Art and Prudence
by Eric Gill
Note: This essay is in a poetic form which will not display well on a phone unless the phone is turned sideways.
ART IS SKILL—skill in doing or skill in making.
Whatever else art may be it is always that.
Skill is the body of art.
Deliberation is its soul or “form.” *
Art is deliberate skill—skill with mind behind it.
“Art abides always on the side of the mind.”
There is a thing called the mind of God.
Hence there is a thing called the art of God.
There is a thing called the mind of man.
Hence there is a thing called the art of man.
Only by metaphor do we speak of the art of the spider;
The spider, having no mind, cannot use deliberate skill.
The skill of the spider is directly dependent upon the
mind of God.
The art of the spider is the art of God.
The art of the spider is like that of a factory ‘hand”—
directed from outside. As the owner of a jam factory
said to a visitor: “‘I am God almighty in this place.”
But man has a mind of his own and therefore free will.
A rational soul necessarily connotes free will.
Hence there is strictly speaking an art of man as well as an
art of God.
But, unlike God, man cannot make out of nothing.
Man’s mind, his intelligence and will, can only know the
truth that God knows and desire the good that God
wills.
Imbecility and ill will are privations.
Skill in making and skill in doing are both loosely called art.
Doing is an activity directed to an end in view—the end in
view being man’s good, his last good, Heaven,
But when a man’s deeds are directed not to his own good
simply but to the good of a thing, then doing becomes
making.
An act that is good, or thought to be good, with regard to
oneself is called a prudent act.
An act that is good, or thought to be good, with regard to a
thing to be made is called art.
A man whose acts are conformed to his own good is called
a prudent man.
A man whose acts are conformed to the good of things is
called an artist.
In both cases skill in doing is required.
Skill in doing good to oneself is called prudence.
Skill in doing good to things is called art.
Prudence is the means to happiness in oneself.
Art is the means to pleasure in what is not oneself.
To have happiness is the object of prudence.
Happiness in oneself is a good and is the object of the
will.
Happiness is subjective.
To have pleasure in things is the object of art.
Pleasure in things is a good and is the object of the
intelligence.
Pleasure is objective.
Great intelligence is not necessary for prudence (happiness).
Great prudence is not necessary for intelligence (pleasure).
A fool may be a saint.
A villain may be an artist.
A fool may be a villain.
A saint may be an artist.
But a fool cannot be an artist, nor a villain a saint.
Ethics is the science of happiness in oneself.
Aesthetics is the science of pleasure in things.
Both are departments of philosophy.
Prudence is the application of ethics to practice.
Art is the application of @sthetics to practice.
The practice of prudence is called morals.
The practice of art is called craft or craftsmanship.
Happiness being man’s goal, his final goal, it behoves a man to
be a prudent man; for prudence has man’s final
happiness for its object.
But happiness is a state of mind.
It is that state of mind in which what is desired is known.
Final happiness is the state of mind in which the desired good
is the known good—
In which the desired God is the known God.
When what is desired is known it is said to be seen.
Final happiness is to see God.
This is called “the Beatific Vision.”
Happiness is, therefore, not a state of bliss merely;
It is a state of bliss in knowledge.
But knowledge is necessarily knowledge of something—not of
no thing.
Happiness is in a knowledge of that thing or those things
that are pleasing.
Happiness is in knowledge of those things that are
pleasing to the mind.
Those things are pleasing to the mind which are in themselves
good.
God alone is good.
So those things are pleasing to the mind which are of God or
in God.
Here below we may see God in all things (that is earthly happiness).
We may see through all things to God.
The state of Heaven is that in which we see all things in God.
We see through God to all things.
The prudent man acts so that he may achieve the blissful state
of heavenly happiness.
But that state is one in which he has knowledge of all things in
God—Gaudium de veritate.
Happiness is therefore not separable from pleasure in things.
Prudence is therefore not separable from art.
As making has need of doing—so prudence has need of art.
The achieving of happiness in oneself is the business of prudence.
The supplying of pleasure in things is the business of art.
Art and prudence are, as it were, one flesh.
There is a marriage between them.
There is also a lovers’ quarrel between them.
Each seeks the perfection of its own.
Now man taken abstractly as the bride of God is female.
Hence the Church is the bride of Christ.
Man and the Church are one.
The clergy alone are not the Church.
The laity alone are not the Church.
Man united to God is the Church.
Man taken abstractly in his collaboration with God, i.e. as
maker, is male.
Man the artist is male.
But, unlike God, he is not creator of things out of nothing.
He is creator in the second degree.
He is a channel, a vehicle for God’s creative power.
Through man God brings creation to a greater and more
poignant degree of beauty.
Art improves on Nature.
That is what it is for.
Beauty is the splendour of Being.
The beautiful thing is that which being seen pleases.
The beautiful is therefore the object of art, for only beautiful
things give pleasure to the mind, and the pleasure of
the mind is the object of art.
The skill of the artist has for its end the production of things
which shall give pleasure being seen.
Being seen means being desired and known.
But this pleasure is not the pleasure of knowing.
It is the pleasure of knowing the thing seen.
The Church is man in his aim of achieving happiness
She is therefore the guardian of faith and morals.
She is the mouthpiece of Prudence.
The Church is Prudent Man.
The Church is man knowing and acting in accordance
with his end—happiness in Heaven—the Beatific
Vision.
The artist is man in his aim of making what shall give pleasure.
Happiness feeds on pleasure.
Pleasant things are the meat and drink of happiness.
The ultimate happiness is heaven; for union with God is
union with the source of all good and therefore with
all things that are pleasing.
Now the perfectly prudent man is a man of perfectly good will.
The perfect artist is a man of perfectly good sense.
Perfectly good will is, it seems, possible to man.
Perfectly good sense is, it seems, not possible to man.
His finite condition deprives him of the possibility
of perfect knowledge.
Moreover, the perfection of good will is passive :—
“Grant that I may love thee always; then do with me
what thou wilt,” and again: “Be it done to me according
to thy word.”
But perfectly good sense is active. it
(The words of God effect what they signify.)
Man can be perfectly passive.
Man cannot be perfectly active.
He can do nothing of himself.
“We are not able to please thee by our own acts.”
Man can only be a perfectly willing agent.
His free will does not give him creative power.
It gives him simply perfect power to will what God wills.
A finite intelligence does not give him perfect knowledge
of what God knows.
Hence prudence is superior to art with regard to man, but
“art . . . metaphysically is superior to prudence.”
Man taken abstractly is both female and male.
He is both man of prudence and artist.
He is both churchman and statesman.
In the concrete, man is divided.
Church and State are separated.
Prudence and art are opposed—not as enemies but as
lovers.
In the concrete, Church and prudence take precedence of
government over State and art.
And each seeks the perfection of its own.
But in the modern world this right and proper opposition is
obscured.
It is obscured by the tyranny of commerce—by the
tyranny of the middleman, conveniently so called
because he stands in the middle obstructing everything
and obstructing particularly the marriage of art and
prudence.
The servant has become the master.
The go-between has become the boss.
In the welter the Church, in the order of doing, seeks to salvage
what she can for prudence.
In the order of making, the State salvages what it can for art.
Under these circumstances the prudent man often becomes a
prig and the artist often becomes merely a purveyor
of sentimental trifles.
Under a régime of commercial insubordination the mass of
men are neither men of prudence nor artists.
But a semblance of prudence is more in evidence than even a
semblance of art. /
Worldly prudence makes a better show of virtue than
worldly art,
To make money, to achieve material security and prosperity,
looks more virtuous than to make what is
merely pleasing.
Stock-broking morality and the morality of manufacturers
and bankers stinks less in the nostrils of the prudent
man, with his eye on Heaven, than does the art of
music halls or of dancing places.
Such morality seems to.be directed to the indubitably
legitimate end of making money for the
support of families.
There seems no doubt that men must live and must
support their families,
On the other hand, music-hall art and such like seems to
be directed to no known end but worldly pleasure.
The prudent man looks askance at it.
St. Augustine said: “Love God and do what you will.”
Dilige Deum et fac quod vis.
The artist says: “Love and make what you like.”
This is the highest prudence.
But the prudent man thinks them dangerous sayings: for
though most men know what they like doing or making,
few men know certainly they love God.
Nevertheless, these rules are the only really safe rules.
It is the business of the prudent man to inculcate the love of
God.
The love of God involves acceptance of what God has revealed
and obedience to His law.
But “the service of God is perfect freedom.”
This is not because love makes the law of no effect but
because he who loves God loves what God loves.
“As the eyes of servants are upon the hands of their
masters, as the eyes of a maidservant are upon the
hands of her mistress, so are our eyes upon the Lord
our God.”
So also the obedience of a wife to her husband spells
neither sin nor servility.
But in the modern world prudence is rare—though seemingly
less rare than art.
Our governors, the men of business, our rich men, are
struggling for power.
Our workmen, we poor men, are struggling for worldly pleasure.
The Church is powerless.
Statesmen are at the mercy of financiers.
Saints and artists are but hot-house plants—eccentrics.
But though sanctity be peculiar, prudence has the lip-service
of rich men.
Honesty still remains the best policy.
“Safety first” becomes the best catch-word.
Happiness is still desirable.
And though it be a hot-house plant, art also has the lip-service
of rich men.
The appetite for pleasure still requires satisfaction.
But, in a world in which man’s last end has been forgotten or
denied, the pursuit of worldly happiness seems less
dangerous than the pursuit of worldly pleasure.
Therefore worldly happiness seems less an enemy than
worldly pleasure.
The man who seeks happiness here below is looked upon more
kindly than he who seeks pleasure.
The man of business is looked upon more kindly by the man
of prudence than is the artist.
For the man of business ministers to happiness, though
only worldly happiness.
But the artist ministers to pleasure, and often the pleasure
of the sense merely.
Avarice seems less hideous to the prudent man than Idolatry.
Selfishness seems less damnable to him than Sensuality.
There is therefore some ill-feeling between the prudent man
and the artist.
The lovers’ quarrel between art and prudence has become
an unloving “scrap.”
The opposition has become a conflict.
The man of prudence is shocked by the artist’s inclination to
value things as ends in themselves—
Worth making for their own sakes—
Loved for their beauty.
He sees idolatry at the end of that road.
He is also shocked by the artist’s acceptance of all things of
sense as beautiful and therefore pleasing in themselves—
Worth having for their own sakes—
Loved for their pleasantness.
He sees sensuality at the end of that road.
Upon the other hand, the artist is shocked by the prudent
man’s inclination to see things merely as means to
ends—
Not worth anything for their own sakes—
Their beauty neither seen nor loved.
He sees Manchester at the end of that road.
He is also shocked by the prudent man’s inclination to see in
the pleasures of sense mere filthiness.
To him that is a kind of blasphemy.
The prudent man accuses the artist of sin.
The artist cries “‘blasphemer”’ in reply.
They see no good in one another.
It is not for me to speak as a man of prudence—
though the artist is a man and should be a prudent man.
I can only speak as artist.
As artists it is for us to see all things as ends in themselves—
To see all things in God and God is the end—
To see all things as beautiful in themselves.
“The beauty of God,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, quoting
Denis, “is the cause of the being of all that is.”
It is for us to see things as worth making for their own sakes,
and not merely as means to ends.
We are not “welfare workers.”
We do not even seek ‘‘to leave the world better than we
found it.”
We are as children making toys for men and God to play
with, and “playing before Him at all times.”
But this serious view is not taken by many men of prudence.
Theirs is the frivolous view that things are not worth
anything in themselves.
Clothes, for instance, are not for us as they seem to be for the
prudent man, merely useful protections against cold or
unchastity.
Clothes are primarily for dignity and adornment.
Whether men and women go naked, or whether they go
clothed as monks and nuns, or whether they go
half-naked or half-clothed like our mothers and sisters—
it is all one to us.
It is for them to decide—and their pastors.
We merely ask that they be beautiful—that they be things
which give pleasure being seen.
What else should anyone ask?
Trains, for instance: suppose two trains go from Manchester
to London; one through a stinking and noisy tunnel all
the way, the other silently through green valleys.
Which train would a sensible person take?
Your prudent man, it seems, having regard merely to the
end of the journey, would ask simply which was the
quicker route.
Your artist, your practical man (for art is a virtue of the
practical intelligence) would ask which would make
the journey better in itself—as a journey.
Let us return to the beginning.
Prudence is concerned with the man.
Art is concerned with the thing.
Man is more important than things.
Prudence is more important than art.
Man’s end is happiness.
The end of art is pleasure.
But happiness consists in pleasure.
Happiness is the state of being pleased with things, of
being pleased with things.
Making pleasing things is the business of art.
The pleasure of the senses is good.
Art which aims at pleasing the mind through the sense is good.
The pleasure of the mind is good.
Art which aims at pleasing the mind and in regard to which
the senses are disinterested is good.
But man is matter and spirit—
Both are real and both good.
An art which pleases the senses only and does not make its
appeal to the whole man is necessarily bad art.
An art which makes its appeal to the mind only and does not
please the whole man is necessarily bad art.
That is good art which pleases the senses as they ought to be
pleased and mind as it ought to be pleased.
With good art prudence should have no quarrel;
God gave man senses that man should have pleasant feelings.
The reasonable pleasure of the senses is the God-designed
reward of those acts, such as eating and ‘‘sleeping,”
which God wills men to do.
With good art prudence should have no quarrel;
God gave men minds wherewith to have pleasant
thoughts.
The reasonable pleasure of the mind is the reward of those
acts which are called contemplative: that is to say:
the vision of Being, the vision of things as ends.
But many prudent men quarrel with art, however good,
because many prudent men are prudes.
The prude is afraid of the pleasure of the senses.
And many prudent men quarrel with art, however good,
because many prudent men are proud.
The proud man scorns anything not in imitation of himself:
that is to say: he scorns anything which has not
himself for its end.
These quarrels can never be settled until most men of prudence
are also artists and most artists have become men of
prudence.
This pleasing state of affairs will not come about until the
present civilisation has passed away.
* Deliberation—the act of the mind in choosing. It does not necessarily require a process of raticiocination. Form—the principle which determines a thing in its species.
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