“What is Art, and who are Artists?” —No. 11.

Progress, Volume XII, Issue 1, 1 September 1916, Page 717

“What is Art, and who are Artists?” —No. 11.

S. HURST SEAGER, F.H.1.8.A.

At present the usual acceptation of the word “Art,” limits its meaning, so that it includes only

the fine arts of Architecture,* Sculpture, Painting, Music, and Poetry; and in many instances when the word is used, it is only the three shaping or space arts of Architecture, Sculpture and Painting which are thought of.

There exists no difference of opinion, on the part of any writers, as to the grouping together of these

live, under the head of the fine arts, for they all

possess qualities quite distinct from the -mechanical, or useful arts. “Their aim is not to minister to man’s necessities, not to supply those things which are necessary to meet the wants of the animal part

of our nature or to add to our creature comforts. The useful arts' do this, and with far too many of us these supply all that is considered necessary to our welfare, and all that s is useful to us. But those' things which minister to our higher being; those

things which appeal to our perception of what is beautiful, true and noble; those things which give play to our imaginative faculties, are pre-eminently useful to us: for they lead us to look beyond, to the sources from which they are drawn; they open vistas of infinity into which we cannot penetrate, but by them we are raised to higher, and nobler thoughts and inspirations.” This is held to be the true function and use of the fine arts, and the power possessed by them all. Although it is essential that every artist should be fully acquainted with every law and rule which governs his art, and that he should master all the technical difficulties of it, still these carry him but a little distance along the road to success. They will enable, him to produce works of aesthetic worth, and technical skill but. to reach the fullest power of his art, he must pass beyond the reach of rules, he must give expression to a noble individuality, acting by inspiration or the “spontaneous and unreasoned working together of infinitely complex and highly developed sensibilities and dexterities in his constitution”; and by following the free promptings of some of the finest faculties of the spirit. Architecture is both a useful and a fine art. It has to provide in any building the required number of rooms, or the necessary accommodation, and to supply all the requirements of those for whom the work is intended. If these things only are considered, the work is not raised beyond the useful art of building. But if, without in any way affecting its utility, the work is made to give pleasure by the expression of solidity, appropriateness, harmony and proportion of masses, and the disposition and contrast of light and shade; by variety of lines and purity of form in the contour of surfaces; by harmonious colouring and judicious ornamentation of the constructive features, then it becomes a work of fine art. For thought and skill have been displayed to satisfy the sense of beauty, and thus give pleasure to others while supplying one’s own material needs.

In this, as in all other cases, the part which belongs to the useful art can at once be separated from that which belongs to the beautiful or fine art. For that which is useful must of necessity be determinate and prescribed; and to every prescribed end there must be one road which is the best, while in the fine arts there is no fixed goal to reach. The artist has perfect freedom to give expression to the workings of his own soul, and if he does this, his work will have its influence on his fellows in proportion to the nobleness of the individuality expressed.

Although there is no difference of opinion as to which are the fine arts, there exist many different views as to their relative position; each classification has regard to some one of the numerous affinities which exist between them but none can be considered as final, for the relations between the arts are far too complex to admit of any order taking precedence of the other. Those which produce some tangible object, something which has shape, and occupies space, are spoken of as the “shaping or space arts.” The space arts are Archi-

tecture, Sculpture and Painting; and the arts which do not occupy space, have no shape, and take time for their efforts to be felt, are known as the “speaking or time arts.” These are Music and Poetry. But though Music and Poetry are, in considering this relation, placed together, the results they produce are different. The power of music is limited to the stirring of emotion. It never conveys ideas, never presents distinct images to the mind; it is as Mr. Haewis says, the “language of the emotions',” and emotion is quite independent of thought, and is indeed strongest when unassociated with it. If we recall those moments in, our lives when we have been most deeply moved, in the presence of some great power; as one of the marvellous creations of the Mediaeval builders; an embodiment of saintliness as depicted by the noblest of the 15th century historical painters; a statue of the highest type of beauty; a poem having for its aim a succession or arrangement of feelings in which emotion is everything, and the ideas only crutches and helps; a beautiful view of natural scenery; a noble deed or instance of self-sacrifice; a flood of harmonious sound, or the clear singing of a divine air, by one highly gifted we ‘recall, I say, one or other of those beautiful experiences, we shall find that in these higher stages of emotion, thought is left in abeyance, that the distinct images disappear to make way for emotions of transcendent force and beauty. Emotion then can exist without thought, and it is the province of music, which cannot tell us a story, to arouse emotions which are independent of thought, or, as in the case of vocal music, to carry on the emotion which has been roused by an image, into a fuller and deeper expression. On the other hand, it is the province of poetry or literature to convey, by means of the arbitrary signs or words of the language, “everything of which the idea or image can be called up, that is every force and phenomena of nature, every operation, and result of art, every fact of life, and history, or every imagination of such a fact, every thought and feeling of the human spirit, for which mankind in the course of its long evolution, has been able to create in speech an explicit or appropriate sign.” Thus, though music and poetry are both “time arts” they differ widely in their results. Their similarity consists only in the method they adopt to produce their results. In music note must follow note, bar follow bar, phrase follow phrase; just as in poetry word follows word, sentence follows sentence, and one paragraph succeeds another before the desired effect is felt, or the idea conveyed. In both cases, the same process must be repeated as manv times as we wish to avail ourselves of the art. While with the “shaping arts” the effect they produce is stationary, the eye takes in at once the whole of it and it can dwell upon them as long as it pleases. It is for this reason, no doubt, that custom has led us to refer to these three arts, as if they only were' the arts. Poetry differs from music also in that it ' is, an imitative art, which music is not. Music is music, and nothing else. There is nothing in the whole range of nature from which it can in any way draw its inspirations. But Poetry and Literature,

by means of signs, call up images of individual tilings in definite realities of experience, just as sculpture and painting do, the first by putting before us tue exact representation in solid form and the second by the aid of lines and colour on a plane surface. Thus it is seen that in this relation there is another grouping of the fine arts into those which imitate or copy given facts of nature, and those which do not. Those which do are Sculpture, Painting and Poetry; those which do not, Music and Architecture.

There are some pleasures we experience which are taken by some writers as analagous to those we derive from the hue arts, and on first thoughts it does appear strange that we should have to deny to those pleasures we receive through the senses of taste and smell a place equal to that we give to those of sight and hearing. Mr. Ferguson placed gastronomy among the fine arts, and Burke is said to have thought a divine odour possible though he never acknowledged to having smelt one.

The essence of all the fine arts is, as already hinted, unselfishness, for although the result of the operations of an artist gives pleasure to himself, it gives pleasure to others in a far higher degree and his work stands to be enjoyed by all; in the case of the shaping arts, until the work of time shall have levelled the materials in which he expressed himself, to the dust, and in the case of the speaking arts for all time. But the pleasures of taste and smell are purely selfish pleasures, they cannot be communicated to others, they cannot be moulded into durable form, of which all may get the benefit; and this alone is sufficient to create a wide gulf between them and the fine arts. In respect to the pleasures of taste this is made far wider by the force of utility. Selfishness and utilitarianism, then, are quite incompatible with the fine arts. But do not mistake me. Ido not mean that useful things cannot be made beautiful. They can, and everything, from the commonest article of daily use, ought to be made on true principles and as beautiful as the nature of it will admit. But, as previously stated, that part of any art which is useful can at once be distinguished from that which is fine.

Nothing can be artistic or beautiful which gives evidence of the vice of selfishness. It is the duty of the fine arts to lead utility to a higher platform. Ugliness and selfishness are inseparable; if there is no disinterestedness, no thought for others, the work cannot be pleasing. In the case of architecture we may try to make it so by the profuse application of sterotyped forms of ornament; but this is of no avail. Nothing can compensate for the absence of thought. Thought, noble thought, and feelings form the only road leading to artistic success. However it may have been in those golden epochs when art was a living reality among the people, there exists now a class of producers and a class of recipients of the fine arts produced.

The producers or artists are those members of society who arc so constituted as to feel, more acutely than the rest, certain classes of pleasure which all can feel in degree; and it is their high duty to seize upon those beauties of character in

their fellows, those subtle harmonies in life and in nature, which would be unheeded without their aid; and to present them to the rest of the community in such a form that their beauty shall be recognized and their influence felt. Even Buskin, great observer as he was, freely acknowledges his indebtedness to Turner for placing before him, by means of his pictures, many natural beauties which had previously escaped his notice. And those who are incapable of receiving any great pleasure from the sense of sight, have been even more deeply indebted to Buskin for translating the language of colour and form into that of verbal signs or literature. By means of his beautiful and highly poetical writings, he has been able to convey in a high degree the emotions which the painter's art gives rise to; and thus, many of those whose perceptive faculties had not been sufficiently developed to appreciate the beauties in nature or the painter’s representation of her, have been led to seek pleasure in both by the eloquence of the artist-philosopher who had the power to describe them. But no description, however truthful it may be, or however it may be tinged with the glow of enthusiasm of the writer, can convey the full power of the thing described. It may convey an emotion equal in power to that which the thing spoken of would arouse. But it cannot convey a distinct image of those things with which we are unacquainted. We may be deeply moved by the beautiful language made use of by the writer, we may be touched by the flow of eloquence which falls from him; the emotion which is called up by the words of a master will be exactly of that kind which the thing itself would create and there his power stops. He may, it is true, give us a good idea of what it is like, by comparing the whole and every individual part with things which we have seen and know of; but the excellence of every pure work of art arises from the nobility of the individual who created it and, therefore, his productions cannot be conceived of by comparing them with the conceptions of others or with the natural examples upon which the work has been founded. Every work which may be numbered among the fine arts stands alone; and to it, and it alone, must we appeal if we wish to receive the full expression of its power. We are incapable of receiving this if we have not learned the language in which it is expressed. We can receive its teachings only in proportion to our degree of knowledge of the method it adopts. Every person who has received a liberal education has studied more or less the art of literature; he is able to judge of the merits of any literary productions and receives from them the teachings or pleasures they are intended to give. But it does not necessarily follow that he is able to judge of the production of other arts. Architecture suffers more than the other arts from this lack of special knowledge for it requires more special training and continuous study to know what is right and what is wrong in architecture, than it does in the imitative or copying arts of Sculpture and Painting. It is easy to see why this is so, why there is this difference between the three shaping arts of Architecture, Sculpture and Painting.

Sculpture and Painting being copying arts, are devoted to the task of reproducing those things in nature with which we are all well acquainted. The study of the expressions of the emotions seen in the human face and the study of the human form, are forced upon us daily. No one can avoid it; and if the sculptor or painter err in moulding or depicting these, his failure can be detected at once. Not only do those who have given these arts no previous consideration feel at once whether the work conveys pleasure or not, but they are able to sec why it either succeeds or fails. They know the proportions of the human body, as also those of animals, and they can at a glance discover if the head is too large or docs not sit rightly on the shoulders, if the body is too long, or the legs too short to be considered a good figure; and if any passion is shown, they can tell at once if the expression correctly represents it. And again, in landscapes, the truth or falsity to nature while not so clearly seen are nevertheless apparent to those who have cultivated the faculty of observation. Thus in Sculpture and Painting the actual faults are apparent to all. Into the higher paths of genius we cannot follow the masters unless we have studied hard to appreciate the subtleties of their work. But, in the case of average works, the opinion of the majority would, in most cases, be the correct one. It is very different with Architecture; here, there is no standard generally known to which its productions can be referred. It imitates nature only in a subtle way, so subtle, indeed, that many, even among those who practice the art, are unacquainted with it; many there are who do simply what has been done before, without ever giving thought to the reasons for their actions. Such a manner of working cannot produce art. And the lack of knowledge of the principles upon which the art is based, withholds from anyone the power to estimate its productions truly. It is impossible for any but those who have given deep study to the art to tell how much of a work belongs to the artist and how much to his art; that is, how much of it is the expression of his own thoughts and feelings and how much is copied from existing examples. Those works which show tasteful, original treatment or clever adaptation of existing forms, merit full praise. But those built in accordance with any given style, those which exactly reproduce the forms seen in works which were erected by other peoples, in a different age, under different conditions of climate, material, position, and all for a different purpose, must show a very scholarly rendering of these forms, if they are to convey any pleasure to persons having acquaintance with them; and how are we to recognise a scholarly rendering unless we ourselves be scholars? “Art properly so called, is no recreation; it cannot be learned at spare moments, nor persued. when we have nothing better to do. It is no handiwork for drawing-room tables, no relief of the ennui of boudoirs; it must be understood and undertaken seriously, or not at all. To advance it, men’s lives must be given, and to receive it, their hearts.” Works or art are produced by an incalculable group of faculties, reminiscences, preferences, emotions and instincts, in the constitution

of the artist; and it requires an equally complex set of faculties in the observer to appreciate to the full the value of his work. [Mr. Hurst Seager’s scries of interesting articles will he continued in subsequent issues. — Ed.\