THE MEANS OF THE VARIOUS ARTS
We have sought the aim which underlies all artistic creation and were
led in this search to paths which seem far away from our special
problem, the art of the photoplay. Yet we have steadily come nearer to
it. We had to go the longer way because there can be no other method to
reach a decision concerning the esthetic value and significance of the
photoplay. We must clearly see what art in general aims at if we want to
recognize the relative standing of the film art and the art of the
theater. If we superficially accept the popular idea that the value of
the photoplay is to be measured by the nearness with which it approaches
the standards of the real theater and that the task of the theater is to
imitate life as closely as possible, the esthetic condemnation of the
photoplay is necessary. The pictures on the screen then stand far
behind the actual playing on the stage in every respect. But if we find
that the aim of art, including the dramatic art, is not to imitate life
but to reset it in a way which is totally different from reality, then
an entirely new perspective is opened. The dramatic way may then be only
one of the artistic possibilities. The kinematoscopic way may be
another, which may have entirely different methods and yet may be just
as valuable and esthetically pure as the art of the theater. The drama
and the photoplay may serve the purpose of art with equal sincerity and
perfection and may reach the same goal with sharply contrasting means.
Our next step, which brings us directly to the threshold of the
photoplayhouse, is, accordingly, to study the difference of the various
methods which the different arts use for their common purpose. What
characterizes a particular art as such? When we have recognized the
special traits of the traditional arts we shall be better prepared to
ask whether the methods of the photoplay do not characterize this film
creation also as a full-fledged art, coördinated with the older forms of
beauty.
We saw that the aim of every art is to isolate some object of experience
in nature or social life in such a way that it becomes complete in
itself, and satisfies by itself every demand which it awakens. If every
desire which it stimulates is completely fulfilled by its own parts,
that is, if it is a complete harmony, we, the spectators, the listeners,
the readers, are perfectly satisfied, and this complete satisfaction is
the characteristic esthetic joy. The first demand which is involved in
this characterization of art is that the offering of the artist shall
really awaken interests, as only a constant stirring up of desires
together with their constant fulfillment keeps the flame of esthetic
enjoyment alive. When nothing stirs us, when nothing interests us, we
are in a state of indifference outside the realm of art. This also
separates the esthetic pleasure from the ordinary selfish pleasures of
life. They are based on the satisfaction of desires, too, but a kind of
satisfaction through which the desire itself disappears. The pleasure in
a meal, to be sure, can have its esthetic side, as often the harmony of
the tastes and odors and sights of a rich feast may be brought to a
certain artistic perfection. But mere pleasure in eating has no
esthetic value, as the object is destroyed by the partaking and not only
the cake disappears but also our desire for the cake when the desire is
fulfilled and we are satiated. The work of art aims to keep both the
demand and its fulfillment forever awake.
But then this stirring up of interests demands more than anything else a
careful selection of those features in reality which ought to be
admitted into the work of art. A thousand traits of the landscape are
trivial and insignificant and most of what happens in the social life
around us, even where a great action is going on, is in itself
commonplace and dull and without consequences for the event which stirs
us. The very first requirement for the artistic creation is therefore
the elimination of the indifferent, the selection of those features of
the complex offering of nature or social life which tell the real story,
which express the true emotional values and which suggest the interest
for everything which is involved in this particular episode of the
world. But this leads on to the natural consequence, that the artist
must not only select the important traits, but must artificially
heighten their power and increase their strength. We spoke of the
landscape with the tree on the rock and the roaring surf, and we saw how
the scientist studies its smallest elements, the cells of the tree, the
molecules of the seawater and of the rock. How differently does the
artist proceed! He does not care even for the single leaves which the
photographer might reproduce. If a painter renders such a landscape with
his masterly brush, he gives us only the leading movements of those
branches which the storm tears, and the great swing in the curve of the
wave. But those forceful lines of the billows, those sharp contours of
the rock, contain everything which expresses their spirit.
It is not different with the author who writes a historical novel or
drama. Every man's life is crowded with the trivialities of the day. The
scholarly historian may have to look into them; the artist selects those
events in his hero's life which truly express his personality and which
are fit to sustain the significant plot. The more he brings those few
elements out of the many into sharp relief, the more he stimulates our
interest and makes us really feel with the persons of his novel or
drama. The sculptor even selects one single position. He cannot, like
the painter, give us any background, he cannot make his hero move as on
the theater stage. The marble statue makes the one position of the hero
everlasting, but this is so selected that all the chance aspects and
fleeting gestures of the real man appear insignificant compared with the
one most expressive and most characteristic position which is chosen.
However far this selection of the essential traits removes the artistic
creation from the mere imitative reproduction of the world, a much
greater distance from reality results from a second need if the work is
to fulfill the purposes of art. We saw that we have art only when the
work is isolated, that is, when it fulfills every demand in itself and
does not point beyond itself. This can be done only if it is sharply set
off from the sphere of our practical interests. Whatever enters into our
practical sphere links itself with our impulses to real action and the
action would involve a change, an intrusion, an influence from without.
As long as we have the desire to change anything, the work is not
complete in itself. The relation of the work to us as persons must not
enter into our awareness of it at all. As soon as it does, that complete
restfulness of the esthetic enjoyment is lost. Then the object becomes
simply a part of our practical surroundings. The fundamental condition
of art, therefore, is that we shall be distinctly conscious of the
unreality of the artistic production, and that means that it must be
absolutely separated from the real things and men, that it must be
isolated and kept in its own sphere. As soon as a work of art tempts us
to take it as a piece of reality, it has been dragged into the sphere of
our practical action, which means our desire to put ourselves into
connection with it. Its completeness in itself is lost and its value for
our esthetic enjoyment has faded away.
Now we understand why it is necessary that each art should have its
particular method for fundamentally changing reality. Now we recognize
that it is by no means a weakness of sculpture that the marble statue
has not the colors of life but a whiteness unlike any human being. Nor
does it appear a deficiency in the painting or the drawing that it can
offer two dimensions only and has no means to show us the depth of real
nature. Now we grasp why the poet expresses his feelings and thoughts in
the entirely unnatural language of rhythms and rhymes. Now we see why
every work of art has its frame or its base or its stage. Everything
serves that central purpose, the separation of the offered experience
from the background of our real life. When we have a painted garden
before us, we do not want to pick the flowers from the beds and break
the fruit from the branches. The flatness of the picture tells us that
this is no reality, in spite of the fact that the size of the painting
may not be different from that of the windowpane through which we see a
real garden. We have no thought of bringing a chair or a warm coat for
the woman in marble. The work which the sculptor created stands before
us in a space into which we cannot enter, and because it is entirely
removed from the reality toward which our actions are directed we become
esthetic spectators only. The smile of the marble girl wins us as if it
came from a living one, but we do not respond to her welcome. Just as
she appears in her marble form she is complete in herself without any
relation to us or to anyone else. The very difference from reality has
given her that self-sustained perfect life.
If we read in a police report about burglaries, we may lock our house
more securely; if we read about a flood, we may send our mite; if we
read about an elopement, we may try to find out what happened later. But
if we read about all these in a short story, we have esthetic enjoyment
only if the author somehow makes it perfectly clear to us by the form of
the description that this burglary and flood and elopement do not belong
to our real surroundings and exist only in the world of imagination. The
extreme case comes to us in the theater performance. We see there real
human beings a few feet from us; we see in the melodrama how the villain
approaches his victim from behind with a dagger; we feel indignation and
anger: and yet we have not the slightest desire to jump up on the stage
and stay his arm. The artificial setting of the stage, the lighted
proscenium before the dark house, have removed the whole action from the
world which is connected with our own deeds. The consciousness of
unreality, which the theater has forced on us, is the condition for our
dramatic interest in the events presented. If we were really deceived
and only for a moment took the stage quarrel and stage crime to be real,
we would at once be removed from the height of esthetic joy to the level
of common experience.
We must take one step more. We need not only the complete separation
from reality by the changed forms of experience, but we must demand also
that this unreal thing or event shall be complete in itself. The artist,
therefore, must do whatever is needed to satisfy the demands which any
part awakens. If one line in the painting suggests a certain mood and
movement, the other lines must take it up and the colors must sympathize
with it and they all must agree with the pictured content. The tension
which one scene in the drama awakens must be relieved by another.
Nothing must remain unexplained and nothing unfinished. We do not want
to know what is going on behind the hills of the landscape painting or
what the couple in the comedy will do after the engagement in the last
act. On the other hand, if the artist adds elements which are in harmony
with the demands of the other parts, they are esthetically valuable,
however much they may differ from the actual happenings in the outer
world. In the painting the mermaid may have her tail and the sculptured
child may have his angel wings and fairies may appear on the stage. In
short, every demand which is made by the purpose of true art removes us
from reality and is contrary to the superficial claim that art ought to
rest on skillful imitation. The true victory of art lies in the
overcoming of the real appearance and every art is genuine which
fulfills this esthetic desire for history or for nature, in its own way.
The number of ways cannot be determined beforehand. By the study of
painting and etching and drawing merely, we could not foresee that there
is also possible an art like sculpture, and by studying epic and lyric
poetry we could not construct beforehand the forms of the drama. The
genius of mankind had to discover ever new forms in which the interest
in reality is conserved and yet the things and events are so completely
changed that they are separated from all possible reality, isolated from
all connections and made complete in themselves. We have not yet spoken
about the one art which gives us this perfect satisfaction in the
isolated material, satisfies every demand which it awakens, and yet
which is further removed from the reality we know than any other
artistic creation, music. Those tones with which the composer builds up
his melodies and harmonies are not parts of the world in which we live
at all. None of our actions in practical life is related to tones from
musical instruments, and yet the tones of a symphony may arouse in us
the deepest emotions, the most solemn feelings and the most joyful ones.
They are symbols of our world which bring with them its sadness and its
happiness. We feel the rhythm of the tones, fugitive, light and joyful,
or quiet, heavy and sustained, and they impress us as energies which
awaken our own impulses, our own tensions and relaxations.
We enter into the play of those tones which with their intervals and
their instrumental tone color appear like a wonderful mosaic of
agreements and disagreements. Yet each disagreement resolves itself into
a new agreement. Those tones seek one another. They have a life of their
own, complete in itself. We do not want to change it. Our mind simply
echoes their desires and their satisfaction. We feel with them and are
happy in their ultimate agreement without which no musical melody would
be beautiful. Bound by the inner law which is proclaimed by the first
tones every coming tone is prepared. The whole tone movement points
toward the next one. It is a world of inner self-agreement like that of
the colors in a painting, of the curves in a work of sculpture, like the
rhythms and rhymes in a stanza. But beyond the mere self-agreement of
the tones and rhythms as such, the musical piece as a whole unveils to
us a world of emotion. Music does not depict the physical nature which
fine arts bring to us, nor the social world which literature embraces,
but the inner world with its abundance of feelings and excitements. It
isolates our inner experience and within its limits brings it to that
perfect self-agreement which is the characteristic of every art.
We might easily trace further the various means by which each particular
art overcomes the chaos of the world and renders a part of it in a
perfectly isolated form in which all elements are in mutual agreement.
We might develop out of this fundamental demand of art all the special
forms which are characteristic in its various fields. We might also
turn to the applied arts, to architecture, to arts and crafts, and so on
and see how new rules must arise from the combination of purely artistic
demands and those of practical utility. But this would lead us too far
into esthetic theory, while our aim is to push forward toward the
problem of the photoplay. Of painting, of drama, and of music we had to
speak because with them the photoplay does share certain important
conditions and accordingly certain essential forms of rendering the
world. Each element of the photoplay is a picture, flat like that which
the painter creates, and the pictorial character is fundamental for the
art of the film. But surely the photoplay shares many conditions with
the drama on the stage. The presentation of conflicting action among men
in dramatic scenes is the content, on the stage as on the screen. Our
chief claim, however, was that we falsify the meaning of the photoplay
if we simply subordinate it to the esthetic conditions of the drama. It
is different from mere pictures and it is different from the drama, too,
however much relation it has to both. But we come nearer to the
understanding of its true position in the esthetic world, if we think
at the same time of that other art upon which we touched, the art of the
musical tones. They have overcome the outer world and the social world
entirely, they unfold our inner life, our mental play, with its feelings
and emotions, its memories and fancies, in a material which seems exempt
from the laws of the world of substance and material, tones which are
fluttering and fleeting like our own mental states. Of course, a
photoplay is not a piece of music. Its material is not sound but light.
But the photoplay is not music in the same sense in which it is not
drama and not pictures. It shares something with all of them. It stands
somewhere among and apart from them and just for this reason it is an
art of a particular type which must be understood through its own
conditions and for which its own esthetic rules must be traced instead
of drawing them simply from the rules of the theater.