{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27194/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27194","id":"gutenberg_27194","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27194","summary":null,"tags":["Aesthetics","Art criticism","Category: Art","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Ruth Hart\n\n\n\n\n[Note:  for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to\nthe beginning of the text.]\n\n\n\nTHE ENJOYMENT OF ART\n\nBY\n\nCARLETON NOYES\n\n\nBOSTON AND NEW YORK\nHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\nThe Riverside Press, Cambridge\n1903\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CARLETON NOYES\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n_Published, March, 1903_\n\n\nTo\nROBERT HENRI\nAND\nVAN D. PERRINE\n\n\nThis day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at\n     the crowded heaven,\nAnd I said to my spirit _When we become the enfolders of\n     those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every\n     thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?_\nAnd my spirit said _No, we but level that lift to pass and\n     continue beyond._\n\nWALT WHITMAN\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPreface\nI.     The Picture and the Man         i\nII.    The Work of Art as Symbol      19\nIII.   The Work of Art as Beautiful   41\nIV.    Art and Appreciation           67\nV.     The Artist                     86\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe following pages are the answer to questions which a young man\nasked himself when, fresh from the university, he found himself\nadrift in the great galleries of Europe. As he stood helpless and\nconfused in the presence of the visible expressions of the spirit of\nman in so many ages and so many lands, one question recurred\ninsistently: _Why_ are these pictures? What is the meaning of all\nthis striving after expression? What was the aim of these men who\nhave left their record here? What was their moving impulse? Why,\nwhy does the human spirit seek to manifest itself in forms which we\ncall beautiful?\n\nHe turned to histories of art and to biographies of artists, but he\nfound no answer! to the \"Why?\" The philosophers with their\ntheories of aesthetics helped him little to understand the dignity and\nforce of this portrait or the beauty of that landscape. In the\nconversation of his artist friends there was no enlightenment, for\nthey talked about \"values\" and \"planes of modeling\" and the\nmysteries of \"tone.\" At last he turned in upon himself: What does\nthis canvas mean to me? And here he found his answer. This work\nof art is the revelation to me of a fuller beauty, a deeper harmony,\nthan I have ever seen or felt. The artist is he who has experienced\nthis new wonder in nature and who wants to communicate his joy, in\nconcrete forms, to his fellow men.\n\nThe purpose of this book is to set forth in simple, untechnical\nfashion the nature and the meaning of a work of art. Although the\nillustrations of the underlying principles are drawn mainly from\npictures, yet the conclusions apply equally to books and to music. It\nis true that the manifestations of the art-impulse are innumerable,\nembracing not only painting, sculpture, literature, music, and\narchitecture, but also the handiwork of the craftsman in the\ndesigning of a rug or in the fashioning of a cup or a candlestick; it is\ntrue that each art has its special province and function, and that each\nis peculiarly adapted to the expression of a certain order of emotion\nor idea, and that the distinctions between one art and another are not\nto be inconsiderately swept aside or obscured. Yet art is one. It is\npossible, without confusing the individual characteristics essential to\neach, to discuss these principles under the comprehensive rubric of\nArt.\n\nThe attempt is made here to reduce the supposed mysteries of art\ndiscussion to the basis of practical, every-day intelligence and\ncommon sense. What the ordinary man who feels himself in any\nway attracted; towards art needs is not more and constantly more\npictures to look at, not added lore about them, not further knowledge\nof the men and the times that have produced them; but rather what\nhe needs is some understanding of what the artist has aimed to\nexpress, and, as reinforcing that understanding, the capacity rightly\nto appreciate and enjoy.\n\nIt is hoped that in this book the artist may find expressed with\nsimplicity and justice his own highest aims; and that the appreciator\nand the layman may gain some insight into the meaning of art\nexpression, and that they may be helped a little on their way to the\nenjoyment of art.\n\nHARVARD COLLEGE, _December tenth, 1902._\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE PICTURE AND THE MAN\n\nAt any exhibition of paintings, more particularly at some public\ngallery or museum, one can hardly fail to reflect that an interest in\npictures is unmistakably widespread. People are there in\nconsiderable numbers, and what is more striking, they seem to\nrepresent every station and walk in life. It is evident that pictures, as\nexhibited to the public, are not the cult of an initiated few; their\nappeal is manifestly to no one class; and this popular interest is as\ngenuine as it is extended.\n\nThus reflectively scanning the crowd, the observer asks himself:\nWhat has attracted these numbers to that which might be supposed\nnot to be understood of the many? And what are the pictures that in\ngeneral draw the popular attention?\n\nA few persons have of course drifted into the exhibition out of\ncuriosity or from lack of something better to do. So much is evident\nat once, for these file past the walls listlessly, seldom stopping, and\nthen but to glance at those pictures which are most obviously like\nthe familiar object they pretend to represent,--such as the bowl of\nflowers which the beholder can almost smell, the theatre-checks and\nfive-dollar note pasted on a wall which tempt him to finger them, or\nthe panel of game birds which puzzles him to determine whether the\nbirds are real or not. These visitors, however, are not the most\nnumerous. With the great majority it is not enough that the picture\nbe a clever piece of imitation or illusion: transferring their interest\nfrom the mere execution, they demand further that the subjects\nrepresented shall be pleasing. The crowd pause before a sunny\nlandscape, with cows standing by the shaded pool; they gather about\nthe brilliant portrait of a woman splendidly arrayed,--a favorite\nactress or a social celebrity; they linger before a group of children\nwading in a brook, or a dog crouching mournfully by an empty\ncradle. At length, with an approving and sympathetic word of\ncomment, they pass on to the next pleasing picture. Some canvases,\nnot the most popular ones, are yet not without their interest for a few;\nthese visitors are taking things a little more seriously; they do not try\nto see every picture, they do not hurry; they seem to be considering\nthe canvas immediately before them with concentrated attention.\n\nNo one of all these people is insensible to the appeal of the\npicturesque: their presence at the exhibition is evidence of that. In\nlife they like to see a bowl of flowers, a sunny landscape, a beautiful\nwoman in beautiful surroundings; and naturally they are interested\nin that which represents and recalls the reality. At once it is plain,\nhowever, that to different individuals the various pictures appeal in\ndifferent measure and for differing reasons. To one the very fact of\nrepresentation is a mystery and fascination. To another the important\nthing is the subject; the picture must represent what he likes in\nnature or in life. To a third the subject itself is of less concern than\nwhat the painter wanted to say about it: the artist saw a beauty\nmanifested by an ugly beggar, perhaps, and he wanted to show that\nbeauty to his fellows, who could not perceive it for themselves.\n\nThe special interest in pictures of each of these three men is not\nwithout its warrant in experience. What man is wholly indifferent to\nthe display of human skill? Who is there without his store of\npleasurable associations, who is not stirred by any call which rouses\nthem into play? What lover of beauty is not ever awake to the\nrevelation of new beauty? Indeed, upon these three principles\ntogether, though in varying proportion, depends the full significance\nof a great work of art.\n\nAs the lover of pictures looks back over the period of his conscious\ninterest in exhibitions and galleries, it is not improbable that his\nearliest memories attach themselves to those paintings which most\nclosely resembled the object represented. He remembers the great\nwonder which he felt that a man with mere paint and canvas could\nso reproduce the reality of nature. So it is that those paintings which\nare perhaps the first to attract the man who feels an interest in\npictures awakening are such as display most obviously the painter's\nskill. Whatever the subject imitated, the fascination remains; that\nsuch illusion is possible at all is the mystery and the delight.\n\nBut as his interest in pictures grows with indulgence, as his\nexperience widens, the beholder becomes gradually aware that he is\nmaking a larger demand. After the first shock of pleasurable surprise\nis worn away, he finds that the repeated exhibition of the painter's\ndexterity ceases to satisfy him; these clever pieces of deception\nmanifest a wearying sameness, after all; and the beholder begins\nnow to look for something more than mere expertness. Thinking on\nhis experience, he concludes that the subjects which can be imitated\ndeceptively are limited in range and interest; he has a vague,\ndisquieting sense that somehow these pictures do not mean anything.\nYet he is puzzled. Art aims to represent, he tells himself, and it\nshould follow that the best art is that which represents most closely\nand exactly. He recalls, perhaps, the legend of the two Greek\npainters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew down\nto peck at, the other with his painting of a veil which deceived his\nvery rival. The imitative or \"illusionist\" picture pleads its case most\nplausibly. A further experience of such pictures, however, fails to\nbring the beholder beyond his simple admiration of the painter's skill;\nand that skill, he comes gradually to realize, does not differ\nessentially from the adroitness of the juggler who keeps a billiard\nball, a chair, and a silk handkerchief rotating from hand to hand.\n\nConscious, then, of a new demand, of an added interest to be\nsatisfied, the amateur of pictures turns from the imitative canvas to\nthose paintings which appeal more widely to his familiar experience.\nJustly, he does not here forgo altogether his delight in the painter's\ncunning of hand, only he requires further that the subjects\nrepresented shall be pleasing. It must be a subject whose meaning he\ncan recognize at once: a handsome or a strong portrait, a familiar\nlandscape, some little incident which tells its own story. The\nspectator is now attracted by those pictures which rouse a train of\nagreeable associations. He stops before a canvas representing a bit\nof rocky coast, with the ocean tumbling in exhilaratingly. He\nrecognizes the subject and finds it pleasing; then he wonders where\nthe picture was painted. Turning to his catalogue, he reads: \"37. On\nthe Coast of Maine.\" \"Oh, yes,\" he says to himself, \"I was on the\ncoast of Maine last summer, and I remember what a glorious time I\nhad sitting on the rocks of an afternoon, with some book or other\nwhich the ocean was too fine to let me read. I like that picture.\" If\nthe title had read \"Massachusetts Coast,\" it is to be feared he would\nnot have liked the canvas quite so well. The next picture which he\nnotices shows, perhaps, a stately woman sumptuously attired. It is\nwith a slight shock of disappointment that the visitor finds recorded\nin his catalogue: \"41. Portrait of a Lady.\" He could see that much for\nhimself. He hoped it was going to be the painter's mother or\nsomebody's wife,--a person he ought to know about. But the pictures\nwhich appeal to him most surely are those which tell some little\nstory,--\"The Lovers,\" \"The Boy leaving Home,\" \"The Wreck.\" Here\nthe subject, touching some one of the big human emotions, to which\nno man is wholly insensible, calls out the response of immediate\ninterest and sympathy. It is something which he can understand.\n\nAt length there comes a day when the visitor stops before a\nlandscape which seems to him more beautiful than anything he has\never seen in nature; or some portrait discloses a strength of character\nor radiates a charm of personality which he has seldom met with in\nlife. Whence comes this beauty, this strength, this graciousness? Can\nit be that the painter has seen a new wonder in nature, a new\nsignificance in human life? The spectator's previous experience of\npictures has familiarized him in some measure with the means of\nexpression which the painter employs. More sensitive now to the\nappeal of color and form, he sees that what the artist cares to present\non his canvas is just his peculiar  sense of the beauty in the world, a\nbeauty that is best symbolized and made manifest through the\nmedium of color and form. Before he understood this eloquent\nlanguage which the painter speaks, he misinterpreted those pictures\nwhose significance he mistook to be literary and not pictorial. He\nearly liked the narrative picture because here was a subject he could\nunderstand; he could rephrase it in his own terms, he could retell the\nstory to himself in words. Now words are the means of expression of\nevery-day life. Because of this fact, the art which employs words as\nits medium is the art which comes nearest to being universally\nunderstood, namely, literature. The other arts use each a medium\nwhich it requires a special training to understand. Without some\nsense of the expressiveness of color, line, form, and sounds,--a sense\nwhich can be cultivated,--one is necessarily unable to grasp the full\nand true meaning of picture, statue, or musical composition. One\nmust realize further that the artist thinks and feels in his peculiar\nmedium; his special meaning is conceived and expressed in color or\nform or sound. The task of the appreciator, correspondingly, is to\nreceive the artist's message in the same terms in which it was\nconceived. The tendency is inevitable, however, to translate the\nmeaning of the work into words, the terms in which men commonly\nphrase their experience. A parallel tendency is manifest in one's\nefforts to learn a foreign language. The English student of French at\nfirst thinks in English and laboriously translates phrase for phrase\ninto French; and in hearing or reading the foreign language, he\ntranslates the original, word for word, into his native tongue before\nhe can understand its sense: he has mastered the language only when\nhe has reached that point where English is no longer present to his\nconsciousness: he thinks in French and understands in French.\nSimilarly, to translate the message of any art into terms that are\nforeign to it, to phrase the meaning of music or painting, for\nexample, in words, is to fail of its essential, true significance. The\nimport of music is musical; the meaning of pictures is not literary\nbut pictorial. In the understanding of this truth, then, the spectator\npenetrates to the artist's real intention; and he becomes aware that\nwhen he used the picture as the peg whereon to hang his own\nreflections and ideas, he missed the meaning of the artist's work. \"As\nI look at this canvas,\" he tells himself, \"it is not what I know of the\ncoast of Maine that is of concern, but what the painter has seen and\nfelt of its beauty and wants to reveal to me.\" Able at last to interpret\nthe painter's medium, the appreciator comes to seek in pictures not\nprimarily an exhibition of the craftsman's skill, not even a recall of\nhis own pleasurable experiences, but rather, beyond all this, a fuller\nvisible revelation of beauty.\n\nThe essential significance of art, that art is revelation, is illustrated\nnot only by painting but by the other arts as well. In music, to take\nbut a single example, are present the same elements that constitute\nthe appeal of pictures,--skill in the rendering, a certain\ncorrespondence with experience, and the power of imaginative\ninterpretation of the facts of life. The music-hall performer who\nwins the loudest and heartiest applause is he who does the greatest\nnumber of pyrotechnic, wonderful things on the piano, or holds a\nhigh note on the cornet for the longest time. His success, as with the\npainter whose aim is to create illusion, rests upon men's instinctive\nadmiration for the exhibition of skill. Again, as the imitative picture\ninvolves not only the display of dexterity, but also likeness to the\nthing represented and the consequent possibility of recognizing it\nimmediately, so in the domain of music there is an order of\ncomposition which seems to aim at imitation,--the so-called\n\"descriptive\" music. A popular audience is delighted with the \"Cats'\nSerenade,\" executed on the violins with overwhelming likeness to\nthe reality, or with, the \"Day in the Country,\" in which the sun rises\nin the high notes, cocks crow, horses rattle down the road,\nmerrymakers frolic on the green, clouds come up in the horns,\nlightning plays in the violins, thunder crashes in the drums and\ncymbals, the merrymakers scatter in the whole orchestra, the storm\npasses diminuendo, and in the muted violins the full moon rises\nserenely into a twilight sky. Here the intention is easily understood;\nthe layman cannot fail to recognize what the composer wanted to\nsay. And as in the case of pictures which interest the beholder\nbecause he can translate their subject into the terms which are his\nown medium of expression, that is, words, so with descriptive music,\nbroadly speaking, the interest and significance is literary and not\nmusical. Still another parallel is presented. Just as those pictures are\npopular whose subjects lie within the range of familiar experience,\nsuch as cows by the shaded pool, or children playing, or whose\nsubjects touch the feelings; so, that music is popular which is\nphrased in obvious and familiar rhythms such as the march and the\nwaltz, or which appeals readily and unmistakably to sentiment and\nemotion. It is after the lover of music has traversed these passages of\nmusical expression and has proved their imitations that he comes to\nseek in music new ranges of experience, unguessed-at possibilities\nof feeling, which the composer has himself sounded and which he\nwould communicate to others. He is truly the artist only as he leads\nhis auditors into regions of beautiful living which they alone and of\nthemselves had not penetrated. For it is then that his work reveals.\n\nOnly such pictures, too, will have a vital meaning as reveal. The\nimitative and the iterative alike, that which adds nothing to the\nobject and that which adds nothing to the experience of the beholder,\nthough once pleasing, now fail to satisfy. The appreciator calls for\nsomething fuller. He wants to pass beyond the object, beyond his\nexperience of it, into the realm of illumination whither the true artist\nwould lead him. The development of appreciation, as the amateur\nhas come to realize in his own person, is only the enlargement of\ndemand. The appreciator requires ever fresh revelations of beauty.\nHe discovers, too, that in practice the tendency of his development is\nin the direction of exclusion. As he goes on, he cares for fewer and\nfewer things, because those works which can minister to his\never-expanding desire of beauty must needs be less numerous. But these\nmake up in largeness of utterance, in the intensity of their message,\nwhat they lack in numbers. Nor does this outcome make against a\nfancied catholicity of taste. The true appreciator still sees in his\nearlier loves something that is good, and he values the good the\nmore justly that he sees it now in its right relation and apprehends its\nreal significance. As each in its turn led him to seek further, each\nbecame an instrument in his development. For himself he has need\nof them no longer. But far from contemning them, he is rightly\ngrateful for the solace they have afforded, as by them he has made\nhis way up into the fuller meaning of art.\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE WORK OF ART AS SYMBOL\n\nIn the experience of the man who feels himself attracted to pictures\nand who studies them intelligently and with sympathy, there comes\na day when suddenly a canvas reveals to him a new beauty in nature\nor in life. Much seeing and much thinking, much bewilderment and\nsome disappointment, have taught him that in the appreciation of\npictures the question at issue is not, how cleverly has the painter\nimitated his object, is not, how suggestive is the subject of pleasing\nassociations; he need simply ask himself, \"What has the artist\nconceived or felt in the presence of this landscape, this arrangement\nof line and color, this human face, that I have not seen and felt, and\nthat he wants to communicate to me?\"\n\nThe incident of the single canvas, which by its illuminating\nrevealment first discloses to the observer the true significance of\npictures, is typical of the whole scope of art. The mission of art is to\nreveal. It is the prophet's message to his fellow men, the apocalypse\nof the seer. The artist is he to whom is vouchsafed a special\napprehension of beauty. He has the eye to see, the temperament to\nfeel, the imagination to interpret; it is by virtue of these capacities,\nthis high, transfiguring vision, that he is an artist; and his skill of\nhand, his equipment with the means of expression, is incidental to\nthe great fact that he has somewhat to express that the common man\nhas not. To his work, the manifestation of his spirit in material form,\nhis perception made sensible, is accorded the name of art.\n\nArt is expression. It is not a display of skill; it is not the reproduction\nof external forms or appearances; it does not even, as some say,\nexist for itself: it is a message, a means. To cry \"Art for Art's sake!\"\nis to converse with the echo. Such a definition but moves in a circle,\nand doubles upon itself. No; art is for the artist's sake. The artist is\nthe agent or human instrument whereby the supreme harmony,\nwhich is beauty, is manifested to men. Art is the medium by which\nthe artist communicates himself to his fellows; and the individual\nwork is the expression of what the artist felt or thought, as at the\nmoment some new aspect of the universal harmony was revealed to\nhis apprehension. Art is emotion objectified, but the object is\nsubordinated to the emotion as means is to an end. The material\nresult is not the final significance, but what of spiritual meaning or\nbeauty the artist desired to convey. Not what is painted, as the\nlayman thinks, not how it is painted, as the technician considers, but\nwhy did the artist paint it, is the question which sums up the truth\nabout art. The appreciator need simply ask, What is the beauty, what\nthe idea, which the artist is striving to reveal by these symbols of\ncolor and form? He understands that the import of the work is the\n_idea,_ and that the work itself is beautiful because it symbolizes a\nbeautiful idea; its significance is spiritual. The function of art, then,\nis through the medium of concrete, material symbols to reveal to\nmen whatever of beauty has been disclosed to the artist's more\npenetrating vision.\n\nIn order to seize the real meaning of art it is necessary to strip the\nword beauty of all the wrappings of customary associations and the\naccretions of tradition and habit. As the word is current in ordinary\nparlance, the attribute of beauty is ascribed to that which is pleasing,\npretty, graceful, comely; in fine, to that which is purely agreeable.\nBut surely such is not the beauty which Rembrandt saw in the filthy,\nloathsome beggar. To Rembrandt the beggar was expressive of some\nforce or manifestation of the supreme universal life, wherein all\nthings work together to a perfect harmony.  Beauty is the essential\nquality belonging to energy, character, significance. A merely\nagreeable object is not beautiful unless it is expressive of a meaning;\nwhatever, on the other hand, is expressive of a meaning, however\nshocking it may be in itself, however much it may fail to conform to\nconventional standards, is beautiful. Beauty does not reside in the\nobject. No; it is the artist's sense of the great meaning of things; and\nin proportion as he finds that meaning--the qualities of energy, force,\naspiration, life--manifest and expressed in objects do those objects\nbecome beautiful. Such was the conception of beauty Keats had\nwhen he wrote in a letter: \"What the Imagination seizes as Beauty\nmust be Truth--whether it existed before or not,--for I have the same\nidea of all our passions as of Love: they are all, in their sublime,\ncreative of essential Beauty.\" And similarly; \"I can never feel certain\nof any truth, but from a clear perception of its Beauty.\" It his verse\nhe sings:--\n\n     \"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all\n     Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.\"\n\nWhen it is said here, then, that the artist sees beauty in nature, the\nphrase may be understood as a convenient but inexact formula, as\nwhen one says the sun rises or the sun sets. Beauty is in the\nlandscape only in the sense that these material forms express for the\nartist an idea he has conceived of some aspect of the universal life.\n\nThe artist is impelled to embody concretely his perception of beauty,\nand so to communicate his emotion, because the emotion wakened\nby the perception of new harmony in things is most fully possessed\nand enjoyed as it comes to expression. Thus to make real his ideal\nand find the expression of himself is the artist's supreme Happiness.\nA familiar illustration of the twin need and delight of expression\nmay be found in the handiwork produced in the old days when every\nartisan was an artist. It may be, perhaps, a key which some\ncraftsman of Nuremberg fashioned. In the making of it he was not\ncontent to stop with the key which would unlock the door or the\nchest It was his key, the work of his hands; and he wrought upon it\nlovingly, devotedly, and made it beautiful, finding in his work the\nexpression of his thought or feeling; it was the realization for that\nmoment of his ideal. His sense of pleasure in the making of it\nprompted the care he bestowed upon it; his delight was in creation,\nin rendering actual a new beau which it was given him to conceive.\n\nIn its origin as a work of art the key does not differ from a landscape\nby Inness, an \"arrangement\" by Whistler, a portrait by Sargent. The\nartist, whether craftsman or painter, is deeply stirred by some\npassage in his experience, a fair object or a true thought: it is the\nimperious demand of his nature, as it is his supreme pleasure, to\ngive his feeling expression. The form which his expression takes--it\nmay be key or carpet, it may be statue, picture, poem, symphony, or\ncathedral--is that which most closely responds to his idea, the form\nwhich most truly manifests and represents it.\n\nAll art, as the expression of the artist's idea, is in a certain definite\nsense representative. Not that all art reproduces an external reality,\nas it is said that painting or literature represents and music does not;\nbut every work of art, in painting, poetry, music, or in the handiwork\nof the craftsman, _represents_ in that it is the symbol of the creator's\nideal. To be sure, the painter or sculptor or dramatist draws his\nsymbols from already existing material forms, and these symbols are\nlike objects in a sense in which music is not But line and color and\nthe life of man, apart from this resemblance to external reality, are\nrepresentative or symbolic of the artist's idea precisely as the\ncraftsman's key, the designer's pattern, or the musician's symphony.\nThe beautifully wrought key, the geometric pattern of oriental rug or\nhanging, the embroidered foliation on priestly vestment, are works\nof art equally with the landscape, the statue, the drama, or the\nsymphony, in that they are one and all the sensuous manifestation of\nsome new beauty spiritually conceived.\n\nThe symbolic character of a work of art must not be lost from sight,\nfor it is the clue to the interpretation of pictures, as it is of all art.\nThe painter feels his way through the gamut of his palette to a\nharmony of color just as truly as the musician summons the notes of\nhis scale and marshals them into accord. The painter is moved by\nsome sweep of landscape; it wakens in him an emotion. When he\nsets himself to express his emotion in the special medium with\nwhich he works, he represents by pigment the external aspect of the\nlandscape, yes; but not in order to imitate it or reproduce it: he\nrepresents the landscape because the colors and the forms which he\nregisters upon the canvas express for him the emotions roused by\nthose colors and those forms in nature. He does not try to match his\ngrays with nature's grays, but this nuance which he gropes for on his\npalette, and having found it, touches upon his canvas, expresses for\nhim what that particular gray in nature made him feel. His one\ncompelling purpose is in all fidelity and singleness of aim to\n\"translate the impression received.\" The painter's medium is just as\nsymbolic as the notes of the musician's nocturne or the words of the\npoet's sonnet, equally inspired by the hour and place. Color and line\nand form, although they happen to be the properties of _things,_\nhave a value for the emotions as truly as musical sounds: they are\nthe outward symbol of the inward thought or feeling, the visible\nbodying forth of the immaterial idea.\n\nThe symbolic character of the material world is not early\napprehended. In superficial reaction upon life, men do not readily\npass beyond the immediate actuality. That the spiritual meaning of\nall things is not perceived, that all things are not seen to be beautiful,\nor expressive of the supreme harmony, is due to men's limited\npowers of sight and feeling. Therefore is it that the artist is given in\norder that he may reveal as yet unrealized spiritual relations, or new\nbeauty. The workaday world with its burden of exigent \"realities\"\nhas need of a Carlyle to declare that things are but a wonderful\nmetaphor and the physical universe is the garment of the living God.\nIn the realm of thought an Emerson, seer of transcendent vision,\nmust come to restore his fellows to their birthright, which is the life\nof the spirit. As in life, so in art men do not easily pass the obvious\nand immediate. The child reads \"Gulliver's Travels\" or \"The\nPilgrim's Progress\" for the story. As his experience of life both\nwidens and deepens, he is able to see through externals, and he\npenetrates to the real significance, of which the narrative is but the\nsymbol. So it is with an insight born of experience that the lover of\nart sees no longer the \"subject,\" but the beauty which the subject is\nmeant to symbolize.\n\nIn the universal, all-embracing constitution of things, nothing is\nwithout its significance. To be aware that everything has a meaning\nis necessary to the understanding of art, as indeed of life itself. That\nmeaning, which things symbolize and express, it cannot be said too\noften, is not necessarily to be phrased in words. It is a meaning for\nthe spirit. A straight line affects one differently from a curve; that is,\neach kind of line means something. Every line in the face utters the\ncharacter behind it; every movement of the body is eloquent of the\nman's whole being. \"The expression of the face balks account,\" says\nWalt Whitman,\n\n     \"But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his\n          face,\n     It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints\n          of his hips and wrists,\n     It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist\n          and knees, dress does not hide him,\n     The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and\n          broadcloth,\n     To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,\n     You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and\n          shoulder-side.\"\n\nCrimson rouses a feeling different from that roused by yellow, and\ngray wakens a mood different from either. In considering this\nsymbolic character of colors it is necessary to distinguish between\ntheir value for the emotions and merely literary associations. That\nwhite stands for purity or blue for fidelity is a conventionalized and\nattached conception. But the pleasure which a man has in some\ncolors or his dislike for others depends upon the effect each color\nhas upon his emotions, and this effect determines for him the\nsymbolic value of the color. In the same way sounds are symbolic in\nthat they affect the emotions apart from associated \"thoughts.\" Even\nwith a person who has no technical knowledge of music, the effect\nof the minor key is unmistakably different from the major. The tones\nand modulations of the voice, quite apart from the words uttered,\nhave an emotional value and significance. Everything, line, form,\ngesture, movement, color, sound, all the material world, is\nexpressive. All objective forms have their meaning, and rightly\nperceived are, in the sense in which the word is used here, beautiful,\nin that they represent or symbolize a spiritual idea.\n\nThus it is that beauty is not in the object but in man's sense of the\nobject's symbolic expressiveness. The amateur may be rapt by some\nartist's \"quality of color.\" But it is probable that in the act of laying\non his pigment, the artist was not thinking of his \"quality\" at all, but,\nrapt himself by the perception of the supreme harmony at that\nmoment newly revealed to his sense, he was striving sincerely and\ndirectly to give his feeling its faithfullest expression. His color is\nbeautiful because his idea was beautiful. The expression is of the\nvery essence of the thought; it _is_ the thought, but the thought\nembodied. \"Coleridge,\" says Carlyle, \"remarks very pertinently\nsomewhere that whenever you find a sentence musically worded, of\ntrue rhythm and melody in the words, there is something deep and\ngood in the meaning, too. For body and soul, word and idea, go\nstrangely together here as everywhere.\" Not to look beyond the\nmaterial is to miss the meaning of the work.\n\nIn an art such as music, in which form and content are one and\ninextricable, it is not difficult to understand that the medium of\nexpression which the art employs is necessarily symbolic, for here\nthe form cannot exist apart from the meaning to be conveyed. In the\nart of literature, however, the case is not so clear, for the material\nwith which the poet, the novelist, the dramatist works, material\nmade up of the facts of the world about us, we are accustomed to\nregard as objective realities. An incident is an incident, the\ninevitable issue of precedent circumstances, and that's all there is to\nit Character is the result of heredity, environment, training, plus the\ninexplicable _Ego._ To regard these facts of life which are so actual\nand immediate as a kind of animate algebraic formulae seems\nabsurd, but absurd only as one is unable to penetrate to the inner\nmeaning of things. \"Madame Bovary,\" to take an example quite at\nrandom, is called a triumph of realism. Now realism, of all literary\nmethods, should register the fact as it is, and least of all should\nconcern itself with symbols. But this great novel is more than the\nrecord of one woman's life. Any one who has come to understand\nthe character and temperament of Flaubert as revealed in his Letters\nmust feel that \"Madame Bovary\" is no arbitrary recital of tragic\nincident, but those people who move through his pages, what they\ndo and what goes on about them, expressed for Flaubert his own\ndreary, baffled rebellion against life. That the artist may consciously\nemploy the facts of life, not for the sake of the fact, but to\ncommunicate his feeling by thus bodying it forth in concrete\nsymbols, there is explicit testimony. In an essay dealing with his\nown method of composition, Poe writes: \"I prefer commencing with\nthe consideration of an _effect._ Keeping originality _always_ in\nview . . .  I say to myself, in the first place, 'of the innumerable\neffects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or (more\ngenerally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present\noccasion, select?' Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid\neffect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or\ntone . . . afterwards looking about me (or rather within) for such\ncombinations of event or tone as shall best aid me in the\nconstruction of the effect.\" Yes, physical circumstances, the\nsuccession of incident, shifting momentary grouping of persons,\ntraits of character in varied combination and contrast,--all these are\nsignificant for the literary artist of spiritual relations.\n\nAs the symbol of what the artist feels and strives to express, the\nindividual work of art is necessarily more than any mere transcript\nof fact. It is the meeting and mingling of nature and the spirit of man;\nthe result of their union is fraught with the inheritance of the past\nand holds within it the limitless promise of the future. The work of\nart is a focus, gathering into itself all the stored experience of the\nartist, and radiating in turn so much to the beholder as he is able at\nthe moment to receive. A painter is starting out to sketch. Through\nunderbrush and across the open he pushes his way, beset by beauty\non every side, and storing impressions, sensations, thoughts. At last\nhis eye lights upon some clump of brush, some meadow or hill,\nwhich seems at the instant to sum up and express his accumulated\nexperience. In rendering this bit of nature, he pours out upon his\ncanvas his store of feeling. It is the single case which typifies his\nentire course. \"The man's whole life preludes the single deed.\" His\nway through the world has been just such a gathering up of\nexperience, and each new work which he produces is charged with\nthe collected wealth of years.\n\nThe special work is the momentary epitome of the artist's total\nmeaning. He finds this brief passage in nature beautiful then and\nthere because it expresses what he feels and means. He does not try\nto reproduce the thing, but uses the thing for what it signifies. The\nthing is but for that moment: it signifies all that has gone before. As\nhe watches, a cloud passes over the sun and the face of nature is\ndarkened. Suddenly the scene bursts into light again. In itself the\nlandscape is no brighter than before the sun was darkened. The\npainter feels it brighter for the contrast, and inevitably his rendering\nof its aspect is heightened and intensified.\n\nArt is nature heightened and intensified as nature is interpreted\nthrough the transfiguring medium of the human spirit To the object\nis added\n\n          \"The gleam,\n     The light that never was on sea or land,\n     The consecration and the poet's dream.\"\n\nAfter an early morning in the fields, Corot withdraws to his house to\nrest. \"I dream of the morning landscape,\" he writes; \"I dream my\npicture, and presently I will paint my dream.\" But not only does the\nartist render the beauty which this landscape happens to express for\nhim: he charges these colors and forms with the beauty of all\nlandscape. Corot painted _at_ Ville d'Avray; _what_ he painted\nwas God's twilight or dawn enwrapping tree and pool. In gratitude\nand worship he revealed to men the tender, ineffable poetry of gray\ndawns in all places and for all time. Millet's peasants were called\nJohn and Peter and Charles, and they tilled the soil of France; but on\ntheir bowed shoulders rests the universal burden; these dumb figures\nare eloquent of the uncomplaining, hopeless \"peasanthood\" of the\nworld. In the actual to discern the ideal, in the appearance to\npenetrate to the reality, without taking leave of the material to reveal\nthe spiritual,--this is the mystery and vocation of the artist, and his\nachievement is art.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE WORK OF ART AS BEAUTIFUL\n\nJust as nature and life are significant as the material manifestation of\nspiritual forces and relations, so a work of art is in its turn the\nsymbol by which the artist communicates himself; it is his revelation\nto men of the beauty he has perceived and felt.\n\nBeauty is not easy to define. That conception which regards beauty\nas the power to awaken merely agreeable emotions is limited and in\nso far false. Another source of misunderstanding is the confusion of\nbeauty with moralistic values. It is said that beauty is the Ideal; and\nby many the \"Ideal\" is taken to mean ideal goodness. With\nrighteousness and sin as such beauty has no concern. Much that is\nevil in life, much that offends against the moral law, must be\nregarded as beautiful in so far as it plays its necessary part in the\nuniversal whole. Clearing away these misconceptions, then, an\napproximate definition would be that the essence of beauty is\nharmony. So soon as a detail is shown in its relation to a whole, then\nit becomes beautiful because it is expressive of the supreme unity. A\ndiscord in music is felt to be a discord only as it is isolated; when it\ntakes its fitting and inevitable place in the large unity of the\nsymphony, it becomes full of meaning. The hippopotamus, dozing\nin his tank at the Zoo, is wildly grotesque and ugly. But who shall\nsay that, seen in the fastnesses of his native rivers, he is not the\nbeautiful perfect fulfilling of nature's harmony? To a race of blacks,\nthe fair-skinned Apollo appearing among them could not but be\nmonstrous. The smoking factory, sordid and hideous, is beautiful to\nhim who sees that it accomplishes a necessary function in the great\nscheme of life. Beauty is adaptation. Whatever is truly useful is in so\nfar truly beautiful. The steam engine and the battleship are beautiful\njust as truly as Titian's Madonna, glorified and sweeping upward\ninto the presence of God the Father. Only what is vital and\nserviceable, and whatever is that, is beautiful.\n\nWhen the spirit of man perceives a unity in things, a working\ntogether of parts, there beauty exists. It resides in the synthesis of\ndetails to the end of shaping a complete whole. This perception, this\nsynthesis, is a function of the human mind. Beauty is not in the\nlandscape, but in the intelligence which apprehends it. Evidence of\nthis fundamental truth is the fact that the same landscape is more\n\"beautiful\" to one man than to another, or to a third, perhaps, is not\nbeautiful at all. It is only as the individual perceives a relation\namong the parts resulting in a total unity that the object becomes\nbeautiful for him.\n\nThis abstract exposition may be made clearer by a graphic\nillustration. Here are four figures composed of the same elements:--\n\n           * ***   **      *  ***\n      *   ***** *  ******\n                *   **  * * * *\n                         *\n            *************  *\n          *  *  *  *\n                           **\n                  Fig. I.\n\n*  *  *  *  *      *  *  *\n*  *  *  *  *        *  *                                *\n*  *  *  *  *          *                *                *\n*  *  *  *  *        *  *                                *\n*  *  *  *  *      *  *  *\nFig. II.          Fig. III.                 Fig. IV.\n\nFigure I., far from being pleasing, is positively disquieting. With the\nother three figures, the perception of their form is attended with a\nkind of pleasure. Whereas the first figure is without form and is\nmeaningless, each of the second group exhibits harmony, balance,\nproportion, interrelation of parts: each is perceived to be a whole.\nAlthough experience itself comes to men in fragments and\nseemingly without order, yet the human mind is so constituted as to\nrequire that an idea or a truth be shown to be a whole before the\nmind can comprehend it In considering the element of balance, it\nshould be noted, as illustrated by Figure IV., that balance is not\nnecessarily perfect symmetry. A Gothic cathedral is beautiful no less\nthan a Greek temple. In a painting of a landscape, for example, it is\nnecessary simply that the masses and the tones stand in balancing\nrelation; the perfect symmetry of geometric exactness, characteristic\nof Hellenic and Renaissance art, is not required. In the work which\nembodies the artist's perception of the universal harmony, there must\nbe rhythm, order, unity in variety; so framed it becomes expressive\nand significant\n\nAs the symbol of beauty, the work of art is itself beautiful in that it\nmanifests in itself that wholeness and integrity which is beauty.\nEvery work of art is informed by a controlling design; it\nsubordinates manifold details to a definite whole; it reduces and\nadjusts its parts to an all-inclusive, perceptible unity. The\nNuremberg key must have some sort of rhythm; the rug or vestment\nmust exhibit a pattern which can be seen to be a whole; the canvas\nmust show balance in the composition, and the color must be \"in\ntone.\" In any work of art there must be design and purpose.\n\nIn nature there is much which to the limited perception of men does\nnot appear to be beautiful, for there is much that does not manifest\nsuperficially the necessary harmony. The landscape at noonday\nunder the blaze of the relentless sun discloses many things which are\nseemingly incongruous with one another. The dull vision of men\ncannot penetrate to the unity underlying it all. At twilight, as the\nshadows of evening wrap it round, the same landscape is invested\nwith mysterious beauty. Conflicting details are lost, harsh outlines\nare softened and merged, discordant colors are mellowed and\nattuned. Nature has brought her field and hill and clustered\ndwellings into \"tone.\" So the artist, who has perceived a harmony\nwhere the common eye saw it not, selects; he suppresses here,\nstrengthens there, fuses, and brings all into unity.\n\nHarmony wherever perceived is beauty. Beauty made manifest by\nthe agency of the human spirit is art. Art, in order to reveal this\nharmony to men, must work through selection, through rejection and\nemphasis, through interpretation. It is not difficult to understand,\nthen, that the exact reproduction of the facts of the external world is\nnot in a true sense art.\n\nThe photograph, which is the most exact method of reproducing\noutward aspect, is denied the title of a work of art; that is, the\nphotograph direct, which has not been retouched. To be sure, the\nphotograph is the product of a mechanical process, and is not, except\nincidentally, the result of human skill. Another kind of reproduction\nof outward aspect, however, virtually exact, which does show the\nevidence of human skill, is yet not entitled to rank as art,--the\nimitative or deceptive picture. Photograph and picture are ruled out\nequally on the one count. Neither selects.\n\nIn an exhibition of paintings were once displayed two panels\nprecisely similar in appearance, presenting an army coat and cap, a\nsabre and a canteen. At a distance there was no point of difference in\nthe two. A nearer view disclosed the fact that on one panel the\nobjects were real and that the other panel was painted. The beholder\nwas pleased by the exhibition of the painter's skill; but in so far as\nthe work did not reveal a significance or beauty in these objects\nwhich the artist had seen and the beholder had not, it fell short of\nbeing a work of art Just as the key of the Nuremberg craftsman was\na work of art in that it was for him the expression, the rendering\nactual, of a new beauty it was given him to conceive, so only that is\nart which makes manifest a beauty that is new, a beauty that is truly\nborn of the artist's own spirit. The repetition of existing forms with\nno modification by the individual workman is not creation, but\nimitation; and imitation is manufacture, not art. Inasmuch as the two\npanels could not be distinguished, the presentment signified no more\nthan the reality. Tried as a work of art, the imitative picture, in\ncommon with the photograph, lacks the necessary element of\ninterpretation, of revelation. That the representation may become art,\nthere must be added to it some new attribute or quality born of the\nartist's spirit. The work must take on new meaning.\n\nAs lending his work significance of an obvious sort, a significance\nnot necessarily \"pictorial,\" the painter might see in the objects some\nstory they have to tell. The plaster of the garret wall where they are\nhanging he may show to be cracked; that tear in the coat speaks of\nfaithful service, but the coat hangs limp and dusty now; the\ninscription on the canteen is almost obliterated, and the strap is\nbroken; the sabre, which shows the marks of stern usage along its\nblade, is spotted with rust: the whole composition means Trusty\nServants in Neglect. By the emphasis of certain aspects he picture is\nmade to signify more than he mere objects themselves, wherein\nthere was nothing salient. The meaning is imposed upon them or\ndrawn out of them by he artist. Or again, the painter may see in\nthese things the expression for him of a harmony which he can\nmanifest by the arrangement of line and color, and he so disposes his\nmaterial as to make that harmony visible. It is, then, not the crude\nfact which the artist transcribes, but rather some feeling he has\ntoward the fact. By selection, by adjustment, he gives this special\naspect of the fact emphasis and relief. In virtue of his interpretation\nthe picture acquires a significance that is new; it gives the beholder a\npleasure which the fact itself did not give, and thus it passes over\ninto the domain of art.\n\nThe purpose of art is not the reproduction of a beautiful object, but\nthe expression in objective form of a beautiful idea. A plaster cast of\na hand, however comely the hand may be, is not a work of art. As\nwith the photograph, the work involves only incidentally the\nexercise of human skill. But that is not all. In order to render the\nwork in the spirit of art, the sculptor must model, not the hand, but\nhis sense of the hand; he must draw out and express its character, its\nsignificance. To him it is not a certain form in bone and flesh; to him\nit means grace, delicacy, sensitiveness, or perhaps resolution,\nstrength, force. As the material symbol of his idea of the hand, he\nwill select and make salient such lines and contours as are\nexpressive to him of that character.\n\nIndeed, so little depends upon the exact subject represented and so\nmuch upon the artist's feeling toward it, so much depends upon the\nspirit of the rendering, that the representation of a subject\nuninteresting or even \"ugly\" in itself may be beautiful. In the art of\nliterature, the _subject_ is drawn from the life of man. The material\nof the poem, the novel, the drama, is furnished by man's total\nexperience, the sum of his sensations, impressions, emotions, and\nthe events in which he is concerned. But experience crowds in upon\nhim at every point, without order and without relation; the daily\nround of living is for most men a humdrum thing. Yet it is just this\nrudimentary and undistinguished mass of experience which is\ntransmuted into literature; by the alchemy of art the representation\nof that which is without interest becomes interesting. And it happens\non this wise. Life is humdrum only in so far as it is meaningless;\nmen can endure any amount drudgery and monotony provided that it\nlead somewhere, that they perceive its relation to a larger unity\nwhich is the total of life. As part of a whole which can be\napprehended, immediately it acquires purpose and becomes\nsignificant. It is the sense of meaning in life which gives color and\nwarmth to the march of uniform days. So the literary artist shapes\nhis inchoate material to a definite end; out of the limitless complex\ndetails at his command, he selects such passages of background,\nsuch incidents, and such traits of character as make for the setting\nforth of the idea he has conceived. Clearly the artist cannot use\neverything, clearly he does not aim to reproduce the fact: there are\nabridgments and suppressions, as there are accent and emphasis. The\nfinished work is a composite, embodying what is essential of many,\nmany preliminary studies and sketches, wrought and compiled with\ngenerous industry. The master is recognized in what he omits; what\nis suppressed is felt but not perceived: the great artist, in the result,\nsteps from peak to peak.\n\n     \"The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:\n     At one stride comes the Dark.\"\n\nThus with three strokes the master Coleridge depicts the onrush of\nthe night over boundless spaces of sky and sea. Within the compass\nof a few lines, Tennyson registers the interminable, empty monotony\nof weary years:\n\n     \"No sail from day to day, but every day\n     The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts\n     Among the palms and ferns and precipices;\n     The blaze upon the waters to the east;\n     The blaze upon his island overhead;\n     The blaze upon the waters to the west;\n     Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven,\n     The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again\n     The scarlet shafts of sunrise--but no sail.\"\n\nThus through selection does the artist work to interpretation. By\ndetaching the eternal meaning from the momentary fact, by\nembodying his sense of its significance in such concrete forms as\nsymbolize his idea, by investing the single instance with universally\ntypical import, then in very truth he represents. Nature is not the\nsubject of art; she is the universal treasury from whose infinitely\nvarious store the artist selects his symbols.\n\nA special method in art may here suggest itself as having for its\npurpose to reproduce the fact in perfect fidelity; the method is called\n_realism._ But a moment's considerate analysis shows that realism is\nonly a label for one manner of handling, and in the end comes no\nnearer the object as it \"really\" is. In its essence realism is the artist's\npersonal vision of the fact, exactly as idealism or romanticism or\nimpressionism is personal. For after all, what is the reality? A\nchance newsboy is offering his papers on a crowded street corner.\nThe fine lady recoils from his filth and from all contact with him;\nthe philanthropist sees in him a human being to help and to redeem;\nthe philosopher regards him dispassionately as a \"social factor,\" the\nresult of heredity and environment; the artist cries out in joy as his\neye lights upon good stuff to paint. But all the while, which of these\nconceptions figures the \"real\" newsboy? Not one. For he is all these\ntogether; and the single observer, whatever his bias, cannot\napprehend him at every point. Any attempt to represent him involves\nselection and interpretation, the suppression of some traits in order\nto emphasize others, which are the special aspects that have\nimpressed the given observer. So there is no essential realism. The\nterm applies to the method of those who choose to render what is\nless comforting in life, who insist on those characteristics of things\nwhich men call ugly. In realism, just as truly as in any other kind of\ntreatment, is expressed the personality of the artist, his own peculiar\nway of envisaging the world.\n\nA work of art is born of the artist's desire to express his joy in some\nnew aspect of the universal harmony which has been disclosed to\nhim. The mission of art is through interpretation to reveal. It\nhappens sometimes that a visitor at an exhibition of paintings is\nshocked by a picture which seems to him for the moment impossible,\nbecause so far beyond the range of his experience; yet withal he\nfinds himself attracted by it and he returns to study it. It is not many\ndays before his glance is arrested by that very effect in nature, and\nhe says, \"Why, that is like that picture!\" It was the artist who first\nsaw it and who taught him to see it for himself. When one observes\nan effect in nature or in life that one calls \"a Corot\" or \"a Whistler,\"\none means that to Corot or to Whistler is due the glory of\ndiscovering that fuller beauty and revealing it. Browning makes Fra\nLippo Lippi say:\n\n          \"We're made so that we love\n     First when we see them painted, things we have passed\n     Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;\n     And so they are better, painted--better to us,\n     Which is the same thing. Art was given for that.\"\n\nThis revealing power of art is not restricted to the individual\nappreciator. It is said that the French are an artistic people and that\nAmericans are not. The explanation is that for generations the artists\nof France have been discovering to their countrymen the beauty that\nis around them at their very door, and have taught them to appreciate\nit. The Americans will be an artistic people when our artists shall\nhave done the like for us. When there shall have been for\ngenerations a truly native American art, there will be a public to\nunderstand and to appreciate. So it is that everywhere the high\nfunction of art is to reveal. As a friend, more sensitive and more\nenthusiastic, with whom we are strolling, points out to us many\nbeauties by the wayside or in trees and sky, so the artist takes us by\nthe hand and leads us out into life, indicating for us a harmony to\nwhich we were blind before. Burdened with affairs and the daily\nround, we had not thought to look off and out to the spreading\nmeadows tossing into hills which roll upward into the blue heaven\nbeyond.\n\nThe beauty thus revealed is a beauty which the artist has\napprehended in spirit and which he would make actual. A work of\nart is the expression of an aspiration. The crude and tawdry images\nof the Madonna Set in the roadside cross are just as truly a work of\nart as the rapt saints of Giotto or the perfect Madonnas of Raphael in\nso far as they are expressive of what those poor, devout souls who\nfashioned them felt of worship and of love. After all, the difference\nis that Giotto felt more than they, Raphael was endowed with more\naccomplished powers of expression. The work receives its import as\nit is the faithful utterance of him who shaped it, as it is genuinely the\nrealization of his ideal. \"The gift without the giver is bare.\" But it is\nno less true that the gift without the receiver is sterile and void, for\nart involves not only its creator's intention but also its message to\nhim whom the work reaches. In a book, it is not only what the writer\nsays that makes its significance but also what the reader thinks as he\nreads. In so far as any man finds in picture or poem or song a new\nbeauty, a fuller sense of harmony than was his before, for him that is\na work of art.\n\nThus the standard by which art is to be tried is relative. For its\ncreator, the work is art in that it embodies a perception of new\nharmony that is peculiarly his. In the material result, this special\ncharacter is imparted to the work by the artist's instinctive selection.\nNo two painters, though equipped with equal technical skill and\nperhaps of like tastes and preferences, would or indeed could render\nthe same sweep of landscape in precisely similar fashion. Obviously,\nto set down everything were at once an impossibility and an untruth,\nfor the detail of nature is infinite and the beholder does not see\neverything. Each is bound to select such details as impress him, and\nhis selection will be determined by the way in which he as a unique\npersonality, an individual different from every other man in the\nwhole wide universe, feels about the bit of nature before him. In\nexpressing by his special medium what he feels about the landscape,\nhe aims, in the selection of material form and color, to detach and\nrender visible what of essential truth the landscape means to him, to\npurge it of accidents, and register its eternal beauty. The painter will\nnot attempt, then, to reproduce the physical facts of nature,--the\ntopography, geology, botany, of the landscape,--but rather through\nthose facts in terms of color and form he tries to render its\n_expression:_ its quality, as brilliance, tenderness; its mood, as joy,\nmystery, setting down those salient aspects of it which combine to\ngive it character and meaning. For landscape--to recall the\nexposition of a preceding page--has its expression as truly as the\nhuman face. A man knows his friends not by the shape of the nose\nor the color of the eyes, but by the character which these features\nexpress, the personality which shines in the face and radiates from it\nThis effluence of the soul within is the essential man; people call it\nthe \"expression.\" As with human life, so with the many aspects of\nnature. External traits are merged in the spiritual meaning. The\nmaterial forms have the power of affecting the spirit thus or so; and\nin man's reaction on his universe they come to take on a symbolic\nemotional significance. Each manifestation of nature arouses in the\nartist, more or less consciously on his part, some feeling toward it:\nhe cares, then, to represent these external material forms, whether a\nflower, a landscape, a human face, only because there is in them\nsomething in which he delights; he fashions the work of art in praise\nof the thing he loves. To the clever technician who imitatively paints\nthe flower as he knows it to be,\n\n     \"A primrose on the river's brim\n     A yellow primrose is to him\n          And it is nothing more.\"\n\nBut to the artist\n\n          \"The meanest flower that blows can give\n     Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.\"\n\nAnd it is these thoughts that he cares to express and not the visible\ntruth about the flower. A writer was walking along the streets of\nParis on a day in early March.\n\n\"It was dark and rather cold. I was gloomy, and walked because I\nhad nothing to do. I passed by some flowers placed breast-high upon\na wall. A jonquil in bloom was there. It is the strongest expression of\ndesire: it was the first perfume of the year. I felt all the happiness\ndestined for man. This unutterable harmony of souls, the phantom of\nthe ideal world, arose in me complete. I never felt anything so great\nor so instantaneous. I know not what shape, what analogy, what\nsecret of relation it was that made me see in this flower a limitless\nbeauty. . . . I shall never enclose in a conception this power, this\nimmensity that nothing will express; this form that nothing will\ncontain; this ideal of a better world which one feels, but which it\nwould seem that nature has not made.\"\n\nAnd if Senancour had set himself to paint his jonquil as he has\nwritten about it, how that tender flower would have been\ntransfigured and glorified!\n\nWhat the artist aims to render is not the rose but the beauty of the\nrose, his sense of one chord in the universal harmony which the rose\nsounds for him, not that only, but the beauty of all roses that ever\nwere or ever shall be; and inevitably he will select such colors and\nsuch lines as bring that special and interpreted beauty into relief, and\nso make manifest to the beholder what was revealed to his own\nhigher vision, by virtue of which, and not because of any\nexceptional technical skill, he is an artist.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nART AND APPRECIATION\n\nIt may be that some reader of the foregoing pages will attempt to\napply the principles therein set forth to the pictures shown in the\nnext exhibition he happens to attend. It is more than probable that in\nhis first efforts he will be disappointed. For the principles discussed\nhave dealt with art in its authentic manifestations; and not every\npainter is an artist, not every picture is a work of art.\n\nAt the very outset it should be said that an exhibition of paintings as\nordinarily made up is confusing and wholly illogical. We may\nsuppose that a volume to be read through in one sitting of two hours\nis placed in the hands of an intelligent reader. The book consists of\nessays, poems, short stories, and dramatic dialogue, each within the\ncompass of a few pages, each contributed by a different writer as an\nexample of his work for the year. We may suppose now that the\nreader is asked to gather from this volume, read hastily and either\nsuperficially or in random bits, some idea of the significance of each\nauthor and of the import and scope of contemporary American\nliterature. Is it a fair test? This volume, we may further suppose, is\npractically the only means by which the writer can get his work\nbefore the public. A public means a purchaser, and of course the\nwriter must live. Is it reasonable to think that every number\ncontributed to such a volume will be a work of art, wrought with\nsingleness of heart and in loving devotion to an ideal? There are still\nwith us those who \"work for money\" and those who \"work for\nfame.\" There are those who believe in \"giving the public what it\nwants,\" and the numbers they contribute to the yearly volumes are\nsamples of the sort of thing they do, from which the public may\norder. In the table of contents stand celebrated names; and to the\nwork of such men, perhaps, will turn the seeker after what he thinks\nought to be the best, not realizing that these are the men who have\nknown how to \"give the people what they want,\" that the people do\nnot always want the good and right thing, and that it is somewhat the\nhabit of genius to dispense with contemporary recognition. If there\nis here or there in the book an essay or a poem the product of\nthought and effort and offered in all seriousness, how little chance it\nhas of being appreciated, except by a few, even if it is remarked at\nall in the jumble of miscellaneous contributions.\n\nThis hypothetical volume is a fair parallel of an annual exhibition of\npaintings. In such an exhibition the number of works of art, the true,\ninevitable expression of a new message, is relatively small. The\nmost celebrated and most popular painters are not necessarily by\nthat fact great artists, or indeed artists at all. Contemporary judgment\nis notoriously liable to go astray. The gods of one generation are\noften the laughing stock of the next; the idols of the fathers are torn\ndown and trampled under foot by the children. Some spirits there\nhave been of liberal promise who have not been able to withstand\nthe demands made upon them by early popular approval. Such is the\nstruggle and soul's tragedy which is studied convincingly in Mr.\nZangwill's novel, \"The Master.\" No assault on the artist's integrity is\nso insidious as immediate favor, which in its turn begets the fatal\ndesire to please.\n\nTo the \"successful\" painters, however, are for the most part accorded\nthe places of honor on academy walls. The canvases of these men\nare seen first by the visitor; but they are not all. There are other\npictures which promise neither better nor worse. Here are paintings\nof merit, good in color and good in drawing, but empty of any\nmeaning. Scattered through the exhibition are the works of a group\nof able men, imitating themselves, each trying to outdo the others by\na display of cleverness in solving some \"painter's problem\" or by\nsome startling effect of subject or handling. But it is a sad day for\nany artist when he ceases to find his impulse and inspiration either\nin his own spirit or in nature, and when he looks to his fellow\ncraftsmen for the motive of his work. Again, there are pictures by\nmen who, equipped with adequate technical skill, have caught the\nmanner of a master, and mistaking the manner for the message it\nwas simply intended to express, they degrade it into a mannerism\nand turn out a product which people do not distinguish from the\nauthentic utterances of the master. The artist is a seer and prophet,\nthe channel of divine influences: the individual painter, sculptor,\nwriter, is a very human being.\n\nAs he looks over these walls, clamorous of the commonplace and\nthe commercial, the seeker after what is good and true in art realizes\nhow very few of these pictures have been rendered in the spirit of\nlove and joy. The painter has one eye on his object and one eye on\nthe public; and too often, as a distinguished actor once said of the\nstage manager whose vision is divided between art and the box\noffice, the painter is a one-eyed man.\n\nA painter once refused to find anything to interest him, still less to\nmove him, in a silent street with a noble spire detaching itself\nvaguely from the luminous blue depths of a midnight sky, because,\nhe said, \"People won't buy dark things, so what's the use? You might\nas well do bright, pretty things that they will buy, and that are just as\neasy to make.\" A portrait-painter gives up landscape subjects\nbecause, as he does not hesitate to declare, it hurts his business. And\nthe painters themselves are not altogether to blame for this attitude\ntowards their work. The fault lies half with the people who buy\npictures, having the money, and who have not a gleam of\nunderstanding of the meaning of art. A woman who had ordered her\nhouse to be furnished and decorated expensively, remarked\nto a caller who commented on a water-color hanging in the\ndrawing-room: \"Yes, I think it matches the wall-paper very nicely.\" When\nsuch is the purpose of those who paint pictures and such is the\nunderstanding of those who buy them, it is not surprising that not\nevery picture is inevitably a work of art.\n\nBut what is the poor seeker after art to do? The case is by no means\nhopeless. In current exhibitions a few canvases strike a new note;\nand by senses delicately attuned this note can be distinguished\nwithin the jangle of far louder and popular tunes ground out, as it\nwere, by the street-piano. Seriously to study contemporary painting,\nhowever, the logical opportunity is furnished by the exhibitions of\nthe works of single men or of small groups. As the reader who\nwishes to understand an author or perhaps a school does not content\nhimself with random extracts, but instead isolates the man for the\nmoment and reads his work consecutively and one book in its\nrelation to his others; so the student of pictures can appreciate the\nwork and understand the significance of a given painter only as he\nsees a number of his canvases together and in relation. So, he is able\nto gather something of the man's total meaning.\n\nWidely different from annual exhibitions, too, are galleries and\nmuseums; for here the proportion of really good things is\nimmeasurably larger. In the study of masterpieces, it need hardly be\nsaid, the amateur may exercise judgment and moderation. He should\nnot try to do too much at one time, for he can truly appreciate only\nas he enters fully into the spirit of the work and allows it to possess\nhim. To achieve this sympathy and understanding within the same\nhour for more than a very few great works is manifestly impossible.\nSuch appreciation involves fundamentally a quick sensitiveness to\nthe appeal and the variously expressive power of color and line and\nform. To win from the picture its fullest meaning, the observer may\nbring to bear some knowledge of the artist who produced it and of\nthe age and conditions in which he lived. But in the end he must\nsurrender himself to the work of art, bringing to it his intellectual\nequipment, his store of sensuous and emotional experience, his\nentire power of being moved.\n\nFor when all is said, there is no single invariable standard by which\nto try a work of art: its significance to the appreciator rests upon his\ncapacity at the moment to receive it. \"A jest's prosperity lies in the\near of him that hears it.\" The appreciator need simply ask himself,\n\"What has this work to reveal to me of beauty that I have not\nperceived for myself? I shall not look for the pretty and the\nagreeable. But what of new significance, energy, life, has this work\nto express to me? I will accept no man entirely and unquestioningly,\nI will condemn no one unheard. No man has the whole truth; every\nman has some measure of the truth, however small. Let it be my task\nto find it and to separate it from what is unessential and false. In my\nsearch for what is true, I will conserve my integrity and maintain my\nindependence. And I shall recognize my own wherever I may find\nit.\"\n\n\"Man is the measure of all things,\" declared an ancient philosopher.\nAnd his teaching has not been superseded to-day. The individual is\nthe creator of his own universe; he is the focus of the currents and\nforces of his world. The meaning of all things is subjective. So the\nmeasure of beauty in life for a man is determined by his capacity to\nreceive and understand. Thus it is that a man's joy in experience and\nhis appreciation of art in any of its manifestations are conditioned by\nthe opportunity that nature or art furnishes for his spirit to exercise\nitself. In the reading of poetry, for example, we seek the expression\nof ourselves. Our first emotion is, perhaps, a simple, unreflecting\ndelight, the delight which a butterfly must feel among the flowers or\nthat of a child playing in the fields under the warm sun; it is a\ndelight wholly physical,--pure sensation. A quick taking of the\nbreath, the escape of a sigh, inarticulate and uncritical, are the only\nexpression we can find at that instant for what we feel: as when an\nabrupt turn of the road spreads out before us a landscape of which\nwe had not dreamed, or we enter for the first time the presence of\nthe Apollo Belvedere. We know simply that we are pleased. But\nafter nerves have ceased to tingle so acutely, we begin to think; and\nwe seek to give account to ourselves of the beauty which for the\nmoment we could but feel. Once arrived at the attitude of reflection,\nwe find that the poetry which affects us most and to which we\noftenest return is the poetry that contains the record of our own\nexperience, but heightened, the poetry which expresses our desires\nand aspirations, that in which we recognize ourselves elevated and\nidealized. In so far as we see in it the ennobled image of our own\nnature, so far it has power to hold us and to stir us.\n\nAn elementary manifestation of the tendency to seek in art the\nrecord of our own experience is seen in the popularity of those\npictures whose subjects are familiar and can be immediately\nrecognized. On a studio wall was once hanging a \"Study of Brush,\"\nshowing the play of sunlight through quivering leaves. A visitor\nasked the painter why he did not put some chickens in the\nforeground. To her the canvas was meaningless, for she had never\nseen, had never really seen, the sunlight dancing on burnished leaves.\nThe chickens, which she had seen and could recognize, were the\nelement of the familiar she required in order to find any significance\nin the picture.\n\nThis tendency, of which the demand for chickens is a rudimentary\nmanifestation, is the basis of all appreciation. The artist's revelation\nof the import of life we can receive and understand only as we have\nfelt a little of that import for ourselves. Color is meaningless to a\nblind man, music does not exist for the deaf. To him who has never\nopened his eyes to behold the beauty of field and hill and trees and\nsky, to him whose spirit has not dimly apprehended something of\nthat eternal significance of which these things are the material\nvisible bodying forth, to such a the work of the master is only so\nmuch paint and canvas. The task of the appreciator, then, is to\ndevelop his capacity to receive and enjoy.\n\nThat capacity is to be trained by the exercise of itself. Each new\nharmony which he is enabled to perceive intensifies his power to\nfeel and widens the range of his vision. The more beauty he\napprehends in the world, so much the more of universal forces he\nbrings into unity with his own personality. By this extension of his\nspirit he reaches out and becomes merged in the all-embracing life.\n\nIf the conception be true that a supreme unity, linking all seemingly\nchaotic details, ultimately brings them into order, and that this unity,\nwhich is spiritual, penetrates every atom of matter, fusing everything\nand making all things one; then the appreciator will realize that the\nsignificance of art is for the spirit The beauty which the artist reveals\nis but the harmony which underlies the universal order; and he in his\nturn must apprehend that beauty spiritually.\n\nFrom this truth it follows that the condition of aesthetic enjoyment,\nor in other words the appreciation of beauty, is detachment of spirit\nand remoteness from practical consequences. The classic illustration\nof the truth is the saying of Lucretius, that it is sublime to stand on\nthe shore and behold a shipwreck. It is sublime only as one's\npersonal interests and feelings are not engaged. It would not be\nsublime if it were possible for the spectator to aid in averting the\ncatastrophe; it would not be sublime if one's friends were aboard the\nship. One is able to appreciate beauty only as one is able to detach\none's self from what is immediate and practical, and by virtue of this\ndetachment, to apprehend the spiritual significance. The sublimity of\nthe shipwreck lies in what it expresses of the impersonal might of\nelemental forces and man's impotence in the struggle against nature.\nThat sublimity, which is one manifestation of beauty, is of the spirit,\nand by the spirit it must be apprehended.\n\nTo illustrate this truth by a few homely examples. A farmer looking\nout on his fields of tossing wheat, drenched in golden sunlight,\nexclaims, \"Look, isn't that beautiful!\" What he really means is: \"See\nthere the promise of a rich harvest, and it is mine.\" If the fields\nbelonged to his neighbor, his feelings towards them would be quite\ndifferent. No, their _beauty_ is to be seen and felt only by him\nwhose mind is free of thoughts of personal enrichment and who thus\ncan perceive the harmony with life of golden sunshine and nature's\nabundant gifts. The farmer could not see beyond the material and its\nvalue to him as material. But beauty lies deeper than that, for it is\nthe expression of spiritual relations.\n\nTwo men are riding together in a railway carriage. As the train\ndraws into a city, they pass a little group of tumble-down houses,\nbrown and gray, a heap of corners thrown together. One man thinks:\n\"What dreary lives these people must lead who dwell there.\" The\nother, with no such stirring of the sympathy, sees a wonderful\n\"scheme\" in grays and browns, or an expressive composition or\nordering of line. Neither could think the thoughts of the other at the\nsame time with his own. One feels a practical and physical reaction,\nand he cannot therefore at that moment penetrate to the meaning of\nthese things for the spirit; and that meaning is the harmony which\nthey express.\n\nFrom the tangle of daily living with its conflict of interests and its\nburden of practical needs, the appreciator turns to art with its power\nto chasten and to tranquillize. In art, he finds the revelation in fuller\nmeasure of a beauty which he has felt but vaguely. He realizes that\nunderlying the external chaos of immediate practical experience\nrests a supreme and satisfying order. Of that order he can here and\nnow perceive but little, hemmed in as he is by the material world,\nwhose meaning he discerns as through a glass, darkly. Yet he keeps\nresolutely on his way, secure in his kinship with the eternal spirit,\nand rewarded by momentary glimpses of the \"broken arcs\" which he\nknows will in the end take their appointed places in the \"perfect\nround.\"\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE ARTIST\n\nOut of chaos, order. Man's life on the earth is finite and fragmentary,\nbut it is the constant effort of his spirit to bring the scattering details\nof momentary experience into an enduring harmony with his\npersonality and with that supreme unity of which he is a part.\n\nThe man who out of the complex disarray of his little world effects a\nnew harmony is an artist. He who fashioned the first cup, shaping it\naccording to his ideal,--for no prototype existed,--and in response to\nhis needs; he who, taking this elementary form, wrought upon it\nwith his fingers and embellished it according to his ideal and in\nresponse to his need of expressing himself; he, again, who out of the\nsame need for expression adds to the cup anything new: each of\nthese workmen is an artist. The reproduction of already existing\nforms, with no modification by the individual workman, is not art.\nSo, for example, only that painter is an artist who adds to his\nrepresentation of the visible world some new attribute or quality\nborn of his own spirit Primitive artisan, craftsman, painter, each\ncreates in that he reveals and makes actual some part, which before\nwas but potential, of the all-embracing life.\n\nAs the artist, then, wins new reaches of experience and brings them\ninto unity, he reveals new beauty, new to men yet world-old. For the\nharmony which he effects is new only in the sense that it was not\nbefore perceived. As, in the physical universe, not an atom of matter\nthrough the ages is created or destroyed, so the supreme spiritual life\nis constant in its sum and complete. Of this life individuals partake\nin varying measure; their growth is determined by how much of it\nthey make their own. The growth of the soul in this sense is not\ndifferent from man's experience of the physical world. The child is\nborn: he grows up into his family; the circle widens to include\nneighbors and the community; the circle widens again as the boy\ngoes away to school and then to college. With ever-widening sweep\nthe outermost bound recedes, though still embracing him, as he\nreaches out to Europe and at length compasses the earth, conquering\nexperience and bringing its treasures into tribute to his own spirit.\nThe things were there; but for the boy each was in turn created as he\nmade it his own. So the artist, revealing new aspects of the supreme\nunity, creates in the sense that he makes possible for his fellows a\nfuller taking-up of this life into themselves.\n\nIt may be said that he is the greatest artist who has felt the most of\nharmony in life,--the greatest artist but potentially. The beauty he\nhas perceived must in accordance with our human needs find\nexpression concretely, because it is only as he manifests himself in\nforms which we can understand that we are able to recognize him.\nThough a mute, inglorious Milton were Milton still, yet our human\nlimitations demand his utterance that we may know him. So the\nartist accomplishes his mission when he communicates himself. The\nhuman spirit is able to bring the supreme life into unity with itself\naccording to the measure of its own growth made possible through\nexpression.\n\nThe supreme life, of which every created thing partakes,--the stone,\nthe flower, the animal, and man,--is beauty, because it is the\nsupreme harmony wherein everything has its place in relation to\nevery other thing. This central unity has its existence in expression.\nThe round earth, broken off from the stellar system and whirling\nalong its little orbit through space, is yet ever in communication\nwith the great system; the tree, with its roots in the earth, puts forth\nbranches, the branches expand into twigs, the twigs burst into leaves\nwhose veins reach out into the air; out of the twigs spring buds\nswelling into blossoms, the blossoms ripen into fruit, the fruit drops\nseed into the earth which gave it and springs up into new trees. The\ntree by its growth, which is the putting forth of itself or expression,\ndevelops needs, these needs are satisfied, and the satisfying of the\nneeds is the condition of its continued expansion.\n\nMan, too, has his existence in expression. By growth through\nexpression, which is the creation of a new need, he is enabled to take\nup more into himself; he brings more into the unity of his\npersonality, and thus he expands into the universal harmony.\n\nThe unity which underlies the cosmos--to define once more the\nconception which is the basis of the preceding chapters--is of the\nspirit. The material world which we see and touch is but the symbol\nand bodying forth of spiritual relations. The tranquillizing, satisfying\npower of art is due to the revelation which art accomplishes of a\nspiritual harmony which transcends the seeming chaos of instant\nexperience. So it comes about that harmony, or beauty, which is of\nthe spirit, is apprehended by the spirit. That faculty in the artist by\nwhich he is able to perceive beauty is called _temperament._ By\ntemperament is to be understood the receptive faculty, the power to\nfeel, the capacity for sensations, emotions, and \"such intellectual\napprehensions as, in strength and directness and their immediately\nrealized values at the bar of an actual experience, are most like\nsensations.\" The function of temperament is to receive and to\ntransmit, to interpret, to create in the sense that it reveals. In the\nresult it is felt to be present only as the medium through which the\nforces behind it come to expression.\n\nArt, the human spirit, temperament,--these terms are general and\nabstract. Now the abstract to be realized must be made concrete. Just\nas art, in order to be manifest, must be embodied in the particular\nwork, as the statue, the picture, the building, the drama, the\nsymphony, so the human spirit becomes operative in the person of\nthe individual, and temperament may be best studied in the character\nof the individual artist.\n\nAs temperament is the receptive faculty, the artist's attitude toward\nlife is what Wordsworth called \"wise passiveness,\"--Wordsworth,\nthe poet of \"impassioned contemplation.\" Keats, too,--and among\nthe poets, whose vision of beauty was more beautiful, whose grasp\non the truth more true?--characterizes himself as \"addicted to\npassiveness.\" It is of temperament that Keats is writing when he says\nin a letter: \"That quality which goes to form a man of achievement,\nespecially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so\nenormously, is _Negative Capability_ .\" In another letter he writes:--\n\n\"It has been an old comparison for our urging on--the Beehive;\nhowever, it seems to me that we should rather be the flower than the\nBee--for it is a false notion that more is gained by receiving than\ngiving--no, the receiver and the giver are equal in their benefits. The\nflower, I doubt not, receives a fair guerdon from the Bee--its leaves\nblush deeper in the next spring--and who shall say between Man and\nWoman which is the most delighted? Now it is more noble to sit like\nJove than to fly like Mercury--let us not therefore go hurrying about\nand collecting honey, bee-like buzzing here and there impatiently\nfrom a knowledge of what is to be aimed at; but let us open our\nleaves like a flower and be passive and receptive--budding patiently\nunder the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every noble insect\nthat favours us with a visit--sap will be given us for meat and dew\nfor drink. . . .\n\n         \"O fret not after knowledge--I have none,\n         And yet my song comes native with the warmth.\n         O fret not after knowledge--I have none,\n         And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens\n         At thought of idleness cannot be idle,\n         And he's awake who thinks himself asleep.\"\n\nStill again he says: \"The Genius of Poetry must work out its own\nsalvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by\nsensation and watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must\ncreate itself.\"\n\nA nature so constituted, a nature receptive and passive, is\nnecessarily withdrawn from practical affairs. To revert to Keats as\nan example, for Keats is so wholly the artist, it is his remoteness\nfrom the daily life about him that makes him the man of no one\ncountry or time. His poetry has a kind of universality, but\nuniversality within a definite sphere, and that sphere is the world of\nthings lovely and fair. In a playful mood Keats writes to his sister:\n\"Give me Books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little\nmusic out of doors, played by somebody I do not know . . . and I can\npass a summer very quietly without caring much about Fat Louis, fat\nRegent or the Duke of Wellington.\" These are trivial words; but they\nserve to define in some measure the artistic temperament.\n\nFor this characteristic remoteness from affairs the artist is sometimes\nreproached by those who pin their faith to material things. Such are\nnot aware that for the artist the only reality is the life of the spirit.\nThe artist, as Carlyle says of the Man of Letters, \"lives in the inward\nsphere of things, in the True, Divine and Eternal, which exists\nalways, unseen to most, under the Temporary, Trivial: his being is in\nthat.\" Temperament constitutes the whole moral nature of the artist.\n\"With a great poet,\" says Keats, \"the sense of beauty overcomes\nevery consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.\" It is the\nstandard which measures the worth of any act. It is conscience, too;\nfor the functions performed by conscience in the normal moral life\nof the man of action are fulfilled by the artist's devotion to his ideal;\nhis service to his art is his sole and sufficient obligation.\n\nAnd where the man of action looks to find his rewards in the\napproval of his fellow men, the artist cares to please himself. The\nvery act of expressing is itself the joy and the reward. To this truth\nKeats again stands as witness: \"I feel assured,\" he says, \"I should\nwrite from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful,\neven if my night's labours should be burnt every Morning and no\neye ever shine upon them.\" And still again: \"I value more the\nprivilege of seeing great things in loneliness than the fame of a\nprophet.\" Not that the artist does not crave appreciation. His\nmessage fails of completeness if there is no ear to hear it, if it does\nnot meet a sympathy which understands. But the true artist removes\nall shadow of petty vanity and becomes, in Whitman's phrase, \"the\nfree channel of himself.\" He is but the medium through whom the\nspirit of beauty reveals itself; in thankfulness and praise he but\nreceives and transmits. That it is given him to see beauty and to\ninterpret it is enough.\n\nIt is by virtue of his power to feel that the artist is able to apprehend\nbeauty; his temperament is ever responsive to new harmonies. By\nforce of his imagination, which is one function of his temperament,\nhe sends his spirit into other lives, absorbs their experience and\nmakes it his own, and ultimately identifies himself with world forces\nand becomes creator. In a lyric passage in a letter Keats exclaims:--\n\n\"The mighty abstract Idea I have of Beauty in all things stifles the\nmore divided and minute domestic happiness. . . . I feel more and\nmore every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in\nthis world alone, but in a thousand worlds. No sooner am I alone\nthan shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my\nSpirit the office which is equivalent to a King's body-guard--then\n'Tragedy with sceptered pall comes sweeping by.' According to my\nstate of mind I am with Achilles shouting in the Trenches, or with\nTheocritus in the Vales of Sicily. Or I throw my whole being into\nTroilus, and repeating those lines, 'I wander like a lost soul upon the\nStygian Banks staying for waftage,' I melt into the air with a\nvoluptuousness so delicate that I am content to be  alone.\"\n\nThis power to penetrate and to identify was exercised with peculiar\ndirectness and plenitude by Walt Whitman, prophet of the\nomnipotence of man. To find the burden of his message formulated\nin the single phrase one may turn to his Poems quite at random.\n\n     \"My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the\n          whole earth.\"\n     \"I inhale great draughts of space,--\n     The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are\n          mine.\n     . . . . .\n     All seems beautiful to me.\"\n\nOf the artist may be affirmed what Whitman affirms of the\nAnswerer:--\n\n     \"Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and\n          tongue,\n     He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men,\n          and any man translates, and any man translates himself also,\n     One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he\n          sees how they join.\"\n\nAs the artist sends out his spirit through the world, as he becomes\nthe channel of universal and divine influences, so he is admitted to\nnew and ever new revelations of beauty. And stirred by the glorious\nvision, he brings that beauty to earth, communicating it to his\nfellows and making them partakers of it, as he gives his feeling\nexpression. Thus finding utterance as the prophet of God, he\nconsummates his mission and takes his place in the world order.\nHerein he has his being, for life is expression; and each new\nharmony which he makes manifest is the medium of his fuller\nidentification with the universal life.\n\nSo it is that the artist is the supreme interpreter, the mediator\nbetween man and beauty. His work is a work of joy, of gratitude, of\nworship. He is the happy servant of God, His prophet, through\nwhom He declares Himself to the children of men.","title":"The Enjoyment of Art","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":16075}