fruits and flowers as an example) may be carried to a high point of
perfection. It is natural that he who paints roses should soon learn to
distinguish and select the most beautiful, and seek for such only among
the thousand that summer affords. Thus we have arrived at selection,
although the artist may have formed no general idea of the beauty of
roses. He has to do with comprehensible forms; everything depends upon
the manifold purpose and the color of the surface. The downy peach,
the finely dusted plum, the smooth apple, the burnished cherry, the
dazzling rose, the manifold pink, the variegated tulip, all these he
can have at will in his quiet studio in the perfection of their bloom
and ripeness. He can put them in a favorable light; his eye will
become accustomed to the harmonious play of glittering colors; each
year would give him a fresh opportunity of renewing the same models,
and he would be enabled, without laborious abstraction, by means of
quiet imitative observation, to know and seize the peculiarities of
the simple existence of these subjects. In this way were produced the
masterpieces of a Huysum and Rachel Ruysch, artists who seem almost to
have accomplished the impossible. It is evident that an artist of this
sort must become greater and more characteristic, if in addition to his
talent, he is also acquainted with botany; if he knows, from the root
up, the influences of the several parts upon the expansion and growth
of the plant, their office, and reciprocal action; if he understands
and reflects upon the successive development of leaves, fruit,
flowers, and the new germ. By this means he will not only exhibit his
taste in the selection of superficial appearance, but will at once win
admiration and give instruction through a correct representation of
properties. In this wise it might be said that he had formed a style;
while, on the other hand, it is easy to see how such a master, if he
proceeded with less thoroughness, if he endeavored to give only the
striking and dazzling, would soon pass into mannerism.
Simple Imitation therefore labors in the ante-chamber that leads to
Style. In proportion to the truth, care, and purity with which it
goes to work, the composure with which it examines and feels, the
calmness with which it proceeds to imitate, the degree of reflection
it uses, that is to say, with which it learns to compare the like and
separate the unlike, and to arrange separate objects under one general
idea,--will be its title to step upon the threshold of the sanctuary
itself.
If now we consider Manner more carefully, we shall see that it may be,
in the highest sense and purest signification of the word, the middle
ground between simple imitation of nature and style.
The nearer it approaches, with its more facile treatment, to faithful
imitation and on the other side, the more earnestly it endeavors to
seize and comprehensibly express the character of objects, the more
it strives, by means of a pure, lively, and active individuality, to
combine the two, the higher, greater, and more worthy of respect it
will become. But if such an artist ceases to hold fast by and reflect
upon nature, he will soon lose sight of the true principles of art,
and his manner will become more and more empty and insignificant in
proportion as he leaves behind simple imitation and style.
We need not here repeat that we use the word Manner in a high and
honorable sense, so that artists who, according to our definition,
would be termed Mannerists have nothing to complain of. It is only
incumbent upon us to preserve the word Style in the highest honor, in
order to have an expression for the highest point art has attained or
ever can attain. To be aware of this point is in itself a great good
fortune, and to enter upon its consideration in company with sensible
people, a noble pleasure, for which we hope to have many opportunities
in the sequel.
ANCIENT AND MODERN
(1818)
I have been obliged, in what precedes, to say so much in favor of
antiquity, and particularly of the plastic artists of those times,
that I may possibly be misunderstood, which so often happens where the
reader, instead of preserving a just balance, throws himself at once
into the opposite scale. I therefore seize the present opportunity to
explain my meaning, using plastic art as a symbol of the never-ceasing
life of human actions and affairs.
A young friend, Karl Ernst Schubarth, in his pamphlet, _A Critique on
Goethe_, which in every respect calls for my esteem and thanks, says:
“I do not agree with those worshipers of the ancients, among whom is
Goethe himself, who maintain that in high and complete development of
humanity nothing has ever been arrived at to compare with the Greeks.”
Fortunately, Schubarth’s own words give us an opportunity to adjust
this difference, where he says, “As to our Goethe, let me say that I
prefer Shakespeare to him, for this reason,--that in Shakespeare I seem
to find a strong, unconscious man, who is able, with perfect certainty,
and without reasoning, reflecting, subtilizing and classifying, to
seize with never-failing hand the true and false in man, and express it
quite naturally; whilst in Goethe, though I recognize the same ultimate
aim, I am always fighting with obstacles, and must be always taking
heed lest I accept for plain truth what is only an exhibition of plain
error.”
Here our friend hits the nail on the head; for in that very point where
he places me below Shakespeare do we stand below the ancients. And what
is it we advance concerning the ancients? Any talent, the development
of which is not favored by time and circumstances, and must on that
account work its way through a thousand obstacles, and get rid of a
thousand errors, must always be at a disadvantage, when compared with
a contemporary one that has the opportunity to cultivate itself with
facility and act to the extent of its capacity without opposition.
It often happens that people who are no longer young are able, out of
the fullness of their experience, to furnish an illustration that will
explain or strengthen an assertion; and this is my excuse for relating
the following anecdote. A practised diplomatist who had desired my
acquaintance, after the first interview, when he had had but little
opportunity of seeing or conversing with me, remarked to his friends:
“Voilà un homme qui a eu de grands chagrins!” These words set me to
thinking. The skilful physiognomist’s eye did not deceive him, only he
laid to the effect of suffering the phenomenon that should also have
been ascribed to opposition. An observant, straightforward German might
have said, “Here is a man who has had a very hard time of it.” Since,
then, the signs of past endurance and of persevering activity do not
disappear from the face, it is no wonder if all that remains of us
and our strivings should bear the same impress, and indicate, to the
attentive observer, a mode of being whose aim has been to preserve its
balance alike under circumstances of happiest development or narrowest
limitation, and to maintain the stubbornness, if it could not always
the highest dignity, of human existence.
But letting pass old and new, past and present, we may in general
assert that every artistic production places us in the same state of
mind the author was in. If that was clear and bright, we shall feel
free; if that was narrow, timid, or anxious, we shall feel limited in
the same proportion.
Upon reflection, we should add that this refers only to treatment.
Material and import do not enter into consideration. If we bear in mind
this principle, and look around in the world of art, we maintain that
every work will afford us pleasure which the artist himself produced
with ease and facility. What amateur does not rejoice in the possession
of a successful drawing or etching of our Chodowiecki? We see in them
such an immediate apprehension of nature, as we know it, that they
leave nothing to wish for. But he would not be able to go beyond his
mark and line, without losing all the advantage he derives from his
peculiar qualifications.
We shall even go farther, and confess that we have derived great
pleasure from Mannerists, when the manner has not been carried too far,
and that we are pleased with the possession of their works. The artists
who have received this name have been gifted with uncommon talent, but
became early aware that, in the state of the times as well as of the
schools into which they were cast by fate, there was no room for minute
labor, but that they must choose their part, and perfect themselves
speedily. They therefore made themselves a language, into which they
could, without farther trouble, translate with ease and dexterity
all visible subjects, and exhibit to us representations of all sorts
of scenes with greater or less success. Thus whole nations have been
entertained and hoodwinked for long periods of time, until at last one
or another artist has found the way back to nature and a higher feeling
of art.
We may perceive, by the Herculanean antiquities, how the ancients also
fell into this kind of manner; only their models were too great, too
present, fresh, and well preserved, for their second and third rate
artists to be able to lose themselves entirely in insignificance.
Let us now assume a higher and more agreeable point of view, and
consider the talent with which Raphael was so singularly gifted. Born
with the happiest natural gifts, at a time when art combined the most
conscientious labor, attention, industry, and truth, the young man was
already led by excellent masters to the threshold, and had only to
raise his foot to enter the temple. Disciplined by Perugino in the most
careful elaboration, his genius was developed by Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo. Neither of these artists, in spite of their long life
and the cultivation of their powers, seems ever to have reached the
true enjoyment of artistic production. The former, if we look closely,
wearied himself with thought, and dissipated his powers in mechanical
inquiries; and we have to blame the latter for spending his fairest
years among stone quarries, getting out marble blocks and slabs, so
that, instead of carrying out his intention of carving all the heroes
of the Old and New Testament, he has left only his Moses as an example
of what he could and should have done. Raphael, however, during his
whole life, ever increased in the even facility of his work. We see
in him the development of the intellectual and active powers, which
preserve such remarkable balance that it may be affirmed that no modern
artist has possessed such purity and completeness of thought and such
clearness of expression. In him we have another instance of a talent
that pours out to us the freshest water from the purest source. He
never affects a Greek manner, but feels, thinks, works like a Greek. We
see the fairest talent developed in the most favorable hours. The same
thing occurred, under like conditions and circumstances, in the time of
Pericles.
It may therefore always be maintained that native talent is indeed
indispensable to production, but equally indispensable is a
commensurate development in the provinces of nature and art. Art cannot
dispense with its prerogatives, and cannot achieve perfection without
favorable outward circumstances.
Consider the school of the Caracci. Here was a ground-work of talent,
earnestness, industry, and consistent development; here was an element
for the natural and artistic development of admirable powers. We see a
whole dozen of excellent artists produced by it, each practising and
cultivating his peculiar talent according to the same general idea, so
that it hardly seems possible that after times should produce anything
similar.
Let us consider the immense stride made by the highly gifted Rubens
into the world of art! He too was no son of earth; look at the rich
inheritance he was heir to, from the old masters of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, through all the admirable artists of the
sixteenth, at the close of which he was born.
Again, think of the crowd of Dutch painters of the seventeenth century,
whose great abilities found development now at home, now south, now
north, until we can no longer deny the incredible sagacity with which
their eye pierced into nature, and the facility with which they have
succeeded in expressing her legitimate charm, so as to enchant us
everywhere. Nay, in proportion as we possess their productions, we
are willing to limit ourselves for long stretches of time to their
study and admiration, and are far from blaming those amateurs who are
contented with the possession and enjoyment of this class of pictures
exclusively.
In the same way, we could bring a hundred examples in support of
our assertion. To see distinctly, to apprehend clearly, to impart
with facility,--these are the qualities that enchant us; and when we
maintain that all these are to be found in the genuine Greek works,
united with the noblest subjects, the most unerring and perfect
execution, it will be seen why it is we always begin and end with them.
Let each one be a Greek in his own way, but let him be a _Greek_!
The same is true of literary merit. What is comprehensible is always
the first to attract us and give us complete satisfaction. If we even
take the works of one and the same poet, we shall find some that seem
to indicate a degree of laborious effort, and others again affect us
like natural products, because the talent was commensurate with the
form and import. And once more, it is our firm belief that although any
age may give birth to the fairest talent, it is not given to all to be
able to develop it in its perfect proportions.
NOTES ON DILETTANTISM
(1799)
Dilettantism presupposes Art, as botch-work does handicraft.--Idea
of Artist, in opposition to Dilettante.--Practice of Art
scientifically.--Adoption of an Objective Art.--Legitimate progress and
advancement.--Calling and profession.--Connection with a world of Art
and Artists.--Schools.
The Dilettante does not hold the same relation to all the arts.
All the arts have an objective and a subjective side, and according as
one or the other of these is predominant, the Dilettante has value or
not.
Where the subjective of itself is of great importance, the Dilettante
must and can approximate to the artist. For instance, oratory, lyrical
poetry, music, dance.
Where the reverse is the case, there is a more marked distinction
between Artist and Dilettante, as in architecture, the arts of design,
epic and dramatic poetry.
* * * * *
Art itself gives laws, and commands the time.
Dilettantism follows the lead of the time.
When masters in art follow a false taste, the Dilettante expects so
much the sooner to reach the level of art.
The Dilettante, receiving his first impulse to self-production from
the effect of works of art on him, confounds these effects with the
objective causes and motives, and would now make the state of feeling
he has been put into productive and practical; as if out of the
fragrance of flowers one should try to reproduce flowers themselves.
The _speaking to the feelings_, the last effect of all poetical
organization, but which presupposes the concurrences of the whole of
art, seems to the Dilettante to be the thing itself, and out of it he
endeavors to produce.
In general, the Dilettante, in his ignorance of himself, puts the
passive in the place of the active, and because he receives a lively
impression from effects, thinks from these impressed effects to produce
other effects.
The peculiar want of the Dilettante is _Architectonic_, in the highest
sense,--that practical power which creates, forms, constitutes. Of this
he has only a sort of misgiving, and submits himself to his material,
instead of commanding it.
It will be found that the Dilettante runs particularly to neatness,
which is the completion of the thing in hand, wherefrom a sort of
illusion arises, as if the thing itself were worthy of existing.
The same holds true of accuracy (_accuratesse_), and all the last
conditions of Form, which can just as well accompany the formless.
General principles on which Dilettantism is allowable:--
When the Dilettante subjects himself to the severest rules at the
outset, and undertakes to complete all the successive steps with the
greatest strictness,--which he can the better afford to do, inasmuch as
(1) the goal is not demanded of him; and, (2) if he wishes to retreat,
he has prepared the surest path to connoisseurship.
In opposition to the general maxim, the Dilettante will thus be subject
to more severe criticism than the Artist, who, resting upon a secure
basis of art, incurs less danger in departing from rules, and may even
by that means enlarge the province of art itself. The true artist
rests firmly and securely upon himself. His endeavor, his mark, is
the highest aim of art. In his own estimation he will always be far
from that aim, and necessarily, therefore, will be always modest in
regard to art or the idea of art, and will maintain that he has as
yet accomplished little, no matter how excellent his work may be, or
how high his consciousness of superiority, in reference to the world,
may reach. Dilettanti, or real botchers, seem, on the other hand, not
to strive towards an aim, not to see what is beyond, but only what is
beside them. On this account they are always comparing, are for the
most part extravagant in their praise, unskilful where they blame, have
an infinite deference for their like, thus giving themselves an air of
friendliness and fairness, which is in fact only to exalt themselves.
_Dilettantism in Lyrical Poetry_
The fact that the German language was in the beginning applied to
poetry, not by any one great poetic genius, but through merely middling
heads, must inspire Dilettantism with confidence to essay itself in it.
The cultivation of French literature and language has made even
Dilettanti more artistic.
The French were always more rigorous, tended to severer correctness,
and demanded even of Dilettanti taste and spirit within, and externally
a faultless diction.--In England, Dilettantism held more by Latin and
Greek.--Sonnets of the Italians.
Impudence of the latest Dilettantism, originated and maintained through
reminiscences of a richly cultivated poetic dialect, and the facility
of a good mechanical exterior.
Polite literature of universities, induced by a modern method
of study.--Lady poems.--Schöngeisterei (bel esprit).--Annual
_Keepsakes_.--Musenalmanache.--Journals.--Beginning and spread of
translations.
Immediate transition from the classes and the university to
authorship.--Epoch of ballads, and songs of the people.--Gessner,
poetic prose.--Imitation of the bards.--Bürger’s influence on
sing-song.--Rhymeless verses.--Klopstockean odes.--Claudius.--Wieland’s
laxity.--In earlier times: Latin verses; pedantism; more handicraft;
skill, without poetic spirit.
_Dilettantism in Pragmatic Poetry_
Reasons why the Dilettante hates the powerful, the passionate, the
characteristic, and only represents the middling, the moral.
The Dilettante never paints the object, but only the feeling it gives
rise to in him.
He avoids the character of the object.
All Dilettante creations in this style of poetry will have a
pathological character, and express only the attractions and repulsions
felt by their author.
The Dilettante thinks to reach poetry by means of his wits.
Dramatic botchers go mad when they desire to give effect to their work.
_Dilettantism in Dramatic Art_
French comedy is, even among amateurs, _obligato_, and a social
institution.
Italian amateur-comedy is founded on a puppet, or puppet-like,
representation.
Germany, in former times, Jesuit-schools.
In later times: French amateur comedies, for aiding the cultivation of
the language, in noble houses.
Mixing up of ranks in German amateur-comedy.
Conditions, under which, perhaps, a moderate practice in theatrical
matters may be harmless and allowable, or even in some measure
advantageous:
Permanence of the same company.
To avoid passionate pieces, and choose such as are reflective and
social.
To admit no children or very young persons.
Greatest possible strictness in outward forms.
_Advantages of Dilettantism in General_
It prevents an entire want of cultivation.
Dilettantism is a necessary consequence of a general extension of art,
and may even be a cause of it.
It can, under certain circumstances, help to excite and develop a true
artistic talent.
Elevates handicraft to a certain resemblance to art.
Has a civilizing tendency.
In case of crude ignorance, it stimulates a certain taste for art, and
extends it to where the artist would not be able to reach.
Gives occupation to productive power, and cultivates something serious
in man.
Appearances are changed into ideas.
Teaches to analyze impressions.
Aids the appropriation and reproduction of forms.
_In Lyrical Poetry_
Cultivation of language in general.
More manifold interest “in humanioribus,” in contrast to the crudeness
of the ignorant, or the pedantic narrowness of the mere man of business
or pedant.
Cultivation of the feelings and of the verbal expression of the same.
The cultivated man ought to be able to express his feelings with poetic
beauty.
Idealization of concepts regarding objects of common life. Cultivation
of the imagination, especially as an integral part of the culture of
the intellect.
Awaking and direction of the productive imagination to the highest
functions of the mind in the sciences and practical life.
Cultivation of the sense of the rhythmical.
There being no objective laws, either for the internal or external
construction of a poem, the amateur ought to hold fast to acknowledged
models much more strongly than the master does, and rather imitate the
good that exists than strive after originality; and in the external and
metrical parts, follow strictly the well-known general rules.
And as the Dilettante can only form himself after models, he ought, in
order to avoid one-sidedness, to acquire the most universal knowledge
of all models, and survey the field of poetic literature even more
perfectly than is required of the artist himself.
_In the Dramatic Art_
Opportunity of farther cultivation in declamation.
Attention to one’s own representations.
Participates in the advantages predicated of Dancing.
Exercise of the Memory.
Sensuous attention and accuracy.
_Disadvantage of Dilettantism in General_
The Dilettante jumps over the steps, stops at certain steps which he
regards as the end, and from which he thinks himself justified in
judging of the whole; this prevents his perfectibility.
He subjects himself to the necessity of working by false rules, because
he cannot work even as a Dilettante without some rules, and he does not
understand the true objective rules.
He departs more and more from the truth of objects, and loses himself
in subjective errors.
Dilettantism deprives art of its element, and spoils art’s public by
depriving it of its earnestness and strictness.
All tendency to easy contentment destroys art, and Dilettantism brings
in indulgence and favor. At the expense of the true artists, it brings
into notice those that stand nearest to Dilettantism.
With Dilettantism the loss is always greater than the gain.
From handicraft the way is open to rise to art, but not from botch-work.
Dilettantism favors the indifferent, partial, and characterless.
Injury Dilettanti do to art by bringing artists down to their level.
Can bear no good artist near them.
In all cases where the art itself has no proper regulative power, as in
Poetry, the art of Gardening, acting, the injury Dilettantism does is
greater, and its pretensions more arrogant. The worst case is that of
histrionic art.
_In Lyrical Poetry_
Belletristic shallowness and emptiness, withdrawal from solid studies,
or superficial treatment.
A greater danger exists in this than in the other arts of mistaking
a merely Dilettante dexterity for a true genius for art, and in this
case, the subject is worse off than in any other Dilettantism, because
its existence becomes an entire nullity; for the poet is nothing at all
except through earnestness and conformity to art.