It is established and accepted to-day that a painter may not like music,
that a writer may yawn in a picture-gallery: though we proclaim that art
is universal, it certainly is not universal for the universe. This
should not surprise us who know that van Gogh wrote: 'To paint and to
love women is incompatible'; van Gogh was right for himself, which does
not mean that he was right for everybody, and I will not draw from his
dictum the probably incorrect conclusion that 'To paint and to love
literature is incompatible.' But van Gogh, who had not read Bergson, was
indicating clearly enough that he knew he must canalise his powers,
therefore exclude from his emotional purview all things which did not
appertain directly to his own form of art.
Form of art! Those three words hold the difficulty of mutual
understanding among artists. While sympathising with van Gogh in his
xenophobia, I cannot accept that because certain artists did not
appreciate certain forms of art, no artist can understand another whose
form is alien to him. There is, there must be a link between the
painter, the sculptor, the writer, the musician, the actor, between the
poet in words and the one, to-day most common, who wishes to express
himself in the deeds of his own life. For art is, we are assured
thereof, all of one stuff. A symphony and a poem may be allotropic forms
of the same matter: to use a common simile, there is red phosphorus and
there is yellow, but both are phosphorus. Likewise there are different
forms of art, but there is only one art.
It is important that artists should understand one another so that
conflict may arise from their impressions, so that they may form a
critical brotherhood. Some, to-day, are able to grasp one another's
meaning and yet find it difficult, because every form of art has its own
jargon, to express what they mean; they can grasp that the painter
equally with the writer is striving to express himself, but they fail to
phrase their appreciation and their criticism because writers cannot
talk of masses or painters of style. There stands between them a hedge
of technique; so thick is it that often they cannot see the spirit of
the works; their difficulty is one of terms. Now I do not suggest that
the musician should study Praxiteles and himself carve marble; he is
better employed expressing his own passion in the Key of C. But I do
feel that if technical terms are the preserve of each form of art,
general terms are not; that _continuity_, _rhythm_, _harmony_, to quote
but a few, have a precise meaning, that they are inherent in no form of
art because they are inherent in art itself.
The following, then, is a forlorn attempt to find the common language,
the esperanto of art. It is made up of general terms (in italics); it
represents no more than a personal point of view, and is for this reason
laid down in a tentative spirit: it is not a solution but a finger-post.
Order being a necessary antidote for the abstruse, I have divided the
terms into groups, according to their nature, to the dimension they
affect or the matter to which they refer. Following this line of thought
we find that works of art affect us in virtue of four properties: their
power, their logic, their movement, and their attitude; this leads us to
four groups of properties:--
Group A. (Volumetric): _Concentration_, _Relief_, _Density_,
_Depth_.
Group B. (Linear): _Linking Continuity_.
Group C. (Kinetic): _Rhythm_, _Intensity_, _Reaction_, _Key_,
_Culmination_.
Group D. (Static): _Grace_, _Balance_, _Harmony_.
This is a rough classification, for an opera does not necessarily
compare with a square rood of paint or a novel of Tolstoyan length;
indeed, on the volumetric basis, an opera may have less bulk than a
sonnet.
Group A. (Volumetric). By _concentration_ we mean the quality of
conveying a great deal within a small space. It follows that
_concentration_ is in inverse ratio to area, though it does not follow
that area is in inverse ratio to _concentration_. While _Anna Karenin_
is an enormous novel it is as concentrated as the sonnet of d'Arvers; on
the other hand, Francis Thompson's _Arab Love Song_ is more concentrated
than the complete works of Mrs Barclay; while any Rubens is more
concentrated than a modern miniature, an intaglio may be more
concentrated than twenty square yards of Delacroix. We nullify areas,
therefore, and must lay down that the test of concentration is the
effect: if the painter realises that the author has felt all he wrote,
if the writer sees that every line was necessary, then both can be sure
that they are respectively in presence of concentrated works.
Likewise with _relief_. A bas-relief may have none. A fresco may.
_Relief_ then is a matter of contrast, as is shown especially in the
mosaics of Taj Mahal; but its nature is easily seen if we compare prose
with paint:--
'He stood at the edge of the sea while the waves crept towards him,
nearer and nearer, sinuously flowing and ebbing, but ever nearer.
Ever.'
I give this as an instance, not as a fragment of literature. The lonely
'ever' gives _relief_ to the sentence of twenty-four words if we assume
that another long sentence follows. (If no sentence follows, 'ever' is
no longer _relief_ but _culmination_, see Group C.) The painter renders
the same effect by a more vivid line of foam in the middle distance,
the musician by interposing a treble motif between basses. Thus, if we
find variety of sentence, variety of tone, we have _relief_.
_Density_ and _Depth_ need not detain us long. Flaubert, the Psalms,
Jacob Epstein's _Oscar Wilde_, the Eroica and Velasquez all give the
sensation we call by those names; we mean by them that the work contains
a suggestion of something behind. Atmospheric quality, then, together
with thought withdrawn, echo unheard and space unlimned, are the bases
on which the two terms rest. The suggestion that this 'behind' exists is
of course essential, for we must not conclude that where there is
nothing to be seen there is something to be guessed: there must be no
guessing, but if a feeling of reserve is created then _density_ and
_depth_ exist.
Group B. (Linear). The quality of _linking_ is opposed to the quality of
discord, though a discord may prove to be a link. The most perfect
instances of _linking_ and _continuity_, for I almost identify the
terms, are the solar spectrum and the song of the lark, but in the field
of art we must be content with the gamut, the sequence of shades and
the concatenation of phrases. In prose:--
'The bird rose up into the air, and its wings beat slowly. The air was
laden with mist. The bird rose towards the clouds ...' is an instance
where there is a solution of continuity, which could be remedied if the
second sentence were related to the flight of the bird. And the same
lack of continuity would exist if the painter of a harlequin were to
make his skull-cap brown, if in a pause of some work of Locatelli the
musician interposed (however skilfully and gradually) some
characteristic Grieg chords.
It does not, of course, follow that a discord is discontinuous.
Providing it recurs within the scheme of the work, as the clashes in
_Elektra_, the sequence of discords becomes a sequence of links, and we
arrive at this paradox, that it is the solutions of continuity provide
the continuity, while the apparently continuous portions of the work are
carried by the discordant sections. Thus there is continuity in the
Louvre Ghirlandajo because equivalent, if minor, discords repeat the
motif of the red mantle in two other portions of the picture. The
relation of the discords is sometimes vital to more than continuity,
namely to _rhythm_ (Group C.).
With Group C. (Kinetic) we touch the most vital portion of the subject,
for the kinetic quality in art amounts to the quality of life in man.
And its chief component is _rhythm_. If _rhythm_ be taken as a condition
of internal movement within the inanimate, as a suggestion of expanding
and retracting life, of phrases (musical, pictorial, or literary) that
come to an inevitable resolution, it is seen that its presence in a work
of art must baffle until it is realised under what guise it appears. A
simple instance of prose rhythm is:--
'The wayfarer stopped by the well. He looked within its depths and
the water was far below. Idly he dropped a pebble between the
walls; and it seemed minutes while he waited until the water sped
its thanks.'
This is not metrical but rhythmic prose, and it would be wearisome if
the rhythm were not altered from paragraph to paragraph; short sentences
alternate with long at fixed intervals, or passive verbs are inset
between actives, while Gothic words, juxtaposed to Latin, or adjectival
combinations produce the same effect of rise and fall. The rhythm may be
regular as the movement of a woman's breast or spasmodic within the
regular as the flight of a gull.
Pictorially _rhythm_ is best gauged by certain tapestries based on the
flower backgrounds of Fergusson and Anne Estelle Rice. Assume a black
square of cloth; if the flowers are grouped thus from left to right:
dark red, pink, white, there is no rhythm, for the mental line is a mere
downgrade; if they are grouped: dark red, light blue, dark green, there
is no rhythm, for the mental line is a mere curve, a circular or perhaps
parabolic basin; but if the grouping amounts to: dark red, pink, light
blue, black, light green, cream, dark brown, there is a succession of
ebb and flow, rise and fall, _rhythm_. And this applies to drawing also,
if we accept that colour is indicated by line, that lines are colours
and that colours are tenses. That line can indicate colour is beyond
denial, for we accept that colour is not material while tone is
material. Colour being the _relation_ between an impression and the
impression of colourlessness, and tone being the resultant translation
of the intensity of the colour, then it is feasible to reproduce a red
and blue combination by a green and yellow combination of equal
contrast.[9] Therefore a combination of blacks may be made to balance a
combination of even seven colours, provided the relative intensity
(amount) of the blacks is in a true relation, in tone, with the relative
intensity of the colours. C. R. W. Nevinson achieves this with grays and
blacks, while Wyndham Lewis forgoes it.
[Footnote 9: Hence, _if the colour relations are maintained_, it is
correct to represent a blue-eyed rubicund man by red eyes and a violet
face.]
The quality of _rhythm_ being obvious in music needs no discussion; it
is the only form of rhythm the popular can recognise, but if we accept
the principles of grouping in phrase and colour, no musician will fail
to recognise a sarabande in a dance of Matisse or in the posturings of
Kellermann's clown.
As for _intensity_, with which goes _reaction_, for the first cannot
exist without the second, it is naturally brought about by the rhythmic
focusing of the subject's attention upon words, colours or notes.
Intensity is marked, for instance, by the triplets of the Venusberg
music, their continual slow billowing; it can be found, less easily, in
phrases and colours, but it must exist if the work is art. In prose it
is marked by a general nervousness of form and word:--
'Upon the crag the tower pointed to the sky like a finger of stone,
and about its base were thick bushes, which had burst forth into
flower patches of purple and scarlet. The air was heavy with their
scent.'
Here the _intensity_ is confined within the simile and the colour
scheme; the intervening space corresponds to the background of a
picture, while the final short sentence, purposely dulled, is the
_reaction_. Evidently (and all the more so as I have chosen a pictorial
effect) an analogous intensity could be obtained in a painting; the
flower patches could be exaggerated in colour to the uttermost limit of
the palette, while the reagent final sentence was figured by a filmy
treatment of the atmosphere. The limit to _intensity_ is the _key_ in
which the work is conceived. But the word _key_ must not be taken in
its purely musical sense; obviously, within the same piece the governing
motif must not be andante at the beginning and presto at the end, but in
artistic generalisations it must be taken as the spirit that informs
rather than as the technical rule which controls. Thus, in literature,
the _key_ is the attitude of the writer: if in one part of the book his
thought recalls Thackeray and in another Paul de Kock the _key_ has been
changed; and again if the left side of the picture is pointillist, the
right side cubist, the _key_ has been changed. I choose exaggerated,
almost absurd instances to make the point clear; in practice, when the
writer, the musician, or the painter appears to have seen consistently,
the key he has worked in is steadfast.
It should be said that uniformity of _key_ does not imply absence of
_reaction_; there is room, while the _key_ remains uniform, for the
juxtaposition of burlesque and romance, just as there is room in
Holbein's 'Ambassadors' for the incomprehensible object in the
foreground, said to embody a pun (Hohl Bein). But the _key_ needs to be
kept in mind as its maximum expression is the _culmination_ of the
effect. The _culmination_ of a speech is in its peroration; of a poem
in its incorporated envoi. Thus in the _Arab Love Song_, the culmination
is:--
'And thou what needest with thy tribe's black tents
Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?'
There is no difficulty there. But in painting the _culmination_ is more
subtle. It consists in the isolation of the chief object. Say that we
have from left to right: Black, yellow, dark brown, light blue, dark
red; then add on the extreme right, crimson, then gold. The picture
_culminates_ on the extreme right, with the result that attention is
directed there and that any object in that section of the picture
benefits by an influence about equivalent to that of footlights.
_Culmination_, involves the painter in great difficulties, for there
must be _culmination_, while an effect in the wrong place may destroy
the _balance_ of his work. This appertains to
Group D. (Static). Its chief quality, _balance_, is easily defined in
painting. Where there is correspondence between every section of the
picture, where no value is exaggerated, _balance_ exists. Hence the
failure of Futurism. While the Futurists understand very well
_intensity_, _reaction_, and _relief_, they refuse to give _balance_ any
attention at all; leaving aside the absurdity of rendering the mental
into terms of the pictorial, and taking as an instance one who was once
less Futurist than the Futurists, Severini, we see in his 'Pan-pan
Dance' how he detached himself from his school: he attained _balance_ by
giving every object an equal _intensity_. Such is also the tendency of
Wadsworth. Evidently if there are no clashes of tone-values, there must
be _balance_, and the instance serves to show that where there are
clashes of tone-values _balance_ must be ensured by the artist's hand.
There is always _balance_ in the purely decorative; in the realistic
there is _balance_ if the attention of the beholder is directed
simultaneously to the several points of _culmination_ indicated by the
_rhythm_ of the picture. Thus there is _balance_ in Rothenstein's
'Chloe' because the rocks on the right repeat the significance of the
rocks on the left.
Likewise in literature there is balance in certain groupings of
phrases:--
'The waves rolled in. Every one, edged with foam, curved forward to
kiss the sand. Silvery in the sun they rolled. And they came
assured, as if they had forgotten that they had come at other
dawns, only to retire before the inert earth.'
This is almost the exact 'short-long-short-long' of waves themselves,
and there is _balance_ because each short-long grouping figures one
curled wave. Nothing clarifies this idea so well as the Morse Code.
With perfect _balance_ go _grace_ and _harmony_. While _grace_ must
stand by itself as a not especially important quality because it is not,
need not, always be present, _harmony_ must be recognised as a synonym
of _balance_. It is only because _grace_ is often used where _harmony_
is meant that it finds a place in this glossary. Obviously there is no
_grace_ in Rodin's Balzac, while there is _grace_ in every note of Lulli
and Glueck; by _grace_ we mean the quality of lightness we find in Pater,
Meredith, Andre Gide, Mozart, Watteau, Donatello: the instances suffice
to indicate the meaning, while _harmony_, if it be taken as a synonym of
_balance_, needs no further explanation than has been given for that
term.
I venture to repeat in conclusion that there is nothing dogmatic about
these ideas. They are subject to criticism and objection, for we are
groping in the dark towards what Mr Leonard Inkster calls the
standardisation of artistic terms; if I prefer to his scientific way the
more inspired suggestion of 'esperanto,' that is a common language of
the arts, it is without fear of being called metaphysical. It may be
argued that a purely intellectual attempt to extract and correlate the
inspirations of forms of art is a metaphysical exercise doomed to
failure by its own ambition. I do not think so. For art is universal
enough to contain all the appeals, the sensuous, the intellectual, and,
for those who perceive it, the spiritual; but the sensuous is incapable
of explanation because sensuousness is a thing of perceptions which
vanish as soon as the brain attempts to state them in mental terms; and
the spiritual, which I will define much as I would faith as a
stimulation produced by a thing which one knows to be inexistent, also
resists analysis; if we are to bridge the gulfs that separate the
various forms of art, some intellectual process must be applied. Now it
may be metaphysical to treat of the soul in terms of the intellect, but
the intellect has never in philosophic matters refrained from laying
hands upon the alleged soul of man; I see no reason, therefore, to place
art higher than the essence of human life and grant it immunity from
attack and exegesis by the intellect. Indeed, the intellect in its
metaphysical moods is alone capable of solving the riddle of artistic
sensation. Once defined by intellect and applied by intellect, the
esperanto of the arts may well serve to reconcile them and demonstrate
to their various forms, against their will, their fundamental unity.