prevalence of the faiths of the past is very far from being unfortunate. There is another tendency of art and of the artist, however, which in the long run is a more sufficient force to counteract any losses ascribed to the conservative character of the arts. The artist is a prophet in his own right no less than are other innovators. There are two ways in which this is true. Artists are not only constantly saying new things or devising new forms, but they have, in the past, many times expressed by their manner something different from the subject matter of their work. First, the artist is one who sees things that other men ignore. If he expresses what he desires to express, it is always some fresh way of looking at things. He is always adding to the world of created beauty. Standing apart from practical life, at least imaginatively, he is little hindered by the prejudices and concerns of the ordinary man. He is not himself in the "game." Sitting as a spectator, his eyes are clear of the dust and passion of the struggle. I am keenly conscious of a great difficulty here. There is much bad art in the world because of this separation on the part of artists. Perhaps there is no moral evil greater than that of looking upon life as a spectacle. It is contempt of persons. Every artist is in constant danger of this evil point of view. As a man and citizen he is required to be a man among men. As an artist he is required to stand apart and to be an onlooker. I believe that it makes a profound difference as to which is the real self of the artist and which is his assumed dramatic rôle. If his real self is the spectator, and he merely makes dramatic excursions into real life, I think his art will be bad art. If his real self is man and citizen, and he makes the supremely dramatic effort of imaginative withdrawal, I think his art will be good art. In any case, whether the aloofness be real or assumed, it must be in some profound sense real for the purposes of good artistry. It must be a genuine attempt to see more things and to see them differently than they are seen during the actions of common life. As already suggested in another chapter, this is why the artist has always been accused of lawlessness. And this is why there is no need for liberals to be afraid of him. The historic freshness of art is a great fact, as well as the historic conserving power of the arts. Mr. Bertrand Russell says that "art springs from a wild and anarchic side of human nature; between the artist and bureaucrat there must always be a profound antagonism." The artist is almost always a prophet of change, being dissatisfied with the world of ugly facts, loving the more romantic world that is potentially beautiful. It has been a matter of frequent observation among critics that great artists have oftentimes anticipated by the reach of their imaginative intuitions, points of view later conceived or confirmed in science or politics. Secondly, the artist early began to depict things for their own worth rather than for the purposes of his patron, the religionist. His subject matter immemorially has been the succession of divinities and saints to be represented by statues and paintings, to convey the faiths of religion. But from very ancient days, the artist seemed to peep out from behind his subject matter. He has spoken his own independent word, proclaiming by his lines and colors a message of his own, sometimes even contradicting the subject matter of his work. One or two allusions will illustrate the point. The earlier wall relief drawings amongst the Egyptian antiquities are vigorous, simple, childlike, unsophisticated pictures. It is hard to discover in them-as, for example, in the tombs of Sakkara-much of any separate feeling for beauty on the part of the artist. But the later works of the imperial age are very different. Such wall reliefs as those of the Temple of Seti at Abydos are religious in theme, and strictly religious in the conventional treatment of the figures, but they reveal highly self-conscious canons of artistry on the part of the designer. Despite the subject matter and despite formal requirements as to its treatment, there is a lyrical feeling about lines, and a very advanced conception of composition which conveys to us across these many centuries the artist's separate satisfaction in pure beauty. It is almost impossible to draw any other conclusion from the skill with which the artist has elaborated the various borders about his space and utilized repetitive forms to make a successful decoration. The walls are very beautiful in themselves as decorated surfaces. The same tendency is amply displayed by the Greeks. Perhaps, at the highest point, form and content are so unified that there is no suggestion of the matter we are here discussing. But it is scarcely conceivable that Praxiteles was as much interested in representing the god Hermes as in representing an ideal man. At least, so the great statue at Olympia appears to me. The same is true of many of the great works of the Italian Renaissance. Even very early the separate impulse of the artist was manifested. For example, in the Crucifixion scene on Niccola Pisano's pulpit at Pisa, the figure on the cross is not drawn true to life, but gracefully, as though to make a decoration. So also, other figures in the bronze panels by the same artist on the doors of the Baptistery in Florence. I believe that the greatest art is that in which form and content are so thoroughly at one that the total effect is unified. Artists should not be required to say things which they do not themselves believe. The history of their work in the world testifies their revolt when they have been called upon to do so. In this way, the artistic work of many times and places has been definitely prophetic; that is, it has criticised by its own independent interest in life and the beauty of life, the particular conceptions of the religion of its day. The suggestion I am trying to make is quite precisely stated in an address of J. A. Symonds on the New Spirit. "Whatever the subject matter, . . . silent and unperceived, art, by its naturalism, sapped orthodoxy much in the same way as scholarship, by its rationalism, was serving the same purpose. There is, therefore, on the whole, nothing to fear from the conservatism of the artist. His conservatism is never so objectionable as that of the creedalist. If works of religious art set forth the conception of the times, so do creeds. But * Symonds, "Last and First," p. 40. when creeds are gone they are of little further worth, while the artist's formulation contains not only a perpetual message of beauty but a proper conserving memorial of the former values. I seldom read the Nicene Creed or the Heidelberg Catechism, but very frequently get pleasure and benefit from an excellent copy of one of Bellini's Madonnas on the wall of my study. Perhaps the artist helps as much as anyone in solving the ever recurrent dilemma of conservatism and change. He represents the great conceptions of faith and preserves them, but also by the values of his beautiful form he transcends the particular ideas intimated. There is a permanence about any work of beauty. It is ever old and ever new. High art conserves the apprehensions of the elder ages; by it we have communion with the fathers. And the highest art never fades. It is always second sight, always revealing, with true prophetic spirit, that things are not what at first sight they appear to be. |