OF THE FALSE IDEAL:--SECONDLY, PROFANE.
Sec. 1. Such having been the effects of the pursuit of ideal beauty on
the religious mind of Europe, we might be tempted next to consider
in what way the same movement affected the art which concerned
itself with profane subject, and, through that art, the whole temper
of modern civilization.
I shall, however, merely glance at this question. It is a very
painful and a very wide one. Its discussion cannot come properly
within the limits, or even within the aim, of a work like this; it
ought to be made the subject of a separate essay, and that essay
should be written by some one who had passed less of his life than I
have among the mountains, and more of it among men. But one or two
points may be suggested for the reader to reflect upon at his
leisure.
Sec. 2. I said just now that we might be tempted to consider how this
pursuit of the ideal _affected_ profane art. Strictly speaking, it
brought that art into existence. As long as men sought for truth
first, and beauty secondarily, they cared chiefly, of course, for
the _chief_ truth, and all art was instinctively religious. But as
soon as they sought for beauty first, and truth secondarily, they
were punished by losing sight of spiritual truth altogether, and the
profane (properly so called) schools of art were instantly
developed.
The perfect human beauty, which, to a large part of the community,
was by far the most interesting feature in the work of the rising
school, might indeed be in some degree consistent with the agony of
Madonnas, and the repentance of Magdalenes; but could not be
exhibited in fulness, when the subjects, however irreverently
treated, nevertheless demanded some decency in the artist, and some
gravity in the spectator. The newly acquired powers of rounding
limbs, and tinting lips, had too little scope in the sanctities
even of the softest womanhood; and the newly acquired conceptions of
the nobility of nakedness could in no wise be expressed beneath the
robes of the prelate or the sackcloth of the recluse. But the source
from which these ideas had been received afforded also full field
for their expression; the heathen mythology, which had furnished the
examples of these heights of art, might again become the subject of
the inspirations it had kindled;--with the additional advantage that
it could now be delighted in, without being believed; that its
errors might be indulged, unrepressed by its awe; and those of its
deities whose function was temptation might be worshipped, in scorn
of those whose hands were charged with chastisement.
So, at least, men dreamed in their foolishness,--to find, as the
ages wore on, that the returning Apollo bore not only his lyre, but
his arrows; and that at the instant of Cytherea's resurrection to
the sunshine, Persephone had reascended her throne in the deep.
Sec. 3. Little thinking this, they gave themselves up fearlessly to the
chase of the new delight, and exhausted themselves in the pursuit of
an ideal now doubly false. Formerly, though they attempted to reach
an unnatural beauty, it was yet in representing historical facts and
real persons; _now_ they sought for the same unnatural beauty in
representing tales which they knew to be fictitious, and personages
who they knew had never existed. Such a state of things had never
before been found in any nation. Every people till then had painted
the acts of their kings, the triumphs of their armies, the beauty of
their race, or the glory of their gods. They showed the things they
had seen or done; the beings they truly loved or faithfully adored.
But the ideal art of modern Europe was the shadow of a shadow; and
with mechanism substituted for perception, and bodily beauty for
spiritual life, it set itself to represent men it had never seen,
customs it had never practised, and gods in whom it had never
believed.
Sec. 4. Such art could of course have no help from the virtues, nor
claim on the energies of men. It necessarily rooted itself in their
vices and their idleness; and of their vices principally in two,
pride and sensuality. To the pride, was attached eminently the art
of architecture; to the sensuality, those of painting and sculpture.
Of the fall of architecture, as resultant from the formalist pride
of its patrons and designers, I have spoken elsewhere. The
sensualist ideal, as seen in painting and sculpture, remains to be
examined here. But one interesting circumstance is to be observed
with respect to the manner of the separation of these arts. Pride,
being wholly a vice, and in every phase inexcusable, wholly betrayed
and destroyed the art which was founded on it. But passion, having
some root and use in healthy nature, and only becoming guilty in
excess, did not altogether destroy the art founded upon it. The
architecture of Palladio is wholly virtueless and despicable. Not so
the Venus of Titian, nor the Antiope of Correggio.
Sec. 5. We find, then, at the close of the sixteenth century, the arts
of painting and sculpture wholly devoted to entertain the indolent
and satiate the luxurious. To effect these noble ends, they took a
thousand different forms; painting, however, of course being the
most complying, aiming sometimes at mere amusement by deception in
landscapes, or minute imitation of natural objects; sometimes giving
more piquant excitement in battle-pieces full of slaughter, or
revels deep in drunkenness; sometimes entering upon serious
subjects, for the sake of grotesque fiends and picturesque infernos,
or that it might introduce pretty children as cherubs, and handsome
women as Magdalenes and Maries of Egypt, or portraits of patrons in
the character of the more decorous saints: but more frequently, for
direct flatteries of this kind, recurring to Pagan mythology, and
painting frail ladies as goddesses or graces, and foolish kings in
radiant apotheosis; while, for the earthly delight of the persons
whom it honored as divine, it ransacked the records of luscious
fable, and brought back, in fullest depth of dye and flame of fancy,
the impurest dreams of the un-Christian ages.
Sec. 6. Meanwhile, the art of sculpture, less capable of ministering to
mere amusement, was more or less reserved for the affectations of
taste; and the study of the classical statues introduced various ideas
on the subjects of "purity," "chastity," and "dignity," such as it was
possible for people to entertain who were themselves impure, luxurious,
and ridiculous. It is a matter of extreme difficulty to explain the
exact character of this modern sculpturesque ideal; but its relation
to the true ideal may be best understood by considering it as in exact
parallelism with the relation of the word "taste" to the word "love."
Wherever the word "taste" is used with respect to matters of art, it
indicates either that the thing spoken of belongs to some inferior
class of objects, or that the person speaking has a false conception of
its nature. For, consider the exact sense in which a work of art is
said to be "in good or bad taste." It does not mean that it is true, or
false; that it is beautiful, or ugly; but that it does or does not
comply either with the laws of choice, which are enforced by certain
modes of life; or the habits of mind produced by a particular sort of
education. It does not mean merely fashionable, that is, complying with
a momentary caprice of the upper classes; but it means agreeing with
the habitual sense which the most refined education, common to those
upper classes at the period, gives to their whole mind. Now, therefore,
so far as that education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate,
and the perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased
with quiet instead of gaudy color, and with graceful instead of coarse
form; and, by long acquaintance with the best things, to discern
quickly what is fine from what is common;--so far, acquired taste is an
honorable faculty, and it is true praise of anything to say it is "in
good taste." But so far as this higher education has a tendency to
narrow the sympathies and harden the heart, diminishing the interest of
all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly
please, and what is brightest hardly entertain;--so far as it fosters
pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in anything, not
on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in which it indicates
some greatness of their own (as people build marble porticos, and inlay
marble floors, not so much because they like the colors of marble, or
find it pleasant to the foot, as because such porches and floors are
costly, and separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone
and timber);--so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of
dress, manner, and aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a
well said thing better than a true thing, and a well trained manner
better than a sincere one, and a delicately formed face better than a
good-natured one, and in all other ways and things setting custom and
semblance above everlasting truth;--so far, finally, as it induces a
sense of inherent distinction between class and class, and causes
everything to be more or less despised which has no social rank, so
that the affection, pleasure, or grief of a clown are looked upon as of
no interest compared with the affection and grief of a well-bred
man;--just so far, in all these several ways, the feeling induced by
what is called a "liberal education" is utterly adverse to the
understanding of noble art; and the name which is given to the
feeling,--Taste, Gout, Gusto,--in all languages, indicates the baseness
of it, for it implies that art gives only a kind of pleasure analogous
to that derived from eating by the palate.
Sec. 7. Modern education, not in art only, but in all other things
referable to the same standard, has invariably given taste in this bad
sense; it has given fastidiousness of choice without judgment,
superciliousness of manner without dignity, refinement of habit without
purity, grace of expression without sincerity, and desire of loveliness
without love; and the modern "Ideal" of high art is a curious mingling
of the gracefulness and reserve of the drawingroom with a certain
measure of classical sensuality. Of this last element, and the singular
artifices by which vice succeeds in combining it with what appears to
be pure and severe, it would take us long to reason fully; I would
rather leave the reader to follow out for himself the consideration of
the influence, in this direction, of statues, bronzes, and paintings,
as at present employed by the upper circles of London, and (especially)
Paris; and this not so much in the works which are really fine, as in
the multiplied coarse copies of them; taking the widest range, from
Dannaeker's Ariadne down to the amorous shepherd and shepherdess in
china on the drawingroom time-piece, rigidly questioning, in each case,
how far the charm of the art does indeed depend on some appeal to the
inferior passions. Let it be considered, for instance, exactly how far
the value of a picture of a girl's head by Greuze would be lowered in
the market, if the dress, which now leaves the bosom bare, were raised
to the neck; and how far, in the commonest lithograph of some utterly
popular subject,--for instance, the teaching of Uncle Tom by Eva,--the
sentiment which is supposed to be excited by the exhibition of
Christianity in youth is complicated with that which depends upon Eva's
having a dainty foot and a well-made satin slipper;--and then, having
completely determined for himself how far the element exists, consider
farther, whether, when art is thus frequent (for frequent he will
assuredly find it to be) in its appeal to the lower passions, it is
likely to attain the highest order of merit, or be judged by the truest
standards of judgment. For, of all the causes which have combined, in
modern times, to lower the rank of art, I believe this to be one of the
most fatal; while, reciprocally, it may be questioned how far society
suffers, in its turn, from the influences possessed over it by the arts
it has degraded. It seems to me a subject of the very deepest interest
to determine what has been the effect upon the European nations of the
great change by which art became again capable of ministering
delicately to the lower passions, as it had in the worst days of Rome;
how far, indeed, in all ages, the fall of nations may be attributed to
art's arriving at this particular stage among them. I do not mean that,
in any of its stages, it is incapable of being employed for evil, but
that assuredly an Egyptian, Spartan, or Norman was unexposed to the
kind of temptation which is continually offered by the delicate
painting and sculpture of modern days; and, although the diseased
imagination might complete the imperfect image of beauty from the
colored image on the wall,[20] or the most revolting thoughts be
suggested by the mocking barbarism of the Gothic sculpture, their hard
outline and rude execution were free from all the subtle treachery
which now fills the flushed canvas and the rounded marble.
Sec. 8. I cannot, however, pursue this inquiry here. For our present
purpose it is enough to note that the feeling, in itself so debased,
branches upwards into that of which, while no one has cause to be
ashamed, no one, on the other hand, has cause to be proud, namely, the
admiration of physical beauty in the human form, as distinguished from
expression of character. Every one can easily appreciate the merit of
regular features and well-formed limbs, but it requires some attention,
sympathy, and sense, to detect the charm of passing expression, or
life-disciplined character. The beauty of the Apollo Belvidere, or
Venus de Medicis, is perfectly palpable to any shallow fine lady or
fine gentleman, though they would have perceived none in the face of an
old weather-beaten St. Peter, or a grey-haired "Grandmother Lois." The
knowledge that long study is necessary to produce these regular types
of the human form renders the facile admiration matter of eager
self-complacency; the shallow spectator, delighted that he can really,
and without hypocrisy, admire what required much thought to produce,
supposes himself endowed with the highest critical faculties, and
easily lets himself be carried into rhapsodies about the "ideal,"
which, when all is said, if they be accurately examined, will be found
literally to mean nothing more than that the figure has got handsome
calves to its legs, and a straight nose.
Sec. 9. That they do mean, in reality, nothing more than this may be
easily ascertained by watching the taste of the same persons in other
things. The fashionable lady who will write five or six pages in her
diary respecting the effect upon her mind of such and such an "ideal"
in marble, will have her drawing room table covered with Books of
Beauty, in which the engravings represent the human form in every
possible aspect of distortion and affectation; and the connoisseur who,
in the morning, pretends to the most exquisite taste in the antique,
will be seen, in the evening, in his opera-stall, applauding the least
graceful gestures of the least modest figurante.
Sec. 10. But even this vulgar pursuit of physical beauty (vulgar in the
profoundest sense, for there is no vulgarity like the vulgarity of
education) would be less contemptible if it really succeeded in its
object; but, like all pursuits carried to inordinate length, it
defeats itself. Physical beauty _is_ a noble thing when it is seen
in perfectness; but the manner in which the moderns pursue their
ideal prevents their ever really seeing what they are always
seeking; for, requiring that all forms should be regular and
faultless, they permit, or even compel, their painters and sculptors
to work chiefly by rule, altering their models to fit their
preconceived notions of what is right. When such artists look at a
face, they do not give it the attention necessary to discern what
beauty is already in its peculiar features; but only to see how
best it may be altered into something for which they have themselves
laid down the laws. Nature never unveils her beauty to such a gaze.
She keeps whatever she has done best, close sealed, until it is
regarded with reverence. To the painter who honors her, she will
open a revelation in the face of a street mendicant; but in the work
of the painter who alters her, she will make Portia become ignoble
and Perdita graceless.
Sec. 11. Nor is the effect less for evil on the mind of the general
observer. The lover of ideal beauty, with all his conceptions
narrowed by rule, never looks carefully enough upon the features
which do not come under his law (or any others), to discern the
inner beauty in them. The strange intricacies about the lines of the
lips, and marvellous shadows and watch-fires of the eye, and
wavering traceries of the eyelash, and infinite modulations of the
brow, wherein high humanity is embodied, are all invisible to him.
He finds himself driven back at last, with all his idealism, to the
lionne of the ball-room, whom youth and passion can as easily
distinguish as his utmost critical science; whereas, the observer
who has accustomed himself to take human faces as God made them,
will often find as much beauty on a village green as in the proudest
room of state, and as much in the free seats of a church aisle, as
in all the sacred paintings of the Vatican or the Pitti.
Sec. 12. Then, farther, the habit of disdaining ordinary truth, and
seeking to alter it so as to fit the fancy of the beholder,
gradually infects the mind in all its other operation; so that it
begins to propose to itself an ideal in history, an ideal in general
narration, an ideal in portraiture and description, and in every
thing else where truth may be painful or uninteresting; with the
necessary result of more or less weakness, wickedness, and
uselessness in all that is done or said, with the desire of
concealing this painful truth. And, finally, even when truth is not
intentionally concealed, the pursuer of idealism will pass his days
in false and useless trains of thought, pluming himself, all the
while, upon his superiority therein to the rest of mankind. A modern
German, without either invention or sense, seeing a rapid in a
river, will immediately devote the remainder of the day to the
composition of dialogues between amorous water nymphs and unhappy
mariners; while the man of true invention, power, and sense will,
instead, set himself to consider whether the rocks in the river
could have their points knocked off, or the boats upon it be made
with stronger bottoms.
Sec. 13. Of this final baseness of the false ideal, its miserable waste of
time, strength, and available intellect of man, by turning, as I have
said above, innocence of pastime into seriousness of occupation, it is,
of course, hardly possible to sketch out even so much as the leading
manifestations. The vain and haughty projects of youth for future life;
the giddy reveries of insatiable self exaltation; the discontented
dreams of what might have been or should be, instead of the thankful
understanding of what is; the casting about for sources of interest in
senseless fiction, instead of the real human histories of the people
round us; the prolongation from age to age of romantic historical
deceptions instead of sifted truth; the pleasures taken in fanciful
portraits of rural or romantic life in poetry and on the stage, without
the smallest effort to rescue the living rural population of the world
from its ignorance or misery; the excitement of the feelings by labored
imagination of spirits, fairies, monsters, and demons, issuing in total
blindness of heart and sight to the true presences of beneficent or
destructive spiritual powers around us; in fine, the constant
abandonment of all the straightforward paths of sense and duty, for
fear of losing some of the enticement of ghostly joys, or trampling
somewhat "sopra lor vanita, che par persona;" all these various forms
of false idealism have so entangled the modern mind, often called, I
suppose ironically, practical, that truly I believe there never yet was
idolatry of stock or staff so utterly unholy as this our idolatry of
shadows; nor can I think that, of those who burnt incense under oaks,
and poplars, and elms, because "the shadow thereof was good," it could
in any wise be more justly or sternly declared than of us--"The wind
hath bound them up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of
their sacrifices."[21]
[20] Ezek. xxiii. 14.
[21] Hosea, chap. iv. 12, 13, and 19.