The Elements Of Art.
_The True, the Good, the Beautiful._
Though Delsarte be acknowledged the discoverer of the law of æsthetics,
he may have held points in common with many who before him had had
presentiments of its coming and had instinctively experienced its force.
Premonitions precede the discovery as complements should follow.
The True, the Good, the Beautiful, constituent elements of æsthetics,
have been diversely interpreted. From his intellectual observatory, a
zenith whence the artist-philosopher viewed clearly the whole and the
details, he may be supposed to have gained light beyond any which could
have come to his predecessors.
I will, then, resume my parallel from this point of view.
The True, the Good and the Beautiful were not made, in the school of
Delsarte, objects of special teaching. By definitions, reflections and
illustrations of the master, they were shown to enter fully into the
science and method--a part of it distinguishable and inseparable. The
master, in his demonstrations, commonly employed various well-known
maxims which were always accredited to their authors. Thus, from Plato:
"The Beautiful is the splendor of the True." From St. Thomas Aquinas,
in regard to science: "In creation all is done by number, weight and
measure." From St. Augustine (for he often quoted from sacred works):
"Moral beauty is the brilliancy of the Good."
But I must proceed in order. I owe it to the sincerity of my endeavor to
explain first the æsthetic work of Delsarte as shown me by his own
teachings.
_The True._
The True Illuminates the Thought.
To determine the signification of the _True_, we must first ask what is
_truth?_ It has been defined as: "A fixed principle, an axiom." The term
truth has been applied to such or such maxims; but there are few
assertions not subject to discussion or which would be accepted as
decisive without comment. They have not that piercing clearness which
determines conviction by simple apprehension or at first sight.
The dictionary of the Academy is more explicit in its statement: "Truth
is the conformity of the idea to its object." But a preferable
definition is that of Madame Clémence Royer: "Truth is the concept of
the spirit in regard to the reality of things and the laws which govern
them." This philosophical statement is readily adapted to the True in
the arts, which is acquired by the observation of nature and adaptation
of the lawful ideal.
How, then, may we recognize the True in æsthetics according to this
definition? The artist, first and above all, should disregard no law of
nature, but when he aspires to great works, "the concept of his spirit
in regard to the reality of things and their laws" should lead him to
idealize what he sees, translating his personal conception of the
Beautiful and the Sublime, if his flight carry him so far.
The word Art is more comprehensive in that which it expresses, than the
word True. _Art_ completes itself by its other elements, the _Beautiful_
and the _Good_. Plato, and the philosophers in general, treated of truth
from the stand-point of philosophy rather than of art. Still the great
Athenian seemed to believe in a sort of celestial museum, where the
artist, penetrating by intuition, was inspired by a vision, more or less
clear, of the masterpieces of divine conception.
Delsarte approached in a certain sense this very idea, but his doctrine
of the True in art, although depending upon the mystic basis of a holy
Trinity, brought forth developments both rational and scientific which
leave far behind the Platonic hypothesis.
In the system of Delsarte it is no longer a vague ideal dimly
perceptible, which must guide the artist in the execution of his work,
for the _innovator_ says expressly that "the divine thought is written
in man himself." It is therefore at the command of every one who seeks
truth to make it manifest in art. In the new system, man being at once
the _artist_ and _object of art_, literary men, sculptors and painters
proceed from a basis ever to be observed and studied, to rise from the
True to the Ideal. Here the flight must be more rapid and, above all,
less deceptive than the purely mystic fancy of Plato.
We shall see in considering the _Beautiful_ in the arts, that far from
giving rise to arbitrary and fantastic conceptions, the great ideal must
become, according to the science and method of the master,--the
aggrandizement and the harmony of the faculties of the human being.
_The Good._
The Good Sanctifies the Soul.
What is the Good in art? Here again the philosophical standard bars the
way and demands priority. What, then, is _Good_ independent of varied
feelings and of all the varied and contradictory interests of human
subjectivity which encumber it in the minds of the multitude of thinking
people?
The Good, after this elimination, is reduced or rather elevated to one
simple idea, so general and requisite is it. The Good seems to be that
which can give to the greatest number of beings, existing in the
universe (conformably to their hierarchy), the greatest sum of happiness
and perfection, considering, for humanity, the importance of the mutual
relations of the faculties. If this be true of the Good in life, is not
a way clearly traced for art, whose mission is to embellish existence?
And, further, if it be incontestable, that man cannot transgress the
laws of his nature without wronging his intelligence and his happiness,
even his strength and beauty, how shall art merit our love and homage if
its power be exerted to excite inferior faculties and subversive
passions? Are not _poise_ and _harmony_ the best conditions of existence
for the human organism? That which Plato demanded for the _Beautiful_ in
favor of the _True_--namely, splendor--Delsarte demanded also of _art_
in favor of the _Good_. His thought is summed up in this formula, "Man
is the object of art." Man, being artist, becomes the agent of
æsthetics. Man, in his humanity, is the goal toward which should tend
all the efforts and experiments of the art-moralizer.
The master maintained the possibility of reaching this end by two
opposing ways, not contradictory; _i.e._, the production of the
Beautiful under its physical, mental and moral forms; and by the
manifestation of the Ugly under the same forms, exhibiting what he
called the _hideousness of vice_. Immorality may be rendered poetical
and artistic, because of its being a corruption of the moral, often
preserving the imprint of its origin, even throughout its greatest
errors. Its agitation, its combats and its defeats interest the judgment
and the heart. The Ugly or unseemly, morally speaking, is the synonym of
vice.
The Ugly in the language of the arts has many diverse significations. It
is in these shades and variable proportions that it affects our subject,
but the depicting of repulsive things, foreign to morality, to
sentiment and to passion, has no right to exist in æsthetics. It may be
possible to cure a vice by showing its hideousness. But does this
warrant such exciting of the disgust of the senses? It is an outrage to
the worship of the Beautiful, without compensation of any kind.
There can be no advantage to humanity in exhibiting the hideousness of
disease or the monstrosities of certain natural phenomena! Open to them
the museums of comparative anatomy, but close the galleries consecrated
to the fine arts! There exist also monstrosities which are not included
in these categories; they present no moral danger, but are disagreeable
and repulsive to good taste. They consist of fantastic forms, in
accordance with the spirit of an inferior civilization, reminding one of
the misshapen and gigantic prehistoric animals, whose bones astound us,
and which disappeared from our globe that man might appear.
Among cultivated contemporaries these eccentricities spring from an
inclination toward originality, caprice, grotesque taste; from a similar
impulse to that which directs literature toward burlesque and parodies,
and the plastic arts toward caricature. Such productions may please some
distinguished and intelligent natures which cannot have been highly
favored in the distribution of the delicacies of sentiment and the
exquisite graces of wit. In a word, the art indulging in this class of
manifestations acts according to the _mode simpliste_. I borrow this
term from Charles Fourier, and I say once for all, that by it I mean not
the entire, but the almost exclusive predominance of one or the other of
the modalities of the human being. Here the _simplisme_ being altogether
intellectual, while it is inferior to manifestations in which the being
expands harmoniously, it wounds no essential in the synthesis of the
_me_; while a predomination of the sensual to the same degree is most
pernicious to that which delights in it and antipathetic to those who do
not live solely in the material aspects of existence.
Existing among the elements of æsthetics, as the faculties of man, are
certain dependencies, connections, affinities, penetrations, which
render an abstraction of one of them almost impossible. Thus I have
anticipated allusions to the Beautiful in considering the Good. By thus
connecting them, the better to distinguish them, I have reached the
conclusion that moral evil should never be manifested in the arts unless
with the view of redressing it. In this case the better its real
characteristics are studied, the more strongly they are accentuated
throughout, the more successful the work will be from the plastic point
of view, and the more power it will have to repel those inward wrongs
which it denounces, and this even though the intention of the artist
should not touch this result.
_The Beautiful._
The Beautiful Purifies the Emotions.
At first glance, it might seem the privilege of each one to say, "The
Beautiful is that which appears to me as such." I believe in this
regard, that the most capable artist, should he be also the most perfect
logician, would never be able to persuade sainted and simple ignorance
that it should not remain firmly grounded upon faith in its own
impressions.
Place Hugo, Mercié, Bonnat, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Joncières in the
presence of simple countrymen--or, what is worse still, of inferior
artists and critics, of pretentious amateurs--and you will see by what
supercilious, incredulous gestures, being incapable of argument, this
satisfied ignorance will repel all assertions of the great authorities.
Should we, therefore, disregard this reluctance to recognize the
features of the Beautiful in great works? We must at least deduce from
it the fact that the effect of art depends upon some relation between
the observer and the thing observed.
Notwithstanding the reality of the beauties of such or such a work, in
the eyes of many appreciators, the subjectivity of each observer should
remain decisive, _vis-à-vis_ to himself, as long as he cannot be
convinced by the authority of a law; and, finally, it is imperative that
his comprehension of that law should be rendered possible by preliminary
studies. On the contrary, shall that which has been recognized as
beautiful by the initiated ever since artists created, and enlightened
criticism discussed and judged it, appear now before uncultivated
criticism as without authority?
In default of law and science, there is a sort of universal consent
among competent thinkers; and their appreciation of the highest class of
works is maintained by a process of adhesion carried on by every
conversion from ignorant blindness to the light of appreciation.
The question of subjectivity in the declared judgments in æsthetics has
given rise to incessant controversies which began, perhaps, among the
Greeks and are going on among us. Though no absolute decision has been
reached, some excellent maxims have resulted. In default of an
irrefutable definition of the Beautiful, there have been given us
images, analogies and thoughts upon the subject which approach and
prepare for such definitions:
Victor Cousin has said: "It is reason which decides as to the Beautiful
and reduces it to the sensation of the agreeable, and taste has no
further law."
"Aversion accompanies the Ugly (unseemly) as love walks hand in hand
with the Beautiful."
"The Beautiful inspires love profound but not passionate."
"The artist perceives only the Beautiful where the sensual man sees only
the attractive or frightful."
And, again, "That is sublime which presents the idea of the Infinite."
This last thought brings us to Delsarte, who, perhaps, was its
inspiration.
The following valuable thoughts of the master, while not related
scientifically to his system, are still allied to its physical and
philosophical aspects:
"Form," says the innovator in æsthetics, "is the vestment of substance;
it is the expressive symbol of a mysterious truth; it is the stamp of a
hidden virtue, the actuality of being; in a word, form is the plastic of
the Ideal."
"The Beautiful is the transparency of the aptitudes of the agent, and it
radiates from the faculties which govern it. It is order which results
from the dynamical disposition of forms."
"Beauty is the reason which presides at the creation of things; it is
the invisible power which draws us and subjugates us in them."
"The Beautiful comprises three characters, which we distinguish under
the following titles: Ideal, moral and plastic beauty."
By the enunciation of these three categories, Delsarte enters upon the
positive aspect of his system. As the result of the careful examination
of the aptitudes or faculties of the Ego, approachable by analysis and
applied to æsthetics, he has established this first class of
manifestations (ideal beauty) as requisite to art. This must result from
a combination of the faculties; the possibilities of combination being
infinite, but always in subjection to the human being. The artist,
according to this personal power of inspiration, should be able to
portray a totality of superior and harmonious qualities, such as will
oblige any competent observer to recognize it as beautiful. We have
taken a step into the realm of the Ideal; that is to say, we have
touched that which, without departing from the law, surpasses
conventional rule and the natural types accepted for the Beautiful.
Before following the Ideal into its ethereal region, we will further
consider the nature of its foundation, which is a combination of the
three mother faculties which Delsarte declares to be, in æsthetics, the
criterion of the law and the foundation of the science. We already
recognize these as the physical, mental and moral aspects of the human
being.
The plastic art allies itself particularly to the physical constitution,
but the physique cannot be perfectly beautiful unless it manifests
intellectual and moral faculties.
Moral and intellectual beauty reveal themselves in the human being under
the empire of passion and of sentiment, and the physique is momentarily
transformed. The artist should seize beauty at this moment of fullest
perfection, above the normal conditions of human existence and perhaps
beyond possible plastic beauty.
Behold what glorious possibility for the direction of the artist's
aspirations toward the Beautiful! But even this happy chance by no means
includes all of the possible conceptions of the Ideal, and neither does
it furnish us any absolute idea or definition. This vision of beauty,
made ideal by exaltation of the intelligence and the emotion, can only
be perceived by the artist of practiced observation and of that
intuitive perception which is the gift of nature.
Again considered, the Ideal, being relative as well as the Beautiful, of
which it is the exuberance, we must remember that the word is far from
corresponding to an idea of absolute beauty. Thus the Ideal of an
ordinary taste is not so high as that of a person whose standard of
beauty is superior, and the two will be very distant from the image
conceived by the pen, the chisel or the brush of a great artist. In many
cases the Ideal is nothing but a searching for the intention of nature,
obliterated by the circumstances and accidents of life. Then the task of
the artist should be to reëstablish the type in his logic--a vulgar face
may be portrayed by a skilful brush--and, while preserving its features,
there may be put into it the culture of intellect and noble sentiments.
An artist, for instance, will see in a woman, whom time has tried,
certain elements of beauty which enable him to portray her nearly as she
was at the age of twenty years. He should be able to divine in the young
girl, according to the normal development of her features, her
appearance at the complete unfolding of her beauty. Yes; in these
different cases the artist shall have idealized, since he shall have
comprehended, penetrated, interpreted and rectified nature. Still, he
may not yet have attained to the comprehension of perfect beauty, such,
at least, as human emotion and intellect can conceive, and such as we
love to imagine as inhabiting the superior spheres of the universe of
which we know nothing further than the dictate of our reason, namely,
that they are inhabited by beings more or less like ourselves.
When these sublime effects appear in art, it is as though a veil were
torn, revealing glimpses of a world of ideas, emotions and impressions,
surpassing our comprehension, approachable only by our aspirations.
Thus, Delsarte, superior to his science, has shown us the artist in full
possession of all that he has acquired, and the inmost charm of that
which is revealed to him. In execution he proved this truth: If talent
may be born of science, it is genius which distinguishes the highest
personalities, and to merit the title of high artistic personality one
must contain in himself an essence indescribable, unutterable, which
constitutes the aureole of grand brows, and the sign luminous of great
works of art.
Thus, as virtue, art has its degrees.
Art, in its most simple expression, is the faithful representation of
nature. If the conception of a work or of a type is elevated to a degree
of perfection which satisfies at once the plastic sense, the emotion and
the intellect, we will call it Grand Art.
Finally, if, in the presence of a creation, we recognize perfect
harmony (which goes beyond perfect proportion); if the work call forth
in us that contemplative ecstasy which gives us the impression and, as
it were, the vision of pure beauty, shall we not recognize Supreme Art?
The system of Delsarte responds to all these desiderata of æsthetics. In
his law he gives us the necessary bases; by his science he indicates the
practical means, by his method and illustrations he completes the
science and demonstrates the law. Where is place left for doubt or
contradiction?
He stated what he knew and how he had learned it. In his recitals
occurred innumerable beautiful proofs of his greatness and simplicity,
oftentimes more convincing than lengthy, involved argument could ever
be.
Some may ask: How can a positive science lead toward an ideal which
cannot be touched, heard not seen? Would not this science be the
antipode (some would say _antidote_) of the mystic dreams of Plato and
of Delsarte himself?
Reply is easy. Delsarte recognized in our mental consciousness that
desire for research into the unknown which would sound the mysteries of
nature. He did not disregard that intuitive force of imagination which
can often form from simple known elements the concept of conditions
superior to the tangible.
Between this nature, which we hear and see and touch, and that nature
which the artist feels, imagines, and to which he aspires, Delsarte has
placed a ladder whose base is among us, and whose summit is lost in the
infinite spaces of fiction and poesy. By this ascent into the realm of
liberty, of personality and of genius, the elect of æsthetics shall
mount and gain, and, still maintaining their relations with the Real,
shall bring down to us the glorious trophies of their art.
Delsarte, foremost among men, had climbed the magic ladder. His
exquisite harmonies in the dramatic art and lyric declamation were
beautiful indeed, but the æsthetic beauties which he brought forth in
the roles that he interpreted, must, alas! disappear with him. He has
left us the bases of his science, but who shall so beautifully tread the
way--reigning by song amidst a thousand accents of devoted enthusiasm!