I. INTRODUCTION
Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the
mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture
produces an art of its own which can never be repeated. Efforts
to revive the art-principles of the past will at best produce an
art that is still-born. It is impossible for us to live and feel,
as did the ancient Greeks. In the same way those who strive to
follow the Greek methods in sculpture achieve only a similarity
of form, the work remaining soulless for all time. Such imitation
is mere aping. Externally the monkey completely resembles a human
being; he will sit holding a book in front of his nose, and turn
over the pages with a thoughtful aspect, but his actions have for
him no real meaning.
There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity
which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a
similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual
atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but
later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one
period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival
of the external forms which served to express those inner
feelings in an earlier age. An example of this today is our
sympathy, our spiritual relationship, with the Primitives. Like
ourselves, these artists sought to express in their work only
internal truths, renouncing in consequence all consideration of
external form.
This all-important spark of inner life today is at present only a
spark. Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after
years of materialism, are infected with the despair of unbelief,
of lack of purpose and ideal. The nightmare of materialism, which
has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game,
is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip.
Only a feeble light glimmers like a tiny star in a vast gulf of
darkness. This feeble light is but a presentiment, and the soul,
when it sees it, trembles in doubt whether the light is not a
dream, and the gulf of darkness reality. This doubt, and the
still harsh tyranny of the materialistic philosophy, divide our
soul sharply from that of the Primitives. Our soul rings cracked
when we seek to play upon it, as does a costly vase, long buried
in the earth, which is found to have a flaw when it is dug up
once more. For this reason, the Primitive phase, through which we
are now passing, with its temporary similarity of form, can only
be of short duration.
These two possible resemblances between the art forms of today
and those of the past will be at once recognized as diametrically
opposed to one another. The first, being purely external, has no
future. The second, being internal, contains the seed of the
future within itself. After the period of materialist effort,
which held the soul in check until it was shaken off as evil, the
soul is emerging, purged by trials and sufferings. Shapeless
emotions such as fear, joy, grief, etc., which belonged to this
time of effort, will no longer greatly attract the artist. He
will endeavour to awake subtler emotions, as yet unnamed. Living
himself a complicated and comparatively subtle life, his work
will give to those observers capable of feeling them lofty
emotions beyond the reach of words.
The observer of today, however, is seldom capable of feeling such
emotions. He seeks in a work of art a mere imitation of nature
which can serve some definite purpose (for example a portrait in
the ordinary sense) or a presentment of nature according to a
certain convention ("impressionist" painting), or some inner
feeling expressed in terms of natural form (as we say--a picture
with Stimmung) [Footnote: Stimmung is almost untranslateable. It
is almost "sentiment" in the best sense, and almost "feeling."
Many of Corot's twilight landscapes are full of a beautiful
"Stimmung." Kandinsky uses the word later on to mean the
"essential spirit" of nature.--M.T.H.S.] All those varieties of
picture, when they are really art, fulfil their purpose and feed
the spirit. Though this applies to the first case, it applies
more strongly to the third, where the spectator does feel a
corresponding thrill in himself. Such harmony or even contrast of
emotion cannot be superficial or worthless; indeed the Stimmung
of a picture can deepen and purify that of the spectator. Such
works of art at least preserve the soul from coarseness; they
"key it up," so to speak, to a certain height, as a tuning-key
the strings of a musical instrument. But purification, and
extension in duration and size of this sympathy of soul, remain
one-sided, and the possibilities of the influence of art are not
exerted to their utmost.
Imagine a building divided into many rooms. The building may be
large or small. Every wall of every room is covered with pictures
of various sizes; perhaps they number many thousands. They
represent in colour bits of nature--animals in sunlight or
shadow, drinking, standing in water, lying on the grass; near to,
a Crucifixion by a painter who does not believe in Christ;
flowers; human figures sitting, standing, walking; often they are
naked; many naked women, seen foreshortened from behind; apples
and silver dishes; portrait of Councillor So and So; sunset; lady
in red; flying duck; portrait of Lady X; flying geese; lady in
white; calves in shadow flecked with brilliant yellow sunlight;
portrait of Prince Y; lady in green. All this is carefully
printed in a book--name of artist--name of picture. People with
these books in their hands go from wall to wall, turning over
pages, reading the names. Then they go away, neither richer nor
poorer than when they came, and are absorbed at once in their
business, which has nothing to do with art. Why did they come? In
each picture is a whole lifetime imprisoned, a whole lifetime of
fears, doubts, hopes, and joys.
Whither is this lifetime tending? What is the message of the
competent artist? "To send light into the darkness of men's
hearts--such is the duty of the artist," said Schumann. "An
artist is a man who can draw and paint everything," said Tolstoi.
Of these two definitions of the artist's activity we must choose
the second, if we think of the exhibition just described. On one
canvas is a huddle of objects painted with varying degrees of
skill, virtuosity and vigour, harshly or smoothly. To harmonize
the whole is the task of art. With cold eyes and indifferent mind
the spectators regard the work. Connoisseurs admire the "skill"
(as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of
painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry
away.
The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the
pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said
nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. This condition
of art is called "art for art's sake." This neglect of inner
meanings, which is the life of colours, this vain squandering of
artistic power is called "art for art's sake."
The artist seeks for material reward for his dexterity, his power
of vision and experience. His purpose becomes the satisfaction of
vanity and greed. In place of the steady co-operation of artists
is a scramble for good things. There are complaints of excessive
competition, of over-production. Hatred, partisanship, cliques,
jealousy, intrigues are the natural consequences of this aimless,
materialist art.
[Footnote: The few solitary exceptions do not destroy the truth
of this sad and ominous picture, and even these exceptions are
chiefly believers in the doctrine of art for art's sake. They
serve, therefore, a higher ideal, but one which is ultimately a
useless waste of their strength. External beauty is one element
of a spiritual atmosphere. But beyond this positive fact (that
what is beautiful is good) it has the weakness of a talent not
used to the full. (The word talent is employed in the biblical
sense.)]
The onlooker turns away from the artist who has higher ideals and
who cannot see his life purpose in an art without aims.
Sympathy is the education of the spectator from the point of view
of the artist. It has been said above that art is the child of
its age. Such an art can only create an artistic feeling which is
already clearly felt. This art, which has no power for the
future, which is only a child of the age and cannot become a
mother of the future, is a barren art. She is transitory and to
all intent dies the moment the atmosphere alters which nourished
her.
The other art, that which is capable of educating further,
springs equally from contemporary feeling, but is at the same
time not only echo and mirror of it, but also has a deep and
powerful prophetic strength.
The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one
of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and
easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This movement is
the movement of experience. It may take different forms, but it
holds at bottom to the same inner thought and purpose.
Veiled in obscurity are the causes of this need to move ever
upwards and forwards, by sweat of the brow, through sufferings
and fears. When one stage has been accomplished, and many evil
stones cleared from the road, some unseen and wicked hand
scatters new obstacles in the way, so that the path often seems
blocked and totally obliterated. But there never fails to come to
the rescue some human being, like ourselves in everything except
that he has in him a secret power of vision.
He sees and points the way. The power to do this he would
sometimes fain lay aside, for it is a bitter cross to bear. But
he cannot do so. Scorned and hated, he drags after him over the
stones the heavy chariot of a divided humanity, ever forwards and
upwards.
Often, many years after his body has vanished from the earth, men
try by every means to recreate this body in marble, iron, bronze,
or stone, on an enormous scale. As if there were any intrinsic
value in the bodily existence of such divine martyrs and servants
of humanity, who despised the flesh and lived only for the
spirit! But at least such setting up of marble is a proof that a
great number of men have reached the point where once the being
they would now honour, stood alone.
II. THE MOVEMENT OF THE TRIANGLE
The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a
large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal
parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment
the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.
The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards
and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is
tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to
the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms
tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.
At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only
one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are
nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they
abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood
Beethoven, solitary and insulted.
[Footnote: Weber, composer of Der Freischutz, said of Beethoven's
Seventh Symphony: "The extravagances of genius have reached the
limit; Beethoven is now ripe for an asylum." Of the opening
phrase, on a reiterated "e," the Abbe Stadler said to his
neighbour, when first he heard it: "Always that miserable 'e'; he
seems to be deaf to it himself, the idiot!"]
How many years will it be before a greater segment of the
triangle reaches the spot where he once stood alone? Despite
memorials and statues, are they really many who have risen to his
level? [Footnote 2: Are not many monuments in themselves answers
to that question?]
In every segment of the triangle are artists. Each one of them
who can see beyond the limits of his segment is a prophet to
those about him, and helps the advance of the obstinate whole.
But those who are blind, or those who retard the movement of the
triangle for baser reasons, are fully understood by their fellows
and acclaimed for their genius. The greater the segment (which is
the same as saying the lower it lies in the triangle) so the
greater the number who understand the words of the artist. Every
segment hungers consciously or, much more often, unconsciously
for their corresponding spiritual food. This food is offered by
the artists, and for this food the segment immediately below will
tomorrow be stretching out eager hands.
This simile of the triangle cannot be said to express every
aspect of the spiritual life. For instance, there is never an
absolute shadow-side to the picture, never a piece of unrelieved
gloom. Even too often it happens that one level of spiritual food
suffices for the nourishment of those who are already in a higher
segment. But for them this food is poison; in small quantities it
depresses their souls gradually into a lower segment; in large
quantities it hurls them suddenly into the depths ever lower and
lower. Sienkiewicz, in one of his novels, compares the spiritual
life to swimming; for the man who does not strive tirelessly, who
does not fight continually against sinking, will mentally and
morally go under. In this strait a man's talent (again in the
biblical sense) becomes a curse--and not only the talent of the
artist, but also of those who eat this poisoned food. The artist
uses his strength to flatter his lower needs; in an ostensibly
artistic form he presents what is impure, draws the weaker
elements to him, mixes them with evil, betrays men and helps them
to betray themselves, while they convince themselves and others
that they are spiritually thirsty, and that from this pure spring
they may quench their thirst. Such art does not help the forward
movement, but hinders it, dragging back those who are striving to
press onward, and spreading pestilence abroad.
Such periods, during which art has no noble champion, during
which the true spiritual food is wanting, are periods of
retrogression in the spiritual world. Ceaselessly souls fall from
the higher to the lower segments of the triangle, and the whole
seems motionless, or even to move down and backwards. Men
attribute to these blind and dumb periods a special value, for
they judge them by outward results, thinking only of material
well-being. They hail some technical advance, which can help
nothing but the body, as a great achievement. Real spiritual
gains are at best under-valued, at worst entirely ignored.
The solitary visionaries are despised or regarded as abnormal and
eccentric. Those who are not wrapped in lethargy and who feel
vague longings for spiritual life and knowledge and progress, cry
in harsh chorus, without any to comfort them. The night of the
spirit falls more and more darkly. Deeper becomes the misery of
these blind and terrified guides, and their followers, tormented
and unnerved by fear and doubt, prefer to this gradual darkening
the final sudden leap into the blackness.
At such a time art ministers to lower needs, and is used for
material ends. She seeks her substance in hard realities because
she knows of nothing nobler. Objects, the reproduction of which
is considered her sole aim, remain monotonously the same. The
question "what?" disappears from art; only the question "how?"
remains. By what method are these material objects to be
reproduced? The word becomes a creed. Art has lost her soul.
In the search for method the artist goes still further. Art
becomes so specialized as to be comprehensible only to artists,
and they complain bitterly of public indifference to their work.
For since the artist in such times has no need to say much, but
only to be notorious for some small originality and consequently
lauded by a small group of patrons and connoisseurs (which
incidentally is also a very profitable business for him), there
arise a crowd of gifted and skilful painters, so easy does the
conquest of art appear. In each artistic circle are thousands of
such artists, of whom the majority seek only for some new
technical manner, and who produce millions of works of art
without enthusiasm, with cold hearts and souls asleep.
Competition arises. The wild battle for success becomes more and
more material. Small groups who have fought their way to the top
of the chaotic world of art and picture-making entrench
themselves in the territory they have won. The public, left far
behind, looks on bewildered, loses interest and turns away.
But despite all this confusion, this chaos, this wild hunt for
notoriety, the spiritual triangle, slowly but surely, with
irresistible strength, moves onwards and upwards.
The invisible Moses descends from the mountain and sees the dance
round the golden calf. But he brings with him fresh stores of
wisdom to man.
First by the artist is heard his voice, the voice that is
inaudible to the crowd. Almost unknowingly the artist follows the
call. Already in that very question "how?" lies a hidden seed of
renaissance. For when this "how?" remains without any fruitful
answer, there is always a possibility that the same "something"
(which we call personality today) may be able to see in the
objects about it not only what is purely material but also
something less solid; something less "bodily" than was seen in
the period of realism, when the universal aim was to reproduce
anything "as it really is" and without fantastic imagination.
[Footnote: Frequent use is made here of the terms "material" and
"non-material," and of the intermediate phrases "more" or "less
material." Is everything material? or is EVERYTHING spiritual?
Can the distinctions we make between matter and spirit be nothing
but relative modifications of one or the other? Thought which,
although a product of the spirit, can be defined with positive
science, is matter, but of fine and not coarse substance. Is
whatever cannot be touched with the hand, spiritual? The
discussion lies beyond the scope of this little book; all that
matters here is that the boundaries drawn should not be too
definite.]
If the emotional power of the artist can overwhelm the "how?" and
can give free scope to his finer feelings, then art is on the
crest of the road by which she will not fail later on to find the
"what" she has lost, the "what" which will show the way to the
spiritual food of the newly awakened spiritual life. This "what?"
will no longer be the material, objective "what" of the former
period, but the internal truth of art, the soul without which the
body (i.e. the "how") can never be healthy, whether in an
individual or in a whole people.
THIS "WHAT" IS THE INTERNAL TRUTH WHICH ONLY ART CAN DIVINE,
WHICH ONLY ART CAN EXPRESS BY THOSE MEANS OF EXPRESSION WHICH ARE
HERS ALONE.
III. SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION
The spiritual triangle moves slowly onwards and upwards. Today
one of the largest of the lower segments has reached the point of
using the first battle cry of the materialist creed. The dwellers
in this segment group themselves round various banners in
religion. They call themselves Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc.
But they are really atheists, and this a few either of the
boldest or the narrowest openly avow. "Heaven is empty," "God is
dead." In politics these people are democrats and republicans.
The fear, horror and hatred which yesterday they felt for these
political creeds they now direct against anarchism, of which they
know nothing but its much dreaded name.
In economics these people are Socialists. They make sharp the
sword of justice with which to slay the hydra of capitalism and
to hew off the head of evil.
Because the inhabitants of this great segment of the triangle
have never solved any problem independently, but are dragged as
it were in a cart by those the noblest of their fellowmen who
have sacrificed themselves, they know nothing of the vital
impulse of life which they regard always vaguely from a great
distance. They rate this impulse lightly, putting their trust in
purposeless theory and in the working of some logical method.
The men of the segment next below are dragged slowly higher,
blindly, by those just described. But they cling to their old
position, full of dread of the unknown and of betrayal. The
higher segments are not only blind atheists but can justify their
godlessness with strange words; for example, those of Virchow--so
unworthy of a learned man--"I have dissected many corpses, but
never yet discovered a soul in any of them."
In politics they are generally republican, with a knowledge of
different parliamentary procedures; they read the political
leading articles in the newspapers. In economics they are
socialists of various grades, and can support their "principles"
with numerous quotations, passing from Schweitzer's EMMA via
Lasalle's IRON LAW OF WAGES, to Marx's CAPITAL, and still
further.
In these loftier segments other categories of ideas, absent in
these just described, begin gradually to appear--science and art,
to which last belong also literature and music.
In science these men are positivists, only recognizing those
things that can be weighed and measured. Anything beyond that
they consider as rather discreditable nonsense, that same
nonsense about which they held yesterday the theories that today
are proven.
In art they are naturalists, which means that they recognize and
value the personality, individuality and temperament of the
artist up to a certain definite point. This point has been fixed
by others, and in it they believe unflinchingly.
But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their
infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a
hidden fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this
is due to their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen
and artists whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as
swindlers and charlatans. And the higher the segment in the
triangle, the better defined is this fear, this modern sense of
insecurity. Here and there are people with eyes which can see,
minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: "If the
science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of
yesterday, and that of yesterday by us of today, is it not
possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the
men of tomorrow?" And the bravest of them answer, "It is
possible."
Then people appear who can distinguish those problems that the
science of today has not yet explained. And they ask themselves:
"Will science, if it continues on the road it has followed for so
long, ever attain to the solution of these problems? And if it
does so attain, will men be able to rely on its solution?" In
these segments are also professional men of learning who can
remember the time when facts now recognized by the Academies as
firmly established, were scorned by those same Academies. There
are also philosophers of aesthetic who write profound books about
an art which was yesterday condemned as nonsense. In writing
these books they remove the barriers over which art has most
recently stepped and set up new ones which are to remain for ever
in the places they have chosen. They do not notice that they are
busy erecting barriers, not in front of art, but behind it. And
if they do notice this, on the morrow they merely write fresh
books and hastily set their barriers a little further on. This
performance will go on unaltered until it is realized that the
most extreme principle of aesthetic can never be of value to the
future, but only to the past. No such theory of principle can be
laid down for those things which lie beyond, in the realm of the
immaterial. That which has no material existence cannot be
subjected to a material classification. That which belongs to the
spirit of the future can only be realized in feeling, and to this
feeling the talent of the artist is the only road. Theory is the
lamp which sheds light on the petrified ideas of yesterday and of
the more distant past. [Footnote: Cf. Chapter VII.] And as we
rise higher in the triangle we find that the uneasiness
increases, as a city built on the most correct architectural plan
may be shaken suddenly by the uncontrollable force of nature.
Humanity is living in such a spiritual city, subject to these
sudden disturbances for which neither architects nor
mathematicians have made allowance. In one place lies a great
wall crumbled to pieces like a card house, in another are the
ruins of a huge tower which once stretched to heaven, built on
many presumably immortal spiritual pillars. The abandoned
churchyard quakes and forgotten graves open and from them rise
forgotten ghosts. Spots appear on the sun and the sun grows dark,
and what theory can fight with darkness? And in this city live
also men deafened by false wisdom who hear no crash, and blinded
by false wisdom, so that they say "our sun will shine more
brightly than ever and soon the last spots will disappear." But
sometime even these men will hear and see.
But when we get still higher there is no longer this
bewilderment. There work is going on which boldly attacks those
pillars which men have set up. There we find other professional
men of learning who test matter again and again, who tremble
before no problem, and who finally cast doubt on that very matter
which was yesterday the foundation of everything, so that the
whole universe is shaken. Every day another scientific theory
finds bold discoverers who overstep the boundaries of prophecy
and, forgetful of themselves, join the other soldiers in the
conquest of some new summit and in the hopeless attack on some
stubborn fortress. But "there is no fortress that man cannot
overcome."
On the one hand, FACTS are being established which the science of
yesterday dubbed swindles. Even newspapers, which are for the
most part the most obsequious servants of worldly success and of
the mob, and which trim their sails to every wind, find
themselves compelled to modify their ironical judgements on the
"marvels" of science and even to abandon them altogether. Various
learned men, among them ultra-materialists, dedicate their
strength to the scientific research of doubtful problems, which
can no longer be lied about or passed over in silence. [Footnote:
Zoller, Wagner, Butleroff (St. Petersburg), Crookes (London),
etc.; later on, C. H. Richet, C. Flammarion. The Parisian paper
Le Matin, published about two years ago the discoveries of the
two last named under the title "Je le constate, mais je ne
l'explique pas." Finally there are C. Lombroso, the inventor of
the anthropological method of diagnosing crime, and Eusapio
Palladino.]
On the other hand, the number is increasing of those men who put no
trust in the methods of materialistic science when it deals with those
questions which have to do with "non-matter," or matter which is not
accessible to our minds. Just as art is looking for help from the
primitives, so these men are turning to half-forgotten times in order to
get help from their half-forgotten methods. However, these very methods
are still alive and in use among nations whom we, from the height of our
knowledge, have been accustomed to regard with pity and scorn. To such
nations belong the Indians, who from time to time confront those learned
in our civilization with problems which we have either passed by
unnoticed or brushed aside with superficial words and explanations.
[Footnote: Frequently in such cases use is made of the word hypnotism;
that same hypnotism which, in its earlier form of mesmerism, was
disdainfully put aside by various learned bodies.] Mme. Blavatsky was
the first person, after a life of many years in India, to see a
connection between these "savages" and our "civilization." From that
moment there began a tremendous spiritual movement which today includes
a large number of people and has even assumed a material form in the
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. This society consists of groups who seek to
approach the problem of the spirit by way of the INNER knowledge. The
theory of Theosophy which serves as the basis to this movement was set
out by Blavatsky in the form of a catechism in which the pupil receives
definite answers to his questions from the theosophical point of view.
[Footnote: E. P. Blavatsky, The Key of Theosophy, London, 1889.]
Theosophy, according to Blavatsky, is synonymous with ETERNAL TRUTH.
"The new torchbearer of truth will find the minds of men prepared for
his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths
he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival, which will remove the
merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties from his path."
And then Blavatsky continues: "The earth will be a heaven in the
twenty-first century in comparison with what it is now," and with these
words ends her book.
When religion, science and morality are shaken, the two last by
the strong hand of Nietzsche, and when the outer supports
threaten to fall, man turns his gaze from externals in on to
himself. Literature, music and art are the first and most
sensitive spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself
felt. They reflect the dark picture of the present time and show
the importance of what at first was only a little point of light
noticed by few and for the great majority non-existent. Perhaps
they even grow dark in their turn, but on the other hand they
turn away from the soulless life of the present towards those
substances and ideas which give free scope to the non-material
strivings of the soul.
A poet of this kind in the realm of literature is Maeterlinck. He
takes us into a world which, rightly or wrongly, we term
supernatural. La Princesse Maleine, Les Sept Princesses, Les
Aveugles, etc., are not people of past times as are the heroes in
Shakespeare. They are merely souls lost in the clouds, threatened
by them with death, eternally menaced by some invisible and
sombre power.
Spiritual darkness, the insecurity of ignorance and fear pervade
the world in which they move. Maeterlinck is perhaps one of the
first prophets, one of the first artistic reformers and seers to
herald the end of the decadence just described. The gloom of the
spiritual atmosphere, the terrible, but all-guiding hand, the
sense of utter fear, the feeling of having strayed from the path,
the confusion among the guides, all these are clearly felt in his
works.[Footnote: To the front tank of such seers of the decadence
belongs also Alfred Kubin. With irresistible force both Kubin's
drawings and also his novel "Die Andere Seite" seem to engulf us
in the terrible atmosphere of empty desolation.]
This atmosphere Maeterlinck creates principally by purely
artistic means. His material machinery (gloomy mountains,
moonlight, marshes, wind, the cries of owls, etc.) plays really a
symbolic role and helps to give the inner note. [Footnote: When
one of Maeterlinck's plays was produced in St. Petersburg under
his own guidance, he himself at one of the rehearsals had a tower
represented by a plain piece of hanging linen. It was of no
importance to him to have elaborate scenery prepared. He did as
children, the greatest imaginers of all time, always do in their
games; for they use a stick for a horse or create entire
regiments of cavalry out of chalks. And in the same way a chalk
with a notch in it is changed from a knight into a horse. On
similar lines the imagination of the spectator plays in the
modern theatre, and especially in that of Russia, an important
part. And this is a notable element in the transition from the
material to the spiritual in the theatre of the future.]
Maeterlinck's principal technical weapon is his use of words. The
word may express an inner harmony. This inner harmony springs
partly, perhaps principally, from the object which it names. But
if the object is not itself seen, but only its name heard, the
mind of the hearer receives an abstract impression only, that is
to say as of the object dematerialized, and a corresponding
vibration is immediately set up in the HEART.
The apt use of a word (in its poetical meaning), repetition of this
word, twice, three times or even more frequently, according to the need
of the poem, will not only tend to intensify the inner harmony but also
bring to light unsuspected spiritual properties of the word itself.
Further than that, frequent repetition of a word (again a favourite game
of children, which is forgotten in after life) deprives the word of its
original external meaning. Similarly, in drawing, the abstract message
of the object drawn tends to be forgotten and its meaning lost.
Sometimes perhaps we unconsciously hear this real harmony sounding
together with the material or later on with the non-material sense of
the object. But in the latter case the true harmony exercises a direct
impression on the soul. The soul undergoes an emotion which has no
relation to any definite object, an emotion more complicated, I might
say more super-sensuous than the emotion caused by the sound of a bell
or of a stringed instrument. This line of development offers great
possibilities to the literature of the future. In an embryonic form this
word-power-has already been used in SERRES CHAUDES. [Footnote: SERRES
CHAUDES, SUIVIES DE QUINZE CHANSONS, par Maurice Maeterlinck. Brussels.
Lacomblez.] As Maeterlinck uses them, words which seem at first to
create only a neutral impression have really a more subtle value. Even a
familiar word like "hair," if used in a certain way can intensify an
atmosphere of sorrow or despair. And this is Maeterlinck's method. He
shows that thunder, lightning and a moon behind driving clouds, in
themselves material means, can be used in the theatre to create a
greater sense of terror than they do in nature.
The true inner forces do not lose their strength and effect so
easily. [Footnote: A comparison between the work of Poe and
Maeterlinck shows the course of artistic transition from the
material to the abstract.] An the word which has two meanings,
the first direct, the second indirect, is the pure material of
poetry and of literature, the material which these arts alone can
manipulate and through which they speak to the spirit.
Something similar may be noticed in the music of Wagner. His
famous leitmotiv is an attempt to give personality to his
characters by something beyond theatrical expedients and light
effect. His method of using a definite motiv is a purely musical
method. It creates a spiritual atmosphere by means of a musical
phrase which precedes the hero, which he seems to radiate forth
from any distance. [Footnote: Frequent attempts have shown that
such a spiritual atmosphere can belong not only to heroes but to
any human being. Sensitives cannot, for example, remain in a room
in which a person has been who is spiritually antagonistic to
them, even though they know nothing of his existence.] The most
modern musicians like Debussy create a spiritual impression,
often taken from nature, but embodied in purely musical form. For
this reason Debussy is often classed with the Impressionist
painters on the ground that he resembles these painters in using
natural phenomena for the purposes of his art. Whatever truth
there may be in this comparison merely accentuates the fact that
the various arts of today learn from each other and often
resemble each other. But it would be rash to say that this
definition is an exhaustive statement of Debussy's significance.
Despite his similarity with the Impressionists this musician is
deeply concerned with spiritual harmony, for in his works one
hears the suffering and tortured nerves of the present time. And
further Debussy never uses the wholly material note so
characteristic of programme music, but trusts mainly in the
creation of a more abstract impression. Debussy has been greatly
influenced by Russian music, notably by Mussorgsky. So it is not
surprising that he stands in close relation to the young Russian
composers, the chief of whom is Scriabin. The experience of the
hearer is frequently the same during the performance of the works
of these two musicians. He is often snatched quite suddenly from
a series of modern discords into the charm of more or less
conventional beauty. He feels himself often insulted, tossed
about like a tennis ball over the net between the two parties of
the outer and the inner beauty. To those who are not accustomed
to it the inner beauty appears as ugliness because humanity in
general inclines to the outer and knows nothing of the inner.
Almost alone in severing himself from conventional beauty is the
Austrian composer, Arnold Schonberg. He says in his
Harmonielehre: "Every combination of notes, every advance is
possible, but I am beginning to feel that there are also definite
rules and conditions which incline me to the use of this or that
dissonance." [Footnote: "Die Musik," p. 104, from the
Harmonielehre (Verlag der Universal Edition).] This means that
Schonberg realizes that the greatest freedom of all, the freedom
of an unfettered art, can never be absolute. Every age achieves a
certain measure of this freedom, but beyond the boundaries of its
freedom the mightiest genius can never go. But the measure of
freedom of each age must be constantly enlarged. Schonberg is
endeavouring to make complete use of his freedom and has already
discovered gold mines of new beauty in his search for spiritual
harmony. His music leads us into a realm where musical experience
is a matter not of the ear but of the soul alone--and from this
point begins the music of the future.
A parallel course has been followed by the Impressionist movement
in painting. It is seen in its dogmatic and most naturalistic
form in so-called Neo-Impressionism. The theory of this is to put
on the canvas the whole glitter and brilliance of nature, and not
only an isolated aspect of her.
It is interesting to notice three practically contemporary and
totally different groups in painting. They are (1) Rossetti and
his pupil Burne-Jones, with their followers; (2) Bocklin and his
school; (3) Segantini, with his unworthy following of
photographic artists. I have chosen these three groups to
illustrate the search for the abstract in art. Rossetti sought to
revive the non-materialism of the pre-Raphaelites. Bocklin busied
himself with the mythological scenes, but was in contrast to
Rossetti in that he gave strongly material form to his legendary
figures. Segantini, outwardly the most material of the three,
selected the most ordinary objects (hills, stones, cattle, etc.)
often painting them with the minutest realism, but he never
failed to create a spiritual as well as a material value, so that
really he is the most non-material of the trio.
These men sought for the "inner" by way of the "outer."
By another road, and one more purely artistic, the great seeker
after a new sense of form approached the same problem. Cezanne
made a living thing out of a teacup, or rather in a teacup he
realized the existence of something alive. He raised still life
to such a point that it ceased to be inanimate.
He painted these things as he painted human beings, because he
was endowed with the gift of divining the inner life in
everything. His colour and form are alike suitable to the
spiritual harmony. A man, a tree, an apple, all were used by
Cezanne in the creation of something that is called a "picture,"
and which is a piece of true inward and artistic harmony. The
same intention actuates the work of one of the greatest of the
young Frenchmen, Henri Matisse. He paints "pictures," and in
these "pictures" endeavours to reproduce the divine.[Footnote:
Cf. his article in KUNST UND KUNSTLER, 1909, No. 8.] To attain
this end he requires as a starting point nothing but the object
to be painted (human being or whatever it may be), and then the
methods that belong to painting alone, colour and form.
By personal inclination, because he is French and because he is
specially gifted as a colourist, Matisse is apt to lay too much
stress on the colour. Like Debussy, he cannot always refrain from
conventional beauty; Impressionism is in his blood. One sees
pictures of Matisse which are full of great inward vitality,
produced by the stress of the inner need, and also pictures which
possess only outer charm, because they were painted on an outer
impulse. (How often one is reminded of Manet in this.) His work
seems to be typical French painting, with its dainty sense of
melody, raised from time to time to the summit of a great hill
above the clouds.
But in the work of another great artist in Paris, the Spaniard Pablo
Picasso, there is never any suspicion of this conventional beauty.
Tossed hither and thither by the need for self-expression, Picasso
hurries from one manner to another. At times a great gulf appears
between consecutive manners, because Picasso leaps boldly and is found
continually by his bewildered crowd of followers standing at a point
very different from that at which they saw him last. No sooner do they
think that they have reached him again than he has changed once more. In
this way there arose Cubism, the latest of the French movements, which
is treated in detail in Part II. Picasso is trying to arrive at
constructiveness by way of proportion. In his latest works (1911) he has
achieved the logical destruction of matter, not, however, by dissolution
but rather by a kind of a parcelling out of its various divisions and a
constructive scattering of these divisions about the canvas. But he
seems in this most recent work distinctly desirous of keeping an
appearance of matter. He shrinks from no innovation, and if colour seems
likely to balk him in his search for a pure artistic form, he throws it
overboard and paints a picture in brown and white; and the problem of
purely artistic form is the real problem of his life.
In their pursuit of the same supreme end Matisse and Picasso
stand side by side, Matisse representing colour and Picasso form.
IV. THE PYRAMID
And so at different points along the road are the different arts,
saying what they are best able to say, and in the language which
is peculiarly their own. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, the
differences between them, there has never been a time when the
arts approached each other more nearly than they do today, in
this later phase of spiritual development.
In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the
abstract, the non-material. Consciously or unconsciously they are
obeying Socrates' command--Know thyself. Consciously or
unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material,
setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements,
with which it is their several privilege to work.
And the natural result of this striving is that the various arts
are drawing together. They are finding in Music the best teacher.
With few exceptions music has been for some centuries the art
which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural
phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in
musical sound.
A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation,
however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life,
cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material
of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply
the methods of music to his own art. And from this results that
modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract
construction, for repeated notes of colour, for setting colour in
motion.
This borrowing of method by one art from another, can only be
truly successful when the application of the borrowed methods is
not superficial but fundamental. One art must learn first how
another uses its methods, so that the methods may afterwards be
applied to the borrower's art from the beginning, and suitably.
The artist must not forget that in him lies the power of true
application of every method, but that that power must be
developed.
In manipulation of form music can achieve results which are
beyond the reach of painting. On the other hand, painting is
ahead of music in several particulars. Music, for example, has at
its disposal duration of time; while painting can present to the
spectator the whole content of its message at one moment.
[Footnote: These statements of difference are, of course,
relative; for music can on occasions dispense with extension of
time, and painting make use of it.] Music, which is outwardly
unfettered by nature, needs no definite form for its expression.
[Footnote: How miserably music fails when attempting to express
material appearances is proved by the affected absurdity of
programme music. Quite lately such experiments have been made.
The imitation in sound of croaking frogs, of farmyard noises, of
household duties, makes an excellent music hall turn and is
amusing enough. But in serious music such attempts are merely
warnings against any imitation of nature. Nature has her own
language, and a powerful one; this language cannot be imitated.
The sound of a farmyard in music is never successfully
reproduced, and is unnecessary waste of time. The Stimmung of
nature can be imparted by every art, not, however, by imitation,
but by the artistic divination of its inner spirit.]
Painting today is almost exclusively concerned with the
reproduction of natural forms and phenomena. Her business is now
to test her strength and methods, to know herself as music has
done for a long time, and then to use her powers to a truly
artistic end.
And so the arts are encroaching one upon another, and from a
proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly
monumental. Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual
possibilities of his art is a valuable helper in the building of
the spiritual pyramid which will some day reach to heaven.