In art the place of natural selection is taken by man's selection; and
all forms of art which man keeps and does not send into limbo, all art
which man finds suitable to his wants, rhythmical with his habits,
must have that same quality of interdependence of parts, of
interchange of function. Only in the case of art, the organic
necessity refers not to outer surroundings, but to man's feeling; in
fact, man's emotion constitutes necessity towards art, as surrounding
nature constitutes necessity for natural objects. Now man requires
organic harmony, that is, congruity and co-ordination of processes,
because his existence, the existence of every cell of him, depends
upon it, is one complete microcosm of interchange, of give-and-take,
diastole-systole, of rhythm and harmony; and therefore all such things
as give him impressions of the reverse thereof, go against him, and in
a greater or lesser degree, threaten, disturb, paralyse, in a way
poison or maim him. Hence he is for ever seeking such congruity, such
harmony; and his artistic creativeness is conditioned by the desire
for it, nay, is perhaps mainly seeking to obtain it. Whenever he
spontaneously and truly creates artistic forms, he obeys the imperious
vital instinct for congruity; nay, he seeks to eke out the
insufficient harmony between himself and the things which he _cannot_
command, the insufficient harmony between the uncontrollable parts of
himself, by a harmony created on purpose in the things which he _can_
control. To a large extent man feels himself tortured by discordant
impressions coming from the world outside and the world inside him;
and he seeks comfort and medicine in harmonious impressions of his own
making, in his own strange inward-outward world of art.
This, I think, is the true explanation of that much-disputed-over
_ideal_, which, according to definitions, is perpetually being
enthroned and dethroned as the ultimate aim of all art: the ideal,
the imperatively clamoured-for mysterious something, is neither
conformity to an abstract idea, nor conformity to actual reality, nor
conformity to the typical, nor conformity to the individual; it is, I
take it, simply conformity to man's requirements, to man's inborn and
peremptory demand for greater harmony, for more perfect co-ordination
and congruity in his feelings.
Now, when, in the exercise of the artistic instincts, mankind are
partially obeying some other call than this one--the desire for money,
fame, or for some intellectual formula--things are quite different,
and there is no production of what I have called harmony. There is no
congruity when even great people set about doing pseudo-antique
sculpture in Canova-Thorwaldsen fashion because Winckelmann and Goethe
have made antique sculpture fashionable; there is no congruity when
people set to building pseudo-Gothic in obedience to the romantic
movement and to Ruskin. For neither the desire for making a mark, nor
the most conscientious pressure of formula gives that instinct of
selection and co-ordination characterising even the most rudimentary
artistic efforts in the most barbarous ages, when men are impelled
merely and solely by the æsthetic instinct. Moreover, where people do
not want and need (as they want and need food or drink or warmth or
coolness) one sort of effect, that is to say, one arrangement of
impressions rather than another, they are sure to be deluded by the
mere arbitrary classification, the mere _names_ of things. They will
think that smooth cheeks, wavy hair, straight noses, limbs of such or
such measure, attitude, and expression, set so, constitute the
Antique; that clustered pillars, cross vaulting, spandrils, and Tudor
roses make Gothic. But the Antique quality is the particular and all
permeating relation between all its items; and Gothic the particular
and all permeating relation between those other ones; and unless you
aim at the _specific emotion_ of Antique or Gothic, unless you feel
the imperious call for the special harmony of either, all the
measurements and all the formulas will not avail. While, on the
contrary, people without any formula or any attempt at imitation, like
the Byzantine architects and those of the fifteenth century, merely
because they are obeying their own passionate desire for congruity of
impressions, for harmony of structure and function, will succeed in
creating brand-new, harmonious, organic art out of the actual details,
sometimes the material ruins, of an art which has passed away.
If we become intimate with any great work of art, and intimate in so
far with the thoughts and emotions it awakens in ourselves, we shall
find that it possesses, besides this congruity within itself which
assimilates it to all really living things, a further congruity, not
necessarily found in real objects, but which forms the peculiarity of
the work of art, a congruity with ourselves; for the great work of art
is vitally connected with the habits and wants, the whole causality
and rhythm of mankind; it has been fitted thereto as the boat to the
sea.