a page, this utterly unnoticed little singer did persist in leaving out +the page most completely and entirely. Why? Had you asked her, she +would have been the last person in the world capable of answering the +question. Did she consider the expression of such a person as Cherubino +a prostitution of the art? Had she some theory respecting the propriety +of dramatic effects in music? Not in the very least; she considered +nothing and theorised about nothing: she probably never had such a +thing as a thought in the whole course of her existence. She had only +an unswerving artistic instinct, a complete incapacity of conceiving +the artistically wrong, an imperious unreasoning tendency to do the +artistically right. She had read Mozart's air, understood its exquisite +proportions, created it afresh in her appreciation, and she sang it +in such a way as to make its beauty more real, more complete. She had +unconsciously carried out the design of the composer, fulfilled all +that could be fulfilled, perfected the mere music of Mozart's air. And +as in Mozart's air there was and could be (inasmuch as it was purely +beautiful) no page Cherubino, so also in her singing of the air there +was none: Mozart had chosen, and she had abided by his choice. + +Such is the little circle of fact and argument. We have seen what means +the inherent nature of music afforded to composer and performer for the +expression of Beaumarchais's Cherubino; and we have seen the composer, +and the performer who was true to the composer, both choose, instead of +expressing an equivocal jackanapes, to produce and complete a beautiful +work of art. Were they right or were they wrong? Criticism, analysis, +has said all it could, given all its explanations; artistic feeling only +remains to judge, to condemn, or to praise: this one fact remains, that +in the work of the great composer, we have found only certain lovely +patterns made out of sounds; but in them, or behind them, not a vestige +of the page Cherubino. + + + + +IN UMBRIA. + +A STUDY OF ARTISTIC PERSONALITY. + + ... grande, austera, verde, + Da le montagne digradanti in cerchio, + L'Umbria guarda.--CARDUCCI. + + +The autumn sun is declining over the fields and oak-woods and vineyards +of Umbria, where--in the wide undulating valley, inclosed by high +rounded hills, bleak or dark with ilex, each with its strange terraced +white city, Assisi, Spello, Spoleto, Todi--the Tiber winds lazily along, +pale green, limpid, scarce rippled over its yellow pebbles, screened by +long rows of reeds, and thinned, yellowing poplars, reflecting dimly the +sky and trees, the pointed mediaeval bridges and the crenelated towers +on its banks; so clear and placid that you can scarcely bring home to +yourself that this can really be the Tiber of Rome, the turbid mass of +yellow water which eddies sullen and mournful round the ship-shaped +island, along by Vesta's temple, beneath the cypressed Aventine, and +away into the desolate Campagna. Gradually, as the sun sinks, the valley +of the Tiber fills with golden light moving along, little by little, +travelling slowly up the wooded hillocks; covering the bluish mountains +of Somma and Subasio with a purple flush, making the white towns rosy +on their flanks, and then dying away into the pale amber horizon, +rosy where it touches the hill, pearly, then bluish where it merges +imperceptibly into the upper sky. Bluer and bluer become the hills, +deeper and deeper the at first faint amber; the valley is filled with +grey-blue mist; the hills stand out dark blue, cold, and massive; the +sky above becomes a livid rose colour; there is scarcely a filament of +cloud, and only a streak of golden orange where the sun has disappeared. +There is a sudden stillness, as when the last chords of a great symphony +have died out. All the way up the hill on which stands Perugia we +meet the teams of huge oxen, not merely white, but milky, with great, +deep, long-lashed eyes, swaying from side to side with their load of +wine-vats; and the peasants returning home from ploughing up the last +corn stubble. All is peaceful and very solemn, more so than after sunset +in other places, in this sweet and austere Umbria, the fit home of the +Christian revival of the early Middle Ages. And it makes us think, this +beautiful and solemn evening, of the little book which epitomises all +the emotions of this new birth, of this charming new childhood of +humanity, when the feelings of men seem to have somewhat of the dewy +freshness of dawn. The book is the "Fioretti di San Francesco," a +collection of legends and examples relating to the cycle of St. Francis +of Assisi by some monk or monks of the end of the thirteenth century. +Flowerets they may well be called--flowers such as might grow, green +and white-starred and delicately pearled with gold, in the thick grass +across which dance Angelico's groups of the Blessed. Yet with a certain +humanness, a certain reality and naturalness of sweetness, such as +the great paradise painter, with his fleshless madonnas, his glory +of radiant, unearthly draperies and golden skies, never could have +conceived. A singular charm of simplicity and lucidness in this little +book; no fever visions or unhealthy glories; an earnestness not without +humour: there is nothing grim or absurd in the credulity and asceticism +of these Umbrian saints. The asceticism is so gentle and tender, the +credulity so childish and poetical, that the ridiculous itself ceases to +be so. These monks, so far from being engrossed with the care of their +own souls, or weighed down by the dread of hell, seemed to have awakened +with perfect hope and faith in celestial goodness, with perfect desire +to love all around them in the most literal sense: religion for them is +love and reliance on love. The gentleness with which they admonish the +sinning and back-sliding, the confidence in the inner goodness of man, +from whose soiled surface all evil may be washed, extends in these men +to the whole of creation, and makes them fraternise with beasts and +birds, as is shown, with a delicate, slightly humorous grace, in the +stories of St. Francis and the turtle doves, and of the ferocious wolf +"Frate Lupo" of Gubbio, whom rather than kill, it pleased the saint +to bring round to harmlessness by fair words, expostulations, and +faithfully kept promises, expecting from the wolf fidelity to his word +as much as from a human being. There is in this little book a vague, +floating, permeating life of affection, of love unbounded by difference +of species. Communion with all men, with Christ, with angels, with +doves, and with wolves; the force of love bringing down God and raising +up brutes to the level of these saints. And as we think over the little +book we feel in a way as if we, to whom Francis and his companions +are mere mortal men, and the tales of the "Fioretti" mere beautiful +fancies, hollow and sad for their very sweetness, were looking down upon +a sort of holy land, as we look down in the white twilight upon the +misty undulations of this solemn and beautiful Umbria. + +A serene country, neither rugged and barren, nor flat and fertile, not +the grey, sharp Florentine valley, whose thin soil must be irrigated +and ploughed, and on whose hillsides the carefully nurtured olives are +stunted with winter wind and summer scorchings, where every outline is +clear and bone-like in that same hard, light atmosphere which, as Vasari +says, makes all appear hard and clear and logical to the minds of the +Florentines. Not the endless flatness and fruitfulness of Lombardy, +where the mists steam up in the evening golden round the great misty +golden descending sun-ball, and the buildings flush like the cheeks of +Correggio's joy-drunken seraphs, and the thin, clear outline of the rows +of poplars looks against the sky like the outshaken golden hair combed +into minute filaments of one of Lionardo's women. Nor the dreary wastes +of sere oakwoods and livid sand-hills of Orvieto; nor the sea of lush +vegetation gilded by the sun, merging into the vaporous damp blue sky +of the plain of Lucca. None of these things is the Tiber valley, not +harsh nor poor nor luxuriant; sober and restrained, without excess or +scantness, an undulating country of pale and modest tints, and, save in +the distant Apennine tops, of simple outline, with what glory of colours +it may have, due mainly to sky and sunset of cloud, and even in that +more chaste than other parts of Italy; neither poor nor rich; without +the commerce of Lombardy or the industry of Tuscany, wholly without +any intellectual movement, rural, believing, with but little of the +imported influence of reviving Paganism, and still much of the clinging +moral atmosphere of Christian contemplation and ecstacy of the days of +St. Francis. Such is this isolated Tiber valley, whose skies and whose +legends are so perfectly in harmony, and in it was born, of the country +and of the traditions, a special, isolated school of art. + +Is it a school or a man?--A school concentrated in one man, or a man +radiating into a school. There are a great many men all about the one +man Perugino, masters or pupils; the first seem so many bungled attempts +to be what he is, the second so many disintegrations of him. Even the +more powerful individualities are lost in his presence; at Perugia we +know nothing of the real Pinturicchio, the bright, vain, thoughtless +painters of the pageant scenes, brilliant like pages of Boiardo's fairy +tales, on the walls of the Sienese Library. Raphael is no separate +individual, has no personal qualities before he leaves Perugia. +Everything is Perugino, in more or less degree. The whole town, nay, the +surrounding country, is one vast studio in which his themes are being +developed, his works being copied, his tricks being imitated. A score of +artists of talent, one or two like Lo Spagna and the young Raphael, of +first-rate powers, and a host of mere mechanical drudges, give us, in +all Perugia, nothing new, nothing individual, no impression which we can +disentangle from the general, all-pervading impression given by the one +man Perugino. The country, physical and moral, has exhausted itself +in this one artistic manifestation. One not merely, but unique and +one-sided. What Perugino has done has been done by no other master; and +what Perugino has done is only one thing, and that to all eternity. The +sense of complete absence of variety, of difference; the impression of +all being reduced to the minimum of everything, the vague consciousness +that all here is one, isolated and indivisible, which haunts us all +through the churches and galleries of Perugia, pursues us likewise +through all the works of the school, that is to say, of Perugino +himself. This unique school, consisting in reality of a single man, +possesses only one theme, one type, one idea, one feeling; it does, +it attempts but one thing, and that one thing means isolation, +concentration, elimination of all but one single mood. + +It is the painting of solitude; of the isolated soul, alone, unaffected +by any other, unlinked in any work, or feeling, or suffering, with any +other soul, nay even with any physical thing. The men and women of +Perugino are the most completely alone that any artist ever painted, +alone though in fours, or fives, or in crowds. Their relations to each +other are purely architectural: it is a matter of mere symmetry, even as +it is with the mouldings or carvings of the frame which surrounds them. +Superficially, taken merely as so many columns, or half-arches of the +pinnacled whole of the composition, they are, in his larger works, more +rigorously related to each other than are the figures of any other +painter of severely architectural groups; compared with Perugino, +the figures in Bellini's or Mantegna's most solemn altarpieces are +irrelevant to each other: one saint is turning too much aside, another +looking too much on his neighbour. Not so with Perugino: his figures +are all in relation to one another. The scarf floating in strange +snakelike convolutions, from the shoulder of the one angel flying, +cutting across the pale blue air as a skater cuts across the ice, floats +and curls in distinct reference to the ribbons which twist, like lilac +or yellow scrolls, about the head and neck of the other angel; the lute, +with down-turned bulb, of the one seraph, his shimmering purple or +ultramarine robe clinging in tight creases round his feet in the breeze +of heaven, is rigorously balanced by the viol, upturned against the +stooping head, of his fellow-seraph; the white-bearded anchorite +stretches forth his right foot in harmony with the outstretched left +foot of the scarlet-robed cardinal; the dainty arch-angelic warrior +drolly designated as Scipio, or Cincinnatus on the wall of the Money +Changer's Hall turns his delicate, quaintly-crested head, and raises +his vague-looking eyes to match the upturned plumed head of the other +celestial knight. All the figures are distinctly connected with each +other; but they are connected as are the pillarets, various, but +different, which balance each other in length and thickness and +character, a twisted with a twisted one, a twin, strangely linked pair +with another such, on the symmetrically sloping front of some Lombard +cathedral; the connection is purely outer, purely architectural; and the +solitude of each figure as a human being, as a body and a mind, is only +the more complete. There is no grouping in these cunningly balanced +altarpieces; there is no common employment or movement, no action or +reaction. Angels and warriors and saints and sibyls stand separate, +the one never touching the other, apart, each alone against the pale +greenish background. They may look, the one towards the other, but +they never see each other. They exist quite single and isolated, each +unconscious that there is any other. Another--indeed, there is no other; +in reality, every one is in complete solitude; it is only the canvas +which makes them appear in the same place. They are not in the same +place, or rather there is no place; the soft green field, the blue +hills, darkening against the greenish evening sky, the spare, thinly +leaved little trees, the white tower in the distance, this little piece +of Umbrian country has nothing to do with any of them. They are nowhere; +or rather each taken singly is nowhere. Place, like subject and action, +has been eliminated; everything has, which possibly could. The very +bodies seem reduced to the least possible: there is no interest in them: +all is concentrated upon the delicate nervous hands, on the faces; in +the faces, upon eyes and mouth, till the whole face seems scarcely more +than tremulous lips, half parted, raised vividly to kiss, to suck in the +impalpable; than dilating pupils, straining vaguely to seize, to absorb, +to burn into themselves the invisible. It is the embodiment, with only +as little body as is absolutely required, of a soul; and that soul +simplified, rarefied into only one condition of being: beatitude of +contemplation. As place and action have been eliminated, so also has +time: they will for ever remain, alone, in the same attitude; they will +never move, never change, never cease; there exists for them no other +occupation or possibility. And as the bodies are separate, isolated from +all physical objects, so is the soul: it touches no other human soul, +touches no earthly interest: it is alone, motionless, space and time and +change have ceased for it: contemplating, absorbing for all eternity +that which the eye cannot see, nor the hand touch nor the will +influence, the mysterious, the ineffable. + +Are they really saints and angels, and prophets and sibyls? Surely +not--for all such act or suffer; for each of these there is a local +habitation, and a definite duty. These strange creatures of Perugino's +are not supernatural beings in the same sense as are those robed in +iridescent, impalpable glory of Angelico; or those others, clothed in +more than human muscle and sinew, of the vault of the Sixtine. What are +they? Not visions become concrete, but the act of vision personified. +They are not the objects of religious feeling; they are its most +abstract, intense reality. Yes, they are reality. They are no +far-fetched fancies of the artist. They are souls and soul-saturated, +soul-moulded bodies which he saw around him. For in that Umbria of the +dying fifteenth century--where the old cities, their old freedom and +industry and commerce well-nigh dwindled to nothing, had shrunk each +on its mountain-side into mere huge barracks of mercenary troopers or +strongholds of military bandit nobles, continually besieged and sacked +and heaped with massacre by rival families and rival factions; where +in the open country, the villagers, pent-up in fortified farms and +barns, were burnt, women and children, with the stored-up fodder, or +slaughtered and cast in heaps into the Tiber, and every year the tangled +brushwood of ilex and oak and briars encroached further upon the +devastated cornfields and oliveyards, and the wolves and foxes roamed +nearer and nearer to the cities--in this terrible barbarous Umbria of +the days of Caesar Borgia, the soul developed to strange unearthly +perfection. It developed by the force of antagonism and isolation. +This city of Perugia, which was governed by the most ferocious and +treacherous little mercenary captains; whose dark precipitous streets +were full of broil and bloodshed, and whose palaces full of evil, +forbidden lust and family conspiracy, was one of the most pious in all +Italy. Wondrous miraculous preachers, inspired and wild, were for ever +preaching in the midst of the iniquity; holy monks and nuns were for +ever seeing visions and curing the incurable; churches and hospitals +were being erected throughout town and country; novices crowded +the ever-increasing convents. Sensitive souls were sickened by the +surrounding wickedness, and terrified lest it should triumph over them; +resist it, bravely expose themselves to it, prevent or mitigate the evil +of others they dared not: a moral plague was thick in the air, and +those who would escape infection must needs fly, take refuge in strange +spiritual solitude, in isolated heights where the moral air was rarefied +and icy. Of the perfectly human, sociable devotion of the days of St. +Francis, of the active benevolence and righteousness, there was now no +question: the wolves had become too frightfully numerous and ravenous to +be preached to like that Brother Wolf of the _Flowerets of St. Francis_. +Active good there could now no longer be: the pure soul became inactive, +passive, powerless over the evil around, contemplating for ever a +distant, ineffable excellence; aspiring, sterile, and meagre, at being +absorbed into that glory of perfect virtue at which it was for ever +gazing. This solitary and inactive devotion, raised far above this +world, is the feeling out of which are moulded those scarce embodied +souls of Perugino's. Those emaciated hectic young faces, absorbed in +one ineffable passion, which in their weakness and intensity are so +infinitely feminine, are indeed mainly the faces of women--of those +noble and holy ladies like Atalanta Baglioni, living in moral solitude +among their turbulent clan of evil fathers and brothers and husbands: +the victims, or worse, the passive spectators, the passive accomplices, +of iniquity of all sorts, whom the grand old chronicler, Matarazzo, +shows by glimpses, walking through the blood and lust-soiled houses of +the brilliant and horrible Gianpavolos and Semonettos and Griffones of +Perugia, pure and patient like nuns, and as secluded in mind as in any +cloister. Theirs are these faces, and at the same time the faces which +vaguely, confusedly looked down upon them, glorified reflections of +their own, from above. These creatures of Perugino's are what every +great artist's works must be--at once the portrait of those for whom he +paints, and the portrait of their ideals, that is, of their intenser +selves. He is the painter of the city where, in the Italian Renaissance, +the unmixed devotional feeling, innate in the country of St. Francis, +untroubled by Florentine scepticism or Lombard worldly sense, thrust +back and concentrated upon itself by surrounding brutal wickedness, +existed most intense; he is the painter of this kind of devotion. The +very daintiness of accessory, the delicate embroidered robes, the long +fringed scarves, the embossed armour, light and pliable like silk, which +cannot wound the tender young archangels, the carefully waved and curled +hair--all this is the religious luxuriousness of nuns and novices, the +one vent for all love of beauty and ease and costliness of the poor +delicate creatures, worn and galled by their shapeless hair cloth, +living and sleeping in the dreary whitewashed cell. This is unmixed +devotion, religious contemplation and aspiration absolutely separated +from any other sort of moral feeling; there is the destructive wrath of +righteousness in the prophets of Michael Angelo, and the gentleness of +candour and charity in the Florentine virgins of Raphael; there is the +serenity and solemnity of moral wisdom in Bellini, and the sweetness and +cordiality of domestic love in Titian; there is even the half-animal +motherly love in Correggio; there is, in almost all the schools of +Italian painting, some character of human goodness; but in Perugino +there is none of these things. Nothing but the one all-absorbing, +abstract, devotional feeling--intense passive contemplation of the +unattainable good; souls purged of every human desire or will, isolated +from all human affection and action, raised above the limits of time and +space; souls which have long ceased to be human beings and can never +become angels, hovering, half pained, half joyful, in a limbo of endless +spiritual desire. + +Such is the work. Let us seek the master. Pietro Vannucci, of Citta +della Pieve, surnamed Perugino, Petrus de Castro Plebis, as he signed +himself, lived, as tradition has it, in a very good house in Via +Deliziosa. Via Deliziosa is one of the many quiet little paved lanes of +Perugia, steep and tortuous, looking up at whose rough scarred houses +you forever see overgrown plants of white starred basil or grey marjoram +bursting out of broken ewers and pipkins on the boards before the +high windows, or trails of mottled red and green tomatos, or long +crimson-tasselled sprays of carnation dangling along the broken, +blackened masonry, crevassed and held together by iron clamps; where, +at every sudden turn, you get, through some black and oozy archway, a +glimpse of green sun-gilded vineyard and distant hills, hazy and blue +through the yellow summer air. Here, in the best part of the town, +Perugino had his house and his workshop. In the house, full of precious +stuffs and fine linen and plate and everything which a wealthy burgher +could desire, lived the handsome wife of the master, for whom he was for +ever designing and ordering new clothes, and whose beautiful hair he +loved himself to dress in strange fantastic diadems and helmets of +minute plaits and waves and curls, that she might go through the town as +magnificent and quaintly attired as any noble lady of the Baglionis or +Antinoris or Della Staffas. In the workshop was the master and a host +of pupils: Giannicola Manni, Doni, the Alfani, Tiberio d'Assisi; the +exquisite anonymous stranger, of whom we know only as John the Spaniard, +and perhaps that gentle fair feminine boy from Urbino, whom, in +half-womanish gear and with wonderful delicate feathers and jewels in +his hair, Perugino painted among the prophets in the Money Changer's +Hall. A workshop indeed. Not merely the studio of a master and his +pupils, but an enormous manufactory of works of devotional art; the +themes of Perugino, the same saints, the same madonnas, the same angels, +in the same groups, for ever repeated in large and small, some mere +copies, others slightly varied or composed of various incoherent +portions, by the pupil; some half by the master, half by the pupil, some +possibly touched up by him, one or two wholly from his own exquisite +hand. Things of all degrees of merit and execrableness, to suit the +richest and the poorest; all could be had at that workshop, for Master +Pietro had the monopoly of the art, good bad, or indifferent, of the +country. You could order designs for wood carvings or silver ware; +you could hire church banners, of which store was kept to be let out +for processions at so much the hour. You could obtain men to set +up triumphal arches of cardboard, and invent moulds for ornamental +sweetmeats, like those of Astorre Baglioni's wedding; patterns, +doubtless also for embroidery and armour embossing; you could have a +young Raphael Santi set to repeating some Marriage of the Virgin for a +Sforza or a Baglioni, or some tattered smearer to copy a copy of some +madonna for a village church; or you could commission the master himself +to go to Rome and paint a wall of Pope Sixtus's Chapel. For there never +was a manufactory of art carried on more methodically or satisfactorily +than this one. There never was a commercial speculator who knew so well +how much good and bad he could afford and venture to give; who knew +his public so thoroughly. He had, in his youth and poverty, invented, +discovered (which shall we call it?) the perfection of devotional +painting, that which perfectly satisfied his whole pious Umbria, and +every pious man or woman of more distant parts: a certain number of +types, a certain expression, a certain mode of grouping, a certain +manner of colouring which constituted a perfect whole; a conception to +embody which most completely he had in his youth worked like a slave, +seeking, perfecting all that which belonged to the style: the clear, +delicate colour, the exquisite, never excessive finish, the infinitely +delicate modelling of finger and wrist, of eyelid and lip, the +diaphanous sheen of light, soft, scarcely coloured hair on brow and +temple and cheek; he had coolly turned away from everything else. +The problems of anatomy, of perspective, of light and shade, and +of grouping, at which in Florence he had seen men like Pollaiolo, +Ghirlandaio, Filippino, Lionardo wasting their youth, he never even +glanced at. No real bodies were required for his saints as long as he +could give them the right, wistful faces; no tangible background, no +well-defined composition. All this was unnecessary; and he wanted only +the necessary. When he had got the amount and sort of skill required for +this narrow style, he stopped; when he had invented the three or four +types of faces, attitude, and composition, he ceased inventing. He had +the means of making a fortune. All that remained was to organise his +mechanism, to arrange that splendid system of repeating, arranging, +altering, copying, on the part of himself and his scholars, by which he +could, without further enlarging style or ideas, furnish Umbria and +Italy with the pure devotional painting it required, in whatever amount +and of whatever degree of excellence it might wish. He succeeded. True, +other artists sneered at him, like that young Buonarroti, who had called +him a blunderer; true, the Florentines complained that when he painted +their fresco for them at S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, he had cheated +them, giving mere copies of works they had had from him twenty years +before. About the judgment of other painters he cared not a fig; success +was the only test; to the Florentines he calmly answered that as those +figures had pleased them twenty years before, they ought to please them +now; that he at least was not going to seek anything new as long as +the old sufficed. For men who grew old in constant attempts after new +styles, new muscles, new draperies, like Signorelli yonder labouring +solitary on the rock of Orvieto, spending years in cramming new figures +into spaces which he, Perugino, would have finished in a month with six +isolated saints and a bit of blue sky; or frittered away time in endless +sketches, endless cooking of new paints and trying of new washes, like +Lionardo da Vinci: or who ruined themselves buying bits of old marble to +copy, like crazy Mantegna at Mantua; for all such men as these Perugino +must have had a supreme contempt. As long as money came in, all was +right; new ideas, improvements, all such things were mere rubbish. Thus +he probably preached to his pupils, and kept them carefully to their +task of multiplying his own works, till his school became sterile and +imbecile; and the young Raphael, in disgust, left him and begged the +Lady Giovanna della Rovere for a letter to the Gonfaloniere Soderini, +which should open to him the doors of the Florentine schools. With what +contempt must not Master Perugino have looked after this departing young +Raphael; with what cynical amusement he must have heard how the young +fool, once successful, kept for ever altering his style, wearing his +frail life out, meditating and working himself into the hectic broken +creature whom Marc-Antonio has etched, seated, fagged and emaciated on +the steps before his work. We can imagine how Perugino descanted on all +this folly to the other young men in his workshop. For he was a cynical +man as well as a grasping: he saw no wisdom beyond the desire for money +and comfort. He had begun life almost a beggar, sleeping on a chest, +going without food, in tatters, giving himself no respite from drudgery, +sustained by one idea, one wish!--to be rich. And rich he had become; he +had built houses on speculation at Florence, to let them out; and had +farms at Citta della Pieve, and land near Perugia. He had obtained all +he had ever desired or could conceive desirable: safety from poverty. +In other things he did not believe: not in an after life, nor in God, +nor in good; all these ideas, says Vasari, could never enter into his +porphyry hard brain, "This Peter placed all his hopes in the good things +of fortune, and for money would have made any evil bargain." + +This is how Vasari has shown us Perugino. The unique painter of +archangels and seraphs appears a base commercial speculator, a cynic, +an atheist: the sort of man whom you could imagine transfigured into a +shabby pettifogging Faustus, triumphing over the fiend by making over to +him, in return for solid ducats, a bond mortgaging a soul which he knew +himself never to have possessed. Some people may say, as learned folk +are forever saying now-a-days, that all this is pure slander on the part +of Vasari; and indeed, what satisfactory historical villain shall we +soon possess, at the rate of present learned rehabilitations? Be this as +it may, there remains for the present the typical contrast between this +man and his works; and looking at it, other contrasts between noble art +and grovelling artists vaguely occur to us, and we ask ourselves, Can it +be? Can a pure and exquisite work be produced by a base nature? Can such +anomaly exist--must the mental product not be stained by the vileness of +the mind which has conceived it? Must we, together with a precious and +noble gift taken from a hand we should shrink from touching, accept the +disheartening, the debasing conclusion, that in art purity may spring +from foulness, and the excellent be born of the base? It is a conclusion +from which we instinctively shrink, feeling, rather than absolutely +understanding, that it seems to strip the holiness from art, the +worthiness, nay, almost the innocence, from our enjoyment. We feel +towards any beautiful work of art something akin to love: a sort of +desire to absorb it into our soul, to raise ourselves to it, to be with +it in some manner united; and thus the mere thought that all this may +be sprung from out of unworthiness, that this noble century-enduring +work may be the sister of who knows how many long dead base thoughts +and desires and resolves born together with it in the nature of its +maker--this idea of contamination of origin, makes us shudder and +suspect.... Alas, how many of us, of the better and nobler of us, have +not often sickened for a moment as the thought quivered across their +mind of the foulness out of which the noblest of our art has arisen. But +instinctively we have struck down the half-formulated idea as we dash +away any suspicion against that which we love, and which our love tells +us must be good. And thus, as a rule, we have persuaded ourselves that, +though by a horrible fatality our greatest art--in sculpture, and +painting, and music, and poetry, has oftenest belonged not to a simple +and austere state of society, to the strong manly days of Greece or +Rome, to the first times of Christian abnegation and martyrdom, to +the childlike angelic revival of mediaeval Christianity, to the solemn +self-concentration of Huguenot France or Puritan England, that it +has not sprung out of the straightforward purity of periods of moral +regeneration, but rather from out of the ferment, nay, the putrescence, +of many-sided, perplexed, anomalous times of social dissolution. That +although our greatest art seems thus undeniably to have arisen in +corrupt times, yet the individuals to whom we proximately owe have been +the nobler and purer of their day. Nay, we almost persuade ourselves +that in those dubious times of doubt and dissolution, the spotless, the +unshaken were in a way divinely selected, like so many vestal virgins, +to cherish in isolation the holy fire of art. And we call up to our +minds men noble and pure, like Michael Angelo and Beethoven: we eagerly +treasure up like relics anecdotes showing the gentleness and generosity +of men like Lionardo and Mozart: trifling tales of caged-birds let +loose, or of poor fellow-workers assisted, which, in our desire to +trace art back to a noble origin, seem to shed so much light upon the +production of a great picture or great symphony. And yet, even as the +words leave our lips, words so sincerely consoling, we seem to catch in +our voice an unintentional inflexion of deriding scepticism. So much +light! these tales of mere ordinary goodness, such as we might hear (did +we care) of so many a dull and blundering artisan, or vacant idler, +these tales shed so much light upon the production of great works of +art! A sort of reasoning devil seems to possess us, to twitch our +little morsels of unreasoned consolation, of sanctifying, mystical +half-reasoning away from our peace-hungry souls. And he says: "What of +Perugino? What of so many undeniable realities which this Perugino of +ours, even if the purest myth, so completely typifies? How did this +cynic, this atheist, come to paint these saints? You say that he was no +cynic, no atheist, that it is all vile slander." Well, I won't dispute +that: perhaps he _was_ a saint after all. I will even grant that he +was. But in return for the concession, let us examine whether the +saints could not have been equally well painted by the traditional, +unrehabilitated Perugino, Vasari's Perugino--not the real one, oh no, +I will admit not the real one--by the typical Perugino; the man "of +exceeding little religion, who could never be got to believe in +the soul's immortality; nay, with arguments suited to his porphyry +intellect, obstinately refused all good paths; who placed all his hopes +in the goods of fortune and for money would have consented to any evil +compact." Nay, even by a Perugino a good deal worse. + +An ugly, impertinent little reasoning fiend within us; but now-a-days we +have lost the formula of exorcism for this kind of devil, and listen we +must; indignantly, and with mind well made up to find all his arguments +completely false. Think over the matter, now that idea is once started, +we can no longer help. So let us discuss it with ourselves, within +ourselves, the place where most discussion must ever go on. Let us sit +here on the low-broken brick parapet, which seems to prevent all this +rough, black Perugia from precipitating itself, a mass of huddled, +strangled lanes, into the ravine below; sit with the grey, berry-laden +olives, and twisted sere-leaved fig-trees with their little brown +bursting fruit, pushing their branches up from the orchard on the steep +below, where the women dawdle under the low evening sun, sickle in hand, +mowing up the long juicy grass, tearing out wreath after wreath, of vine +and clematis, spray after spray of feathery bluish fennel, till their +wheel-shaped crammed baskets look as if destined for some sylvan god's +altar, rather than to be emptied out into the sweltering darkness before +the cows mewed up in the thatched hut yonder by the straw-stack and the +lavender and rose-hedged tank. + +The question which, we scarcely know how, has thus been started within +us, and which, (like all similar questions) develops itself almost +automatically in our mind, without much volition and merely a vague +feeling of discomfort, until it have finally taken shape and left our +consciousness for the limbo of decided points, this question is simply: +What are the relations between the character of the work of art and the +character of the artist who creates it? To what extent may we infer from +the peculiar nature of the one the peculiar nature of the other? Such, +if we formulate it, is the question, and the answer thereunto seems +obvious: that as the peculiarity of the fruit depends, _caeteris +paribus_, upon the peculiarity of the tree (itself due in part to soil +and temperature and similar external circumstances), so also must the +peculiarity of the spiritual product be due to the peculiarities of the +spiritual whole of which it is born. And thus, in inverted order of +ideas, the definite character of the fruit proves the character of +the tree, the result argues the origin: there must exist a necessary +relation between the product and that which has produced. If then we +find a definite quality in the works of an artist, we have a right to +suppose that corresponding qualities existed in the artist himself: if +the picture, or symphony, or poem be noble, and noble moreover with a +special sort of nobility, then noble also, and noble with that special +sort of nobility must be the artistic organism, the artist, by whom +it was painted, or composed or written. And this once granted (which +we cannot help granting), we must inevitably conclude that the man +Perugino, who painted those wonderful intense types of complete +renunciation of the world, could not in reality have been the worldly, +unconscientious atheist described by Vasari. So, at least, it would +seem. But tarry awhile. We have decided on analogy, and by a sort of +instinct of cause and effect, that the work must correspond in its main +qualities with the main qualities of the artist, of the artistic +organism by which it is produced. Mark what we have said: of the artist, +or artistic organism. Now what is this artistic organism, this artist? +An individual, a man, surely? Yes, and no. The artist and the man are +not the same: the artist is only part of the man; how much of him, +depends upon the art in which he is a worker. The work is produced by +the man, but not by the whole of him; only by that portion which we call +the artist; and how much that portion is, what relation it bears to the +whole man, we can ascertain by asking ourselves what faculties are +required for the production of a work of art. And thus we soon get to a +new question. The faculties required for the production of a work of art +may be divided into two classes; those which directly and absolutely +produce it, and those which are required to enable the production to +take place without interference from contrary parts of the individual +nature. These secondary qualities, merely protective as it were, are +the moral qualities common, in greater or less degree, to all workers: +concentration, patience, determination, desire of improvement; they are +not artistic in themselves, and are not more requisite to the artist +than to the thinker, or statesman, or merchant, or soldier, to preserve +his very different mental powers from the disturbing influence of +laziness, or fickleness, or any more positive tendencies, vices or +virtues, which might interfere with the development of his talents. +And of these purely protective qualities only so much need exist as the +relative strength of the artistic faculty and of the unartistic +tendencies of the individual require in order that the former be +protected from the latter; and thus it comes that where the artistic +endowment has been out of all proportion large, as in the case of such +a man as Rossini, it has been able to produce the most excellent work +without much of what we should call moral fibre: the man was lazy and +voluptuous, but he was, above all, musical; it was easier for him to be +musically active than to be merely dissipated and inactive: the artistic +instincts were the strongest, and were passively followed. When these +moral qualities, merely protective and secondary in art, are developed +beyond the degree requisite for mere protection of the artistic +faculties (a degree small in proportion to the magnitude of the artistic +instinct), they become ruling characteristics of the whole individual +nature, and influence all the actions of the man as distinguished from +the artist: they make him as inflexible in the pursuit of the +non-artistic aims of life as in that of mere excellence in his own art. +The timorous and slothful Andrea del Sarto is quite as complete an +artist as the eager and inquisitive Lionardo da Vinci; but, whereas +Andrea's activity stops short at the limits of his powers of painting, +the increasing laboriousness and never satisfied curiosity of Lionardo +extend, on the contrary, to all manner of subjects quite disconnected +with his real art. When once the glorious fresco of the Virgin, seated +like a happier Niobe, by the mealsack, has been properly finished in the +cloister of the Servites, Andrea goes home and crouches beneath the +violence of his wife, or to the tavern to seek feeble consolation. But +when, after never-ending alterations and additional touches, Lionardo at +length permits Paolo Giocondo to carry home the portrait of his dubious, +fascinating wife, he sets about mathematical problems or chemical +experiments, offers to build fortresses for Caesar Borgia, manufactures +a wondrous musical instrument like the fleshless skull of a horse and +learns to play thereon, or writes treatises on anatomy: there is in +him a desire, a capacity for work greater than even his subtle and +fantasticating style of art can ever fully employ. Such are the +non-artistic qualities required, merely as protectors from interference, +for the production of a work of art: the same these, whatever the art, +as they are the same if, instead of art, we consider science, or +commerce, or any other employment. The artistic, the really directly +productive qualities, differ of course according to the art to which the +work belongs, differ not only in nature but also in number. For there +are some arts in which the work is produced by a very small number of +faculties; others where it requires a very complex machine, which we +call a whole individuality: and here we find ourselves back again before +our original question, to what extent the personality of an artist +influences the character of his work. We have got back to the anomaly +typified by Perugino; back to it, and as completely without an answer to +the problem as we were on starting. We have been losing our time, going +round and round a question merely to find ourselves at our original +starting-point. Not so: going round the question indeed, but in +constantly narrowing circles, which will dwindle, let us hope, till we +find ourselves on the only indivisible centre, which is the solution of +the problem. For there are many questions which are like the towns of +this same Umbria of Perugino: built upon the brink of a precipice, +walled round with a wall of unhewn rock, seeming so near if we look up +at them from the ravine below, and see every roof, and cypress-tree, +and pillared balcony; but which we cannot approach by scaling the +unscalable, sheer precipice, but must slowly wind round from below, +circling up and down endless undulations of vineyard and oakwood, coming +for ever upon a tantalising glimpse of towers and walls, for ever +seemingly close above us, and yet forever equally distant; till at last, +by a sharp turn of the gradually ascending road, we find ourselves +before the unexpected gates of the city. And thus we have approached +a little nearer to the solution of the question. We have, in our +wanderings, left behind one part of the ground. We have admitted that +the work of art is produced not by the man, but merely by that portion +of him which we call the artist; we have even dimly foreseen that +the case may be that in one art the artist, that is to say, the +art-producing organism, comprises nearly the whole of the mere +individual: that the artistic part is very nearly the complete human +whole. Now, in order to approach nearer our final conclusion, namely, +whether the man Perugino could have painted those saints and those +angels had he really been the mercenary atheist of Vasari, we must set +afresh to examine what, in the various arts, are the portions of an +individual necessary to constitute the mere artist, that is to say, the +producer of a work of art. + +But stop again. Are we quite sure that we know what we mean when we say +"a work of art?" Are we quite sure that we may not, without knowing it, +be talking of two things under one name? Surely not: when we apply the +word to one of Perugino's archangels, we certainly refer to one whole +object. So far, certainly, we mean (let us put it in the crudest way) a +certain amount of colour laid on to a canvas in such a manner, and with +such arrangements of tints and shadows, that it presents to our eyes and +mind a certain form, a form which we define, from its resemblance to +other forms made out of flesh and bone, the face and body of a young +man; a form which, owing to certain constitutional peculiarities +and engrained habits of our mind, we also declare to a given extent +beautiful. This form, moreover, distinctly recalls to our mind real +forms which experience has taught us to associate with the idea of moral +purity, self-forgetfulness, piety; simply because we have noticed or +been told since our infancy that persons with such bodily aspects are +usually pure, self-forgetful and pious; because, without our knowing +it, thousands of painters have accustomed us by giving us such forms as +the portraits of saints to consider this physical type as distinctly +saintly. This perception, that the form into which the colours on +Perugino's canvas have been combined is such as we are accustomed to +think of in connection with saintliness, immediately awakens in our mind +a whole train of associations: we not merely see with our physical eyes +the combination of colours and lines constituting the form, but with +our mental eyes we rapidly and half unconsciously glance over all the +occupations, aspirations, habits of such a creature as we conceive this +form to belong to. We not merely see the delicate, thin, pale lips, +thrown back head and neck, and the wide-opened, dilated, greyish eyes; +we imagine in our mind the vague delights after which those lips are +thirsting as the half-closed pale flowers thirst for the rain-drops, the +ecstasy of fulfilled hope which makes the veins of the neck pulse and +the head fall back in weariness of inner quivering; the confused glory +of heaven after which those wide-opened eyes are straining; while our +bodily sight is resting on the mere coloured surface of Perugino's +picture, our mental sight is wandering across all the past and future of +this strange being whose bodily semblance the artist has suddenly thrust +upon us. All this is what we vaguely think of when we speak of a work +of art. Perhaps we can so little disentangle our impressions and our +fancies that their combination may thus be treated as a unity. But +this unity is a dualism: the mere colour arrangement constituting the +form which we see with our bodily eyes, and with our bodily eyes find +beautiful, is one half; and the whole moral apparition, conjured up by +association and imagination, is the other. And, as far as so infinitely +interwoven a dualism can be divided, coarsely, and leaving or taking too +much on one side or the other, we can divide this dual existence into +that which has been given to us by the artist, the visible, material +form; and that which association, recollection, fancy, has been added +by ourselves to the artist's work. Of this dualism, therefore, of +impression and fancy, only that portion of the work of art which is +absolutely visible and concrete; the form, whether it exist in combined +colour and shadow, or marble mass, as in the plastic arts, or in +partially combined and partially successive sounds, as in music, only +this form is really given by the artist, is that which, with reference +to his productive power, we can call the work of art. He may, it is +true, have deliberately chosen that form which should lead us to such +associations of ideas, but in so far he has been acting not as the +artist, but as a sort of foreshadowed spectator or listener; he has, +before taking up his own work with the mere material, visible, tangible, +audible realities of the art, stepped into the place to be occupied by +ourselves, and foreseen, by his knowledge of the effects which he can +produce, by his experience of what associations are awakened by each of +his various forms, the imaginative activities which his yet unfinished +work will call for in those who see or hear it. But he will, in so +doing, be deliberately or unconsciously leaving his own work, +forestalling ours: nay, the artist who says to himself, "Now I will +paint a soul in a condition of ecstasy," is in reality transforming +himself into the customer who would enter his workshop and say, "Paint +me a figure such as your experience tells you suggests to beholders +the idea of religious enthusiasm; copy the features of any religious +enthusiast of your acquaintance, or put together such dispersed features +as seem to you indicative of that temper of mind." All this, while +the real artistic work has not begun; for that begins when the artist +first places before his easel the model for his archangel: either the +delicate, hectic, little girlish novice-boy, or the distinct outline +of the armed young angel existing in his mind and requiring only to be +printed off into concrete existence. Thus, in our examination of the +amount of an artist's personality which can go into his work, we must +remember that this work is merely the externally existing, definite, +finite form, and not the ideas of emotions which, by the power of +association, that form may awaken in ourselves. What the artist gives +is merely the arrangement of lines and colours in a given manner, which +may, as in painting, resemble an already existing natural object; or, as +in architecture and pattern decoration, resemble no already existing +natural object; the arrangement of sounds which may, as in a dramatic +air, recall the inflexions proper to a given emotion, or, as in a formal +fugue, recall no emotional inflexions whatever. This, and not any train +of thoughts awakened by this possibly but not necessarily existing +resemblance to an already known natural object, or to an already known +sort of emotional voice inflexion, is what is given by the artist, and +this is artistic form, the absolutely, objectively existing work of art. +And now we may examine what mental faculties, in the various arts, are +required for the production of this work: what portions of the whole +individual man are included or excluded in that smaller, more limited +individual whom we call the artist. Let us investigate the point by a +sort of experiment: by stripping away, one by one, those qualities of an +ideal individual which are not necessary for the production of the +various kinds of artistic work; let us separate and afterwards, if need +be, select and reunite the qualities which are required and those which +are not required to make up a poet, a painter, a sculptor, or a +musician. + +And first we must create our ideal man, who contains within him the +stuff of every kind of artist, the faculties of producing every kind of +artistic work. First, a word about this ideal man, and about the manner +in which he differs from other men. He differs in completeness, in +balance, in intensity. For almost every one of us has some mental +faculty so imperfectly developed that we may say that it does not +exist: it exists indeed, and perhaps not without a certain necessary +effect, but as with a single solitary instrument in a powerful orchestra +of dozens of every other kind of instruments, this effect is not +consciously perceived. And the faculties which we do possess are rarely +of very remarkable strength and intensity: we have enough of them for +our ordinary wants of life, but not necessarily more. Our sense of +hearing is sufficient to distinguish the voice of one friend from +another, but not always sufficient to be able to enjoy music, still less +often to perform, least often of all to compose. And similarly with +every other mental faculty: most men can follow a simple argument, +some a more complex one, but few can reason out unaided a complicated +proposition. Now the creative degree in any faculty is the most intense +in its development. The painter is the man who receives the largest +number of most delicately complete visional impressions; the musician +the man who receives the largest number of most delicately complete +audible impressions: to the painter everything is a shape, a colour; to +the musician everything is a sound; the whole universe, to the thinker, +is but a concatenation of logical propositions. Thus, our ideal man +must, at starting, possess every higher faculty, developed to the most +intense degree, and every one of them developed equally: for out of him +is to be made every kind of artist. Here, then, we have our ideal man: +he possesses in the highest degree, and in the most perfect balance, all +the emotional, logical, and perceptive powers of the mind; he is, if +you choose, the abstract creature (never existing, and never, alas! to +exist), the all beautiful, all powerful, perfect fiction, which we call +_humanity_; and with him is our work. He is perfectly balanced, he is +a mere abstraction: for these two reasons he is, so far, inactive; we +cannot, with the best will in the world, imagine his doing anything +as long as he can do everything: he will, in all probability, merely +passively enjoy. Before he can create, we must alter him. And he is to +create, remember, not as a statesman or a handicraftsman, but as an +artist: he is to deal not with realities, but with fictions; he is not +to touch our material interests, he is merely to evoke for us a series +of phantom sights or sounds, of phantom men and women. Therefore, our +first act must be to diminish, by at least a half, all the practical +sides of his nature, so that no practical activities divert him from his +purely ideal field. So that it be for him infinitely more natural to +think, to feel, to imitate, to combine impressions, than to be of any +immediate use in the world; so that the mere employment of his powers be +his furthest aim, without thinking what effect that employment will have +upon the real condition of himself or of others. This much we have done: +we have obtained a creature whose interest is never purely practical. +But this will not suffice. We must diminish by at least a quarter his +mere logical powers, thus rendering him far more inclined to view things +as concrete, living manifestations, than as logical abstractions. This +has served to prevent his being diverted into metaphysic or scientific +speculations: there is now no longer any fear of his becoming a +psychologist instead of a poet, a mathematician or physicist instead of +a painter or a composer: things now interest him no longer for their +practical bearing, nor for their abstract meaning: he cares for them not +as forces, nor as ideas, but as forms, as visions. And this time we +have, as it were, rough-hewn our artist. But what artist? He is, it is +true, mainly attracted by the mere contemplation of things apart from +practical or scientific interests, but he is equally attracted by all +sorts of visions: he receives every kind of impression. This time, +again, he will, from perfect balance, remain inactive. We must throw his +faculties a little into disorder, we must, at random, diminish here in +order (relatively) to increase there: let us, for instance, diminish by +a trifle his faculty for manipulating colours or masses of stone, his +faculty for conceiving sounds in succession and in combination; let us, +in short, make it a little difficult for him to be a painter or sculptor +or musician. + +What will he be, this first made artist of ours? this creature, clipped +in all the mere practically scientific instincts, only that his whole +intense personality may be given more completely, more absolutely to the +world of artistic phantoms? Before breaking up this huge psychological +snow-man, this ungainly monster roughly moulded into caricature shape by +awkward removing of material here and adding on there, before dashing +it back into the limbo of used up and unformed similes, let us ask +ourselves what artist he vaguely resembles: what is the artist thus +formed, it would seem, of a mere intense human being; of all the +faculties of our nature, only more subtle and powerful, and working not +in the world of practical realities, nor of abstract truths, but in that +of imaginary forms? The answer comes instinctively, unhesitatingly to +all of us: this universal artist, this artistic organism which contains +the whole intensified individual, is the poet. Nay: why call him poet? +why reserve this supreme place of artist not of colours or sounds, but +of spoken emotion, and perception, and action, for the man whose words +are grouped into metrical shape? Is it this metrical shape, this +mere enveloping form perceived merely by the ear, this monotonous, +rudimentary music, so paltry by the side of the musician's real music, +is it this which requires for its production that wondrous combination +of faculties, that whole intensified human individuality? For those same +faculties, that same intensified individuality, will act and bear fruit +in the man who lets his words drift on, unmetrical, in mere spoken +manner. And yet he shall be accounted less, and shall cede to the other, +who can measure his words into verses, and couple them into rhyme. +Surely there is injustice in this. Wherefore, I pray you, should you, my +friend, my beloved little child poet, with the keen eyes and eager lips +of Keats, who sit (in fancy at least) here by my side on the rough wall +overlooking the orchard ravine at Perugia, drowsily listening (as poets +listen to prose) to our discussion, wherefore should you, the poet, be +worth more than I, the prose writer, merely inasmuch as you are the one +and I am the other? Why be surrounded, even in my eyes, by a sort of +ideal halo; why pointed out by my own secret instinct as the artist? All +this must be mere folly, prejudice, dried old forms of thought handed +down from the days when poets were priests and lawgivers and prophets, +when their very credit depended upon their not being solely what you +modern poets are; all this is a mere historic myth, in which the world +continues foolishly to believe, letting itself be told from generation +to generation, till the idea has become engrained in its mode of +thinking, that the poet is a special creature, a thing of finer mould, +in whose life, and movements, and feelings it expects something +different from the rest of humanity; in whose eyes it seeks a dim +reflection, in whose voice a distant echo of the colours and sounds of +that fairyland out of which he has come as a changeling into the world +of realities. Infatuation and injustice. But no! mankind at large is +right in its ideas, but as it usually is, without knowing why it has +them: right in giving instinctively this place of artist of the merely +suggested, as distinguished from the absolutely seen or heard forms of +other arts, to the poet alone. For the poet is, in the kingdom of words, +the real, complete artist. The artistic external form which he gives to +his creations removes them out of the domain of the practically useful, +or the scientifically interesting. This metrical setting enables the +poet to show a part, to make perfect the tiniest thing; to give complete +significance, complete beauty, and eternal life to a perception, an +emotion, an image which cannot be expanded beyond the fourteen lines of +a sonnet; while the poor prose writer, reduced to being a mere smith or +mechanist, can do nothing with any stray gem he may cut, knows not how +to set it, and is forced in despair to stick it clumsily into some +unwieldy utensil or implement, some pot out of which to drink knowledge, +or some shield to ward off disaster. The prose writer is for ever being +driven to seek employment outside the land of pure art. Therefore, the +poet is truly the exclusive artist in words; or rather the exclusive +artist in words must needs become the poet; if the man feel that he +cannot hammer wearily at some clumsy ornamented piece of furniture, some +bastard of artistic uselessness and practical utility, that he cannot +write histories, or ethical disquisitions or psychological studies +(waxworks of spiritual pathology, technically called novels), in order +to bury in them the delicate artistic fragments which he spontaneously +produces; then that man will assuredly learn the manner of making +metrical settings; that man, that word artist will infallibly become +a poet: nay, he is one. Thus, the poet is in reality the artist who +suggests emotions, and actions, and sights, and sounds, as the painter +is the artist who shows coloured shapes, and the musician the artist who +creates forms made of sounds. The poet, therefore, is the artist into +whose work there enters, or can enter, the greatest number of fragments +of his whole personality: for his works are made up of all that which +his nature perceives and evolves and desires: of the forests and fields, +and sea and skies which have printed their likenesses on his mind; of +the faces and movements of the men and women whom he has known, nay, +of whom once perhaps, only once in his life, he has caught a never +forgotten glimpse; of the events which have taken place before his eyes, +or of which he has been told; of the emotions and passions which he has +felt hidden in himself or seen burst out in others; of all that he can +see, feel, hear, conceive, imagine. He is the man who assimilates most, +initiates most, perceives most of all that passes within and without +him, and unites it all in a homogeneous outer shape: nothing for him is +waste: not the hard, scaly first shoot of the reed, pale green, which +catches his feet as he walks on the riverside, across the grass, half +sere, half renovated by spring; not the scent of first raindrops on the +upturned mould of the fields; not the sentence read at random in a book +opened by accident; not the sudden, never-recurring look in the eyes of +one beloved; not the base appetite which he has hidden away, trampled +back out of sight of his own consciousness; not the preposterous ideal +which his vanity may have shown him for one second; not anything, +however small or however large, however common or however rare, not +anything inanimate or feeling, not anything in life or in death, not +anything which can be seen, or heard, or felt, or understood, which may +not be moulded by the poet into some form which will have meaning and +charm, and eternal value for all men. The poet is the man who receives a +greater number of more intense impressions than any other man; he is, of +all creatures, the most sensitive in the whole of his being; for the +whole of his being is at once the raw material, and the forming +mechanism of the work of art. This is the ideal, the universal poet, the +type: of him every individual poet represents a limited portion, and is +a fresh repartition of faculties, a fresh combination and proportion of +material and mechanism, due to the accident of race, of time, of birth, +of education. The typical poet assimilates and reproduces everything; +and each fragment of this type, each individual, differs from every +other individual in that which is assimilated and reproduced by him: the +one feels more, the other sees more, the third imagines more; and each +feels, sees, and imagines, according to what external things have been +put within reach of his feelings, his sight, his fancy. As, therefore, +the typical poet is the whole type of humanity affording material and +acting as manipulative apparatus to produce the work of art, so also +the individual poet is the individual man, moulding into shape all the +qualities which are strongest in his nature. All the qualities, let us +however mark, which are indisputedly dominant; often, therefore, only +the better, and in only the lowest tempers the worst. For, remembering +what we noticed about moral faculties of will which protect the artistic +workings from the interference of other parts of our nature, we may see +that it must often happen that a noble spirit may be able to keep out +of his mere abstract creations those baser instincts (which though +recognized with shame) he is unable to subdue in practice; his works +show him as he would desire himself to be, as he, alas! has not the +strength to be in reality; let us not, therefore, complain of those who +are unable to live up to their conceptions, for they have given to us +their better part, and kept for themselves, with bitterness and shame, +their worse. + +The poet, therefore, is the artist into whose work there enters the +greatest proportion of his individual nature; if he be flippant in +temper his works cannot be earnest; if he be impure his writings cannot +be actively pure; the distinctive features of his nature must be +reflected in his work, since his work is made out of and by his nature. +Now let us proceed. We had constructed a sort of typical giant, +promising all the powers and qualities of all humanity; and this, by +the gradually stripping away of some of these human powers, we had +reduced to the condition of typical poet. Now let us continue our +work. Of course there are kinds of poetry which form links with other +intellectual work; and to obtain these we must remove such faculties as +do not enter into them: separate from the artist those qualities which +belong only to the man. There is first of all that great poetical +anomaly the drama, for which, it would seem, that less of the writer's +own personality is required than for any other form; for the dramatist +stands half way between the artist and the psychologist; he can obtain +innumerable varieties of character and feeling merely by his reasoning +powers, not by any personal experience. He is a sort of synthetic +metaphysician, who can construct the saint, the villain, the simpleton, +the knave, not out of anything within himself, but out of the very +elements of these characters which he has obtained by analysis; hence +it is that, while we can from their works reconstruct the character of +poets like Milton, or Wordsworth, or Leopardi, or Musset, we remain +wholly ignorant of the personality of Shakespeare; he cannot be all that +he shows us, and in the doubt he remains none of it at all. Let us put +aside therefore this anomalous artist, and continue stripping away some +of the purely emotional characters of our typical colossus. We shall +soon meet the last and simplest form of poet--the mere describer; of his +aspirations and emotions we know but little; we know only of his tastes, +his preferences for certain sights and sounds. He cares for the sea, or +the woods, or the fields, or the skies; he is very near being a mere +thing of eyes and ears. Yet not wholly; for he perceives not only the +colour and movement of the waves, but their sound, their briny scent; +he perceives not only the green and tawny tints of leaves and moss, he +hears the crackling of the brushwood, the rustling of the boughs, the +confused hum of bees, the faint murmur of waters; nay, in the waves and +in the woods he perceives something more, vague resemblances to other +things; vague expressions of mood and feeling which, when the waters +rush in, make his heart leap; when the grey light steals in among the +branches, sends a sadness throughout him. Nay, in this artist, in this +simplest, least human sort of poet, there remains yet an infinite amount +of the human individuality, of its passions and desires. Let us tear +away, throw aside this last amount of human feeling, reduce our typical +artist to mere intense powers of seeing. Shall we still have wherewith +to obtain any work at all? will this rarified, simplified mentality be +much above a mere feelingless optic machine? Let us see. Here we have a +creature out of which we have removed as much as possible of all human +qualities: a creature which can perceive with infinite keenness and +reproduce with the most perfect exactitude, every little subtle line +and tint and shadow which escapes other men; a creature whose delicate +perception vibrates with delight at every harmonious combination, and +writhes, as if it would shatter to atoms, at every displeasing mixture +of lines or colours. A living and most sensitive organism which feels, +thinks everything as form and colour, fostered with the utmost care by +other such organisms, themselves nurtured into intensity more intense +than that with which they were born; for ever put in contact with the +visual objects which are, let us remember, the air it breathes, the food +it assimilates until this visual organism becomes beyond compare perfect +in its power of perceiving and reproducing. Then, imagine this abstract +being, this quivering thing of sight, placed in the midst of a country +of austere, delicate lines, and solemn yet diaphanous tints; among +the undulating fields and oakwoods, beneath the pearly sky of Umbria; +imagine that before it are placed, as the creatures most precious and +lovely, the creatures whose likeness must for ever be copied in all its +intensity, youths, young women, old men, delicate and emaciate with +solitude and maceration, with eyes grown dilated and bright from +straining to see the glorious visions, the celestial day-dreams which +flit across their mind; with lips grown tremulous and eager with +passionate longing for constantly expected, never-coming bliss; always +alone, inactive, with listless limbs and workless hands, in the bare, +unadorned cell or oratory; or if, coming forth, walking through the +streets, passing through the crowd (giving way with awe), erect, +self-engrossed, seeing and hearing nothing around, like one entranced. +Let us imagine this organism, thus perfect for perceiving and +reproducing all that it sees, for ever in the presence of such lines and +colours, such faces and figures as these; and then let us ask ourselves +what this quite abstract, unhuman power will produce, what this artist, +who is completely divested of all that which belongs merely to the man, +would paint. What would that be, that work thus produced? What save +those delicate, wan angels and saints and apostles, standing in solitary +contemplation and ecstasy, those scarcely embodied souls, raised beyond +the bounds of time and space, concentrated, absorbed in longing for +heavenly perfection? And if this subtle visual organism, nurtured among +these sights, should happen to be lodged in the same body with a sordid, +base, cynical temper, can it be altered thereby? Surely not. The eye has +seen, the hand has reproduced--seen and reproduced that which surrounds +them--and inevitably, fatally, although eye and hand belonged to the +man "who placed all his hopes in the good things of fortune, into whose +porphyry brain no idea of good could enter, who for money would have +concluded any evil bargain," the work thus produced by this commonplace, +grasping atheist, Peter Perugino, must be the ideal of all purely +devotional art. He was an atheist and a cynic, but he was a great +painter, and lived in Umbria, in the country of sweet and austere hills +and valleys, in the country whose moral air was still scented by the +"flowerets of St. Francis." + +This is the end of our long wandering up and down, round and round, the +question of artistic personality, even as we must wander up and down, +round and round, before we can reach any of these strange Umbrian towns. +And, as after long journeying, when we enter the city, and find that +that which seemed a castle, a grand, princely town, all walled and +towered and battlemented, is in reality only a large, rough village, +with blackened houses and fissured church steeples, a place containing +nothing of any interest: so also in this case, when we have finally +reached our paltry conclusion that this painter of saints was no saint +himself, we must admit to ourselves that to arrive at this conclusion +was scarcely our real object; even as while travelling through this +country of Perugino we make our guide confess that what, in all this +expedition, we were meant to see and enjoy, was not the paltry, +deceptive hill-top village, but the sere-brown oakwoods, tinged russet +by the sun, the grey olive hills through which we have slowly ascended, +and the glimpses of undulating grey-green country and distant wave-blue +mountains which we have had at every new turn of our long and up-hill +road. + + + + +RUSKINISM. + +THE WOULD-BE STUDY OF A CONSCIENCE + + +I give a place to the following pages, because, for all the difference +of form, this essay is of the same sort, has had the same kind of +origin, as the so seemingly incongruous studies with which it is bound +up. For this also is the rough putting together of notes made at +various times and in various phases of study; it is a series of +self-questionings and answers, of problems, perhaps only half-formulated +and half-solved, which have arisen round one man, one artist, one art +philosophy, even as in the adjoining essays they have arisen around some +one statue, or song, or picture; self-questionings and problems, these +present ones, not of aesthetic right and wrong suggested by a given work +of art, but of moral fitness and unfitness suggested by the doubts, the +divisions, the mistakes, by the comprehension (or, if you prefer, the +misapprehension) of the conscience of perhaps the greatest and strangest +artist of our days. + + * * * * * + +John Ruskin stands quite isolated among writers on art. His truths and +his errors are alike of a far higher sort than the truths and errors of +his fellow-workers: they are truths and errors not of mere fact, nor of +mere reasoning, but of tendency, of moral attitude; and his philosophy +is of far greater importance than any other system of aesthetics, +because it is not the philosophy of the genius, evolution or meaning +of any art or of all art, but the philosophy of the legitimacy or +illegitimacy of all and every art. In the case of every other writer +on art the evils due to a false system are, in proportion to the great +interests of our lives and of the life around, but very paltry evils: +the evils of misconceiving the relations between various masters and +various schools, and the causes of various artistic phenomena; the evils +of misappreciating a work or a form of art, of preferring an inferior +picture, or statue or piece of music, to a superior one; the evils of +buying fluttering St. Theresas of Bernini rather than noble goddesses +of Scopas; of ornamenting our houses with plaster dragons, grimacing +toothless masks, and meagre lines of lintel and clumsy agglomerations +of columns, rather than with the leaf and flower moulding, the noble +arches and dainty cornices of mediaeval art; the evils in short of not +understanding quite well or of not appreciating quite correctly. Very +important evils within the limited sphere of our artistic interests, and +which we must not neglect to eradicate; but evils such as cannot deeply +trouble our whole nature, or seriously damage our whole lives. Such is +the case with the aesthetic systems, with the truths and errors of men +like Winckelmann, Lessing, Hegel, or Taine; but it is not so with the +aesthetic system of Ruskin. For the theories of all other writers on +art deal only with the meaning and value of one work or school of art +compared with another work or school; they deal only with the question +how much of our liking or disliking should we give to this art or to +that; they are all true or false within the region allotted to art. But +the theories of Ruskin deal with the comparative importance of artistic +concerns and the other concerns of our lives: they deal with the +problem, how much of our thoughts and our energies we have a right to +give to art, and for what reasons we may give any portion of them: it +deals with the question of the legitimacy not of one kind of artistic +enjoyment more than another, but of the enjoyment of art at all. + +The question may at first sight seem futile from its very magnitude: +unnecessary because it has so long been answered. In the first moment +many of us may answer with contempt that the thinking men and women of +to-day are not ascetics of the Middle Ages, nor utilitarians of the 18th +century, nor Scotch Calvinists, that they should require to be taught +that beauty is neither sinful nor useless, that enjoyment of art is not +foul self-indulgence nor childish pastime. And so at first it seems. The +thinking men and women of our day are not any of these things, and do +not require to be answered these questions. But though these scruples +and doubts no longer trouble us, we, in our nineteenth century, are yet +not entirely at peace in our hearts. For, just in proportion as the old +religious faith is dying out, we are feeling the necessity to create a +new; as the old vocations of belief are becoming fewer and further +between, the new vocations of duty are becoming commoner; as the old +restrictions of the written law are melting away, so there appears +the new restriction of the unwritten law, the law of our emancipated +conscience; and the less we go to our priests, the more do we go to our +own inner selves to know what we may do and what we should sacrifice: +with our daily growing liberty, grows and must grow, to all the nobler +among us, our responsibility. Nay, the more we realise that we have but +this one brief life wherein to act and to expiate, the more earnestly do +we ask ourselves to what use we should put the little that is vouchsafed +us. And thus it comes to pass that there exist among us many who, seeing +the evil around them, seeing the infinitude of falsehood which requires +to be dispelled and of pain which requires to be alleviated, and of +injustice which requires to be destroyed, must occasionally pause and +ask themselves what right they have to give all, or any, of their +limited time and thought and energy to the mere enjoyment of the +beautiful, when there exists on all sides evil which it seems to require +unlimited effort to quell. Many there must be, and every day more, who +are harried by their love of art and their sense of duty, who daily ask +themselves the question which first arose, nearly forty years ago, in +the mind of John Ruskin; and which, settled by false answers, has +recurred to him ever and anon, and has shaken and shattered the very +system which was intended to answer it for ever. + +John Ruskin has been endowed as have been very few men as an artist, a +critic, and a moralist; in the immense chaotic mass, the constantly +altered and constantly propped up ruins of an impossible system, which +constitute the bulk of his writings, he has taught us more of the subtle +reasons of art, he has reproduced with his pen more of the beauty of +physical nature, and he has made us feel more profoundly the beauty of +moral nature, than has, perhaps, been done separately by any critic, +or artist, or moralist of his day. He has possessed within himself +two very perfect characters, has been fitted out for two very noble +missions:--the creation of beauty and the destruction of evil; and of +these two halves each has been warped; of these two missions each has +been hampered; warped and hampered by the very nobility of the man's +nature: by his obstinate refusal to compromise with the reality of +things, by his perpetual resistance to the evidence of his reason, by +his heroic and lamentable clinging to his own belief in harmony where +there is discord, in perfection where there is imperfection. There are +natures which cannot be coldly or resignedly reasonable, which, despite +all possible demonstration, cannot accept evil as a necessity and +injustice as a fact; which must believe their own heart rather than +their own reason; and when we meet such natures, we in our cold wisdom +must look upon them with pity, perhaps, and regret, but with admiration +and awe and envy. Such a nature is that of John Ruskin. He belongs, it +is true, to a generation which is rapidly passing away; he is the almost +isolated champion of creeds and ideas which have ceased even to be +discussed among the thinking part of our nation; he is a believer +not only in Good and in God, but in Christianity, in the Bible, in +Protestantism; he is, in many respects, a man left far behind by the +current of modern thought; but he is, nevertheless, and unconsciously, +perhaps, to himself, the greatest representative of the highly developed +and conflicting ethical and aesthetical nature which is becoming more +common in proportion as men are taking to think and feel for themselves; +his is the greatest example of the strange battles and compromises which +are daily taking place between our moral and our artistic halves; and +the history of his aspirations and his errors is the type of the inner +history of many a humbler thinker and humbler artist around us. + +When, nearly forty years ago, Ruskin first came before the world with +the wonderful book--wonderful in sustained argument and description, +and in obscure, half crazy, half prophetic utterances--called _Modern +Painters_, it was felt that a totally new power had entered the region +of artistic analysis. It was not the subtle sympathy with line and +curve, with leaf and moulding, nor the wondrous power of reproducing +with mere words the depths of sky and sea, the radiancies of light and +the flame and smoulder of cloud; it was not his critical insight nor +his artistic faculty which drew to him at once the souls of a public so +different, in its universality, from the small eclectic bands which +surround other aestheticians; it was the feeling, in all who read his +books, that this man was giving a soul to the skies and seas; that he +was breathing human feeling into every carved stone and painted canvas; +that he was bidding capital and mosaic, nay, every rudest ornament hewn +by the humblest workman, to speak to men with the voice of their own +heart; that for the first time there had been brought into the serene +and egotistic world of art the passion, the love, and the wrath of +righteousness. He came into it as an apostle and a reformer, but as +an apostle and a reformer strangely different from Winckelmann and +Schlegel, from Lessing and Goethe. For, while attacking the architecture +of Palladio and the painting of Salvator Rosa; while expounding the +landscapes of Turner and the churches of Verona, he was not merely +demolishing false classicism and false realism, not merely vindicating +a neglected artist or a wronged school: he was come to sweep usurping +evil out of the kingdom of art, and to reinstate as its sole sovereign +no human craftsman, but God himself. + +God or Good: for to Ruskin the two words have but one meaning. God and +Good must receive the whole domain of art; it must become the holy of +holies, the temple and citadel of righteousness. To do this was the +avowed mission of this strange successor, haughty and humble, and tender +and wrathful, of the pagan Winckelmann, of the coldly serene Goethe. How +came John Ruskin by this mission, or why should his mission differ so +completely from that of all his fellows? Why should he insist upon the +necessity of morally sanctifying art, instead of merely aesthetically +reforming it? Why was it not enough for him that artistic pleasure +should be innocent, without trying to make it holy? Because, for +Ruskin's nature, compounded of artist and moralist, artistic engagement +was a moral danger, a distraction from his duty--for Ruskin was not the +mere artist, who, powerless outside his art, may, because he can only, +give his whole energies to it; he was not the mere moralist who, +indifferent to art, can give it a passing glance without interrupting +for a moment his work of good; he felt himself endowed to struggle for +righteousness and bound to do so, and he felt himself also irresistibly +attracted by mere beauty. To the moral nature of the man this mere +beauty, which threatened to absorb his existence, became positively +sinful; while he knew that evil was raging without requiring all his +energies to quell it, every minute, every thought diverted from the +cause of good was so much gain for the cause of evil; innocence, mere +negative good, there could not be, as long as there remained positive +evil. Thus it appeared to Ruskin. This strange knight-errant of +righteousness, conscious of his heaven endowed strength, felt that +during every half-hour of delay in the Armida's garden of art, new +rootlets were being put forth, new leaves were being unfolded by the +enchanted forest of error which overshadowed and poisoned the earth, +and which it was his work to hew and burn down; that every moment of +reluctant farewell from the weird witch of beauty meant a fresh outrage, +an additional defiling of the holy of holies to rescue which he had +received his strong muscle and his sharp weapons. Thus, refusing to +divide his time and thoughts between his moral work and his artistic, +Ruskin must absolutely and completely abandon the latter; if art seemed +to him not merely a waste of power, but an absolute danger for his +nobler side, there evidently was no alternative but to abjure it for +ever. But a man cannot thus abandon his own field, abjure the work for +which he is specially fitted; he may mortify, and mutilate and imprison +his body, but he cannot mortify or mutilate his mind, he cannot imprison +his thoughts. John Ruskin was drawn irresistibly towards art because he +was specially organised for it. The impossible cannot be done: nature +must find a vent, and the artistic half of Ruskin's mind found its way +of eluding the apparently insoluble difficulty: his desire reasoned, and +his desire was persuaded. A revelation came to him: he was neither to +compromise with sin nor to renounce his own nature. For it struck him +suddenly that this irresistible craving for the beautiful, which he +would have silenced as a temptation of evil, was in reality the call +to his mission; that this domain of art, which he had felt bound to +abandon, was in reality the destined field for his moral combats, +the realm which he must reconquer for God and for Good. Ruskin had +considered art as sinful as long as it was only negatively innocent: by +the strange logic of desire he made it positively righteous, actively +holy; what he had been afraid to touch, he suddenly perceived that he +was commanded to handle. He had sought for a solution of his own doubts, +and the solution was the very gospel which he was to preach to others; +the truth which had saved him was the truth which he must proclaim. And +that truth, which had ended Ruskin's own scruples, was that the basis of +art is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or unpleasant, but must +be lawful or unlawful, that every legitimate artistic enjoyment is due +to the perception of moral propriety, that every artistic excellence is +a moral virtue, every artistic fault is a moral vice; that noble art can +spring only from noble feeling, that the whole system of the beautiful +is a system of moral emotions, moral selections, and moral appreciation; +and that the aim and end of art is the expression of man's obedience to +God's will, and of his recognition of God's goodness. + +Such was the solution of Ruskin's scruples respecting his right of +giving to art the time and energies he might have given to moral +improvement; and such the aesthetical creed which he felt bound, by +conviction and by the necessity of self-justification, to develop into +a system and to apply to every single case. The notion of making beauty +not merely a vague emanation from the divinity, as in the old platonic +philosophies, but a direct result, an infallible concomitant of moral +excellence; of making the physical the mere reflexion of the moral, is +indeed a very beautiful and noble idea; but it is a false idea. For--and +this is one of the points which Ruskin will not admit--the true state +of things is by no means always the noblest or the most beautiful; our +longing for ineffable harmony is no proof that such harmony exists: the +phantom of perfection which hovers before us is often not the mirage +of some distant reality, but a mere vain shadow projected by our own +desires, which we must follow, but may never obtain. In the soul of all +of us exists, oftenest fragmentary and blurred, a plan of harmony and +perfection which must serve us as guide in our workings, in our altering +and rebuilding of things; but we must not expect that with this plan +should coincide the actual arrangements of nature; we must beware lest +we use as a map of the earth into which we have been created the map of +the heaven which we seek to create; for we shall find that the ways are +different, we shall go astray bewildered and in bitterness, we shall sit +down in despair in this country which is evil where it should have been +good, arid where it should have been fruitful, and we shall uselessly +weep or rage until all the time for our journeyings and workings is +over, and death has come to ask how much we have done. Sin and Pain +and Injustice are realities, and what is worse, they are necessities: +they are not despite Nature, but through Nature; destructive forces +perhaps, but which Nature requires for her endless work of construction; +punished perhaps in the individual wretch devoted to them, but ordered +nevertheless by that same punishing power which requires them. And worse +still, evil and good are not opponents, they are not for ever destroying +each other's work, for ever marshalled in battle against each other; +they are combined though hostile, used in the same great work of action +and reaction: together they build and destroy, together they are knit in +closest and most twisted bonds of cause and effect; bonds so close, so +inextricably crossed and recrossed that severing one of them, tearing +and cutting them asunder, it seems as if the whole universe would crash +down upon us. In this world of reality where evil leads to good and +life to death; where harmonies are imperfect, there is no unvarying +correspondence between things, no necessary genesis of good from good, +and evil from evil. There is much conflict and much isolation. And thus +the world of the physically beautiful is isolated from the world of the +morally excellent: there is sometimes correspondence between them, and +sometimes conflict, but both accidental and due to no inner affinity, +but only to exterior causes: most often there is no relation at all. For +the qualities of right and wrong, and of beautiful and ugly, and our +perceptions of them, belong to different parts of our being, even as +to a yet different part of our being belong our perception of true and +false, that is, of existing and non-existing. A true thing need by no +means be a good or a beautiful thing: that generations of men are doomed +to sin and misery is no good fact; that millions of putrifying bodies +lie beneath the ground is no beautiful fact, but both are nevertheless +true facts, true with that truth of which science, had it perception of +good and of beauty as well as mere perception of truth, should say, "I +recognize, but I shudder"--And thus also is it with the good and the +beautiful: they have no connection except that, each in its kingdom, is +the best, the desirable, that for which we should all strive, that for +which the whole of nature, despite its inextricable evils, seems to +crave and to struggle. A pure state of soul is like a pure state of +body: a morbid craving is like a disease; a noble moral attitude is like +a noble physical attitude: moral excellence and physical beauty are both +the healthy, the perfect; but they are the healthy, the perfect, in two +totally different halves of nature, and we perceive and judge them by +totally different organisms. Whence our moral instincts have come, or +how they ever entered into the scheme of a world in which there is so +much to shock them; how the preference for the good of others was ever +evolved out of the preference for the good of self is a question most +speedily solved by the men of science who seek the reasons why Christ is +good and the thinned gold-leaved poplars by the river are beautiful, in +the living nerves of ripped-up beasts; this much is evident that moral +instinct judges that part of actions which is neither to be felt with +our hands, nor to be seen with our eyes, nor to be tasted or heard or +smelt: it judges and finds good or evil certain qualities or combinations +of qualities which do not materially exist: things which though they +have as real an existence as anything which can be tasted or sniffed or +fingered, have yet a purely intellectual existence, can be found only by +those mysterious senses which, even as touch and hearing, and smell and +taste and sight, put us in communication with the physical world outside +us, put us far more wonderfully in communication with the moral world +within us. The qualities constituting physical beauty, on the other +hand, are, to a large extent at least, perceived by our physical senses: +there is indeed a point where the mere nerve sensations no longer serve +to explain aesthetical likings or dislikings, where, on the other hand, +the addition of mere logical considerations of fitness seem insufficient +to account for phenomena, where, in short, we are forced to have +recourse to a very confused and at present untenable idea of inherited +habits and love of proportion, but it nevertheless remains evident that +physical beauty is a thing perceived through the physical senses and +concretely extant in the world around us. We say that a character is +morally good because certain actions or words reveal to us the existence +of certain tendencies and habits of feeling which (no matter how +instituted) satisfy and delight our moral nature, because there is +between these tendencies of feeling and our moral nature a mysterious +affinity, which may depend on nerve cells or on logical arguments, +but does not in the least resemble either. But when we say that a +tree is beautiful, it is because, in the first instance, its mere +sensation-giving qualities, taken separately, affect us agreeably in our +various physical parts: the colour stimulating or soothing our colour +nerves, the size, enabling our visual nerves to take in its shape +agreeably; its shadyness, which even as a mere suggestion, pleases +our tactile nerves, its rustle, which pleasantly moves our nerves of +hearing; and even if we admit that the perception that the tree as a +whole is beautiful, as distinguished from certain of its qualities being +agreeable, depends upon something higher and more recondite than mere +nerve tickle, even then it remains that whatever abstract instinct of +beauty we may possess, it is only through physical sensations that this +instinct is reached; and that a man born blind cannot perceive beauty +of colours nor a man born deaf beauty of sounds, simply because the +physical receptive organs of sight and sound are wanting. Thus, in +short, beauty is a physical quality, as goodness is a moral quality: and +if they are in a way equivalents, beauty being physical goodness, and +goodness moral beauty, it is exactly because each has a separate sphere +in which each respectively, represents the best. That beauty is in +itself physical, is a point which few have denied: that beautiful curves +and harmonies are moral qualities very few have asserted. But few have +as yet been willing to admit that beauty is a quality independent of +goodness, independent sometimes to the extent of hostility: that it is +as independent of moral excellence as is logical correctness. Yet thus +it is; and thus all of us must vaguely feel; all those who think, must +closely perceive it to be. There is no justice, no charity, no moral +excellence in physical beauty. It is a negative thing. If it refuses to +associate with evil, to dwell in the putrid corpse or in the face of the +murderer, it is because physical beauty is a concomitant of physical +purity and health, and decaying corpses are always unhealthy, while evil +souls nearly always leave ugly marks on the bodies: but the putrescent +corpse and the murderer's face are both ugly because they are physically +wrong, not because they are morally abominable. Beauty, in itself, is +neither morally good nor morally bad: it is aesthetically good, even as +virtue is neither aesthetically good nor aesthetically bad, but morally +good. Beauty is pure, complete, egotistic: it has no other value than +its being beautiful. This is a bitter thing to say, a cruel confession +on the part of one whose love and whose chief interest is the beautiful, +to make to himself: this that his beloved and much studied Beautiful, +which is his happiness and his study, has no moral value: that above +this superb and fascinating thing, there are things which are better, +nobler, more necessary, and for whose sake, in case of conflict, this +adored quality must be trampled under foot. A bitter confession; but the +truth is the truth, and must be admitted; to ourselves first of all. It +is, as we have said, one of the wicked anomalies of this world that the +true, the existing, is at variance with that which we should wish to +exist: we cannot replace with impunity the ugly, the cruel, the mean +truth by the charming, the generous fancy; if we do so, we must be +prepared to break with all truth, or to compromise with all falsehood: +we shall create an evil a hundredfold worse than the one we wished to +avoid. We are afraid of a truth which jars upon our sense of the morally +desirable: we invent and accept a lie, plausible and noble; and behold! +in a moment we are surrounded by a logical work of falsehood, which must +be for ever torn and for ever patched up if any portion of truth is to +enter. + +Such has been the case with John Ruskin; he shrank from owning to +himself what we have just recognized, with reluctance, indeed, and +sorrow, that the beautiful to whose study and creation he was so +irresistibly drawn, had no moral value; that in the great battle between +good and evil, beauty remained neutral, passive, serenely egotistic. +It was necessary for him that beauty should be more than passively +innocent: he must make it actively holy. Only a moral meaning could make +art noble; and as, in the deep-rooted convictions of Ruskin, art was +noble, a moral meaning must be found. The whole of the philosophy of art +must be remodelled upon an ethical basis; a moral value must everywhere +sanction the artistic attraction. And thus Ruskin came to construct a +strange system of falsehood, in which moral motives applied to purely +physical actions, moral meanings given to the merely aesthetically +significant, moral consequences drawn from absolutely unethical +decisions; even the merest coincidences in historical and artistic +phenomena, nay, even in the mere growth of various sorts of plants, +nay, even the most ludicrously applied biblical texts, were all +dragged forward and combined into a wondrous legal summing-up for the +beatification of art; the sense of the impossibility of rationally +referring certain aesthetical phenomena to ethical causes producing in +this lucid and noble thinker a sort of frenzy, a wild impulse to solve +irrational questions by direct appeals for an oracular judgment of God, +to be sought for in the most trumpery coincidences of accidents; so that +the man who has understood most of the subtle reasons of artistic +beauty, who has grasped most completely the psychological causes of +great art and poor art, is often reduced to answer his perplexities +by a sort of aesthetico-moral key and bible divination, or heads-win +tails-lose, toss-up decision. The main pivots of Ruskin's system are, +however, but few: first, the assertion that all legitimate artistic +action is governed by moral considerations, is the direct putting in +practice of the commandments of God; and secondly, that all pleasure in +the beautiful is the act of appreciating the goodness and wisdom of God. +These two main theories completely balance one another; between them, +and with the occasional addition of mystic symbolism, they must explain +the whole question of artistic right and wrong. Now for Ruskin artistic +right and wrong is not only a very complex, but, in many respects, +a very fluctuating question; in order to see how complex and how +fluctuating, we must remember what Ruskin is, and what are his aims. +Ruskin is no ordinary aesthetician, interested in art only inasmuch as +it is a subject for thought, untroubled in the framing of histories, +psychological systems of art philosophy by any personal likings and +dislikings; Ruskin is essentially an artist, he thinks about art because +he feels about art, and his sole object is morally to justify his +artistic sympathies and aversions, morally to justify his caring about +art at all. With him the instinctive likings and dislikings are the +original motor, the system is there only for their sake. He cannot, +therefore, like Lessing, or Hegel, or Taine, quietly shove aside any +phenomenon of artistic preference which does not happen to fit into his +system; he could, like Hegel, assign an inferior rank to painting, +because painting has to fall into the category assigned to romantic, +that is to say, imperfect art; he could not, like Taine, deliberately +stigmatise music as a morbid art because it had arisen, according to +his theory, in a morbid state of society; with Ruskin everything must +finally yield to the testimony of his artistic sense: everything which +he likes must be legitimated, everything which he dislikes must be +condemned; and for this purpose the system of artistic morality must for +ever be altered, annotated, provided with endless saving-clauses, and +special cases. And all this the more especially as, in the course of his +studies, Ruskin frequently perceives that things which on superficial +acquaintance displeased him, are in reality delightful, in consequence +of which discovery a new legislation is required to annul their previous +condemnation and provide for their due honour. Thus, having conceived a +perhaps exaggerated aversion (due, in great part, to the injustice of +his adversaries) to the manner of representing the nature of certain +Dutch painters of the 17th century, Ruskin immediately formulated a +theory that minute imitation of nature was base and sinful; and when +he conceived a perhaps equally exaggerated admiration for the works of +certain extremely careful and even servile English painters of our own +times, he was forced to formulate an explanatory theory that minuteness +of work was conscientious, appreciative, and distinctly holy. Had he +been satisfied with mere artistic value, he need only have said that the +Dutch pictures were ugly, and the English pictures beautiful; but having +once established all artistic judgment upon an ethical basis, it became +urgent that he should invent a more or less casuistic reason, something +not unlike the _distinguo_ by means of which the Jesuit moralists +rendered innocent in their powerful penitents what they had declared +sinful in less privileged people, to explain that, under certain +circumstances, minute imitation was the result of insolence and apathy, +and in other cases the sign of humility and appreciation. Again, having +been instinctively impressed by the coldness and insipidity of the +schools of art which ostensibly refused to copy individual nature, and +professed to reproduce only the more important and essential character +of things, Ruskin annihilated these idealistic conventionalists by a +charge of impious contempt for the details of individual peculiarities +which God had been pleased to put into his work; and when, on the other +hand, his growing love for mediaeval art and for mysticism began to draw +him towards the Giottesque and even the pre-Giottesque artists, who +left out of their work all except the absolutely essential and typical +traits, Ruskin sanctified their conventionalism as the result of +preference for the merely spiritual and morally interesting portion of +the subject. The fact that the over refinement of the idealists of the +16th century ended in insipidity because it was due to a general organic +decline in the art, and that the rudeness of the conventional artists of +the 14th century possessed a certain nobility because it was merely a +momentary incapacity in a rapidly progressing art; this fact, and with +it the knowledge that the development and decline of every art is due to +certain necessities of general change, all that explains the life of any +and every art, completely escapes Ruskin on account of his explanation +by moral motives. In this way Ruskin has constructed a whole system of +artistic ethics, extremely contradictory and, as we have remarked, +bearing as great a resemblance to the text book, full of _distinguos_ +and _directions of the intention_ of one of Pascal's Jesuits as a very +morally pure and noble work can bear to a very base and depraved one. +And throughout this system scattered fragmentarily throughout his +various books, every artistic merit or demerit is disposed of as a +virtuous action or a crime; the moral principle established for the +explanation of one case naturally involving the prejudgment of another +case; and the whole system explaining by moral delinquencies the +artistic inferiority of a given time or people, and, on the other hand, +attributing the moral and social ruin of a century or a nation to the +artistic abominations it had perpetrated. The arrangements of lintels +and columns, the amount of incrustation of coloured marble on to brick, +the degree to which window traceries may be legitimately attenuated and +curled, the value of Greek honeysuckle patterns as compared with Gothic +hedge-rose ornaments, all these and a thousand other questions of mere +excellence of artistic effect, are discussed on the score of their +morality or baseness, of their truthfulness, or justice, or humility; +and Ruskin's madness against any kind of cheating or deception goes +to the length, in one memorable passage in the _Seven Lamps of +Architecture_, of condemning Correggio's ceiling of St. Paolo at Parma +because, as real children might be climbing in a real vine trellise +above our heads, there is possibility of deception and of sin; whereas, +as none of us expect to see the heavens open above us, there is no +possibility of deception, and consequently no sin in Correggio's glory +of angels in the Parma Cathedral; thus absolving on the score of +morality a rather confused and sprawling composition, and condemning as +immoral one of the most graceful and childlike works of the Renaissance. +The result of this system of explaining all artistic phenomena by +ethical causes is, as we have remarked, that the real cause of any +phenomenon, the explanation afforded us by history, is entirely +overlooked or even ignominiously rejected. Thus Ruskin attributes the +decay of Gothic architecture to "one endeavour to assume, in excessive +flimsiness of tracery, the semblance of what it was not"--to its having +"sacrificed a single truth." Now the violation of the nature and +possibilities of the material, what Ruskin in ethical language calls +the endeavour to trick, was not the cause but the effect of a gradual +decline in the art. The lace work of 15th century Gothic is not a +_lie_, it is an effete form. The perfect forms had been obtained, and as +the growth of the art could not be checked, imperfect ones naturally +succeeded them; the workman had hewn enough, had diminished the stone +surfaces sufficiently, had carved the leafage as much as was compatible +with beauty; the succeeding generations of workmen continued to work, +and what happened? They hewed away too much, they diminished the stone +surface too much, they carved the leafage too deep, each generation +cutting away more and more, until the whole fabric had reached such a +degree of flimsiness that, had not the Renaissance swept its cobwebs +away, they would have been torn to shreds by the Gothic artists +themselves. An art corrupts and dies of its own vital principles, as +does every other living and changing thing, as a flower withers of its +own life: you begin by chipping, you end, as in Gothic architecture, +by chipping into nothingness. You begin with grouping: you end with +grouping, like Michelangiolo and Parmegianno, into knots and lumps; +you begin by raising your figures out of the background: you end, like +Ghiberti, by tying them on with the narrowest slip of bronze; you begin +with modulating: you end, like Raff, Brahms, and other Wagnerists, by +modulating into chaos. Art, if it lives, must grow, and if it grows it +must grow old and die. And this fact gradually, though instinctively, +beginning to be felt by all thinkers on art, Ruskin, with his theory of +moral aesthetics, could never recognize. For him the corruption of the +art is due to the moral corruption of the artist: if the artist remained +truthfully modest, the perfection of the art would continue +indefinitely. + +Again, the necessity of referring all good art to morality and all bad +art to immorality, obliges Ruskin to postulate that every period which +has produced bad art has been a period of moral decay. The artistic +habits which displease him must be a direct result of a vicious way of +feeling and acting in all things: the decay of Venetian architecture and +sculpture must be distinctly referable to the decay of Venetian morality +in the 15th century; and the final corruption and ruin of the state +must be traced to the moral obliquity which caused Venetians to adopt +pseudo-classic forms in the Riva facade of the Ducal palace; moral +degradation and artistic degradation, acting and re-acting on each +other, bring about, according to Ruskin, political ruin; the iniquities +of the men who became apostates to Gothic architecture are visited upon +their distant descendants, upon the Venetians of the days of Campo +Formio. Now here again the ethical basis induces a complete historical +misconception, a misconception not only in the history of art, but also +in the history of civilization. For, just as his system of moral sin and +artistic punishment blinds Ruskin to the necessities of change and decay +in art, so, also, it prevents his seeing the inevitable necessity of +political growth and decline. Ruskin seeks the cause of the fall of +Venice in moral corruption manifested, or supposed to be manifested, in +art; but the cause of the fall of Venice must be sought elsewhere. Look +at this lagoon, this Adriatic, this Mediterranean: in the 14th century +they are the source of the greatness of the Zenos and Pisanis; three or +four hundred years later they will be the cause of the pettiness of the +Morosinis and Emos. In the present, in this time of Dandolo, into which +Ruskin has led us, it is to them that Venice owes the humiliation of +Barbarossa in the porch of St. Mark's; to them in the future will +be owed the triumph of Bonaparte and the tricolour waving from the +flagstaff of the square. For in the middle ages the sea means the +Mediterranean and the Baltic, the two great navigable, wealth-yielding +lakes, and around them arises prosperity: Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, +Luebeck, Dantzig, Brehmen; the men who live on the shores of the +Mediterranean take the riches of the East and of India, and conquer +Greece and the islands, and grow rich; and on this strip of marshland +keep armies which can cope with the united forces of Europe. Such is the +sea of the middle ages. But the sea of modern times is the ocean; give +the means of navigating that, give to the barbarians who inhabit its +coasts just enough civilization to build a ship and steer it, and those +barbarians, yes, the boors of Frisia, the savages of England, and of +Normandy, and of Portugal, will become the masters of the world, and +Venetians and Genoese shall be their puppets, and the Mediterranean +their pond. Since to the commerce of the Mediterranean they will oppose +the commerce of the ocean, to the riches of Greece, of Asia Minor, +Persia, and Egypt, the riches of Mexico and Peru, of India and of China, +which will flow into the banks of London, of Lisbon, of Antwerp, and +which will create armies to sweep all Italy out of the field. The Ocean +has superseded the Mediterranean, the boundless the bounded; this is the +explanation of the fall of Venice, of her political torpor and her +consequent vices. It is a law of nature that the small and sheltered +spots shall suffice while civilization is small, but that as it grows it +will seek a wider field, and its original homes be abandoned. A small +country, a small sea, made Greece and Italy greatest in antiquity and +the middle ages; a small country, a narrow sea, make them smallest in +modern times. And when the first galley of Prince Henry, the first +pinnace of Amsterdam or London, nay, the first little Norman craft set +sail for St. Brandan's Isle, the fate of Venice was sealed; Lodovico +Manin, and Casanova, and Bonaparte, and Campo Formio, all that in +Venetian history can mean corruption and disgrace, all was irrevocably +fixed; the geographical chance which had raised the palaces of Venice +has also caused them to moulder; time which made has also unmade, for +life is movement and movement is change. That immorality is not the +cause but the effect of political decline is as little conceived by +Ruskin as that neither the one nor the other can be produced by artistic +degradation; in his system which makes artistic inferiority the visible +expression of moral corruption, and national misfortune its direct +punishment, there can be no room for any of the great laws of +development and decay which historical science is now beginning to +perceive. All things must be carried on upon the miraculous system of +Sunday school books, where planks of bridges give way from the cogent +mechanical reason that the little boys passing over them have just +been telling lies or stealing apples; God is for ever busy unbolting +trapdoors beneath the feet of the iniquitous and rolling stones down on +the heads of blasphemers. And this same necessity of condemning morally +a period whose artistic work in any particular line is aesthetically +worthless in Ruskin's judgment, not only leads him into the most absurd +misappreciation of the moral value of a time, but entirely forbids his +recognizing the fact that the decay of one art is frequently coincident +with, and in some measure due to, the efflorescence of another. +The independent development of painting required the decay of the +architecture of the middle ages, whose symbolical, purely decorative +tendency condemned painting to be a sort of allegorical or narrative +Arabesque; whose well defined arches might not be broken through by +daring perspective, whose delicate cornices might not enclose more than +a mere rigid and simply tinted mosaic, or mosaic-like fresco. When, +therefore, painting arose mature in the 16th century, architecture was +necessarily crumbling. But to Ruskin the 16th century, being the century +of bad architecture, is hopelessly immoral, and being immoral, its +painting, Raphael, Michel Angelo, Correggio, all except a few privileged +Venetians, must needs be swept away as so much rubbish; while the very +imperfect painting of the Giottesques, because it belongs to a time +whose morality must be high since its architecture is good, is +considered as the ideal of pictorial art. Again, Ruskin perceives that +the whole plastic art of the 18th century, architecture, sculpture, and +painting, are as bad as bad can be; the cause must necessarily be found +not in the inevitable decline of all plastic art since the Renaissance, +but in the fiendish wickedness of the 18th century, that abominable age +which first taught men the meaning of justice as distinguished from +mercy, of humanity as distinguished from charity: which first taught +us not to shrink from evil but to combat it. And thus, because +the 18th century is proved by its smirking furbelowed goddesses and +handkerchief-cravatted urns to be utterly, morally, abominable, the one +great art which flourished in this period, the glorious music of Bach, +and Gluck, and Marcello, and Mozart, must necessarily be silently carted +off to the dust heap of artistic baseness. + +Thus the radical falsehood of the ethical system of aesthetics warps the +whole of Ruskin's view of the genius and evolution of art, of its +relations with national morality and political supremacy. But it does +more than this. It warps also Ruskin's view of art itself; its sophisms +force him to contradict, to stifle his own artistic instincts. For if, +as Ruskin has established, we are not permitted to love the beautiful +for its own sake, but only because it is supposed to represent a certain +moral excellence, that moral excellence must be the sole valuable +portion, and equally artistically valuable when separated from the +beautiful; while the beautiful must in itself be worthless, and +consequently dangerous. The absolutely ugly must, if it awaken virtuous +emotion, have a greater artistic value than the beautiful if it awaken +none; the macerated hermits, the lepers and cripples of the middle ages +must be artistically preferable to the healthy and beautiful athletes of +antiquity; compassion for the physically horrible is more virtuous than +the desire for the physically beautiful, therefore Ruskin would replace +the one by the other; forgetting, even as the middle ages forgot, that +the beautiful, the healthy, are the best and happiest for all of us; +that we are given sympathy with the physically evil only that we may +endure its contact long enough to transform it into the physically good: +that we compassionate disease only that we may cure it. + +Thus this sophisticated sense of duty, which, applied to artistic +interests where it has no place, has merely caused injustice of all +sorts, and falsehood and unceasing contradiction: which has condemned +the artistically pure for its juxta-position with the morally impure: +which has preferred the inferior in art because it answered to the +definition of the superior in morals: which has placed Giotto above +Michel Angelo because the second could paint and the first only imagine: +which has condemned Greek art as long as it seemed beautiful and +acquitted it when it appeared ugly: which has legitimated colour art +with one verse of the bible and anathematised linear art with another: +which has so often rejected the excellent in art because it wanted the +excellent in conduct: which has come to the point of preferring that +disease and putrefaction which, in the physical world, are equivalent to +sin and corruption in the moral--this sophisticated sense of morality, +originally intended to sanction all that which in art is sanctioned by +its mere innocence and delightfulness, has at length destroyed the very +artistic system which it was to sustain. For the divine elements of +justice, and mercy, and honour, cannot be wasted in this world; +entrapped and imprisoned in order to consecrate by their presence the +already holy, rendered sterile and useless among those artistic things +with which they have no concern, they have at last sought for their +field of action, for their legitimate objects, and have burst forth, +shattering the whole edifice of art philosophy in which they were +enclosed, mere useless talismans. And it has come home to Ruskin, once +and again, that this virtue thus expended upon cornices and lintels, +upon lines and colours, while evil raged outside, is no virtue: that +this sanctified art is not holy; that, direct our intentions as we may, +think of God as much as we like, we cannot make art one whit the less +passive and egotistic; it has come home to him, and with the noble +candour of doubt which is his logical weakness and his moral strength, +he has confessed that he had never known one man really and exclusively +devoted to mere moral good, who cared for art at all. The elaborate +system of ethical aesthetics, the ingeniously far-fetched explanations of +physical beauty by moral excellence, the triumphant decision that art is +the kingdom of God, has, after all and at last, failed to redeem the +beautiful in the eyes of Ruskin. He has seen a ragged creature die of +starvation on a dung heap; and all the cathedrals of Christendom, all +the resplendent Turners and saintly Giottos in the world have seemed to +him black and hideous. He has argued and stormed, and patched up once +more his tattered theories, and talked more than ever of beauty being +virtue, and its appreciation religion, and God being in all fair +things; but all this latter talk has been vain; into the midst of art +discussions have for ever crept doubts whether art should be at all. The +placid paradise of art, whose every flower and grass blade is a generous +thought, whose every fruit is a noble action, where every bubbling of +waters and every bird's song is a hymn to the goodness of God, has +become suspicious to its own creator now that he realises by what it +is surrounded; to live in this sweet and noble impossible paradise, +where beauty is the mere visible expression of virtue, while the foul +world-swamp is stealthily being eaten into, washed away, absorbed by the +surrounding flood of hell: is this not a sin, this quiet dwelling in +holiness, and a worse sin than any being committed in the darkness and +jostle below? + +In this way has Ruskin, one of the greatest thinkers on art and on +ethics, made morality sterile and art base in his desire to sanctify the +one by the other. Sterile and base, indeed, only theoretically: for the +instinct of the artist and of the moralist has ever broken out in noble +self-contradiction, in beautiful irrelevancies; in those wonderful, +almost prophetic passages which seem to make our souls more keen towards +beauty and more hardy for good. But all this is incidental, this which +is in reality Ruskin's great and useful work. He has made art more +beautiful and men better without knowing it--accidentally, without +premeditation, in words which are like the eternal truths, grand and +exquisite, which lie fragmentary and embedded in every system of +theology; the complete and systematic is worthless and even dangerous, +for it is false; the irrelevant, the contradictory, is precious, because +it is true to our better part. Ruskin has loved art instinctively, +fervently, for its own sake; but he has constantly feared lest this love +should be sinful or at least base. Like Augustine, he dreads that the +Devil maybe lurking in the beautiful sunshine; lest evil be hidden in +those beautiful shapes which distract his thoughts from higher subjects +of good and God; he trembles lest the beautiful should trouble his +senses and his fancy, and make him forget his promises to the Almighty. +He perceives that pleasure in art is more or less sensuous and selfish; +he is afraid lest some day he be called upon to account for the moments +he has not given to others, and be chastised for having permitted his +mind to follow the guidance of his senses; he trembles and repeats the +praise of God, the anathema of pride, he mumbles confused words about +"corrupt earth"--and "sinful man,"--even while looking at his works of +art, as some anchorite of old may instinctively have passed his fingers +across his beads and stammered out an _Ave_ when some sight of beauty +crossed his path and made his heart leap with unwonted pleasure. Ruskin +must tranquillize his conscience about art; he must persuade himself +that he is justified in employing his thoughts about it; and lest it be +a snare of the demon, he must make it a service of God. He must persuade +himself that all the pleasure he derives from art is the pleasure in +obeying God, in perceiving his goodness: that the pleasure he derives +from a flower is pleasure not in its curves and colours and scent, but +in its adaptation to its work, in its enjoyment of existence; that the +enjoyment he derives from a grand view is enjoyment of the kindness of +God, and the enjoyment in the sight of a noble face is enjoyment of the +expression of harmony with God's will; in short, all artistic pleasure +must become an act of adoration, otherwise, a jealous God, or a jealous +conscience, will smite him for abandoning the true altar for some golden +calf fashioned by man and inhabited by Satan. And to this constant +moralising, hallowing, nay, purifying of art, are due, as we have seen, +the greater number of Ruskin's errors; his system is false, and only +evil can spring from it; it is a pretence at a perfection which does not +exist, and which, like the pretence at the superhuman virtue of the +anchorite and mystic, must end in lamentable folly: in making men lie to +their own heart because they have sought to clothe all that is really +pure in a false garb of sanctity and have blushed at its naked reality; +because it makes a return to nature a return to sin, since what is +natural has been forbidden and what is innocent has been crookedly +obtained; because it tries to make us think we are nothing but soul, and +therefore turns us to brutes when we remember that we are also body, and +devils when we perceive that we are also reason. Because, in short, it +is a lie, and only falsehood can be born of it. For, in his constant +reference to a spiritual meaning, Ruskin has not only wasted and +sterilised our moral impulses, but has reduced art to mere foulness; in +his constant sanctifying of beauty he makes it appear impure. Above all, +in his unceasing attempt to attach a moral meaning to physical beauty, +he has lost sight of, he has denied, the great truth that all that which +is innocent is moral; that the morality of art is an independent quality +equivalent to, but separate from, the morality of action; that beauty +is the morality of the physical, as morality is the beauty of the +spiritual; that as the moral sense hallows the otherwise egotistic +relations of man to man, so also the aesthetic sense hallows the +otherwise brutish relations of man to matter; that separately but in +harmony, equally but differently, these two faculties make our lives +pure and noble. All this Ruskin has forgotten: he has made the enjoyment +of mere beauty a base pleasure, requiring a moral object to purify it, +and in so doing he has destroyed its own purifying power; he has +sanctified the already holy, and defiled with holy water, which implies +foulness, the dwelling of holiness. + +This is the lesson to be derived from the attempt at noble self-delusion +which Ruskin has practised upon himself. There is not in the world that +harmony and perfection, nay, that analogy of good to good and evil to +evil for which our higher nature seeks. As we have said, there is +contradiction and anomaly: anomaly the most horrible, since our logical +sense must accept it, and our moral sense cannot: anomaly of good +springing from evil, and evil from good, of pollution of the noble and +hallowing of the foul by the force of inevitable sequence. There is also +isolation of one sort of good from the other, and clashing of their +interests. All this there is, and against it all our moral sense must +for ever protest, and against it, whether free in our endeavour or +merely pushed on by the universal necessity, we must struggle. We +must seek for ever to resolve the discord between good and good, to +disentangle the meshes of good and evil, to destroy the dreadful anomaly +of things. But we can do so, however partially, we can really wish to +do so, only if we have the courage to see that the lamentable discord +and the horrible tangle do exist: only if we do not shrink from the +battlefield of reality into an enervating Capua of moral idealism. And +thus we should admit that only morality is really moral, and only virtue +really virtuous; that physical beauty intrinsically possesses but an +aesthetic value quite separate from all moral value; that above it must +always remain a more generous world of feeling and endeavour. If we do +not shrink from this painful truth we shall see that physical beauty and +its egotistic enjoyment have yet a moral value of their own: the value +of being, in the lives of others, absolute pleasure, the giving of which +is positive good. For in this world all is not completed when we have +destroyed evil; it must be replaced by good. We must all of us work, but +we must work in different ways. One half of us are the destroyers of +evil, the wrestlers with all that is wrong in itself or begets wrong, +falsehood, injustice, disease, misery; sent to extirpate the bad, +laboriously to weed it out blade by blade, or boldly to plough and burn +it up by the sheaf, the field, the acre. But when this half of active +mankind has done its work, what would remain? A mere joyless desert of +painless vacuity; and the other half of the workers must come and sow +and plant absolute good, positive joy in this redeemed life soil; nay, +even while the work of destruction is far from completed, and most of +all, perhaps, then, do we require that in the very shadow of the yet +deep-rooted evil, the little tufts of good should rise up, and console +and strengthen us with their sight and their scent. And of all these +kinds of egotistic good which we must needs sow while evil is being +cleared away, art is one of the noblest and most necessary; and woe +betide those who, having the power of creating beauty, would leave their +allotted work and join the destroyers of falsehood and of evil. The +amount of absolute good in the world is comparatively small, and we must +seek to increase it for ever; but increased it cannot be except by the +full employment of our activities, and our activities can be fully +employed only in their own proper sphere. In every artist there is a +man, and the moral perfection of the man is more important than the +artistic perfection of the artist; but, in as far as the artist is an +artist, he must be satisfied to do well in his art. For, though art has +no moral meaning, it has a moral value; art is happiness, and to bestow +happiness is to create good. + + + + +A DIALOGUE ON POETIC MORALITY. + + God sent a poet to reform His earth.--A. MARY F. ROBINSON. + + +"And meanwhile, what have you written?" asked Baldwin, tickling the +flies with his whip from off the horse's head, as they slowly ascended, +in the autumn afternoon, the hill of Montetramito, which with its ilex +and myrtle-grown black rocks, and its crumbling mounds, where the bright +green spruce pine clings to the washed-away scarlet sand, separates +the green and fertile plain of Lucca from the marshes of the Pisan +sea-shore. The two friends had met only an hour or so before at the foot +of the Apennine pass, and would part in not much more again. "And what +have you written?" repeated Baldwin. + +"Nothing," answered the younger man, drearily, leaning back languidly in +the rickety little carriage. "Nothing, or rather too much; I don't know +which. Is trash too much or too little? Anyhow, there's none of it +remaining. I thrust all my manuscripts into my stove at Dresden, and the +chimney took fire in consequence. That's the tragic history of all my +poetical labours of the last two years." And Cyril, lying back in the +carriage with his arms folded beneath his head, smiled half-sadly, half +whimsically in the face of his friend. + +But Baldwin did not laugh. + +"Cyril," he answered, "do you remember on a birthday of yours--you were +a tiny boy, brought up like a girl, with curls and beautiful hands--one +of your sisters dared you to throw your presents into the garden well, +and you did it, before a number of admiring little girls: you felt +quite a hero or a little saint, didn't you? And then my little hero was +suddenly collared by a big boy fresh from school, who was his friend +Baldwin, and who pulled his ears soundly and told him to respect +people's presents a little more. Do you remember that? Well; I now see +that, with all your growing up, and writing, and philosophising, and +talking about duty and self-sacrifice, you are just the self-same +womanish and uncontrolled _poseur_, the same romantic braggadoccio that +you were at seven. I have no patience with you!" And Baldwin whisked the +whip angrily at the flies. + +"Mere conceit: effeminate heroics again!" he went on. "Oh no, we must do +the very best! Be Shakespeare at least! Anything short of that would be +derogatory to our kingly nature! no idea of selecting the good (because +in whatever you do there must be talent), and trying to develop it; no +idea of doing the best with what gifts you have! For you are not going +to tell me that two years of your work was mere rubbish--contained +nothing of value. But, in point of fact, you don't care sufficiently for +your art to be satisfied to be the most you can; 'tis mere vanity with +you." + +Cyril became very red, but did not interrupt. + +"I am sorry you think so ill of me," he said sadly, "and I dare say I +have given you good cause. I dare say I am all the things you say--vain, +and womanish, and insolently dissatisfied with myself, and idiotically +heroic. But not in this case, I assure you. I will explain why I +thought it right to do that. You see I know myself very well now. I +know my dangers; I am not like you--I am easily swayed. Had those poems +remained in existence, had I taken them to England, I am sure I should +not have resisted the temptation of showing them to my old encouragers, +of publishing them probably; and then, after the success of my other +book, and all their grand prophecies, the critics would have had to +praise up this one too; and I should have been drifted back again into +being a poet. Now, as I wrote you several times--only, of course, you +thought it all humbug and affectation--such a poet as I could be I am +determined I will not be. It was an act of self-defence--defence of +whatever of good there may be in me." + +Baldwin groaned. "Defence of fiddlesticks! Defence of your vanity!" + +"I don't think so," replied Cyril, "and I don't think you understand me +at all in this instance. There was no vanity in this matter. You know +that since some time I have been asking myself what moral right a man +has to consume his life writing verses, when there is so much evil to +remove, and every drop of thought or feeling we have is needed to make +the great river which is to wash out this Augean stable of a world. I +tried to put the doubt behind me, and to believe in Art for Art's own +sake, and such bosh. But the doubt pricked me. And when suddenly my +uncle left me all he had, I felt I must decide. As long as I was a mere +penniless creature I might write poetry, because there seemed nothing +else for me to do. But now it is different. This money and the power it +gives are mine only as long as I live; after my death they may go to +some blackguard; so, while I have them, I must give all my energies to +doing with them all the good that I possibly can." + +"In that case better give them over to people who know best what to do +with them--societies or hospitals, or that sort of thing--and write your +verses as before. For I don't think your thoughts will add much to the +value of your money, Cyril. You've not a bit of practical head. Of +course you may, if you choose, look on idly while other people are +using your money. But I don't think it is specially worth doing." + +Cyril sighed, hesitated, and then burst out rapidly-- + +"But it is the only thing I _can_ do--do you understand? I can't write +poetry any more. Perhaps that may be the only thing for which I was ever +fit, but I am fit for it no longer. I cannot do what I have got to despise +and detest. For I do despise and detest the sort of poetry which I should +write--mere ornamental uselessness, so much tapestry work or inlaid +upholstery. You believe in Art for Art's own sake--Goethianism--that +sort of thing, I know. It is all very well for you, who have an active +practical life with your Maremma drainings and mine diggings, a life in +which art, beauty, so forth, have only their due share, as repose and +refreshment. It was all very well in former days also, when the people +for whom artists worked had a deal of struggle and misery, and required +some pure pleasure to make life endurable; but now-a-days, and with the +people for whom I should write, things are different. What is wanted +now-a-days is not art, but life. By whom do you think, would all the +beautiful useful things I could write, all the fiddle-faddle about +trees and streams and statues and love and aspiration (fine aspiration, +which never takes a practical shape!) be read? By wretched overworked +creatures, into whose life they might bring a moment of sweetness, +like a spray of apple blossom or a bunch of sweet-peas into some black +garret? Nothing of the kind. They would be read by a lot of intellectual +Sybarites, shutting themselves out, with their abominable artistic +religion, from all crude real life; they would be merely so much more +hothouse scents or exotic music (_con sordino_), to make them snooze +their lives away. Of course it is something to be a poet like those of +former days; something to be Tasso, and be read by that poor devil of a +fever-stricken watchmaker whom we met down in the plain of Lucca; but +to be a poet for the cultured world of to-day--oh, I would rather be a +French cook, and invent indigestible dishes for epicures without any +appetite remaining to them." + +So saying, Cyril jumped out of the gig, and ran up the steep last ascent +of the hill. He had persuaded himself of his moral rightness and felt +quite happy. + +Suddenly the road made a sharp bend between the overhanging rocks, grown +in all their fissures with dark ilex tufts and yellow broom and pale +pink cyclamen; it turned, and widened into a flat grass-grown place, +surrounded by cypresses on the top and ridge of the hill. Cyril ran to +the edge and gave a cry of pleasure. Below was stretched a wide strip of +Maremma swamp-land, mottled green and brown--green where the grass was +under water, brown where it was burned into cinders by the sun; with +here and there a patch of shining pond or canal; and at the extremity of +this, distinguishable from the greyish amber sky only by its superior +and intense luminousness, the sea--not blue nor green, but grey, +silvery, steel-like, as a mirror in the full sunshine. Baldwin stopped +the gig beneath the cypresses. + +"Look there," he said, pointing with his whip to a dark greenish band, +scarcely visible, which separated the land from the sea: "those are the +pine woods of Viareggio. It was into their sand and weeds that the sea +washed Shelley's body. Do you think we should be any the better off if +he had taken to practical work which he could not do, and declared that +poetry was a sort of French cookery?" + +Baldwin tied the reins to the stem of a cypress, and threw himself down +on the warm sere grass on the brow of the hill, overlooking the tangle +of olive and vine and fig-trees of the slopes below. + +"In Shelley's time," answered Cyril, leaning his head and shoulders +against one of the cypresses, and looking up into its dark branches, +compact in the centre, but delicate like feather and sparkling like +jet where their extremities stood out against the pale blue sky--"in +Shelley's time, things were rather different from what they are now. +There was a religion of progress to preach and be stoned for; there was +a cause of liberty to fight for--there were Bourbons and Lord Eldons, +and there was Greece and Spain and Italy. There was Italy still when +Mrs. Browning wrote: had she looked out of Casa Guidi windows now, on +to the hum-drum, shoulder-shrugging, penny-haggling, professorial, +municipal-councillorish Italy of to-day she could scarcely have felt in +the vein. The heroic has been done--" + +"There is Servia and Montenegro, and there are Nihilists and Democrats," +answered Baldwin. + +"I know--but we can't sing about barbarous ruffians, nor about +half-besotten, half-knavish regicides; we can't be Democrats +now-a-days--at least I can't. Would you have a man sing parliamentary +debates, or High Church squabbles, or Disestablishment, or Woman's +rights, or anti-communism? sing the superb conquests of man over nature, +&c., like your Italian friends, your steam-engine and mammoth poet +Zanella? The wonders of science!--six or seven thousand dogs and cats +being flayed, roasted, baked, disembowelled, artificially ulcerated, +galvanized on ripped-up nerves, at Government expense, in all the +laboratories of Christendom, in order to discover the soul-secreting +apparatus, and how to cure old maids of liver complaint! Thank you. My +muse aspires not thereunto. What then? Progress? But it is assured. Why, +man, we can't even sing of despair, like the good people of the year +'20, since we all know that (bating a few myriads of sufferers and a +few centuries of agony) all is going to come quite right, to be quite +comfortable in this best of all possible worlds. What then remains, +again? Look around you. There remains the poetry of beauty--oh yes, +of pure beauty, to match the newest artistic chintzes; the poetry of +artistic nirvana, of the blissful sleep of all manliness and energy, to +the faint sound (heard through dreams) of paradisiac mysticism sung to +golden lutes, or of imaginary amorous hysterics, or of symphonies in +alliteration. And this when there is so much error, so much doubt, so +much suffering, when all our forces are required to push away a corner +of the load of evil still weighing on the world: this sort of thing I +cannot take to." And Cyril fiercely plucked out a tuft of lilac-flowered +thyme, and threw it into the precipice below, as if it had been the +poetry of which he was speaking. + +"Do you know, Baldwin," went on Cyril, "you have destroyed successively +all my gods; you have shown me that my Holy Grails, in whose service, +one after another I felt happy and peaceful to live, like another +Parzival, or Galahaso, are not the sacred life-giving cup brought down +by angels, but mere ordinary vessels of brittle earth or stinking +pewter, mere more or less useful, but by no means holy things; ordinary +pots and pans, barber's basins like Mambrino's helmet, or blue china +teapots (worst degradation of all) like the Cimabue-Browns'. I believed +in the religion of Nature, and you showed me that Nature was sometimes +good and sometimes bad; that she produced the very foulness, physical +and moral, which she herself chastised men for; you showed me whole +races destined inevitably to moral perversion, and then punished for it. +So I gave up Nature. Then I took up the fashionable religion of Science, +and you showed me that it was the religion of a sort of Moloch, since it +accustomed us to acquiesce in all the evil which is part and parcel of +Nature, since it made us passive investigators into wrong when we ought +to be judges. After the positive, I threw myself into the mystic--into +the religion of all manner of mysterious connections and redemptions; +you showed me that the connections did not exist, and that all attempted +sanctification of things through mysticism was an abomination, since it +could not alter evil, and taught us to think it might be good. O my poor +Holy Grails! Then I took up the religion of love; and you proceeded to +expound to me that if love was restricted to a few worthy individuals, +it meant neglect of the world at large; and that if it meant love of +the world at large, it meant love of a great many utterly unworthy and +beastly people. You deprived me of humanitarianism, of positivism, of +mysticism; and then you did not even let me rest peaceably in pessimism, +telling me that to say that all was for the worst was as unjust as to +say that all was for the best. With a few of your curt sentences you +showed me that all these religions of mine were mere idolatries, and +that to rest in them for the sake of peace was to be utterly base. You +left me nothing but a vague religion of duty, of good; but you gave me +no means of seeing where my duty lay, of distinguishing good from evil. +You are a very useful rooter up of error, Baldwin; but you leave one's +soul as dry and barren and useless as sea shingle. You have taken away +all the falsehoods from my life, but you have not replaced them by +truths." + +Baldwin listened quietly. + +"Would you like to have the falsehoods back, Cyril?" he asked. "Would +you now like to be the holy knight, adoring and defending the pewter +basin or blue china teapot of humanitarianism, or positivism, or +mysticism, or aestheticism? And what becomes of the only religion which I +told you was the true one--the religion of good, of right? Do you think +it worthless now?" + +"I think it is the religion of the Unknown God. Where shall I find Him?" + +"In yourself, if you will look, Cyril." + +Cyril was silent for a moment. "What is right?" he said. "In the +abstract--(oh, and it is so easy to find out in the abstract, compared +to the concrete!)--in the abstract, right is to improve things in the +world, to make it better for man and beast; never to steal justice, and +always to give mercy; to do all we can which can increase happiness, +and refrain from doing all which can diminish it. That is the only +definition I can see. But how vague!--and who is to tell me what I am to +do? And when I see a faint glimmer of certainty, when I perceive what +seems to me the right which I must do, who again interferes? My friend +Baldwin, who, after preaching to me that the only true religion is the +religion of diminishing evil and increasing good for the sake of so +doing, coolly writes to me, in half-a-dozen letters, that the sole duty +of the artist is to produce good art, and that good art is art which has +no aim beyond its own perfection. Why, it is a return to my old aesthetic +fetish worship, when I thought abstract ideas of beauty would set the +world right, as Amphion's harp set the stones building themselves.... Am +I justified in saying that you merely upset my beliefs, without helping +me to build up any; yes, even when I am striving after that religion of +right doing which you nominally call yours--?" + +"You always rush to extremes, Cyril. If you would listen to, or read, my +words without letting your mind whirl off while so doing--" + +"I listen to you far too much, Baldwin," interrupted Cyril, who would +not break the thread of his own ideas; "and first I want to read you a +sonnet." + +Baldwin burst out laughing. "A sonnet! one of those burnt at Dresden--or +written in commemoration of your decision to write no more?" + +"It is not by me at all, so there's an end to your amusement. I want you +to hear it because it embodies, and very nobly, what I have felt. I have +never even seen the author, and know nothing about her except that she +is a woman." + +"A woman!" and Baldwin's tone was disagreeably expressive. + +"I know you don't believe in women poets or women artists." + +"Not much, so far, excepting Sappho and Mrs. Browning, certainly. But, +come, let's hear the sonnet. I do abominate women's verses, I confess; +but there are such multitudes of poetesses that Nature may sometimes +blunder in their production, and make one of them of the stuff intended +for a poet." + +"Well then, listen," and Cyril drew a notebook from his pocket, and read +as follows:-- + + "God sent a poet to reform His earth + But when he came and found it cold and poor + Harsh and unlovely, where each prosperous boor + Held poets light for all their heavenly birth, + He thought--Myself can make one better worth + The living in than this--full of old lore, + Music and light and love, where saints adore + And angels, all within mine own soul's girth. + But when at last he came to die, his soul + Saw Earth (flying past to Heaven) with new love, + And all the unused passion in him cried: + 'O God, your Heaven I know and weary of, + Give me this world to work in and make whole.' + God spoke: 'Therein, fool, thou hast lived and died.'" + +Cyril paused for a moment. "Do you understand, Baldwin, how that +expresses my state of feeling?" he then asked. + +"I do," answered the other, "and I understand that both you and the +author of the sonnet seem not to have understood in what manner God +intended that poets should improve the earth. And here I return to my +former remark, that when I said that the only true religion was the +religion not of nature, nor of mankind, nor of science, nor of art, but +the religion of good, and that the creation of perfect beauty is the +highest aim of the artist, I was not contradicting myself, but merely +stating two parts--a general and a particular--of the same proposition. +I don't know what your definition of right living may be; mine, the more +I think over the subject, has come to be this:--the destruction of the +greatest possible amount of evil and the creation of the greatest +possible amount of good in the world. And this is possible only by the +greatest amount of the best and most complete activity, and the greatest +amount of the best activity is possible only when everything is seen in +its right light, in order that everything may be used in its right +place. I have always preached to you that life must be activity; but +activity defeats itself if misapplied; it becomes a mere Danaides' work +of filling bottomless casks--pour and pour and pour in as much as you +will, the cask will always be empty. Now, in this world there are two +things to be done, and two distinct sets of people to do them: the one +work is the destruction of evil, the other the creation of good. Mind, I +say the _creation_ of good, for I consider that to do good--that is to +say, to act rightly--is not necessarily the same as to _create_ good. +Every one who does his allotted work is doing good; but the man who +tends the sick, or defends the oppressed, or discovers new truths, is +not creating good, but destroying evil--destroying evil in one of a +hundred shapes, as sickness, or injustice, or falsehood. But he merely +removes, he does not give; he leaves men as poor or as rich as they +would have been, had not disease, or injustice, or error stolen away +some of their life. The man who creates good is the one who not merely +removes pain, but adds pleasure to our lives. Through him we are +absolutely the richer. And this creator of good, as distinguished from +destroyer of evil, is, above all other men, the artist. The scientific +thinker may add pleasure to our lives, but in reality this truth of his +is valuable, not for the pleasure it gives, but for the pain it removes. +Science is warfare; we may consider it as a kind of sport, but in +reality it is a hunting down of the most dangerous kind of wild +animal--falsehood. A great many other things may give pleasure to our +lives--all our healthy activities, upper or lower, must; but the lower +ones are already fully exercised, and, if anything, require restraint; +so that French cooks and erotic poets ought rather to be exterminated +as productive of evil than encouraged as creative of good. And moral +satisfaction and love give us the best pleasures of all; but these are +pleasures which are not due to any special class created on purpose +for their production. Oh, I don't say that any artist can give you +the pleasure you have in knowing yourself to be acting rightly, or in +sympathizing and receiving sympathy; but the artist is the instrument, +the machine constructed to produce the only pleasures which can come +near these. Every one of us can destroy evil and create pleasure, in a +sort of incidental, amateurish way, within our own immediate circle; +but as the men of thought and of action are the professional destroyers +of evil, so the artists are the professional creators of good--they +work not for those immediately around them, but for the world at large. +So your artist is your typical professional creator of pleasure; he +is fitted out, as other men are not, to do this work; he is made of +infinitely finer stuff than other men, not as a whole man, but as an +artist: he has much more delicate hearing, much keener sight, much +defter fingers, much farther-reaching voice than other men; he is +specially prepared to receive and transmit impressions which would be +as wasted on other creatures, as the image in the camera on unprepared, +ordinary paper. Now, what I maintain is simply this, that if, according +to my definition, the object of destroying as much evil and creating as +much good can be attained only by the greatest activity rightly applied, +it is evident that a man endowed to be an artist--that is to say, a +creator of good for the whole world--is simply failing in his duty by +becoming a practical worker; that is to say, an amateur destroyer of +evil. What shall we say of this artist? We shall say that, in order +to indulge in the moral luxury, the moral amusement, of removing an +imperceptible amount of pain, he has defrauded the world of the immense +and long-lasting pleasure placed in his charge to give; we shall say +that, in order to feel himself a little virtuous, this man has simply +acted like a cheat and a thief." + +Baldwin had spoken rapidly and earnestly, with a sort of uniform or only +gradually rising warmth, very different from the hesitating, fluctuating +sort of passion of his companion. There was a short silence; Cyril was +still seated under the tall, straight cypress, whose fallen fruit, like +carved balls of wood, strewed the sere grass, and whose compact hairy +trunk gave out a resinous scent, more precious and strange than that +of the fir: he felt that he was momentarily crushed, but had a vague +sense that there lurked somewhere reasons, and very potent ones, which +prevented his friend being completely victorious; and Baldwin was +patiently waiting for him to muster his ideas into order before +continuing the discussion. A slight breeze from the over-clouded sea +sent a shiver across the olives into the ravine below, turning their +feathery tops into a silver ripple, as of a breaking wave; the last +belated cicalas, invisible in the thick plumy branches of the cypresses, +sawed slowly and languidly in the languid late afternoon; and from +the farms hidden in the olive yards of the slope came faint sounds of +calling voices and barking dogs--just sound enough to make the stillness +more complete. "All that is very true," said Cyril at last, "and yet--I +don't know how to express it--I feel that there is still remaining to me +all my reason for doubt and dissatisfaction. You say that artistic work +is morally justifiable to the artist, since he is giving pleasure to +others. From this point of view you are perfectly right. But what I +feel is, that the pleasure which the artist thus gives is not morally +valuable to those who enjoy it. Do you follow? I mean that the +artist may be nobly and generously employed, and yet, by some fatal +contradiction, the men and women who receive his gifts are merely +selfishly gratified. He might not, perhaps, be better employed than in +giving pleasure, but they might surely be better employed than in merely +receiving it; and thus the selfishness of the enjoyment of the gift +seems to diminish the moral value of giving it. When an artist gives to +other men an hour of mere enjoyment, I don't know whether he ought to +be quite proud or not." + +Baldwin merely laughed. "It is droll to see what sort of hypermoral +scruples some people indulge in now-a-days. So, your sense of the +necessity of doing good is so keen that you actually feel wretched at +the notion of your neighbours being simply happy, and no more, for an +hour. You are not sure whether, by thus taking them away for a moment +from the struggle with evil, letting them breathe and rest in the middle +of the battle, you may not be making them sin and be sinning yourself! +Why, my dear Cyril, if you condemn humanity to uninterrupted struggle +with evil, you create evil instead of destroying it; if mankind could +be persuaded to give up all of what you would call useless and selfish +pleasure, it would very soon become so utterly worn out and disheartened +as to be quite powerless to resist evil. If this is the system on which +poets would reform the world, it is very fortunate that they don't think +of it till they are flying to heaven." + +"I can't make it out. You seem to be in the right, Baldwin, and yet I +still seem to be justified in sticking to my ideas," said Cyril. "Do you +see," he went on, "you have always preached to me that the highest aim +of the artist is the perfection of his own work; you have always told me +that art cannot be as much as it should if any extra-artistic purpose be +given to it. And while listening to you I have felt persuaded that all +this was most perfectly true. But then, an hour later, I have met the +same idea--the eternal phrase of art for art's own sake--in the mouths +and the books of men I completely despised; men who seemed to lose sight +of all the earnestness and duty of life, who had even what seemed to +me very base ideas about art itself, and at all events debased it by +associating it with effeminate, selfish, sensual mysticism. So that the +idea of art for art's own sake has come to have a disgusting meaning to +me." + +Baldwin had risen from the grass, and untied the horse from the trunk of +the cypress. + +"There is a storm gathering," he said, pointing to the grey masses of +cloud, half-dissolved, which were gathering everywhere; "if we can get +to one of the villages on the coast without being half-drowned while +crossing the swamps, we shall be lucky. Get in, and we can discuss art +for art's own sake, and anything else you please, on the way." + +In a minute the gig was rattling down the hill, among the great blasted +grey olives, and the vines with reddening foliage, and the farm-houses +with their fig and orange trees, their great tawny pumpkins lying +in heaps on the threshing-floor, and their autumn tapestry of +strung-together maize hanging massy and golden from the eaves to +the ground. + +Baldwin resumed the subject where they had left it: "My own experience +is, that the men who go in for art for art's own sake, do so mainly from +a morbid shrinking from all the practical and moral objects which other +folk are apt to set up as the aim of art; in reality, they do not want +art, nor the legitimate pleasures of art: they want the sterile pleasure +of perceiving mere ingenuity and dexterity of handling; they hanker +vaguely after imaginary sensuous stimulation, spiced with all manner of +mystical rubbish, after some ineffable half-nauseous pleasure in strange +mixtures of beauty and nastiness; they enjoy above all things dabbling +and dipping alternately in virtue and vice, as in the steam and iced +water of a Turkish bath.... In short, these creatures want art not for +its own sake, but for the sake of excitement which the respectabilities +of society do not permit their obtaining, except in imaginative form. As +to art, real art, they treat it much worse than the most determined +utilitarian: the utilitarians turn art into a drudge; these aesthetic +folk make her into a pander and a prostitute. My reason for restricting +art to artistic aims is simply my principle that if things are to be +fully useful they must be restricted to their real use, according to the +idea of Goethe's Duke of Ferrara:-- + + 'Nicht alles dienet uns auf gleiche Weise; + Wer vieles brauchen will, gebrauche jedes + In seiner Art, so ist er wohl bedient.' + +I want art in general not to meddle with the work of any of our other +energies, for the same reason that I want each art in particular not to +meddle with the work of any other art. Sculpture cannot do the same as +painting, nor painting the same as music, nor music the same as poetry; +and by attempting anything beyond its legitimate sphere each sacrifices +what it, and no other, can do. So, also, art in general has a definite +function in our lives; and if it attempts to perform the work of +philosophy, or practical benevolence, or science, or moralizing, or +anything not itself, it will merely fail in that, and neglect what it +could do." + +"Oh yes," continued Baldwin after a minute, as they passed into the +twilight of a wood of old olives, grey, silvery, mysterious, rising tier +above tier on either side of the road, a faint flicker of yellow light +between their feathery branches. "Oh yes, I don't doubt that were I a +writer, and were I to expound my life-and-art philosophy to the world, +the world would tax me with great narrowness! Things are always too +narrow for people when they are kept in their place--kept within duty +and reason. Of course there is an infinite grandeur in chaos--in a +general wandering among the Unknown, in an universal straining and +hankering after the Impossible; it is grand to see the arts writhing and +shivering to atoms, like caged vipers, in their impotence to do what +they cannot. Only it would be simpler to let those do it who can; and my +system is the only one which can work. Despair is fine, and Nirvana is +fine; but successful and useful activity is a good deal finer. Wherefore +I shall always say--'Each in his place and to his work;' and you, +therefore, my dear Cyril, to yours, which is poetry." + +"I think your philosophy is quite right, Baldwin, only--only, somehow, I +can't get it to suit my moral condition," answered Cyril. "I do feel +quite persuaded that sculptors must not try to be painters, nor +musicians try to be poets, nor any of them try to be anything beyond +what they are. It is all quite rational, and right, and moral, but still +I am not satisfied about poetry. You see a poet is not quite in the same +case as any other sort of artist. The musician, inasmuch as musician, +knows only notes, has power only over sounds; and the painter similarly +as to form and colours; if either be something more, it is inasmuch as +he is a mere man, not an artist. But a poet, inasmuch as he is a poet, +knows, sees, feels a great many things which have a practical and moral +meaning: just because he is a poet, he knows that there is something +beyond poetry; he knows that there are in the world such things as +justice and injustice, good and evil, purity and foulness: he knows all +this, which the mere musician, the mere painter, does not--and knowing +it, perceiving, feeling, understanding it, with more intensity than +other men, is he to sweep it all out of his sight? is he to say to +justice and injustice, good and evil, purity and foulness, 'I know you, +but my work lies not with you?' Is he to do this? Oh, Baldwin, if he be +a man and an honest one, he surely cannot: he cannot set aside these +ideas and devote himself to his art for its own sake." + +Baldwin listened attentively to the passionate words of his companion, +and twitching at a sprig of olive as a branch swept across their heads +in their rapid movement through the wood, he answered quietly: + +"He will not set aside the ideas of justice and injustice, of good and +evil, of purity and impurity, Cyril. He will make use of them even as +the musician uses his sounds, or the painter uses his colours. Such +ideas are at least one-half of the poet's material, of the stuff out of +which he creates--the half which belongs exclusively to him, which he +does not share with any other artist; the half which gives poetry a +character in many respects different from that of painting or music. I +have always laughed at the Ruskinian idea of morality or immorality in +architecture, or painting, or music, and said that their morality and +immorality were beauty and ugliness. I have done so because moral ideas +don't enter into the arts of line, or colour, or sound, but only into +the subjects to which their visible and audible works are (usually +arbitrarily) attached. But with poetry the case is different; and if +the poet has got a keener perception (or ought to have) of right and +wrong than other men, it is because a sense of moral right and wrong is +required in his art, as a sense of colour is required in painting. I +have said 'art for art's own sake,' but I should have been more precise +in saying 'art for beauty's sake.' Now, in poetry, one half of beauty +and ugliness is purely ethical, and if the poet who deals with this +half, the half which comprises human emotion and action, has no sense +of right and wrong, he will fail as signally as some very dexterous +draughtsman, who should have no sense of physical beauty and ugliness, +and spend his time making wonderful drawings of all manner of diseased +growths. Of course, you may be a poet who does _not_ deal with the human +element, who writes only about trees and rivers, and in this case your +notions of right and wrong are as unnecessary to you as an artist as +they would be to a landscape painter. You use them in your life, but not +in your art. But as soon as a poet deals with human beings, and their +feelings and doings, he must have a correct sense of what, in such +feelings and doings, is right and what is wrong. And if he have not this +sense, he will not be in the same case as the painter or musician who is +deficient in the sense of pictorial or musical right and wrong. The +wise folk who have examined into our visual and acoustic nerves seem +to think, what to me seems extremely probable, that the impression of +aesthetic repulsion which we get from badly combined lines, or colours, +or sounds, is a sort of admonition that such combinations are more or +less destructive to our nerves of sight or of hearing; so, similarly, +the quite abstract aversion which we feel to an immoral effect in +literature, seems to me to be the admonition (while we are still +Platonically viewing the matter, and have not yet come personally into +contact with it) that our moral sense--what I may call our nerves of +right and wrong--is being disintegrated by this purely intellectual +contact with evil. And, moreover, our nerves of right and wrong are, +somehow, much less well protected than our visual or acoustic nerves: +they seem to be more on the surface of our nature, and they are much +more easily injured: it takes a good deal of bad painting and bad music +to deprave a man's eye or ear, and more than we can well conceive to +make him blind or deaf; but it takes less than we think of base +literature to injure a man's moral perception, to make him see and hear +moral things completely wrong. You see the good, simple, physical senses +look after themselves--are in a way isolated; but the moral sense is a +very complex matter, and interfered with in every possible manner by the +reason, the imagination, the bodily senses--so that injuring it through +any of these is extremely easy. And the people whom bad painting or +bad music had made half-blind or half-deaf would be less dangerous to +themselves and to others than those who had been made half-immoral by +poetry." + +"But at that rate," said Cyril, "we should never be permitted to write +except about moral action; if the morally right is the same for the poet +as the pictorially right for the painter. Baldwin, I think, I fear, that +all these are mere extemporized arguments for the purpose of making me +satisfied with poetry, which I never shall be again, I feel persuaded." + +"Not at all," answered Baldwin. "I mean that the moral right or wrong of +poetry is not exactly what you mean. If we were bound never to write +except about good people, there would be an end to half the literature +of the world." + +"That is exactly what I saw, and what showed me the hollowness of your +theory, Baldwin." + +"Because you mistook my theory. There could be no human action or +interest if literature were to avoid all representation of evil: no more +tragedy, at any rate, and no more novels. But you must remember that the +impression given by a play or a poem is not the same as that given by a +picture or statue. The picture or statue is all we see; if it be ugly, +the impression is ugly. But in a work of literature we see not only the +actors and their actions, but the manner in which they are regarded by +the author; and in this manner of regarding them lies the morality or +immorality. You may have as many villains as you please, and the +impression may still be moral; and you may have as many saints as you +please, and the impression may still be immoral." + +The road had suddenly emerged out of the olive woods covering the lowest +hill ranges, and in a few minutes they were driving through a perfect +desert. The road, a narrow white ribbon, stretched across a great flat +tract of country: field after field of Indian corn, stripped of its +leaves and looking like regiments of spindles, and of yellowish green +grass, half under water; on either side a ditch full of water-lilies, +widening into sedge-fringed canals, in which the hay of coarse long +grass was stacked in boats for sheer want of dry soil, or expanding into +shallow patches of water scarcely covering the grass, and reflecting, +against the green of the meadow below, the boldly peaked marble +mountains of Carrara, bare, intensely ribbed, veined, and the blue sky +and rainy black clouds. Green brown fields, tufts of reed, hill and sky +reflected in the inundated grass--nothing more, not a house, or shed, or +tree for miles around--in front only the stormy horizon where it touched +the sea. + +"This is beautiful," cried Cyril. "I should like to come and live here. +It is much lovelier and more peaceful than all the woods and valleys in +creation." + +Baldwin laughed. "It might be a good beginning for final Nirvana," he +said. "These are the sea-swamps, the _padule_, where the serene Republic +of Lucca sent its political offenders. You were locked up in a tower, +the door bricked up, with food enough to last till your keeper came back +once a fortnight; the malaria did the rest." + +"It is like some of our modern literature," answered Cyril, with a +shudder; "Maremma poetry--we have that sort of thing, too." + +"By the way," went on Baldwin; "I don't think we quite came to the end +of our discussion about what a poet ought to do with his moral +instincts, if he has any." + +"I know," answered Cyril, "and _I_ have meanwhile returned to my +previous conclusion that, now that all great singable strifes are at +an end, poetry cannot satisfy the moral cravings of a man." + +"You think so?" asked Baldwin, looking rather contemptuously at his +companion. "You think so? Well, therein lies your mistake. I think, on +the contrary, that poetry requires more moral sense and energy than most +men can or will give to it. Do you know what a poet has to deal with, +at least a poet who does not confine himself to mere description of +inanimate things? He has to deal with the passions and actions of +mankind--that is to say, with a hundred problems of right and wrong. Of +course, men who have deliberately made up their mind on any question +of right and wrong, are not shaken by anything in a book; nay, they +probably scarcely remark it. But if you remember that in the inner life +of every man there must be moments of doubt and hesitation, there must +be problems vaguely knocking about, you will understand that for every +man there is the danger that in such a moment of doubt his eyes may fall +upon a sentence in a book--a sentence to other men trivial--which will +settle that doubt for ever, rightly or wrongly. There are few of us +so strong that the moment does not come when we would ask, as a good +Catholic does of a confessor, what is right and what is wrong, and take +the answer which is one of the two that have been struggling within +himself, as definite; and to us, who do not go to confession, a book, +any book casually taken up, may be this terribly powerful spiritual +director. People used to exaggerate the influence of books, because they +imagined that they could alter already settled opinions; now-a-days I +deliberately think that they underrate this influence, because they +forget how it may settle fluctuating opinion. The power of literature +is in this way very great." + +"It has been formerly--yes, I grant it," answered Cyril; "but it is no +longer what it was; in our cut-and-dry days it is necessarily smaller." + +"On the contrary, much greater now than perhaps almost at any other +time. These are not cut-and-dry days, Cyril, but the very reverse; you +must not let yourself be deceived by a certain superficial regularity, +by railway journeys and newspapers, and a general civilization of +hand-books and classes. In reality there is more room for indirect moral +perversion or enervation in our days than there has been for a good +while; for the upsetting of ideas, the infiltration of effete or foreign +modes of thought and feeling, is much greater in this quiet nineteenth +century than it was, for instance, in the Renaissance or the eighteenth +century. With all their scepticism, the people of those days had a great +fund of tradition about everything; they were floating about a good +deal, I admit, but they were fully persuaded of the existence of certain +very solid moral rocks, to which they might always tie their boat when +it grew over-rough; rocks of religion or deistic mysticism, or of social +_convenances_, which we have now discovered to be by no means granite, +but some sort of sea deposit, of hardened sand, whose formation we +understand and no longer rely upon. The most arrant sceptics of the past +had always one great safety, that they were in a groove; they saw, +understood, sympathized with only their own civilization. What they +thought right they had never seen questioned--they never imagined any +one could regard as wrong; hence the most liberal thinkers of former +days always strike us, with their blindness to all but their own +civilization, as such Philistines. Things have changed since then; +they began to change already, as soon as men began to look at other +civilizations; and the suggestive first-fruit of this early ethnographic +eclecticism may be seen in Diderot's very beastly books: he found that +the South Sea Islanders had not, on the subject of incest, the same +views as Christian folk; whereupon it struck him that those views +might be due to prejudice. It was not the development of the natural +sciences, but rather of the historic and ethnographic, which upset +people's ideas; it was the discovery of how our institutions, moral and +social (hitherto regarded as come straight from heaven), had formed +themselves, and how they were subject to variation. Speaking of poets, +look at a pure man, I believe a very pure man, Shelley, if you want to +understand the necessity of poets having a greater solidity of moral +judgment than the mere Jones and Browns who stick to their shop, and are +not troubled with theories. Add to the influence of scientific doubt, +of the doubt created by books on the origin of ideas and institutions +(showing of what moonshine they are often made), the utterly confusing +effect of our modern literary eclecticism, our comprehension and +sympathy with so many and hostile states of civilization, our jumbling +together of antique and mediaeval, of barbarous and over-ripe and effete +civilizations, our intellectual and moral absorption of incompatible +past stages of thought and feeling, with the follies and vices inherent +in each;--sum up all this, and you will see that, with our science +and our culture, our self-swamping with other folk's ideas, we are +infinitely less morally steady than the good sceptics of the days of +Voltaire, who always believed in the supremacy of their own century, +their own country, their own institutions, their own conventionalities; +who were in danger only from their own follies and uncertainties, while +we are in danger from the follies and uncertainties of every past +century from which we have inherited. And you will see, if you look, +that that sceptical eighteenth century, which was very much more +credulous and conservative than ours, was very little divided and upset +in its ideas; certain things were universally admitted, and certain +other things universally rejected; in that day there was always the +master of the ceremonies--Propriety. He knew exactly what could be +permitted: in the dining-room, drunkards yelling filthy jests; in the +drawing-room, polite gentlemen stalking or tripping through their +minuets. It is different now-a-days." + +Cyril nodded. "I understand what you mean," he said; "but I don't see +the application yet." + +"Well," answered Baldwin, "I will show you one instance of the +application. Have you ever thought over the question of--how shall I +call it?--the ethics of the indecent?" + +Cyril stared. "No, it never struck me that there were any. I don't write +indecent things, it doesn't amuse me. I feel not the smallest desire to +do so; if anything, I feel rather sick at such things; that is all." + +"That is all for you, but not all for other people. You don't feel +attracted to write on some subjects; well, other people not only feel +attracted, but imagine that it is their duty even if they are not." + +"They are swine; I have nothing to do with them." And Cyril looked as if +he had settled the matter. + +"But they are not swine; at least, not all of them; or they are not +entirely swine, by any means," insisted Baldwin. "You are not going to +tell me that a man like Walt Whitman is a mere pig. Still there are +things of his which to you are simply piggish. Either Whitman is a beast +or you are a prude." + +"That depends upon difference of nature," said Cyril quickly, vaguely +desirous of putting an end to a discussion which brought forward an +anomaly. + +"That is merely repeating what I said," replied Baldwin. "But in reality +I think it is _not_ a difference of nature. I think it depends on a +difference of reasoned opinion; in short, upon a sophistication of ideas +on the part of Whitman. I think it depends in him and the really pure +men who uphold his abominations upon a simple logical misconception; a +confusion of the fact that certain phenomena have been inevitable, with +the supposition that those same certain phenomena are therefore +desirable--a confusion between what has been, and could not help being, +and what may be and ought to be. It is the attempt to solve a moral +problem by an historical test." + +"I don't understand in the least, Baldwin." + +"Why, thus: our modern familiarity with the intellectual work of all +times and races has made people perceive that in past days indecency was +always part and parcel of literature, and that to try to weed it out +is to completely alter the character of at least a good half of the +literature of the past. Hence, some of us moderns, shaken as we are in +all our conventional ideas, have argued that this so-called indecency +is a legitimate portion of all literature, and that the sooner it is +re-introduced into that of the present the better, if our literature is +to be really vital and honest. Now, these people do not perceive that +the literature of the past contained indecencies, merely because, +being infinitely less self-conscious, less responsible than now, the +literature of those days contained fragments of every portion of the +civilization which produced it. For besides what I might call absolute +indecency, in the sense of pruriency, the literature of the past is full +of filth pure and simple, like some Eastern town; a sure proof this, +that if certain subjects which we taboo were not tabooed then, it was +not from any conscious notion of their legitimacy, but from a general +habit of making literature, like the street of some Oriental or mediaeval +town, the scene of every sort of human action, important or trifling, +noble or vile; regarding it as the place for which the finest works were +painted or carved, and into which all the slops were emptied. Hence, in +our wanderings through the literature of the past, our feet are for +ever stumbling into pools of filth, while our eyes are seeking for the +splendid traceries, the gorgeous colours above; our stomachs are turned +by stenches even while we are peeping in at some wonderful rose garden +or fruit orchard. I think you might almost count on your fingers the +books up to the year 1650, in which you are sure of encountering no +beastliness--choice gardens or bowers of the soul, or sacred chapels +kept carefully tidy and pure--viz., Milton, Spenser, the _Vita Nuova_, +Petrarch, Tasso--things, you see, mainly sacred or spiritualistic--sort +of churches where only devotion of some sort goes on; but if we go out +to where there is real life, life complete and thoughtless--Shakspeare, +Rabelais, Moliere, Ariosto, Cervantes, Aristophanes, Horace--the evil +odours meet us again at every step. Well, now-a-days this has all been +misunderstood. People have imagined that an inevitable nuisance of the +past ought also to be a deliberately chosen nuisance of the present: a +line of argument which appears to me to be similar to that of a man, +who, because the people of Lisbon used, in the days of my grandfather, +to practise a very primitive system of sewerage, should recommend that +the inhabitants of modern London should habitually empty their slops on +to the heads of passers-by. I am crude? Well, it is by calling nasty +things by beautiful names that we are able to endure their existence. I +think that people who should attempt such literary revivals ought to be +fined, as the more practical revivers of old traditions certainly would +be." + +Cyril paused a moment. "I think that these sort of offenders, like +Whitman, are not evil-doers, but merely snobs: they offend not good +morals, but good taste." + +"That's just such an artistic and well-bred distinction as I should +expect from you," answered Baldwin, rather contemptuously. "I wonder +what that word 'good taste' signifies to your mind? Everything and +nothing. They are offenders against good taste, you say. Well, let +us see how. If I hang a bright green curtain close to a bright blue +wall-paper, you will say it is bad taste; if I set Gray's 'Elegy' to +one of Strauss's waltzes, that is bad taste also; and if I display all +my grand furniture and plate (supposing I had it) to my poor neighbour, +whose chintz chair is all torn, and who breakfasts out of a cup without +a handle, that also is bad taste. Each for a good reason, and a +different one; in each case I am inflicting an injury, too slight and +inadvertent to be sin, against something: the green curtain and blue +paper combination pains your eye; the Gray's 'Elegy' and Strauss's waltz +combination annoys your common sense; the contrast between my riches and +your poverty inflicts a wound on your feelings; you see that all sins +against taste are merely a hurting of something in somebody. So that, if +writing indecent poems is an offence against good taste, it means that +it also inflicts some such injury. That injury is simply, as the world +has vaguely felt all along, an injury to your neighbour's morals." + +"But," put in Cyril, "such a man as Whitman has no immoral intention, +nor is he immoral in the sense that Ariosto and Byron are sometimes +immoral. The man is not a libertine, but a realist. He wishes people to +live clean lives; all he says is, that everything which is legitimate, +innocent, necessary in life, is also legitimate and innocent in +literature. And although I should rather select other subjects to write +about, and would rather he did so likewise, I cannot deny that there is +logic in saying that there can be no harm in speaking of that which +there is no harm in doing." + +"Yes," said Baldwin, "that is just the argument of such men. And the +answer is simply that there are things which are intended to be done and +_not_ to be spoken about. What you call logic is no logic at all, but +a mere appeal to ignorance. It so happens that the case is exactly +reversed--that there are a great many things which there is not the +smallest immorality in speaking about, and which it would be the most +glaring immorality to do. No one shrinks from talking about murder or +treachery; nay, even in the very domain of sexual relations there need +not be the smallest immorality, nothing at all perverting, in a play +which, like the whole Orestes trilogy, or _Othello_, or _Faust_, turns +upon adultery or seduction; no one also has the slightest instinct of +immorality in talking about the most fearful wholesale massacres. Yet +the world at large, ever since it has had any ideas of good and evil, +has had an instinct of immorality in talking of that without which not +one of us would exist, that which society sanctions and the church +blesses. And this exactly because it is as natural as murder--of which +we speak freely--is the contrary. For, exactly because certain instincts +are so essential and indispensable, Nature has made them so powerful and +excitable; there is no fear of their being too dormant, but there is +fear of their being too active, and the consequences of their excess +are so hideously dangerous to Nature itself, so destructive of all the +higher powers, of all the institutions of humanity; the over-activity of +the impulses to which we owe our birth is so ruinous of all that for +which we are born, social, domestic, and intellectual good, nay, to +physical existence itself, that Nature even has found it necessary to +restrain them by a counter-instinct--purity, chastity--such as has not +been given us to counteract the other physical instincts, as that of +eating, which can at most injure an individual glutton, but not affect +the general social order. Hence, the slightest artificial stimulus is a +danger to mankind, and the giving thereof a crime; for the experience of +all times tells us what modern psychology is beginning to explain--viz., +the strange connection between the imagination and the senses, the +hitherto mysterious power of awakening physical desires, of almost +reproducing sensation, possessed by the mind, even as the mention of +dainty food is said to make the mouth water, and the description of a +surgical operation to make the nerves wince. So that the old intuition, +now called conventionalism, which connects indecency with immorality, is +entirely justified. Crime may be spoken of just because it is crime, and +our nature recoils therefrom; indeed, I think that now-a-days, when our +destructive instinct (except in small boys and professors of physiology) +is becoming effete, there has ceased to be any very demoralizing +influence in talking even of horrors. But the immorality of indecency is +quite unlike the immorality of--how shall I distinguish?--of ordinary +immorality. In the case of the latter the mischief lies in the +sophistication of the reason or the perversion of the sympathies; as, +for instance, in Machiavel's 'Prince,' or any of a hundred French +novels. In the former case, that of indecency, the immorality lies in +the risk of inducing a mood which may lead to excess--that is, to evil. +And, as a rule, I think this inducing of a mood is the commonest source +of moral danger, whether the mood be a sensual or a destructive one." + +"I don't see how you make that out; although I now understand what at +first seemed to me mere inexplicable instincts--founded on nothing." + +"Some things are inexplicable, perhaps, but be sure instincts are not +founded on nothing. Misconceptions are mere false conceptions; but a +good half of what people call social convention is based upon a +perfectly correct conception, only mankind has forgotten what that +conception was. Well, I should place the various sorts of demoralization +of which literature is capable in this order: No. 1, and least +dangerous, sophistication of judgment; No. 2, and more dangerous, +perversion of sympathy; No. 3, and most dangerous, inducement of +questionable frame of mind. And I place them thus because it seems to me +that this is the order of facility, and, consequently, universality; I +mean that fewest people can be found who depend sufficiently on their +deliberate ideas, and most effort is required to sophisticate them; +whereas, least effort is required, and most effect produced, in the +matter of inducing a mood; the perversion of sympathy is half-way. Of +course, if we could imagine (as once or twice has actually been the +case) that the moral ideas of a whole people were sophisticated, that +would be the worst, because the least remediable; but, in the first +place, people act but little from ideas, or few persons do, and it +is difficult to alter people's ideas; and, in the second place, the +sophistication of conscience of single individuals is kept in check by +the steadfastness of the mass of mankind, and, consequently, as in such +men as Diderot, reduced to mere talk, without corresponding action. But +a mood is easily induced without the reason even perceiving it, and +the more necessary the mood is to nature, the more easily it will be +aroused--the more unnatural an evil, the less danger of it; the more an +evil is the mere excess of the necessary, the more danger there is of +it." + +"It is curious how you marshal ideas into their right places," said +Cyril. "There remains one thing to be said about the ethics of +impropriety. The people who go in for writing upon subjects which thirty +years ago would have distinctly been forbidden, do not all of them write +as Whitman does: they are not all what I should call openly beastly. +They do their best, on the contrary, to spiritualize the merely animal." + +"That is just the most mischievous thing they could possibly do," +interrupted Baldwin. "I know the sort of poets you mean. They are the +folk who say that things are pure or impure, holy or foul, according as +we view them. They are not the brutal, straightforward, naturalistic +school; they are the mystico-sensual. Of the two, they are infinitely +the worse. For the straightforward naturalistic hogs generally turn your +stomach before they have had a chance of doing you any harm; but these +persuade themselves and you that, while you are just gloating over +sensual images, you are improving your soul. They call brute desire +passion, and love lust, and prostitution marriage, and the body the +soul. Oh! I know them; they are the worst pests we have in literature." + +"But I don't think they are intentionally immoral, Baldwin." + +"Do you think any writer ever was intentionally immoral, Cyril?" + +"Well, I mean that these men really intend doing good. They think that +if only some subjects be treated seriously, without any sniggering or +grimacing, there ceases to be any harm in them. They say that they wish +to rescue from out of the mire where prudery has thrown it, that which +is clean in itself; they wish to show that the whole of Nature is holy; +they wish to purify by sanctifying." + +Baldwin listened with a smile of contempt. "Of course such words seem +very fine," he said; "but a thing is either holy or is not holy: all +the incense of poetry and all the hocus-pocus words of mysticism cannot +alter its nature by a title. And woe betide us if we once think that +any such ceremony of sanctification can take place; woe betide us if +we disguise the foul as the innocent, or the merely indifferent as the +holy! There is in Nature a great deal which is foul: in that which men +are pleased to call unnatural, because Nature herself chastises it after +having produced it: there is in Nature an infinite amount of abominable +necessity and abominable possibility, which we have reason and +conscience to separate from that which within Nature itself is innocent +or holy. Mind, I say innocent _or_ holy; for innocence and holiness are +very different things. All our appetites, within due limits, are +innocent, but they are not therefore holy; and that is just what +mystico-sensual poetry fails to perceive, and in giving innocence the +rank of holiness it makes it sinful. Do you know what is the really +holy? It is that of which the world possesses too little, and can +never possess too much: it is justice, charity, heroism, self-command, +truthfulness, lovingness, beauty, genius--these things are holy. Place +them, if you will, on a poetic altar, that all men may see them, and +know them, and love them, and seek after them life-long without ever +wearying. But do not enshrine in poetic splendours the merely innocent; +that which bestows no merit on its possessor, that which we share with +every scoundrel and every animal, that which is so universal that it +must for ever be kept in check, and which, unless thus checked by that +in ourselves which is truly holy, will degrade us lower than beasts. +For in so doing--in thus attempting to glorify that in which there is +nothing glorious--you make men think that self-indulgence is sanctity, +you let them consume their lives in mere acquiescence with their lusts +and laziness, while all around is raging the great battle between +good and evil. Worst of all, in giving them this worship of a mystic +Ashtaroth or Belial, you hide from them the knowledge of the true God, +of the really and exclusively holy, of good, truth, beauty, to know and +receive which into our soul we must struggle lifelong with the world and +with ourselves; yes, struggle for the sake of the really holy with that +mere innocence which is for ever threatening to become guilt." + +Baldwin paused; then resumed after a moment: "I believe that mankind +as it exists, with whatever noble qualities it possesses, has been +gradually evolved out of a very inferior sort of mankind or brutekind, +and will, I hope, be evolved into a very superior sort of mankind. And I +believe, as science teaches us, that this has been so far effected, and +will be further effected henceforward, by an increased activity of those +nobler portions of us which have been developed as it were by their own +activity; I believe, in short, that we can improve only by becoming +more and more different from the original brutes that we were. I have +said this to explain to you my feelings towards a young poet of my +acquaintance, who is very sincerely smitten with the desire to improve +mankind; and has deliberately determined to devote a very fine talent to +the glorification of what he calls pure passion, pure in the sense that +it can be studied in its greatest purity from the cats on the house +tops." + +Cyril made a grimace of disgust. + +"No, indeed," continued Baldwin, "that poet is not one of the +aesthetic-sensual lot you seem to think. He is pure, conscientious, +philanthropic; but he is eminently unreasoning. He is painfully +impressed by the want of seriousness and holiness with which mankind +regards marriage, and his ambition is to set mankind right on this +subject, even as another young poet-philanthropist tried to improve +family relations in his 'Laon and Cythna.' Now, if you were required +to use your poetical talents in order to raise the general view of +marriage, in order to show the sanctity of the love of a man and a +woman, how would you proceed?" + +"I have often thought about that," answered Cyril; "but it has been done +over and over again, and I think with most deliberate solemnity and +beauty by Schiller and Goethe in the 'Song of the Bell' and in 'Hermann +and Dorothea.' Well, I think that poetry can do good work in this line +only if the poet see where the real holiness of such love lies; in the +love not of the male and the female, but of the man and the woman. For +there is nowhere, I think, greater room for moral beauty and dignity +than in the choosing by a man of the one creature from whom only death +can separate him; of the one friend, not of a phase of his life, but of +his whole life; of the one soul which will grow and mature always by the +side of his, and having blossomed and borne fruit of good, will gently +fade and droop together with his. But this is not the most holy part of +the choice, for he is choosing also the mother of his children, the +woman who is to give half their nature, half their training, to what +children must mean to every honest man: the one chance he possesses of +living as he would have wished to have lived, of being what he should +wish to have been, his one chance of redeeming his errors, of fulfilling +his hopes, of realizing in a measure his own ideals. And to me such a +choice, and love in the sense of such a choice, become not merely coldly +deliberate, but passionately instinctive, are holy with the holiness +that, as you say, is the only real one; holy in all it implies of +recognized beauty and goodness, of trust and hope, of all the excellence +of which it is at least the supposed forerunner; and its holiness is +that upon which all other holiness, all the truthfulness and justice +and beauty and goodness of mankind, depends. This is how I view the +sanctity of the love between man and woman; how all the greatest poets, +from Homer to Schiller, and from Schiller to Mrs. Browning, have viewed +it; and it is the only possible view that I can conceive." + +Baldwin nodded. "This is how I also see the question. But my young +poet is not satisfied with this: he wishes to make men believe in the +holiness of that which is no more holy, and far oftener tends to be +unholy, than eating or drinking; and in order to make mankind adore, he +lavishes all his artistic powers on the construction of an aesthetical +temple wherein to enshrine, on the preparation of poetic incense with +which to surround, this species of holiness, carefully separated from +any extraneous holiness, such as family affection, intellectual +appreciation, moral sympathy; left in its complete unmixed simplicity of +brute appetite and physical longing and physical rapture; and the temple +which he constructs out of all that is beautiful in the world is a +harlot's chamber; and the incense which he cunningly distils out of all +the sights and sounds of Nature are filthy narcotics, which leave the +moral eyes dim, and the moral nerves tremulous, and the moral muscle +unstrung. In his desire to moralize he demoralizes; in his desire to +sanctify one item of life, he casts aside, he overlooks, forgets, all +that which in life is already possessed of holiness. Thus my young poet, +in wishing to improve mankind, to raise it, undoes for the time being +that weary work of the hundreds of centuries which have slowly changed +lust into love, the male and female into a man and a woman, the life of +the body into the life of the soul; poetry, one of the highest human +products, has, as it were, undone the work of evolution; poetry, which +is essentially a thing of the self-conscient intellect, has taken us +back to the time when creatures with two legs and no tail could not +speak, but only whine and yell and sob--a mode of converse, by the way, +more than sufficient for the intercourse of what he is pleased to call +the typical Bride and Bridegroom." + +They had got out of the strange expanse of brown and green swamp, and +after traversing a strip of meagre redeemed land, with stunted trees and +yellowish vines, had reached the long narrow line of pine woods which +met the beach. They passed slowly through the midst of the woods, +brushing the rain-drops off the short, bright, green pines, their wheels +creaking over the slippery fallen needles embedded in the sand; while +the setting sun fell in hazy yellow beams through the brushwood, making +the crisp tree-tufts sparkle like green spun-glass, and their scaly +trunks flush rosy; and the stormy sea roared on the sands close by. + +"I think your young poet ought to be birched," remarked Cyril; "and if +anything could add to my aversion, not for poetry, but for the poetic +profession, this would which you have just told me. You see how right I +was in saying that I would have more moral satisfaction in being a +French cook than in being a poet." + +"By no means," answered Baldwin. "In the first place, my young poet +ought not to be birched; he ought to be made to reflect, to ask himself +seriously and simply, in plain prose, what ideal of life he has been +setting before his readers. He ought to be shown that a poet, inasmuch +as he is the artist whose material is human feeling and action, is not +as free an artist as the mere painter, or sculptor, or composer; he +ought to be made to understand that now-a-days, when the old rules of +conduct, religious and social, are for ever being questioned, every man +who writes of human conduct is required, is bound, to have sound ideas +on the subject: that, because now-a-days, for better or for worse, +poetry is no longer the irresponsible, uncontrolled, helter-skelter +performance of former times, but a very self-conscious, wide-awake, +deliberate matter, it can do both much more harm and much more good than +it could do before." + +They were slowly driving along the beach, among the stunted pine shoots +and the rough grass and the yellow bindweed half buried in the sand, +and the heaps of sea-blackened branches, and bits of wood and uncouth +floating rubbish which the waves had deposited, with a sort of ironical +regularity, in a neat band upon the shore; down here on the coast the +storm had already broken, and the last thin rain was still falling, +dimpling the grey sand. The sun was just going to emerge from amidst +the thick blue-black storm-clouds and descend into a clear space, like +molten amber, above the black, white-crested, roaring sea; it descended +slowly, an immense pale luminous globe, gilding the borders of the +piled-up clouds above it, gilding the sheen of the waves and the wet +sand of the shore; and as it descended, the clouds gathered above it +into a vast canopy, a tawny orange diadem or reef of peaked vapours +encircling the liquid topaz in which the sun moved; tawnier became this +garland, larger the free sky, redder the black storm masses above; till +at last the reddening rays of the sun enlarged and divided into immense +beams of rosy light, cutting away the dark and leaving uncovered a rent +of purest blue. At last the yellow globe touched the black line of the +horizon, gilding the waters; then sank behind it and disappeared. The +wreath of vapours glowed golden, the pall of heaped-up storm-clouds +flushed purple, and bright yellow veinings, like filaments of gold, +streaked the pale amber where the sun had disappeared. The amber grew +orange, the tawny purple, the purple a lurid red, as of masses of +flame-lit smoke; all around, the sky blackened, until at last there +remained only one pile of livid purple clouds hanging over a streak of +yellow sky, and gradually dying away into black, with but here and there +a death-like rosy patch, mirrored deadlier red in the wet sand of the +beach. The two friends remained silent, like men listening to the last +bars, rolling out in broad succession of massy, gradually resolving +chords, of some great requiem mass--silent even for a while after all +was over. Then Cyril asked, pointing to a row of houses glimmering white +along the dark lines of coast, below the great marble crags of Carrara, +rising dim in the twilight-- + +"Is that the place where my friends will pick me up?" + +"Yes," answered Baldwin, "that's the place. You will be picked up there +if you choose." + +"I must, you know." And Cyril looked astonished, as if for the first +time it struck him that there might be no _must_ in the matter. "I +must--at least, I suppose I ought to--go back to England with them." + +"You know that best," replied Baldwin, shortly. "But before we get +there I want to finish what we were saying about the moral value of +poetry, if you don't mind. I gave you the instance of Whitman and the +mystico-sensual school merely because it is one of the most evident; +but it is only one of many I could give you of the truth of what I +said, that if a poet, inasmuch as he is a poet, has--what the painter, +or sculptor, or musician, inasmuch as they are such, have not--a keener +sense of moral right and wrong than other men, it is because his +art requires it. Consider what it is deliberately to treat of human +character and emotion and action; consider what a strange chaos, +an often inextricable confusion of clean and foul, of healthy and +pestilent, you get among, in penetrating into the life of the human +soul; consider that the poet must pick his way through all this, amidst +very loathsome dangers which he often cannot foresee; and not alone, +but carrying in his moral arms the soul of his reader--of each of his +thousands of readers--a soul which, if he see not clearly his way, if he +miss his footing, or tread in the soft, sinking soil (soft with filthy +bogs), may be bespattered and soiled, perhaps for ever--may be sucked +into the swamp pool or poisoned by the swamp air; and that he must thus +carry, not one soul, but thousands of souls, unknown to him--souls in +many cases weak, sometimes already predisposed to some loathsome moral +malady, and which, by a certain amount of contact with what to the poet +himself might be innocuous, may be condemned to life-long disease. I do +not think that the poet's object is to moralize mankind; but I think +that the materials with which he must work are such that, while +practising his art, he may unconsciously do more mischief than all the +professed moralists in Christendom can consciously do good. The poet +is the artist, remember, who deliberately chooses as material for +his art the feelings and actions of man; he is the artist who plays +his melodies, not on catgut strings or metal stops, but upon human +passions; and whose playing touches not a mere mechanism of fibres and +membranes like the ear, but the human soul, which in its turn feels and +acts; he is the artist who, if he blunders, does not merely fatigue a +nerve, or paralyze for a moment a physical sense, but injures the whole +texture of our sympathies and deafens our conscience. And I ask you, +does such an artist, playing on such an instrument, not require moral +feeling far stronger and keener than that of any other man, who, if he +mistake evil for good, injures only himself and the few around him? You +have been doubting, Cyril, whether poetry is sufficient work for a man +who feels the difference between good and evil; you might more worthily +doubt whether any man knows good from evil with instinct sure enough to +suffice him as a poet. You thought poetry morally below you: are you +certain that you are morally up to its level?" + +Cyril looked vaguely about him: at the black sea breaking on the +twilight sands, at the dark outline of pine-wood against the pale sky, +at the distant village lights--vaguely, and as if he saw nothing of it +all. The damp sea breeze blew in their faces, the waves moaned sullenly, +the pines creaked in the wind; the moon, hidden behind clouds, slowly +silvered into light their looser, outer folds, then emerged, spreading a +broad white sheen on the sands and the water. + +"Are you still too good for poetry?" asked Baldwin; "or--has poetry +become too good for you?" + +"I don't know," answered Cyril, in the tone of a man before whose mental +eyes things are taking a new shape. "I don't know--perhaps." + + + + +POSTSCRIPT OR APOLOGY. + + +I have had the sense that now, before these foregoing pages be +definitely printed--before what have been living thoughts and feelings +be irrevocably composed and stiffened, embalmed, distinctly and +unmistakably prepared to last, as things are permitted to last, only in +death--I have had the sense that while yet I can, I must say one or two +more things. But now, I can scarcely tell why, it seems to me as if +there could by no means be anything to say. It is a mood, due to the +moment and place. All about me there is broad, scarce-flickering shadow +on the grass, and stirring of sunlit tree-tops and vague buzzing of +bees in the limes; and across the low ivied wall comes from the black, +crumbly-stoned chapel faint music of organ and white-sounding voices, +which swells and pierces through the silence (as a green reed bud swells +and pierces its soft scaly core) and dies away, making you suddenly very +conscious of twitter of sparrows and chucking of jackdaws; bringing +suddenly close home to you, with the silence, a sense of solid reality. +So, instead of saying what I wished, it seems to me most evident that +there is nothing to say, that there scarcely could have been anything +worth saying. It is enervate, I suppose; but so it is. I wonder how any +one can ever have felt inclined to write about art--how art can ever +have been worth writing about. Everything around seems so incomparably +more interesting does it not, than art; so entirely beyond the power +of writing to convey or imitate. Above, high up, there are two great +branches of lime, apparently printed distinctly on to the pale blue sky, +black wood dividing and subdividing and projecting, green leaves and +light yellow blossom, the sun shining straight through; it seems so +simple. But try and paint it: those two branches, which seem at first so +well-defined, so close together, so closely clapped against the sky, do +you now see how far apart they really are, how separated by a gulf of +luminous air, how freely suspended, poised, at infinite distance, in the +far receding pale blue; those green leaves and yellow blossoms, which +are not green nor yellow, but something shadowy and at the same time +luminous, are clearly defined and yet undefinable; the sunshine which we +thought at first one plain beam of light is now a white, vague sheen, a +shimmer; now one light spark, one tremulous star between the leaves, or +a waving network of rays, long, then short, white, coloured, iridescent, +shaking, shifting, dancing. Paint it, describe it if you have a mind to, +my friend the poet, my friend the painter; I have not. + +This is one of those moments when reality, and the enjoyment thereof, +fill one with a sense, self-contemptuous, sceptical, almost cynical, and +yet pleasureable and stoically self-flattering in the recognition of +our own importance, a pervading illogical sense of the futility, the +unreality, the museum-glass-case uselessness of art. It seems as if art +were enjoyed because it has been produced, not produced because it is to +be enjoyed; as if mankind had acquired an elaborate pleasure in its +own works because they are its own works; as if all of us, instead of +passively receiving the impression of beauty in the same way that we +passively perceive the rustle of the branches, the twitter of the birds, +the light upon the grass, our soul staying quietly, as it were, at home, +and receiving these things as visits from nature; went forth, when art +appeals to us, on a sort of journey or grand tour, well provided with +guide-book knowledge, schooled beforehand which road to take, what +turnings of feeling to expect, what baggage of poetic and historic +association to lug with us, what little mole-hill eminences of thought +and feeling to stand upon, morally on tiptoe, looking down upon an +artistic scene upon which we have never before set eyes, and which is +yet as well-known, as drearily familiar to us as is the inside of our +pocket. + +Such is my present mood; fickle, contradictory, unworthy, slightly +apostatising and blasphemous to my own deeper convictions, to my own +written ideas, you say; you, my friend, the poet, who insist upon people +being steadfast, unchangeable in all their feelings, because you poets +keep your own moods quite steady, as photographers keep their victims, +until you have taken the concentrated likeness, and can shift your souls +into another equally steadfast, unchangeable pose. Such is my present +mood, and you may call me what names you please for having it. All that +concerns me is that most certainly this present mood of mine happens to +be the one, of all others, in which I am least likely to be able to +muster up those two or three remarks upon art with which I ought to +conclude, and finally despatch into the limbo of things printed this +collection of studies. The things must be said. If I carry my papers +home, sit down at my table, fix my eyes upon the patterned wall-paper, +I shall, in all probability, get back within five minutes all that the +usual ideas, the usual feelings about art, in the contemplation of that +patterned blankness; all that phantasmagoria of art appreciation for +which we carry all the necessary mechanism, self-manufactured (yet very +neat) out of fragments of culture and philosophy, in a sort of little +travelling case appended to our soul. A fact this, which is suggestive; +for does not our modern, imaginative appreciation of art, do not all +those wondrous beautiful and horrible dreams and nightmares, suggested +to us by a quite plain and unsuggestive picture, statue, or piece of +music, depend a little upon our contemplation of the methodical, zig-zag +and twirligig patterned vacuity of modern life? For I suspect that, in +former days (I confess I do not know exactly when), art may have been +perceived pretty much in the same manner in which we perceive nature: +that the enjoyed perception of a beautiful statue, of a picture, of a +grand song, may have come interrupting, with pleasant interludes of +quiet self-unconscious pleasure, the matter-of-fact, but not monotonous +business of life; even as my work now, my conscientious, deliberate, +attempted work, is for ever being interrupted by the flicker of the +lime-leaf shadows, light and clear, on my paper, by the breeze which +sweeps the branches and carries away the drying manuscript on the grass. + +Now it seems to me quite evident that art cannot be any such thing, as +long as its enjoyment or supposed enjoyment is a sort of deliberate +mental gymnastics, which our desire for well-balanced activity, or our +wish to display a certain unnecessary gracefulness of intellectual +motions, impose upon us; setting aside a certain portion of our time for +counteracting, in the artistic gymnasiums (rows of soaped poles, and +hurdles, and ladders, and expanses of padded floor, quite as unlike as +may be from the climbable trees and jumpable brooks which we ought +to meet in our walks), called galleries, concerts, etc., the direful +slackening of our muscles and stiffening of our joints, almost +inevitable in our cramped intellectual shop life of to-day. We writhe, +clinging with arms and legs, up the soaped poles of aesthetic feeling, +slipping and rising again, straining and twisting, to plop down at last +on to the padding and the sawdust; we dangle, with constrained grace, +high in aesthetic contemplation, flying, with a clutching swing, from +idea to idea: distant, oscillating in mid air, like so many trapeze +acrobats; and then we think that an hour or so, every now and then, of +such exercise is all (except brutal slumber) that can be required as +repose in our intellectual life. For we are all of us getting more +and more into the habit of enjoying, not so much art, as the feelings +and thoughts, the theories and passions, for which we make it the +excuse. "Nay," you will say "you yourself have written, are printing, +correcting, and publishing a whole volume of whims and ideas about +art, you yourself are for ever theorising and becoming angry on the +subject--what right have you to object thereto in others?" + +None, perhaps; I have never pretended that I am not as bad as my +neighbours; but the whole gist of these my theorisings is that people +should try and take art more simply than they do; that, if not called +upon to try and persuade others to simpler courses, they should not +theorise themselves. By theorising, I mean, incorrectly perhaps, all +manner of irrelevant fantasticating, whether it take the shape of +seeking in art for hidden psychological meanings or moral values, or of +using art merely as a suggestion of images and emotions, the perception +of which infallibly interferes with, and sometimes entirely replaces, +the perception of the art itself. To you, I know, all that I have +written seems extremely narrow, seems to limit excessively the powers of +art, the enjoyments we can derive therefrom. But I think otherwise; I +understand fully that, in the first place, there is included, under the +general name of art, the result of ever so many intellectual activities: +activities of mere psychological perception, of mere mechanical +imitation and handling, which, though belonging quite equally to other +concerns, such as science or handicraft, are yet pleasurable both to him +who exerts and to him who perceives them; I understand that there are +so many different sorts of pictures, statues, and poems, and so many +different kinds of minds to see and read them; I see that so many +questions of mental and physical why and how are connected with every +sort of visible or audible thing, that there is nothing, however utterly +bad and idiotic and abortive, among the productions of mankind (and, +consequently, among the things called works of art), out of which some +sort of intellect may not derive very keen enjoyment. The enjoyment, +however, may be merely similar to that with which a physiologist studies +a disease, or a psychologist a form of vice; and, to my mind, this sort +of enjoyment, which does not depend upon any perception of beauty, is no +more artistic than would be that of such men of science. And my wish is +merely that such pleasure be not substituted where there is an object +to afford, or a mind to receive, the mere simple, honest pleasure in +beauty. Moreover, with regard to your imputation of narrowness, I +think, on the contrary, that, could we break ourselves of our habit of +replacing or alloying real artistic interests with irrelevant matters, +we should (and this is to my mind a great reason for so doing) be +ridding ourselves of a great number of imaginary restrictions to our +enjoyment. For in many, nay, most artistic things there is, in greater +or less degree, beauty and enjoyableness; nor should we always despise +the less, since we cannot always obtain the greater. I do not mean +that all art is equally valuable; such intellectual democracy, Walt. +Whitmanish assertion of the equality of body and soul, good and +evil, high and low, being just the most brutal rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul +dishonesty that I know; but I think that in most art there is something +valuable, and that we ought to make the most of it, and doubtless +should, did not our eternal theorising interfere, with its arbitrary +standard and requirements. Were we guided solely by our feelings, we +should not be ashamed of taking a certain pleasure in the half-dapper, +half-grotesque stone nymphs and tritons, with golden-lichened tresses +and beards of green pond ooze, who smirk among the ill-clipped hedges, +and puff at their horns among the flags and lilies of every abandoned +Prince-Bishop or Margrave's garden, where the apricots ripen against the +palace wall, and the old portraits fade behind the blistered palace +shutters; we should not be ashamed of being just a little the better +pleased for some common dance tune, heard vaguely, and between our work, +from the neighbouring houses; we should not be ashamed of liking our +village church all the more for the atrocious stained glass which we +have decried as vandalism, when the sunlight falls rosy, and golden, +and green, through its monstrosities on to the extremely chaste, but +excessively dreary, grey arches and pillars. We should not be so +hypocritical to ourselves, so exclusive in our adoration of only the +best pictures, and statues, and music, to appreciate rightly whose +great merit we ought (but do not), to appreciate also the small, more +appreciable merit of the less perfect things of art. When, instead of +enjoying, we fantasticate in theory, we not only remove a proportion of +our attention from the work in hand, but also exclude ourselves from +getting the good we might from other things; one man will positively +whip his soul out of enjoying the sweet solemnity of Claude's sea +sunsets, the tragedy pomp of Poussin's black rustling ilex-groves, +and ominous green evening skies, because he seeks in painting a moral +sincerity which is incompatible with a false shadow or a lumpishly +rendered cloud. Another man thinks music ought to be the expression +of dramatic passion, and closes his ears to the splendours of poor +Rossini's vocal arabesques, theory-blinded to the sense that the powers +of creating beauty of the composer of _Tristram_, is after all akin to +the beauty making genius of the composer of _Semiramis_. Meanwhile, he +who merely enjoys is able to enjoy; is able (oh wonder of wonders) to be +what the man of theories never can be: just, because he can be grateful +for every amount of bestowed good. + +There is another objection which you may make, which (though perhaps +unformulated) you certainly will feel, against me and my book. You have +an uncomfortable sense that in some way, although our artistic life may +gain, a certain amount of life which goes on in or about art--we do not +clearly know which--is being cramped: a life of the fancy and feelings, +which weave between ourselves and the things which surround us and the +things which are absent, between the present moment and the long-gone +past, strange crossed and recrossed threads, webs of association, +infinitely fine, iridescently connected by almost invisible filaments, +floating and oscillating in the vacuum of our lives, for ever changing, +breaking; reknotting their sensitive filaments. For in most of the +things which we see and hear with free, unpractical mind in the moments +when we belong to ourselves and to the present, there exists a capacity +for importance, nay for fascination, quite independent of beauty and of +the pleasures which beauty can give. There is in such things more than +what they can give alike to every one; there is also what they can give +to each separate; they have, besides the clear language of form, which +is equally intelligible to all men, a half articulate language for every +individual man, a language of associations, vague, poor, if you will, +broken by something which might be a laugh or a sob; an imperfect +irrational language, which is yet, even when spoken by some trifling +thing, by a bar or two of trivial melody, by a door such as we have many +times passed through, or a chair such as we have looked at when not, +as now, empty; by a mere scent or touch; is yet, this mumble-jumble +language, more dear to us than all the eloquence and poetry which our +soul hears from a great work of art. I grant you all this. But I do not +think that such things need be interfered with by looking at art simply +and with straightforwardness; interfered with they cannot be. Nor could +I wish it to be otherwise. For in some ways I do think that almost +better than the mere perception of the work of another, than the mere +perception of statue or picture or poem, is this evolving from out of +ourselves of vague beauty and goodness: our fancy and our feelings do +not create anything enduring, but they are active, they create. You +artists, you poets must be broad awake, for you can and are bound to +give to us the sober realities of beauty; but we who cannot, we can yet +sometimes dream, if but for a moment, of an intangible, vague fairyland; +and of this we must not be cheated. Out of the broken, fragmentary +realities of life there must arise, ever and again for all of us, +strange involuntary visions, which have greater power over us, more +charm for us, than all the art in the world. And of such things art has +no right to be jealous; they are beyond it. And thus, I will confess to +you, as I fasten together these last pages of my book, and rise from the +grass, sere in the sunshine, and sprinkled with daisies in the shadow +of each tree, I will confess to you that more nearly appealing to me, +dearer also, than antique bas-relief or song of Mozart, has been the +vague remembrance, evoked by trivial word or sight, of that early winter +afternoon on the ilex girded battlements of Belcaro, looking down upon +the sere oak-woods, flushed by the low sun, upon the hazy olive slopes +and walls and towers of Siena. And, moreover, I will even confess (as +severest self-chastisement to a writer on art, as complete expiation of +aesthetic dogmatism and fantastications), while we walk across the warm +grass and out through the low archway of black and flakewise crumbling +stone, that I foresee that many a time in the future there will arise +between me and the fresco or picture at which I am looking, a vision +of this old world garden, of the ivied chapel buttress, the flowering +lime, the daisied grass, the copper beech leaves, ruddy and diaphanous, +against the pale, moist English sky; that, sometimes, there will +come into my head something--something ill-defined, pleasurable, +painful--which will make me read only with my eyes; which will make me +(worst humiliation) lose the thread of my theories, of my thoughts, of +my sentence. And, after this confession, I think I can say no more. + + OXFORD, _July 21, 1881._ + + + _S. Cowan and Co., Strathmore Press, Perth._ + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE + +In a very few cases, missing punctuation has been added, mainly full +stops. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + +On the whole, Vernon Lee's quirky spellings have been retained; they +include, but are not limited to, words like spirt, feretting, devine, +charnal, langour, irridescent, crenelated, crotchetty, tomatos, boddices, +putrifying, braggadoccio, Monna Lisa, trellise, Lionardo, Lorenzo dei +Medici. + +The following changes were made to the text: + +statutes became statues in the sentence: + What like are these statues? + +The name Wohlgemuth was misspelled as Wohlgemueth and has been corrected; +similarly, Walpuergisnacht was changed to Walpurgisnacht. + +A superfluous "or" was deleted from the phrase "more or or less" in the +passage: + (...)he should invent a more or less casuistic reason (...) + +A quotation from Goethe's play "Torquato Tasso" was corrected in keeping +with the German original. Lee quotes it as follows, presumably from +memory: + + 'Nicht alles dienet uns auf gleicher Weise: + Wer viel gebrauchen will, gebrauche jedes + Nach seiner Art: so ist er wohl bedient.' + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Belcaro, by Vernon Lee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BELCARO *** + +***** This file should be named 32337.txt or 32337.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/3/32337/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + +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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