with the physical universe of which life is a part, in that the men who
created them were thrown into the creative mood by their surroundings.
We have observed, as we could hardly fail to do, that, whatever the
emotion that artists express may be, it comes to many of them through
the contemplation of the familiar objects of life. The object of an
artist's emotion seems to be more often than not either some particular
scene or object, or a synthesis of his whole visual experience. Art may
be concerned with the physical universe, or with any part or parts of
it, as a means to emotion--a means to that peculiar spiritual state that
we call inspiration. But the value of these parts as means to anything
but emotion art ignores--that is to say, it ignores their practical
utility. Artists are often concerned with things, but never with the
labels on things. These useful labels were invented by practical people
for practical purposes. The misfortune is that, having acquired the
habit of recognising labels, practical people tend to lose the power of
feeling emotion; and, as the only way of getting at the thing in itself
is by feeling its emotional significance, they soon begin to lose their
sense of reality. Mr. Roger Fry has pointed out that few can hope ever
to see a charging bull as an end in itself and yield themselves to the
emotional significance of its forms, because no sooner is the label
"Charging Bull" recognised than we begin to dispose ourselves for flight
rather than contemplation.[5] This is where the habit of recognising
labels serves us well. It serves us ill, however, when, although there
is no call for action or hurry, it comes between things and our
emotional reaction to them. The label is nothing but a symbol that
epitomises for busy humanity the significance of things regarded as
"means." A practical person goes into a room where there are chairs,
tables, sofas, a hearth-rug and a mantel-piece. Of each he takes note
intellectually, and if he wants to set himself down or set down a cup,
he will know all he needs to know for his purpose. The label tells him
just those facts that serve his practical ends; of the thing itself that
lurks behind the label nothing is said. Artists, _qua_ artists, are not
concerned with labels. They are concerned with things only as means to
a particular kind of emotion, which is the same as saying that they are
only concerned with things perceived as ends in themselves; for it is
only when things are _perceived_ as ends that they _become_ means to
this emotion. It is only when we cease to regard the objects in a
landscape as means to anything that we can feel the landscape
artistically. But when we do succeed in regarding the parts of a
landscape as ends in themselves--as pure forms, that is to say--the
landscape becomes _ipso facto_ a means to a peculiar, aesthetic state of
mind. Artists are concerned only with this peculiar emotional
significance of the physical universe: because they _perceive_ things as
"ends," things _become_ for them "means" to ecstasy.
The habit of recognising the label and overlooking the thing, of seeing
intellectually instead of seeing emotionally, accounts for the amazing
blindness, or rather visual shallowness, of most civilised adults. We do
not forget what has moved us, but what we have merely recognised leaves
no deep impression on the mind. A friend of mine, a man of taste,
desired to make some clearance in his gardens, encumbered as they were
with a multitude of trees; unfortunately most of his friends and all his
family objected on sentimental or aesthetic grounds, declaring that the
place would never be the same to them if the axe were laid to a single
trunk. My friend was in despair, until, one day, I suggested to him that
whenever his people were all away on visits or travels, as was pretty
often the case, he should have as many trees cut down as could be
completely and cleanly removed during their absence. Since then, several
hundreds have been carted from his small park and pleasure grounds, and
should the secret be betrayed to the family I am cheerfully confident
that not one of them would believe it. I could cite innumerable
instances of this insensibility to form. How often have I been one of a
party in a room with which all were familiar, the decoration of which
had lately been changed, and I the only one to notice it. For practical
purposes the room remained unaltered; only its emotional significance
was new. Question your friend as to the disposition of the furniture in
his wife's drawing-room; ask him to sketch the street down which he
passes daily; ten to one he goes hopelessly astray. Only artists and
educated people of extraordinary sensibility and some savages and
children feel the significance of form so acutely that they know how
things look. These see, because they see emotionally; and no one forgets
the things that have moved him. Those forget who have never felt the
emotional significance of pure form; they are not stupid nor are they
generally insensitive, but they use their eyes only to collect
information, not to capture emotion. This habit of using the eyes
exclusively to pick up facts is the barrier that stands between most
people and an understanding of visual art. It is not a barrier that has
stood unbreached always, nor need it stand so for all future time.
In ages of great spiritual exaltation the barrier crumbles and becomes,
in places, less insuperable. Such ages are commonly called great
religious ages: nor is the name ill-chosen. For, more often than not,
religion is the whetstone on which men sharpen the spiritual sense.
Religion, like art, is concerned with the world of emotional reality,
and with material things only in so far as they are emotionally
significant. For the mystic, as for the artist, the physical universe is
a means to ecstasy. The mystic feels things as "ends" instead of seeing
them as "means." He seeks within all things that ultimate reality which
provokes emotional exaltation; and, if he does not come at it through
pure form, there are, as I have said, more roads than one to that
country. Religion, as I understand it, is an expression of the
individual's sense of the emotional significance of the universe; I
should not be surprised to find that art was an expression of the same
thing. Anyway, both seem to express emotions different from and
transcending the emotions of life. Certainly both have the power of
transporting men to superhuman ecstasies; both are means to unearthly
states of mind. Art and religion belong to the same world. Both are
bodies in which men try to capture and keep alive their shyest and most
ethereal conceptions. The kingdom of neither is of this world. Rightly,
therefore, do we regard art and religion as twin manifestations of the
spirit; wrongly do some speak of art as a manifestation of religion.
If it were said that art and religion were twin manifestations of
something that, for convenience sake, may be called "the religious
spirit," I should make no serious complaint. But I should insist on the
distinction between "religion," in the ordinary acceptation of the word,
and "the religious spirit" being stated beyond all possibility of cavil.
I should insist that if we are to say that art is a manifestation of the
religious spirit, we must say the same of every respectable religion
that ever has existed or ever can exist. Above all, I should insist that
whoever said it should bear in mind, whenever he said it, that
"manifestation" is at least as different from "expression" as Monmouth
is from Macedon.
The religious spirit is born of a conviction that some things matter
more than others. To those possessed by it there is a sharp distinction
between that which is unconditioned and universal and that which is
limited and local. It is a consciousness of the unconditioned and
universal that makes people religious; and it is this consciousness or,
at least, a conviction that some things are unconditioned and universal,
that makes their attitude towards the conditioned and local sometimes a
little unsympathetic. It is this consciousness that makes them set
justice above law, passion above principle, sensibility above culture,
intelligence above knowledge, intuition above experience, the ideal
above the tolerable. It is this consciousness that makes them the
enemies of convention, compromise, and common-sense. In fact, the
essence of religion is a conviction that because some things are of
infinite value most are profoundly unimportant, that since the
gingerbread is there one need not feel too strongly about the gilt.
It is useless for liberal divines to pretend that there is no antagonism
between the religious nature and the scientific. There is no antagonism
between religion and science, but that is a very different matter. In
fact, the hypotheses of science begin only where religion ends: but both
religion and science are born trespassers. The religious and the
scientific both have their prejudices; but their prejudices are not the
same. The scientific mind cannot free itself from a prejudice against
the notion that effects may exist the causes of which it ignores. Not
only do religious minds manage to believe that there may be effects of
which they do not know, and may never know, the causes--they cannot even
see the absolute necessity for supposing that everything is caused.
Scientific people tend to trust their senses and disbelieve their
emotions when they contradict them; religious people tend to trust
emotion even though sensual experience be against it. On the whole, the
religious are the more open-minded. Their assumption that the senses may
mislead is less arrogant than the assumption that through them alone can
we come at reality, for, as Dr. McTaggart has wittily said, "If a man is
shut up in a house, the transparency of the windows is an essential
condition of his seeing the sky. But it would not be prudent to infer
that, if he walked out of the house, he could not see the sky, because
there was no longer any glass through which he might see it."[6]
Examples of scientific bigotry are as common as blackberries. The
attitude of the profession towards unorthodox medicine is the classical
instance. In the autumn of 1912 I was walking through the Grafton
Galleries with a man who is certainly one of the ablest, and is reputed
one of the most enlightened, of contemporary men of science. Looking at
the picture of a young girl with a cat by Henri-Matisse, he
exclaimed--"I see how it is, the fellow's astigmatic." I should have let
this bit of persiflage go unanswered, assuming it to be one of those
witty sallies for which the princes of science are so justly famed and
to which they often treat us even when they are not in the presence of
works of art, had not the professor followed up his clue with the utmost
gravity, assuring me at last that no picture in the gallery was beyond
the reach of optical diagnostic. Still suspicious of his good faith, I
suggested, tentatively, that perhaps the discrepancies between the
normal man's vision and the pictures on the wall were the result of
intentional distortion on the part of the artists. At this the professor
became passionately serious--"Do you mean to tell me," he bawled, "that
there has ever been a painter who did not try to make his objects as
lifelike as possible? Dismiss such silly nonsense from your head." It is
the old story: "Clear your mind of cant," that is to say, of anything
which appears improbable or unpalatable to Dr. Johnson.
The religious, on the other hand, are apt to be a little prejudiced
against common-sense; and, for my own part, I confess that I am often
tempted to think that a common-sense view is necessarily a wrong one. It
was common-sense to see that the world must be flat and that the sun
must go round it; only when those fantastical people made themselves
heard who thought that the solar system could not be quite so simple an
affair as common-sense knew it must be were these opinions knocked on
the head. Dr. Johnson, the great exemplar of British common-sense,
observing in autumn the gathered swallows skimming over pools and
rivers, pronounced it certain that these birds sleep all the winter--"A
number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and
then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lie in the bed of a
river": how sensibly, too, did he dispose of Berkeley's
Idealism--"striking his foot with mighty force against a large
stone"--"I refute it thus." Seriously, is the common-sense view ever the
right one?
Lately, the men of sense and science have secured allies who have
brought to their cause what most it lacked, a little fundamental
thought. Those able and honest people, the Cambridge rationalists,
headed by Mr. G.E. Moore, to whose _Principia Ethica_ I owe so much,
are, of course, profoundly religious and live by a passionate faith in
the absolute value of certain states of mind; also they have fallen in
love with the conclusions and methods of science. Being extremely
intelligent, they perceive, however, that empirical arguments can avail
nothing for or against a metaphysical theory, and that ultimately all
the conclusions of science are based on a logic that precedes
experience. Also they perceive that emotions are just as real as
sensations. They find themselves confronted, therefore, by this
difficulty; if someone steps forward to say that he has a direct,
disinterested, _a priori_, conviction of the goodness of his emotions
towards the Mass, he puts himself in the same position as Mr. Moore, who
feels a similar conviction about the goodness of his towards the Truth.
If Mr. Moore is to infer the goodness of one state of mind from his
feelings, why should not someone else infer the goodness of another from
his? The Cambridge rationalists have a short way with such dissenters.
They simply assure them that they do not feel what they say they feel.
Some of them have begun to apply their cogent methods to aesthetics; and
when we tell them what we feel for pure form they assure us that, in
fact, we feel nothing of the sort. This argument, however, has always
struck me as lacking in subtlety.
Much as he dislikes mentioning the fact or hearing it mentioned, the
common man of science recognises no other end in life than protracted
and agreeable existence. That is where he joins issue with the
religious; it is also his excuse for being a eugenist. He declines to
believe in any reality other than that of the physical universe. On that
reality he insists dogmatically.[7] Man, he says, is an animal who, like
other animals, desires to live; he is provided with senses, and these,
like other animals, he seeks to gratify: in these facts he bids us find
an explanation of all human aspiration. Man wants to live and he wants
to have a good time; to compass these ends he has devised an elaborate
machinery. All emotion, says the common man of science, must ultimately
be traced to the senses. All moral, religious and aesthetic emotions are
derived from physical needs, just as political ideas are based on that
gregarious instinct which is simply the result of a desire to live long
and to live in comfort. We obey the by-law that forbids us to ride a
bicycle on the footpath, because we see that, in the long run, such a
law is conducive to continued and agreeable existence, and for very
similar reasons, says the man of science, we approve of magnanimous
characters and sublime works of art.
"Not so," reply saints, artists, Cambridge rationalists, and all the
better sort; for they feel that their religious, aesthetic, or moral
emotions are not conditioned, directly or indirectly, by physical needs,
nor, indeed, by anything in the physical universe. Some things, they
feel, are good, not because they are means to physical well-being, but
because they are good in themselves. In nowise does the value of
aesthetic or religious rapture depend upon the physical satisfaction it
affords. There are things in life the worth of which cannot be related
to the physical universe,--things of which the worth is not relative but
absolute. Of these matters I speak cautiously and without authority: for
my immediate purpose--to present my conception of the religious
character--I need say only that to some the materialistic conception of
the universe does not seem to explain those emotions which they feel
with supreme certainty and absolute disinterestedness. The fact is, men
of science, having got us into the habit of attempting to justify all
our feelings and states of mind by reference to the physical universe,
have almost bullied some of us into believing that what cannot be so
justified does not exist.
I call him a religious man who, feeling with conviction that some things
are good in themselves, and that physical existence is not amongst them,
pursues, at the expense of physical existence, that which appears to him
good. All those who hold with uncompromising sincerity that spiritual is
more important than material life, are, in my sense, religious. For
instance, in Paris I have seen young painters, penniless, half-fed,
unwarmed, ill-clothed, their women and children in no better case,
working all day in feverish ecstasy at unsaleable pictures, and quite
possibly they would have killed or wounded anyone who suggested a
compromise with the market. When materials and credit failed altogether,
they stole newspapers and boot-blacking that they might continue to
serve their masterful passion. They were superbly religious. All artists
are religious. All uncompromising belief is religious. A man who so
cares for truth that he will go to prison, or death, rather than
acknowledge a God in whose existence he does not believe, is as
religious, and as much a martyr in the cause of religion, as Socrates
or Jesus. He has set his criterion of values outside the physical
universe.
In material things, half a loaf is said to be better than no bread. Not
so in spiritual. If he thinks that it may do some good, a politician
will support a bill which he considers inadequate. He states his
objections and votes with the majority. He does well, perhaps. In
spiritual matters such compromises are impossible. To please the public
the artist cannot give of his second best. To do so would be to
sacrifice that which makes life valuable. Were he to become a liar and
express something different from what he feels, truth would no longer be
in him. What would it profit him to gain the whole world and lose his
own soul? He knows that there is that within him which is more important
than physical existence--that to which physical existence is but a
means. That he may feel and express it, it is good that he should be
alive. But unless he may feel and express the best, he were better dead.
Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from
circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there
is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of
mind. And if we are licensed to lay aside the science of aesthetics and,
going behind our emotion and its object, consider what is in the mind of
the artist, we may say, loosely enough, that art is a manifestation of
the religious sense. If it be an expression of emotion--as I am
persuaded that it is--it is an expression of that emotion which is the
vital force in every religion, or, at any rate, it expresses an emotion
felt for that which is the essence of all. We may say that both art and
religion are manifestations of man's religious sense, if by "man's
religious sense" we mean his sense of ultimate reality. What we may not
say is, that art is the expression of any particular religion; for to do
so is to confuse the religious spirit with the channels in which it has
been made to flow. It is to confuse the wine with the bottle. Art may
have much to do with that universal emotion that has found a corrupt and
stuttering expression in a thousand different creeds: it has nothing to
do with historical facts or metaphysical fancies. To be sure, many
descriptive paintings are manifestos and expositions of religious
dogmas: a very proper use for descriptive painting too. Certainly the
blot on many good pictures is the descriptive element introduced for
the sake of edification and instruction. But in so far as a picture is a
work of art, it has no more to do with dogmas or doctrines, facts or
theories, than with the interests and emotions of daily life.
II
ART AND HISTORY
And yet there is a connection between art and religion, even in the
common and limited sense of that word. There is an historical
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between the history of art and the history of religion. Religions are
vital and sincere only so long as they are animated by that which
animates all great art--spiritual ferment. It is a mistake, by the way,
to suppose that dogmatic religion cannot be vital and sincere. Religious
emotions tend always to anchor themselves to earth by a chain of dogma.
That tendency is the enemy within the gate of every movement. Dogmatic
religion can be vital and sincere, and what is more, theology and ritual
have before now been the trumpet and drum of spiritual revolutions. But
dogmatic or intellectually free, religious ages, ages of spiritual
turmoil, ages in which men set the spirit above the flesh and the
emotions above the intellect, are the ages in which is felt the
emotional significance of the universe. Then it is men live on the
frontiers of reality and listen eagerly to travellers' tales. Thus it
comes about that the great ages of religion are commonly the great ages
of art. As the sense of reality grows dim, as men become more handy at
manipulating labels and symbols, more mechanical, more disciplined, more
specialised, less capable of feeling things directly, the power of
escaping to the world of ecstasy decays, and art and religion begin to
sink. When the majority lack, not only the emotion out of which art and
religion are made, but even the sensibility to respond to what the few
can still offer, art and religion founder. After that, nothing is left
of art and religion but their names; illusion and prettiness are called
art, politics and sentimentality religion.
Now, if I am right in thinking that art is a manifestation--a
manifestation, mark, and not an expression--of man's spiritual state,
then in the history of art we shall read the spiritual history of the
race. I am not surprised that those who have devoted their lives to the
study of history should take it ill when one who professes only to
understand the nature of art hints that by understanding his own
business he may become a judge of theirs. Let me be as conciliatory as
possible. No one can have less right than I, or, indeed, less
inclination to assume the proud title of "scientific historian": no one
can care less about historical small-talk or be more at a loss to
understand what precisely is meant by "historical science." Yet if
history be anything more than a chronological catalogue of facts, if it
be concerned with the movements of mind and spirit, then I submit that
to read history aright we must know, not only the works of art that each
age produced, but also their value as works of art. If the aesthetic
significance or insignificance of works of art does, indeed, bear
witness to a spiritual state, then he who can appreciate that
significance should be in a position to form some opinion concerning the
spiritual state of the men who produced those works and of those who
appreciated them. If art be at all the sort of thing it is commonly
supposed to be, the history of art must be an index to the spiritual
history of the race. Only, the historian who wishes to use art as an
index must possess not merely the nice observation of the scholar and
the archaeologist, but also a fine sensibility. For it is the aesthetic
significance of a work that gives a clue to the state of mind that
produced it; so the ability to assign a particular work to a particular
period avails nothing unaccompanied by the power of appreciating its
aesthetic significance.