ART
Schopenhauer's theory of the beautiful is the side of his philosophy
which has always made so potent an appeal to artists, and to all those
lovers of the beautiful, for whom art represents the supreme
significance of life.
The present for Schopenhauer is only an infinitesimal moment between
two eternities, the past and the future. It is "a flash of light
between two darknesses." Now how is man to make the best of this brief
moment, under the hard conditions of his destiny? The answer to this
question Schopenhauer finds in his theory of the function of art. He
links up into intimate relation his theory of æsthetic with his
philosophical pessimism, but his pessimism is modified considerably in
the process.
There are certain men, he maintains, who can free themselves from the
bondage of the will. They can throw off its yoke, and, released from
all the aims of desire, they can become disinterested spectators of the
real, essential nature of the world. The inner meaning of their clear,
deep vision they can interpret to others. Such men are artists, and
the interpretation of their vision is the work of art. In art are
revealed the eternal truths of the nature of man and the universe,
revealed with a power and directness to which science can never attain.
Artists, then, are the seers, the visionaries, who penetrate into the
hidden, vital principles of things. They alone have power to interpret
{53} the half-uttered speech of nature, and disentangle that which is
real and essential, the inner truth, from that which is accidental and
transitory. The road to philosophy, then, leads through the gateway of
art.
In this theory Schopenhauer starts from Plato's doctrine of the Ideas.
The particular objects of sense, which we know, are mere appearances.
They have no reality in themselves. They arise and pass away, they
always become and never are. But there exist also the types and
eternal forms of things, which do not enter into time and space, and
which remain fixed, subject to no change. These constitute the sole
reality. Plato called them the Ideas, and Schopenhauer adopts this
term from the Platonic philosophy. The Ideas for Schopenhauer
represent the different grades of the objectification of the will,
which are manifested in the individuals. These are the eternal forms
or prototypes of individual things.
Our knowledge of the ordinary things of sense-experience is indirect,
it is gained by way of the intellect. Our knowledge of the Ideas, on
the other hand, is direct and immediate, it is gained through
intuition. In his account of the Ideas, or the real, essential nature
of things, Schopenhauer is treading already the path of mysticism,
along which he works out his theories of ethics.
Now the whole function of art is to reproduce the eternal ideas, to
seize on that which is essential and abiding in all the phenomena of
the world. The one and only source of art is the knowledge of true
reality, of the Ideas. The one aim of art is the communication of this
knowledge. According to the material in which this vision of true
reality is reproduced, it is architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry,
or music.
{54}
Science can only follow the unresting and inconstant stream of
appearances. It can never reach a final goal nor attain complete
satisfaction, any more than by running we can reach the place where the
clouds touch the horizon. But art, on the other hand, is everywhere at
its goal. It plucks the object of its contemplation out of the stream
of things as they seem, and holds it isolated before its vision. And
this particular thing, which in the stream of the world's course was a
small perishing part, becomes to art the representative of the whole,
the type of the endless multitude in space and time. Art, therefore,
pauses before this reality, which it perceives in the particular thing.
The course of time stands still; relations vanish before it; only the
essential, the Idea, remains as the object of the artist's vision. In
the multitudinous and manifold forms of human life, and in the
unceasing change of events, the artist looks only on the Idea, knowing
it as the abiding and the essential, as that which is known with equal
truth for all time. Art, therefore, is the bridge between two worlds.
It leads us from things as they seem to things as they really are.
It is the genius who possesses this power of vision, and whose magic
works can unfold before the eyes of ordinary mortals the spirit of
beauty as she has revealed herself to him. Entirely in this spirit
does Blake express his sense of the poet's mission:
"I rest not from my great task
To open the eternal worlds, to open the immortal eyes
Of man inwards; into the worlds of thought; into Eternity
Ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human Imagination.
The method of genius is always artistic, as opposed to scientific. The
nature of genius consists in a surpassing capacity for the pure
contemplation of Ideas. {55} It is the faculty of continuing in the
state of pure perception, of losing the personality in perception, and
of enlisting in this service the knowledge which existed originally
only for the service of the will. Genius, then, is the power of
leaving one's own interests, wishes, and aims entirely out of sight, of
renouncing entirely one's own personality for a time, so as to remain
pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world. This state must be
achieved, not merely at moments, but for a sufficient length of time,
and with sufficient consciousness, to enable the artist to reproduce by
deliberate art what has thus been seized by his inner vision. He must
fix in lasting thoughts the wavering images that float before the mind:
"But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality."
It is as if, says Schopenhauer, when genius appears in an individual, a
far greater measure of the power of knowledge falls to his lot than is
necessary for ordinary men. This excess of knowledge, being free, now
becomes subject purified from will, a clear mirror of the inner nature
of the world.
Imagination is an essential element in genius, and it is a necessary
condition that it should be possessed in an extraordinary degree.
Imagination extends the horizon far beyond the limits of actual
personal experience, and so enables the artist to construct the whole
dream, the complete vision, out of the little that comes into his own
actual apperception.
The actual objects are almost always but imperfect copies of the ideas
expressed in them. Therefore the artist requires imagination in order
to see in things, not that which nature has actually made, but that
which {56} she endeavoured to make, but could not, because of the
never-ceasing conflict between the various forms of will. Through the
penetrating vision of this imagination, the artist recognises the Idea.
He understands the half-uttered speech of nature, and is able to
articulate clearly what she only stammered forth.
The common mortal, he says, that manufacture of nature, which she
produces by the thousand every day, is not capable of observation that
is wholly disinterested in every sense. He can turn his attention to
things only so far as they have some relation to his will, however
indirect it may be. This is why he is so soon done with everything,
with works of art, objects of natural beauty, and everywhere with all
that is truly significant in the various scenes of life. He does not
linger in the pursuit of beauty, but seeks only to gain his own way in
life. On the consideration of the significance of life as a whole, he
wastes no time. The artist, on the other hand, strives to understand
the inner nature of everything. His faculty of vision is to him the
sum which reveals the world.
In spite of his contempt for the majority of men, Schopenhauer has to
admit that the faculty of perceiving the Idea, the inner reality, must
exist in nearly all men, in a smaller and different degree, otherwise
they would be just as incapable of enjoying works of art as of
producing them. They would have no susceptibility to beauty, nor to
sublimity. All men, therefore, who are capable of æsthetic pleasure at
all, must be capable to some extent of knowing the Idea in things, and
in responding to the call of beauty, of transcending their personality
for the moment.
Æsthetic pleasure is the same whether it is evoked by a work of art or
by the contemplation of nature, for {57} the Idea remains unchanged and
the same. The work of art is only a means of making permanent the
vision in which this pleasure consists. The artist does not add "the
gleam, the light that never was on sea or land," but his vision is more
finely attuned to the reality than that of ordinary men. He makes
permanent in the various media of art "the consecration and the poet's
dream." His work acts as a communicating spark from mind to mind.
In one of Carlyle's most suggestive passages, he insists on the
spiritual and symbolic nature of the work of art, in words that echo
curiously the thought of Schopenhauer. "In all true works of art," he
says, "thou wilt discern eternity looking through time, the godlike
rendered visible ... a hierarch therefore, and pontiff of the world
will we call him, the poet and inspired maker, who Prometheus-like can
shape new symbols, and bring new fire from heaven to fix it there."
That the Idea, the true reality behind appearance, is revealed with so
much more force and clearness in the productions of art than directly
in nature is due to the power of the artist to abstract the pure Idea,
the reality, from the actual and the accidental, omitting all
disturbing, non-essential qualities. He disentangles that which is
real and essential from the confused mass presented in experience. The
artist lets us see the real world through his eyes. That he has these
eyes, that he knows the inner nature of things, apart from all their
relations, is the gift of genius. This gift is inborn, and cannot be
acquired. But that the artist is able to lend us this gift, and let us
see through his eyes, is acquired. This is the technical side of his
art.
Primarily, then, the genius is the artist. Scientific {58} genius
finds no place in Schopenhauer's scheme. Statesmen are of very
different fibre. Their intellect retains a practical tendency, and is
concerned with the choice of the best means to practical ends,
remaining therefore in the service of the will. The eminent man, who
is fitted for great achievement in the practical sphere of life, is so
because objects rouse his will in a strong degree, and spur him on to
the investigation of their relations. His intellect, therefore, has
grown up in close connection with his will.
Talent is limited to detecting the relations which exist between
individual phenomena, whereas genius rises to a vision of the universal
in the individual. The genius has a vision of another and a deeper
world, because he sees more profoundly into the world which lies before
him. "To compare useful people with men of genius is like comparing
building stone with diamonds." Mere men of talent come always at the
right time, for they are called forth by the needs of their own age.
The genius, on the other hand, comes into his age like a comet, whose
eccentric course is foreign to its well-regulated order. Genius
appears only as a perfectly isolated exception.
Schopenhauer never states definitely that a philosopher may be a
genius, but he always seems to assume that he himself belongs to the
heavenly company. He gives a detailed description of the genius, even
to his physical appearance. With his usual habit of generalising from
his own particular case, he endows the genius with many of his own
personal characteristics, even to his dislike of mathematics.
The Platonic theory of Ideas was the basis on which Schopenhauer built
his philosophy of art. But Plato's own theory of the function of art
differed fundamentally {59} from that of Schopenhauer, and it is
interesting to compare the two views. To Plato it seemed that art was
concerned with the imitation of things as they seem, not as they really
are; with the objects of sense perception and not with the Ideas. The
artist mutates the illusory appearances of concrete things.
Consequently the work of art is still further removed from true
reality, from the Idea, than is the thing of experience. It is a copy
of a copy. This led him to the statement that works of art are thrice
removed from the truth. They can be produced easily without any
knowledge of the truth, for they are concerned only with appearances,
and not with the reality that lies behind appearances. Hence Plato's
rejection of art. In his system it is not art, but philosophy that
gives a direct revelation of truth. Schopenhauer, on the other hand,
maintains that it is not the concrete object of experience, but the
reality itself which lies behind that object, with which the artist is
supremely concerned. The artist alone among men has the capacity of
vision to see and grasp the truth of this reality. Such capacity of
vision is reserved by Plato for philosophers, those whom he calls
"lovers of the vision of truth."
In his earlier works, Plato approximates far more closely to
Schopenhauer's theory. He speaks there of the poet as "a light and
winged and holy thing. There is no invention in him until he has been
inspired.... Beautiful poems are not human or the work of man, but
divine and the work of God. The poets are only the interpreters of the
gods, by whom they are severally possessed."
The value of art for Schopenhauer lies mainly in its power to deliver
us from the slavery of the will. In the quiet contemplation of beauty
revealed in art, we are {60} delivered from the misery of life.
Willing, he maintains, arises from want, and therefore from suffering.
The satisfaction of a wish ends it, but every satisfied wish at once
makes room for a new one, and both are illusions. No attained object
of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting
gratification. It is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps
him alive today, that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow.
Without peace no true well-being is possible. But when some external
cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream
of willing, and knowledge is delivered from the slavery of the will, we
have a vision of things free from this relation of the will. We can
observe them without personal interest, without subjectivity. Then,
all at once, the peace which we are always seeking, but which always
fled from us on the path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord,
and it is well with us. This is the painless state, which Epicurus
prized as the highest good, and as the state of the gods. We are then
set free from the miserable striving of the will. It is this
deliverance that art effects for us, and which is accomplished only by
the inner power of the artistic nature. Art frees us from all
subjectivity, from the bondage of the will. This freeing of knowledge
lifts us out of all the misery of endless desire, as wholly and
entirely as do sleep and dreams. Happiness and unhappiness have
disappeared. We are no longer individuals. We are only that one eye
of the world, which looks out from all knowing creatures, but which can
become perfectly free from the service of the will in man alone. Art
provides us with a sphere, in which we can escape from all our misery,
and can attain to a state of temporary peace and painlessness.
{61}
There is a curious affinity between the æsthetic theories of one of the
mediæval mystics and those of Schopenhauer. St. Thomas Aquinas, the
greatest of the schoolmen, expounded views in the thirteenth century
akin in many respects to those set forth by Schopenhauer at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. Beauty, he held, is the
revelation of reason in sensuous shape, and he proceeds further to say
that in the realisation of beauty desire is quieted.
Art is the most joy-giving and the only innocent side of life. It is,
says Schopenhauer, in the full significance of the word, the flower of
life. The pleasure which we receive from all beauty, the consolation
which art affords, enables us to forget the cares of life. This
pleasure consists in the contemplation of the Ideas, in the
contemplation of the inner truth of life, which reveals to us a drama
full of significance. In entering into the state of pure
contemplation, our happiness lies in the sense of being lifted, for the
time being, above all willing, beyond all wishes and desires. We
become freed from ourselves. These moments when, sunk in contemplation
and enjoyment of the work of art, we are delivered from the ardent
striving of the will, when we seem to rise out of the heavy atmosphere
of earth, these moments are the happiest which we ever know.
The arts themselves Schopenhauer arranges according to their
subject-matter rather than according to their medium. He places them
in very much the same order as that in which Hegel puts them.
Architecture, painting and sculpture, poetry and music are each
discussed in turn.
_Music_.--Music is the apex of his whole system of æsthetics. It is
placed by itself, outside and above all the other arts. For it is not,
like the other arts, a copy {62} of the Ideas, but it is the copy of
the will itself. In the main Schopenhauer's treatment of music is
mystical. Hegel too gave to music the supreme position among the arts.
It was the central romantic art in his system, and the mysterious
magical enchantment of music is painted by him with glowing eloquence.
The effect of music, says Schopenhauer, on the inmost nature of man, is
powerful beyond that of any of the other arts. For that great and
exceedingly noble art stands alone, quite apart from the other arts.
In it there is no copy or repetition of any Idea of existence in the
world. It is understood by man in his inmost consciousness as a
universal language, the distinctness of which surpasses that of the
visible world itself. The basis of modern music lies in the numerical
relations which underlie sounds. Arithmetical proportions enter into
and have some part in the pleasure which we derive from music, as
Leibnitz points out, but this does not account for that passionate
delight with which we hear the deepest recesses of our nature find
expression in sound. If we take the æsthetic effect as a criterion, we
must attribute to music a far deeper and more vital significance than
that which lies at the basis of the other arts. This is connected with
the inmost nature of man and the world. Its representative relation to
the world must be very deep, absolutely true, and extraordinarily
accurate, because it is understood immediately by everyone. It has the
appearance of a certain infallibility, because its form may be reduced
to quite definite rules, expressed in numbers, from which it cannot
free itself without ceasing to be music. The obscure relation of music
to the world has never been made clear.
In order to explain this relation, Schopenhauer says {63} he gave his
mind entirely to the impression of music in all its aspects, and then
returned to apply his reflections to his system of thought. We know
that he had invaluable opportunities of studying music, in its various
forms, during the time that he was working out his system at Dresden.
He himself practised daily the use of a musical instrument. The result
of his investigation is an explanation, which he admits is impossible
of proof, because it regards music as the copy of an original, which
can never itself be presented directly as idea. But he maintains that
in order to assent with full conviction to his theory of the
significance of this art, it is only necessary to listen frequently to
music, testing the theory at the time, and reflecting constantly upon
it.
The other arts represent the Ideas in the particular things, the
realities that lie behind the visible world, but music is independent
altogether of the world of concrete things. It ignores completely this
aspect of life. It could to a certain extent exist even if there was
no world at all. Music, then, is not the copy of the Ideas, but the
copy of the Will itself. That is why the effect of music is so much
more powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts, for they
speak only of shadows, but it speaks of the thing itself.
Browning relates music to the will in one of his best-known poems, when
he makes Abt Vogler say:
"But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them, and lo, they are!
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star."
Schopenhauer, in working out the details of his theory, tries to
establish an analogy between music and {64} the Ideas of the visible
world, connecting the lower tones with the lowest grades of the
objectification of the will, those of inorganic nature, and leading up
gradually through the intermediate grades until the higher tones are
reached, representing the other end of the scale, the highest organic
forms of life. The melody, the high singing part, represents the
intelligent life and effort of man, and progresses with unrestrained
freedom, while it dominates the whole. This represents the unbroken,
significant connection of one continuous thought. The melody,
therefore, has significant intentional connection from beginning to
end. It records the history of the will enlightened by intellect. In
the world of experience the will expresses itself in action. But
melody does more, it expresses the inner side of the action, drawing
out from the deeps its secret history, its motives and efforts, its
passionate yearning and inner excitements, all that which the reason
includes in the concept of feeling. For this reason music has been
called the language of feeling and passion, as words are the language
of the reason. In melody there is a constant deviation from the
keynote in a thousand ways, yet there always follows a constant return
to the keynote. In all these digressions and deviations melody
expresses the manifold efforts of the will. Its satisfaction is also
expressed by the final return to a harmonious interval, and to the
keynote. In melody, therefore, the composer reveals all the deepest
secrets of human willing and feeling.
His work lies far from all reflection and conscious intention, and
flows directly from inspiration. The abstract conception is here, as
everywhere in art, unfruitful. The composer reveals the inner nature
of the world, and expresses the deepest wisdom in a language {65} which
his reason does not understand. In the same way, a person under the
influence of mesmerism tells things of which he has no conception when
he wakes. In the composer, more than in any other artist, the man is
entirely separate and distinct from the artist.
As quick transition from wish to satisfaction is well-being, so quick
melodies are cheerful. Slow melodies are analogous to the delayed and
hardly-won satisfaction, and are sad. Quick dance music seems to speak
only of easily attained and common pleasure. Adagio movements speak of
the pain of a great and noble striving, which despises all trivial
happiness.
The effect of the major and the minor key is equally marked. In
general, music consists of a constant succession of more or less
disquieting chords, chords which excite "immortal longings," and also
of more or less quieting and satisfying chords, just as the life of the
heart is a constant succession of feelings of disquietude and of peace,
following desire and satisfaction. Just as there are two general
fundamental moods of the feelings, serenity and sadness, so music has
two keys, which correspond to these, the major and the minor. Since
music is founded deeply in the nature of man, the dominant national
mood is reproduced invariably in a country's music. We find
accordingly that the minor key prevails in Russian music, while allegro
in the minor is characteristic of French music, "as if one danced while
one's shoe pinched."
But in all these analogies music has no direct, but only an indirect
relation to them. It does not express particular and definite joys,
sorrows, pains, or horrors, but joy, sorrow, pain, or horror itself,
the real, inner nature of each emotion. It is the essential character
of these emotions that is represented, without disturbing {66}
accessories. Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its
events, never the events themselves. This inner meaning of life, the
eternal truth of things, is felt and understood immediately when we
listen to great music. "All things eternal," wrote Wagner, "can be
expressed with unmistakable certainty in music." And in another
passage, he says, "Music can never and in no possible alliance cease to
be the highest, the redeeming art. It is of her nature, that what all
the other arts but hint at, through her and in her becomes the most
indubitable of certainties, the most direct and definite of truths."
It is for this reason that our imagination is excited so easily by
music, and that we seek to give it form by clothing it with words.
This is the origin of opera and songs.
Wagner built up a whole theory of music, based on the philosophy of
Schopenhauer. But in their views on opera they differed fundamentally.
The text of opera, says Schopenhauer, should never forsake a
subordinate position. The music should never become a mere means of
expressing the words. That is a great misconception of the function of
music, for music should always be universal. It is just its
universality, which belongs exclusively to it, that gives music its
high worth as "the panacea for all our woes." If music is too closely
united to the words, and tries to express itself according to outward
events, it is striving to speak a language which is not its own.
Schopenhauer mentions Rossini as the composer who is most free from
this mistake. His music speaks so clearly that it requires no words to
explain it.
Nature and music, then, are merely two different expressions of the
same thing. Music is a universal {67} language, expressing the inner
nature of the world. It resembles geometrical figures and numbers.
They are the universal forms of all possible objects of experience, and
yet are not abstract, but concrete and determined. All that goes on in
the heart of man, and that is included in the concept of feeling, may
be expressed by an infinite number of possible melodies, but always
universally. Music represents the inmost soul of the event, without
the body. We might therefore just as well call the world embodied
music as embodied will. For this reason music makes every scene of
real life, and of the world, more profoundly significant. It lays bare
the inmost kernel which lies hidden in the heart of all things. It
penetrates to the very heart of nature. The ineffable joy which we
derive from music, which haunts our consciousness as the vision of a
distant paradise, restores to us all the emotions of our inmost nature,
but divested entirely of the sting of actuality, and far removed from
its pain.
It is interesting to compare the view of Schopenhauer, that music is a
copy of the will itself, with the theory of Plato and Aristotle, which
maintained that music is a direct reflection of character. The modern
art of music was not developed in their day, and yet both these
philosophers seem to have had prophetic insight in understanding the
nature of the marvellous spell and power of sound. Music to them was
an imitation, a copy of character, and as such of profound importance
in education. Music reflects character, and therefore moulds and
influences it. The foundations of character, says Plato, are laid in
music, which charms the souls of the young into the path of virtue.
Rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul,
making the soul harmonious and graceful. {68} "If our youth are to do
their work in life, they must make harmony their perpetual aim," and
the soul can only be reached and educated in this way through music.
It is Schopenhauer's theory of music which has influenced most directly
the world of art. It was hailed by Wagner as a revelation, and it
determined his musical development and all his æsthetic theories.
Through Wagner it may be said to have revolutionised much of modern
music. After reading _The World as Will and Idea_, Wagner wrote, "I
must confess to having arrived at a clear understanding of my own works
of art through the help of another, who has provided me with the
reasoned conceptions corresponding to my intuitive principles." This
philosophy contained, he said, the intellectual demonstration of the
conflict of human forces, which he himself had demonstrated
artistically.
_Architecture_.--In Schopenhauer's arrangement of the arts, music, as
we have seen, occupies the supreme place, being the highest expression
in art which man can achieve. At the other end of the scale stands
architecture. Its aim is to bring to greater distinctness some of the
ideas which represent the lowest grades of the will, such as gravity,
cohesion, rigidity, and hardness. These are the universal qualities of
stone, and the simplest, most inarticulate manifestations of will.
They may be called the bass notes of nature. The conflict between
gravity and rigidity is the sole æsthetic material of architecture.
Its problem is to make this conflict appear distinctly in a multitude
of different ways. The beauty of a building lies in the obvious
adaptation of every part to the stability of the whole. The position,
size, and form of every part must be so {69} related to the whole, that
it forms a necessary and inevitable part of an organic unity. Each
arch, column, and capital must be determined by its relation to the
whole building.
It is the function of architecture to reveal also the nature of light.
For the light is intercepted, confined, and reflected by the mass of
the building. It is thrown into high relief by the receding forms,
which supply the contrasting depths of shade. It thus unfolds its
nature and qualities in the clearest and most definite way. It is not
merely form and symmetry which appeal to us in architecture, but
primarily the fundamental forces of nature, the simplest qualities of
matter. The quality of the material, therefore, is of great
importance. The fundamental law of architecture is that no burden
shall be without sufficient support, and no support without a suitable
burden. The purest example of this principle is the column and
entablature. In separating completely the support and burden in the
column and entablature, the reciprocal action of the two and their
relation to each other become perfectly clear. For this reason the
simplest building in Italy gives æsthetic pleasure, due to the flatness
of the roof. A high roof is neither support nor burden, for its two
halves support each other. It serves merely a useful end, presenting
to the eye an extended mass, which is wholly alien to the æsthetic
sense. Architecture requires large masses, in order to be felt
adequately, and it must work out its own character under the law of the
most perfect clearness to the eye. It exists in space-perception, and
must make a direct and inevitable appeal to the æsthetic sense. This
demands symmetry, which is necessary to mark out the work as a whole.
It is only through symmetry that a work of architecture reveals itself
as {70} an organic unity and as the development of a central thought.
Architecture ought not to imitate the forms of nature, and yet it
should work in the spirit of nature. It should reveal the end in view
quite openly, and should avoid everything which is merely aimless.
Thus it achieves the grace which is the result of ease, and the
subordination of every detail to its purpose.
It follows from Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture that he held
Greek work of the best period to be the highest type of building which
it is possible to attain. In its best examples that style is perfect
and complete, and is not susceptible of any important improvement. The
modern architect, he held, cannot depart, to any great extent, from the
rules and models of the Greeks, without descending the path of
deterioration. There remains nothing for him to do but to apply the
art transmitted to him, and to carry out the rules laid down, so far as
he is able under the limitations of climate, age, and country.
Schopenhauer, therefore, had no appreciation of Gothic architecture.
The simple rationality of the Greek temple delights him, but the Gothic
cathedral leaves him cold and unmoved. He makes the naïve admission,
that approval of Gothic architecture would upset all his theories of
the æsthetic significance of architecture. To compare the two is, he
says, a barbarous presumption, although he allows, somewhat grudgingly,
that a certain beauty of its own cannot be denied to the Gothic style.
Our pleasure in it, however, is to be traced mainly to the association
of ideas, and to historical memories. That pure rationality by which
every part admits instantly of strict account in its subordination to
the plan as a whole, is not to be found in Gothic work. Greek
architecture is conceived in a {71} purely objective spirit, whereas
Gothic is rather subjective in spirit. But Schopenhauer cannot reason
away entirely the impression created by the Gothic interior. That, he
admits, is the finest part of the whole, and it is here that the mind
is impressed by the effect of the groined vaulting, borne by slender,
aspiring pillars, soaring upwards. All burden seems to have
disappeared, promising eternal security. Most of the faults, however,
appear upon the exterior, whereas in Greek buildings the exterior is
the finer; in the interior the flat roof retains something depressing
and prosaic.
Of the ideals and aspirations which the great builders of the Middle
Ages so wonderfully transmuted into stone, Schopenhauer has nothing to
tell us. The men "who sang their souls in stone" were for him
pre-eminently the builders of Greek temples.
In his insistence on the open display of the relation between burden
and support, and also on the importance of bringing out the qualities
of the material, Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture recalls many
passages in Ruskin, in which he insists repeatedly, that both truth and
feeling require that the conditions of support should be clearly
understood, and that the quality of the material must find expression.
The analogy of architecture to music is one of the most characteristic
and suggestive portions of Schopenhauer's æsthetic. He emphasises the
great difference between the two arts, pointing out that according to
their inner nature, in their potency, extent, and significance they are
indeed true antipodes. Architecture exists in space, unrelated to
time, whereas music is in time alone, having no relation to space. But
the principle which gives coherency to architecture is symmetry, that
which gives coherency to music is rhythm. The {72} close relationship
between these two principles is obvious. It is this resemblance which
has led to the saying that architecture is "frozen music," which
Schopenhauer quotes from Goethe.
This relation between the two arts, however, extends only to the
outward form. In their inner nature they are entirely different. In
essential qualities, Schopenhauer maintains, architecture is the most
limited and the weakest of all the arts, whereas music is the most
far-reaching, and possesses the deepest significance.
_Painting and Sculpture_.--Filling an intermediate position between
architecture and music come painting and sculpture. These arts
represent more complex grades of the will than architecture, and
therefore convey the truth of life with deeper insight. They too are
concerned with the Ideas, and symbolise the inner reality of outward
things and events. Lowest in the scale of the various kinds of
painting come the painting of landscape and of still life, in which the
subjective side of æsthetic pleasure is predominant. Our satisfaction
consists less in the vision and comprehension of the Ideas than in the
state of mind aroused. We receive a reflected sense of the deep
spiritual peace and absolute silence of the will, which are necessary
in order to enter so completely into the character of these lifeless
objects. It would be impossible to bring the modern art of landscape
painting, with its revolt against a purely objective representation of
nature, into line with this analysis of Schopenhauer's.
Next in the scale comes the painting and sculpture of animals, and then
follows the plastic representation of the human form. The artist
expresses in marble or paint that beauty of form which nature has
failed to complete, and which has to be disentangled from the {73}
obscuring cloud of trivial and accidental details. In virtue of this
anticipation through art, it is possible for us to recognise beauty
when nature by a rare chance does achieve a masterpiece. Human beauty
is the fullest objectification of the will at the highest grade which
is known. It is expressed through form. In sculpture, beauty and
grace are the principal qualities. The special character of the mind,
represented by expression, is the peculiar sphere of painting.
Historical painting aims at beauty, grace, and character. The inward
significance of an action, which is the depth of insight into the Idea
which it reveals, must be brought to light. Only the inward
significance concerns art, the outward belongs to history. The
countless scenes and events which make up the life of men are important
enough to be the object of art, for by their rich variety they unfold
the many-sided Idea of humanity.
No event of human life is excluded from painting. The painters of the
Dutch school, for example, are great artists, not only in virtue of
their technical skill, but because they have seized the inner
significance of the things and actions they have depicted. They have
real depth of insight into reality. What is peculiarly significant is
not the individual, nor the particular event, but that which is
universal in the individual.
Schopenhauer held that the highest achievements of the art of painting
were reached by the Italian painters of the early Renaissance,
especially by Raphael and Correggio. We see in them, says
Schopenhauer, a complete grasp of the Ideas, and thus the whole nature
of life and the world. In them we find the spirit of complete
resignation, which is the inmost spirit of early Christianity, as well
as of Indian philosophy. There {74} are portrayed the surrender of all
volition, the suppression of the will. In this way these great artists
expressed the highest wisdom, which is the summit of all art.
_Poetry_.--Poetry too represents the ideal in individual creations.
Its aim, like the other arts, is the revelation of the Ideas. The poet
must understand how to draw the abstract and universal out of the
concrete and individual, by the manner in which he combines them. The
universality of every concept must be narrowed more and more, until we
reach the concrete image, for the poet must express the universal in
concrete form. The whole of nature can be represented in the medium of
poetry. The extent of its province is boundless. Thoughts and
emotions, however, are its peculiar province, and here no other art can
compete with it. That which has significance in itself, and not in its
relations, the real unfolding of the Idea, is found definitely and
distinctly in poetry. More genuine inner truth is to be found in
poetry than in history. The poet's knowledge is intuitive, and by its
means he shows us in the mirror of his mind the Idea, pure and
distinct, bringing to the consciousness of others that which they feel
and do. In the epic, the poem of romance, and the tragedy, selected
characters are placed in those circumstances in which all their special
qualities unfold themselves, and the depths of the human heart are
revealed, and become visible in significant actions.
Tragedy is the summit of poetic art. Here the unspeakable pain, the
wail of humanity, the triumph of evil, the mastery of chance is
unfolded before us. It is one and the same will that appears
throughout. Knowledge reaches the point at which it is no longer
deceived by the veil of Mâyâ, the web of illusion. Thus the noblest
men, after long conflict and suffering, at last renounce for ever the
ends they have so eagerly pursued. {75} The heroes and heroines of
tragedy die, purified by suffering, after the will to live is dead.
The true import of tragedy is that the hero expiates, not his own
individual sins, but the crime of existence itself. Tragedy, then,
presents the highest grade of the objectification of the will, in
conflict with itself, on a scale of grandeur and awful impressiveness.
The greatest poetry is symbolic in this deepest sense.
Goethe may be considered one of the greatest symbolists among poets.
Every event in life was symbolic for him. It expressed something more
universal, more extensive, more profound. The concrete image, the
whole full-blooded individual was always clearly before his mind, but
beyond that he saw and realised something more universal, from which it
necessarily and inevitably springs. He saw that the truth of nature
does not lie on the surface, but in a deeper unity, which the
penetrative insight of the artist alone can grasp.
In the system of Schopenhauer, then, art acquires almost the character
of a religion. It becomes the means by which the ultimate essence, the
soul of whatever exists, is disengaged from the world of matter. And
"in this dutiful waiting upon every symbol, by which the soul of things
can be made visible, art at last attains liberty. In speaking to us so
intimately, so solemnly, as only religion had hitherto spoken to us, it
becomes itself a kind of religion, with all the duties and
responsibilities of the sacred ritual."
There is a deep significance in the historical fact, that the birth of
religion is interwoven invariably with that of the origin of art.
Aristotle connects closely the rise of various forms of poetry with
religious celebrations. Art and religion were born simultaneously, and
have always been closely related in the history of mankind.
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