Appendix: Painting and Reality
After borrowing so much from the painters, it seems only just to let some of them speak for themselves. The following texts will make it possible for readers to hear the authentic voices of some artists selected among those whose reflections have seemed to us particularly inspiring. All of them are painters. Eric Gill is a sculptor with a personal experience of painting.
I - JOSHUA REYNOLDSi - LETTER TO "THE IDLER"
Numb. 79 - Saturday, October 20, 1759
Sir,
Your acceptance of a former letter on Painting, gives me encouragement to offer a few more sketches on the same subject.
Amongst the Painters and the writers on Painting, there is one maxim universally admitted, and continually inculcated. Imitate Nature, is the invariable rule; but I know none who have explained in what manner this rule is to be understood; the consequence of which is, that everyone takes it in the most obvious sense,—that objects are represented naturally, when they have such relief that they seem real. It may appear strange, perhaps, to hear this sense of the rule disputed; but it must be considered, that if the excellency of a Painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, Painting must lose its rank, and be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to Poetry; this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the Painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the art to claim kindred with Poetry, but by its power over the imagination? To this power the Painter of genius directs his aim; in this sense he studies Nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being unnatural, in the confined sense of the word.
The grand style of Painting requires this minute attention to be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style of Poetry from that of History. Poetical ornaments destroy that air of truth and plainness which ought to characterize history; but the very being of Poetry consists in departing from this plain narration, and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagination. To desire to see the excellencies of each style united, to mingle the Dutch with the Italian School, is to join contrarieties which cannot subsist together, and which destroy the efficacy of each other. The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great, and general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of Nature modified by accident. The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly of a lower order, that ought to give place to a beauty of a superior kind, since one cannot be obtained but by departing from the other.
If my opinion were asked concerning the works of Michael Angelo, whether they would receive any advantage from possessing this mechanical merit, I should not scruple to say, they would lose, in a great measure, the effect which they now have on every mind susceptible of great and noble ideas. His works may be said to be all genius and soul; and why should they be loaded with heavy matter, which can only counteract his purpose by retarding the progress of the imagination?
If this opinion should be thought one of the wild extravagances of enthusiasm, I shall only say, that those who censure it are not conversant in the works of the great Masters. It is very difficult to determine the exact degree of enthusiasm that the arts of Painting and Poetry may admit. There may perhaps he too great an indulgence, as well as too great a restraint of imagination; and if the one produces incoherent monsters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity. An intimate knowledge of the passions, and good sense, but not common sense, must at last determine its limits. It has been thought, and I believe with reason, that Michael Angelo sometimes transgressed those limits; and I think I have seen figures by him, of which it was very difficult to determine, whether they were in the highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous. Such faults may be said to be the ebullition, of Genius; but at least he had this merit, that he never was insipid ; and whatever passion his works may excite, they will always escape contempt.
What I have had under consideration is the sublimest style, particularly that of Michael Angelo, the Homer of Painting. Other kinds may admit of this naturalness, which of the lowest kind is the chief merit; but in Painting, as in Poetry, the highest style has the least of common nature.
One may safely recommend a little more enthusiasm to the modern Painters; too much is certainly not the vice of the present age. The Italians seem to have been continually declining in this respect from the time of Michael Angelo to that of Carlo Maratti, and from thence to the very pathos of insipidity to which they are now sunk; so that there is no need of remarking, that where I mentioned the Italian Painters in opposition to the Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the heads of the old Roman and Bolognian Schools; nor did I mean to include in my idea of an Italian Painter, the Venetian School, which may be said to be the Dutch part of the Italian Genius.
I have only to add a word of advice to the Pa inters,—that however excellent they may be in painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves very much upon it; and to the Connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, it looks as if you could take it up, they would not for that reason immediately compare the Painter to Raffaelle and Michael Angelo.
—The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, II, 229-34
ii - LETTER TO "THE IDLER"
Numb. 82 - Saturday, November 10, 1759
Sir,
Discoursing in my last letter on the different practice of the Italian and Dutch Painters, I observed that "the Italian Painter attends only to the invariable, the great, and general ideas, which are fixed and inherent in universal nature."
I was led into the subject of this letter by endeavouring to fix the original cause of this conduct of the Italian Masters. If it can be proved that by this choice they selected the most beautiful part of the creation, it will shew how much their principles are founded on reason, and, at the same time, discover the origin of our ideas of beauty.
I suppose it will be easily granted, that no man can judge whether any animal be beautiful in its kind, or deformed, who has seen only one of that species; this is as conclusive in regard to the human figure; so that if a man, born blind, were to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman were brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not; nor if the most beautiful and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only those two. To distinguish beauty, then, implies the having seen many individuals of that species. If it is asked, how is more skill acquired by the observation of greater numbers? I answer, that, in consequence of having seen many, the power is acquired, even without seeking after it, of distinguishing between accidental blemishes and excrescences which are continually varying the surface of nature's works, and the invariable general form which Nature most frequently produces, and always seems to intend in her productions.
Thus amongst the blades of grass or leaves of the same tree, though no two can be found exactly alike, the general form is invariable: A Naturalist, before he chose one as a sample, would examine many; since if he took the first that occurred, it might have, by accident or otherwise, such a form as that it would scarce be known to belong to that species; he selects, as the Painter does, the most beautiful, that is, the most general form of nature.
Every species of the animal as well as the vegetable creation may be said to have a fixed or determinate form, towards which Nature is continually inclining, like various lines terminating in the centre; or it may be compared to pendulums vibrating in different directions over one central point: and as they all cross the centre, though only one passes through any other point, so it will be found that perfect beauty is oftener produced by nature than deformity; I do not mean than deformity in general, but than any one kind of deformity. To instance in a particular part of a feature; the line that forms a ridge of the nose is beautiful when it is straight; this then is the central form, which is oftener found than either concave, convex, or any other irregular form that shall be proposed. As we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reason why we approve and admire it, as we approve and admire customs and fashions of dress for no other reason than that we are used to them; so that though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause of beauty, it is certainly the cause of our liking it: and I have no doubt but that if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree, that yes and no should change their meaning; yes would then deny, and no would affirm.
Whoever undertakes to proceed further in this argument, and endeavours to fix a general criterion of beauty respecting different species, or to shew why one species is more beautiful than another, it will be required from him first to prove that one species is really more beautiful than another. That we prefer one to the other, and with very good reason, will be readily granted; but it does not follow from thence that we think it a more beautiful form; for we have no criterion of form by which to determine our judgment. He who says a swan is more beautiful than a dove, means little more than that he has more pleasure in seeing a swan than a dove, either from the stateliness of its motions, or its being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove, does it from some association of ideas of innocence which he always annexes to the dove; but if he pretends to defend the preference he gives to one or the other by endeavouring to prove that this more beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude, undulation of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit of his imagination he shall fix on, as a criterion of form, he will be continually contradicting himself, and find at last that the great Mother of Nature will not be subjected to such narrow rules. Among the various reasons why we prefer one part of her works to another, the most general, I believe, is habit and custom; custom makes, in a certain sense, white black, and black white. . . . We, indeed, say, that the form and colour of the European is preferable to that of the Ethiopian; but I know of no other reason we have for it, but that we are more accustomed to it. . . .
The black and white nations must, in respect of beauty, be considered as of different kinds, at least as different species of the same kind; from one of which to the other, as I have observed, no inference can be drawn.
Novelty is said to be one of the causes of beauty. That novelty is a very sufficient reason why we should admire, is not denied; but because it is uncommon, it is therefore beautiful? The beauty that is produced by colour, as when we prefer one bird to another, though of the same form, on account of its colour, has nothing to do with the argument which reaches only to form. I have here considered the word Beauty as being properly applied to form alone. There is a necessity of fixing this confined sense; for there can be no argument, if the sense of the word is extended to everything that is approved. A rose may as well be said to be beautiful, because it has a fine smell, as a bird because of its colour. When we apply the word Beauty, we do not mean always by it a more beautiful form, but something valuable on account of its rarity, usefulness, colour, or any other property. A horse is said to be a beautiful animal; but had a horse as few good qualities as a tortoise, I do not imagine that he would be deemed beautiful.
A fitness to the end proposed, is said to be another cause of beauty; but supposing we were proper judges of what form is the most proper in an animal to constitute strength or swiftness, we always determine concerning its beauty, before we exert our understanding to judge of its fitness.
From what has been said, it may be inferred, that the works of Nature, if we compare one species with another, are all equally beautiful, and that preference is given from custom or some association of ideas: and that, in creatures of the same species, beauty is the medium or centre of all its various forms.
To conclude, then, by way of corollary: if it has been proved that the Painter, by attending to the invariable and general ideas of Nature, produce beauty, he must, by regarding minute particularities, and accidental discriminations, deviate from the universal rule, and pollute his canvass with deformity.
—The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, II, 235-43
iii
A facility in composing,—a lively, and what is called a masterly, handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the object of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate these dazzling excellences, which they will find no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery.
By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of advancing in real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at their utmost perfection: they have taken the shadow for the substance; and make the mechanical felicity the chief excellence of the art, which is only an ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themselves are judges.
This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous sources of corruption; and I speak of it from experience, not as an error which may possibly happen, but which has actually infected all foreign Academies. The directors were probably pleased with this premature dexterity in their pupils, and praised their dispatch at the expense of their correctness.
But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means than those which the indispensable rules of Art have prescribed. They must, therefore, be told again and again, that labour is the only price of solid fame, and that, whatever their force of genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good Painter.
When we read the lives of the most eminent Painters, every page informs us, that no part of their time was spent in dissipation. Even an increase of fame served only to augment their industry. To be convinced with what persevering assiduity they pursued their studies, we need only reflect on their method of proceeding in their most celebrated works. When they conceived a subject, they first made a variety of sketches; then a finished drawing of the whole; after that a more correct drawing of every separate part,—heads, hands, feet, and pieces of drapery; they then painted the picture, and after all retouched it from the life. The pictures, thus wrought with such pains, now appear like the effect of enchantment, and as if some mighty Genius had struck them off at a blow.
But, whilst diligence is thus recommended to the Students, the Visitors will take care that their diligence be effectual; that it be well directed, and employed on the proper object. A Student is not always advancing because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part of the Art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which distinguishes it as a liberal Art; and not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is merely ornamental. The Students, instead of vying with each other which shall have the readiest hand, should be taught to contend who shall have the purest and most correct outline; instead of striving which shall produce the brightest tint, or, curiously trifling, shall give the gloss of stuffs so as to appear real, let their ambition be directed to contend, which shall dispose his drapery in the most graceful folds, which shall give the most grace and dignity to the human figure.
I must beg leave to submit one thing more to the consideration of the Visitors, which appears to me a matter of very great consequence, and the omission of which I think a principal defect in the method of education pursued in all the Academies I have ever visited. The error I mean is, that the Students never draw exactly from the living models which they have before them. It is not, indeed, their intention; nor are they directed to do it. Their drawings resemble the model only in the attitude. They change the form according to their vague and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make a drawing rather of what they think the figure ought to be, than of what it appears. I have thought this the obstacle that has stopped the progress of many young men of real genius; and I very much doubt whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see, will not give a proportionable power of drawing correctly what we imagine. He who endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him, not only acquires a habit of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make a slower progress, he will be found at least capable of adding (without running into capricious wildness) that grace and beauty, which is necessary to be given to his more finished works, and which cannot be got by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an attentive and well compared study of the human form.
—The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, I, 13-18
i
The type of emotion peculiar to painting is, so to speak, tangible; poetry and music cannot give rise to it. In painting you enjoy the actual representation of objects as though you were really seeing them and at the same time you are warmed and carried away by the meaning which these images contain for the mind. The figures and objects in the picture, which to one part of your intelligence seem to be the actual things themselves, are like a solid bridge to support your imagination as it probes the deep, mysterious emotions, of which these forms are, so to speak, the hieroglyph, but a hieroglyph far more eloquent than any cold representation, the mere equivalent of a printed symbol. In this sense the art of painting is sublime if you compare it with the art of writing wherein the thought reaches the mind only by means of printed letters arranged in a given order. It is a far more complicated art, if you like, since the symbol is nothing and the thought appears to be everything, but it is a thousand times more expressive when you consider that independently of idea, the visible sign, the eloquent hieroglyph itself which has no value for the mind in the work of an author, becomes in the painter's hands a source of the most intense pleasure—that pleasure which we gain from seeing beauty, proportion, contrast, and harmony of colour in the things around us, in everything which our eyes love to contemplate in the outside world, and which is the satisfaction of one of the profoundest needs of our nature.
Many people will think the art of writing superior to painting precisely because of this simpler means of expression. Such people have never taken pleasure in considering a hand, an arm, or a torso from the antique or by Puget; they appreciate sculpture even less than they do painting, and are strangely mistaken if they imagine that when they have written down the words foot or hand they have inspired me with an emotion comparable to what I feel when I see a beautiful foot or a beautiful hand.
The arts are not algebra, where abbreviation of the figures contributes to the success of the problem. To be successful in the arts is not a matter of summarizing but of amplifying where it is possible, and of prolonging the sensation by every means. What is the theatre but clear evidence of man's need to experience the greatest possible number of emotions at once? It brings together all the arts in order that the effect of each may be enhanced. Miming, costume, and the beauty of the actor enhance the effect of words that are spoken or sung, and the representation of the scene where the action takes place adds still further to all these different impressions. What I have been saying about the power of painting now becomes clear. If it has to record but a single moment it is capable of concentrating the effect of that moment. The painter is far more master of what he wants to express than the poet or musician who are in the hands of interpreters; even though his memory may have a smaller range to work on, he produces an effect that is a perfect unity and one which is capable of giving complete satisfaction. Moreover, the painter's work does not suffer so much from variations in the manner in which it is understood in different periods. Fashions change, and the bias of the moment may cause a different value to be set upon his work, but ultimately it is always the same, it remains what the artist intended it to be, whereas this cannot be said of the art of the theatre, which has to pass through the hands of interpreters. When the artist's mind is not there to guide the actors or singers the performance no longer corresponds to his original intention; the accent disappears, and with it, the most subtle part of the .work is lost. Happy in. deed is the author whose work is not mutilated, an insult to which he is exposed even during his lifetime. Even the change of an actor alters the whole character of a work.
—The Journal of Eugene Delacroix, pp. 200-201 (October 20, 1853)
ii
Wednesday, 20 April [1853]To Princess Marcelline's [Czartoriska] house. Arrived in time to hear some of the music. Found Mme Potocka there, looking extremely handsome. Came home with Grzymala; we talked of Chopin. He said that Chopin's improvisations were far more daring than his finished compositions. They probably take the place of the sketch for a picture compared with the finished work. No! one does not spoil a painting by finishing! Perhaps there may be less scope for imagination once the work has been sketched out. You receive a different impression from a building under construction where the details are not yet shown, than from the same building when it has received its full complement of ornamentation and finish. It is the same with ruins, which appear all the more impressive because of the missing portions; their details are worn away or defaced and, as with buildings under construction, you see only rudiments and vague suggestions of mouldings and ornamentation. A finished building encloses the imagination within a circle and prevents it from straying beyond its limits. Perhaps the only reason why the sketch for a work gives so much pleasure is that each beholder can finish it as he chooses. Artists gifted with very strong feeling, when they consider and admire even a great work, are apt to criticize it not only for the faults it actually possesses, but also for the way in which it differs from their own feeling. When Correggio made his famous remark: "Anch' io son pittore," he meant, "This is a fine painting, but I should have put something into it that is not here." Thus an artist does not spoil a picture by finishing it, but when he abandons the vagueness of the sketch he reveals his personality more fully, thereby displaying the full scope of his talent, but also its limitations.
iii
Thursday, 21 April [1853]
. . . The same evening: the Mozart trio for viola, piano and clarinet; I delighted in some passages, but the rest seemed to me monotonous. When I say that works like this can give only a few moments' pleasure I certainly do not mean that the fault always lies in the work, and, where Mozart is concerned, I am sure that I am the one to blame. In the first place, some forms have become antiquated; they have been hackneyed and spoiled by the composers who came after him, a thing that is bound to destroy the freshness of any work. Indeed, it is astonishing that some parts should have contrived to remain so delightful after such a long time (time moves fast with artistic fashions), and after so much good and bad music has been based on this enchanting model. Another reason why a work by Mozart does not grip us with the feeling of sheer novelty that we find in Beethoven or Weber is that, in the first place, the latter are our contemporaries, and in the second, they have not the perfection of their illustrious predecessor. This is exactly the effect which I was discussing on the preceding page —the effect of the sketch compared with that of the finished work; the ruins of a great building, for example, or its rudimentary stages, compared with the same building at its completion. Mozart is superior to all others in the art of carrying his ideas through to their conclusion. The beauties of Racine do not shine beside the great writers who sometimes lapse into bad taste or spoil their effects; yet this seeming lack of brilliance in the poet and the musician is the very quality that consecrates them for ever in the admiration of their fellow-men and raises them to the greatest heights.
After such men (or on a level with them if you prefer) come those whose works actually show considerable lapses, defects which perhaps render them unequal, but do not detract from the impression they produce, except in so far as certain parts are only relatively successful. Rubens is full of such lapses or hasty work. The superb "Flagellation" at Antwerp, for instance, with the ridiculous executioners; also the "Martyrdom of St. Peter" in Cologne, which has the same drawback—the principal figure admirable, and all the others bad.
—The Journal of Eugene Delacroix, pp. 173-74
iv23 April [1854]
Took up the "Clorinde" again; I think that I have arrived at an entirely different effect reverting to the original idea, which I had gradually been losing. Unfortunately, it often happens that either the execution, or some difficulty, or even some quite minor consideration, causes one to deviate from the original intention. The first idea, the sketch—the egg or the embryo of the idea, so to speak—is nearly always far from complete; everything is there, if you like, but this everything has to be released, which simply means joining up the various parts. The precise quality that renders the sketch the highest expression of the idea is not the suppression of details, but their subordination to the great sweeping lines that come before everything else in making the impression. The greatest difficulty therefore, when it comes to tackling the picture, is this subordination of details which, nevertheless, make up the composition and are the very warp and weft of the picture itself.
If I am not mistaken, even the greatest artists have had tremendous struggles in overcoming this, the most serious difficulty of all. Here, it becomes even more obvious that the disadvantage of giving too much interest to details by grace of charm in execution is that at a later stage you bitterly regret having to sacrifice them when they spoil the whole effect. This is where the specialists in light and witty touches, those people who go in for expressive heads and brilliant torsos, meet with defeat where they are accustomed to triumph. A picture built up bit by bit with pieces of patchwork, each separate piece carefully finished and neatly placed beside the rest, will look like a masterpiece and the very height of skill as long as it is unfinished; as long, that is to say, as the ground is not covered, for to painters who complete every detail as they place it on the canvas, finishing means covering the whole of that canvas. As you watch a work of this type proceeding so smoothly, and those details that seem all the more interesting because you have nothing else to admire, you involuntarily feel a rather empty astonishment, but when the last touch has been added, when the architect of this agglomeration of separate details has placed the topmost pinnacle of his motley edifice in position and has said his final word, you see nothing but blanks or overcrowding, an assemblage without order of any kind. The interest given to each separate object is lost in the general confusion, and an execution that seemed precise and suitable becomes dryness itself because of the total absence of sacrifices. Can we expect from this almost accidental putting together of details that have no essential connexion, that swift keen impression, that original sketch giving the impression of an ideal, which the artist is supposed to have glimpsed or fixed in the first moment of his inspiration? With the great masters, the sketch is no dream or remote vision; it is something much more than a collection of scarcely distinguishable outlines. Great artists alone are clear about what they set out to do, and what is so hard for them is to keep to the first pure expression throughout the execution of the work, whether this be prolonged or rapid. Can a mediocre artist, wholly occupied with questions of technique, ever achieve this result by means of a highly skillful handling of details which obscure the idea instead of bringing it to light? It is unbelievable how vague the majority of artists are about the elementary rules of composition. Why indeed should they worry over the problem of retaining through their execution an idea which they never even possessed?
—The Journal of Eugene Delacroix, pp. 224-25
NOTES ON MY PAINTING
The world from which I draw the elements of reality is not visual but imaginative.
Though the way of looking at the world and the concentration on certain of its aspects—that is to say, the aesthetic—has varied from period to period, the relationship of one coloured form to another—that is to say, the technique—has always, so to speak, remained fixed. I therefore believe that my technique is classical, for I have learnt it from the masters of the past.
It would almost be true to state that, with rare exceptions, the method of work has always been inductive. The elements of a concrete reality have been rendered pictorial, a given subject has been made into a picture.
My method of work is exactly the opposite. It is deductive. It is not picture "X" which manages to correspond with my subject, but subject "X" which manages to correspond with my picture.
I call this a deductive method because the pictorial relationships between the coloured forms suggest to me certain private relationships between the elements of an imaginary reality. The mathematics of picture-making leads me to the physics of representation. The quality or the dimensions of a form or a colour suggest to me the appellation or the adjective for an object. Hence, I never know in advance the appearance of the object represented. If I particularise pictorial relationships to the point of representing objects, it is in order that the spectator shall not do so for himself, and in order to prevent the combination of coloured forms suggesting to him a reality which I have not intended.
Now painting is foreseeing—foreseeing what will happen to the general effect of a picture by the introduction of some particular form or some particular colour, and foreseeing what sort of reality will be suggested to the spectator. It is, then, by being my own spectator that I extract the subject from my picture.
I do not know if one can give to this aesthetic, this technique and this method, the name of Cubism. Anyway, I make no claim to represent any particular sort of appearance, be it Cubist or naturalistic.
It is the appearance of the work as a whole which is its culmination, for this aspect is unknown to me. My subject, obviously, modifies the pictorial relationships without destroying or changing them. But it does not modify them any more than a numerical relationship is modified by the multiplication of both quantities by the same figure.
Therefore I would say that a subject painted by myself is simply a modification of pre-existing pictorial relationships. Nor do I know until the work is completed just what modification it is, which gives it its character.
--Quoted from Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Juan Gris, His Life and Work (tr. Douglas Cooper), Appendix A, No. 4, pp. 138-39
In his book on Christianity and Art, Eric Gill proceeds to eliminate misunderstandings about the nature of art. The first one is: "That a Work of Art is essentially an imitation of something in nature." To which he opposes his own view that "Upon the contrary, a work of art is essentially an original creation" (p. 22). In developing this point, Gill remarks that "Man by his free will is capable of original creation, and a work of art is such by reason of its original form" (p. 24). At this point, a footnote directs the reader to an appendix, which we are here reproducing in full.
ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF PRACTICAL AESTHETICS
There are three possible qualities in a work of art. These three qualities are mimicry, literary content, and original form. Every work of art must have one or other of these three in one degree or another. By "mimicry" I mean what is called representation, i.e. likeness to something existing in Nature. By "literary content" I mean that in the work which expresses the story or anecdote it relates, that is to say, its literary significance apart from its significance as a representation of something. These two qualities are, I suppose, readily understood. Everybody is able to judge as to the degree of likeness to something which artists achieve in their work; also everybody is able to understand the notion that by means of representation it is possible to tell a story or express an idea.
It is the third quality, which I have called "original form," which is the most difficult to define, and yet it is original form that is especially the artist's business, whether he be painter, poet or potter. For an artist is not so called because he has the ability, in paint, words or clay, to make things which shall resemble things seen in Nature; if it were so any kind of imitation would rightly be called a work of art, which is absurd. Neither is a man an artist because he has the ability to present in paint, words, or clay some matter of fact or even of fiction, for were that so every spoken sentence would be a work of art, which again is absurd. It is not that a spoken sentence cannot be a work of art, nor is it that an imitation of something seen in Nature cannot be a work of art; but it is not likeness in the one case or presentation of fact in the other which makes it so. For otherwise, as we have said, all imitations and all statements would be works of art, which is absurd. The quality which makes a work of art is a quality independent of, though not necessarily divorced from, representation or literary content, and it is this quality which I have called original form.
By original form, then, I mean that quality in the thing made which owes its origin directly to the workman or artist, and is not either an imitation of something seen or an idea given to him by another person. For instance, if a man paints a picture of a bird because he has been asked to do so, the fact that his picture represents a bird is a fact for which he can claim no originality for two reasons. First of all, because somebody asked him to paint a bird, and secondly, because a bird is something he has seen and not something he has invented.
Again, if a man be asked to paint a picture representing two cocks fighting, the picture, when done, will have the quality of mimicry in so far as the objects shown are like cocks, and in so far as their attitude suggests fighting; and it will also have literary content in so far as by means of this representation the painter has conveyed to the mind of the spectator the facts incidental to the sport of cock-fighting.
Examples may be multiplied to any extent and be made more simple or more elaborate. For instance, a man may paint a picture of the Deluge, and in such a picture there might be a very great amount of mimicry according to the number of figures and realistic treatment of rain and so on. Such a picture would have what is called literary content in so far as it conveys to the mind of the spectator not merely the vision of rain falling and people drowning, but, by the arrangement of the people or their dress or by the expression of their faces, or by some other means, first, that the incident portrayed was that recorded in the book of Genesis, and second, the theological and moral aspects of the situation.
Mimicry knows no bounds, and literary content, whether philosophical or merely anecdotal, is also possible to an almost unlimited extent: but in neither mimicry nor literary content is there anything for which the artist or workman is himself responsible, qua artist or workman. The mimicry is necessitated by the subject given or chosen; the literary content is given or chosen by the customer who orders the picture or, if it is given or chosen by the workman, it is given or chosen by him as if he were his own customer ordering it. But the actual manner of laying on the paint, the shape or grouping of the parts, are matters for which he is responsible as a workman, and are not things given or chosen by a customer. Therefore, it is clear that there is in every work of man this third thing which is especially the business of the workman, which is done by him at his own initiative, and which can only be done to order where the servile conditions of modern commercialism and the factory prevail.
I am not here concerned with the problems arising out of modern servile conditions: I am only concerned with the analysis of a work of art, not with the conditions under which works of art are produced.
It is necessary to make it clear that by the words "works of art" I mean the widest possible range of objects. Any work of man may be a work of art, and when men are free (not necessarily economically free, but free in the sense of being responsible for the form and quality of the work they do) practically everything made is a work of art. That is to say that everything in such periods contains at least the one quality which I have called original form.
Not everything made has the quality of mimicry; not everything made is like something else. A chair is not generally like anything but a chair; chairs made to look like fallen trees are obviously absurd, though many people like them because they think they look well in a garden. But though almost anything may be made to look like something not itself, it is clear that this quality of mimicry is not essential. We are satisfied with chairs even if they only fulfil the one merely material object of their existence—that of supporting our bodies—and do not by their shape either imitate some other object or tell us some story.Not everything made has the quality called literary content. Not everything tells a story, although by a figure of speech we may say that we can see a story in everything. Thus a blood-stained knife picked up on the road may tell a story, but that is only a figure of speech, for it is clear that the knife itself has not necessarily that quality called literary content.
But everything made by free workmen has the quality of original form, that is to say, it has a form for which the maker is responsible.
The matter becomes considerably more difficult, apparently, when we deal with those things which, like pictures, sculptures, poems or music, have commonly, as far as the people who buy them are concerned, the qualities of mimicry and literary content. People have ceased to regard pictures, for instance, in the same way as they regard chairs, that is, as furniture. They think of them as things having no intrinsic purpose and no quality whatever but that of being like something or telling some story; and although people are quite ready to appreciate the form of chairs and tables—that is, the original form and not merely the form determined by the use of such objects—they are quite unable to view pictures in the same dispassionate way, and are even inclined to deny that anything besides mimicry or story-telling is either possible or desirable in painting or sculpture. In music it is quite clear that neither mimicry nor literary content are regarded as essential, for except in so called "programme" music there is neither. We are quite capable of appreciating a tune for its own sake, even though it be quite unlike the song of any bird or any other natural noise, and even though it have no story to tell. But in the matter of poetry, sculpture or painting we appear to be unable even to imagine what value there can be apart from representation or story-telling.
Yet if we consider the works of the past, those which we are at such pains to preserve in our museums and picture galleries, we shall, if we consider them critically, see very easily that as representations they are generally inferior to the work of most modern art-school students, and as story-tellers they are outdone by any modern novelist or photographer. If they are worth preserving at all, and a modern manufacturer may well doubt it, it must be on account of some other quality, some quality independent of time and place, unless we are prepared to assert that our museums have a merely historical interest as showing the kind of things our half-civilized ancestors had to make do with. But historical sense is not of universal importance. The comparative study of religions is of little value compared with the possession of religion, and the study of past manners is unimportant compared with the possession of our own. It is interesting to know that such and such a thing was made in France in the thirteenth century (e.g. the ivory Madonna and Child in the British Museum), but it is more important to have the thing itself, wherever or whenever it was made, provided that we deem it good.
Now, apart from this historical value, the only value of the things in our museums is intrinsic. In shape or colour or arrangement there is something about them that is of God, godly. And as God reduced chaos to order, so men in past times have given the quality of order to the things they made.
The thing, then, that I have called "original form" is essentially a matter of order, it is the "splendor formae" of St Thomas, it is the shining out of Being, it is the thing called beauty. And to achieve it men must will it, and to will it they must be free. The free man is responsible for what he does, but for the work of the slave another is responsible. That is the whole difference between the modern workman and his counterpart of past times. The modern workman is not responsible for doing anything but what he is told. The modern industrial system needs tools, not artists, and a century of industrialism has destroyed in the workman the very memory of artistry. With this destruction it has come about that beauty has ceased to be the common quality of things made, for under the factory system, with its concomitant machine production, no man can be held responsible; and therefore to conscience, which is essential to the production of things of beauty, no appeal is made. The only thing which is considered is the satisfaction of the consumer, the buyer. Thus not only workmen but the whole world is degraded. Artists become fewer and fewer and more and more eccentric, and the appreciation of art becomes the special province of the connoisseur.
—Christianity and Art, pp. 36-42 (reprinted in Art-Nonsense and Other Essays, pp. 250-56)
CREATE!
A need: an anguish, a restlessness, a buzzing: something is deeply moved in us: there is an uneasy disturbing throbbing: we feel the need to create. And that that need shall be realised, that a stray limb shall be grasped and dragged to the light, we must explore ourselves.
A diver's effort, descending or rising again from the sea bottom, must be made: an alternation of somnambulism and clairvoyance. Then everything fades out, the thread breaks. Gazing deep into ourselves, we seek again to make the circuit. By degrees, from the mist of the unconscious, there issue elements that are all but definite: we hook something relevant to us, but tenaciously it resists. And, surrounding all these fragments, there is night. Those summits which, half waking, we have seen surge forth, grow clearer. We unveil, or rather we image: to image is to give form to our dreams.
Our lucidity can, then, lend itself to help adjust the scattered fragments. The act of composition lies in finding the means of rendering perceptible such imaginings: objectivising. But will mankind succeed in crossing that bridge? Have his elaborations universal interest? Judgment must decide. It is a good thing to have an assured technic, but a keyboard must be ready.
The art of composition is the disposing of inspiration on such a keyboard.
We must not sow seed in our fields until we know that it is no weed we are sowing. Every work of art is determined from the first gesture, for every portion of it must depend on every other: the same
thread must weave it throughout, each element must complement the next. Not all our ideas are worth-while or fecund. Too often we believe there will be plenty of time to deal with difficulties when they arise in the course of the work itself, but that is a grave error. The work must issue from the conception that lies behind it, as normally and fatally as a creature which comes to birth, must all its life, develop along the lines of the initial impulse.
And when, after protracted discipline, the creative effort can be envisaged in all completeness, then make the draft. From that moment no fundamental change can take place: it is either good or bad. But the attempt must be followed through and realised as completely as possible. That is what I mean by a draft.
Then carry the work out in final form, perfecting always. And here will intervene the craftsmen's conscience. Perfect; but do not overdo!
In this manner conception and realisation will bring to birth works of art which will not call to mind forceps, but instead, climb naturally like rockets, the laws of whose trajectories exist before ever they are fired.
We can no longer accept those works of art which are full of bits and pieces and afterthoughts: painful as a bad presentation extracted limb by limb and sewn up afterwards: books badly conceived, vacillating thoughts. What we want is the finest work, bearing witness to the meditation that conceived it. Execution is but the fine realisation of a conception ripened in advance. The work should be the most precise approximation to how it was conceived.
In art the decisions are always "on points." How unfortunate that the best works cannot "knock out" the worst!
—Foundations of Modern Art, pp. 299300
This item 10879 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
