Part 5

But man finds, usually, such a mode of proceeding too timid and inadequate. He perceives a harmony among many objects, which can only be brought into a picture by sacrificing the individual. He gets tired of using Nature’s letters each time to spell after her. He invents a way, devises a language for himself, so as to express in his own fashion the idea his soul has attained, and give to the object he has so many times repeated a distinctive form, without having recourse to nature itself each time he repeats it, or even without recalling exactly the individual form.

Thus a language is created, in which the mind of the speaker expresses and utters itself immediately; and as in each individual who thinks, the conceptions of spiritual objects are formed and arranged differently, so will every artist of this class see, understand, and imitate the outward world in a different manner, will seize its phenomena with a more or less observant eye, and reproduce them more accurately or loosely.

We see that this species of imitation is applied with the best effect in cases where a great whole comprehends many subordinate objects. These last must be sacrificed in order to attain the general expression of the whole, as is the case in landscapes, for instance, where the aim would be missed if we attended too closely to the details, instead of keeping in view the idea of the whole.

_Style_

When at last art, by means of imitation of Nature, of efforts to create a common language, and of clear and profound study of objects themselves, has acquired a clearer and clearer knowledge of the peculiarities of objects and their mode of being, oversees the classes of forms, and knows how to connect and imitate those that are distinct and characteristic,--then will _Style_ reach the highest point it is capable of, the point where it may be placed on a par with the highest efforts of the human mind.

Simple Imitation springs from quiet existence and an agreeable subject; Manner seizes with facile capacity upon an appearance; Style rests upon the deepest foundations of knowledge, upon the essence of things, so far as we are able to recognize it in visible and comprehensible forms.

* * * * *

The elaboration of what we have advanced above would fill whole volumes; and much is said upon the subject in books, but a true conception of it can only be arrived at by the study of nature and works of art. We subjoin some additional considerations, and shall have occasion to refer to these remarks whenever plastic art is in question.

It is easy to see that these three several ways of producing works of art are closely related, and that one may imperceptibly run into the others.

The simple imitation of subjects of easy comprehension (we shall take fruits and flowers as an example) may be carried to a high point of perfection. It is natural that he who paints roses should soon learn to distinguish and select the most beautiful, and seek for such only among the thousand that summer affords. Thus we have arrived at selection, although the artist may have formed no general idea of the beauty of roses. He has to do with comprehensible forms; everything depends upon the manifold purpose and the color of the surface. The downy peach, the finely dusted plum, the smooth apple, the burnished cherry, the dazzling rose, the manifold pink, the variegated tulip, all these he can have at will in his quiet studio in the perfection of their bloom and ripeness. He can put them in a favorable light; his eye will become accustomed to the harmonious play of glittering colors; each year would give him a fresh opportunity of renewing the same models, and he would be enabled, without laborious abstraction, by means of quiet imitative observation, to know and seize the peculiarities of the simple existence of these subjects. In this way were produced the masterpieces of a Huysum and Rachel Ruysch, artists who seem almost to have accomplished the impossible. It is evident that an artist of this sort must become greater and more characteristic, if in addition to his talent, he is also acquainted with botany; if he knows, from the root up, the influences of the several parts upon the expansion and growth of the plant, their office, and reciprocal action; if he understands and reflects upon the successive development of leaves, fruit, flowers, and the new germ. By this means he will not only exhibit his taste in the selection of superficial appearance, but will at once win admiration and give instruction through a correct representation of properties. In this wise it might be said that he had formed a style; while, on the other hand, it is easy to see how such a master, if he proceeded with less thoroughness, if he endeavored to give only the striking and dazzling, would soon pass into mannerism.

Simple Imitation therefore labors in the ante-chamber that leads to Style. In proportion to the truth, care, and purity with which it goes to work, the composure with which it examines and feels, the calmness with which it proceeds to imitate, the degree of reflection it uses, that is to say, with which it learns to compare the like and separate the unlike, and to arrange separate objects under one general idea,--will be its title to step upon the threshold of the sanctuary itself.

If now we consider Manner more carefully, we shall see that it may be, in the highest sense and purest signification of the word, the middle ground between simple imitation of nature and style.

The nearer it approaches, with its more facile treatment, to faithful imitation and on the other side, the more earnestly it endeavors to seize and comprehensibly express the character of objects, the more it strives, by means of a pure, lively, and active individuality, to combine the two, the higher, greater, and more worthy of respect it will become. But if such an artist ceases to hold fast by and reflect upon nature, he will soon lose sight of the true principles of art, and his manner will become more and more empty and insignificant in proportion as he leaves behind simple imitation and style.

We need not here repeat that we use the word Manner in a high and honorable sense, so that artists who, according to our definition, would be termed Mannerists have nothing to complain of. It is only incumbent upon us to preserve the word Style in the highest honor, in order to have an expression for the highest point art has attained or ever can attain. To be aware of this point is in itself a great good fortune, and to enter upon its consideration in company with sensible people, a noble pleasure, for which we hope to have many opportunities in the sequel.

ANCIENT AND MODERN

(1818)

I have been obliged, in what precedes, to say so much in favor of antiquity, and particularly of the plastic artists of those times, that I may possibly be misunderstood, which so often happens where the reader, instead of preserving a just balance, throws himself at once into the opposite scale. I therefore seize the present opportunity to explain my meaning, using plastic art as a symbol of the never-ceasing life of human actions and affairs.

A young friend, Karl Ernst Schubarth, in his pamphlet, _A Critique on Goethe_, which in every respect calls for my esteem and thanks, says: “I do not agree with those worshipers of the ancients, among whom is Goethe himself, who maintain that in high and complete development of humanity nothing has ever been arrived at to compare with the Greeks.” Fortunately, Schubarth’s own words give us an opportunity to adjust this difference, where he says, “As to our Goethe, let me say that I prefer Shakespeare to him, for this reason,--that in Shakespeare I seem to find a strong, unconscious man, who is able, with perfect certainty, and without reasoning, reflecting, subtilizing and classifying, to seize with never-failing hand the true and false in man, and express it quite naturally; whilst in Goethe, though I recognize the same ultimate aim, I am always fighting with obstacles, and must be always taking heed lest I accept for plain truth what is only an exhibition of plain error.”

Here our friend hits the nail on the head; for in that very point where he places me below Shakespeare do we stand below the ancients. And what is it we advance concerning the ancients? Any talent, the development of which is not favored by time and circumstances, and must on that account work its way through a thousand obstacles, and get rid of a thousand errors, must always be at a disadvantage, when compared with a contemporary one that has the opportunity to cultivate itself with facility and act to the extent of its capacity without opposition.

It often happens that people who are no longer young are able, out of the fullness of their experience, to furnish an illustration that will explain or strengthen an assertion; and this is my excuse for relating the following anecdote. A practised diplomatist who had desired my acquaintance, after the first interview, when he had had but little opportunity of seeing or conversing with me, remarked to his friends: “Voilà un homme qui a eu de grands chagrins!” These words set me to thinking. The skilful physiognomist’s eye did not deceive him, only he laid to the effect of suffering the phenomenon that should also have been ascribed to opposition. An observant, straightforward German might have said, “Here is a man who has had a very hard time of it.” Since, then, the signs of past endurance and of persevering activity do not disappear from the face, it is no wonder if all that remains of us and our strivings should bear the same impress, and indicate, to the attentive observer, a mode of being whose aim has been to preserve its balance alike under circumstances of happiest development or narrowest limitation, and to maintain the stubbornness, if it could not always the highest dignity, of human existence.

But letting pass old and new, past and present, we may in general assert that every artistic production places us in the same state of mind the author was in. If that was clear and bright, we shall feel free; if that was narrow, timid, or anxious, we shall feel limited in the same proportion.

Upon reflection, we should add that this refers only to treatment. Material and import do not enter into consideration. If we bear in mind this principle, and look around in the world of art, we maintain that every work will afford us pleasure which the artist himself produced with ease and facility. What amateur does not rejoice in the possession of a successful drawing or etching of our Chodowiecki? We see in them such an immediate apprehension of nature, as we know it, that they leave nothing to wish for. But he would not be able to go beyond his mark and line, without losing all the advantage he derives from his peculiar qualifications.

We shall even go farther, and confess that we have derived great pleasure from Mannerists, when the manner has not been carried too far, and that we are pleased with the possession of their works. The artists who have received this name have been gifted with uncommon talent, but became early aware that, in the state of the times as well as of the schools into which they were cast by fate, there was no room for minute labor, but that they must choose their part, and perfect themselves speedily. They therefore made themselves a language, into which they could, without farther trouble, translate with ease and dexterity all visible subjects, and exhibit to us representations of all sorts of scenes with greater or less success. Thus whole nations have been entertained and hoodwinked for long periods of time, until at last one or another artist has found the way back to nature and a higher feeling of art.

We may perceive, by the Herculanean antiquities, how the ancients also fell into this kind of manner; only their models were too great, too present, fresh, and well preserved, for their second and third rate artists to be able to lose themselves entirely in insignificance.

Let us now assume a higher and more agreeable point of view, and consider the talent with which Raphael was so singularly gifted. Born with the happiest natural gifts, at a time when art combined the most conscientious labor, attention, industry, and truth, the young man was already led by excellent masters to the threshold, and had only to raise his foot to enter the temple. Disciplined by Perugino in the most careful elaboration, his genius was developed by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Neither of these artists, in spite of their long life and the cultivation of their powers, seems ever to have reached the true enjoyment of artistic production. The former, if we look closely, wearied himself with thought, and dissipated his powers in mechanical inquiries; and we have to blame the latter for spending his fairest years among stone quarries, getting out marble blocks and slabs, so that, instead of carrying out his intention of carving all the heroes of the Old and New Testament, he has left only his Moses as an example of what he could and should have done. Raphael, however, during his whole life, ever increased in the even facility of his work. We see in him the development of the intellectual and active powers, which preserve such remarkable balance that it may be affirmed that no modern artist has possessed such purity and completeness of thought and such clearness of expression. In him we have another instance of a talent that pours out to us the freshest water from the purest source. He never affects a Greek manner, but feels, thinks, works like a Greek. We see the fairest talent developed in the most favorable hours. The same thing occurred, under like conditions and circumstances, in the time of Pericles.

It may therefore always be maintained that native talent is indeed indispensable to production, but equally indispensable is a commensurate development in the provinces of nature and art. Art cannot dispense with its prerogatives, and cannot achieve perfection without favorable outward circumstances.

Consider the school of the Caracci. Here was a ground-work of talent, earnestness, industry, and consistent development; here was an element for the natural and artistic development of admirable powers. We see a whole dozen of excellent artists produced by it, each practising and cultivating his peculiar talent according to the same general idea, so that it hardly seems possible that after times should produce anything similar.

Let us consider the immense stride made by the highly gifted Rubens into the world of art! He too was no son of earth; look at the rich inheritance he was heir to, from the old masters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, through all the admirable artists of the sixteenth, at the close of which he was born.

Again, think of the crowd of Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, whose great abilities found development now at home, now south, now north, until we can no longer deny the incredible sagacity with which their eye pierced into nature, and the facility with which they have succeeded in expressing her legitimate charm, so as to enchant us everywhere. Nay, in proportion as we possess their productions, we are willing to limit ourselves for long stretches of time to their study and admiration, and are far from blaming those amateurs who are contented with the possession and enjoyment of this class of pictures exclusively.

In the same way, we could bring a hundred examples in support of our assertion. To see distinctly, to apprehend clearly, to impart with facility,--these are the qualities that enchant us; and when we maintain that all these are to be found in the genuine Greek works, united with the noblest subjects, the most unerring and perfect execution, it will be seen why it is we always begin and end with them. Let each one be a Greek in his own way, but let him be a _Greek_!

The same is true of literary merit. What is comprehensible is always the first to attract us and give us complete satisfaction. If we even take the works of one and the same poet, we shall find some that seem to indicate a degree of laborious effort, and others again affect us like natural products, because the talent was commensurate with the form and import. And once more, it is our firm belief that although any age may give birth to the fairest talent, it is not given to all to be able to develop it in its perfect proportions.

NOTES ON DILETTANTISM

(1799)

Dilettantism presupposes Art, as botch-work does handicraft.--Idea of Artist, in opposition to Dilettante.--Practice of Art scientifically.--Adoption of an Objective Art.--Legitimate progress and advancement.--Calling and profession.--Connection with a world of Art and Artists.--Schools.

The Dilettante does not hold the same relation to all the arts.

All the arts have an objective and a subjective side, and according as one or the other of these is predominant, the Dilettante has value or not.

Where the subjective of itself is of great importance, the Dilettante must and can approximate to the artist. For instance, oratory, lyrical poetry, music, dance.

Where the reverse is the case, there is a more marked distinction between Artist and Dilettante, as in architecture, the arts of design, epic and dramatic poetry.

* * * * *

Art itself gives laws, and commands the time.

Dilettantism follows the lead of the time.

When masters in art follow a false taste, the Dilettante expects so much the sooner to reach the level of art.

The Dilettante, receiving his first impulse to self-production from the effect of works of art on him, confounds these effects with the objective causes and motives, and would now make the state of feeling he has been put into productive and practical; as if out of the fragrance of flowers one should try to reproduce flowers themselves.

The _speaking to the feelings_, the last effect of all poetical organization, but which presupposes the concurrences of the whole of art, seems to the Dilettante to be the thing itself, and out of it he endeavors to produce.

In general, the Dilettante, in his ignorance of himself, puts the passive in the place of the active, and because he receives a lively impression from effects, thinks from these impressed effects to produce other effects.

The peculiar want of the Dilettante is _Architectonic_, in the highest sense,--that practical power which creates, forms, constitutes. Of this he has only a sort of misgiving, and submits himself to his material, instead of commanding it.

It will be found that the Dilettante runs particularly to neatness, which is the completion of the thing in hand, wherefrom a sort of illusion arises, as if the thing itself were worthy of existing. The same holds true of accuracy (_accuratesse_), and all the last conditions of Form, which can just as well accompany the formless.

General principles on which Dilettantism is allowable:--

When the Dilettante subjects himself to the severest rules at the outset, and undertakes to complete all the successive steps with the greatest strictness,--which he can the better afford to do, inasmuch as (1) the goal is not demanded of him; and, (2) if he wishes to retreat, he has prepared the surest path to connoisseurship.

In opposition to the general maxim, the Dilettante will thus be subject to more severe criticism than the Artist, who, resting upon a secure basis of art, incurs less danger in departing from rules, and may even by that means enlarge the province of art itself. The true artist rests firmly and securely upon himself. His endeavor, his mark, is the highest aim of art. In his own estimation he will always be far from that aim, and necessarily, therefore, will be always modest in regard to art or the idea of art, and will maintain that he has as yet accomplished little, no matter how excellent his work may be, or how high his consciousness of superiority, in reference to the world, may reach. Dilettanti, or real botchers, seem, on the other hand, not to strive towards an aim, not to see what is beyond, but only what is beside them. On this account they are always comparing, are for the most part extravagant in their praise, unskilful where they blame, have an infinite deference for their like, thus giving themselves an air of friendliness and fairness, which is in fact only to exalt themselves.

_Dilettantism in Lyrical Poetry_

The fact that the German language was in the beginning applied to poetry, not by any one great poetic genius, but through merely middling heads, must inspire Dilettantism with confidence to essay itself in it.

The cultivation of French literature and language has made even Dilettanti more artistic.

The French were always more rigorous, tended to severer correctness, and demanded even of Dilettanti taste and spirit within, and externally a faultless diction.--In England, Dilettantism held more by Latin and Greek.--Sonnets of the Italians.

Impudence of the latest Dilettantism, originated and maintained through reminiscences of a richly cultivated poetic dialect, and the facility of a good mechanical exterior.

Polite literature of universities, induced by a modern method of study.--Lady poems.--Schöngeisterei (bel esprit).--Annual _Keepsakes_.--Musenalmanache.--Journals.--Beginning and spread of translations.

Immediate transition from the classes and the university to authorship.--Epoch of ballads, and songs of the people.--Gessner, poetic prose.--Imitation of the bards.--Bürger’s influence on sing-song.--Rhymeless verses.--Klopstockean odes.--Claudius.--Wieland’s laxity.--In earlier times: Latin verses; pedantism; more handicraft; skill, without poetic spirit.

_Dilettantism in Pragmatic Poetry_

Reasons why the Dilettante hates the powerful, the passionate, the characteristic, and only represents the middling, the moral.

The Dilettante never paints the object, but only the feeling it gives rise to in him.

He avoids the character of the object.

All Dilettante creations in this style of poetry will have a pathological character, and express only the attractions and repulsions felt by their author.

The Dilettante thinks to reach poetry by means of his wits.

Dramatic botchers go mad when they desire to give effect to their work.

_Dilettantism in Dramatic Art_

French comedy is, even among amateurs, _obligato_, and a social institution.

Italian amateur-comedy is founded on a puppet, or puppet-like, representation.

Germany, in former times, Jesuit-schools.

In later times: French amateur comedies, for aiding the cultivation of the language, in noble houses.

Mixing up of ranks in German amateur-comedy.

Conditions, under which, perhaps, a moderate practice in theatrical matters may be harmless and allowable, or even in some measure advantageous:

Permanence of the same company.

To avoid passionate pieces, and choose such as are reflective and social.

To admit no children or very young persons.

Greatest possible strictness in outward forms.

_Advantages of Dilettantism in General_

It prevents an entire want of cultivation.

Dilettantism is a necessary consequence of a general extension of art, and may even be a cause of it.

It can, under certain circumstances, help to excite and develop a true artistic talent.

Elevates handicraft to a certain resemblance to art.

Has a civilizing tendency.

In case of crude ignorance, it stimulates a certain taste for art, and extends it to where the artist would not be able to reach.

Gives occupation to productive power, and cultivates something serious in man.

Appearances are changed into ideas.

Teaches to analyze impressions.

Aids the appropriation and reproduction of forms.

_In Lyrical Poetry_

Cultivation of language in general.