I. THE EXPRESSION AND INTERPRETATION
OF HUMAN LIFE IN ART
Art is the adequate and harmonious expression and interpretation of some phase of man’s life in true relation to the whole.
—Edward Howard Griggs.
Purpose of the course.—To consider the whole meaning of the fine arts; the relations they sustain to each other; the sources from which they spring; their two-fold relation to the human spirit,—as expressing and interpreting life and as contributing to the higher culture of man. The need and value of such study to-day, especially in America.
Popular superstitions in relation to art.—Misconceptions met on the threshold of our study: (1) The notion that art is a dispensable luxury, to be cultivated as an adornment of life after our serious business is accomplished. Prevalence of this error in the mind of the general public; among those who regard themselves as polite society. The artist’s bitter protest against this attitude in all epochs: compare Carlyle; Goethe.
(2) The notion prevailing in the minds of many good people that art is justified only by the moral lessons it teaches. Goethe’s view that this destroys the artist’s vocation. The ethical significance of true art organically in it, not tacked on in an Æsop’s fable moral at the end.
(3) In reaction against the second error, one prevailing in the minds of many artists below the highest rank: the notion that art is for the sake merely of exhibiting technical skill in the mastery of difficulties. Causes of this error.
Essential that these three misconceptions should be corrected before art can assume its rightful place in relation to our life. Our first questions therefore: What is art, and what relation does it sustain to the spirit of man?
Unity and variety in art.—Bewildering diversity of works of art: compare in the same art; in different arts. Thus difficulty of gathering all in a common statement. Yet the fact that we may appreciate all, indicating a common basis. The arts, moreover, springing from one historical source; while possible for the most highly developed works of art in different fields to produce the same dominant impression. Illustrate in the groups of men who are brothers across the centuries. The source of this unity in all art the expression everywhere of the same universal basis of human life.
The simple, generic elements of life as always expressed in art through the medium of personality. Thus true art ever fresh and vital—a new equation of old forces. Compare Homer’s Odyssey and Stephen Phillip’s Ulysses.
Not all expression art. The conditioning principles of adequacy and harmony of expression distinguishing true art from what fails to rise to its plane. The further principle that the part must be treated in sound relation to the whole of human life. Compare in the portrayal of moral evil. What distinguishes Dante and Shakespeare from the vicious type of novel in such portrayal.
Interpretation of life.—All expression involving as well some measure of interpretation; that is, all art inevitably ideal as well as real in the presentation of life and nature. Compare even in amateur photography: how there is inevitably selection of material and point of view. Compare in the novel that attempts merely a realistic portraiture of life. How even the selection of the part of the material out of the whole and the adoption of a view-point in its treatment, bringing certain elements into the foreground and subordinating others in the background, means putting life and nature through the transmuting spectrum of the artist’s spirit in expressing them.
Further elements of idealism.—Raising life to a higher plane of expression than is usual in the real world: compare the characters of Shakespeare; the paintings of Corot and Millet.
The tendency in art to carry the laws of life out full circle, thus giving an ethical completeness wanting in actual life.
The addition of a unifying and interpreting atmosphere. Compare in Titian; Beethoven; Dante.
The definition of art.—Summing up of all the aspects developed in the relation of art to the human spirit: thus the inclusive definition.
Hence the serious business of art. The relation of the beautiful to the useful. The meaning of art in the life of man.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“The useful encourages itself; for the multitude produce it, and no one can dispense with it: the beautiful must be encouraged; for few can set it forth, and many need it.”
—Goethe, Wilhelm Meister, translated by Carlyle (A. C. McClurg & Co., 1890), vol. 2, p. 129.
“I do not object to a dramatic poet having a moral influence in view; but when the point is to bring his subject clearly and effectively before his audience, his moral purpose proves of little use, and he needs much more a faculty for delineation and a familiarity with the stage to know what to do and what to leave undone. If there be a moral in the subject, it will appear, and the poet has nothing to consider but the effective and artistic treatment of his subject. If the poet has as high a soul as Sophocles, his influence will always be moral, let him do what he will.”
—Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann and Soret, p. 228.
“The praiseworthy object of pursuing everywhere moral good as the supreme aim, which has already brought forth in art so much mediocrity, has caused also in theory a similar prejudice. To assign to the fine arts a really elevated position, to conciliate for them the favour of the State, the veneration of all men, they are pushed beyond their true domain, and a vocation is imposed upon them contrary to their nature. It is supposed that a great service is awarded them by substituting for a frivolous aim,—that of charming—a moral aim; and their influence upon morality, which is so apparent, necessarily militates in favour of this pretension.”
—Schiller, Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical, pp. 361, 362.
“Just as the sun cannot shed its light but to the eye that sees it, nor music sound but to the hearing ear, so the value of all masterly work in art and science is conditioned by the kinship and capacity of the mind to which it speaks. It is only such a mind as this that possesses the magic word to stir and call forth the spirits that lie hidden in great work. To the ordinary mind a masterpiece is a sealed cabinet of mystery,—an unfamiliar musical instrument from which the player, however much he may flatter himself, can draw none but confused tones. How different a painting looks when seen in a good light, instead of in some dark corner! Just in the same way, the impression made by a masterpiece varies with the capacity of the mind to understand it.”
—Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature, p. 94.
“From the combined effort of the two schools of criticism, guardians of public tranquillity, there results a salutary reaction. This reaction has already produced some specimens of poets,—steady, well-bred, prudent, whose style always keeps good hours; who never indulge in an outing with those mad creatures, Ideas; who are never met at the corner of a wood, solus cum solâ, with Reverie, that gypsy girl; who are incapable of having relations either with Imagination, dangerous vagabond, or with the bacchante Inspiration, or with the grisette Fancy; who have never in their lives given a kiss to that beggarly chit, the Muse; who never sleep away from home, and who are honored with the esteem of their door-keeper, Nicholas Boileau. If Polyhymnia goes by with her hair floating a little, what a scandal! Quick! they call the hairdresser. M. de la Harpe comes hastily. These two sister schools of criticism, that of the doctrinaire and that of the sacristan, undertake to educate. They bring up little writers. They keep a place to wean them,—a boarding-school for juvenile reputations.”
—Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, pp. 208, 209.
“The passions, whether violent or not, must never be carried in their expression to the verge of disgust, and music, even in the most awful situations, must not offend the ear, but always please.”
—Mozart, in Kerst, Mozart: The Man and the Artist, pp. 34, 35.
“He was a good man and on that very account, a great man. For when a good man is gifted with talent, he always works morally for the salvation of the world, as poet, philosopher, artist, or in whatever way it may be.”
—Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann and Soret, p. 364.
“The historical painter also must take good care, if he would not produce a caricature, even in subjects of an action moved by passion, not to give every one of his figures the sharply imprinted expression of an emotion. Thus, Orcagna, in his Last Judgment (in the Campo santo at Pisa), represents with fearful truthfulness, and in a most startling manner, on the side of the damned, terrified surprise, horror, lamentation and despair; but for all that it would be but a crowd of people making faces if the artist did not contrast it with the uniformly tranquil, radiant joy on the faces of the saved, and the solemn gravity of the patriarchs and prophets. In Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is placed by the side of the violent gesticulations and excited looks of some of the apostles, in well-calculated contrasting relief, the composed demeanor of others, especially of the one sitting at the right of the beholder at the end of the table, but particularly the divinely mild gravity and the sorrowful resignation of the principal figure in the middle. Even in the most tumultuous of all historical pictures, the celebrated Pompeian mosaic picture of Alexander’s battle, the universal horror at the fall of the commander-in-chief is completely portrayed only in some figures.”
—Ambros, The Boundaries of Music and Poetry, pp. 56, 57.
“Beauty results from the harmony between spirit and sense; it addresses all the faculties of man, and can only be appreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He must bring to it an open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All a man’s nature must be on the alert, and this is not the case with those divided by abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated by application.”
—Schiller, Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical, p. 330.
“A masterpiece exists once for all. The first poet who arrives, arrives at the summit. You shall ascend after him, as high, not higher. Ah! Your name is Dante? Very well; but he who sits yonder is named Homer!”
—Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare, p. 101.
“The unpoetical lover of art, ensconced in his burgess-like comfort, is apt to take offence at any part of a poetical work which entails trouble on him, such as the solution, colouring or concealment of a problem. The somnolent reader wants everything to pursue its natural course, little imagining in his obstinate conceit how the extraordinary may also be natural.”
—Goethe, Travels in Italy, p. 466.
TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
1. What is common and universal in the subject-matter of the fine arts?
2. Compare Homer’s Odyssey and the Ulysses of Stephen Phillips as artistic treatments of the same theme.
3. Can you discover a musical composition and a work in painting that produce the same dominant impression with the Agamemnon Trilogy of Æschylus?
4. Can you find a type of poetry and of painting akin in impression to the music of Chopin?
5. What makes possible our common appreciation of works of art in widely different fields and coming from remotely separated races and epochs?
6. Explain how all the characters of Shakespeare can speak such beautiful poetry, and yet Shakespeare be regarded as the great realist in the portrayal of life.
7. What relation do the paintings of Corot sustain to Nature?
8. How far may moral disease wisely be portrayed in art?
9. Show what is necessary to make expression truly artistic.
10. Formulate your own definition of art.
REFERENCES
Note: See Book List, pp. 51-57, for publisher and place and date of publication of all books referred to.
Ambros, Boundaries of Music and Poetry. Carpenter, Angels’ Wings. Corson, Aims of Literary Study. Crawshaw, Literary Interpretation of Life. Emerson, Art (in Essays, first series, pp. 325-343); Art (in Society and Solitude, pp. 39-59). Hand, Æsthetics of Musical Art. Hugo, William Shakespeare. Knight, The Philosophy of the Beautiful. Lanier, Music and Poetry. Leighton, Addresses. Lewes, Principles of Success in Literature. Mabie, Short Studies in Literature. Parry, The Evolution of the Art of Music. Partridge, Art for America. Raymond, Art in Theory; Essentials of Æsthetics. Ruskin, Lectures on Art; Modern Painters; The Two Paths. Schiller, Essays. Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature. Shairp, Aspects of Poetry. Stedman, Nature and Elements of Poetry. Tolstoy, What is Art? Van Dyke, How to Judge of a Picture; Principles of Art. Wagner, Art Life and Theories of. Wilde, The Critic as Artist.