No Greek myth has a greater charm for our mind than that of Orpheus and
Eurydice. In the first place, we are told by mythologists that it is a
myth of the dawn, one of those melancholy, subdued interpretations of
the eternal, hopeless separation of the beautiful light of dawn and the
beautiful light of day, which forms the constantly recurring tragedy of
nature, as the tremendous struggle between light and darkness forms
her never-ending epic, her Iliad and Nibelungenlied. There is more of
the purely artistic element in these myths of the dawn than in the
sun myths. Those earliest poets, primitive peoples, were interested
spectators of the great battle between day and night. The sun-hero was
truly their Achilles, their Siegfried. In fighting, he fought for them.
When he chained up the powers of darkness the whole earth was hopeful
and triumphant; when he sank down dead, a thousand dark, vague, hideous
monsters were let loose on the world, filling men's hearts with
sickening terror; the solar warfare was waged for and against men. The
case is quite different with respect to the dawn tragedy. If men were
moved by that, it was from pure, disinterested sympathy. The dawn and
the day were equally good and equally beautiful; the day loved the dawn,
since it pursued her so closely, and the dawn must have loved the day
in return, since she fled so slowly and reluctantly. Why, then, were
they forbidden ever to meet? What mysterious fate condemned the one to
die at the touch of the other--the beloved to elude the lover, the
lover to kill the beloved? This sad, sympathising question, which the
primitive peoples repeated vaguely and perhaps scarce consciously, day
after day, century after century, at length received an answer. One
answer, then another, then yet another, as fancy took more definite
shapes. Yes, the dawn and the morning are a pair of lovers over whom
hangs an irresistible, inscrutable fate--Cephalus and Procris, Alcestis
and Admetus, Orpheus and Eurydice.
And this myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is, to our mind, the most charming
of the tales born of that beautiful, disinterested sympathy for the dawn
and the morning, the one in which the subdued, mysterious pathos of its
origin is most perfectly preserved; in which no fault of infidelity or
jealousy, no final remission of doom, breaks the melancholy unity of
the story. In it we have the real equivalent of that gentle, melancholy
fading away of light into light, of tint into tint. Orpheus loses
Eurydice as the day loses the dawn, because he loves her; she has issued
from Hades as the dawn has issued from darkness; she melts away beneath
her lover's look even as the dawn vanishes beneath the look of the day.
The origin of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is beautiful; the myth
itself, as evolved by spontaneous poetry, is still more so, and more
beautiful still are the forms which have successively been lent it by
the poet, the sculptor, and the musician. Its own charm adds to that
of its embodiments, and the charm of its embodiments adds in return to
its own; a complete circle of beautiful impressions, whose mysterious,
linked power it is impossible to withstand. The first link in the chain
are those lines of Virgil's, for which we would willingly give ten
AEneids, those grandly simple lines, half-hidden in the sweet luxuriance
of the fourth book of the _Georgics_, as the exquisitely chiselled
fragment of some sylvan altar might lie half-hidden among the long
grasses and flowers, beneath the flowering bays and dark ilexes, broken
shadows of boughs and yellow gleams of sunlight flickering fantastically
across the clear and supple forms of the sculptured marble "And already
upwards returning, he had escaped all mishaps, and the given-back
Eurydice was coming into the upper air, walking behind him, for
Proserpina had made this condition. When, of a sudden, a madness seized
on the unwily lover--pardonable, surely, if ghosts but knew how to
pardon. He stood, and back on his Eurydice, already in our sunlight,
he looked, forgetful, alas! and broken of will. Then was all the work
undone, broken was the compact with the unkind lord, and vainly had he
thrice heard the waters of hell sounding. Then she--'What madness has
ruined me, wretched one, and thee, also, Orpheus? For I am called by the
cruel Fates to return, and sleep closes my swimming eyes. So, farewell.
I am borne away muffled in thick night, stretching forth to thee (alas,
thine no longer!) my helpless hands.' She spoke, and from his sight
suddenly, even as thin smoke mingles with air, disappeared; nor him,
vainly clasping the shadows, and many things wishing to say, did she
see again." These lines suggest a bas-relief to us, because a real
bas-relief is really connected with them in our mind, and this
connection led to a curious little incident in our aesthetic life, which
is worth narrating. The bas-relief in question is a sufficiently obscure
piece of Greek workmanship, one of those mediocre, much-degraded works
of art with which Roman galleries abound, and among which, though left
unnoticed by the crowd that gathers round the Apollo, or the Augustus,
or the Discobolus, we may sometimes divine a repetition of some great
lost work of antiquity, some feeble reflection of lost perfection. It
is let into the wall of a hall of the Villa Albani, where people throng
past it in search of the rigid, pseudo-Attic Antinous. And it is as
simple as the verses of Virgil: merely three figures slightly raised out
of the flat, blank back-ground, Eurydice between Orpheus and Hermes.
The three figures stand distinctly apart and in a row. Orpheus touches
Eurydice's veil, and her hand rests on his shoulder, while the other
hand, drooping supine, is grasped by Hermes. There is no grouping, no
embracing, no violence of gesture--nay, scarcely any gesture at all; yet
for us there is in it a whole drama, the whole pathos of Virgil's lines.
Eurydice has returned, she is standing beneath our sun--_jam luce sub
ipsa_--but for the last time. Orpheus lets his lyre sink, his head
drooping towards her--_multa volens dicere_--and holds her veil,
speechless. Eurydice, her head slightly bent, raises her eyes full
upon him. In that look is her last long farewell:--
Jamque vale, feror ingenti circumdata nocte,
Invalidas tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas.
Behind Eurydice stands Hermes, the sad, though youthful messenger of
the dead. He gently takes her hand; it is time; he would fain stay and
let the parting be delayed for ever, but he cannot. Come, we must go.
Eurydice feels it; she is looking for the last time at Orpheus, her
head and step are prepared to turn away--_jamque vale_. Truly this sad,
sympathising messenger of Hades is a beautiful thought, softening the
horror of the return to death.
And we look up again at the bas-relief, the whole story of Orpheus
laying firmer hold of our imagination; but as our eyes wander wistfully
over the marble, they fall, for the first time, upon a scrap of paper
pasted at the bottom of it, a wretched, unsightly, scarce legible rag,
such as insult some of the antiques in this gallery, and on it is
written:--"Antiope coi figli Anfione e Zeto." A sudden, perplexed wonder
fills our mind--wonder succeeded by amusement. The bunglers, why, they
must have glued the wrong label on the bas-relief. Of course! and we
turn out the number of the piece in the catalogue, the solemn, portly
catalogue--full of references to Fea, and Visconti, and Winckelmann.
Number--yes, here it is, here it is. What, again?
"Antiope urging her sons, Amphion and Zethus, to avenge her by the
murder of Dirce."
We put down the catalogue in considerable disgust. What, they don't see
that that is Orpheus and Eurydice! They dare, those soulless pedants,
to call _that_ Antiope with Amphion and Zethus! Ah!--and with smothered
indignation we leave the gallery. Passing through the little ilex copse
near the villa, the colossal bust of Winckelmann meets our eyes, the
heavy, clear-featured, strong-browed head of him who first revealed the
world of ancient art. And such profanation goes on, as it were, under
his eyes, in that very Villa Albani which he so loved, where he first
grew intimate with the antique! What would he have said to such
heartless obtuseness?
We have his great work, the work which no amount of additional learning
can ever supersede, because no amount of additional learning will ever
enable us to feel antique beauty more keenly and profoundly than he made
us feel it--we have his great work on our shelf, and as soon as we are
back at home, our mind still working on Orpheus and Eurydice, we take it
down and search for a reference to our bas-relief. We search all through
the index in vain; then turn over the pages where it may possibly be
mentioned, again in vain; no Orpheus and Eurydice. Ah! "A bas-relief
at the Villa Albani"--let us see what that may be. "A bas-relief," &c.,
&c.--horror beyond words! The bas-relief--our bas-relief--deliberately
set down as Antiope with Amphion and Zethus--set down as Antiope with
Amphion and Zethus, by Winckelmann himself!
Yes, and he gravely states his reasons for so doing. The situation is
evidently one of great hesitation; there is reluctance on the one hand,
persuasion on the other. Moreover, the female figure is that of a
mourner, of a supplicant, draped and half-veiled as it is; the figure
with the lyre, in the Thracian or Thessalian costume, must necessarily
be Amphion, while the other in the loose tunic of a shepherd, must as
evidently be his brother, Zethus; and if we put together these facts,
we cannot but conclude that the subject of the bas-relief is, as
previously stated, Antiope persuading Amphion and Zethus to avenge her
on Dirce.
The argument is a good one, there can be no denying it, although it
is very strange that Winckelmann should not have perceived that the
bas-relief represented Orpheus and Eurydice. But, after all, we ask
ourselves, as the confusion in our minds gradually clears up: how do
we know that this _is_ Orpheus and Eurydice, and not Antiope and her
sons? How! and the answer rises up indignantly, Because we see to the
contrary; because we know that it must be Orpheus and Eurydice because
we feel morally persuaded that it is. But a doubt creeps up. We are
morally convinced, but whence this conviction? Did we come to the
bas-relief not knowing what it was, and did we then cry out, overcome by
its internal evidence, that it must represent Orpheus and Eurydice? Did
we ourselves examine and weigh the evidence as Winckelmann did? And we
confess to ourselves that we did none of these things. But how, then,
explain this intense conviction, and the emotion awakened in us by
the bas-relief? Yet that emotion was genuine; and now we have, little
by little, to own that we had read in a book, by M. Charles Blanc,
that such and such a bas-relief at the Villa Albani represented
Orpheus and Eurydice, and that we had accepted the assertion blindly,
unscrutinisingly, and coming to the bas-relief with that idea, did not
dream of examining into its truth. And did we not then let our mind
wander off from the bas-relief to the story of Orpheus, and make a sort
of variation on Virgil's poem, and mistake all this for the impression
received from the bas-relief itself? May this not be the explanation of
our intense conviction? It seems as if it were so. We have not only lost
our sentimental pleasure in the bas-relief, but we have been caught by
ourselves (most humiliating of all such positions) weaving fantastic
stories out of nothing at all, decrying great critics for want of
discernment, when we ourselves had shown none whatever.
It may have been childish, but it was natural to feel considerable
bitterness at this discovery; you may smile, but we had lost something
precious, the idea that art was beginning to say more to us than to
others, the budding satisfaction of being no longer a stranger to the
antique, and this loss was truly bitter; nay, in the first bitterness
of the discovery, we had almost taken an aversion to the bas-relief,
as people will take an aversion to the things about which they know
themselves to have been foolish. However, as this feeling subsided, we
began to reflect that the really worthy and dignified course would
be to attain to real certainty on the subject, and finding that our
recollection of the bas-relief was not so perfectly distinct as to
authorise a final decision, we determined coolly to examine the work
once more, and to draw our conclusions on the spot.
The following Tuesday, therefore, we started betimes for the Villa
Albani, intending to have a good hour to ourselves before the arrival of
the usual gaping visitors. The gallery was quite empty; we drew one of
the heavy chairs robed in printed leather before the bas-relief, and
settled ourselves deliberately to examine it. We were now strangely
unbiassed on the subject, for the reaction against our first positive
mood, and the frequent turning over one view, then the other, had left
in us only a very strong critical curiosity, the desire to unravel the
tangled reason of our previous unexplained conviction. Of course we
found that our memory had failed in one or two particulars, that the
image preserved in our mind was not absolutely faithful, but we could
discover nothing capable of materially influencing our views. We looked
at the bas-relief again and again; strictly speaking, there is in it
nothing beyond a woman standing between two men, of whom the one touches
her veil, and the other, to whom she turns her back, grasps her right
hand, while her left hand rests lightly on the shoulder of the first
male figure; so far there is reason for saying that the bas-relief
represents either Orpheus and Eurydice, or Antiope and her sons; indeed,
all that could fairly be said is that it represents a woman between two
men, with one of whom she appears to be in more or less tender converse,
whereas she is paying no attention to the other, who is taking her
passively drooping hand. There is, however, the additional circumstance
that one of the men holds a lyre and is dressed in loose trousers and
mitre-like head-dress, while the other man wears only a short tunic,
leaving the arms and legs bare, and his head is uncovered and shows
closely-cut curly locks; the woman being entirely draped, and her
head partially covered with a veil. Now, we know that this costume of
trousers and mitre-shaped head-gear was that of certain semi-barbarous
peoples connected with the Greeks, amongst others the Thracians and
Phrygians, while the simple tunic and the close-cut locks were
distinctive of Hellenic youths, especially those admitted to gymnastic
training. Moreover, we happen to know that Orpheus was a Thracian, and
that Hermes on the other hand, although in one capacity conductor of
the souls to Hades, was also the patron divinity of the Greek ephebi, of
the youths engaged in gymnastic exercises. Now, if we put together these
several facts, we perceive great likelihood of these two figures--the
one in the dress of a barbarian, which Orpheus is known to have been,
and holding a lyre, which Orpheus is known to have played, and the other
in the dress of a Greek ephebus, which Hermes is known to have worn--of
these two figures really being intended for Orpheus and Hermes. At the
same time, we must recollect that Amphion also is known to have worn
this barbaric costume and to have played the lyre, while his brother,
Zethus, is equally known to have worn the habit of the ephebus; so that
Winckelmann has quite as good grounds for his assertion as we have for
ours. If only the sculptor had taken the trouble to give the figure in
the tunic a pair of winged sandals or a caduceus, or a winged cap; then
there could remain no doubt of his being Hermes, for it is a positive
fact that no one except Hermes ever had these attributes; the doubt
is owing to the choice of insufficiently definite and distinctive
peculiarities. But it now strikes us: all this is founded upon the
supposition that we know that the barbarians wore trousers and mitres,
that Orpheus was a sort of barbarian, that Greek ephebi wore tunics and
short-cut hair, that Hermes was a sort of ephebus, that, moreover, he
was a conductor of souls; now, supposing we knew none or only some of
these facts, which we certainly should not, if classical dictionaries
had not taught them us, how could we argue that this is Orpheus and that
Hermes? Is the meaning of a work of Art to depend on Lempriere and Dr.
William Smith? At that rate the sculptor might as well have let alone
all such distinctions, and merely written under one figure _Orpheus_
or _Amphion_, whichever it might be, under the other _Hermes_ or
_Zethus_; this would not have presupposed more knowledge on our part,
since it seems even easier to learn the Greek alphabet than the precise
attributes of various antique gods and demi-gods, and then, too, no
mistake would have been possible, we should have had no choice, the
figure _must_ be either Orpheus or Amphion, Hermes or Zethus, since the
artist himself said so. But this would be an admission of the incapacity
of the art or the artist, like the old device of writing--"This is a
lion," "This is a horse;" well, but, after all, how are we able to
recognise a painted lion or a horse? Is it not, thanks to previous
knowledge, to our acquaintance with a live horse or live lion? if we had
never seen either, could we say, "This is a lion," "That is a horse?"
evidently not. But then, most people can recognise a horse or a lion,
while they cannot be expected to recognise a person they have never
seen, especially a purely imaginary one; the case is evidently one of
degree; if we had never seen a cow, and did not know that cows are
milked, we should no more understand the meaning of a representation
of cow-milking than we should understand the meaning of a picture of
Achilles in Scyros if we knew nothing about Achilles. The comprehension
of the subject of a work of art would therefore seem to require certain
previous information; the work of art would seem to be unable to tell
its story itself, unless we have the key to that story. Now, this is
not the case with literature; given the comprehension of the separate
words, no further information is required to understand the meaning, the
subject of prose or verse; Virgil's lines pre-suppose no knowledge of
the story of Orpheus, they themselves give the knowledge of it. The
difference, then, between the poem and the bas-relief is that the story
is absolutely contained in the former, and not absolutely contained
in the latter; the story of Orpheus is part of the organic whole, of
the existence of the poem; the two are inseparable, since the one is
formed out of the other; whereas, the story of Orpheus is separate
from the organic existence of the bas-relief, it is arbitrarily connected
with it, and they need not co-exist. What then is the bas-relief? A
meaningless thing, to which we have wilfully attached a meaning which is
not part or parcel of it--a blank sheet of paper on which we write what
comes into our head, and which itself can tell us nothing.
As we look up perplexedly at the bas-relief, which, after having been as
confused, has now become well nigh as blank as our mind, we are startled
by hearing our name from a well-known voice behind us. A young painter
stands by our side, a creature knowing or thinking very little beyond
his pencils and brushes, serenely unconscious of literature and science
in his complete devotion to art. A few trivial sentences are exchanged,
during which we catch our friend's eye glancing at the bas-relief. "I
never noticed that before," he remarks, "Do you know, I like it better
than anything else in this room. Strange that I should not have noticed
it before."
"It is a very interesting work," we answer; adding, with purposely
feigned decision, "Of course you see that it represents Orpheus and
Eurydice, not Antiope and her sons."
The painter, whose instinctive impression on the point we have thus
tried to elicit, seems wholly unmoved by this remark; the fact literally
passes across his mind without in the least touching it.
"Does it? Ah, what a splendid mass of drapery! That grand, round fold
and those small, fine vertical ones. I should like to make a sketch of
that."
A sort of veil seems suddenly to fall off our mental eyes; these simple,
earnest words, this intense admiration seem to have shed new light into
our mind.
This fellow, who knows or cares apparently nothing whatever about either
Orpheus or Antiope, has not found the bas-relief a blank; it has spoken
for him, the clear, unmistakeable language of lines and curves, of light
and shade, a language needing no interpreters, no dictionaries; and it
has told him the fact, the fact depending on no previous knowledge,
irrefutable and eternal, that it is beautiful. And as our eyes follow
his, and we listen to his simple, unaffected, unpoetical exclamations
of admiration at this combination of lines, or that bend of a limb, we
recognise that if poetry has its unchangeable effects, its power which,
in order to be felt, requires only the comprehension of words; art also
has its unchangeable effects, its power, its supreme virtue, which all
can feel who have eyes and minds that can see. The bas-relief does not
necessarily tell us the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, as Virgil's lines
do, that is not inherent in its nature as in theirs; but it tells us the
fact of its beauty, and that fact is vital, eternal, and indissolubly
connected with it.
To appreciate a work of art means, therefore, to appreciate that work
of art itself, as distinguished from appreciating something outside it,
something accidentally or arbitrarily connected with it; to appreciate
Virgil's lines means to appreciate his telling of the story of Orpheus,
his choice of words and his metre; to appreciate the bas-relief means to
appreciate the combination of forms and lights and shades; and a person
who cared for Virgil's lines because they suggested the bas-relief or
for the bas-relief because it suggested Virgil's lines, would equally be
appreciating neither, since his pleasure depended on something separate
from the work of art itself.
Yet this is what constantly happens, and happens on account of two very
simple and legitimate movements of the mind: that of comparison and that
of association. Let us examine what we have called, for want of a more
definite word, the movement of comparison. You are enjoying a work of
art, plastic and musical; what you enjoy is the work of art itself, the
combination of lines, lights and shades and colours in the one case,
the combination of modulations and harmonies in the other; now, as
this enjoyment means merely the pleasing activity of your visual and
aesthetic, or acoustic and aesthetic organism, you instinctively wish to
increase the activity in order to increase the pleasure; the increase
of activity is obtained by approximating as much as possible to the
creative activity of the original artist, by going over every step
that he has gone over, by creating the work of art over again in the
intensity of appreciation. If it be a plastic work, you produce your
pencil and brushes and copy it; if it be a musical composition, you try
and reproduce it by means of your voice or your instrument; and you
thus obtain the highest degree of aesthetical activity and pleasure
compatible with mere appreciation. But supposing you can neither draw,
nor sing, nor play; supposing you have only another set of faculties,
those dealing with thoughts and images, those of the artist in words, of
the writer. How will you obtain that high degree of aesthetical activity,
how will you go over the steps of the original creator? You will find
that words cannot copy the work of art, plastic or musical; that lines
and lights and shades, or modulations and harmonies, must be seen or
heard to be appreciated; that, in short, you have no means of absolutely
reproducing what you have seen or heard;--instinctively, unintentionally,
unconsciously, you will seek for an equivalent for it; you will try and
produce with the means at your disposal something analogous to the work
of art, you will obtain your aesthetic activity from another set of
faculties; not being able to draw or to sing, you will think and feel,
and, in default of producing a copy, you will produce an equivalent. But
the same result is not obtainable by different means; a painter, copying
a statue, will produce not a statue but a picture; a sculptor copying a
picture will produce a model, not a sketch; yet the difference between
the _modus operandi_ of painting and sculpture is as nothing compared
with that between the _modus operandi_ of art which appeals to the eye
or the ear, and art which appeals direct to the mind; of art which deals
with visible or audible shapes, and of art which deals with purely
abstract thoughts and images. How much greater, then, must not also
be the difference in the result! Instead of a statue you have, not a
picture, but a poem, a work of art of totally different nature from
the one which you originally tried to reproduce. Instead of visual or
audible forms, you have feelings and fancies; and if you compare your
equivalent with the original work of art you will probably find that it
has little in common with it: you had seen a beautifully chiselled head,
and you say that you had perceived a beautiful emotion; you had heard a
lovely modulation, and you have written that you witnessed a pathetic
parting; instead of your eye and your ear, your imagination and feeling
have been active, and the product of their activity is a special,
separate one. So, in your desire to appreciate a work of art, you have,
after a fashion, created a new one, good or bad, and having created it,
there are a hundred chances against one that you will henceforward
perceive your creation and not the original work; that you will no
longer perceive lines or sounds, but fancies and feelings, in short,
that instead of appreciating the work of art itself, you will appreciate
merely your intellectual equivalent of it, that is to say, something
which most distinctly and emphatically is _not_ the work of art.
The process of association is even commoner: you have taken interest in
some story, or some form, your mind has worked upon it; you are shown a
work of art whose name, often nothing more, connects it with this story
or poem, and your thoughts being full of the latter, you apply to the
work of art the remarks you had made about the story or poem; you see
in the work of art the details of that story or poem; you look at it
as a mere illustration; very often you do not look at it at all; for
although your bodily eyes may be fixed on the picture or statue, your
intellectual eyes are busy with some recollection or impression in your
mind; it is the case of the bas-relief of the Villa Albani, the pleasure
received from Virgil's lines being re-awakened by the mere circumstance
of the bas-relief being called, rightly or wrongly, Orpheus and Eurydice;
it is the story of a hundred interpretations of works of art, of people
seeing a comic expression in a certain group at the Villa Ludovisi
because they imagined it to represent Papirius and his mother, while
other people found the same group highly tragic, because they fancied it
represented Electra and Orestes; it is the old story of violent emotion,
attributed to wholly unemotional music, because the words to which it
is arbitrarily connected happen to be pathetic; the endless story of
delusions of all sorts, of associations of feelings and ideas as
accidental as those which make certain tunes or sights depress us
because we happened to be in a melancholy mood when we first saw or
heard them.
What becomes of the real, inherent effect of the work of art itself in
the midst of such concatenations of fancies and associations? How can
we listen to its own magic speech, its language of lines and colours
and sounds, when our mind is full of confused voices telling us of
different and irrelevant things? Where, at such times, is our artistic
appreciation, and what is it worth? Should we then, if such a thing
were possible, forbid such comparisons, such associations? Should we
voluntarily deprive ourselves of all such pleasure as is not given by
the work of art itself?
No, but we should restrain such impressions; we should, as far as
we can, remain conscious of the fact that they are mere effects of
comparison and association, that they are not the work of art, but
something distinct from it, and that the work of art itself exists in
the lines, tints, lights and shades of the picture or statue, in the
modulations and harmonies of a composition, and that all the rest is
gratuitously added by ourselves. Nay, we should remember that there
could not even have been that very comparison, that very association
if there had been no previous real artistic perception; that unless we
had first cared for Virgil's Orpheus for its own sake, we could not
afterwards have cared for the bas-relief on its account.
We confess that we have ourselves become instinctively jealous of such
foreign causes of pleasure in art, jealous because we have been pained
by their constant encroachment; the feeling may be an exaggerated one,
but it is a natural reaction. We have thus caught ourselves almost
regretting that pictures should have any subjects; we have sometimes
felt that the adaptation of music to the drama is a sort of profanation;
and all this because we have too often observed that the subject seemed
to engross so much attention as to make people forget the picture, and
that the drama made people misinterpret the music; and that criticism
itself, instead of checking this tendency, has done much to further it.
Yes, critics, grave and emphatic thinkers, have spoken as if the chief
merit of the painter had consisted in clearly expressing some story,
which in all probability was not worth expressing, some dull monkish
legend which his genius alone could render tolerable; as if the chief
aim of the composer were to follow the mazes of some wretched imbecile
libretto, which has become endurable thanks only to his notes; as if the
immortal were to be chained to the mortal, and mediocrity, inferiority,
mere trumpery fact or trumpery utility were to bridle and bestride the
divine hippogriff of art, and, like another Astolfo, fly up on its back
into the regions of immortality. Artists themselves have been of this
way of thinking, we cannot say of feeling, for, as long as they were
true artists, their instinctive feelings must have propelled them in a
very different direction. Gluck, that great dramatist, who was greatest
when least dramatic, thought that music was made for the sake of the
drama, that its greatest glory was to express the difference, as he
himself wrote, between a princess and a waiting-maid between a Spartan
and a Phrygian, to follow the steps of a play as its humble retainer and
commentator. Gluck composed his music for the sake of the dramas; but, O
irony of art! the dramas are recollected only for the sake of his music.
Let the artist be humble, mistrustful of his own art, let him believe
it to be subservient to something outside it, devote it magnanimously
to some purpose of utility, or some expression of fact, sacrifice it
throughout; it will be all in vain; if his work be excellent, it will
subordinate all to itself, it will swallow up every other interest,
throw into the shade every other utility.
One day the Pope's banker, Agostino Chigi, came to Master Rafael of
Urbino, and said to him--"I am building a little pleasure villa in
which to entertain my friends. Baldassare Peruzzi has made the plans,
Sebastiano del Piombo has designed the arabesques, Nanni da Udine will
paint me the garlands of fruit and flowers; it must be perfection. You
shall paint me the walls of the open hall looking out on the Tiber,
that it may be a fit place wherein to sup and make merry with popes
and cardinals and princes." "Very good," answered Rafael.
The object was to obtain a dining-hall, and the fresco was to be there
merely as an ornament; but Rafael painted his Galatea, and behold, the
hall could no longer be used as a dining-room; every one crowded into
it to see the fresco; the hall has now become a gallery, and the real
property, less of its owners, who cannot make use of it, than of the
whole world, who insist on entering it; the room now exists only for the
sake of the fresco, yet the fresco was originally intended to exist only
for it. This is the inevitable course of art; we call in beauty as a
servant, and see, like some strange daemon, it becomes the master; it may
answer our call, but we have to do its bidding.
We have strayed far away from Orpheus and Eurydice, while thus following
the train of ideas suggested by the story of the bas-relief. Yet we may
return to the subject, and use it as an illustration of our last remark.
We have said much against the common tendency towards transporting on to
a work of art an interest not originally due to it, because, by this
means, we are apt to lose the interest which does belong to the work
of art. But, if only each could get its due, each exert its power
unimpaired, there could be nothing more delightful than thus to enjoy
the joint effect of several works of art; not, according to the notion
of certain aesthetic visionaries--who do not see that singers cannot be
living Greek statues nor librettists poets, nor scene-painters
Poussins--in one clumsy ambiguous monster spectacle, but in our minds,
in our fancy; if, conscious of the difference between them, we could
unite in one collection the works of various arts: people the glades
and dingles of Keats with the divinities we have seen in marble, play
upon the reed of the Praxitelian Faun the woodland melodies of Mozart's
Tamino. It would thus be the highest reward for self-scrutinising
aesthetic humility, for honest appreciation of each art for itself, for
brave sacrifice of our own artistic whimsies and vanities, to enable us
to bring up simultaneously the recollection of Virgil's nobly pathetic
lines, of the exquisitely simple and supple forms of the bas-relief, of
the grand and tender music of Gluck, and to unite them in one noble
pageant of the imagination, evoked by the spell of those two names:
Orpheus and Eurydice.