Part 1

ART AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT

_The Meaning and Relations of Sculpture, Painting, Poetry and Music_

A Handbook of Eight Lectures By EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS

NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH 1908

COPYRIGHT, 1908 BY EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS

“I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven, and in their disciples and apostles; I believe in the Holy Ghost and the truth of Art--one and indivisible; I believe that this art proceeds from God and dwells in the hearts of all enlightened men; I believe that whoever has revelled in the glorious joys of this high art must be forever devoted to it and can never repudiate it; I believe that all may become blessed through this art, and that therefore it is permitted to any one to die of hunger for its sake; I believe that I shall become most happy through death; I believe that I have been on earth a discordant chord, that shall be made harmonious and clear by death. I believe in a last judgment, that shall fearfully damn all those who have dared on this earth to make profit out of this chaste and holy art--who have disgraced it and dishonored it through badness of heart and the coarse instincts of sensuality; I believe that such men will be condemned to hear their own music through all eternity. I believe, on the other hand, that the true disciples of pure art will be glorified in a divine atmosphere of sun-illumined, fragrant concords, and united eternally with the divine source of all harmony. And may a merciful lot be granted me! Amen!”

--Wagner, in “_An End in Paris_,” _Art Life and Theories_, p. 90.

INDEX

PAGE

Note: Spirit of the Course 7

1. The Expression and Interpretation of Human Life in Art 9

2. The Primitive Sources of Art 14

3. The Race, the Epoch and the Individual in Art 19

4. The Meaning and Function of Sculpture and Painting 24

5. The Meaning and Function of Music 29

6. The Meaning and Function of Poetry 35

7. Literature and Liberal Culture 40

8. Beauty and the Culture of the Spirit 45

Suggestions to Students 50

Book List 51

SPIRIT OF THE COURSE

There is evident in our country to-day a great turning of energy to the higher interests of human life, especially to the fine arts. Apparently some part of the enthusiasm and youthful power that has built so wonderful a material civilization is now set free for the pursuit of beauty and wisdom. We send our students far and wide to the schools and galleries of the old world; we build art museums in all our cities, and cultivate music with a new earnestness. Unfortunately the noble promise in this awakening is hampered by grave misconceptions as to the meaning of art in relation to the human spirit. Widely, among high and low alike, art is regarded as a pleasant adornment of life, worth seeking after the serious business of our existence is fulfilled, but quite dispensable meantime. Others--well-meaning people--hold art to be justified only by some obvious moral teaching it conveys. In reaction against this view and as a result of the difficult technical problems art presents, many artists fall into the equally unfortunate error of regarding art as primarily an exhibition of skill, interpreting “art for art’s sake” to mean art for technique’s sake.

There is no hope of giving art the place it should occupy in our culture until these errors have been overcome. We must learn that art is serious business, that beauty is the most useful thing we know, and that art is not for adornment’s sake, or preaching’s sake, or art’s sake, but that it is for _life’s sake_.

The aim of this course is, therefore, to consider as fully and searchingly as possible the place and meaning of the fine arts in relation to the spirit of man. We shall study first the unity of the arts, their expression and interpretation in common of the universal elements of human experience. Then the historic sources of the arts and the great forces that determine the specific characteristics of a masterpiece will be studied. The heart of the course will be an effort to define the particular meaning and function of each of the arts, the way in which it can express and interpret some phase of the common human life more effectively than any other. Finally, the work will close with a study of the ministry of the arts to man’s spirit and their place in culture.

If art is for life’s sake for the appreciative student, even more is it so for the creative artist. If often the lesser men have lived to paint, or carve, or write, or sing, the great masters have ever found art a way of life, have painted, carved, written, sung, _to live_,--that through creative expression in art they might grow up into the fullness of their own potential humanity. Thus it is necessary that every one should be an artist in this high sense of the word; and if that is impossible in what we call the fine arts, it is possible in the finest of all, the one supreme art of living. The need is, not that beauty should be added artificially to daily life, but that life itself, in work, relationship and environment, should be made a fine art. That this study may help a little to that end and so add something of the joy that comes from supreme beauty, redeeming the commonplace detail of life by clothing it with a transfiguring atmosphere and exalting the spirit to a place where a serene vision of life in relation is possible, is the hope with which the work is undertaken.

I. THE EXPRESSION AND INTERPRETATION OF HUMAN LIFE IN ART

Art is the adequate and harmonious expression and interpretation of some phase of man’s life in true relation to the whole.

--Edward Howard Griggs.

=Purpose of the course.=--To consider the whole meaning of the fine arts; the relations they sustain to each other; the sources from which they spring; their two-fold relation to the human spirit,--as expressing and interpreting life and as contributing to the higher culture of man. The need and value of such study to-day, especially in America.

=Popular superstitions in relation to art.=--Misconceptions met on the threshold of our study: (1) The notion that art is a dispensable luxury, to be cultivated as an adornment of life after our serious business is accomplished. Prevalence of this error in the mind of the general public; among those who regard themselves as polite society. The artist’s bitter protest against this attitude in all epochs: compare Carlyle; Goethe.

(2) The notion prevailing in the minds of many good people that art is justified only by the moral lessons it teaches. Goethe’s view that this destroys the artist’s vocation. The ethical significance of true art organically in it, not tacked on in an Æsop’s fable moral at the end.

(3) In reaction against the second error, one prevailing in the minds of many artists below the highest rank: the notion that art is for the sake merely of exhibiting technical skill in the mastery of difficulties. Causes of this error.

Essential that these three misconceptions should be corrected before art can assume its rightful place in relation to our life. Our first questions therefore: What is art, and what relation does it sustain to the spirit of man?

=Unity and variety in art.=--Bewildering diversity of works of art: compare in the same art; in different arts. Thus difficulty of gathering all in a common statement. Yet the fact that we may appreciate all, indicating a common basis. The arts, moreover, springing from one historical source; while possible for the most highly developed works of art in different fields to produce the same dominant impression. Illustrate in the groups of men who are brothers across the centuries. The source of this unity in all art the expression everywhere of the same universal basis of human life.

The simple, generic elements of life as always expressed in art through the medium of personality. Thus true art ever fresh and vital--a new equation of old forces. Compare Homer’s _Odyssey_ and Stephen Phillip’s _Ulysses_.

Not all expression art. The conditioning principles of adequacy and harmony of expression distinguishing true art from what fails to rise to its plane. The further principle that the part must be treated in sound relation to the whole of human life. Compare in the portrayal of moral evil. What distinguishes Dante and Shakespeare from the vicious type of novel in such portrayal.

=Interpretation of life.=--All expression involving as well some measure of interpretation; that is, all art inevitably ideal as well as real in the presentation of life and nature. Compare even in amateur photography: how there is inevitably selection of material and point of view. Compare in the novel that attempts merely a realistic portraiture of life. How even the selection of the part of the material out of the whole and the adoption of a view-point in its treatment, bringing certain elements into the foreground and subordinating others in the background, means putting life and nature through the transmuting spectrum of the artist’s spirit in expressing them.

=Further elements of idealism.=--Raising life to a higher plane of expression than is usual in the real world: compare the characters of Shakespeare; the paintings of Corot and Millet.

The tendency in art to carry the laws of life out full circle, thus giving an ethical completeness wanting in actual life.

The addition of a unifying and interpreting atmosphere. Compare in Titian; Beethoven; Dante.

=The definition of art.=--Summing up of all the aspects developed in the relation of art to the human spirit: thus the inclusive definition.

Hence the serious business of art. The relation of the beautiful to the useful. The meaning of art in the life of man.

ILLUSTRATIONS

“The useful encourages itself; for the multitude produce it, and no one can dispense with it: the beautiful must be encouraged; for few can set it forth, and many need it.”

--Goethe, _Wilhelm Meister_, translated by Carlyle (A. C. McClurg & Co., 1890), vol. 2, p. 129.

“I do not object to a dramatic poet having a moral influence in view; but when the point is to bring his subject clearly and effectively before his audience, his moral purpose proves of little use, and he needs much more a faculty for delineation and a familiarity with the stage to know what to do and what to leave undone. If there be a moral in the subject, it will appear, and the poet has nothing to consider but the effective and artistic treatment of his subject. If the poet has as high a soul as Sophocles, his influence will always be moral, let him do what he will.”

--Goethe, _Conversations with Eckermann and Soret_, p. 228.

“The praiseworthy object of pursuing everywhere moral good as the supreme aim, which has already brought forth in art so much mediocrity, has caused also in theory a similar prejudice. To assign to the fine arts a really elevated position, to conciliate for them the favour of the State, the veneration of all men, they are pushed beyond their true domain, and a vocation is imposed upon them contrary to their nature. It is supposed that a great service is awarded them by substituting for a frivolous aim,--that of charming--a moral aim; and their influence upon morality, which is so apparent, necessarily militates in favour of this pretension.”

--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, pp. 361, 362.

“Just as the sun cannot shed its light but to the eye that sees it, nor music sound but to the hearing ear, so the value of all masterly work in art and science is conditioned by the kinship and capacity of the mind to which it speaks. It is only such a mind as this that possesses the magic word to stir and call forth the spirits that lie hidden in great work. To the ordinary mind a masterpiece is a sealed cabinet of mystery,--an unfamiliar musical instrument from which the player, however much he may flatter himself, can draw none but confused tones. How different a painting looks when seen in a good light, instead of in some dark corner! Just in the same way, the impression made by a masterpiece varies with the capacity of the mind to understand it.”

--Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_, p. 94.

“From the combined effort of the two schools of criticism, guardians of public tranquillity, there results a salutary reaction. This reaction has already produced some specimens of poets,--steady, well-bred, prudent, whose style always keeps good hours; who never indulge in an outing with those mad creatures, Ideas; who are never met at the corner of a wood, _solus cum solâ_, with Reverie, that gypsy girl; who are incapable of having relations either with Imagination, dangerous vagabond, or with the bacchante Inspiration, or with the grisette Fancy; who have never in their lives given a kiss to that beggarly chit, the Muse; who never sleep away from home, and who are honored with the esteem of their door-keeper, Nicholas Boileau. If Polyhymnia goes by with her hair floating a little, what a scandal! Quick! they call the hairdresser. M. de la Harpe comes hastily. These two sister schools of criticism, that of the doctrinaire and that of the sacristan, undertake to educate. They bring up little writers. They keep a place to wean them,--a boarding-school for juvenile reputations.”

--Victor Hugo, _William Shakespeare_, pp. 208, 209.

“The passions, whether violent or not, must never be carried in their expression to the verge of disgust, and music, even in the most awful situations, must not offend the ear, but always please.”

--Mozart, in Kerst, _Mozart: The Man and the Artist_, pp. 34, 35.

“He was a good man and on that very account, a great man. For when a good man is gifted with talent, he always works morally for the salvation of the world, as poet, philosopher, artist, or in whatever way it may be.”

--Goethe, _Conversations with Eckermann and Soret_, p. 364.

“The historical painter also must take good care, if he would not produce a caricature, even in subjects of an action moved by passion, not to give every one of his figures the sharply imprinted expression of an emotion. Thus, Orcagna, in his _Last Judgment_ (in the _Campo santo_ at Pisa), represents with fearful truthfulness, and in a most startling manner, on the side of the damned, terrified surprise, horror, lamentation and despair; but for all that it would be but a crowd of people making faces if the artist did not contrast it with the uniformly tranquil, radiant joy on the faces of the saved, and the solemn gravity of the patriarchs and prophets. In Leonardo da Vinci’s _Last Supper_ is placed by the side of the violent gesticulations and excited looks of some of the apostles, in well-calculated contrasting relief, the composed demeanor of others, especially of the one sitting at the right of the beholder at the end of the table, but particularly the divinely mild gravity and the sorrowful resignation of the principal figure in the middle. Even in the most tumultuous of all historical pictures, the celebrated Pompeian mosaic picture of Alexander’s battle, the universal horror at the fall of the commander-in-chief is _completely_ portrayed only in some figures.”

--Ambros, _The Boundaries of Music and Poetry_, pp. 56, 57.

“Beauty results from the harmony between spirit and sense; it addresses all the faculties of man, and can only be appreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He must bring to it an open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All a man’s nature must be on the alert, and this is not the case with those divided by abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated by application.”

--Schiller, _Essays Æsthetical and Philosophical_, p. 330.

“A masterpiece exists once for all. The first poet who arrives, arrives at the summit. You shall ascend after him, as high, not higher. Ah! Your name is Dante? Very well; but he who sits yonder is named Homer!”

--Victor Hugo, _William Shakespeare_, p. 101.

“The unpoetical lover of art, ensconced in his burgess-like comfort, is apt to take offence at any part of a poetical work which entails trouble on him, such as the solution, colouring or concealment of a problem. The somnolent reader wants everything to pursue its natural course, little imagining in his obstinate conceit how the extraordinary may also be natural.”

--Goethe, _Travels in Italy_, p. 466.

TOPICS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION

1. What is common and universal in the subject-matter of the fine arts?

2. Compare Homer’s _Odyssey_ and the _Ulysses_ of Stephen Phillips as artistic treatments of the same theme.

3. Can you discover a musical composition and a work in painting that produce the same dominant impression with the _Agamemnon Trilogy_ of Æschylus?

4. Can you find a type of poetry and of painting akin in impression to the music of Chopin?

5. What makes possible our common appreciation of works of art in widely different fields and coming from remotely separated races and epochs?

6. Explain how all the characters of Shakespeare can speak such beautiful poetry, and yet Shakespeare be regarded as the great realist in the portrayal of life.

7. What relation do the paintings of Corot sustain to Nature?

8. How far may moral disease wisely be portrayed in art?

9. Show what is necessary to make expression truly artistic.

10. Formulate your own definition of art.

REFERENCES

NOTE: See Book List, pp. 51-57, for publisher and place and date of publication of all books referred to.

Ambros, _Boundaries of Music and Poetry_. Carpenter, _Angels’ Wings_. Corson, _Aims of Literary Study_. Crawshaw, _Literary Interpretation of Life_. Emerson, _Art_ (in _Essays, first series_, pp. 325-343); _Art_ (in _Society and Solitude_, pp. 39-59). Hand, _Æsthetics of Musical Art_. Hugo, _William Shakespeare_. Knight, _The Philosophy of the Beautiful_. Lanier, _Music and Poetry_. Leighton, _Addresses_. Lewes, _Principles of Success in Literature_. Mabie, _Short Studies in Literature_. Parry, _The Evolution of the Art of Music_. Partridge, _Art for America_. Raymond, _Art in Theory_; _Essentials of Æsthetics_. Ruskin, _Lectures on Art_; _Modern Painters_; _The Two Paths_. Schiller, _Essays_. Schopenhauer, _The Art of Literature_. Shairp, _Aspects of Poetry_. Stedman, _Nature and Elements of Poetry_. Tolstoy, _What is Art?_ Van Dyke, _How to Judge of a Picture_; _Principles of Art_. Wagner, _Art Life and Theories of_. Wilde, _The Critic as Artist_.

II. THE PRIMITIVE SOURCES OF ART

“The secret, mysterious relations of the human heart to the strange nature around it, have not yet come to an end. In its eloquent silence, this latter still speaks to the heart just as it did a thousand years ago; and what was told in the very gray of antiquity is understood to-day as easily as then. For this reason it is that the legend of nature ever remains the inexhaustible resource of the poet in his intercourse with his people.”

--Wagner, in “Der Freischütz in Paris,” _Art Life and Theories_, p. 99.

=Evolution of the arts.=--The primitive hymns sung in honor of a God and accompanied by interpretative dancing. How the various fine arts are differentiated from this historic basis. The same law of evolution applying to all expressions of life evident in the arts. A generic unity in the primitive basis, sometimes wanting in the later differentiated forms.

=The original inspiration of art.=--Significance in the fact that all art springs first from religion. Profound seriousness of early art. This religious earnestness persisting in all great art. Thus deep meaning in the primitive sources from which art springs.

=The character of early art.=--Antecedent to written literature a great storehouse of popular thought, feeling and imagination which we call mythology. The process by which this is developed, accumulated and handed down from generation to generation. Value of the product as a condensed and refined result of long ages of human life. Compare in value with great literary masterpieces produced by individual geniuses.

Vitality of mythology, due to the closeness of primitive man to Nature and the simple things of human life. Evidence in the spontaneous metaphorical character of all early language: Illustrations.

The truth in mythology, due to a sound reaction on the world. Contrast the truth of incident with the truth of character. Aristotle’s view of poetry as truer than history. The true and the false fairy-tale: a mere jumble of adventure contrasted with a portrayal of character naturally unfolding in relation to circumstance and law.

Universality of mythology. The few, great, simple elements that make up human life in all times and places. Tendency to hark back to these from the conventions and artificialities of civilization. Constant expression of these in primitive art: compare the Brunhild story. Thus ethical depth in all the gathered-up result of early life. Simple but clear recognition of the great laws of life.

Natural but inevitable art in the great expressions of early life. Characteristics of that art in comparison with the form of later masterpieces.

=The ethical value of mythology.=--The moral plane of primitive life in comparison with later civilization. Thus elements in mythology below the level of our ethical standards of to-day. Yet moral development proceeding not only from the lower to the higher, but from the simple to the complex. Compare the complication of ethical situations and standards in our life. Difficulty in distinguishing good and evil. Expression of this in Ibsen and Goethe. Contrasting simplicity of primitive mythology: its simple and clear opposition of good and evil. Usual representation of good as conquering. Illustrations in both Greek and northern legends. Thus mythology presenting the basal moral principles that should be clearly recognized before the literature is studied that portrays the ethical subtleties and complications of modern life.

A further ethical element in primitive mythology: good not always conquering; but when defeated, going down with colors flying, thus making of defeat the noblest of moral victories. Compare in the Prometheus legend; the story of Beowulf.

=The relation of mythology to later art.=--The need of the late artist to saturate himself in the springs of the race life: compare in Tennyson and Wagner. The use of mythology and religion in Greek sculpture; Renaissance painting; poetry; music.

=Important types of primitive material.=--The three sources of early material drawn from most largely by European art: (1) Hebraic stories; (2) Greek and Latin mythology; (3) Norse legends. The complementary character of these three bodies of material. The Hebraic stories as presenting the deepest recognition of moral law and purpose. Greek mythology as beautiful and artistic. Norse stories as most deeply human and at the same time the ethnic background from which our art springs.

Thus the value of primitive mythology and religion: (1) as sources of later art; (2) as inspiration of art to-day; (3) as valuable permanently in education.

ILLUSTRATIONS

“Art rests upon a kind of religious sense: it is deeply and ineradicably in earnest. Thus it is that Art so willingly goes hand in hand with Religion.”

--Goethe, _Maxims and Reflections_, p. 174.