The knowing ones--those, I mean, who are always invited to music after
tea, and often to supper after the ballet--seem now to agree that in art
significant form is the thing. You are not to suppose that, in saying
this, I am trying to make out that all these distinguished, or soon to
be distinguished, people have been reading my book. On the contrary, I
have the solidest grounds for believing that very few of them have done
that; and those that have treat me no better than they treated Hegel.
For, just as an Hegelian is not so much a follower of that philosopher
as an expounder, one who has an interpretation of his own, and can tell
you what Hegel would have said if Hegel had been endowed by The Absolute
with the power of saying anything, so of those admirable people who
agree, for the moment, that significant form is what matters, no two are
quite agreed as to what significant form is.
Only as to what it is not is there complete unanimity; though there is
a tendency to come together on one or two positive points. It is years
since I met anyone, careful of his reputation, so bold as to deny that
the literary and anecdotic content of a work of visual art, however
charming and lively it might be, was mere surplusage. The significance
of a picture, according to the _cognoscenti_, must be implicit in its
forms; its essential quality is something which appeals directly to the
sensibility of any sensitive person; and any reference to life, to be of
consequence, must be a reference to that fundamental experience which is
the common heritage of mankind. Thus, those who cannot bring themselves
to accept the more austere definition of the term are willing to
recognize as significant certain qualities which are not purely formal.
They will recognize, for instance, the tragedy of Michael Angelo, the
gaiety of Fra Angelico, the lyricism of Correggio, the gravity
of Poussin, and the romance of Giorgione. They recognize them as
pertaining, not to the subjects chosen, but to the mind and character of
the artist. Such manifestations in line and colour of personality they
admit as relevant; but they are quite clear that the gossip of Frith and
the touching prattle of Sir Luke Fildes are nothing to the purpose.
And so we get a school of lenient criticism which takes account of an
appeal to life, provided that appeal be to universal experience and be
made by purely æsthetic means. According to this theory we can be moved
æsthetically by references to universal experience implicit in certain
arrangements of line and colour, always provided that such references
are expressions of the artist's peculiar emotion, and not mere comments
on life and history or statements of fact or opinion. These by everyone
are deemed unessential. No one seriously pretends that in a picture by a
Primitive of some obscure incident in the life of a minor saint there is
anything of true æsthetic import which, escaping the subtlest and most
sensitive artist, is revealed to the expert hagiographer: neither does
anyone still believe that to appreciate Sung painting one must make
oneself familiar with the later developments of Buddhist metaphysics as
modified by Taoist mysticism.
Such is the prevailing critical theory. What of critical practice?
It seems to me that even our best come something short of their
professions; and when I confess that I am going to pick a quarrel with
such fine exponents of their craft as the critics of _The Times_ and the
_Nation_ readers will guess that for once I mean to take my confrères
seriously. Lately we have seen a hot dispute in which, unless I mistake,
both these gentlemen took a hand, raging round a figure of Christ by
Mr. Epstein. For me the only interesting fact that emerged from this
controversy was that, apparently, most of the disputants had not so much
as heard of the greatest living sculptor--I mean Maillol, of course.
Certainly, with the art of Maillol clearly in his mind, it is
inconceivable that one so discriminating as the critic of the _Nation_
should have said, as I think he did say, that Mr. Epstein now stands for
European sculpture as Rodin stood before him. Not only is Maillol quite
obviously superior to Mr. Epstein; in the opinion of many he is a better
artist than Rodin.
But it was not around such questions as these, vexatious, no doubt, but
pertinent, that controversy raged. The questions that eminent critics,
writers, and dignitaries of divers churches discussed in public, while
colonels, Socialists, and cultivated theosophical ladies wrangled over
them at home, were: "Has Mr. Epstein done justice to the character of
Christ?" and, "What was His character?" Was Christ intelligent or was
He something nobler, and what has Mr. Epstein to say about it? Was He
disdainful or was He sympathetic? Was He like Mr. Bertrand Russell or
more like Mr. Gladstone? And did Mr. Epstein see Him with the eyes of
one who knew what for ages Christ had meant to Europe, or with those of
a Jew of the first century? Questions such as these--I will not swear to
any particular one of them--were what the critics threw into the arena,
and no one much blames the parsons and publicists for playing football
with them. But the critics must have known that such questions were
utterly irrelevant; that it mattered not a straw whether this statue,
considered as a work of art, represented Jesus Christ or John Smith.
This the critics knew: they knew that the appeal of a work of art is
essentially permanent and universal, and they knew that hardly one word
in their controversy could have meant anything to the most sensitive
Chinaman alive, unless he happened to be familiar with the Christian
tradition and Christian ethics. If there be no more in Mr. Epstein's
figure than what the critics talked about, then, should the Christian
religion ever become obsolete and half-forgotten, Mr. Epstein's figure
will become quite insignificant. Most of us know next to nothing about
Buddhism and Totemism, and only a little about Greek myths and Byzantine
theology, yet works of art historically associated with these remain,
by reason of their permanent and universal, that is to say their purely
æsthetic, qualities, as moving and intelligible as on the day they left
their makers' hands. About Mr. Epstein's sculpture the important thing
to discover is whether, and in what degree, it possesses these permanent
and universal qualities. But on that subject the critics are dumb.
An instructive parallel in literary journalism occurs to me. I have
noticed lately a tendency in the intellectual underworld--for here I
take leave of first-class criticism--to belittle Ibsen, with the object,
apparently, of magnifying Tchekov, and always it is in the name of art
that Ibsen is decried. Now, if our literary ragamuffins cared two pence
about art they would all be on their knees before Ibsen, who is, I
suppose, the finest dramatic artist since Racine. Few things are more
perfect as form, more admirably consistent and self-supporting, than
his later plays. It was he who invented the modern dramatic method of
seizing a situation at the point at which it can last be seized, and
from there pushing it forward with imperturbable logic and not one
divagation. As an artist Ibsen is to a considerable extent the master of
Tchekov; but, as art is the last thing to which an English Intellectual
pays attention, this fact has been overlooked. What our latter-day
intellectuals take an interest in is what interested their
grandmothers--morals. They prefer Tchekov's point of view to that of
Ibsen, and so do I. They are vexed by the teaching implicit in Ibsen's
tendencious plays; so am I. Yet when I ask myself: "Is Ibsen's
moralizing worse than anyone else's?" I am forced to admit that it is
not. The fact is all moralizing is tedious, and is recognized as such by
everyone the moment it becomes a little stale. Another generation, with
other ideals, will be as much irritated by Tchekov's ill-concealed
propaganda as our generation is by Ibsen's, and as Ibsen's was by
Tennyson's. Depend upon it: by those young people in the next generation
but one who talk loudest, wear the worst clothes, and are most earnest
about life and least sensitive to art, Tchekov will be voted a bore.
What is more, it will be in the name of art that they will cry him down.
Every now and then we hear eloquent appeals to the appropriate
authorities, praying them to add to their school of journalism a
department of art criticism. I hope and believe the appropriate
authorities will do no such thing. Should, however, their sense of
economy be insufficient to restrain them from paying this last insult
to art, they will still find me waiting for them with a practical
suggestion. Any student proposing to educate himself as a critic should
be compelled to devote the first years of his course to the criticism
of non-representative art. Set down to criticize buildings, furniture,
textiles, and ceramics, he will find himself obliged to explore the
depths of his own æsthetic experience. To explain honestly and precisely
why he prefers this chair to that requires, he will find, a far more
intense effort of the intellect and imagination than any amount of fine
writing about portraits and landscape. It will force him to take account
of his purely æsthetic emotions and to discover what exactly provokes
them. He will be driven into that world of minute differences and subtle
reactions which is the world of art. And until he knows his way about
that world he would do well to express no opinion on the merits of
pictures and statues.