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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Greek transliterations are enclosed by curly braces
(example: {kosmos}).
The transcriber's descriptions of illustrations are in
parentheses.
A MANUAL OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ART.
[Illustration: CHART OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ART.]
A MANUAL OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ART
Pre-historic--Ancient--Classic--Early Christian
With Special Reference to Architecture, Sculpture, Painting,
and Ornamentation
by
G. G. ZERFFI, PH.D., F.R.S.L.
One of the Lecturers of H. M. Department of Science and Art.
London:
Hardwicke & Bogue, 192 Piccadilly, W.
1876.
London: Printed by
Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square
and Parliament Street
The right of translation is reserved.
This Book is Inscribed
TO
E. J. POYNTER, ESQ., R.A.
DIRECTOR OF THE ART TRAINING SCHOOLS,
SOUTH KENSINGTON,
IN RECOGNITION OF HIS GENIUS AS A PAINTER,
AND OF
HIS UNTIRING EFFORTS IN PROMOTING
HIGHER ART EDUCATION.
PREFACE.
An experience of more than eight years as Lecturer on the ‘Historical
Development of Art,’ at the National Art Training School, South
Kensington, has convinced me of the necessity for a short and concise
Manual, which should serve both the public and students as a guide to
the study of the history of art. In all our educational establishments,
colleges, and ladies’ schools, the study of art-history, which ought to
form one of the most important subjects of our educational system, is
entirely neglected. To suggest and to excite to such a study is the aim
of this book. It would be impossible to exhaust in a short volume even
that section of the subject which I propose to treat, and the most that
can be done is to give outlines, which must be filled in by further
studies.
Art is at last assuming a better position with us, thanks to the
influence of the lamented Prince Consort, to whom we undoubtedly owe
the revival of the culture of sciences and arts, and the indefatigable
exertions of the Government, aided by munificent grants of Parliament.
But much more is to be desired from the public. If the ‘National
Association for the Promotion of Social Science’ is a faithful mirror
of our intellectual stand-point, we certainly have not yet attained a
very high position as an artistic national body. For twenty years the
Association has met and has discussed a variety of topics, and this
year, for the _first_ time, it occurred to the learned socialists that
there was such a factor in humanity as art, and the congress allowed
an art-section to be opened under the presidency of Mr. E. J. Poynter,
R.A., the director of the ‘National Art Training School.’ _Four_
questions were proposed for discussion, and I gave anticipatory answers
to these, before the congress was opened, in my introductory lecture to
the students of the Art Training School. These answers will serve as so
many reasons for the issue of this book, and I therefore reproduce them
here, with the questions to which they refer.
1. ‘What are the best methods of securing the improvement of Street
Architecture, especially as regards its connection with public
buildings?’
_Answer._--Architects must be trained in art-history to prevent them
from committing glaring anachronisms in brick, mortar, stone, iron,
wood, or any other building material. Our street architecture cannot
improve so long as we allow any _original_ genius to _copy_ mediæval
oddities, and revive by-gone monstrosities at random, in perfect
contradiction to the spirit of our times.
2. ‘How best can the encouragement of Mural Decoration, especially
Frescoes, be secured?’
_Answer._--This might be attained by enlarging the area of national
interest beyond horse-racing, pigeon-shooting, and deer-stalking, the
buying of old china, mediæval candlesticks, ewers and salvers, or of
old pictures, that can scarcely be seen; and extending our general
art-support to our own talented artists, even though they may not
all be Michael Angelos or Raphaels. We could allow them to decorate
the walls of our town-houses, public buildings, chapels, churches,
banks, and museums. We must, however, first train their minds to a
correct appreciation of art-history, of the world’s history, and of the
glorious History of England, thus enriching their imaginations with the
illustrious deeds of the past, in which they may mirror our present
state, and foreshadow a continually progressing glorious future. For
there is a mysterious and marvellous ‘one-ness’ in the religious,
social, and artistic development of humanity which I have tried in the
pages of this book continually to point out.
No civilised and wealthy country on the surface of our globe, can
boast of more heroic deeds on sea and land, in and out of Parliament;
of more splendid conquests by warlike and peaceful means than ours.
The Wars of the Roses, the colonisation of America, the occupation
of India, the peopling of Australia, the struggles of conformists
and non-conformists, of Cavaliers and Roundheads, of Churchmen and
Puritans, of Independents and Royalists, of Papists and Covenanters,
of Iconoclasts and Free-thinkers, all offer stirring scenes; and yet,
if we want to see on canvas pictures of our past, we must turn to
France or Germany for them. I am sorry to say that until lately the
Iconoclasts have borne all before them. As, however, the ‘National
Association’ has at length consented to allow the discussion of art,
and as words are in general precursors of deeds, we may expect some
results from our awakened interest in art-matters.
3. ‘What is the influence of academies upon the art of the nation?’
_Answer._--Academies have no influence whatever, if the nation itself
takes no interest in art, and has no art-education from a general,
theoretical, and historical point of view. So long as art is considered
a mere luxury, because a house does not keep out cold and wet better,
if it be outwardly decorated; so long as it is thought that a parlour
need but have red curtains to be a parlour; that our walls may be
covered with any description of hideously-shaped, realistically-wrought
Chinese or Japanese flowers, if they are only kept in greenish or
brownish neutral tints; so long as we fancy that our wainscotings may
be bright light, though the paper above be dark; and that a window is
admirable, if only provided with a pointed arch, and some trefoil or
quatrefoil to keep out as much light as possible; academies can do
nothing. So long as we neglect higher esthetical culture and training
in our public schools, our academy will but reflect this neglect.
In reviewing the past I have throughout endeavoured to show the
close connection of art-forms with the general, social, religious,
intellectual, and moral conditions of the different nations and periods
in which they appeared. It is erroneous to suppose that art has only to
treat of straight or waving lines, of triangles, squares, and circles,
of imitations of flowers, animals, and men, of nature and nothing but
nature. The study of art comprises man in all his thoughts and actions,
and has to add to this the phenomena of the whole outer world, from
crystallisations to the heavenly vault, studded with innumerable stars
at night, or glowing with light and life in colours at day-time. If our
academy were to take this to heart, and expand its curriculum so as to
have the students taught the beauties of Greek, English, and German
poetry, we should not be obliged to turn to foreigners for worthy
illustrations of our immortal Shakespeare, Milton, or even Tennyson.
The art-historian knows that academies neither produced a Pheidias
nor a Praxiteles, neither a Raphael nor an Albert Dürer; neither a
Rubens nor a Holbein; neither a Gainsborough nor a Hogarth; neither a
Canova nor a Flaxman. For art-academies, as mere outgrowths of fashion,
unless rooted in the earnest, artistic spirit of a nation, only foster
mannerism, pander to the general bad taste of the wealthy classes, and
one-sidedly cultivate portrait-painting, whilst they shut out landscape
or historical figure-painting. Academies have rarely encouraged grand
ideas; they create a kind of parlour or bed-room art, with nice, but
very small, sentiments, water-colour effusions and flower imitations,
in which the Chinese surpass us by far. So long as our academy will
have great names on its programmes, as nominal lecturers, so called
because they do not lecture; so long as it will systematically neglect
to teach our rising artists Universal History, Art History, Archæology,
Comparative Mythology, Symbolism, Iconography, Esthetics from a higher
scientific point, and Psychology with special reference to artistic
composition, and so long as these subjects are ignored in our general
educational establishments, we shall in vain try to compete at large
with other nations, however many isolated great artists we may produce.
Artists in all ages reflected in their products the general sentiments
of the times in which they lived, and of the people for whom they
worked; every page of this book bears out this assertion. Art is a
mighty civiliser of humanity and elevates the whole of our earthly
existence, for it purifies passions and pacifies our mind. Art is the
eternally-active genius of humanity. Let our academy acknowledge this,
and it will at least try to imitate the Art Training School at South
Kensington, which has continually worked in the direction of enlarging
the range of the studies of its students.
4. ‘What is the influence upon society of Decorative Art and
Art-workmanship in all household details?’
_Answer._--If this question had been asked with an eye to business,
we might answer that decorative art makes trade brisk, induces people
to buy ornaments, and fills the pockets of dealers in curiosities.
But this is not our aim. So long as we fail to look upon art as an
earnest and serious study, as important and necessary to our social
wellbeing as either ethics or science, the influence of decorative art
must be confined to enticing people to plaster their walls with all
sorts of China plate, or pay dearly for Japanese trays, screens, or
cupboards, because they have not learnt to distinguish between the
quaint and the comical, the beautiful and the ugly. Their taste is
still on a level with that of untrained children, who have plenty of
money in their pockets, do not know what to buy, and rush to purchase
the ugliest monstrosities. If half the money that is wasted in these
directions were to be devoted to the encouragement of our hard-working
rising artists, we might soon boast of still greater successes than
we can proudly point to, despite the adverse circumstances under
which artists have to labour amongst us. Art with us is still looked
upon as an extravagance, a luxury, as it was with the Romans of
old, and this produces a craving for oddities. We hang up big china
cockatoos, or place big china dogs, or stags with big china antlers,
on our hearth-rugs. We have coarse china frogs and lizards, crabs or
lobsters, from which we eat our fruit or fish; or a life-like salmon
with staring eyes is brought on our table, its back takes off, and we
scoop out the real cooked salmon with which its inside is filled. Form
of dish, association of ideas, and action of the host are more worthy
of anthropophagi than civilised beings of the nineteenth century. So
long as art-history and esthetics are not made regular studies, not
only in art-schools but also in general educational establishments,
and especially ladies’ schools, our national consciousness of art in
general and the requirements of our age in particular cannot improve.
Art is a branch of human knowledge, ingenuity, and creative force
in which ladies, trained to appreciate beauty, might be made better
‘helps,’ than in the kitchen, the pantry, or the larder. The national
wealth of France consists in the nation’s superiority in taste and
artistic skill. The French arrange a few artificial flowers with
an exquisite understanding of the juxtaposition of colours and the
combination of forms, and make us pay for a ‘bouquet’ on a bonnet from
fifty to sixty francs, whilst the raw material costs from five to six
francs; they do the same in terra-cotta, bronze, or iron. So long as
everyone with us thinks himself justified in having his own bad taste
gratified, because he can pay for it, decorative artists will serve
that bad taste in all our household details. Art-history comprises
not merely measurements of temples, heights of spires in feet, or of
statues in cubits and inches.
We have of late years made gigantic strides in the advancement
of street-architecture, though we do not yet know how to create
perspective views of artistic beauty; we still indulge too much in
mediæval crookedness and unintelligible windings. We still decorate
too gaudily, or, falling into the other extreme, too much in neutral
colours; but we are beginning to understand that man does not live on
stone and brick alone, but also on taste in arranging and decorating
the stone. London, with the exception of some of our monstrous railway
bridges and railway stations, begins to look worthy of its position
as the centre of the world’s commerce. Our streets have lately put
on some stately ‘Sunday clothing’ in terra-cotta, Portland cement,
and iron railings. Our glass and china, our furniture and carpets,
begin to have more variegated patterns, though I am sorry to hear that
foreigners are still generally appointed as the principal modellers. I
base this assertion on the Report on the National Competition of the
Works of Schools of Art for 1876, in which the examiners say: ‘Our want
of that workman-like power over the material, which is so noticeable
in all French productions in modelling, is still very conspicuous. As
long as this continues a large proportion of the decorative figure or
ornamental designs in relief made for the English market will be in
the hands of foreign artists.’ The panacea of this evil will and can
only be a higher intellectual training, not merely of the faculty of
imitating and combining given forms in nature, but of endowing them
with ideal beauty, fostered by a correct study of art-history.
There are no illustrations to this work, but I have annexed a long
list of illustrated works on art. My aim in teaching, and writing,
has been consistently to induce my hearers and readers to think and
study for themselves. Bad or even good wood-cuts are by no means
essential in art-books, for we possess in the British, Christy’s,
and South Kensington Museums such invaluable art-collections, that
we may write books without illustrations if we can induce readers
and students to verify what we say by a diligent study of these
specimens. Theoretical generalisation ought always to precede our
special studies. We only then know when we are able to systematise, to
group, to draw analogies, or to arrange our details according to some
general principle. If we enter on any study without having prepared
our mind to grasp the connecting links in an artistic or scientific
subject, our knowledge of an incoherent mass of details will only dwarf
our understanding, instead of brightening and clearing it, and we
shall become technically-trained machines, instead of self-conscious
and self-reasoning creators in any branch of art. The Art Library
at the South Kensington Museum is, without any exaggeration, the
completest in the world; it abounds in the best illustrated works of
all nations. Art-books with bad or indifferent illustrations, or even
with good illustrations, are not so much needed as art-books with
unbiased theories, esthetical principles, and philosophical ideas,
which may awaken the power of reasoning in both readers and students.
It is only too often the case that, in seeing bad illustrations, the
student imagines he knows everything about the work spoken of and
produced in outlines. He must, however, go and see for himself. Art
has its own fairy domain and its own most catholic realm, in which
everyone is welcome who can contribute to the improvement, delight,
and happiness of man. To induce readers and students to visit, with
some fore-thought and fore-knowledge, our vast and unparalleled
art-collections, and to convince them, that to detach the study of art
from a correct appreciation of the ideas that engendered its forms, is
an impossibility, was the task I set myself in writing the pages of
this book.
LONDON: _October 1876_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PROLEGOMENA.
PAGE
The phenomena of destruction and combination in Nature--The
difference between the sublime and beautiful--Without man
no beauty--Science, industry, and art--The utilitarian
principle--Choice--The realistic, historical, and critical
points of view in art--Crystallisations and their elements
--Symmetry and eurythmy--Proportion, action, and expression
--Man is the symbol of earthly perfection 1
CHAPTER II.
ETHNOLOGY IN ITS BEARING ON ART.
The Negro, the Turanian, and the Aryan: their characteristics,
facial angle, amount of brain, and artistic capacities--
Space and time--Art treated historically--Pottery in its
development--Generalisation and its advantage 22
CHAPTER III.
PRE-HISTORIC AND SAVAGE ART.
Traces of man’s inventive and decorative force in by-gone
ages--Classification of pre-historic products--The old
stone age--The new stone age--The bronze and iron ages--
Man’s first dwellings--Houses and temples--Lake-or
pile-dwellings in their gradual development--Cranoges
or wooden islands--Art in the western hemisphere--The
stucco in the rock-hewn temple at Mitla in Mexico--
Difference between art-products in North, Central, and
South America--Cuzco, near Lake Titicaca--Pottery as a
reliable historical record--The wild and fantastic mode
of ornamentation in America, and its causes 32
CHAPTER IV.
CHINESE ART.
The Chinese language--The holy books of the Chinese--The
sacred number five--Principle of ornamentation--Their
towns--The wall with the Chinese not yet a completing
part of the building--The enclosure, the frame, and
the substructure--The trellis-work of the Chinese and
its subdivision--Their Tshao-pings and Miaos--Mode of
colouring--Silk-weavings and their usual patterns--
Feather works and embroideries--Their deficiencies in
painting--Their pottery--Causes of their failings in
art in a higher sense. 45
CHAPTER V.
INDIA, PERSIA, ASSYRIA, AND BABYLON.
The Aryans on this and the other side of the Himâlâyan
Mountains--Science and art the offsprings of religion--
Endeavours to express abstract phenomena in concrete
signs--The symbolic, dialectic, and mythological periods--
The Indian trinity--The principal divinities of India, and
their analogy with the Egyptian, Persian, and Greek gods--
Indian epic poetry--The rock-hewn temples and Buddha--
Stucco ornamentation--Causes of the gorgeousness of
Indian art--Persia and the Persians--Their five cosmical
elements--Historical development--The Zend-Avesta--
Persepolis and its oldest monuments--Zoroaster--The
Persian trinity--Light and darkness--Why no temples
were constructed--The Babylonians and Ninivites--Their
principles of ornamentation--Their wall decorations 60
CHAPTER VI.
EGYPTIAN ART.
The sphinx the emblem of Egyptian art--Long and short
chronologists--Lepsius and his list of Egyptian dynasties--
State of Egypt under Menes, who ruled 3892 B.C., according
to Lepsius--Division of Egyptian art into periods--The
forty-two holy books of the Egyptians--Their gods of the
first, second, and third orders--The Egyptian trinity--The
pyramidal period--The hieratic style--The Ptolemaic style
--Their mode of ornamentation and symmetrophobia 103
CHAPTER VII.
HEBREW ART.
The Hebrews are a mixed race--Social and political condition
of the Jews during 6,000 years--Description of the country
and aspect of nature--Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel--
Architecture a sure measure of a nation’s social and
political development--Egotistical character of nomadic
traders--The temple and palace of Solomon, the only
architectural efforts of the Jews--Sketch of their history,
divided into eight periods--The tabernacle a tent--The
first temple constructed on its plan--Ben David on the
mysterious empty room above the Holy of Holies--Causes why
the Jews had no art, and never attempted to have any 132
CHAPTER VIII.
GREEK ART.
Meshiah (humanity) was first freed by the Greeks in form,
and by Christ in spirit--Aspect of nature--India, Egypt,
and Persia as the component parts of Greek development--
The different dialects of the Greeks--Their mythology--
Traces of intelligible facts and historical events in the
Greek myths--Zeus and his character--Prometheus and
Faust--The nine muses and their leader--Greek life a
continuous festivity--Greek poetry and philosophy--Greek
artistic development--The Olympian, Pythian, Nemæan,
and Isthmian games--Greek architecture: the temple--
Building materials--Site of temples--Proportion--Plan
of temples--The Doric, Ionic, and Korinthian orders and
their subdivisions--The Attic style--Greek pottery and
Greek sculpture--Different periods--The British Museum
and Greek art--Onatas, Ageladas, Kalamis, Pheidias,
Praxiteles, Skopas, and Lysippus--The Parthenon--
Aphrodite no longer draped--The groups of Niobe, Laokoön,
and the Farnese bull--Causes of the decline of Greek art 153
CHAPTER IX.
ETRUSKAN ART.
The first settlers in Etruria--Their gods of the first and
second orders--The ritual of thunder--Temples and tombs--
Subdivision of tombs--Cinerary chests--Excavations at
Præneste--Pottery and metal works--Their style either
Archaic or Etruskan--Division of Etruskan works of art
into five principal categories 212
CHAPTER X.
ROMAN ART.
Characteristic differences between Greeks and Romans--The
triple theocracy of Rome--The mythical period of the seven
kings of Rome--Rome as republic--Roman mythology--Rome
under the emperors--Roman public games--Roman literature
the outgrowth of Greek literature--Polylithic wall
decorations--The arch, cross-vault, and cupola--Periods of
Roman art and their subdivisions--Temples--Fora and
theatres--The mausoleum of Augustus--Hadrian, the divine
architect--Triumphal arches--The baths of Caracalla--The
advent of Christianity 228
CHAPTER XI.
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
North and south of our globe--Buddhism and Christianity--
Christ’s divine teachings--Romanesque and Byzantine
art-forms--Symbols, allegories, emblems, and myths--
Catacombs at Rome and Naples--The sacredness of the number
seven--Christian art in its essence and different phases--
The spiritual element predominates--The first Christian
churches--Constantine--Ravenna and its early churches--
St. Sophia in the Byzantine style--Migration of northern
nations--Their religious notions--The Teutons turn
Christians--Wood and ivory carvings--Art in its relation
to the progressive development of mankind--Summary and
conclusion 264
BIBLIOGRAPHY for the study of the historical development of
Art 301
INDEX 305
MANUAL
OF THE
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ART
CHAPTER I.
PROLEGOMENA.
Gazing at the heavens on a starry night, we see, in addition to
myriads of sparkling worlds floating in the air, a great quantity of
nebulæ--either decayed systems of worlds, or worlds in formation.
Worlds which have lost their centre of gravity and fallen to pieces; or
worlds which are seeking, according to the general law of gravitation,
to form a central body by the attraction of cosmical ether. The one
phenomenon is that of destruction, the other that of new formation.
This double process is continually repeating itself in the development
of art. Consciously or unconsciously, the artists of the different
nations, at different periods, devote themselves to the dissolution
or reconstruction of artistic products. To become acquainted with
this process, to trace the elements from which art is built up, or the
influences which engender a dissolution of artistic forms, is of the
greatest importance.
Art must be looked upon as the phenomenal result of certain religious,
social, intellectual, and natural conditions. To trace these
conditions, their origin, influence, and gradual development, by means
of a critical and historical investigation into the causes which
produced them, will be our task. For art is like a mirror: whatever
looks into it is reflected by it. If a poor, untrained imagination
stares into it, no one must be astonished that poor and distorted
images result.
It is usually accepted as a truism that the essence of art is the
reproduction of nature. Wherever, then, nature were reflected in
the ‘Art-mirror,’ we should have the best work of art. But this is
not so. For art has to reflect the phenomena of the makrokosm as
a subjectively-conceived mikrokosm. We do not see matters as they
really are, as each thing is surrounded by a thick fog of incidental,
objective, and subjective peculiarities. This fog must be cleared
away, to show us nature in the bright colours of intellectual and
self-conscious idealisation.
Nature furnishes us with mortar and stones for the building, but the
architect’s intellectual power has to arrange these elements, and to
bring them into an artistic shape. Nature furnishes us with flowers,
trees, animals and men; but the ornamental designer or painter has to
reproduce and to group them so as to impress the forms of nature with
an intellectual vitality.
Before the artist proceeds to his work he must become thoroughly
conscious of the distinction between the SUBLIME and the BEAUTIFUL.
It is essential that he should draw a strict line of demarcation
between the two conceptions; in order not to waste his energies on the
reproduction of objects which are beyond the powers of art.
During the long period of the cosmical formation of the earth, when
mountains were towered upon mountains, rocks upheaved, islands
submerged; when air, water, fire, and solid matter seemed engaged in
never-ending conflict--nature was _sublime_. The dynamic force appeared
to be the only element, and the counterbalancing static force was
without influence. Gradually vegetable and animal life, in their first
crude forms, commenced to show themselves.
Zoophites were developed into megatheriums and mastodons. Mammoths
and elks sported on plains which now form the mountain tops of our
continents. Scarcely visible coral animals were still engaged in
constructing mountain chains, and a luxuriant vegetation covered the
small continents. Such transformations, convulsions, and changes are
gigantic, grand, awe-inspiring--sublime, but not beautiful. Whenever
nature is at work, disturbing the air with electric currents or shaking
huge mountains, so that they bow their lofty summits, or when the dry
soil is rent asunder, and sends forth streams of glowing lava, we
are in the presence of the sublime, not of the beautiful. Whenever
man’s nature is overawed, whenever he is made to feel his impotence
by the phenomena of nature, he faces the sublime. In art, only a few
divinely-gifted and chosen geniuses have ever reached the sublime.
When, however, the cosmical forces had expended their exuberant
powers--when a diversified climate had produced those plants and
animals that surround us--when man appeared on this revolving
planet, and by degrees reached self-consciousness as his highest
development--then only beauty acquired existence and dominion on earth.
Without men capable of understanding what is beautiful, art would have
no meaning.
The aim of science is to vanquish error; the province of industry to
subdue matter, and the vocation of art to produce beauty. The artist
must not neglect science, for he has to be truthful, as error is ugly;
he must make himself well acquainted with matter, for he has to use,
to transform, and to modify it; and, finally, he has to hallow this
scientifically-treated matter by impressing it with the stamp of ideal
beauty.
The attainment of this, the perfection of art, has been slow and
gradual. Though art, like all the inventions, took its origin in
want and necessity, the _utilitarian_ spirit is the very bane of
art, for art flourishes only under the influence of the very highest
intellectual culture.
Nature produces like art; but the products of nature are the
unconscious effects of the immutable law of causation. The products of
art are the results of the conscious intellectual power of the artist.
It is the free, yet well-regulated, consciousness of the artist that
elevates his productions into works of art. Undoubtedly the great
store-house of the artist is nature; he learns from nature how to
ornament, but he has to discern, to combine, to adapt, to select, his
forms. The whole success of the artist, in whatever branch he works,
must depend on an earnest and severe use of the word CHOICE.
‘He is truly great who knows the value of everything, and distinguishes
what is more or less great, and what is most estimable, so as to
begin from that, and to apply the genius, and fix the desires upon
the execution of things worthy and great.’ This mode of thinking was
followed by the most celebrated and enlightened artists from the
ancient Greeks to our own time. They knew to distinguish that which
was most worthy in nature, and to this they directed their study,
diligence, and industry. Inferior geniuses, because they are attached
to mediocrity, believe that a mere clinging to nature constitutes all
art; and the lowest artists are enchanted with the minutiæ of little
works, taking them for principal things; so that human ignorance passes
from the trifling to the useless, from the useless to the ugly, and
from the ugly to the false and chimerical.
In treating of the historical development of art, to enable artists
to distinguish and to choose the best, and not only to imitate but
to create consciously for themselves, it is necessary to make them
_theoretically_ acquainted with the progress of art.
To trace historically the changes art had to undergo is necessary
for all really self-conscious artists. Art with us is still looked
upon as entirely subject to individual taste. Everyone thinks himself
competent to have an opinion on products of art. ‘_De gustibus non
est disputandum_’ is heard not only in our drawing-rooms, but also in
art-circles. This false and utterly untenable adage is the cause of the
chaotic anarchy in our art-world.
So little as there can be differences in truth, can there be
differences in beauty. It is the duty of philosophy to strive for
truth; it is the task of the theoretical artist to point out what is
beautiful.
We may treat art from three different points of view:--
1. From a _realistic_ point of view, taking nature and geometry as its
basis.
2. From an _historical_ point of view; showing by antiquarian and
archæological researches its gradual development.
3. From a _critical_ point of view; propounding abstract principles of
speculative philosophy and esthetics as applied to art.
A.
The _realistic_ school has in later years had an immense influence
with us. Art-critics have almost gone so far as to demand from the
artist a correct rendering of the very stratification of rocks; or
of the different kinds of soil, to such a degree that the farmer
should be able to recognise the ground in which to sow oats or wheat.
Pictures, according to these estheticists, should be geological maps,
mineralogical collections, and, so far as flowers are concerned,
perfect herbariums. When this school takes up the archæological
view, it clings with indomitable tenacity to given forms, and checks
imagination. Art is then only to be handled as the Greeks or Romans
practised it. Either the Gothic or the Renaissance style is to be
slavishly imitated. This school has one great drawback: it considers
all things natural beautiful, and looks upon an imitation of that which
_was_ as better than an exertion of the self-creative originality of
the artist.
B.
The _historical_ school endeavours to bring before our eyes the past,
so as to enable us to understand the present, and to influence the
future of art. This school has followed two divergent directions, the
Antique and the Gothic, the classical or romantic; the one holding that
everything beautiful must be based upon Greek patterns; the other that
all beauty is confined to the Gothic. The writers of these two schools
bewilder the students; either driving them into a cold, soulless
imitation of classic forms, or forcing them to sacrifice everything to
trefoils, pinnacles, tracery, finials, buttresses, thin spires, painted
windows, and pointed arches.
C.
The _critical_ school indulges in tall phrases, mere hypothetical
paradoxes, often startling the world with speculations of the wildest
sort. Art-critics frequently roam in the spheres of surmises; they have
their good points, but often neglect reality, or the historical ground;
they sacrifice everything to the idea, which is with them the only
productive basis of everything existing in art.
We shall try to be realistic, as it would be vain to attempt to detach
art from the influences of nature; for art borrows its principal
elements from the impressions of natural phenomena. We shall be
historical, and point out the progressive development of art; and,
lastly, we shall endeavour to be critical. Speculative philosophy has
its merits in art. Esthetical criticism suggests new ideas, and new
ideas engender new forms. We shall endeavour to adopt from each of the
three schools what is best. Our age is an age of eclecticism in art. We
must, however, try to prepare for a period of original vitality, which
can only be done by avoiding one-sidedness and heedless originality.
We shall try to suggest and to excite in our readers new thoughts. As
music speaks in sounds, poetry in words, so art in forms; but music,
poetry, and art are subject to certain rules, without which harmony
would become dissonance, poetry an inflated prose, and art a tasteless
entity, of which quaintness will be the only distinguishing attribute.
What we call our sense of beauty is based on those laws which make the
existence of the universe possible.
The Greeks used for beauty in art the same word, as for order, or the
perfect arrangement of the universe. The word κόσμος {kosmos} (from
which we have ‘cosmetic,’ any beautifying application) may teach us how
we should look upon works of art, which ought to be a reflection of the
general laws ruling nature.
Two forces guide our material and intellectual life. We possess
two means of acquiring knowledge and of practising art: reason and
experience. Impressions from without are the everlasting source of all
our conceptions. Hunger and thirst drive us to seek nourishment, to
become fishers, hunters, herdsmen, or agriculturists. Cold and heat
force us to seek a shelter, to construct wigwams, huts, dwellings on
piles, cottages, houses, palaces, and temples.
Though order and harmony prevail in the outer world, every atom of
the universe is endowed with an unconscious will or life of its own.
Atoms seek atoms according to inherent laws, or fly from or annihilate
one another. The whole process of life around us appears to be one
never-ending struggle. Apparently there rules only the law of chance
and might; what cannot conquer is conquered.
History is one long catalogue of appearing and disappearing nations, of
devouring and devoured kingdoms and empires. It is as though generation
after generation had emerged from the spectral past into the sanguinary
present, to destroy or to be destroyed. This conflict in the outer
world is seconded by everlasting conflicts in our inner world. Fear,
hope, love--passions of all kinds, imagination and reality, ignorance
and knowledge, pride and humility, prejudice and wisdom, form an
intellectual hurricane not less destructive than the warfare of the
cosmical elements. Religion, Science, and Art, this divine triad,
step in. Religion excites in us the hope of higher and better morals;
science creates consciousness of the laws according to which we are
governed; the link between cause and effect is traced, and the rule of
arbitrary chance narrowed. Lastly, art throws its beautifying halo on
everything. Thus these three are instrumental in elevating our mind,
expanding our intellectual powers, and bringing harmony and beauty into
the eternal conflict. Faith is the element of religion, experience the
element of knowledge, and beauty the element of art. Whilst faith and
experience are possible without an artistic elevation of the mind, art
must combine the elements of religion and science, and form through
beauty a visible link between these elements.
The sublime, as we have said, rules in the universe. Clouds chase one
another and are subject to everlasting changes. Trees cover the surface
of our globe, forming woods at random. Mountains are towered up, as if
hurled together by chance. Seas form a bewildering variety of coasts.
Streams wind their paths through mountains and valleys with capricious
irregularity. All these phenomena confuse and oppress us, they engender
an incomprehensible, indistinct feeling in us. But so soon as we begin
with our intellectual force to sift, to separate, and to detach single
phenomena from the general mass--as soon as _choice_ begins to work,
the isolated phenomenon displays at once its symmetrical beauty.
[Illustration: (Snowflakes)]
This is the case with crystallisations, the _first_ artistic products
of unconscious nature. If we look at a vast plain covered with snow,
a feeling of sublime cold and wretchedness overcomes us; but if we
take up one isolated snow-flake, and place it under a microscope, we
find that the elements of the crystallised drop of water surround
with harmonious regularity a common centre, which is the body,
from which radiate as integral parts the diversified forms of the
flake. In studying snow-flakes, we find that the three dimensions of
space--height, breadth, and depth, limited by symmetry, proportion and
direction--are the principal elements of every form which in itself has
to represent a detached total. In all the crystallisations there is one
‘momentum’ of formation--the centre, from which all the parts emanate
perfectly well-balanced and complete in themselves. The elements
of which all artistic works, whether natural or produced by men,
are composed, are the straight line and the waving line. With these
elements we can obtain the three principal conditions of every work of
art--symmetry, proportion, and direction. Snow-flakes may be used in
any direction, and therefore they may be set down as without distinct
direction. The rays with their radiation, however, are formed according
to the principal law of the universe. They represent the _dynamic_
force; they strive at isolation from the centre which must be looked
upon as their _static_ momentum. Thus in the first artistic products of
nature positive and negative, or rather dynamic and static forces are
clearly perceptible. The horizontal line is the representative of the
static, whilst the vertical line is the indicator of the dynamic force.
SYMMETRY _is a perfect equality of form to the right and left of a
vertical line on a horizontal base_.
EURYTHMY _consists in a repetition of variegated forms_.
In order to produce eurythmy we must confine symmetry within a certain
compass; for this purpose we have the _frame_. Our doors are nothing
but frames for the entering or departing individuals; as our windows
are frames for the landscape, sky, or walls on which we look, or for
ourselves when seen from without. The frame, whether it be real or
imaginary, as the correct limitation of forms, is of the very highest
importance in decorative and pictorial art.
Eurythmy may be alternating. This alternating principle is observed in
metopes and triglyphs. The alternation may be interrupted by a cæsura
(a mark or sign of rest). Masks, heads of lions, or any other figures
may form the cæsura, as decorative elements in the long lines of the
tops of houses, palaces, or temples. The cæsura, combined with eurythmy
and symmetry, will give us the best patterns for flat decorations, as
in carpets, paper-hangings, keramic works and metal or wood ornaments.
Applying what we have said of crystallisations to plants and animals,
we find that symmetry is undoubtedly the predominant element in every
flower. The plant developes itself from the ground, which is its
horizontal basis. It shoots up generally in a vertical direction, as a
radiation from our globe. In trees the branches, leaves, flowers, and
fruits are clustered around a central line in eurythmical proportion.
In flowers symmetry predominates, whilst in trees eurythmy prevails. In
considering the branches of a tree in relation to its trunk, we find
the same symmetry and eurythmy, though the direction be changed. We can
study these forms best in plants of the coal formation--the Sigillaria,
Stigmaria, Lepidodendra, and Calamites; and in ferns, fir-trees,
cedars, &c.
In the palm tree we see most distinctly the working of the conflicting
forces of nature. The dynamic force of vitality drives the stem
upwards, and the static force of gravitation towards a common centre is
expressed in the beautifully-drooping curves of the leaves. Symmetry is
further to be observed in the lowest animals, in polyps, radiata, &c.,
but never in higher species, in which it is not planimetrical (viz.,
cannot be treated on a plane) but linear, none of them being perfectly
regular in any of the three dimensions of space.
Man is altogether different from the products of the mineral or
vegetable kingdoms, which give us the prototypes of conventional art.
Man is not in all directions symmetrical in the strict sense of the
word. He has not two heads, two noses, or two mouths. The component
elements in man are different. His very nature revolts against a
planimetrical treatment. This was perfectly understood by the masters
of arabesque, who have always turned man half into a fish, a plant,
a serpent, a tendril, or some other form adapted for planimetrical
treatment. Eurythmy and _Proportion_ are the elements of higher organic
forms--to which must be added direction or _Action_, and finally
_Expression_.
In most of the lower animals the vertebræ are horizontal, and
coincident with the moving direction of the whole creature. In man, on
the other hand, the vertebræ are vertical, in opposition to the moving
direction which is horizontal; so that the vertebræ and line of motion
are at right angles.
In men, detached as they are from their horizontal basis, the
soil--carrying their static force with them, and able to change it
either from below, upwards, or from front to back--_direction_ is of
a complicated nature, and must be well studied, so as not to produce
incongruities.
If a woman or man were painted with the most beautiful and expressive
face, but having it twisted round, so as to crown the spine, we should
turn from it with disgust, as anyone endowed with the sense of beauty
turns from acrobats, because the natural laws of gravitation and
symmetry would be violated. This illustration may serve to prove, that
there are laws in art with which we must make ourselves acquainted,
and that the mere ‘right of taste,’ in the general sense of the words,
cannot promote the understanding and appreciation of our artistic
productions.
Next to direction we have to take into account _motion_. This element
is in animals and men produced by their inherent dynamic force,
counteracted by the body itself, which represents the static force, or
the ‘_vis inertiæ_,’ chaining them to the centre of gravitation in the
earth.
Motion again leads to _expression_ and _action_.
_Expression_ is the effect of the conflicting static or dynamic
(passive or active) state of the mind, so far as this state is revealed
in the lineaments of the face.
_Action_ is the effect of the same conflicting force so far as it is
expressed in the limbs and the position of the body.
A third force, which is often used unconsciously, necessarily grows out
of these elements--the controlling or ruling element, or, as Vitruvius
has it, ‘_the principle of authority_.’ This element points out the
preponderance of certain forms as the visible representatives of the
general principles which we have stated, bringing into the _variety_
of details, harmony and _unity_. This controlling element stands to
the surrounding and united parts in the same relation as the key-note
to a harmonious melody. Without that key-note no harmony--without the
controlling element no beauty, were possible.
Having proceeded step by step from the formation of matter in crystals
to man, we may set down the following as the five principal elements
necessary to beauty in art:--
1. Symmetry.
2. Eurythmy.
3. Proportion.
4. Direction or motion.
5. Expression.
α. Symmetry has already been amply treated.
β. Eurythmy is either stereometric or planimetric. It is stereometric
in balls and in regular solid bodies, such as the tetrahedron, a figure
of four equal triangular faces, or the polyhedron, a figure with many
sides. These forms are symmetrical without any controlling element.
Such an element shows itself first in the ellipsoid--distinct from the
oval--in the prism, and the pyramid. Planimetric eurythmy preponderates
in snow-crystals, flowers, plants, trees, and the lowest animals.
The controlling element shows itself in the grouping of the single
parts round a common centre, which is often distinguished by a contrast
in forms or colours. It is unconsciously expressed by a sign or mark.
Ornamentation takes its origin in the effort to express, to designate,
or to mark out the controlling element. The ornamented object has
only then a meaning, when it expresses visibly the hidden idea of the
controlling element, say the idea of fastening or keeping together,
as in clasps, brooches, buckles; or the idea of equilibrium, as in
earrings. Such signs or marks were very early used, and are spread
all over our globe; they developed into the rough tombs in Phrygia,
Greece and Italy; took a higher form in Central America and Assyria;
became crystallised in the Pyramids; and attained the highest
perfection in the tombs of Mausolus, Augustus, and Hadrian. The mark
or sign is also used in games, as on race-courses, in the stadium,
the circus, or the amphitheatre. A more distinct expression is gained
when the mark or sign, as divine statue, altar, &c., is surrounded by
rhythmically-arranged circles or encompassing walls, as the visible
expression of the union of the many, or variety, for one religious
or ceremonial purpose. The mark or sign reflects, on the one hand,
the idea of harmony, whilst, on the other, the rhythmically-arranged
surroundings form an impressive total, heightening the force of the
controlling element. This law explains the awe, veneration, mysterious
feeling, and secret fear with which men at all times have looked upon
the central mark or sign, whether in the simple stone-circles of Abury,
Stonehenge, and Carnac, the rock-hewn temples of India, the temples
of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, or the synagogues and churches of our own
times.
Next to the controlling element, we must take into consideration
the grouping of the whole object on a horizontal basis around a
vertical axis. This axis becomes the seat of the linear, symmetrical,
controlling element. It is especially marked by richly ornamented
reliefs or by gaudier colours, so pronounced that the other parts of
the ornamented object appear as mere accompaniments of the horizontal
and vertical lines. Remarkable in their incongruity, but often
unsurpassed in the application of this principle, are the tattooed
heads of savages, in which the linear central line is ornamented
symmetrically on both sides of the face--the prominent parts being
marked by spirals to make them appear still more prominent.
γ. Proportion, as an element of art, cannot work by itself, but must
be considered in relation to its parts and the controlling element.
Proportion consists of a basis, a middle piece, and a dominant. To
illustrate this, we have in plants and trees, the root (basis), the
stem or trunk (middle piece), and the top, crown or flower (dominant).
The basis represents the cosmical element of gravitation by powerful
masses, simplicity of forms, and dark colouring. This law was
especially observed in the excellent decoration of the Roman houses
at Pompeii, and is still followed in our wainscoting. We try
unconsciously to express the static force from which the dynamic rises.
The middle piece, growing out of the basis, is supported and
supporting; it unites the elements of the basis with the top or
dominant; it is the connecting link between these two extremes. The
basis stands in the same relation to the middle piece, as the latter to
the dominant.
The dominant harmoniously reconciles the conflicting forces of striving
upwards, and being drawn downwards. Variations in these relations are
not only allowable, but form the very element of the artist’s creative
originality--so long as he clearly marks the purpose of the three
elements.
δ. Direction, or motion, in its highest form is only to be found in
man. In fishes the axis, or seat of the controlling element, is not
fixed as in plants. If fishes pursue some point of attraction, they
shoot forward in a straight line, so that a conflict between the static
and dynamic forces is never visible in them, because the axes of these
two forces are always one and the same. This is entirely different with
birds, quadrupeds, and especially with men, who, to a great extent, are
masters of their motions; for will, as the force of their conscious
intellect, changes their static as well as their dynamic direction.
Man is the symbol of earthly perfection. In him all laws and elements
of the universe are united. What is with inanimate nature a static
point of attraction, is with man _moral_; the dynamic force of
activity, is with him _intellect_. Animals also work, but their works
are in general the result of their instinct; whilst with man, though he
may also be ruled by unconscious impulses, intellect--self-conscious
intellect--is the mainspring of all his actions. These have a
reflecting mirror in the glance of his eyes, whilst the changing
and changeable effects of scorn, love, wrath, delight, happiness,
or despair are pictured in the mysteriously-woven lineaments of his
countenance.
ε. Expression, of intellectual and moral impressions, is most
concentrated in MAN.