WHEN a baby is perfectly healthy and has had enough to eat and has slept
all it wants, then it hums a little tune to show how happy it is. To
grown-ups this humming means nothing. It sounds like "goo-zum, goo-zum,
goo-o-o-o-o," but to the baby it is perfect music. It is his first
contribution to art.
As soon as he (or she) gets a little older and is able to sit up, the
period of mud-pie making begins. These mud-pies do not interest the
outside world. There are too many million babies, making too many
million mud-pies at the same time. But to the small infant they
represent another expedition into the pleasant realm of art. The baby is
now a sculptor.
At the age of three or four, when the hands begin to obey the brain,
the child becomes a painter. His fond mother gives him a box of coloured
chalks and every loose bit of paper is rapidly covered with strange
pothooks and scrawls which represent houses and horses and terrible
naval battles.
Soon however this happiness of just "making things" comes to an end.
School begins and the greater part of the day is filled up with work.
The business of living, or rather the business of "making a living,"
becomes the most important event in the life of every boy and girl.
There is little time left for "art" between learning the tables of
multiplication and the past participles of the irregular French verbs.
And unless the desire for making certain things for the mere pleasure of
creating them without any hope of a practical return be very strong, the
child grows into manhood and forgets that the first five years of his
life were mainly devoted to art.
Nations are not different from children. As soon as the cave-man had
escaped the threatening dangers of the long and shivering ice-period,
and had put his house in order, he began to make certain things which
he thought beautiful, although they were of no earthly use to him in his
fight with the wild animals of the jungle. He covered the walls of his
grotto with pictures of the elephants and the deer which he hunted, and
out of a piece of stone, he hacked the rough figures of those women he
thought most attractive.
As soon as the Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Persians and all
the other people of the east had founded their little countries along
the Nile and the Euphrates, they began to build magnificent palaces for
their kings, invented bright pieces of jewellery for their women and
planted gardens which sang happy songs of colour with their many bright
flowers.
Our own ancestors, the wandering nomads from the distant Asiatic
prairies, enjoying a free and easy existence as fighters and hunters,
composed songs which celebrated the mighty deeds of their great leaders
and invented a form of poetry which has survived until our own day. A
thousand years later, when they had established themselves on the Greek
mainland, and had built their "city-states," they expressed their joy
(and their sorrows) in magnificent temples, in statues, in comedies and
in tragedies, and in every conceivable form of art.
The Romans, like their Carthaginian rivals, were too busy administering
other people and making money to have much love for "useless and
unprofitable" adventures of the spirit. They conquered the world and
built roads and bridges but they borrowed their art wholesale from the
Greeks. They invented certain practical forms of architecture which
answered the demands of their day and age. But their statues and their
histories and their mosaics and their poems were mere Latin imitations
of Greek originals. Without that vague and hard-to-define something
which the world calls "personality," there can be no art and the Roman
world distrusted that particular sort of personality. The Empire needed
efficient soldiers and tradesmen. The business of writing poetry or
making pictures was left to foreigners.
Then came the Dark Ages. The barbarian was the proverbial bull in
the china-shop of western Europe. He had no use for what he did not
understand. Speaking in terms of the year 1921, he liked the magazine
covers of pretty ladies, but threw the Rembrandt etchings which he had
inherited into the ash-can. Soon he came to learn better. Then he tried
to undo the damage which he had created a few years before. But the
ash-cans were gone and so were the pictures.
But by this time, his own art, which he had brought with him from the
east, had developed into something very beautiful and he made up for his
past neglect and indifference by the so-called "art of the Middle
Ages" which as far as northern Europe is concerned was a product of the
Germanic mind and had borrowed but little from the Greeks and the Latins
and nothing at all from the older forms of art of Egypt and Assyria, not
to speak of India and China, which simply did not exist, as far as the
people of that time were concerned. Indeed, so little had the northern
races been influenced by their southern neighbours that their own
architectural products were completely misunderstood by the people of
Italy and were treated by them with downright and unmitigated contempt.
You have all heard the word Gothic. You probably associate it with the
picture of a lovely old cathedral, lifting its slender spires towards
high heaven. But what does the word really mean?
It means something "uncouth" and "barbaric"--something which one might
expect from an "uncivilised Goth," a rough backwoods-man who had no
respect for the established rules of classical art and who built his
"modern horrors" to please his own low tastes without a decent regard
for the examples of the Forum and the Acropolis.
And yet for several centuries this form of Gothic architecture was the
highest expression of the sincere feeling for art which inspired the
whole northern continent. From a previous chapter, you will remember how
the people of the late Middle Ages lived. Unless they were peasants and
dwelt in villages, they were citizens of a "city" or "civitas," the old
Latin name for a tribe. And indeed, behind their high walls and their
deep moats, these good burghers were true tribesmen who shared the
common dangers and enjoyed the common safety and prosperity which they
derived from their system of mutual protection.
In the old Greek and Roman cities the market-place, where the temple
stood, had been the centre of civic life. During the Middle Ages, the
Church, the House of God, became such a centre. We modern Protestant
people, who go to our church only once a week, and then for a few hours
only, hardly know what a mediaeval church meant to the community. Then,
before you were a week old, you were taken to the Church to be baptised.
As a child, you visited the Church to learn the holy stories of the
Scriptures. Later on you became a member of the congregation, and if you
were rich enough you built yourself a separate little chapel sacred to
the memory of the Patron Saint of your own family. As for the sacred
edifice, it was open at all hours of the day and many of the night. In
a certain sense it resembled a modern club, dedicated to all the
inhabitants of the town. In the church you very likely caught a first
glimpse of the girl who was to become your bride at a great ceremony
before the High Altar. And finally, when the end of the journey had
come, you were buried beneath the stones of this familiar building, that
all your children and their grandchildren might pass over your grave
until the Day of Judgement.
Because the Church was not only the House of God but also the true
centre of all common life, the building had to be different from
anything that had ever been constructed by the hands of man. The temples
of the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans had been merely the
shrine of a local divinity. As no sermons were preached before the
images of Osiris or Zeus or Jupiter, it was not necessary that
the interior offer space for a great multitude. All the religious
processions of the old Mediterranean peoples took place in the open.
But in the north, where the weather was usually bad, most functions were
held under the roof of the church.
During many centuries the architects struggled with this problem of
constructing a building that was large enough. The Roman tradition
taught them how to build heavy stone walls with very small windows lest
the walls lose their strength. On the top of this they then placed a
heavy stone roof. But in the twelfth century, after the beginning of
the Crusades, when the architects had seen the pointed arches of the
Mohammedan builders, the western builders discovered a new style which
gave them their first chance to make the sort of building which those
days of an intense religious life demanded. And then they developed this
strange style upon which the Italians bestowed the contemptuous name of
"Gothic" or barbaric. They achieved their purpose by inventing a vaulted
roof which was supported by "ribs." But such a roof, if it became too
heavy, was apt to break the walls, just as a man of three hundred pounds
sitting down upon a child's chair will force it to collapse. To overcome
this difficulty, certain French architects then began to re-enforce the
walls with "buttresses" which were merely heavy masses of stone against
which the walls could lean while they supported the roof. And to assure
the further safety of the roof they supported the ribs of the roof by
so-called "flying buttresses," a very simple method of construction
which you will understand at once when you look at our picture.
This new method of construction allowed the introduction of enormous
windows. In the twelfth century, glass was still an expensive curiosity,
and very few private buildings possessed glass windows. Even the castles
of the nobles were without protection and this accounts for the eternal
drafts and explains why people of that day wore furs in-doors as well as
out.
Fortunately, the art of making coloured glass, with which the ancient
people of the Mediterranean had been familiar, had not been entirely
lost. There was a revival of stained glass-making and soon the windows
of the Gothic churches told the stories of the Holy Book in little
bits of brilliantly coloured window-pane, which were caught in a long
framework of lead.
Behold, therefore, the new and glorious house of God, filled with an
eager multitude, "living" its religion as no people have ever done
either before or since! Nothing is considered too good or too costly or
too wondrous for this House of God and Home of Man. The sculptors, who
since the destruction of the Roman Empire have been out of employment,
haltingly return to their noble art. Portals and pillars and buttresses
and cornices are all covered with carven images of Our Lord and the
blessed Saints. The embroiderers too are set to work to make tapestries
for the walls. The jewellers offer their highest art that the shrine of
the altar may be worthy of complete adoration. Even the painter does his
best. Poor man, he is greatly handicapped by lack of a suitable medium.
And thereby hangs a story.
The Romans of the early Christian period had covered the floors and
the walls of their temples and houses with mosaics; pictures made of
coloured bits of glass. But this art had been exceedingly difficult.
It gave the painter no chance to express all he wanted to say, as all
children know who have ever tried to make figures out of coloured blocks
of wood. The art of mosaic painting therefore died out during the late
Middle Ages except in Russia, where the Byzantine mosaic painters
had found a refuge after the fall of Constantinople and continued
to ornament the walls of the orthodox churches until the day of the
Bolsheviki, when there was an end to the building of churches.
Of course, the mediaeval painter could mix his colours with the water
of the wet plaster which was put upon the walls of the churches. This
method of painting upon "fresh plaster" (which was generally called
"fresco" or "fresh" painting) was very popular for many centuries.
To-day, it is as rare as the art of painting miniatures in manuscripts
and among the hundreds of artists of our modern cities there is perhaps
one who can handle this medium successfully. But during the Middle Ages
there was no other way and the artists were "fresco" workers for lack
of something better. The method however had certain great disadvantages.
Very often the plaster came off the walls after only a few years, or
dampness spoiled the pictures, just as dampness will spoil the pattern
of our wall paper. People tried every imaginable expedient to get away
from this plaster background. They tried to mix their colours with wine
and vinegar and with honey and with the sticky white of egg, but none
of these methods were satisfactory. For more than a thousand years these
experiments continued. In painting pictures upon the parchment leaves of
manuscripts the mediaeval artists were very successful. But when it came
to covering large spaces of wood or stone with paint which would stick,
they did not succeed very well.
At last, during the first half of the fifteenth century, the problem
was solved in the southern Netherlands by Jan and Hubert van Eyck. The
famous Flemish brothers mixed their paint with specially prepared oils
and this allowed them to use wood and canvas or stone or anything else
as a background for their pictures.
But by this time the religious ardour of the early Middle Ages was a
thing of the past. The rich burghers of the cities were succeeding the
bishops as patrons of the arts. And as art invariably follows the full
dinner-pail, the artists now began to work for these worldly employers
and painted pictures for kings, for grand-dukes and for rich bankers.
Within a very short time, the new method of painting with oil spread
through Europe and in every country there developed a school of special
painting which showed the characteristic tastes of the people for whom
these portraits and landscapes were made.
In Spain, for example, Velasquez painted court-dwarfs and the weavers
of the royal tapestry-factories, and all sorts of persons and subjects
connected with the king and his court. But in Holland, Rembrandt and
Frans Hals and Vermeer painted the barnyard of the merchant's house,
and they painted his rather dowdy wife and his healthy but bumptious
children and the ships which had brought him his wealth. In Italy on
the other hand, where the Pope remained the largest patron of the arts,
Michelangelo and Correggio continued to paint Madonnas and Saints, while
in England, where the aristocracy was very rich and powerful and in
France where the kings had become uppermost in the state, the artists
painted distinguished gentlemen who were members of the government, and
very lovely ladies who were friends of His Majesty.
The great change in painting, which came about with the neglect of the
old church and the rise of a new class in society, was reflected in all
other forms of art. The invention of printing had made it possible for
authors to win fame and reputation by writing books for the multitudes.
In this way arose the profession of the novelist and the illustrator.
But the people who had money enough to buy the new books were not the
sort who liked to sit at home of nights, looking at the ceiling or just
sitting. They wanted to be amused. The few minstrels of the Middle Ages
were not sufficient to cover the demand for entertainment. For the first
time since the early Greek city-states of two thousand years before, the
professional playwright had a chance to ply his trade. The Middle Ages
had known the theatre merely as part of certain church celebrations. The
tragedies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had told the story
of the suffering of our Lord. But during the sixteenth century the
worldly theatre made its reappearance. It is true that, at first, the
position of the professional playwright and actor was not a very high
one. William Shakespeare was regarded as a sort of circus-fellow who
amused his neighbours with his tragedies and comedies. But when he died
in the year 1616 he had begun to enjoy the respect of his neighbours and
actors were no longer subjects of police supervision.
William's contemporary, Lope de Vega, the incredible Spaniard who wrote
no less than 1800 worldly and 400 religious plays, was a person of rank
who received the papal approval upon his work. A century later, Moliere,
the Frenchman, was deemed worthy of the companionship of none less than
King Louis XIV.
Since then, the theatre has enjoyed an ever increasing affection on the
part of the people. To-day a "theatre" is part of every well-regulated
city, and the "silent drama" of the movies has penetrated to the tiniest
of our prairie hamlets.
Another art, however, was to become the most popular of all. That was
music. Most of the old art-forms demanded a great deal of technical
skill. It takes years and years of practice before our clumsy hand is
able to follow the commands of the brain and reproduce our vision upon
canvas or in marble. It takes a life-time to learn how to act or how to
write a good novel. And it takes a great deal of training on the part of
the public to appreciate the best in painting and writing and sculpture.
But almost any one, not entirely tone-deaf, can follow a tune and almost
everybody can get enjoyment out of some sort of music. The Middle Ages
had heard a little music but it had been entirely the music of the
church. The holy chants were subject to very severe laws of rhythm and
harmony and soon these became monotonous. Besides, they could not well
be sung in the street or in the market-place.
The Renaissance changed this. Music once more came into its own as the
best friend of man, both in his happiness and in his sorrows.
The Egyptians and the Babylonians and the ancient Jews had all been
great lovers of music. They had even combined different instruments
into regular orchestras. But the Greeks had frowned upon this barbaric
foreign noise. They liked to hear a man recite the stately poetry of
Homer and Pindar. They allowed him to accompany himself upon the lyre
(the poorest of all stringed instruments). That was as far as any one
could go without incurring the risk of popular disapproval. The Romans
on the other hand had loved orchestral music at their dinners and
parties and they had invented most of the instruments which (in VERY
modified form) we use to-day. The early church had despised this music
which smacked too much of the wicked pagan world which had just been
destroyed. A few songs rendered by the entire congregation were all
the bishops of the third and fourth centuries would tolerate. As the
congregation was apt to sing dreadfully out of key without the guidance
of an instrument, the church had afterwards allowed the use of an organ,
an invention of the second century of our era which consisted of a
combination of the old pipes of Pan and a pair of bellows.
Then came the great migrations. The last of the Roman musicians were
either killed or became tramp-fiddlers going from city to city and
playing in the street, and begging for pennies like the harpist on a
modern ferry-boat.
But the revival of a more worldly civilisation in the cities of the late
Middle Ages had created a new demand for musicians. Instruments like
the horn, which had been used only as signal-instruments for hunting and
fighting, were remodelled until they could reproduce sounds which were
agreeable in the dance-hall and in the banqueting room. A bow strung
with horse-hair was used to play the old-fashioned guitar and before the
end of the Middle Ages this six-stringed instrument (the most ancient of
all string-instruments which dates back to Egypt and Assyria) had grown
into our modern four-stringed fiddle which Stradivarius and the other
Italian violin-makers of the eighteenth century brought to the height of
perfection.
And finally the modern piano was invented, the most wide-spread of all
musical instruments, which has followed man into the wilderness of the
jungle and the ice-fields of Greenland. The organ had been the first
of all keyed instruments but the performer always depended upon the
co-operation of some one who worked the bellows, a job which nowadays
is done by electricity. The musicians therefore looked for a handier and
less circumstantial instrument to assist them in training the pupils
of the many church choirs. During the great eleventh century, Guido,
a Benedictine monk of the town of Arezzo (the birthplace of the poet
Petrarch) gave us our modern system of musical annotation. Some time
during that century, when there was a great deal of popular interest
in music, the first instrument with both keys and strings was built. It
must have sounded as tinkly as one of those tiny children's pianos which
you can buy at every toy-shop. In the city of Vienna, the town where
the strolling musicians of the Middle Ages (who had been classed
with jugglers and card sharps) had formed the first separate Guild of
Musicians in the year 1288, the little monochord was developed into
something which we can recognise as the direct ancestor of our modern
Steinway. From Austria the "clavichord" as it was usually called in
those days (because it had "craves" or keys) went to Italy. There it
was perfected into the "spinet" which was so called after the inventor,
Giovanni Spinetti of Venice. At last during the eighteenth century, some
time between 1709 and 1720, Bartolomeo Cristofori made a "clavier" which
allowed the performer to play both loudly and softly or as it was said
in Italian, "piano" and "forte." This instrument with certain changes
became our "pianoforte" or piano.
Then for the first time the world possessed an easy and convenient
instrument which could be mastered in a couple of years and did not need
the eternal tuning of harps and fiddles and was much pleasanter to the
ears than the mediaeval tubas, clarinets, trombones and oboes. Just as
the phonograph has given millions of modern people their first love of
music so did the early "pianoforte" carry the knowledge of music
into much wider circles. Music became part of the education of every
well-bred man and woman. Princes and rich merchants maintained private
orchestras. The musician ceased to be a wandering "jongleur" and became
a highly valued member of the community. Music was added to the dramatic
performances of the theatre and out of this practice, grew our modern
Opera. Originally only a few very rich princes could afford the expenses
of an "opera troupe." But as the taste for this sort of entertainment
grew, many cities built their own theatres where Italian and afterwards
German operas were given to the unlimited joy of the whole community
with the exception of a few sects of very strict Christians who still
regarded music with deep suspicion as something which was too lovely to
be entirely good for the soul.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the musical life of Europe was
in full swing. Then there came forward a man who was greater than all
others, a simple organist of the Thomas Church of Leipzig, by the
name of Johann Sebastian Bach. In his compositions for every known
instrument, from comic songs and popular dances to the most stately of
sacred hymns and oratorios, he laid the foundation for all our modern
music. When he died in the year 1750 he was succeeded by Mozart, who
created musical fabrics of sheer loveliness which remind us of lace
that has been woven out of harmony and rhythm. Then came Ludwig van
Beethoven, the most tragic of men, who gave us our modern orchestra,
yet heard none of his greatest compositions because he was deaf, as the
result of a cold contracted during his years of poverty.
Beethoven lived through the period of the great French Revolution.
Full of hope for a new and glorious day, he had dedicated one of his
symphonies to Napoleon. But he lived to regret the hour. When he died in
the year 1827, Napoleon was gone and the French Revolution was gone, but
the steam engine had come and was filling the world with a sound that
had nothing in common with the dreams of the Third Symphony.
Indeed, the new order of steam and iron and coal and large factories had
little use for art, for painting and sculpture and poetry and music. The
old protectors of the arts, the Church and the princes and the merchants
of the Middle Ages and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries no
longer existed. The leaders of the new industrial world were too busy
and had too little education to bother about etchings and sonatas and
bits of carved ivory, not to speak of the men who created those things,
and who were of no practical use to the community in which they lived.
And the workmen in the factories listened to the drone of their engines
until they too had lost all taste for the melody of the flute or fiddle
of their peasant ancestry. The arts became the step-children of the
new industrial era. Art and Life became entirely separated. Whatever
paintings had been left, were dying a slow death in the museums. And
music became a monopoly of a few "virtuosi" who took the music away from
the home and carried it to the concert-hall.
But steadily, although slowly, the arts are coming back into their own.
People begin to understand that Rembrandt and Beethoven and Rodin are
the true prophets and leaders of their race and that a world without art
and happiness resembles a nursery without laughter.