TOWARD evening a traveler through a wild country finds himself
still in the open, with no hope of reaching a village that night. The
wind is growing chill; clouds are gathering in the west, threatening
rain. There rises in him a feeling of the need of shelter; and he looks
about him to see what material is ready to his hand. Scattered stones
will serve for supports and low walls; there are fallen branches for
the roof; twigs and leaves can be woven into a thatch. Already the
general design has shaped itself in his mind. He sets to work,
modifying the details of his plan to suit the resources of his material.
At last, after hours of hard thought and eager toil, spurred on by his
sense of his great need, the hut is ready; and fee takes refuge in it as
the storm breaks.
The entire significance of the man's work is _shelter._ The
beginning of it lay in his need of shelter. The impulse to action rose
out of his consciousness of his need. His imagination conceived the
plan whereby the need might be met, and the plan gave shape to his
material. The actual result of his labor was a hut, but the hut itself
was not the end for which he strove. The hut was but the means. The
all-inclusive import of his work--the stimulus which impelled him to
act, the purpose for which he toiled, and the end which he
accomplished--is shelter.
A man of special sensitiveness to the appeal of color and form finds
himself also in the open. He is weary with the way, which shows but
broken glimpses of the road. His spirit, heavy with the "burden of
the mystery," is torn by conflict and confusion. As he looks across
the stony places to the gnarled and weather-tortured trees beyond,
and up to the clouds piling black above him, there is revealed to him
a sudden harmony among the discords; an inner principle,
apprehended by his imagination, compels the fragments of the
seeming chaos into a regnant order. These natural forms become for
him the expression external to himself of the struggle of his own
spirit and its final resolution. The desire rises in him to express by
his own act the order he has newly perceived, the harmony of his
spirit with the spirit of nature. As life comes to him dominantly in
terms of color and form, it is with color and form that he works to
expression so as to satisfy his need. The design is already projected
in his imagination, and to realize concretely his ideal he draws upon
the material of nature about him. The picture which he paints is not
the purpose of his effort. The picture is but the means. His end is to
express the great new harmony in which his spirit finds shelter.
Both men, the traveler and the painter, are wayfarers. Both are
seeking shelter from stress and storm, and both construct their
means. In one case the product is more obviously and immediately
practical, and the informing purpose tends to become obscured in
the actual serviceableness of the result. The hut answers a need that
is primarily physical; the need in the other case is spiritual. But it is
a matter of degree. In essence and import the achievement of the two
men is the same. The originating impulse, a sense of need; the
processes involved, the combination of material elements to a
definite end; the result attained, shelter which answers the need,--they
are identical. Both men are artists. Both hut and picture are
works of art.
So art is not remote from common life after all. In its highest
manifestations art is life at its best; painting, sculpture, poetry, music
are the distillment and refinement of experience. Architecture and
the subsidiary arts of decoration adorn necessity and add delight to
use. But whatever the flower and final fruit, art strikes its roots deep
down into human need, and draws its impulse and its sustenance
from the very sources of life itself. In the wide range from the hut in
the wilderness to a Gothic cathedral, from the rude scratches
recorded on the cave walls of prehistoric man to the sublimities of
the Sistine Chapel, there is no break in the continuity of effort and
aspiration. Potentially every man is an artist. Between the artist,
so-called, and the ordinary man there is no gulf fixed which cannot be
passed. Such are the terms of our mechanical civilization to-day that
art has become specialized and the practice of it is limited to a few;
in consequence artists have become a kind of class. But essentially
the possibilities of art lie within the scope of any man, given the
right conditions. So too the separation of the "useful arts" from the
"fine arts" is unjust to art and perversive of right appreciation.
Whatever the form in which it may manifest itself, from the lowest
to the highest, the art spirit is one, and it may quicken in any man
who sets mind and heart to the work of his hand. That man is an
artist who fashions a new thing that he may express himself in
response to his need.
Art is creation. It is the combination of already existing material
elements into new forms which become thus the realization of a
preconceived idea. Both hut and picture rose in the imagination of
their makers before they took shape as things. The material of each
was given already in nature; but the form, as the maker fashioned it,
was new. Commonly we think of art as the expression and
communication of emotion. A picture, a statue, a symphony we
recognize as the symbol of what the artist has felt in some passage
of his experience and the means by which he conveys his feeling to
us. Art _is_ the expression of emotion, but all art springs out of need.
The sense of need which impels expression through the medium of
creation is itself an emotion. The hut which the traveler built for
himself in the wilderness--shaping it according to the design which
his imagination suggested, having reference to his need and to the
character of his materials--was a work of creation; the need which
prompted it presented itself to him as emotion. The picture which
the other wayfarer painted of the storm-swept landscape, a harmony
which his imagination compelled out of discords, was a work of
creation; the emotion which inspired the work was attended by need,
the need of expression. The material and practical utility of the hut
obscures the emotional character of its origin; the emotional import
of the picture outweighs consideration of its utility to the painter as
the means by which his need of expression is satisfied. The
satisfaction of physical needs which results in the creation of
utilities and the satisfaction of spiritual needs which results in the
forms of expression we commonly call works of art differ one from
the other in their effect on the total man only in degree. All works of
use whose conception and making have required an act of creation
are art; all art--even in its supreme manifestations--embraces
elements of use. The measure in which a work is art is established
by the intensity and scope of its maker's emotion and by his power
to body forth his feeling in harmonious forms which in turn recreate
the emotion in the spirit of those whom his work reaches.
In its essence and widest compass art is the making of a new thing in
response to a sense of need. The very need itself creates, working
through man as its agent. This truth is illustrated vividly by the
miracles of modern invention. The hand of man unaided was not
able to cope with his expanding opportunities; the giant steam and
the magician electricity came at his call to work their wonders. The
plow and scythe of the New England colonist on his little farm were
metamorphosed into the colossal steam-driven shapes, in which
machinery seems transmuted into intelligence, as he moved to the
conquest of the acres of the West which summoned him to dominion.
First the need was felt; the contrivance was created in response. A
man of business sees before him in imagination the end to be
reached, and applying his ideal to practical conditions, he makes
every detail converge to the result desired. All rebellious
circumstances, all forces that pull the other way, he bends to his
compelling will, and by the shaping power of his genius he
accomplishes his aim. His business is his medium of self-expression;
his success is the realization of his ideal. A painter does no more
than this, though he works with a different material. The landscape
which is realized ultimately upon his canvas is the landscape seen in
his imagination. He draws his colors and forms from nature around;
but he selects his details, adapting them to his end. All accidents and
incidents are purged away. Out of the apparent confusion of life
rises the evident order of art. And in the completed work the artist's
_idea_ stands forth salient and victorious.
That consciousness of need which compels creation is the origin of
art. The owner of a dwelling who first felt the need of securing his
door so that he alone might possess the secret and trick of access
devised a lock and key, rude enough, as we can fancy. As the maker
of the first lock and key he was an artist. All those who followed
where he had led, repeating his device without modification, were
but artisans. In the measure that any man changed the design,
however, adapting it more closely to his peculiar needs and so
making it anew, to that extent he was an artist also. The man who
does a thing for the first time it is done is an artist; a man who does a
thing better is an artist. The painter who copies his object imitatively,
finding nothing, creating nothing, is an artisan, however skillful he
may be. He is an artist in the degree in which he brings to his subject
something of his own, and fashioning it, however crudely, to express
the idea he has conceived of the object, so creates.
The difference between work which is art and work which is not art
is just this element of the originating impulse and creative act. The
difference, though often seemingly slight and not always
immediately perceived, is all-important. It distinguishes the artist
from the artisan; a free spirit from a slave; a thinking, feeling man
from a soulless machine. It makes the difference between life rich
and significant, and mere existence; between the mastery of fate and
the passive acceptance of things as they are.
If a mind and heart are behind it to control and guide it to expression,
even the machine may be an instrument in the making of a work of
art. It is not the work itself, but the motive which prompted the
making of it, that determines its character as art. Art is not the way a
thing is done, but the reason why it is done. A chair, though turned
on a lathe, may be a work of art, if the maker has truly expressed
himself in his work. A picture, though "hand-painted," may be
wholly mechanical in spirit. To set about "making a picture" is to
begin at the wrong end. The impulse to art flows from within
outwards. Art is bound up with life itself; like nature, it is organic
and must grow. The form cannot be laid on from the outside; it is
born and must develop in response to vital need. In so far as our acts
are consciously the expression of ourselves they are prompted by the
art spirit.
All our acts are reducible to one of two kinds: either they are acts of
creation, effecting a new result, or they are acts of repetition. Acts of
repetition tend rapidly to become habits; and they may be performed
without attention or positive volition. Thus, as I am dressing in the
morning I may be planning the work for the day; while my mind is
given over to thought, I lose the sense of my material surroundings,
my muscles work automatically, the motor-currents flowing through
the well-worn grooves, and by force of habit the acts execute
themselves. Obviously, acts of repetition, or habits, make up the
larger part of our daily lives.
Acts of creation, on the other hand, are performed by an effort of the
will in response to the consciousness of a need. To meet the new
need we are obliged to make new combinations. I assume that the
traveler constructed his hut for the first time, shaping it to the special
new conditions; that the harmony which the painter discerned in the
tumult around him he experienced for the first time, and the picture
which he paints, shaped with reference to his need and fulfilling it,
is a new thing. In the work produced by this act of creation, the
feeling which has prompted it finds expression. In the making of the
hut, in the painting of the picture, the impelling need is satisfied.
Although acts of repetition constitute the bulk of life, creation is of
its very essence and determines its quality. The significance and joy
of life are less in being than in _becoming._ Growth is expression,
and in turn expression is made possible by growth. In our
conscious experience the sense of becoming is one of our supreme
satisfactions. Growth is the purpose and the recompense of our
being here, the end for which we strive and the reward of all the
effort and the struggle. In the exercise of brain or hand, to feel the
work take form, develop, and become something,--that is happiness.
And the joy is in the creating rather than in the thing created; the
completed work is behind us, and we move forward to new creation.
A painter's best picture is the blank canvas before him; an author's
greatest book is the one he is just setting himself to write. The desire
for change for the sake of change which we all feel at times, a vague
restlessness of mind and body, is only the impulse to growth which
has not found its direction. Outside of us we love to see the
manifestation of growth. We tend and cherish the little plant in the
window; we watch with delight the unfolding of each new leaf and
the upward reach into blossom. The spring, bursting triumphant
from the silent, winter-stricken earth, is nature's parable of
expression, her symbol perennially renewed of the joy of growth.
The impulse to expression is cosmic and eternal. But even in the
homeliness and familiarity of our life from day to day the need of
expression is there, whether we are entirely aware of it or not; and
we are seeking the realization and fulfillment of ourselves through
the utterance of what we are. A few find their expression in forms
which with distinct limitation of the term we call works of art. Most
men find it in their daily occupations, their profession or their
business. The president of one of the great Western railroads
remarked once in conversation that he would rather build a thousand
miles of railroad than live in the most sumptuous palace on Fifth
Avenue. Railroad building was his medium of expression; it was his
art. Some express themselves in shaping their material environment,
in the decoration and ordering of their houses. A young woman said,
"My ambition is to keep my house well." Again, for her,
housekeeping is her art. Some find the realization of themselves in
the friends they draw around them. Love is but the utterance of what
we essentially are; and the response to it in the loved one makes the
utterance articulate and complete. Expression rises out of our
deepest need, and the need impels expression.
The assertion that art is thus involved with need seems for the
moment to run counter to the usual conception, which regards art as
a product of leisure, a luxury, and the result not of labor but of play.
Art in its higher forms becomes more and more purely the
expression of emotion, the un-trammeled record of the artist's
spiritual experience. It is only when physical necessities have been
met or ignored that the spirit of man has free range. But the maker
who adds decoration to his bowl after he has moulded it is just as
truly fulfilling a need--the need of self-expression--as he fulfilled a
need when he fashioned the bowl in the first instance in order that he
might slake his thirst. Art is not superadded to life,--something
different in kind. All through its ascent from its rudimentary forms
to its highest, from hut to cathedral, art is coordinate with the
development of life, continuous and without breach or sudden end; it
is the expression step by step of ever fuller and ever deeper
experience.
Creation, therefore, follows upon the consciousness of need,
whether the need be physical, as with the traveler, or spiritual, as
with the painter; from physical to spiritual we pass by a series of
gradations. At their extremes they are easy to distinguish, one from
the other; but along the way there is no break in the continuity. The
current formula for art, that art is the utterance of man's joy in his
work, is not quite accurate. In the act of creation the maker finds the
expression of himself. The man who decorates a bowl in response to
his own creative impulse is expressing himself. The painter who
thrills to the wonder and significance of nature is impelled to
expression; and his delight is not fully realized and complete until he
has uttered it. Such art is love expressed, and the artist's work is his
"hymn of the praise of things." But the joy for both the potter and
the painter, the joy which is so bound up with art as to partake of its
very essence, is the joy which attends self-expression and the
satisfaction of the need.
A work of art is a work of creation brought into being as the
expression of emotion. The traveler creates not the wood and stone
but shelter, by means of the hut; the painter creates not the landscape
but the beauty of it; the musician creates not the musical tones, but
by means of a harmony of tones he creates an emotional experience.
The impulse to art rises out of the earliest springs of consciousness
and vibrates through all life. Art does not disdain to manifest itself
in the little acts of expression of simple daily living; with all its
splendid past and vital present it is ever seeking new and greater
forms whose end is not yet. I spoke of the work of the traveler
through the wilderness as art; the term was applied also to
railroad-building and to housekeeping. The truth to be illustrated by these
examples is that the primary impulse to artistic expression does not
differ in essence from the impulse to creation of any kind. The
nature of the thing created, as art, depends upon the emotional value
of the result, the degree in which it expresses immediately the
emotion of its creator, and the power it possesses to rouse the
emotion in others. To show that all art is creation and that all
creation tends toward art is not to obscure useful distinctions, but
rather to restore art to its rightful place in the life of man.
In the big sense, then, art is bounded only by life itself. It is not a
cult; it is not an activity practiced by the few and a mystery to be
understood only by those who are initiated into its secrets. One
difficulty in the way of the popular understanding of art is due to the
fact that the term art is currently limited to its highest manifestations;
we withhold the title of artist from a good carpenter or
cabinet-maker who takes a pride in his work and expresses his creative
desire by shaping his work to his own idea, and we bestow the name
upon any juggler in paint: with the result that many people who are
not painters or musicians feel themselves on that account excluded
from all appreciation. If we go behind the various manifestations of
art to discover just what art is in itself and to determine wherein it is
able to link itself with common experience, we find that art is the
response to a need. And that need may waken in any man. Every
man may be an artist in his degree; and every man in his degree can
appreciate art. A work of art is the expression of its maker's
experience, the expression in such terms that the experience can be
communicated to another. The processes of execution involved in
fashioning a work, its technique, may be as incomprehensible and
perplexed and difficult as its executants choose to make them.
Technique is not the same as art. The only mystery of art is the
mystery of all life itself. Accept life with its fundamental mysteries,
with its wonders and glories, and we have the clue to art. But we
miss the central fact of the whole matter if we do not perceive that
art is only a means. It is by expression that we grow and so fulfill
ourselves. The work itself which art calls into being is not the end. It
fails of its purpose, remaining void and vain, if it does not perform
its function. The hut which does not furnish shelter is labor lost. The
significance of the painter's effort does not stop with the canvas and
pigment which he manipulates into form and meaning. The artist
sees beyond the actual material thing which he is fashioning; his
purpose in creation is expression. By means of his picture he
expresses himself and so finds the satisfaction of his deepest need.
The beginning and the end of art is life.
But the artist's work of expression is not ultimately complete until
the message is received, and expression becomes communication as
his utterance calls out a response in the spirit of a fellow-man. Art
exists not only for the artist's sake but for the appreciator too. As art
has its origin in emotion and is the expression of it, so for the
appreciator the individual work has a meaning and is art in so far as
it becomes for him the expression of what he has himself felt but
could not phrase; and it is art too in the measure in which it is the
revelation of larger possibilities of feeling and creates in him a new
emotional experience. The impulse to expression is common to all;
the difference is one of degree. And the message of art is for all,
according as they are attuned to the response. Art is creation. For the
artist it is creation by expression; for the appreciator it is creation by
evocation. These two principles complete the cycle; abstractly and
very briefly they are the whole story of art.
To be responsive to the needs of life and its emotional appeal is the
first condition of artistic creation. By new combinations of material
elements to bring emotion to expression in concrete harmonious
forms, themselves charged with emotion and communicating it, is to
fashion a work of art. To feel in material, whether in the forms of
nature or in works of art, a meaning for the spirit is the condition of
appreciation.