give the name of Artist, has by no means satisfied himself as yet; that
his desire seems to him too narrow, too limited; that he busies himself
about more individuals, varieties, kinds, species, in such wise that
at last not the creature itself, but the Idea of the creature stands
before him, and he is able to express this by means of his art.
_Guest._--Bravo! That is just my man, and his work must be
characteristic.
_I._--No doubt.
_Guest._--And there I would stop and go no farther.
_I._--But we go beyond this.
_Guest._--I stop here.
_Uncle._--I will go along for the sake of experiment.
_I._--By this operation we may arrive at a canon useful indeed, and
scientifically valuable, but not satisfactory to the soul of man.
_Guest._---How then are you going to satisfy the fantastic demands of
this dear soul?
_I._--Not fantastic; it is only not satisfied in its just claims. An
old tradition informs us that the Elohim once took counsel together,
saying, let us make man after our own image; and man says therefore,
with good cause, let us make gods and they shall be in our image.
_Guest._--We are getting into a dark region.
_I._--There is only one light that can aid us here.
_Guest._--And that is?
_I._--Reason.
_Guest._--How far it be a guide or a will-o’-wisp is hard to say.
_I._--We need not give it a name; but let us ask ourselves what are
the demands the soul makes of a work of art. It is not enough that it
fulfils a limited desire, that it satisfies our curiosity, or gives
order and stability to our knowledge; that which is Higher in us must
be awakened; we must be inspired with reverence, and feel ourselves
worthy of reverence.
_Guest._--I begin to be at a loss to comprehend you.
_Uncle._--But I think I am able to follow in some measure;--how far,
I shall try to make clear by an example. We will suppose our artist
had made an eagle in bronze which perfectly expressed the idea of the
species, but now he would place him on the sceptre of Jupiter. Do you
think it would be perfectly suitable there?
_Guest._--It would depend.
_Uncle._--I say, No! The artist must first impart to him something
beyond all this.
_Guest._--What then?
_Uncle._--It is hard to express.
_Guest._--So I should think.
_I._--And yet something may be done by approximation.
_Guest._--To it then.
_I._--He must give to the eagle what he gave to Jupiter, in order to
make him into a God.
_Guest._--And this is--
_I._--The Godlike,--which in truth we should never become acquainted
with, did not man feel and himself reproduce it.
_Guest._--I continue to hold my ground, and let you ascend into the
clouds. I see that you mean to indicate the high style of the Greeks,
which I prize only so far as it is characteristic.
_I._--It is something more to us, however; it answers to a high demand,
but still not the highest.
_Guest._--You seem to be very hard to satisfy.
_I._--It beseems him to demand much for whom much is in store. Let me
be brief. The human soul is in an exalted position when it reverences,
when it adores; when it elevates an object and is elevated by it again.
But it cannot remain long in this state. The general concept of genus
leaves it cold; the Ideal raises it above itself; but now it must
return again into itself; and it would gladly enjoy once more that
affection which it then felt for the Individual, without coming back
to the same limited view, and will not forego the significant, the
spirit-moving. What would become of it now, if Beauty did not step in
and happily solve the riddle? She first gives life and warmth to the
Scientific, and breathing her softening influence and heavenly charm
over even the Significant and the High, brings it back to us again. A
beautiful work of art has gone through the entire circle; it becomes
again an Individual that we can embrace with affection, that we can
make our own.
_Guest._--Have you done?
_I._--For the present. The little circle is completed; we have come
back to our starting point; the soul has made its demands, and those
demands have been satisfied. I have nothing further to add. (Here our
good uncle was peremptorily called away to a patient.)
_Guest._--It is the custom of you philosophic gentlemen to engage in
battle behind high-sounding words, as if it were an ægis.
_I._--I can assure you that I have not now been speaking as a
philosopher. These are mere matters of experience.
_Guest._--Do you call that experience, whereof another can comprehend
nothing?
_I._--To every experience belongs an organ.
_Guest._--Do you mean a separate one?
_I._--Not a separate one; but it must have one peculiarity.
_Guest._--And what is that?
_I._--It must be able to produce.
_Guest._--Produce what?
_I._--The experience! There is no experience which is not brought
forth, produced, created.
_Guest._--This is too much!
_I._--This is particularly the case with artists.
_Guest._--Indeed! How enviable would the portrait painter be, what
custom would he not have, if he could reproduce all his customers
without troubling people with so many sittings!
_I._--I am not deterred by your instance, but rather am convinced
no portrait can be worth anything that the painter does not in the
strictest sense create.
_Guest_ (springing up).--This is maddening! I would you were making
game of me, and all this were only in jest. How happy I should be to
have the riddle explained in that manner! How gladly would I give my
hand to a worthy man like you!
_I._--Unfortunately, I am quite in earnest, and cannot come to any
other conclusion.
_Guest._--Now I did hope that in parting we should take each other’s
hand, especially since our good host has departed, who would have
held the place of mediator in your dispute. Farewell, Mademoiselle!
Farewell, Sir! I shall inquire to-morrow whether I may wait on you
again.
So he stormed out of the door, and Julia had scarce time to send the
maid, who was ready with the lantern, after him. I remained alone with
the sweet child, for Caroline had disappeared some time before,--I
think about the time that my opponent had declared that mere beauty,
without character, must be insipid.
You went too far, my friend, said Julia, after a short pause. If he did
not seem to me altogether in the right, neither can I give unqualified
assent to you; for your last assertion was only made to tease him. The
portrait painter must make the likeness a pure creation?
Fair Julia, I replied, how much I could wish to make myself clear to
you upon this point. Perhaps in time I shall succeed. But you, whose
lively spirit is at home in all regions, who not only prize the artist
but in some sense anticipate him, and who know how to give form to what
your eyes have never seen, as if it stood bodily before you, you should
be the last to start when the question is of creation, of production.
_Julia._--I see it is your intention to bribe me. That will not be
hard, for I like to listen to you.
_I._--Let us think well of man, and not trouble ourselves if what we
say of him may sound a little bizarre. Everybody admits that the poet
must be born. Does not every one ascribe to genius a creative power,
and no one thinks he is repeating a paradox? We do not deny it to works
of fancy; but the inactive, the worthless man will not become aware of
the good, the noble, the beautiful, either in himself or others. Whence
came it, if it did not spring from ourselves? Ask your own heart. Is
not the method of intercourse born with intercourse? Is it not the
capacity for good deeds that rejoices over the good deed? Who ever
feels keenly without the wish to express that feeling? and what do we
express but what we create? and in truth, not once only, that it may
exist and there end, but that it may operate, ever increase, and again
come to life, and again create. This is the god-like power of love, of
the singing and speaking of which there is no end, that it reproduces
at every moment the noble qualities of the beloved object, perfects it
in the least particulars, embraces it in the whole, rests not by day,
sleeps not by night, is enchanted with its own work, is astonished at
its own restless activity, ever finds the familiar new, because at
every moment it is re-created in the sweetest of all occupations. Yes,
the picture of the beloved cannot grow old, for every moment is the
moment of its birth.
The maid returned from lighting the stranger. She was highly satisfied
with his liberality, for he had given her a handsome _pourboire_; but
she praised his politeness still more highly, for he had dismissed her
with a friendly word, and, moreover, called her “Pretty Maid.”
I was not in a humor to spare him, and exclaimed: “Oh, yes! I can
easily credit that one who denies the ideal should take the common for
the beautiful.”
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Alois Hirt, protagonist of the theory of the
“characteristic.”
[4] Schiller.
ON TRUTH AND PROBABILITY IN WORKS OF ART
_A Dialogue_
(1798)
In a certain German theatre there was represented a sort of oval
amphitheatrical structure, with boxes filled with painted spectators,
seemingly occupied with what was being transacted below. Many of the
real spectators in the pit and boxes were dissatisfied with this, and
took it amiss that anything so untrue and improbable was put upon them.
Whereupon the conversation took place of which we here give the general
purport.
_The Agent of the Artist._--Let us see if we cannot by some means agree
more nearly.
_The Spectator._--I do not see how such a representation can be
defended.
_Agent._--Tell me, when you go into a theatre, do you not expect all
you see to be true and real?
_Spectator._--By no means! I only ask that what I see shall appear true
and real.
_Agent._--Pardon me if I contradict even your inmost conviction and
maintain this is by no means the thing you demand.
_Spectator._--That is singular! If I did not require this, why should
the scene painter take so much pains to draw each line in the most
perfect manner, according to the rules of perspective, and represent
every object according to its own peculiar perfection? Why waste so
much study on the costume? Why spend so much to insure its truth, so
that I may be carried back into those times? Why is that player most
highly praised who most truly expresses the sentiment, who in speech,
gesture, delivery, comes nearest the truth, who persuades me that I
behold not an imitation, but the thing itself?
_Agent._--You express your feelings admirably well, but it is harder
than you may think to have a right comprehension of our feelings. What
would you say if I reply that theatrical representations by no means
seem really true to you, but rather to have only an appearance of truth?
_Spectator._--I should say that you have advanced a subtlety that is
little more than a play upon words.
_Agent._--And I maintain that when we are speaking of the operations
of the soul, no words can be delicate and subtle enough; and that this
sort of play upon words indicates a need of the soul, which, not being
able adequately to express what passes within us, seeks to work by way
of antithesis, to give an answer to each side of the question, and
thus, as it were, to find the mean between them.
_Spectator._--Very good. Only explain yourself more fully, and, if you
will oblige me, by examples.
_Agent._--I shall be glad to avail myself of them. For instance, when
you are at an opera, do you not experience a lively and complete
satisfaction?
_Spectator._--Yes, when everything is in harmony, one of the most
complete I know.
_Agent._--But when the good people there meet and compliment each other
with a song, sing from billets that they hold in their hands, sing you
their love, their hatred, and all their passions, fight singing, and
die singing, can you say that the whole representation, or even any
part of it, is true? or, I may say, has even an appearance of truth?
_Spectator._--In fact, when I consider, I could not say it had. None of
these things seems true.
_Agent._--And yet you are completely pleased and satisfied with the
exhibition?
_Spectator._--Beyond question. I still remember how the opera used to
be ridiculed on account of this gross improbability, and how I always
received the greatest satisfaction from it, in spite of this, and find
more and more pleasure the richer and more complete it becomes.
_Agent._--And you do not then at the opera experience a complete
deception?
_Spectator._--Deception, that is not the proper word,--and yet,
yes!--But no--
_Agent._--Here you are in a complete contradiction, which is far worse
than a quibble.
_Spectator._--Let us proceed quietly; we shall soon see light.
_Agent._--As soon as we come into the light, we shall agree. Having
reached this point, will you allow me to ask you some questions?
_Spectator._--It is your duty, having questioned me into this dilemma,
to question me out again.
_Agent._--The feeling you have at the exhibition of an opera cannot be
rightly called deception?
_Spectator._--I agree. Still it is a sort of deception; something
nearly allied to it.
_Agent._--Tell me, do you not almost forget yourself?
_Spectator._--Not almost, but quite, when the whole or some part is
excellent.
_Agent._--You are enchanted?
_Spectator._--It has happened more than once.
_Agent._--Can you explain under what circumstances?
_Spectator._--Under so many, it would be hard to tell.
_Agent._--Yet you have already told when it is most apt to happen,
namely, when all is in harmony.
_Spectator._--Undoubtedly.
_Agent._--Did this complete representation harmonize with itself or
some other natural product?
_Spectator._--With itself, certainly.
_Agent._--And this harmony was a work of art?
_Spectator._--It must have been.
_Agent._--We have denied to the opera the possession of a certain sort
of truth. We have maintained that it is by no means faithful to what it
professes to represent. But can we deny to it a certain interior truth,
which arises from its completeness as a work of art?
_Spectator._--When the opera is good, it creates a little world of
its own, in which all proceeds according to fixed laws, which must be
judged by its own laws, felt according to its own spirit.
_Agent._--Does it not follow from this, that truth of nature and truth
of art are two distinct things, and that the artist neither should nor
may endeavor to give his work the air of a work of nature?
_Spectator._--But yet it has so often the air of a work of nature.
_Agent._--That I cannot deny. But may I on the other hand be equally
frank?
_Spectator._--Why not? our business is not now with compliments.
_Agent._--I will then venture to affirm, that a work of art can seem
to be a work of nature only to a wholly uncultivated spectator; such
a one the artist appreciates and values indeed, though he stands on
the lowest step. But, unfortunately, he can only be satisfied when
the artist descends to his level; he will never rise with him, when,
prompted by his genius, the true artist must take wing in order to
complete the whole circle of his work.
_Spectator._--Your remark is curious; but proceed.
_Agent._--You would not let it pass unless you had yourself attained a
higher step.
_Spectator._--Let me now make trial, and take the place of questioner,
in order to arrange and advance our subject.
_Agent._--I shall like that better still.
_Spectator._--You say that a work of art could appear as a work of
nature only to an uncultivated person?
_Agent._--Certainly. You remember the birds that tried to eat the
painted cherries of the great master?
_Spectator._--Now does not that show that the cherries were admirably
painted?
_Agent._--By no means. It rather convinces me that these connoisseurs
were true sparrows.
_Spectator._--I cannot, however, for this reason concede that this work
could have been other than excellent.
_Agent._--Shall I tell you a more modern story?
_Spectator._--I would rather listen to stories than arguments.
_Agent._--A certain great naturalist, among other domesticated animals,
possessed an ape, which he missed one day, and found after a long
search in the library. There sat the beast on the ground, with the
plates of an unbound work of Natural History scattered about him.
Astonished at this zealous fit of study on the part of his familiar,
the gentleman approached, and found, to his wonder and vexation, that
the dainty ape had been making his dinner of the beetles that were
pictured in various places.
_Spectator._--It is a droll story.
_Agent._--And seasonable, I hope. You would not compare these colored
copperplates with the work of so great an artist?
_Spectator._--No, indeed.
_Agent._--But you would reckon the ape among the uncultivated amateurs?
_Spectator._--Yes, and among the greedy ones! You awaken in me a
singular idea. Does not the uncultivated amateur, just in the same
way, desire a work to be natural, that he may be able to enjoy it in a
natural, which is often a vulgar and common way?
_Agent._--I am entirely of that opinion.
_Spectator._--And you maintain, therefore, that an artist lowers
himself when he tries to produce this effect?
_Agent._--Such is my firm conviction.
_Spectator._--But here again I feel a contradiction. You did me just
now the honor to number me, at least, among the half-cultivated
spectators.
_Agent._--Among those who are on the way to become true connoisseurs.
_Spectator._--Then explain to me, Why does a perfect work of art appear
like a work of nature to me also?
_Agent._--Because it harmonizes with your better nature. Because it is
above natural, yet not unnatural. A perfect work of art is a work of
the human soul, and in this sense, also, a work of nature. But because
it collects together the scattered objects, of which it displays even
the most minute in all their significance and value, it is above
nature. It is comprehensible only by a mind that is harmoniously
formed and developed, and such an one discovers that what is perfect
and complete in itself is also in harmony with himself. The common
spectator, on the contrary, has no idea of it; he treats a work of
art as he would any object he meets with in the market. But the true
connoisseur sees not only the truth of the imitation, but also the
excellence of the selection, the refinement of the composition, the
superiority of the little world of art; he feels that he must rise to
the level of the artist, in order to enjoy his work; he feels that he
must collect himself out of his scattered life, must live with the
work of art, see it again and again, and through it receive a higher
existence.
_Spectator._--Well said, my friend. I have often made similar
reflections upon pictures, the drama, and other species of poetry, and
had an instinct of those things you require. I will in future give more
heed both to myself and to works of art. But if I am not mistaken,
we have left the subject of our dispute quite behind. You wished to
persuade me that the painted spectators at our opera are admissible,
and I do not yet see, though we have come to an agreement, by what
arguments you mean to support this license, and under what rubric I am
to admit these painted lookers-on.
_Agent._--Fortunately, the opera is repeated to-night; I trust you will
not miss it.
_Spectator._--On no account.
_Agent._--And the painted men?
_Spectator._--Shall not drive me away, for I think myself something
more than a sparrow.
_Agent._--I hope that a mutual interest may soon bring us together
again.
SIMPLE IMITATION OF NATURE, MANNER, STYLE
(1789)
It does not seem to be superfluous to define clearly the meaning we
attach to these words, which we shall often have occasion to make use
of. For, however long we may have been in the habit of using them, and
however they may seem to have been defined in theoretical works, still
every one continues to use them in a way of his own, and means more or
less by them, according to the degree of clearness or uncertainty with
which he has seized the ideas they express.
_Simple Imitation of Nature_
If an artist, in whom we must of course suppose a natural talent, is in
the first stage of progress, and after having in some measure practised
eye and hand, turns to natural objects, uses all care and fidelity in
the most perfect imitation of their forms and colors, never knowingly
departs from nature, begins and ends in her presence every picture that
he undertakes,--such an artist must possess high merit, for he cannot
fail of attaining the greatest accuracy, and his work must be full of
certainty, variety and strength.
If these conditions are clearly considered, it will be easily seen
that a capable but limited talent can in this way treat agreeable but
limited subjects.
Such subjects must always be easy to find. Leisurely observation and
quiet imitation must be allowed for; the disposition that occupies
itself in such works must be a quiet one, self-contained, and satisfied
with moderate gratification.
This sort of imitation will thus be practised by men of quiet, true,
limited nature, in the representation of dead or still-life subjects.
It does not by its nature exclude a high degree of perfection.
_Manner_
But man finds, usually, such a mode of proceeding too timid and
inadequate. He perceives a harmony among many objects, which can only
be brought into a picture by sacrificing the individual. He gets tired
of using Nature’s letters each time to spell after her. He invents
a way, devises a language for himself, so as to express in his own
fashion the idea his soul has attained, and give to the object he has
so many times repeated a distinctive form, without having recourse
to nature itself each time he repeats it, or even without recalling
exactly the individual form.
Thus a language is created, in which the mind of the speaker expresses
and utters itself immediately; and as in each individual who thinks,
the conceptions of spiritual objects are formed and arranged
differently, so will every artist of this class see, understand,
and imitate the outward world in a different manner, will seize its
phenomena with a more or less observant eye, and reproduce them more
accurately or loosely.
We see that this species of imitation is applied with the best effect
in cases where a great whole comprehends many subordinate objects.
These last must be sacrificed in order to attain the general expression
of the whole, as is the case in landscapes, for instance, where the aim
would be missed if we attended too closely to the details, instead of
keeping in view the idea of the whole.
_Style_
When at last art, by means of imitation of Nature, of efforts to
create a common language, and of clear and profound study of objects
themselves, has acquired a clearer and clearer knowledge of the
peculiarities of objects and their mode of being, oversees the classes
of forms, and knows how to connect and imitate those that are distinct
and characteristic,--then will _Style_ reach the highest point it is
capable of, the point where it may be placed on a par with the highest
efforts of the human mind.
Simple Imitation springs from quiet existence and an agreeable subject;
Manner seizes with facile capacity upon an appearance; Style rests upon
the deepest foundations of knowledge, upon the essence of things, so
far as we are able to recognize it in visible and comprehensible forms.
* * * * *
The elaboration of what we have advanced above would fill whole
volumes; and much is said upon the subject in books, but a true
conception of it can only be arrived at by the study of nature and
works of art. We subjoin some additional considerations, and shall have
occasion to refer to these remarks whenever plastic art is in question.
It is easy to see that these three several ways of producing works of
art are closely related, and that one may imperceptibly run into the
others.