ART AND
THE HUMAN SPIRIT
_The Meaning and Relations of Sculpture,
Painting, Poetry and Music_
A Handbook of Eight Lectures
By
EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS
NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH
1908
COPYRIGHT, 1908
BY
EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS
“I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven, and in their disciples and
apostles; I believe in the Holy Ghost and the truth of Art--one and
indivisible; I believe that this art proceeds from God and dwells in
the hearts of all enlightened men; I believe that whoever has revelled
in the glorious joys of this high art must be forever devoted to it
and can never repudiate it; I believe that all may become blessed
through this art, and that therefore it is permitted to any one to
die of hunger for its sake; I believe that I shall become most happy
through death; I believe that I have been on earth a discordant chord,
that shall be made harmonious and clear by death. I believe in a
last judgment, that shall fearfully damn all those who have dared on
this earth to make profit out of this chaste and holy art--who have
disgraced it and dishonored it through badness of heart and the coarse
instincts of sensuality; I believe that such men will be condemned to
hear their own music through all eternity. I believe, on the other
hand, that the true disciples of pure art will be glorified in a divine
atmosphere of sun-illumined, fragrant concords, and united eternally
with the divine source of all harmony. And may a merciful lot be
granted me! Amen!”
--Wagner, in “_An End in Paris_,” _Art Life and Theories_, p. 90.
INDEX
PAGE
Note: Spirit of the Course 7
1. The Expression and Interpretation of Human Life in Art 9
2. The Primitive Sources of Art 14
3. The Race, the Epoch and the Individual in Art 19
4. The Meaning and Function of Sculpture and Painting 24
5. The Meaning and Function of Music 29
6. The Meaning and Function of Poetry 35
7. Literature and Liberal Culture 40
8. Beauty and the Culture of the Spirit 45
Suggestions to Students 50
Book List 51
SPIRIT OF THE COURSE
There is evident in our country to-day a great turning of energy to the
higher interests of human life, especially to the fine arts. Apparently
some part of the enthusiasm and youthful power that has built so
wonderful a material civilization is now set free for the pursuit of
beauty and wisdom. We send our students far and wide to the schools and
galleries of the old world; we build art museums in all our cities,
and cultivate music with a new earnestness. Unfortunately the noble
promise in this awakening is hampered by grave misconceptions as to
the meaning of art in relation to the human spirit. Widely, among high
and low alike, art is regarded as a pleasant adornment of life, worth
seeking after the serious business of our existence is fulfilled, but
quite dispensable meantime. Others--well-meaning people--hold art to be
justified only by some obvious moral teaching it conveys. In reaction
against this view and as a result of the difficult technical problems
art presents, many artists fall into the equally unfortunate error of
regarding art as primarily an exhibition of skill, interpreting “art
for art’s sake” to mean art for technique’s sake.
There is no hope of giving art the place it should occupy in our
culture until these errors have been overcome. We must learn that art
is serious business, that beauty is the most useful thing we know, and
that art is not for adornment’s sake, or preaching’s sake, or art’s
sake, but that it is for _life’s sake_.
The aim of this course is, therefore, to consider as fully and
searchingly as possible the place and meaning of the fine arts in
relation to the spirit of man. We shall study first the unity of the
arts, their expression and interpretation in common of the universal
elements of human experience. Then the historic sources of the arts
and the great forces that determine the specific characteristics of
a masterpiece will be studied. The heart of the course will be an
effort to define the particular meaning and function of each of the
arts, the way in which it can express and interpret some phase of the
common human life more effectively than any other. Finally, the work
will close with a study of the ministry of the arts to man’s spirit and
their place in culture.
If art is for life’s sake for the appreciative student, even more is
it so for the creative artist. If often the lesser men have lived
to paint, or carve, or write, or sing, the great masters have ever
found art a way of life, have painted, carved, written, sung, _to
live_,--that through creative expression in art they might grow up into
the fullness of their own potential humanity. Thus it is necessary
that every one should be an artist in this high sense of the word; and
if that is impossible in what we call the fine arts, it is possible
in the finest of all, the one supreme art of living. The need is, not
that beauty should be added artificially to daily life, but that life
itself, in work, relationship and environment, should be made a fine
art. That this study may help a little to that end and so add something
of the joy that comes from supreme beauty, redeeming the commonplace
detail of life by clothing it with a transfiguring atmosphere and
exalting the spirit to a place where a serene vision of life in
relation is possible, is the hope with which the work is undertaken.
I. THE EXPRESSION AND INTERPRETATION OF HUMAN LIFE IN ART
Art is the adequate and harmonious expression and interpretation of
some phase of man’s life in true relation to the whole.
--Edward Howard Griggs.
=Purpose of the course.=--To consider the whole meaning of the fine
arts; the relations they sustain to each other; the sources from
which they spring; their two-fold relation to the human spirit,--as
expressing and interpreting life and as contributing to the higher
culture of man. The need and value of such study to-day, especially in
America.
=Popular superstitions in relation to art.=--Misconceptions met on
the threshold of our study: (1) The notion that art is a dispensable
luxury, to be cultivated as an adornment of life after our serious
business is accomplished. Prevalence of this error in the mind of the
general public; among those who regard themselves as polite society.
The artist’s bitter protest against this attitude in all epochs:
compare Carlyle; Goethe.
(2) The notion prevailing in the minds of many good people that art is
justified only by the moral lessons it teaches. Goethe’s view that this
destroys the artist’s vocation. The ethical significance of true art
organically in it, not tacked on in an Æsop’s fable moral at the end.
(3) In reaction against the second error, one prevailing in the
minds of many artists below the highest rank: the notion that art is
for the sake merely of exhibiting technical skill in the mastery of
difficulties. Causes of this error.
Essential that these three misconceptions should be corrected before
art can assume its rightful place in relation to our life. Our first
questions therefore: What is art, and what relation does it sustain to
the spirit of man?
=Unity and variety in art.=--Bewildering diversity of works of
art: compare in the same art; in different arts. Thus difficulty
of gathering all in a common statement. Yet the fact that we may
appreciate all, indicating a common basis. The arts, moreover,
springing from one historical source; while possible for the most
highly developed works of art in different fields to produce the
same dominant impression. Illustrate in the groups of men who are
brothers across the centuries. The source of this unity in all art the
expression everywhere of the same universal basis of human life.
The simple, generic elements of life as always expressed in art through
the medium of personality. Thus true art ever fresh and vital--a new
equation of old forces. Compare Homer’s _Odyssey_ and Stephen Phillip’s
_Ulysses_.
Not all expression art. The conditioning principles of adequacy and
harmony of expression distinguishing true art from what fails to rise
to its plane. The further principle that the part must be treated in
sound relation to the whole of human life. Compare in the portrayal of
moral evil. What distinguishes Dante and Shakespeare from the vicious
type of novel in such portrayal.
=Interpretation of life.=--All expression involving as well some
measure of interpretation; that is, all art inevitably ideal as well as
real in the presentation of life and nature. Compare even in amateur
photography: how there is inevitably selection of material and point of
view. Compare in the novel that attempts merely a realistic portraiture
of life. How even the selection of the part of the material out of
the whole and the adoption of a view-point in its treatment, bringing
certain elements into the foreground and subordinating others in the
background, means putting life and nature through the transmuting
spectrum of the artist’s spirit in expressing them.
=Further elements of idealism.=--Raising life to a higher plane of
expression than is usual in the real world: compare the characters of
Shakespeare; the paintings of Corot and Millet.
The tendency in art to carry the laws of life out full circle, thus
giving an ethical completeness wanting in actual life.
The addition of a unifying and interpreting atmosphere. Compare in
Titian; Beethoven; Dante.
=The definition of art.=--Summing up of all the aspects developed in
the relation of art to the human spirit: thus the inclusive definition.
Hence the serious business of art. The relation of the beautiful to the
useful. The meaning of art in the life of man.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“The useful encourages itself; for the multitude produce it, and no
one can dispense with it: the beautiful must be encouraged; for few
can set it forth, and many need it.”
--Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister_, translated by Carlyle (A. C. McClurg &
Co., 1890), vol. 2, p. 129.
“I do not object to a dramatic poet having a moral influence in view;
but when the point is to bring his subject clearly and effectively
before his audience, his moral purpose proves of little use, and he
needs much more a faculty for delineation and a familiarity with the
stage to know what to do and what to leave undone. If there be a moral
in the subject, it will appear, and the poet has nothing to consider
but the effective and artistic treatment of his subject. If the poet
has as high a soul as Sophocles, his influence will always be moral,
let him do what he will.”
--Goethe, _Conversations with Eckermann and Soret_, p. 228.
“The praiseworthy object of pursuing everywhere moral good as
the supreme aim, which has already brought forth in art so much
mediocrity, has caused also in theory a similar prejudice. To assign
to the fine arts a really elevated position, to conciliate for them
the favour of the State, the veneration of all men, they are pushed
beyond their true domain, and a vocation is imposed upon them contrary
to their nature. It is supposed that a great service is awarded them
by substituting for a frivolous aim,--that of charming--a moral aim;
and their influence upon morality, which is so apparent, necessarily
militates in favour of this pretension.”
--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, pp. 361, 362.
“Just as the sun cannot shed its light but to the eye that sees it,
nor music sound but to the hearing ear, so the value of all masterly
work in art and science is conditioned by the kinship and capacity
of the mind to which it speaks. It is only such a mind as this that
possesses the magic word to stir and call forth the spirits that lie
hidden in great work. To the ordinary mind a masterpiece is a sealed
cabinet of mystery,--an unfamiliar musical instrument from which
the player, however much he may flatter himself, can draw none but
confused tones. How different a painting looks when seen in a good
light, instead of in some dark corner! Just in the same way, the
impression made by a masterpiece varies with the capacity of the mind
to understand it.”
--Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_, p. 94.
“From the combined effort of the two schools of criticism, guardians
of public tranquillity, there results a salutary reaction. This
reaction has already produced some specimens of poets,--steady,
well-bred, prudent, whose style always keeps good hours; who never
indulge in an outing with those mad creatures, Ideas; who are
never met at the corner of a wood, _solus cum solâ_, with Reverie,
that gypsy girl; who are incapable of having relations either with
Imagination, dangerous vagabond, or with the bacchante Inspiration, or
with the grisette Fancy; who have never in their lives given a kiss to
that beggarly chit, the Muse; who never sleep away from home, and who
are honored with the esteem of their door-keeper, Nicholas Boileau. If
Polyhymnia goes by with her hair floating a little, what a scandal!
Quick! they call the hairdresser. M. de la Harpe comes hastily. These
two sister schools of criticism, that of the doctrinaire and that of
the sacristan, undertake to educate. They bring up little writers.
They keep a place to wean them,--a boarding-school for juvenile
reputations.”
--Victor Hugo, _William Shakespeare_, pp. 208, 209.
“The passions, whether violent or not, must never be carried in their
expression to the verge of disgust, and music, even in the most awful
situations, must not offend the ear, but always please.”
--Mozart, in Kerst, _Mozart: The Man and the Artist_, pp. 34, 35.
“He was a good man and on that very account, a great man. For when
a good man is gifted with talent, he always works morally for the
salvation of the world, as poet, philosopher, artist, or in whatever
way it may be.”
--Goethe, _Conversations with Eckermann and Soret_, p. 364.
“The historical painter also must take good care, if he would not
produce a caricature, even in subjects of an action moved by passion,
not to give every one of his figures the sharply imprinted expression
of an emotion. Thus, Orcagna, in his _Last Judgment_ (in the _Campo
santo_ at Pisa), represents with fearful truthfulness, and in a most
startling manner, on the side of the damned, terrified surprise,
horror, lamentation and despair; but for all that it would be but a
crowd of people making faces if the artist did not contrast it with
the uniformly tranquil, radiant joy on the faces of the saved, and the
solemn gravity of the patriarchs and prophets. In Leonardo da Vinci’s
_Last Supper_ is placed by the side of the violent gesticulations and
excited looks of some of the apostles, in well-calculated contrasting
relief, the composed demeanor of others, especially of the one
sitting at the right of the beholder at the end of the table, but
particularly the divinely mild gravity and the sorrowful resignation
of the principal figure in the middle. Even in the most tumultuous
of all historical pictures, the celebrated Pompeian mosaic picture
of Alexander’s battle, the universal horror at the fall of the
commander-in-chief is _completely_ portrayed only in some figures.”
--Ambros, _The Boundaries of Music and Poetry_, pp. 56, 57.
“Beauty results from the harmony between spirit and sense; it
addresses all the faculties of man, and can only be appreciated if
a man employs fully all his strength. He must bring to it an open
sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All a man’s nature
must be on the alert, and this is not the case with those divided by
abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated by application.”
--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, p. 330.
“A masterpiece exists once for all. The first poet who arrives,
arrives at the summit. You shall ascend after him, as high, not
higher. Ah! Your name is Dante? Very well; but he who sits yonder is
named Homer!”
--Victor Hugo, _William Shakespeare_, p. 101.
“The unpoetical lover of art, ensconced in his burgess-like comfort,
is apt to take offence at any part of a poetical work which entails
trouble on him, such as the solution, colouring or concealment of
a problem. The somnolent reader wants everything to pursue its
natural course, little imagining in his obstinate conceit how the
extraordinary may also be natural.”
--Goethe, _Travels in Italy_, p. 466.
TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
1. What is common and universal in the subject-matter of the fine arts?
2. Compare Homer’s _Odyssey_ and the _Ulysses_ of Stephen Phillips as
artistic treatments of the same theme.
3. Can you discover a musical composition and a work in painting that
produce the same dominant impression with the _Agamemnon Trilogy_ of
Æschylus?
4. Can you find a type of poetry and of painting akin in impression to
the music of Chopin?
5. What makes possible our common appreciation of works of art in
widely different fields and coming from remotely separated races and
epochs?
6. Explain how all the characters of Shakespeare can speak such
beautiful poetry, and yet Shakespeare be regarded as the great realist
in the portrayal of life.
7. What relation do the paintings of Corot sustain to Nature?
8. How far may moral disease wisely be portrayed in art?
9. Show what is necessary to make expression truly artistic.
10. Formulate your own definition of art.
REFERENCES
NOTE: See Book List, pp. 51-57, for publisher and place and date of
publication of all books referred to.
Ambros, _Boundaries of Music and Poetry_. Carpenter, _Angels’ Wings_.
Corson, _Aims of Literary Study_. Crawshaw, _Literary Interpretation
of Life_. Emerson, _Art_ (in _Essays, first series_, pp. 325-343);
_Art_ (in _Society and Solitude_, pp. 39-59). Hand, _Æsthetics of
Musical Art_. Hugo, _William Shakespeare_. Knight, _The Philosophy of
the Beautiful_. Lanier, _Music and Poetry_. Leighton, _Addresses_.
Lewes, _Principles of Success in Literature_. Mabie, _Short Studies
in Literature_. Parry, _The Evolution of the Art of Music_.
Partridge, _Art for America_. Raymond, _Art in Theory_; _Essentials
of Æsthetics_. Ruskin, _Lectures on Art_; _Modern Painters_; _The Two
Paths_. Schiller, _Essays_. Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_.
Shairp, _Aspects of Poetry_. Stedman, _Nature and Elements of Poetry_.
Tolstoy, _What is Art?_ Van Dyke, _How to Judge of a Picture_;
_Principles of Art_. Wagner, _Art Life and Theories of_. Wilde, _The
Critic as Artist_.
II. THE PRIMITIVE SOURCES OF ART
“The secret, mysterious relations of the human heart to the strange
nature around it, have not yet come to an end. In its eloquent
silence, this latter still speaks to the heart just as it did a
thousand years ago; and what was told in the very gray of antiquity is
understood to-day as easily as then. For this reason it is that the
legend of nature ever remains the inexhaustible resource of the poet
in his intercourse with his people.”
--Wagner, in “Der Freischütz in Paris,” _Art Life and Theories_, p. 99.
=Evolution of the arts.=--The primitive hymns sung in honor of a
God and accompanied by interpretative dancing. How the various fine
arts are differentiated from this historic basis. The same law of
evolution applying to all expressions of life evident in the arts. A
generic unity in the primitive basis, sometimes wanting in the later
differentiated forms.
=The original inspiration of art.=--Significance in the fact that all
art springs first from religion. Profound seriousness of early art.
This religious earnestness persisting in all great art. Thus deep
meaning in the primitive sources from which art springs.
=The character of early art.=--Antecedent to written literature a great
storehouse of popular thought, feeling and imagination which we call
mythology. The process by which this is developed, accumulated and
handed down from generation to generation. Value of the product as a
condensed and refined result of long ages of human life. Compare in
value with great literary masterpieces produced by individual geniuses.
Vitality of mythology, due to the closeness of primitive man to Nature
and the simple things of human life. Evidence in the spontaneous
metaphorical character of all early language: Illustrations.
The truth in mythology, due to a sound reaction on the world. Contrast
the truth of incident with the truth of character. Aristotle’s view of
poetry as truer than history. The true and the false fairy-tale: a mere
jumble of adventure contrasted with a portrayal of character naturally
unfolding in relation to circumstance and law.
Universality of mythology. The few, great, simple elements that make
up human life in all times and places. Tendency to hark back to these
from the conventions and artificialities of civilization. Constant
expression of these in primitive art: compare the Brunhild story. Thus
ethical depth in all the gathered-up result of early life. Simple but
clear recognition of the great laws of life.
Natural but inevitable art in the great expressions of early life.
Characteristics of that art in comparison with the form of later
masterpieces.
=The ethical value of mythology.=--The moral plane of primitive life in
comparison with later civilization. Thus elements in mythology below
the level of our ethical standards of to-day. Yet moral development
proceeding not only from the lower to the higher, but from the simple
to the complex. Compare the complication of ethical situations and
standards in our life. Difficulty in distinguishing good and evil.
Expression of this in Ibsen and Goethe. Contrasting simplicity of
primitive mythology: its simple and clear opposition of good and evil.
Usual representation of good as conquering. Illustrations in both
Greek and northern legends. Thus mythology presenting the basal moral
principles that should be clearly recognized before the literature
is studied that portrays the ethical subtleties and complications of
modern life.
A further ethical element in primitive mythology: good not always
conquering; but when defeated, going down with colors flying, thus
making of defeat the noblest of moral victories. Compare in the
Prometheus legend; the story of Beowulf.
=The relation of mythology to later art.=--The need of the late
artist to saturate himself in the springs of the race life: compare
in Tennyson and Wagner. The use of mythology and religion in Greek
sculpture; Renaissance painting; poetry; music.
=Important types of primitive material.=--The three sources of early
material drawn from most largely by European art: (1) Hebraic stories;
(2) Greek and Latin mythology; (3) Norse legends. The complementary
character of these three bodies of material. The Hebraic stories as
presenting the deepest recognition of moral law and purpose. Greek
mythology as beautiful and artistic. Norse stories as most deeply human
and at the same time the ethnic background from which our art springs.
Thus the value of primitive mythology and religion: (1) as sources
of later art; (2) as inspiration of art to-day; (3) as valuable
permanently in education.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“Art rests upon a kind of religious sense: it is deeply and
ineradicably in earnest. Thus it is that Art so willingly goes hand in
hand with Religion.”
--Goethe, _Maxims and Reflections_, p. 174.
“The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all pagan mythologies,
we found to be recognition of the divineness of nature; sincere
communion of man with the mysterious invisible powers visibly seen at
work in the world round him. This, I should say, is more sincerely
done in the Scandinavian than in any mythology I know. Sincerity is
the great character of it. Superior sincerity (far superior) consoles
us for the total want of old Grecian grace. Sincerity, I think, is
better than grace. I feel that these old northmen were looking into
nature with open eye and soul most earnest, honest; childlike, and yet
manlike; with a great-hearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a
true, loving, admiring, unfearing way.”
--Carlyle, _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, p. 30.
“When imagination incessantly escapes from reality, and does not
abandon the simplicity of nature in its wanderings: then and then only
the mind and the senses, the receptive force and the plastic force,
are developed in that happy equilibrium which is the soul of the
beautiful and the condition of humanity.”
--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, p. 106.
“The law of simplicity and naïvety holds good of all fine art; for it
is quite possible to be at once simple and sublime.”
--Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_, p. 31.
“To speak out once for all, man only plays when in the full meaning of
the word he is a man, and _he is only completely a man when he plays_.”
--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, p. 71.
“Ah!--if you would and could but hear and see our _true_
Freischütz,--you might feel the anxiety that now oppresses me, in the
form of a friendly appreciation on your own part of the peculiarity
of that spiritual life, which belongs to the German nation as a
birthright; you would look kindly upon the silent attraction that
draws the German away from the life of his large cities,--wretched
and clumsily imitative of foreign influences, as it is,--and takes
him back to nature; attracts him to the solitude of the forests, that
he may there re-awaken those emotions for which your language has not
even a word,--but which those mystic, clear tones of our Weber explain
to us as thoroughly as your exquisite decorations and enervating music
must make them lifeless and irrecognizable for you.”
--Wagner, in “Der Freischütz in Paris,” _Art Life and Theories_, pp.
106, 107.
“You remember the fancy of Plato’s, of a man who had grown to maturity
in some dark distance, and was brought on a sudden into the upper air
to see the sun rise. What would his wonder be, his rapt astonishment
at the sight we daily witness with indifference! With the free open
sense of a child, yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole
heart would be kindled by that sight, he would discern it well to be
godlike, his soul would fall down in worship before it. Now, just
such a childlike greatness was in the primitive nations. The first
pagan thinker among rude men, the first man that began to think,
was precisely this child-man of Plato’s. Simple, open as a child,
yet with the depth and strength of a man. Nature had as yet no name
to him; he had not yet united under a name the infinite variety of
sights, sounds, shapes and motions, which we now collectively name
universe, nature, or the like,--and so with a name dismiss it from us.
To the wild deep-hearted man all was yet new, not veiled under names
or formulas; it stood naked, flashing-in on him there, beautiful,
awful, unspeakable. Nature was to this man, what to the thinker and
prophet it forever is, _preter_-natural. This green flowery rock-built
earth, the trees, the mountains, rivers, many-sounding seas;--that
great deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the wind sweeping through
it; the black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire,
now hail and rain; what _is_ it? Ay, what? At bottom we do not yet
know; we can never know at all. It is not by our superior insight
that we escape the difficulty; it is by our superior levity, our
inattention, our _want_ of insight. It is by _not_ thinking that we
cease to wonder at it. Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion
we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays; mere _words_. We
call that fire of the black thunder cloud “electricity,” and lecture
learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk;
but _what_ is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it?
Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide
from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can
never penetrate, on which all science swims as a mere superficial
film. This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a
miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, _magical_ and more, to whosoever will
_think_ of it.”
--Carlyle, _Heroes and Hero-Worship_, pp. 7, 8.
TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
1. Compare, in ethical vitality and artistic beauty, primitive
mythology and later masterpieces.
2. To what extent do the different arts depend upon primitive mythology
and religion as sources for their material?
3. What is the relative value, for the understanding of European art,
of Greek and Norse mythology?
4. Compare, in ethical vitality and artistic beauty, Tennyson’s
_Passing of Arthur_ and the concluding portion of _Beowulf_.
5. Why is the late artist led so frequently to saturate himself with
the expressions of early life?
6. What is the relative ethical value of Hebrew stories and Norse myths?
7. From what early sources does Renaissance painting chiefly draw?
8. Compare the ethical plane in Greek and Norse mythology with that
achieved in later civilization.
9. From what historic sources does English poetry chiefly draw?
10. What is the value of primitive mythology for the education of
children?
REFERENCES
Anderson, _Norse Mythology_; _The Younger Edda_. Brown, _The
Fine Arts_. Bulfinch, _The Age of Chivalry_; _The Age of Fable_.
Carlyle, _The Hero as Divinity_. Cox, _Introduction to the Science
of Comparative Mythology_; _The Mythology of the Aryan Nations_.
Donaldson, _Theatre of the Greeks_. Fairbanks, _The Mythology of
Greece and Rome_. Gayley, _Classic Myths in English Literature_.
Goldziher, _Mythology among the Hebrews_. Grosse, _The Beginnings of
Art_. Guerber, _Myths of Greece and Rome_; _Myths of Northern Lands_.
Gummere, _The Beginnings of Poetry_; _Handbook of Poetics_. Mabie,
_Short Studies in Literature_. Malory, _Le Morte Darthur_. Parry, _The
Evolution of the Art of Music_. Posnett, _Comparative Literature_.
Shairp, _Poetic Interpretation of Nature_. Wagner, _Art Life and
Theories of_.
III. THE RACE, THE EPOCH AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN ART
“We live in this world only that we may go onward without ceasing, a
peculiar help in this direction being that one enlightens the other by
communicating his ideas; in the sciences and fine arts there is always
more to learn.”
--Mozart, in Kerst, _Mozart: The Man and the Artist_, p. 89.
=Determining forces behind art.=--So far we have considered the
great common sources of art; now to turn to the causes giving unique
characteristics to each work of art.
=The personal element.=--In art the great common basis of human life
expressed only through the medium of personality; thus the character
and experience of the artist always revealed in the work, and molding
it. Compare Mozart and Beethoven in music; Fra Angelico and Fra Lippo
Lippi in painting.
Compare Tennyson’s _Crossing the Bar_ and Browning’s _Epilogue to
Asolando_. Differences in imagery, music, type of thought and feeling,
general view of life. Yet these two poems coming from the same time and
race. Complete revelation of Tennyson and Browning in these fragments.
Relation of the material given in biography to the self-confession in
art. Compare the revelation of Andrea del Sarto in the traditional
biography and in his painting. The expression of Chopin’s personality
and experience in his music. Revelation of the artist even when the
work is most objective and dramatic in character. Compare how it is
possible to find Shakespeare behind his dramas.
The development of the artist revealed where works come from different
periods of his life. Illustrations in Goethe, Wagner, Shakespeare; in
the early and late _Pietà_ of Michael Angelo.
=The epoch.=--The forces of the time always molding the spirit of the
individual artist. The epoch a complex of many forces, yet out of them
a true “time-spirit” created. Effect of internal changes in a land; of
the reception of foreign stimulus; of the natural growth and decay of
the forces of life.
Different types of epoch: in production and preparation, faith and
doubt, creation and criticism. The artist inevitably influenced by
the spirit of the age, whether conscious of the fact or not. The two
contrasting types of relation the artist may sustain to his time.
Compare Emerson in relation to America’s civilization; Fra Angelico
as an expression of the Renaissance. So compare Dante as a voice of
the middle ages; Leonardo da Vinci in relation to the Renaissance. The
common spirit in the Elizabethan dramatists. Wagner’s operas as an
embodiment of modern life. Significance of the two dominant motives in
modern painting.
Possible further to trace the development of an epoch through the
art in which it is expressed. The half-circle through which every
productive epoch tends to pass. This due to the birth, maturing
and decay of the forces influencing life. Contrasting tendencies
in the artists appearing on the upward and on the downward slope.
Illustrations in Elizabethan drama and Renaissance painting.
=The race.=--The epoch but a moment in the life of a people. As the
time-spirit finds varying expression in the different artists in which
it is clothed, so the deeper, organic life of a race as beneath all
the epochs characterizing its unfolding. Evidence in the fact that
each race is apt to find its highest expression in one art. Compare
sculpture in Greece; painting in Italy; music in Germany; the drama in
England. Similarly every expression of a race revealing its spirit.
Compare the coloring in Dutch and Italian painting; nature-imagery in
English and Italian poetry.
Possible also to trace the development of a race through its artistic
expression. The life of a race as comparable to a great on-flowing
stream with rise and fall, ever deepening and enlarging as the race
develops. Compare in the development of English literature. Elements
which persist under all the changes. Compare Tennyson’s _Passing of
Arthur_ and the closing portion of _Beowulf_.
Thus the least fragment of art embodying the spirit of the artist, the
deeper life of the epoch, the still more fundamental characteristics
of the race, while beneath all are the great, universal tendencies of
humanity.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“The most profound erudition is no more akin to genius than a
collection of dried plants is like Nature, with its constant flow of
new life, ever fresh, ever young, ever changing. There are no two
things more opposed than the childish naïvety of an ancient author and
the learning of his commentator.”
--Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_, p. 52.
“At a distance we only hear of the first artists, and then we are
often contented with names only; but when we draw nearer to this
starry sky, and the luminaries of the second and third magnitude also
begin to twinkle, each one coming forward and occupying his proper
place in the whole constellation, then the world becomes wide, and art
becomes rich.”
--Goethe, _Travels in Italy_, p. 36.
“I carry my thoughts about me for a long time, often a very long time,
before I write them down; meanwhile my memory is so faithful that I
am sure never to forget, not even in years, a theme that has once
occurred to me. I change many things, discard, and try again until I
am satisfied. Then, however, there begins in my head the development
in every direction, and, inasmuch as I know exactly what I want, the
fundamental idea never deserts me,--it arises before me, grows,--I see
and hear the picture in all its extent and dimensions stand before
my mind like a cast, and there remains for me nothing but the labor
of writing it down, which is quickly accomplished when I have the
time, for I sometimes take up other work, but never to the confusion
of one with the other. You will ask me where I get my ideas. That
I can not tell you with certainty; they come unsummoned, directly,
indirectly,--I could seize them with my hands,--out in the open air;
in the woods; while walking; in the silence of the nights; early in
the morning; incited by moods, which are translated by the poet into
words, by me into tones that sound, and roar and storm about me until
I have set them down in notes.”
--Beethoven, in Kerst, _Beethoven: The Man and the Artist_, p. 29.
“Art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself boldly above
necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it
requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity
of spirits and not by that of matter. But in our day it is necessity,
neediness, that prevails, and bends a degraded humanity under its iron
yoke. _Utility_ is the great idol of the time, to which all powers
do homage and all subjects are subservient. In this great balance of
utility, the spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of
all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time.
The very spirit of philosophical inquiry itself robs the imagination
of one promise after another, and the frontiers of art are narrowed,
in proportion as the limits of science are enlarged.”
--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, pp. 27, 28.
“People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in
truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we
were. Man becomes, indeed, in the different stages of his life, a
different being; but he cannot say that he is a better one, and, in
certain matters, he is as likely to be right in his twentieth, as in
his sixtieth year.
“We see the world one way from a plain, another way from the heights
of a promontory, another from the glacier fields of the primary
mountains. We see, from one of these points, a larger piece of the
world than from the other; but that is all, and we cannot say that
we see more truly from any one than from the rest. When a writer
leaves monuments on the different steps of his life, it is chiefly
important that he should have an innate foundation and goodwill; that
he should, at each step, have seen and felt clearly, and that, without
any secondary aims, he should have said distinctly and truly what has
passed in his mind. Then will his writings, if they were right at the
step where they originated, remain always right, however the writer
may develop or alter himself in after times.”
--Goethe, _Conversations with Eckermann and Soret_, p. 512.
“That which distinguishes genius, and should be the standard for
judging it, is the height to which it is able to soar when it is in
the proper mood and finds a fitting occasion--a height always out of
the reach of ordinary talent.”
--Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_, p. 88.
“It seems as though purely human feeling, grown stronger by its very
repression on the side of conventional civilization, had sought out a
means of bringing into use some laws of language peculiar to itself,
by means of which it could express itself intelligibly, freed from the
trammels of logical rules of thought. The extraordinary popularity of
music in our age, the ever-increasing participation (extending through
all classes of society) in the production of music of the deepest
character, the growing desire to make of musical culture a necessary
part of every education,--all these things which are certainly obvious
and undeniable, distinctly prove the justice of the assumption that a
deep-rooted and earnest need of humanity finds expression in modern
musical development; and that music, unintelligible as its language is
when tried by the laws of logic, must bear within it a more convincing
means of making itself understood, than even those laws contain.”
--Wagner, in “The Music of the Future,” _Art Life and Theories_, p.
159.
TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
1. What different types of relationship may artists sustain to the
world in which they live?
2. Show how Tennyson and Browning are revealed respectively in
_Crossing the Bar_ and the _Epilogue to Asolando_.
3. Compare Michael Angelo’s two interpretations of the same theme at
opposite ends of his artistic career: the _Pietà_ of St. Peter’s in
Rome, and the _Pietà_ of the Cathedral in Florence.
4. Compare English and Italian poetry in nature-imagery.
5. What relation does landscape painting sustain to the spirit of our
time?
6. In what ways are the tendencies of modern civilization expressed in
Wagner’s operas?
7. Through what type of movement does a creative period tend to pass,
and why?
8. What relation does sculpture sustain to the other arts in Greece?
9. What makes the Elizabethan drama the best expression of Anglo-Saxon
genius?
10. Show how the development of a race may be traced through its
artistic expressions.
11. Show the common racial tendencies in Tennyson’s _Passing of Arthur_
and the closing portion of _Beowulf_.
REFERENCES
Bascom, _Philosophy of English Literature_. Carlyle, _The Hero
as Divinity_. Carpenter, _Angels’ Wings_. Crawshaw, _Literary
Interpretation of Life_. Engel, _Introduction to the Study of National
Music_. Goethe, _Conversations with Eckermann_; _Travels in Italy_.
Hugo, _William Shakespeare_. Kerst, _Beethoven_; _Mozart_. Lanier,
_Music and Poetry_. Leighton, _Addresses_. Mabie, _Books and Culture_;
_Short Studies in Literature_. Mach, _Greek Sculpture_. Morris, _Hopes
and Fears for Art_. Palgrave, _Golden Treasury_. Partridge, _Art for
America_. Posnett, _Comparative Literature_. Ruskin, _The Two Paths_.
Schiller, _Essays_. Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_. Sturgis,
_The Appreciation of Pictures_; _The Appreciation of Sculpture_.
Taine, _Lectures on Art_. Van Dyke, _The Meaning of Pictures_. Vinci,
_Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books_. Wagner, _Art Life and Theories of_;
_Beethoven_. Warner, _The Relation of Literature to Life_. Wilde, _The
Soul of Man under Socialism_. Witt, _How to Look at Pictures_.
IV. THE MEANING AND FUNCTION OF SCULPTURE AND PAINTING
“If you know how to describe and write down the appearance of the
forms, the painter can make them so that they appear enlivened with
lights and shadows which create the very expression of the faces;
herein you cannot attain with the pen where he attains with the brush.”
--Leonardo da Vinci, _Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books_, arranged by
Edward McCurdy, p. 159.
=Differences among the arts.=--Each fine art possessing its distinctive
line of appeal. This evidenced in the fact that it is rare to find
an artist, practising one, adequately appreciating others. Tendency
in artist and student alike to see the one art from within and
appreciate its significance, the others from without and perceive
their limitations. Evil of this. Great need that the artist should
saturate himself with the material of other arts than his own. Thus
need to see broadly and impersonally the meaning and function of each
art in relation to the spirit of man and in relation to the other arts
expressing the same universal basis.
The three questions: (1) What of the whole content of the human spirit
does the particular art express? (2) What is the means and method of
its expression? (3) What are its limitations?
Method of answering: not by philosophic theory, but by an open study
of works of art in each field. A little first-hand study of art better
worth while than much reading of criticism.
The fact of the permanence of a particular art proving that it
expresses or interprets some aspect of man’s spirit better or more
easily than any other. Compare, otherwise the art would not persist
except as novelty. Note the rise and subsidence of certain arts
historically. The reasons why mosaic work has lost the place it
occupied in the days when Ravenna’s churches were being adorned.
Compare changes in fresco painting. Significance of the permanence of
sculpture, painting, poetry and music.
=Characteristics of sculpture.=--The _Venus de Milo_ as a
representative work of ancient art. What is given in this statue?
Character of the conception embodied. Method by which it is expressed.
Effect on the beholder of the color of the marble and of the beauty
of technical execution. The deeper feelings one has in the presence
of the statue. Significance that these emotions vary with different
individuals; yet, the conception, if understood, entirely definite and
embodied in defined, permanent form. Thus the conception given, the
emotions, relatively speaking, associated.
The _Hermes_ of Praxiteles and the three _Goddesses_ of the Parthenon.
What these express in idea and execution. Causes of the feelings they
tend to arouse in the beholder. Difference in the ancient and modern
feeling associated with such a statue as the _Amazon_ of the Villa
Mattei.
Michael Angelo’s statues on the Medicean tombs. Comparison with Greek
sculpture in conception, execution and associated emotions.
Modern work in the field of sculpture analyzed. The _Joan of Arc_
of Chapu; other characteristic work in the Luxembourg gallery. Max
Klinger’s _Salome_.
Transition from sculpture to painting through relief-work. The _Nymph
and Infant Bacchus_; the bronze doors of Ghiberti.
=Painting.=--The Pompeian frescoes as painting in its nearest approach
to sculpture. These as presenting human figures, simply treated, with
slight background. Less complete and realistic form than in sculpture;
but vastly increased scope in both breadth and depth. Effect of the
much greater use of color.
Michael Angelo’s _Creation of Adam_; his _Last Judgment_. Difference in
feelings aroused by the latter work in accordance with the training and
belief of the beholder.
Raphael’s _Sistine Madonna_: the conception given; method by which
expressed. Direct emotional effect of the color used and of the grace
and beauty of execution.
Characteristics of a Corot landscape: what we feel in the presence of
it as compared with what the Greeks might have felt. The interpretation
of humanity in modern art: compare in Millet, Bastien-Lepage, Cormon.
Relation of conception to emotion in such work; contrast with the
painting of the Italian Renaissance.
=Summary.=--What sculpture and painting are alike capable of giving
definitely. Elements common to both in method. Differences between
them. What neither is capable of achieving. Why sculpture was the
characteristic art of the ancient Greeks, painting of the Renaissance
Italians.
All art appealing immediately to the senses; danger if it stops there.
The true appeal through the senses to the soul. Thus how art may
degenerate and become dangerous. The problem of Faust’s vision in the
mirror.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the chief means
whereby the understanding may most fully and abundantly appreciate the
infinite works of nature; and the ear is the second inasmuch as it
acquires its importance from the fact that it hears the things which
the eye has seen. If you historians, or poets, or mathematicians had
never seen things with your eyes you would be ill able to describe
them in your writings. And if you, O poet, represent a story by
depicting it with your pen, the painter with his brush will so render
it as to be more easily satisfying and less tedious to understand.
If you call painting ‘dumb poetry,’ then the painter may say of the
poet that his art is ‘blind painting.’ Consider then which is the more
grievous affliction, to be blind or be dumb! Although the poet has as
wide a choice of subjects as the painter, his creations fail to afford
as much satisfaction to mankind as do paintings, for while poetry
attempts with words to represent forms, actions, and scenes, the
painter employs the exact images of the forms in order to reproduce
these forms. Consider, then, which is more fundamental to man, the
name of man or his image? The name changes with change of country; the
form is unchanged except by death.”
--Leonardo da Vinci, _Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books_, arranged by
Edward McCurdy, pp. 156, 157.