ANCIENT AND MODERN
(1818)
I have been obliged, in what precedes, to say so much in favor of antiquity, and particularly of the plastic artists of those times, that I may possibly be misunderstood, which so often happens where the reader, instead of preserving a just balance, throws himself at once into the opposite scale. I therefore seize the present opportunity to explain my meaning, using plastic art as a symbol of the never-ceasing life of human actions and affairs.
A young friend, Karl Ernst Schubarth, in his pamphlet, A Critique on Goethe, which in every respect calls for my esteem and thanks, says: “I do not agree with those worshipers of the ancients, among whom is Goethe himself, who maintain that in high and complete development of humanity nothing has ever been arrived at to compare with the Greeks.” Fortunately, Schubarth’s own words give us an opportunity to adjust this difference, where he says, “As to our Goethe, let me say that I prefer Shakespeare to him, for this reason,—that in Shakespeare I seem to find a strong, unconscious man, who is able, with perfect certainty, and without reasoning, reflecting, subtilizing and classifying, to seize with never-failing hand the true and false in man, and express it quite naturally; whilst in Goethe, though I recognize the same ultimate aim, I am always fighting with obstacles, and must be always taking heed lest I accept for plain truth what is only an exhibition of plain error.”
Here our friend hits the nail on the head; for in that very point where he places me below Shakespeare do we stand below the ancients. And what is it we advance concerning the ancients? Any talent, the development of which is not favored by time and circumstances, and must on that account work its way through a thousand obstacles, and get rid of a thousand errors, must always be at a disadvantage, when compared with a contemporary one that has the opportunity to cultivate itself with facility and act to the extent of its capacity without opposition.
It often happens that people who are no longer young are able, out of the fullness of their experience, to furnish an illustration that will explain or strengthen an assertion; and this is my excuse for relating the following anecdote. A practised diplomatist who had desired my acquaintance, after the first interview, when he had had but little opportunity of seeing or conversing with me, remarked to his friends: “Voilà un homme qui a eu de grands chagrins!” These words set me to thinking. The skilful physiognomist’s eye did not deceive him, only he laid to the effect of suffering the phenomenon that should also have been ascribed to opposition. An observant, straightforward German might have said, “Here is a man who has had a very hard time of it.” Since, then, the signs of past endurance and of persevering activity do not disappear from the face, it is no wonder if all that remains of us and our strivings should bear the same impress, and indicate, to the attentive observer, a mode of being whose aim has been to preserve its balance alike under circumstances of happiest development or narrowest limitation, and to maintain the stubbornness, if it could not always the highest dignity, of human existence.
But letting pass old and new, past and present, we may in general assert that every artistic production places us in the same state of mind the author was in. If that was clear and bright, we shall feel free; if that was narrow, timid, or anxious, we shall feel limited in the same proportion.
Upon reflection, we should add that this refers only to treatment. Material and import do not enter into consideration. If we bear in mind this principle, and look around in the world of art, we maintain that every work will afford us pleasure which the artist himself produced with ease and facility. What amateur does not rejoice in the possession of a successful drawing or etching of our Chodowiecki? We see in them such an immediate apprehension of nature, as we know it, that they leave nothing to wish for. But he would not be able to go beyond his mark and line, without losing all the advantage he derives from his peculiar qualifications.
We shall even go farther, and confess that we have derived great pleasure from Mannerists, when the manner has not been carried too far, and that we are pleased with the possession of their works. The artists who have received this name have been gifted with uncommon talent, but became early aware that, in the state of the times as well as of the schools into which they were cast by fate, there was no room for minute labor, but that they must choose their part, and perfect themselves speedily. They therefore made themselves a language, into which they could, without farther trouble, translate with ease and dexterity all visible subjects, and exhibit to us representations of all sorts of scenes with greater or less success. Thus whole nations have been entertained and hoodwinked for long periods of time, until at last one or another artist has found the way back to nature and a higher feeling of art.
We may perceive, by the Herculanean antiquities, how the ancients also fell into this kind of manner; only their models were too great, too present, fresh, and well preserved, for their second and third rate artists to be able to lose themselves entirely in insignificance.
Let us now assume a higher and more agreeable point of view, and consider the talent with which Raphael was so singularly gifted. Born with the happiest natural gifts, at a time when art combined the most conscientious labor, attention, industry, and truth, the young man was already led by excellent masters to the threshold, and had only to raise his foot to enter the temple. Disciplined by Perugino in the most careful elaboration, his genius was developed by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Neither of these artists, in spite of their long life and the cultivation of their powers, seems ever to have reached the true enjoyment of artistic production. The former, if we look closely, wearied himself with thought, and dissipated his powers in mechanical inquiries; and we have to blame the latter for spending his fairest years among stone quarries, getting out marble blocks and slabs, so that, instead of carrying out his intention of carving all the heroes of the Old and New Testament, he has left only his Moses as an example of what he could and should have done. Raphael, however, during his whole life, ever increased in the even facility of his work. We see in him the development of the intellectual and active powers, which preserve such remarkable balance that it may be affirmed that no modern artist has possessed such purity and completeness of thought and such clearness of expression. In him we have another instance of a talent that pours out to us the freshest water from the purest source. He never affects a Greek manner, but feels, thinks, works like a Greek. We see the fairest talent developed in the most favorable hours. The same thing occurred, under like conditions and circumstances, in the time of Pericles.
It may therefore always be maintained that native talent is indeed indispensable to production, but equally indispensable is a commensurate development in the provinces of nature and art. Art cannot dispense with its prerogatives, and cannot achieve perfection without favorable outward circumstances.
Consider the school of the Caracci. Here was a ground-work of talent, earnestness, industry, and consistent development; here was an element for the natural and artistic development of admirable powers. We see a whole dozen of excellent artists produced by it, each practising and cultivating his peculiar talent according to the same general idea, so that it hardly seems possible that after times should produce anything similar.
Let us consider the immense stride made by the highly gifted Rubens into the world of art! He too was no son of earth; look at the rich inheritance he was heir to, from the old masters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, through all the admirable artists of the sixteenth, at the close of which he was born.
Again, think of the crowd of Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, whose great abilities found development now at home, now south, now north, until we can no longer deny the incredible sagacity with which their eye pierced into nature, and the facility with which they have succeeded in expressing her legitimate charm, so as to enchant us everywhere. Nay, in proportion as we possess their productions, we are willing to limit ourselves for long stretches of time to their study and admiration, and are far from blaming those amateurs who are contented with the possession and enjoyment of this class of pictures exclusively.
In the same way, we could bring a hundred examples in support of our assertion. To see distinctly, to apprehend clearly, to impart with facility,—these are the qualities that enchant us; and when we maintain that all these are to be found in the genuine Greek works, united with the noblest subjects, the most unerring and perfect execution, it will be seen why it is we always begin and end with them. Let each one be a Greek in his own way, but let him be a Greek!
The same is true of literary merit. What is comprehensible is always the first to attract us and give us complete satisfaction. If we even take the works of one and the same poet, we shall find some that seem to indicate a degree of laborious effort, and others again affect us like natural products, because the talent was commensurate with the form and import. And once more, it is our firm belief that although any age may give birth to the fairest talent, it is not given to all to be able to develop it in its perfect proportions.