Chapter 43
Application of the Law to the Various Arts.
We have now to consider each branch of æsthetics in the totality of the system, to be assured whether or no this law discovered by Delsarte covers all departures in the domain of art. First, then, the starting-point around which all is centered and from which flow all developments.
"Man is the object of art." This proposition applies as readily to the conception of literature, poetry and the plastic art as to the more active manifestations of the dramatic, oratorical or lyric art. Man being thus the object of art in all of its specialties, the part of the artist is to manifest that which is revealed to him, through his three essential modalities,--physical, moral and intellectual (in the words of Delsarte, life, soul and spirit, with the divisions and subdivisions that they allow), as has been clearly stated in the chapter upon "The Law of Æsthetics," and further confirmed in the one upon "The Bases of the Science." But though all of these primordial modalities appear in each concept and in all artistic manifestations, the proportion in which each appears is indefinitely variable. It is a predominance of one or another of these which classifies and specializes. It is the harmony, more or less perfect, of the components of this triple unity which determines the value of artistic manifestations. Under this law, then, come all of the arts, inasmuch as each, differing in subjects treated and in means of execution, still has a common mission, namely, the revelation of impressions, the intelligible expression of the thoughts and feelings of man. To be more clearly understood, I will from this point consider separately the different branches of æsthetics.
_Art--Dramatic, Lyric and Oratorical._
The proclivities necessary to an artist, actor or orator (intelligence being the first consideration and beauty of minor importance) are: expansion, sensibility or at least impressionability; a ready comprehension of the works to be interpreted, if not the requisite capacity to execute them. One's particular vocation (or congenial line of work) is the first condition in either of these departments of art, and into the consideration of this must enter that of physical beauty such as the roles demand; always considering what has been named "the physique" of the situation. In a word, these three aspects of art correspond to the predominance of that modality which Delsarte calls "life;" this with the complementary share of the other essentials to maintain a symmetry; this for the average "chosen." As to the individuality necessary for the creation of a rôle, general statements cannot apply. It is one and entire for each. Should it reproduce itself identically, it would no longer be individual. The strength of a powerful individuality lies in the revelation of a type _sui generis_.
Thus Delsarte can never be reproduced. If by an impossibility an artist having seen him, and being penetrated by his method, could assimilate the sum total of his acquired qualities and his inmost purposes, still he could be but a copy, however perfect, since personality cannot be transmitted. I could not pursue the demonstration of the application of the laws of the human organism to the generality of the liberal arts without meeting an objection which we will consider just here. Some one says: If the law of art is the same as that of the human constitution, what need that Delsarte teach that law--will it not suffice for each artist-nature to study himself in order to determine satisfactory means of transmitting (to spectators, audiences or readers) the thoughts, passions or emotions which he would reveal, either by his pen, his chisel, his brush, or by the fictitious personages which he incarnates? I answer, No! The expression of nature by gesture, face, or voice will not come to the artist by inspiration nor by reflection, especially in extreme situations. He may chance upon agreeable effects, and even moving expressions, but rarely does a just and telling expression of that which he would express result from mere chance. Caustic truth or knack--more vulgarly, cheek--comes of influence outside of one's self. Upon one occasion Madame Pasta was heard to say: "I would be as touching as that child in her tears. I should, indeed, be a great artist if I could imitate her."
Rare, indeed, are the artists who know how to weep. The sublimity of art responds to nature's simplest impulses. By the study and work of Delsarte a science has been created, every fleeting sign of emotion has been fixed, and may be reproduced at will; and this for the instruction of the artist who may never have observed them in another, nor himself felt the impressions which give rise to them.
_Application of the Law to Literature._
It is hardly necessary to state that the predominance of one of the primordial faculties in the actor would necessarily differ from that in the author of the drama or opera which he would interpret. Literary capability presupposes more or less of philosophical aptitude and a predominance of the intellectual faculties, and this not to the exclusion of a certain amount of artistic and moral development in the truly great writers. It is in the field of literature especially, that man attains to a _creation_; and whether his _object_ be a fellow-creature or an extended and enlarged ideal,--in either and any case facts have furnished repeated and incontestable evidence, in support of the statement of Delsarte, that art is always defective unless it be the product of the three essential modalities of being, acting in their relative proportions. This statement is not to be contested; but here again these relations would vary among the writers upon science, ethics and poetry.
The epic, most synthetic of literary productions, is no longer in fashion, because, perhaps, of the growing rarity of heroes. On the contrary, _simplisme_ is now deforming the greatest germs in the drama and romance. The weakness often lies in the morality of the production, or rather in its lack of morality, often so lacking that the author sinks to the level of producing repulsive works and cynical pictures.
In view also of man's essential faculties, but from another point of view, St.-Simonianism classed men as scholars, artists and artisans. Then were added the priests of a new order whose nature, more perfectly balanced, was to furnish the model type of future humanity. This classification had brought thinking people to the consideration and criticism of a system isolating and concentrating all development upon one or another of the faculties. It was readily seen that thus sentiment would rush to folly; sensibility without a corrective would soon become weakness; unbalanced industry would lead to disregard of health and strength, while the triviality of the sensual nature, unrestrained by mental or moral activity, would soon fall into hopeless degradation. Herein was _simplisme_ most bitterly condemned. Delsarte, ever studying relations between coincidences in art and the revelations of nature, arranged a typical demonstration, as ingenious as logical, of the action and play of opposing faculties. By most wonderful pantomime he showed a man tempted to sin; then, touched by pity for the victim of his desire, at last transformed by the intervention of the moral sense, he came by slow gradations to most elevated sentiments. One saw clearly the courage of resistance and triumph in the sacrifice. Then, taking an inverse progression, he slid from this height to the opposite extreme of culpable resolutions.
Delsarte was the author of this mute scene which contains the elements of a drama. The contemplation of this wonderful effect leads to the conviction of the great value to literature of the fundamental law, which may be applied to any and all literature, as a permanent criterion by which productions may be classified and judged, in their departure from the _simpliste_ form and approach to a conception in which the constituent modalities of being act in harmonious accord. Here, again, we have a fresh distinction between scientific and ethical literature, and that which may be termed the _literature of art_. To this latter class belong romances, dramatic productions and poems--works made up of shades of meaning and just proportions, which should be based on clear and sound philosophy, prudently disguised but indisputable and imperishable. Here is place for the grace of an agreeable wit and the elegant flexibility of a fruitful pen. More imperative than in any other class of writing is the demand for individual touch and that harmony of construction depending upon the proportionate relations of those elements of æsthetics,--_the True, the Good_, and _the Beautiful_. Thus, through æsthetics, it is elevated.
To this literature of art belong the sonnet of Arvers, and "The Soul," by Sully-Prudhomme. Musset, in his grace or pathos, is not inferior to Victor Hugo. There are, even in his faults, certain effective boldnesses to which the author of "Nôtre Dame de Paris" cannot aspire. Whence, then, comes the immense distance between these poets? It lies in the fact that Victor Hugo, while he is a finished artist, shows himself also a thinker, philosopher, man of science and erudition. Endowed with a profound humanitarian feeling, he is preoccupied with the evils of society, with its rights, its mistakes, its tendencies and with their amelioration; while the poet of "Jacques Rolla"--a refined sensualist--devotes his verse to the unbridling of the torments of imagination in delirium, to the agitations of hearts which have place only for love.
If comparison be made between novelists and dramatists of diverse schools, why has not M. Zola, who in so many regards should be considered a master, attained the heights of eminence upon which are enrolled the names of Shakespeare, Molière, Corneille, Schiller, Madame de Staël, and George Sand? It is because M. Zola, profound analyst and charming narrator, even more forcibly than Musset breaks the æsthetic synthesis by the _absence of morality_ in his writings. His fatalism arrests the flight of that which would be great; he corrupts in the germ wonderful creative powers! M. Zola's great lack lies in his considering in man his physical nature only. Between mind and matter he holds a magnifying lantern full upon the lowest molecules, and rejects disdainfully the initiating atom that Leibnitz has signalized as the centre of life. M. Zola has created a detestable school which already slides into the mire beneath the weight of the crimes which it excites and the disgust which it arouses. Should we blame Zola and his disciples for the danger and the impotence of this method? Should we not impute the wrong in greater measure to philosophical naturalism?
In considering _materialism_ and _naturalism_ let us not lose sight of the fact that while materialism is _simpliste_, naturalism (in so much as it represents nature) is essentially comprehensive and necessarily synthetic; harmony of force and matter being an invariable requisite of _life_.
_Realism_, another term strangely compromised, seems to proclaim itself under the banner of materialism, while the _Real_, implying the idea of the _True_, cannot be contained in _simplisme_. It is a most pernicious evil that writers, calling themselves realistic, still concentrate their talent upon the painting of vicious types and characters drawn in an infernal cycle of repulsive morals.
"Man is the object of art." Never could the words of the master more appropriately interpose than before the encroachments of literary _simplisme_. The man of whom Delsarte speaks is not confined to such or such a category of the species. He proposes that æsthetics should interpret an all-comprehensive human nature, which is not made up alone of baseness, egotism and duplicity. Though it be subject to perversion, it has its luminous aspects, its radiant sides, and we should not too long turn our eyes from them.
Artistically, evil or the Hideous (which is also evil) should never be used except as a foil. There is no immorality in exhibiting the prevailing vices of the epoch, but this is the physician's duty. The evil lies in presenting these evils under such forms as may lead many to enjoy or tolerate them, giving them the additional power of a charming style and the specious arguments of fatality. This is precisely the case of M. Zola. The glamor of his disturbing theory, which annihilates free will, gives to his works a philosophical appearance. He conceals its vacuity beneath forms of a highly-colored style, an amiable negligence and a facility that is benumbing to thought. As he asserts nothing, no one dreams of contradicting, and one finds himself entwined in a network of repulsive depravity without a ray of healthful protection or correction. In comparison with the blight of this disastrous system of fatality, the coarseness of the writer's language, so loudly censured, is relatively unimportant. The _simplisme_ of M. Zola is not absolute, as but one of the three constituent modalities is omitted, that one being morality. The lack is, however, no less fatal, inasmuch as the void produced by the absence of one of the noblest faculties of human activity must usually be filled by disturbing forces.
I have heard the theory, "art for art," supported by men otherwise very enlightened. "An artistic production need not contain a moral treatise," they say, and this is quite true, provided the artist be a quick observer, possessing talent sufficient to handle his subject harmoniously. Vice carries its own stigma, and pure beauty surrounds itself with light. The author should be able readily to distinguish the one as well as the other, and his precepts should come as the harmonious result of his experience. But such a work, at the mercy of an ill-balanced brain and unhealthful temperament, must yield bad fruit. Talent without broad and true knowledge of _reality_, or that which _is_, instead of being invented, is incomplete in its workings and results. Its creations resemble the light of the foot-lamp, of fireworks, of the prodigies of our modern pyrotechnists--pleasing for a time, dazzling, captivating, intoxicating! But lost in the life-giving beauty of a summer's night or a glorious sunset, we are tempted to cry out with the poet,--
"Nothing is beautiful but the True."
What can be said of the other _simplisme_ which, in its search for the True, ignores the Beautiful while it disregards the Good? Again, its partisans seek artistic truth in its very worst conditions. Why paint in full sunshine, if the intense light obliterates details and confuses the shadows? Does it seem a difficulty conquered? It is far oftener a disguised insufficiency. If my reference to painting seem premature, it is because I wished to borrow an image to show how equally grievous was the faulty touch of many of our writers of renown. Many among them seem striving to propagate the culture of the Mediocre and Unseemly, as a thousandfold easier practice than the religion of the Beautiful.
My present aim is to show clearly the influence of even incomplete _simplisme_, in certain pernicious effects upon literature. Edgar A. Poe entered the realm of the fanciful after Hoffman, and how is it that the initiator is less dangerous than his disciple? It is because of these two _simplistes_, who have put reason out of consideration, the first addressed himself only to the imagination, while the American poet sounded the emotions to depths where terror is awakened and madness begins to sting. Hoffman has perhaps upon his conscience some readers confined in asylums for the deranged, but the far more perilous hallucinations of Poe must account for greater harm. The distance is great between imagination and sentiment, and should be so regarded. This extravagance should surely not be allowed to usurp the place of morality, but this is what is done, and greatness is not for them.
Another illustration lies in the transition intermediate between the romances of Balzac, Frederic Soulié, Emile Souvestre, and Eugène Sue, and the poetry of Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Béranger, Barbier and the _impressionalist_ school whose decline is already at hand.
Of many names, which have acquired notoriety, I select the two which afford the best contrast,--Charles Baudelaire and Jules de la Madelène. The first, among other eccentric works, has left us "The Blossoms of Evil." In the ideas which it embraces it is the successful production of an imagination misled and in distress; a pathological experience probably prompted the conception. In it one reads beautiful verse of scholarly construction, and readily perceives an individuality and originality of thought and expression; but no one would predict or desire that this production should pass to posterity.
"Le Marquis des Saffras," by Jules de la Madelène, on the contrary, gratifies both judgment and feeling. It is a spirited painting, acute and profound, as well as true, of human life, especially of provincial life. The human being is revealed in all his aspects. Though the author disguises neither errors nor weaknesses, he presents clearly the redeeming side--the simple manners and the humble devotion of sincere hearts. This, then, is the reason _why_, sustained by a style rich in grace and strength, full of the breath of poetry which is felt rather than described, "Le Marquis des Saffras" holds its place as an incontestable masterpiece in the choice libraries that preserve the renown of great writers.
A more careful examination of the doctrine of Delsarte--"The necessity of the concurrence of the mother modalities of the human organism to fulfil the conditions of æsthetics"--but forces the conviction that disregard of this requirement renders all sterile and incomplete, if not monstrous. Is this equivalent to saying that the deductions from the law of Delsarte tend to condemn in French literature its simple gaiety, its graceful lightness, and to efface this stamp of the race that our ancestors have surely imprinted?
In works of the imagination the omission of moral meaning is often more seeming than real, and every good reader should be able to recognize this. However, this negligent seeming is far less hurtful than brilliant wit concealing crudities and modifying boldnesses. Writers of this class do not lose sight of the fact that, while the French character has its audacities (contrary to the modifications of æsthetics), our language possesses a proverbial chastity, which, even in its farthest wanderings, genius comprehends and respects. Tact and taste suffice to him who consults them to escape grossness of language. The delicacy of the allusions leaves their images in a transparent mist; the very elasticity of the equivocation furnishes a refuge for the thought which it disquiets.
By art some most delicate subjects, very nearly approaching license, have been pardoned. We would surely exhibit a tyrannical and morose humor to condemn to be burned _en place de Grève_, by the hand of the executioner, the romances of _Manon Lescaut_, and _Daphnis_ and _Chloe_ by Longus, as they have been transmitted to us by Paul Louis Courier.
But when literature, realistic or materialistic (or whatever they please to call it), freeing itself from moral accompaniment, shows itself negative or weak in its creations; if it be _simpliste_ to the point of appealing exclusively to the senses, limiting its means of action to the development of the egotistic and instinctive side of the human passions,--its works have no longer right of consideration in æsthetics. The consideration of the physical being should surely figure in all representations of life, but it is not necessary that from a subordinate consideration it should ever be made all-governing. The body, the essential part of our personality, is the companion of our higher faculties. We should be mindful of it, making it as beautiful as possible, but giving it the reins would be even worse than giving power absolute to the imagination.
Once more, _impressionalism_, without the control of science and of reason, has nothing to claim in the spheres of the _True_, the _Good_, the _Beautiful_.
_Application of the Law to Architecture._
The productions of architecture, like those of literature, have their origin in the realm of thought. Architecture is not, like the dramatic art, in subjection to the person of the artist. It is one of the plastic arts, and of them the most synthetic by reason of the number of agents concurring in its harmony. Its dependence upon form is akin to that of sculpture, while the value of color in its effects is only less than in the art of the painter.
This art, essentially comprehensive, demands of its masters varied knowledge and that power of coördination which, according to the learned philosopher Antoine Cros, is the highest function of the human intellect. The relation of æsthetics to the totality of the faculties is here more evident than ever. After the manifestation of _mind_ in the composition of the plan, the architect's next duty is to please the eye. To this end he employs marble, stone, wood, bronze or gold, and the result is that element of the symphony which responds to sensation. The third and only remaining element of the trinity is sentiment. In order that, rising above its utilitarian purpose, appropriateness and mathematical rules of stability, the architect may fulfil the requisition of æsthetics and arrive at the "Grand Art," the remaining element as well as the other two must be perfected in result. The perfection of this element of sentiment is shown in the work by the impression of grandeur or elegance, of grace, severity or delicacy. The triple necessity thus filled, the result is truly a work of art.
_Application of the Law to Sculpture._
The relation of Delsarte's system to sculpture has already been alluded to. Its application here lies principally in the realm of form. The sculptor aims to reproduce finest proportions of face and figure. He delights in a beautiful contour and, as Mengs has said, "in lines undulating and serpentine," while he studiously avoids all simple straight lines.
The more limited range of outlook demands more studied beauties and more significant expressions. The statue--unlike the monument, which at once arouses spontaneous emotions in the spectator--should express the human being, his sensations, his affections, his passions and struggles, and should arouse an enthusiasm of admiration while it awakens sympathetic echoes in the heart of the observer. Here more strikingly than ever must we recognize "Man the object of art." In the light of this truth we should demand of sculpture the manifestation of the human life with its constituent faculties, not in a perfectly equal accord which is never met in nature, but with such predominance as the subject presents.
In Greek art the predominance is of the physical aspect. They had before them exquisite models of plastic beauty; not the sensual beauty which is fleshly, but a plastic beauty consisting of harmony of line and form. Let us further consider this difference as shown in comparison of the Apollo and the Bacchus.
The Apollo satisfies alike the intellect and the eye by its beautiful outlines. [We are not yet ready to discuss beauty of expression.] The Bacchus less ideal and more humanly natural cannot so satisfy a highly æsthetic temperament. In neither work is there much of sentiment expressed. The distinctively moral side plays a secondary part, unless we consider beauty itself a moral factor,--a theory that may be sustained. In neither beautiful marble is there revealed any sensual dominance, though the Bacchus, notwithstanding its plastic superiority, rather inclines that way. The Apollo has been loudly extolled for the pride of its attitude and its divine calm in the encounter with the serpent Python; and still it is said that "a god could not have cause for so great pride in the conquest of a reptile." But the art-critics have exaggerated the import of the figure, which is wonderfully beautiful without being accurately expressive. The civilization of the new era has developed in man moral and physical qualities, which furnish new expressions by which the artist may set forth that part of human life which Delsarte called "the transluminous obscurities of our inmost organism." Dating from this epoch we find in sculpture less of plastic beauty and more spiritual and touching expression. Who would compare the pathos of the Laocoon to that of Canova's Magdalen? The sculptor Marcello (Mme. de Castiglione), too early removed from an artistic career, exhibited certain creations which illustrate this difference. Among them is a bust, in marble, of an Arab chief, which is after the style of the antique, beautiful lines, without expression (a predominance of the physical element). In her "Weary Bacchante" she shows beauty tarnished by vice, and here the predominant expression is sensual. But in her "Marie Antoinette in the Temple Prison," as in Mercié's "David" and the "Dying Napoleon," it is not the marvelous beauty which entrances us, but first and above this reigns the power of _expression_.
Sentiment is become predominant. In the "Marie Antoinette," what bitter disappointment! In the "Napoleon," what disillusion with the toys of the world in which he had reigned! In the "David"--Biblical subject treated by a modern chisel--what strange impressions and reflections are suggested by that tranquil head and the wonderful frailty of the body! how original the conception of the figure, and the whole a tribute to the high personality of the artist! Mercié shows not only the work accomplished, but in this are glimpses of promise of greatness to come which serve as more valuable proof of greatness than the masterpiece completed. This leads me to a reflection already often alluded to, but which I would keep ever before you as the foundation of my argument: "Man is the object of art." He is also the art-producer, and considering relatively the two terms of the proposition, the manifestations of the faculties are not necessarily adequate between the producer and the production. I will explain.
The best conditions under which an excellent work of art should be produced are undoubtedly the following: The conceiver possesses in the highest possible degree of development the modalities of being essential to the kind of creation undertaken, and these in their most perfect harmony; but this perfection of intensity and of the relations of the elements of the concept by no means necessitates the artist's formation of types at once morally, intellectually and physically artistic. This depends upon the truth of his subject. That he embellish it, whatever it may be, by his artistic interpretation and execution, is all that we should expect.
In the new manifestation which we now consider, where expression of sentiment is given predominance, the artist, interpreter of the passions, sentiments, weaknesses and vices as well as of the virtues and sympathies of humanity, must, in order to interest or chasten, show to it its own image, which reflection will be most frequently not an ideal of perfection but a type of suffering and vice, of weakness and depravity. A work will be successful in proportion as the chisel shall be most indefatigable in putting in relief the virtue or the vice which characterizes the subject. The greatest artist shall be he who renders most striking the characteristic predominance, whatever it may be, of the type created or interpreted. To sum up: Art is proportional to the faculties of the artist, and the work is the result of an application of these faculties to some special manifestation of the human ego.
Impressionalism, as in the other arts, should be considered in two aspects: the impression of the artist and that of the public or observer. The question then arises, what kind of a public should be impressed that the artist may merit a place in the higher ranks of æsthetics? While we have recognized that judgments in questions of art are the result of a certain sympathy existing between artist and observer, we have decided also that in considering such a question, all observers cannot be considered equal. In sculpture as in literature, where appreciators are possibly more numerous, we must admit that knowledge and capability or even sincerity are rarely of any weight in the balance of the grand juries of history or in the verdicts of contemporaries. The ignorant multitude sanction the grossest works because these only come within their understanding. Encouraged by the applause of numbers and by the lack of restraint which wins applause, artists descend the rounds of the ladder of progress which step by step has marked the ascent of the great schools and the great masters, and the result inevitably must be the return to mere sketches in sculpture, and painting will diminish to imagery. This end is quickly and readily reached, so easy and so fatal is the descent in these paths of decadence.
"All styles are good except the tedious," a well-known critic has said. Pursuing the import of this thought, we are led to the speedy conclusion that the _null_ should never enter into competition. Nothing better than that the condition of priority should exist between diverse styles and opposite schools; but why strive to institute comparison between a synthetic idea and the absence of synthesis and idea, between certain proportions and harmony and the absence of proportion and harmony, between a style and the absence of style? Whatever the subject and whatever the mode of treating it, the intelligence of the artist should always be visible in his work.
I am more and more thoroughly convinced that the theory of Delsarte, fatal to _simplisme_, is the true theory of art. What can be more _simpliste_ than impressionalism when viewed as a school? It considers no law or science, disregards entirely analysis and logic, the Good and the Beautiful; it is given over to sensation; vague impressions which are, whatever may be said to the contrary, only the inferior part of man's faculties, indispensable surely, but that which we have in common with the animals and little children; very interesting to observe among animals, a charming grace in children, but a most unimportant factor in adult existence, particularly in the artist's life, unless it be governed by the intellect and subject to the sanction of feeling.
_Application of the Law to Painting._
If any art should be given over to impressionalism it seems as if it should be painting. To see and to transmit what is seen,--is not this the true office of the painter, his undoubted mission? Yes, on condition that the artist has the requisites for seeing correctly! And if he rises to composition, he must also be endowed with a creative intellect, with a portion of that mental power which will permit him to embrace a conception synthetically, and to coördinate its parts.
Among the impressionalists of our time, there are assuredly painters of talent; but what talent they possess is, as it were, against their will: the influence of tradition, the weight of the medium in which they live unconsciously restrain them. Then, it must be confessed, this impressionability of the artist has its intrinsic merits, if it is kept to its place and degree; but it must be regarded as certain, that if the _simpliste_ artist makes himself distinct in his work, it is because he contains within himself more of the requisites for what he undertakes, and because, without his having summoned them, the faculties of the understanding and the æsthetic sense have come to his aid.
If Delsarte admitted the precept that "everything is perceived in the manner of the perceiver," he, of course, did not admit that every perceiver should make his own law: his conception of the æsthetic trilogy would never have permitted him to open this Babel for the vanity of ignorance.
To finish with _simplisme_ or naturalism, let us say that, carried to its utmost extreme, it becomes a fixed idea, a monomania; has not impressionalism attained to this even in the choice of colors? It has been said of certain painters that they had only to upset their palette on the canvas to compose their pictures! Yet this varicolored chaos is not the characteristic of the school On the contrary, certain favorite colors prevail; do not green and violet rule almost exclusively in some of the most striking pictures from impressionalist brushes?
There are moments when we ask whether the impressionalists and their adherents are not obeying an impulse to contradict rather than a serious conviction. In either case, it is time for many of them to furnish proofs--that is to say, works,--in lack of the reasons which they have not even offered.
After this digression, forced upon me by recent scholastic quarrels, let us return to Delsarte.
I have given the reasons for his doctrine in other chapters; this doctrine will gain strength when I show what I have gathered from his science, since science and law mutually testify for each other; since all art, acquiring fresh vigor from its source, _law_, and enlightened by the aid of these same formulæ, must bear the impress of truth, beauty and goodness.
Even where color occupies in painting the place attributed to outline in sculpture, there are in these two manifestations of mental images--and in spite of the synthetism peculiar to painting,--striking similitudes.
As regards physical manifestations, both these arts should seek truth--which does not mean literal exactness,--and all that has been said of _simplisme_, in regard to sculpture, is perfectly applicable to that part of painting which treats of the human figure. Science and law lay down the same rules for both,--save for the differing modes of execution.
It is another matter when it is a question of representing nature as a whole, and under less limited forms: seas, mountains, the atmosphere and broad plains--landscapes of vast extent,--subjects forbidden to sculpture even more exclusively than simple compositions of several figures, which are seldom successful in sculpture. For if sculpture sometimes makes a group, if it is used to decorate monuments and tombs, it offers nothing analogous to those magnificent phases of nature which we find on the canvases of the great masters.
Delsarte, who from the laws of mimetics deduced for painters means of expressing correctly every impression and emotion which man can feel, taught nothing in regard to this special field of the landscape artist, who is not subject to the conditions of the actor, sculptor or orator. But, if this aspect of art--save in cases where figures are introduced--does not come under the head of certain statements of our science, not having to imitate attitude, gesture or voice--in a word, anything proceeding from the human organism,--it is, perhaps more closely than elsewhere, allied to the innovator's law: to that law which prompts the artist to respond to the psychical aspirations of his fellowmen, and demands that in satisfying the senses, he should also arouse or inspire the thought and feeling of beauty.
Thus the painter of nature, as much of a reality as man, but a reality in its own way, if he desires to make nature understood and loved, must give it the stamp of his own ideas, his own feelings, his own impressions.
Why should I care to be shown trees and waters, valleys and mountains, if the tree does not tell me of the coolness of its shade, if the water does not reveal the peace of the deep lake, if I cannot divine the rippling of the brook, if the valley does not make me long to plunge into its depths! Why recall to me the mountain, if its curves do not rouse in my mind any ideas of grace, elegance and majesty,--if its peaks do not make me dream of the Infinite!
However skilful the artist may be in the reproduction of form and the handling of color, he will always be far inferior to nature if his soul has never heard the inner murmur of all those mysteries of the sensitive, and I will venture to say, spiritual life, contained in forests, waterfalls and ravines. Lacking this initiation, he will play the cold and flavorless part of one who tells a twice-told tale; for it is in landscape especially, that talent consists in revealing the painter's own feeling.
The charm of things felt is not produced merely by a grand way of looking at things: the mind, the soul, occupy but little space; but where they figure, the canvas is well filled, and the brush betrays their presence.
I remember, in support of my thesis, that at one of the annual expositions at the Salon--which then represented the aristocracy of painting,--there was a tiny picture: a hut half hidden in moss and flowers. It was almost lost among the portraits of distinguished personages, the historic incidents, the scenes taken from fashionable life, and almost drowned in the bloody reflections from the vast display of battle pictures, which, as was then the custom, monopolized half the space.
Well! this canvas, a yard wide and not so long, held you captive, took your thought prisoner, and inevitably impressed itself on your memory. You longed to ramble over its thick turf; to enter that cottage whose open windows gave you the feeling that it was a peaceful shelter; you loved that poor simplicity, which seemed to hide happiness.
Certainly the author of this graceful, touching picture practiced Delsarte's law, at least from intuition.
Profound emotions are not always due to objective beauty; the beauty of the work is a thing apart from what it represents. Who does not recall, in another order of talent, this effect, due to the brush of Bonnat: an ugly, old Spanish woman is praying in a dark chapel; she prays with eyes, lips and soul. There was never seen more complete absorption, more complete forgetfulness of self in humble fervor. It was far more touching than all the types of sensual beauty, with pink and white and perfumed skins--with delicate limbs, in disagreeable attitudes!
This is, yet once again, due to the fact that sentiment is stronger than sensualism; and because the artist's skill, taking the place of beauty in his subject, becomes genuine æsthetic beauty: so much so that, looking at old age and ugliness--as represented by Bonnat,--the spectator is enchanted and applauds--_the success of the work!_
If, however, to perfect execution is allied beauty--not sensual, but æsthetic,--if it is made manifest from the point of view of form, feeling and thought, the enthusiasm will be still greater, because all the aims of art are realized at one and the same time.