single moment, and the painter especially can only use this moment
from one point of view, whilst their works are intended to stand
the test not only of a passing glance, but of long and repeated
contemplation, it is clear that this moment, and the point from which
this moment is viewed, cannot be chosen with too great a regard to
results. Now that only is a happy choice which allows the imagination
free scope. The longer we gaze, the more must our imagination add;
and the more our imagination adds, the more we must believe we see.
In the whole course of an emotion there is no moment which possesses
this advantage so little as its highest stage. There is nothing beyond
this; and the presentation of extremes to the eye clips the wings
of fancy, prevents her from soaring beyond the impression of the
senses, and compels her to occupy herself with weaker images; further
than these she ventures not, but shrinks from the visible fulness of
expression as her limit. Thus, if Laokoön sighs, the imagination can
hear him shriek; but if he shrieks, it can neither rise a step higher
above nor descend a step below this representation, without seeing
him in a condition which, as it will be more endurable, becomes less
interesting. It either hears him merely moaning, or sees him already
dead.
“Furthermore, this single moment receives through art an unchangeable
duration; therefore it must not express anything, of which we can
think only as transitory. All appearances, to whose very being,
according to our ideas, it is essential that they suddenly break forth
and as suddenly vanish, that they can be what they are but for a
moment,--all such appearances, be they pleasing or be they horrible,
receive, through the prolongation which art gives them, such an
unnatural character, that at every repeated glance the impression they
make grows weaker and weaker, and at last fills us with dislike or
disgust of the whole object.”
--Lessing, _Laokoön_, pp. 19, 20.
“It is neither charm nor is it dignity which speaks from the glorious
face of the Juno Ludovici; it is neither of these, for it is both at
once. While the female god challenges our veneration, the godlike
woman at the same time kindles our love. But while in ecstacy we give
ourselves up to the heavenly beauty, the heavenly self-repose awes
us back. The whole form rests and dwells in itself--a fully complete
creation in itself--and as if she were out of space, without advance
or resistance; it shows no force contending with force, no opening
through which time could break in. Irresistibly carried away and
attracted by her womanly charm, kept off at a distance by her godly
dignity, we also find ourselves at length in the state of the greatest
repose, and the result is a wonderful impression, for which the
understanding has no idea and language no name.”
--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, p. 72.
“As practising myself the art of sculpture no less than that of
painting, and doing both the one and the other in the same degree,
it seems to me that without suspicion of unfairness I may venture to
give an opinion as to which of the two is the more intellectual, and
of the greater difficulty and perfection. In the first place sculpture
is dependent on certain lights, namely those from above, while a
picture carries everywhere with it its own light and shade; light
and shade therefore are essential to sculpture. In this respect the
sculptor is aided by the nature of the relief which produces these
of its own accord, but the painter artificially creates them by his
art in places where nature would normally do the like. The sculptor
cannot render the difference in the varying natures of the colours of
objects; painting does not fail to do so in any particular. The lines
of perspective of sculptors do not seem in any way true; those of
painters may appear to extend a hundred miles beyond the work itself.”
--Leonardo da Vinci, _Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books_, arranged by
Edward McCurdy, pp. 160, 161.
“What the artist does or has done excites in us the mood in which he
himself was when he did it. A free mood in the artist makes us free; a
constrained one makes us uncomfortable. We usually find this freedom
of the artist where he is fully equal to his subject. It is on this
account we are so pleased with Dutch pictures; the artists painted the
life around them, of which they were perfect masters. If we are to
feel this freedom of mind in an actor, he must, by study, imagination,
and natural disposition, be perfect master of his part, must have all
bodily requisites at his command, and must be upheld by a certain
youthful energy. But study is not enough without imagination, and
study and imagination together are not enough without natural
disposition. Women do the most through imagination and temperament.”
--Goethe, _Conversations with Eckermann and Soret_, pp. 417, 418.
“If you would have me speak only of panel painting I am content to
give an opinion between it and sculpture by saying that painting is
more beautiful, more imaginative, and richer in resource, while
sculpture is more enduring, but excels in nothing else. Sculpture
reveals what it is with little effort; painting seems a thing
miraculous, making things intangible appear tangible, presenting in
relief things which are flat, in distance things near at hand. In fact
painting is adorned with infinite possibilities of which sculpture can
make no use.”
--Leonardo da Vinci, _Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books_, arranged by
Edward McCurdy, p. 162.
TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
1. What peculiar excellences has sculpture that are shown by no other
art?
2. What special excellences has painting that are shown by no other art?
3. What cannot be directly or adequately expressed in sculpture? In
painting?
4. Compare in conception, execution and associated emotions Andrea del
Sarto’s and Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the _Last Supper_.
5. What effect has the color and texture of marble upon the emotions?
6. Analyze carefully the effect of Michael Angelo’s _Last Judgment_
upon your senses, intellect and emotions.
7. Compare carefully, in the effect upon the beholder, the _Venus de
Milo_, Michael Angelo’s _Pietà_ (in St. Peter’s) and Chapu’s _Joan of
Arc_.
8. Study the relation of significance to beauty in Raphael’s _Sistine
Madonna_ and Millet’s _Sower_.
9. What is the significance for the function of sculpture and painting
that in both arts form is statical and relatively permanent?
10. Study the respective effects of form and color in sculpture; in
painting.
REFERENCES
Brown, _The Fine Arts_. Caffin, _How to Study Pictures_. Goethe,
_Travels in Italy_. Holden, _Audiences_. Knight, _The Philosophy of
the Beautiful_. LaFarge, _Considerations on Painting_. Leighton,
_Addresses_. Lessing, _Laokoön_. Mach, _Greek Sculpture_. Noyes, _The
Enjoyment of Art_. Palgrave, _Poetry Compared with the Other Fine
Arts_. Parry, _The Ministry of Fine Art to the Happiness of Life_.
Puffer, _The Psychology of Beauty_, chapter iv. Raymond, _Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture as Representative Arts_. Ruskin, _Aratra
Pentelici_; _Lectures on Art_; _Modern Painters_. Sturgis, _The
Appreciation of Pictures_; _The Appreciation of Sculpture_. Van Dyke,
_Art for Art’s Sake_; _How to Judge of a Picture_; _The Meaning
of Pictures_; _Principles of Art_. Vinci, _Leonardo da Vinci’s
Note-Books_; _Treatise on Painting_. Witt, _How to Look at Pictures_.
V. THE MEANING AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC
“Continue to translate yourself to the heaven of art; there is no more
undisturbed, unmixed, purer happiness than may thus be attained.”
--Beethoven, in Kerst, _Beethoven: The Man and the Artist_, p. 12.
=The art of music.=--Music the most difficult of the arts to define in
function and meaning, because the most subtle, seeming to produce its
effects as by a miracle.
The relation of music to Nature. The sounds utilized in music all
found in the natural world. Compare the effect of the wind sighing
in the pine-trees; bird songs; the rhythmic beat of waves upon the
shore. Yet music not often directly imitating nature as do sculpture
and painting. Music resolving natural forms into their elements and
then recombining these independently. Thus music accomplishing in time
relations more what architecture does in space relations. Compare the
use in architecture of forms given by Nature, as in the tree column or
cave roof. Hence deep significance in the oft-repeated comparison of
music and architecture. Architecture as “frozen music”; music as liquid
architecture. Illustrate in _Notre Dame de Paris_; in Beethoven’s
_Moonlight Sonata_.
=The appeal of architecture.=--The effect upon the beholder of the
Greek temple at Pæstum. Sensuous delight in beautiful forms and colors;
conception given; emotion aroused. Contrast a mediæval temple such
as _Notre Dame_ or the cathedral at Milan. What is dominant and what
subordinate in each work.
=The effect of music.=--The appeal in a relatively slight musical
composition such as Schumann’s _Arabesque_ (Op. 18) or Chopin’s
_Impromptu_ (Op. 29). Type of sensuous pleasure as compared with the
other arts. The dynamic series of forms arousing a series of emotional
states. The reflections associated with these states of feeling. Thus
the two-fold contrast between music and the arts dealing with space
relations: (1) What is dominant in the one, associated or subordinate
in the other; (2) In the one form dynamic and evanescent, in the other
statical and relatively permanent.
The direct intellectual element in analyzing the composition: compare
the study of motives and harmony. Relation of this to the immediate
response to the appeal of art. Intellectual analysis possible in
relation to all the arts; yet while this may lead to deepened
appreciation, standing somewhat aside from the response to the art
itself.
Fuller illustration of the line of appeal of music in the best of
Chopin’s _Nocturnes_ and the _Ninth Symphony_ of Beethoven. What is
given in each of these works. The means by which the effect is attained.
=The unique sphere of music.=--Significance that music must be
recreated every time it is enjoyed. Forms in music successive in a
dynamic series, each element dying in the same moment in which it is
created. Thus sublimation of form in music and the freeing of the
content from sensuous association.
Possibility of expressing for the emotions what cannot be represented
for the imagination. Note, possible to conceive God, an immaterial
soul, a transcendent heaven; but impossible to carve or paint these.
Power of music to express or awaken the emotions we associate with
the conceptions of the transcendent, the supernatural and the divine.
True sense in which music is the one art “capable of revealing the
infinite.” Browning’s illustration of this in _Abt Vogler_.
Music as the most personal of the fine arts in expressing emotions
no other art can adequately embody; at the same time music the most
social of the fine arts in arousing the feelings that unite men,
where intellectual opinions and convictions tend to separate them.
Illustration in the _Ouverture to Tannhäuser_.
The obvious reason why it is so much more difficult to put music into
intellectual terms than is true of the other arts. Various attempts
to associate a definite series of intellectual conceptions with the
sensuous and emotional appeal of music. Compare in naming compositions;
in “program music”; in interpretations. Rigid limits to these attempts.
=Composite arts.=--The reasons why music lends itself so readily to
combination with other arts. The song: its appeal as compared with
music unassociated with words. Church music and its development.
The opera as a peculiarly characteristic composite modern art. Elements
composing it; the question as to which should be central. The value of
Wagner’s answer.
=The cultural value of music.=--Peculiar danger in music since it may
arouse emotional sensibility without directing its expression. Plato’s
view. The effect of merely sensuous music. The need to choose your
companions wisely in hearing even great music.
Yet the danger in music merely the corollary of its peculiar strength
and power. Supreme value of its refining and exalting influence. Its
high significance for our time, indeed for the human spirit in all
time.
ILLUSTRATIONS
“And indeed the greatness of the poet may be best measured by that
concerning which he is silent, in order to let the unspeakable itself
speak to us silently. It is only the musician who can bring this
that is silent into clear expression; and the unerring form of _his_
loud-resounding silence is endless _melody_!”
--Wagner, in “The Music of the Future,” _Art Life and Theories_, p.
180.
“The more definitely a composer aims at making his music an expression
of emotion, the more firmly must he fashion it according to the
dictates of intellect, for were he to attempt emotional expression
without preserving the supremacy of the reason in his work, he would
speedily fall into formlessness, and instead of enlightening would
merely bewilder his hearers. In all art creative, or interpretative,
the emotion must be under the dominance of the reason, or else there
is no method, and art without method is inconceivable.”
--Henderson, _What is Good Music_, p. 98.
“What _instrumental music_ is unable to achieve, lies also beyond
the pale of _music proper_; for it alone is pure and self-subsistent
music. No matter whether we regard vocal music as superior to, or more
effective than instrumental music--an unscientific proceeding, by
the way, which is generally the upshot of one-sided dilettantism--we
can not help admitting that the term ‘music,’ in its true meaning,
must exclude compositions in which words are set to music. In vocal
or operatic music it is impossible to draw so nice a distinction
between the effect of the music, and that of the words, that an exact
definition of the share which each has had in the production of the
whole becomes practicable. An enquiry into the subject of music
must leave out even compositions with inscriptions, or so-called
programme-music. Its union with poetry, though enhancing the power of
music, does not widen its limits.”
--Hanslick, _The Beautiful in Music_, pp. 44, 45.
“How, ye formal philosophers, ye men of the ‘sounding arabesque,’ unto
whom the spirit shows itself not, because ye do not believe in it, or
search after it in the organic structure with the gross scalpel of the
anatomist--know ye not that Goethe’s ‘disengaging one’s self from a
mood,’ which he found in poetry, also applies to the musician--that
every truly artistic tone-work is also an ‘occasional poem’? Surely,
no musical thought has ever been generated with vital power in your
soul, or, if you had one, it was a greenhouse plant. Otherwise you
would know, that the artist hastens with everything that delights
and pains him to his beloved art, and desires of it that it should
preserve each mood for him in the sacred vessel of its beautiful form
for all time.”
--Ambros, _The Boundaries of Music and Poetry_, p. 106.
“While _sound_ in _speech_ is but a sign, that is, a _means_ for the
purpose of expressing something which is quite distinct from its
medium; _sound_ in _music_ is the _end_, that is, the ultimate and
absolute object in view. The intrinsic beauty of the musical forms in
the latter case, and the exclusive dominion of thought over sound as a
mere medium of expression, in the former, are so utterly distinct as
to render the union of these two elements a logical impossibility.”
--Hanslick, _The Beautiful in Music_, p. 94.
“Let us establish first of all the fact that the _one true form of
music is melody_; that without melody music is inconceivable, and
that music and melody are inseparable. That a piece of music has _no_
melody, can therefore only mean that the musician has not attained
to the real formation of an effective form, that can have a decisive
influence upon the feelings; which simply shows the absence of talent
in the composer.”
--Wagner, in “The Music of the Future,” _Art Life and Theories_, p.
175.
“In its _ideal_ feature music keeps within its natural boundaries,
so long as it does not undertake to go beyond its expressional
capacity--that is, so long as the poetical thought of the composer
becomes intelligible from the moods called forth by his work and the
train of ideas stimulated thereby, that is, from the composition
itself, and so long as nothing foreign, not organically connected
with the music itself, must be dragged in, in order to assist
comprehension.”
--Ambros, _The Boundaries of Music and Poetry_, pp. 181, 182.
“It must be in music, that language intelligible to all men, that
the great equalizing power is to be found, which, converting the
language of ideas into the language of the feelings, would bring the
deepest secrets of the artistic conception to general comprehension,
especially if this comprehension can be made distinct through the
plastic expression of dramatic representation,--can be given such a
distinctness as up to this time painting alone has been able to claim
as its peculiar influence.”
--Wagner, in “The Music of the Future,” _Art Life and Theories_, p.
141.
“In opera, willy-nilly, poetry must be the obedient daughter of music.
Why do Italian operas please everywhere, even in Paris, as I have
been a witness, despite the wretchedness of their librettos? Because
in them music rules and compels us to forget everything else. All
the more must an opera please in which the plot is well carried out,
and the words are written simply for the sake of the music and not
here and there to please some miserable rhyme, which, God knows, adds
nothing to a theatrical representation but more often harms it. Verses
are the most indispensable thing in music, but rhymes, for the sake of
rhymes, the most injurious. Those who go to work so pedantically will
assuredly come to grief along with the music. It were best if a good
composer, who understands the stage, and is himself able to suggest
something, and a clever poet could be united in one, like a phœnix.”
--Mozart, in Kerst, _Mozart: The Man and the Artist_, p. 28.
“That which so strongly attracted our great poets towards music
was the fact that it was at the same time the purest form and the
most sensuous realization of that form. The abstract arithmetical
number, the mathematical figure, meets us here as a creation having
an irresistible influence upon the emotions--that is, it appears
as _melody_; and this can be as unerringly established, so as to
produce sensuous effect, as the poetic diction of written language,
on the contrary, is abandoned to every whim in the personal character
of the person reciting it. What was not practically possible
for Shakespeare--to be _himself_ the actor of each one of his
rôles--is practicable for the musical composer, and this with great
definiteness,--since he speaks to us directly through each one of the
musicians who execute his works. In this case the transmigration of
the poet’s soul into the body of the performer takes place according
to the infallible laws of the most positive _technique_; and the
composer who gives the correct measure for a technically right
performance of his work, becomes completely one with the musician who
performs it, to an extent that can at most only be affirmed of the
constructive artist in regard to a work which he had himself produced
in color or stone,--if, indeed, a transmigration of his soul into
lifeless matter is a supposable case.”
--Wagner, in “The Purpose of the Opera,” _Art Life and Theories_, pp.
226, 227.
TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION
1. What relation has the art of music to the sounds given in the
natural world?
2. Choose two musical compositions you know well and analyze in detail
the effect they produce upon you and the means by which the effect is
produced.
3. What element in music corresponds in any degree to color in painting?
4. Compare carefully the art of music in dealing with time relations
with architecture in dealing with space relations.
5. Compare what is dominant in the appeal of music with what is
dominant in the appeal of sculpture and painting.
6. What results from the fact that in music form is dynamic and
evanescent, while in sculpture and painting it is statical and
relatively permanent?
7. What may be said to be the intellectual element in music?
8. Compare what is given in Gounod’s music to _Faust_ with what is
given in a series of paintings dealing with the Faust story.
9. Is the effect good or bad of merely sensuously enjoying slight music?
10. Compare the cultural value of music with that of sculpture and
painting.
REFERENCES
Ambros, _Boundaries of Music and Poetry_. Browning, _Abt Vogler_;
_With Charles Avison_; _Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha_; _Saul_.
Carpenter, _Angels’ Wings_. Davies, _The Musical Consciousness_.
Dwight, _Intellectual Influence of Music_; _Music as a Means of
Culture_. Eastman, _Musical Education and Musical Art_. Goddard,
_Reflections upon Musical Art_. Gurney, _The Power of Sound_.
Hanchett, _The Art of the Musician_. Hand, _Æsthetics of Musical Art_.
Hanslick, _The Beautiful in Music_. Helmholtz, _On the Sensations of
Tone_. Henderson, _What is Good Music?_ Holden, _Audiences_. Kerst,
_Beethoven_; _Mozart_. Knight, _The Philosophy of the Beautiful_.
Kobbé, _How to Appreciate Music_. Krehbiel, _How to Listen to
Music_. Kufferath, _Rhythm, Melody and Harmony_. Lanier, _Music and
Poetry_. Mathews, _How to Understand Music_; _Music: Its Ideals and
Methods_. Norton, _The Intellectual Element in Music_. Palgrave,
_Poetry Compared with the Other Fine Arts_. Parry, _The Evolution
of the Art of Music_. Plato, _Republic_ (books II and III). Puffer,
_The Psychology of Beauty_, chapter v. Raymond, _Rhythm and Harmony
in Poetry and Music_. Ritter, _Music in Its Relation to Intellectual
Life_. Saint-Saëns, _The Nature and Object of Music_. Schopenhauer,
_On the Metaphysics of Music_. Spencer, _The Origin and Function of
Music_. Surette and Mason, _The Appreciation of Music_. Wagner, _Art
Life and Theories of_; _Beethoven_.
VI. THE MEANING AND FUNCTION OF POETRY
“Form without substance is a shadow of riches, and all possible
cleverness in expression is of no use to him who has nothing to
express.”
--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, p. 239.
=The nature of poetry.=--Poetry as the highest and most characteristic
form of literature. Bewildering wealth of material in this art and most
many-sided relation to the spirit of man. Hence difficulty in defining
function.
=Poetry in relation to sculpture and painting.=--Possibility in poetry
of expressing definite conceptions for the intellect and imagination.
Compare Shelley’s _Ozymandias of Egypt_. What is given in this sonnet:
compare a statue. Less immediate portrayal for the vision in poetry.
Hence less direct power in appeal to the imagination; but conceptions
freed more from sense association. Moreover ideas expressed through a
succession of forms in time relation.
Power of poetry to paint a picture: compare Wordsworth’s sonnet _Upon
Westminster Bridge_. Contrast in appeal with a painting of the same
scene. The ways in which each art has its own superiority. Truth
and error in Lessing’s theory of descriptive poetry as developed in
_Laokoön_.
=Poetry in relation to music.=--Direct musical appeal in the two
sonnets studied. Direct expression of emotion and appeal to emotion in
poetry. Compare Shelley’s lyric _To the Night_. Here music dominant,
appealing to the emotions, as in _Ozymandias_ thought and imagination
appealing to inner vision. How all poetry should be read aloud. Even
when read silently, appeal to the ear in music through the imagination.
The effect of poetry read aloud in a language the hearer does not know:
direct appeal of music in poetry even when the ideas are not given at
all. Thus poetry making a direct appeal to the emotions through music,
though with less absoluteness than in music and without in any way
usurping or replacing the functions of the latter art.
Byron’s stanzas on the sunset hour in _Don Juan_. What they give in
natural beauty; association of the human past, of religion and of
literature; personal experience. Compare what is given in Millet’s
_Angelus_; in a musical composition awakening the same emotions.