binds the individual to the common intellectual centre. The work of art
is the progeny of the common mother--Nature; and of a distinct
father--the artist. Its originality is simply an asseveration of
paternity. It is the proper name linked to the family appellation, an
individual recommendation approved by the community at large.
But the artist's work does not consist merely in his personal
expression, though that indeed gives it its distinctive quality, its
individual features, even while it thereby confines them within certain
limits.
As a matter of fact, while his artistic sensitiveness brings him into
touch with actual nature, his reason brings him into equal contact with
ideal nature, and this in virtue of that law of transfiguration which
must be applied to all existent realities, so as to draw them ever
closer to those which _are_--in other words, to their perfect prototype.
Let me here quote a sentence which seems to me, at all events, a
somewhat striking formulation, even if it be not a proof, of the truth
of the foregoing remarks. St. Theresa, that pious woman whose brilliant
wisdom has earned her a place amongst the most famous teachers of the
Church, used to say she did not remember ever to have heard a bad
sermon. I ask no better than to believe this, seeing she said it. But it
must be admitted that unless the saint deceived herself, she herself at
least, if not the period in which she lived, must have been blessed with
some special favour, by no means the lightest, in all conscience, which
God has been pleased to bestow upon His faithful servants. However that
may have been, and without desiring to cast the slightest doubt on the
faithfulness of her witness, it may be explained--translated, let us
say; and we may arrive at some comprehension of how, and to what an
occasionally astounding extent, the inaccurate relation of a fact may
co-exist with the absolute veracity of the person who bears the
testimony.
Why did St. Theresa never recollect having heard a bad sermon? Because
every sermon she heard with her outward ears was spontaneously
transfigured, and literally _recreated_ by reason of the sublimity of
that which sounded ever within her own soul. Because the words of the
preacher, void though they might be of literary power or oratorical
artifice, spoke to her of that which she loved best in the world, and
once her spirit was borne in that direction, or to that level, she felt
and heard nothing but God--concerning whom the preacher spoke.
"Use my eyes," said a famous painter, when an acquaintance complained of
the hideousness of his model; "use my eyes, sir, and you will see he is
sublime!"
Thus, at the mere sight of even a second-rate work, so that it suffice
to kindle that divine spark, the hall-mark of genius, in his soul, the
truly great artist will suddenly grasp his idea, and fathom the very
depths of his art in one swift piercing glance.
Who can tell whether the "Barbier de Seville" and "Guillaume Tell" were
not cradled on the paternal trestle stage on which Rossini's musical
training first began?
To pass from exterior tangible realities to emotion, from emotion
onwards to reason, this is the progressive order of true intellectual
development. And this it is which St Augustine sums up so admirably in
one of those clear and perspicuous maxims constantly to be met with in
his works: "Ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab interioribus ad
superiora"--From without, within; from within, above.
Art is one of the three incarnations of the ideal in the real; one of
the three operations of that spirit which is to "renew the face of the
earth;" one of the three revivals of Nature in man; one of the three
forms, in a word, of that principle of separate immortality which
constitutes the perpetual resurrection of humanity at large, by virtue
of its three creative powers, distinct in function, though substantially
identical--viz., Love, the essence of human life; Science, the essence
of truth; and Art, the essence of beauty.
Having thus endeavoured to show how the law which governs the progress
of the human mind resides in the union of the ideal with the real, it
now remains for me to give the counter-proof, by demonstrating the
result of the separation and isolation of these two factors.
In art, mere realism is another word for slavish imitation. Utter
idealism is the madness of fancy. In science, reality, by itself, is the
enigma of fact unenlightened by its laws. Idealism alone is a ghostly
conjecture, devoid of the confirmation of actualities.
In morality, realism unadulterated means the egotism of
self-interest--in other words, a lack of _rational_ sanction in the
field of human will. Unmixed idealism is mere Utopia, or the absence of
the sanction of experience in all that is governed by human maxims.
In each and every case there must be either a soulless body or a
disembodied soul; a denial of the law of existence by one who belongs at
once, by virtue of his double nature, to the tangible and to the
intellectual order of life, and whose being is only normal and complete
inasmuch as it gives expression to these two orders of reality. If there
be one peculiarity specially characteristic of these three high human
vocations, the service of Goodness, of Beauty, and of Truth--if there be
a bond between them, which marks the divinity of their common origin,
and raises them to truly Apostolic dignity--it is that they are
disinterested, gratuitous, _freely given_.
The functions of _life_ are so closely knit to those of _existence_ that
the divine freedom of a man's vocation must perforce submit to the human
necessities of his profession. And the most passionate and eager
_livers_ often understand little, and fare ill, when it comes to matters
of _subsistence_. But all the superior functions of mankind are
necessarily and intrinsically _gratuitous_.
Neither Love, nor Science, nor Art can be venally appraised. They are
the divine three persons of the human conscience. Only finite things can
be sold. Immortal things must bestow themselves freely.
Therefore it is that the handiwork of Goodness, of Beauty, and of Truth
defies the centuries; the very eternity of their first causes gives
them life.
"NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH."
Thus did the mighty captive of Patmos, the prince of evangelists,
foretell the end of time, in the twenty-first chapter of the Apocalypse;
a stately vision, culminating in the hosannah of the "New Jerusalem, the
Holy City, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband." What mighty seers they were! those great
Hebrew poets! those diviners of the growth and destinies of the human
race!--Job, David, Solomon, the Prophets, St. Paul, and the Apostle
John, who was permitted to learn the secrets of eternity and to peer
into the unfathomable depths of infinite generations!
That New Jerusalem, that chosen country, is _human selection_, the
victorious solver of all enigmas, bearing, like some glorious trophy,
all the sacramental veils the world has dropped one by one along the
centuries--"the faithful steward entering into the joy of his Lord,"
who, under the glorious light of the "New Heaven," lays the "New Earth"
regenerated, _recreated_, according to the law expressed in the supreme
formula: "Verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again he can in
no case enter into the kingdom of heaven"--at the feet of his Father and
his God.
THE ACADEMY OF FRANCE AT ROME
At a juncture like the present, when, under the mask of so-called
_naturalism_ in Art, an effort is being made to cast disfavour upon that
noble and beneficent institution, the Academy of France in Rome, it
appears to me a duty to enter a protest against the destructive
tendencies, which, could they aspire to the dignity of being called
doctrines, would end in nothing short of the utter obliteration of the
Fine Arts, in their highest sense, and which, moreover, have no
foundation save in the very emptiest and most frivolous of arguments.
The advocates of what _they_ denominate "Modern Art" (as if Art did not
belong to all times) make an unconditional attack on the Ecole de Rome;
and their ultimatum is that the Villa Medicis, being a hotbed of
artistic infection, must be forthwith done away with. This constitutes
the "delenda Carthago" of the Anti-Roman party.
I shall not here undertake to plead _ex professo_ in favour of the
painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers whom the State sends year
by year to Rome, thus ensuring them, in return for the hopes their
talent has excited, constant and assiduous communion with the immortal
teachers of the past, known as "the Masters." Myself a musician, I will
confine myself to the points affecting the interests of musical
composers, the more so as in their case especially a residence in Rome
is looked on as being utterly useless and meaningless. But, seeing the
cause of one art is the cause of Art in general, anything I may say
about musicians will naturally apply to all other artists.
The first thing that strikes me is the fact that this bitterness against
the Roman school is the mere outcome of a desire, more or less frankly
expressed, which sums up in itself the whole of the opposition
programme. "Down with the teachers! Let us use our own wings!" There is
no doubt this is what is meant by "Modern Art."
No more education, then; no more acquired and transmissible ideas. That
means no capital, and therefore no more patrimony nor inheritance. No
past, therefore, no more traditions, no more intellectual paternity. In
other words, the reign of spontaneous generation. For there is nothing
between the two. We must have either teaching or intuitive knowledge.
And note well that those who hug this system are the very men who are
always talking about "the School of the Future." By what right, I ask,
do they invoke the Future, when within a few days they must have become
in its eyes that very Past they will have none of? A wonderfully absurd
self-contradiction, this "kingdom divided against itself!" Show me any
single method of employing human faculties which rests on such a theory!
Law? Physical science? Chemistry? Astronomy? Mechanics? Is not man
primarily an _educated_ being? Does not his whole existence depend on an
amassed capital of knowledge? Is he not taught to read, and write, and
ride, and walk, and use weapons, and play on various instruments? Has
not each department its own special form of gymnastics? And what is a
school, after all, but a gymnasium?
Well, you say, let us grant all that, as far as science is concerned,
and handicraft. But how about genius? No one can learn to be a genius.
You either have that gift or have it not, and it can no more be
bestowed on him who has it not than it can be taken from him who has it.
That is a true and uncontested fact. But it is no less true that, as a
great artist,[20] well qualified to speak, once said, "Art without
science does not exist."
Genius, indeed, is incommunicable, for it is an essentially personal
_gift_. But that which is communicable and transmissible is the language
whereby genius is formulated and expressed, and failing which it must
e'en remain dumb and impotent. Were not Raphael, Mozart, Beethoven, all
men of genius? Did they conceive that fact authorised their scornful
rejection of the traditional masters, who not only initiated them into
the _practice_ of their art, but also pointed them the surest _road_ to
follow, thus saving the immense waste of time involved in seeking a
certainty already assured to them by the experience of past centuries?
This claim to upset historical truths by dint of sheer sophistry is a
downright mockery of common-sense. It amounts to asserting that no
orator nor author need learn his language nor study his syntax and his
dictionary. Theophile Gautier was right when he said, "If I write better
than other people, it is because I have _learnt my business_, and I
have a greater number of words at my command."
But, say the objectors, there are numbers of eminent artists who never
studied at Rome at all.
This is perfectly true, and I hasten to add a fact, on which the
opposition has no particular reason to plume itself so very
proudly--that it by no means necessarily follows that a student at the
Ecole de Rome should emerge from it a very superior artist. But what
does this prove? That Rome cannot perform a miracle and bestow what
Nature has withheld. This is clear as daylight. It really would be too
much to expect genius to be obtained at the price of a journey which
anybody is free to make. But that is not the question at all. The
question really is, whether, granted the possession of an artistic
organisation, the influence Rome exercises thereon is not incontestable
and unrivalled, in the matter of intellectual elevation and artistic
development.
This view leads me to consider the utility of a residence in Rome as
regards musical composers.
We will admit, the opposition say, that painters, sculptors, architects,
and engravers should be sent to Italy. They will there find a
considerable number of masterpieces, deeply interesting at all events,
in connection with the different arts they practise. But what is a
musician to do at Rome? What music is he to listen to? What _artistic_
benefit can he gain there?
The fact is, that the people who make such objections must have given
very little thought to the subject of what an artist is. Do they really
believe he is given over utterly to _technique_, as though mechanical
proficiency constituted his whole art? As if a man might not be a clever
mechanical performer and yet a commonplace artist; a consummate
rhetorician, and a poor writer, or a cold speaker!
What! are eloquence and virtuosity one and the same thing? Is there no
difference betwixt the man and the instrument he uses? Have men
forgotten that the _artisan_ is but part of the _artist_, that is, the
_man_--that it is the _man_ who must be touched, enlightened, carried
away, nay, transfigured, so that he shall be lost in passionate
adoration of that immortal beauty which ensures not momentary success
alone, but the never-ending empire of those masterpieces which have been
the light and guide of human art from the ancients down through the
Renaissance to our own time, and will endure after it, and for ever!
Is this a real or merely a feigned ignorance of those immutable laws of
nutrition and assimilation which govern the growth and perfect
development of every organism? If music is the only thing necessary to
the development and maturity of a musician's talent, I would not only
ask why he should be sent to Rome, since there is no object in his
gazing on the frescoes of Raphael and Michael Angelo on the Vatican
hill, the home of all the oracles? I would fain know why he should read
Homer, Virgil, Tacitus, Juvenal, Dante and Shakespeare, Moliere and La
Fontaine, Bossuet and Pascal--all, in a word, of the great nurturers of
formulated human thought? What is the use? Literature is not music....
No! in good truth. But it is Art, which is ancient and modern too. Art,
universal and eternal. And in Art the artist (not the artisan) must find
his food, his health, his power, his very life. After all, what is this
so-called _naturalism_ in Art? I confess I should be glad to be informed
as to the sense attached to the word by those who seem inclined to make
it the banner of a grievance, and the symbol of a claim to a right
denied by despotic routine. Does it mean that Nature should be the
foundation and starting point in all art? In that sense all the Masters
are agreed. But Art cannot stop there, and Raphael, whom I suppose I may
take to have known Nature well, gives us the following definition, as
admirable as it is perhaps over-spontaneous: "Art does not consist in
representing things as Nature _made_ them, but as she _should_ have made
them!" Sublime words, telling us clearly that Art is above all a
preference, a true _selection_, and thus presupposing a training of the
artist's understanding to a special standard of appreciation.
If Nature is everything, and education counts for nothing--if the common
herd knows as much as the Masters, then how comes it that time so
constantly reverses those ephemeral judgments which have so often
showered transports of applause on works soon to be forgotten, or looked
askance on masterpieces which have since been hailed with admiration by
the infallible verdict of posterity?
I freely admit that the general public may be competent to judge a
_play_--and even this may be contested when one remembers what an
immense number of works held our fathers spell-bound, and leave us cold
and indifferent. But even allowing for these ups and downs of
popularity, it cannot be said that Art resides in the drama only. There
is not the faintest analogy between the violent shock caused by some
striking theatrical situation and the calm and noble delight to be
derived from an exquisite and perfect work of art. Nobody could think of
comparing the feelings produced by a melodrama to the emotion roused by
a contemplation of the Frieze of the Parthenon, or the "Dispute du St
Sacrement." A whole abyss lies betwixt the domain of mere sensation and
that of intellectual feeling.
And what shall I say concerning the incalculable benefits to be found in
the quietness and security of such a retreat, far from the feverish roar
and constant anxiety of daily life? What of the silence, which teaches a
man to listen to what is passing within his own soul? What of the deep
solitudes, the distant horizons whose majestic lines seem never to lose
their magic power of raising the mind to the level of the great deeds
they saw performed? What of the Tiber, with its stern waters, eloquent
of the crimes they have engulphed, and the calm of that Roman Campagna
through which they roll?
And Rome herself--alone--the triple city, on whose head the centuries
have set the proud tiara which her Supreme Pontiff wears--shedding the
undying light of Truth, the immortal, over all the earth! What a
standpoint! What a noble diapason we have here! What surroundings for
the man who knows what meditation means!
Let us have no more flaunting of these equivocal and noisy titles,
_naturalism, realism_, and so forth! Art is Nature, yes, _in the first
place_; but Nature verified and registered, weighed--_judged_, in a
word, before the tribunal of a discernment which analyses, and a reason
which rectifies and restores her. Art is a reparation of the failures
and forgetfulness of Reality. It is the immortalisation of mortal things
by a wise process of elimination, not by a blind and servile worship of
their defective and perishable qualities. At all costs and against all
comers, then, let us preserve our splendid Ecole de Rome, whose archives
bear such names as those of David, Ingres, Flandrin, Regnault, Duret,
Herold, Halevy, Berlioz, Bizet--none of which, as far as I am aware,
warrant the scornful pity under which some people would fain wither a
dynasty already over a century old.
Let us put forth all our strength to defend the sacred retreat which
shelters our growing artist, frees him from premature anxiety concerning
his daily bread, and forewarns and forearms him, not against the
temptation to mere money-getting only, but against the vulgar triumphs
of a paltry and evanescent popularity.
THE ARTIST AND MODERN
SOCIETY
The immense extension of social relations in modern times has had
considerable influence on artistic life and work; an influence which, if
I mistake not, has done more harm than good.
Formerly, and not so very long ago either, an artist, like a man of
learning, was held, and justly so, to be a member of one of the great
corporations of intellectual workers. He was looked on as a sort of
recluse, whose retreat was sacred from disturbance. Men would have
hesitated to tear him from the silence and meditation without which the
conception and production of healthy work which will withstand the
onslaught of Time--that merciless judge who "never spares aught he did
not help to make"--becomes difficult, if not utterly impossible.
Nowadays, the artist is no longer his own master. He belongs to the
world at large. He is worse than its target. He is its prey. His own
personal and productive life is almost entirely absorbed, swamped,
squandered, in so-called social obligations, which gradually stifle him
in that network of sham and barren duties which go to make up many an
existence devoid of serious object or high motive. In a word, society
eats him up.
Now, what is society? It is an aggregation of individuals who are afraid
of being bored, and whose sole idea is to get away from their own
selves, because of the terror with which the idea of being left in their
own sole company inspires them.
Once we begin to tot up the amount of time levied on the artist's
working hours by the constantly increasing number of small calls
struggling and fighting for his attention all day long, we wonder how,
by what extra activity, what effort of concentration, he contrives to
perform his chief duty--that of doing honour to the career he has
chosen, and to which his best powers and his highest faculties by right
belong. It must surely be admitted that in removing the barrier which
its scornful indifference, rather than its intelligent discretion, had
placed between itself and artists in general, modern society has done
them a mischief in no way atoned for by the attractions it offers.
Moliere, whose searching glance so deeply fathomed human weaknesses, and
who portrayed them with such an unerring hand, addressed the following
lines, full of the deepest wisdom and the healthiest philosophy, to the
great Colbert:--
"L'etude et la visite ont leurs talents a part
Qui se donne a la Cour se derobe a son art.
Un esprit partage rarement s'y consomme
Et les emplois de feu demandant tout un homme."
Let any one try to realise what can in fairness be expected from the
mind of a man incessantly torn hither and thither by evening parties,
dinners, perpetual invitations to social gatherings of every sort, a
mass of correspondence which leaves him no peace, and the guilty authors
of which never dream of saying to themselves, "I am stealing this man's
time and thoughts, his very life;" and by all the petty tyrannies, in
fine, which go to make up that monster one, called the indiscretion of
the public.
And then the visitors, the crowd of idle and curious loungers, who
assail your privacy from dawn till dark! Somebody says, "That's all your
own fault--you can say you are not at home." Very fine indeed! But how
about those letters of introduction, frequently requesting some service
on your part which you cannot well refuse? You make up your mind to do
your duty, and the visitor is shown in.
"Excuse me; I fear I disturb you!"
"Well, frankly, yes!"
"I beg your pardon; I will not stay now. I'll call another time."
"Oh, pray don't!"
"But--when can I see you without disturbing you?"
"The fact is, I am always busy when I am at home."
"Are you really always so hard at work?"
"Yes, always, unless I am interrupted."
"Oh, I am so sorry to trouble you! But I will only detain you a very few
minutes."
"Well, well, sir, that's long enough to kill a man, not to mention an
idea! But as you are here, pray proceed."
This is a sample of what occurs daily; and I speak here of artists as a
general class. But there is a certain category of artists who have quite
special advantages in this line. I can speak out of my own experience,
for I refer to musicians. A painter or a sculptor can easily protect
his working hours by mercilessly closing his door. He can plead a
sitting model, or, if the worst comes to the worst, he can wield the
brush or chisel even in the presence of visitors. But the musician? His
case is quite different. As his work can be done in daylight, people
take his evenings to provide amusement for their guests; and as he can
work at night, they come and waste and fritter away his days without the
slightest scruple. "And besides," they say, "musical composition is such
an easy thing! It is not a matter of labour; it comes of itself, an
inspiration!"