Nature produces like art; but the products of nature are the unconscious effects of the immutable law of causation. The products of art are the results of the conscious intellectual power of the artist. It is the free, yet well-regulated, consciousness of the artist that elevates his productions into works of art. Undoubtedly the great store-house of the artist is nature; he learns from nature how to ornament, but he has to discern, to combine, to adapt, to select, his forms. The whole success of the artist, in whatever branch he works, must depend on an earnest and severe use of the word CHOICE.
‘He is truly great who knows the value of everything, and distinguishes what is more or less great, and what is most estimable, so as to begin from that, and to apply the genius, and fix the desires upon the execution of things worthy and great.’ This mode of thinking was followed by the most celebrated and enlightened artists from the ancient Greeks to our own time. They knew to distinguish that which was most worthy in nature, and to this they directed their study, diligence, and industry. Inferior geniuses, because they are attached to mediocrity, believe that a mere clinging to nature constitutes all art; and the lowest artists are enchanted with the minutiæ of little works, taking them for principal things; so that human ignorance passes from the trifling to the useless, from the useless to the ugly, and from the ugly to the false and chimerical.
In treating of the historical development of art, to enable artists to distinguish and to choose the best, and not only to imitate but to create consciously for themselves, it is necessary to make them theoretically acquainted with the progress of art.
To trace historically the changes art had to undergo is necessary for all really self-conscious artists. Art with us is still looked upon as entirely subject to individual taste. Everyone thinks himself competent to have an opinion on products of art. ‘De gustibus non est disputandum’ is heard not only in our drawing-rooms, but also in art-circles. This false and utterly untenable adage is the cause of the chaotic anarchy in our art-world.
So little as there can be differences in truth, can there be differences in beauty. It is the duty of philosophy to strive for truth; it is the task of the theoretical artist to point out what is beautiful.
We may treat art from three different points of view:—
1. From a realistic point of view, taking nature and geometry as its basis.
2. From an historical point of view; showing by antiquarian and archæological researches its gradual development.
3. From a critical point of view; propounding abstract principles of speculative philosophy and esthetics as applied to art.
A.
The realistic school has in later years had an immense influence with us. Art-critics have almost gone so far as to demand from the artist a correct rendering of the very stratification of rocks; or of the different kinds of soil, to such a degree that the farmer should be able to recognise the ground in which to sow oats or wheat. Pictures, according to these estheticists, should be geological maps, mineralogical collections, and, so far as flowers are concerned, perfect herbariums. When this school takes up the archæological view, it clings with indomitable tenacity to given forms, and checks imagination. Art is then only to be handled as the Greeks or Romans practised it. Either the Gothic or the Renaissance style is to be slavishly imitated. This school has one great drawback: it considers all things natural beautiful, and looks upon an imitation of that which was as better than an exertion of the self-creative originality of the artist.
B.
The historical school endeavours to bring before our eyes the past, so as to enable us to understand the present, and to influence the future of art. This school has followed two divergent directions, the Antique and the Gothic, the classical or romantic; the one holding that everything beautiful must be based upon Greek patterns; the other that all beauty is confined to the Gothic. The writers of these two schools bewilder the students; either driving them into a cold, soulless imitation of classic forms, or forcing them to sacrifice everything to trefoils, pinnacles, tracery, finials, buttresses, thin spires, painted windows, and pointed arches.
C.
The critical school indulges in tall phrases, mere hypothetical paradoxes, often startling the world with speculations of the wildest sort. Art-critics frequently roam in the spheres of surmises; they have their good points, but often neglect reality, or the historical ground; they sacrifice everything to the idea, which is with them the only productive basis of everything existing in art.
We shall try to be realistic, as it would be vain to attempt to detach art from the influences of nature; for art borrows its principal elements from the impressions of natural phenomena. We shall be historical, and point out the progressive development of art; and, lastly, we shall endeavour to be critical. Speculative philosophy has its merits in art. Esthetical criticism suggests new ideas, and new ideas engender new forms. We shall endeavour to adopt from each of the three schools what is best. Our age is an age of eclecticism in art. We must, however, try to prepare for a period of original vitality, which can only be done by avoiding one-sidedness and heedless originality. We shall try to suggest and to excite in our readers new thoughts. As music speaks in sounds, poetry in words, so art in forms; but music, poetry, and art are subject to certain rules, without which harmony would become dissonance, poetry an inflated prose, and art a tasteless entity, of which quaintness will be the only distinguishing attribute. What we call our sense of beauty is based on those laws which make the existence of the universe possible.
The Greeks used for beauty in art the same word, as for order, or the perfect arrangement of the universe. The word κόσμος {kosmos} (from which we have ‘cosmetic,’ any beautifying application) may teach us how we should look upon works of art, which ought to be a reflection of the general laws ruling nature.
Two forces guide our material and intellectual life. We possess two means of acquiring knowledge and of practising art: reason and experience. Impressions from without are the everlasting source of all our conceptions. Hunger and thirst drive us to seek nourishment, to become fishers, hunters, herdsmen, or agriculturists. Cold and heat force us to seek a shelter, to construct wigwams, huts, dwellings on piles, cottages, houses, palaces, and temples.
Though order and harmony prevail in the outer world, every atom of the universe is endowed with an unconscious will or life of its own. Atoms seek atoms according to inherent laws, or fly from or annihilate one another. The whole process of life around us appears to be one never-ending struggle. Apparently there rules only the law of chance and might; what cannot conquer is conquered.
History is one long catalogue of appearing and disappearing nations, of devouring and devoured kingdoms and empires. It is as though generation after generation had emerged from the spectral past into the sanguinary present, to destroy or to be destroyed. This conflict in the outer world is seconded by everlasting conflicts in our inner world. Fear, hope, love—passions of all kinds, imagination and reality, ignorance and knowledge, pride and humility, prejudice and wisdom, form an intellectual hurricane not less destructive than the warfare of the cosmical elements. Religion, Science, and Art, this divine triad, step in. Religion excites in us the hope of higher and better morals; science creates consciousness of the laws according to which we are governed; the link between cause and effect is traced, and the rule of arbitrary chance