* * * * *
ON THE RELATION OF THE PLASTIC ARTS TO NATURE (1807)
A Speech on the Celebration of the 12th October, 1807, as the Name-Day
of His Majesty the King of Bavaria
Delivered before the Public Assembly of the Royal Academy of Sciences
of Munich
TRANSLATED BY J. ELLIOT CABOT
Plastic Art, according to the most ancient expression, is silent
Poetry. The inventor of this definition no doubt meant thereby
that the former, like the latter, is to express spiritual
thoughts—conceptions whose source is the soul; only not by speech,
but, like silent Nature, by shape, by form, by corporeal, independent
works.
Plastic Art, therefore, evidently stands as a uniting link between the
soul and Nature, and can be apprehended only in the living centre of
both. Indeed, since Plastic Art has its relation to the soul in common
with every other art, and particularly with Poetry, that by which
it is connected with Nature, and, like Nature, a productive force,
remains as its sole peculiarity; so that to this alone can a theory
relate which shall be satisfactory to the understanding, and helpful
and profitable to Art itself.
We hope, therefore, in considering Plastic Art in relation to its
true prototype and original source, Nature, to be able to contribute
something new to its theory—to give some additional exactness or
clearness to the conceptions of it; but, above all, to set forth
the coherence of the whole structure of Art in the light of a higher
necessity.
[Illustration: FRIEDRICH WILHELM JOSEPH VON SCHELLING Carl Begas]
But has not Science always recognized this relation? Has not indeed
every theory of modern times taken its departure from this very
position, that Art should be the imitator of Nature? Such has indeed
been the case. But what should this broad general proposition
profit the artist, when the notion of Nature is of such various
interpretation, and when there are almost as many differing views of
it as there are various modes of life? Thus, to one, Nature is
nothing more than the lifeless aggregate of an indeterminable crowd
of objects, or the space in which, as in a vessel, he imagines things
placed; to another, only the soil from which he draws his nourishment
and support; to the inspired seeker alone, the holy, ever-creative
original energy of the world, which generates and busily evolves all
things out of itself.
The proposition would indeed have a high significance, if it taught
Art to emulate this creative force; but the sense in which it was
meant can scarcely be doubtful to one acquainted with the universal
condition of Science at the time when it was first brought forward.
Singular enough that the very persons who denied all life to Nature
should set it up for imitation in Art! To them might be applied the
words of a profound writer:[5] "Your lying philosophy has put Nature
out of the way; and why do you call upon us to imitate her? Is it that
you may renew the pleasure by perpetrating the same violence on the
disciples of Nature?"
Nature was to them not merely a dumb, but an altogether lifeless
image, in whose inmost being even no living word dwelt; a hollow
scaffolding of forms, of which as hollow an image was to be
transferred to the canvas, or hewn out of stone.
This was the proper doctrine of those more ancient and savage nations,
who, as they saw in Nature nothing divine, fetched idols out of her;
whilst, to the susceptive Greeks, who everywhere felt the presence of
a vitally efficient principle, genuine gods arose out of Nature.
But is, then, the disciple of Nature to copy everything in Nature
without distinction?—and, of everything, every part? Only beautiful
objects should be represented; and, even in these, only the Beautiful
and Perfect.
Thus is the proposition further determined, but, at the same time,
this asserted, that, in Nature, the perfect is mingled with the
imperfect, the beautiful with the unbeautiful. Now, how should he who
stands in no other relation to Nature than that of servile imitation,
distinguish the one from the other? It is the way of imitators to
appropriate the faults of their model sooner and easier than its
excellences, since the former offer handles and tokens more easily
grasped; and thus we see that imitators of Nature in this sense have
imitated oftener, and even more affectionately, the ugly than the
beautiful.
If we regard in things, not their principle, but the empty abstract
form, neither will they say anything to our soul; our own heart, our
own spirit we must put to it, that they answer us.
But what is the perfection of a thing? Nothing else than the creative
life in it, its power to exist. Never, therefore, will he, who fancies
that Nature is altogether dead, be successful in that profound process
(analogous to the chemical) whence proceeds, purified as by fire, the
pure gold of Beauty and Truth.
Nor was there any change in the main view of the relation of Art to
Nature, even when the unsatisfactoriness of the principle began to
be more generally felt; no change, even by the new views and new
knowledge so nobly established by John Winckelmann. He indeed restored
to the soul its full efficiency in Art, and raised it from its
unworthy dependence into the realm of spiritual freedom. Powerfully
moved by the beauty of form in the works of antiquity, he taught that
the production of ideal Nature, of Nature elevated above the Actual,
together with the expression of spiritual conceptions, is the highest
aim of Art.
But if we examine in what sense this surpassing of the Actual by Art
has been understood by the most, it turns out that, with this view
also, the notion of Nature as mere product, of things as a lifeless
result, still continued; and the idea of a living creative Nature
was in no wise awakened by it. Thus these ideal forms also could be
animated by no positive insight into their nature; and if the forms
of the Actual were dead for the dead beholder, these were not less so.
Were no independent production of the Actual possible, neither would
there be of the Ideal. The object of the imitation was changed;
the imitation remained. In the place of Nature were substituted the
sublime works of Antiquity, whose outward forms the pupils busied
themselves in imitating, but without the spirit that fills them. These
forms, however, are as unapproachable, nay, more so, than the works of
Nature, and leave us yet colder if we bring not to them the spiritual
eye to penetrate through the veil and feel the stirring energy within.
On the other hand, artists, since that time, have indeed received a
certain ideal impetus, and notions of a beauty superior to matter;
but these notions were like fair words, to which the deeds do not
correspond. While the previous method in Art produced bodies without
soul, this view taught only the secret of the soul, but not that of
the body. The theory had, as usual, passed with one hasty stride to
the opposite extreme; but the vital mean it had not yet found.
Who can say that Winckelmann had not penetrated into the highest
beauty? But with him it appeared in its dissevered elements only: on
the one side as beauty in idea, and flowing out from the soul; on the
other, as beauty of forms.
But what is the efficient link that connects the two? Or by what power
is the soul created together with the body, at once and as if with one
breath? If this lies not within the power of Art, as of Nature,
then it can create nothing whatever. This vital connecting link,
Winckelmann did not determine; he did not teach how, from the idea,
forms can be produced. Thus Art went over to that method which we
would call the retrograde, since it strives from the form to come
at the essence. But not thus is the Unlimited reached; it is not
attainable by mere enhancement of the Limited. Hence, such works as
have had their beginning in form, with all elaborateness on that side,
show, in token of their origin, an incurable want at the very point
where we expect the consummate, the essential, the final. The miracle
by which the Limited should be raised to the Unlimited, the human
become divine, is wanting; the magic circle is drawn, but the spirit
that it should inclose, appears not, being disobedient to the call of
him who thought a creation possible through mere form.
* * * * *
Nature meets us everywhere, at first with reserve, and in form more or
less severe. She is like that quiet and serious beauty, that excites
not attention by noisy advertisement, nor attracts the vulgar gaze.
How can we, as it were, spiritually melt this apparently rigid form,
so that the pure energy of things may flow together with the force of
our spirit and both become one united mold? We must transcend Form,
in order to gain it again as intelligible, living, and truly felt.
Consider the most beautiful forms; what remains behind after you have
abstracted from them the creative principle within? Nothing but mere
unessential qualities, such as extension and the relations of space.
Does the fact that one portion of matter exists near another, and
distinct from it, contribute anything to its inner essence? or does
it not rather contribute nothing? Evidently the latter. It is not mere
contiguous existence, but the manner of it, that makes form; and this
can be determined only by a positive force, which is even opposed to
separateness, and subordinates the manifoldness of the parts to the
unity of one idea—from the force that works in the crystal to the
force which, comparable to a gentle magnetic current, gives to the
particles of matter in the human form that position and arrangement
among themselves, through which the idea, the essential unity and
beauty, can become visible.
Not only, however, as active principle, but as spirit and effective
science, must the essence appear to us in the form, in order that we
may truly apprehend it. For all unity must be spiritual in nature and
origin; and what is the aim of all investigation of Nature but to find
science therein? For that wherein there is no Understanding cannot
be the object of Understanding; the Unknowing cannot be known. The
science by which Nature works is not, however, like human science,
connected with reflection upon itself; in it, the conception is not
separate from the act, nor the design from the execution. Therefore,
rude matter strives, as it were, blindly, after regular shape,
and unknowingly assumes pure stereometric forms, which belong,
nevertheless, to the realm of ideas, and are something spiritual in
the material.
The sublimest arithmetic and geometry are innate in the stars, and
unconsciously displayed by them in their motions. More distinctly, but
still beyond their grasp, the living cognition appears in animals;
and thus we see them, though wandering about without reflection, bring
about innumerable results far more excellent than themselves: the bird
that, intoxicated with music, transcends itself in soul-like tones;
the little artistic creature, that, without practise or instruction,
accomplishes light works of architecture; but all directed by an
overpowering spirit, that lightens in them already with single flashes
of knowledge, but as yet appears nowhere as the full sun, as in Man.
This formative science in Nature and Art is the link that connects
idea and form, body and soul. Before everything stands an eternal
idea, formed in the Infinite Understanding; but by what means does
this idea pass into actuality and embodiment? Only through the
creative science that is as necessarily connected with the Infinite
Understanding, as in the artist the principle that seizes the idea
of unsensuous Beauty is linked with that which sets it forth to the
senses.
If that artist be called happy and praiseworthy before all to whom
the gods have granted this creative spirit, then that work of art will
appear excellent which shows to us, as in outline, this unadulterated
energy of creation and activity of Nature.
It was long ago perceived that, in Art, not everything is performed
with consciousness; that, with the conscious activity, an unconscious
action must combine; and that it is of the perfect unity and mutual
interpenetration of the two that the highest in Art is born.
Works that want this seal of unconscious science are recognized by
the evident absence of life self-supported and independent of the
producer; as, on the contrary, where this acts, Art imparts to its
work, together with the utmost clearness to the understanding, that
unfathomable reality wherein it resembles a work of Nature.
It has often been attempted to make clear the position of the artist
in regard to Nature, by saying that Art, in order to be such, must
first withdraw itself from Nature, and return to it only in the final
perfection. The true sense of this saying, it seems to us, can be no
other than this—that in all things in Nature, the living idea shows
itself only blindly active; were it so also in the artist, he would be
in nothing distinct from Nature. But, should he attempt consciously to
subordinate himself altogether to the Actual, and render with servile
fidelity the already existing, he would produce larvae, but no works
of Art. He must therefore withdraw himself from the product, from the
creature, but only in order to raise himself to the creative energy,
spiritually seizing the same. Thus he ascends into the realm of
pure ideas; he forsakes the creature, to regain it with thousandfold
interest, and in this sense certainly to return to Nature. This spirit
of Nature working at the core of things, and speaking through form
and shape as by symbols only, the artist must certainly follow with
emulation; and only so far as he seizes this with genial imitation
has he himself produced anything genuine. For works produced by
aggregation, even of forms beautiful in themselves, would still be
destitute of all beauty, since that, through which the work on the
whole is truly beautiful, cannot be mere form. It is above form—it
is Essence, the Universal, the look and expression of the indwelling
spirit of Nature.
Now it can scarcely be doubtful what is to be thought of the so-called
idealizing of Nature in Art, so universally demanded. This demand
seems to arise from a way of thinking, according to which not Truth,
Beauty, Goodness, but the contrary of all these, is the Actual. Were
the Actual indeed opposed to Truth and Beauty, it would be necessary
for the artist, not to elevate or idealize it, but to get rid of and
destroy it, in order to create something true and beautiful. But how
should it be possible for anything to be actual except the True; and
what is Beauty, if not full, complete Being?
What higher aim, therefore, could Art have, than to represent that
which in Nature actually is? Or how should it undertake to excel
so-called actual Nature, since it must always fall short of it?
For does Art impart to its works actual, sensuous life? This statue
breathes not, is stirred by no pulsation, warmed by no blood.
But both the pretended excelling and the apparent falling short show
themselves as the consequences of one and the same principle, as soon
as we place the aim of Art in the exhibiting of that which truly is.
Only on the surface have its works the appearance of life; in Nature,
life seems to reach deeper, and to be wedded entirely with matter.
But does not the continual mutation of matter and the universal lot
of final dissolution teach us the unessential character of this union,
and that it is no intimate fusion? Art, accordingly, in the merely
superficial animation of its works, but represents Nothingness as
non-existing.
How comes it that, to every tolerably cultivated taste, imitations of
the so-called Actual, even though carried to deception, appear in the
last degree untrue—nay, produce the impression of spectres; whilst a
work in which the idea is predominant strikes us with the full force
of truth, conveying us then only to the genuinely actual world? Whence
comes it, if not from the more or less obscure feeling which tells us
that the idea alone is the living principle in things, but all else
unessential and vain shadow?
On the same ground may be explained all the opposite cases which
are brought up as instances of the surpassing of Nature by Art. In
arresting the rapid course of human years; in uniting the energy of
developed manhood with the soft charm of early youth; or exhibiting
a mother of grown-up sons and daughters in the full possession of
vigorous beauty—what does Art except to annul what is unessential,
Time?
If, according to the remark of a discerning critic, every growth in
Nature has but an instant of truly complete beauty, we may also say
that it has, too, only an instant of full existence. In this instant
it is what it is in all eternity; besides this, it has only a coming
into and a passing out of existence. Art, in representing the thing
at that instant, removes it out of Time, and sets it forth in its pure
Being, in the eternity of its life.
After everything positive and essential had once been abstracted from
Form, it necessarily appeared restrictive, and, as it were, hostile,
to the Essence; and the same theory that had reproduced the false and
powerless Ideal, necessarily tended to the formless in Art. Form would
indeed be a limitation of the Essence if it existed independent of it.
But if it exists with and by means of the Essence, how could this feel
itself limited by that which it has itself created? Violence
would indeed be done it by a form forced upon it, but never by
one proceeding from itself. In this, on the contrary, it must rest
contented, and feel its own existence to be perfect and complete.
Determinateness of form is in Nature never a negation, but ever
an affirmation. Commonly, indeed, the shape of a body seems a
confinement; but could we behold the creative energy it would reveal
itself as the measure that this energy imposes upon itself, and in
which it shows itself a truly intelligent force; for in everything
is the power of self-rule allowed to be an excellence, and one of the
highest.
In like manner most persons consider the particular in a negative
manner—i.e., as that which is not the whole or all. Yet no
particular exists by means of its limitation, but through the
indwelling force with which it maintains itself as a particular Whole,
in distinction from the Universe.
This force of particularity, and thus also of individuality,
showing itself as vital character, the negative conception of it
is necessarily followed by an unsatisfying and false view of the
characteristic in Art. Lifeless and of intolerable hardness would be
the Art that should aim to exhibit the empty shell or limitation of
the Individual. Certainly we desire to see not merely the individual,
but, more than this, its vital Idea. But if the artist has seized the
inward creative spirit and essence of the Idea, and sets this forth,
he makes the individual a world in itself, a class, an eternal
prototype; and he who has grasped the essential character needs not
to fear hardness and severity, for these are the conditions of life.
Nature, that in her completeness appears as the utmost benignity,
we see, in each particular, aiming even primarily and principally at
severity, seclusion and reserve. As the whole creation is the work
of the utmost externization and renunciation [Entäusserung], so
the artist must first deny himself and descend into the Particular,
without shunning isolation, nor the pain, the anguish of Form.
Nature, from her first works, is throughout characteristic; the energy
of fire, the splendor of light, she shuts up in hard stone, the tender
soul of melody in severe metal; even on the threshold of Life, and
already meditating organic shape, she sinks back overpowered by the
might of Form, into petrifaction.
The life of the plant consists in still receptivity, but in what
exact and severe outline is this passive life inclosed! In the animal
kingdom the strife between Life and Form seems first properly to
begin; her first works Nature hides in hard shells, and, where these
are laid aside, the animated world attaches itself again through its
constructive impulse to the realm of crystallization. Finally
she comes forward more boldly and freely, and vital, important
characteristics show themselves, being the same through whole classes.
Art, however, cannot begin so far down as Nature. Though Beauty is
spread everywhere, yet there are various grades in the appearance
and unfolding of the Essence, and thus of Beauty. But Art demands a
certain fulness, and desires not to strike a single note or tone, nor
even a detached accord, but at once the full symphony of Beauty.
Art, therefore, prefers to grasp immediately at the highest and most
developed, the human form. For since it is not given it to embrace
the immeasurable whole, and as in all other creatures only single
fulgurations, in Man alone full entire Being appears without
abatement, Art is not only permitted but required to see the sum of
Nature in Man alone. But precisely on this account—that she here
assembles all in one point—Nature repeats her whole multiformity, and
pursues again in a narrower compass the same course that she had gone
through in her wide circuit.
Here, therefore, arises the demand upon the artist first to be true
and faithful in detail, in order to come forth complete and beautiful
in the whole. Here he must wrestle with the creative spirit of Nature
(which in the human world also deals out character and stamp in
endless variety), not in weak and effeminate, but stout and courageous
conflict.
Persevering exercise in the study of that by virtue of which the
characteristic in things is a positive principle, must preserve him
from emptiness, weakness, inward inanity, before he can venture to
aim, by ever higher combination and final melting together of manifold
forms, to reach the extremest beauty in works uniting the highest
simplicity with infinite meaning.
Only through the perfection of form can Form be made to disappear; and
this is certainly the final aim of Art in the Characteristic. But as
the apparent harmony that is even more easily reached by the empty and
frivolous than by others, is yet inwardly vain; so in Art the quickly
attained harmony of the exterior, without inward fulness. And if it is
the part of theory and instruction to oppose the spiritless copying
of beautiful forms, especially must they oppose the tendency toward
an effeminate characterless Art, which gives itself, indeed, higher
names, but therewith only seeks to hide its incapacity to fulfil the
fundamental conditions.
That lofty Beauty in which the fulness of form causes Form itself to
disappear, was adopted by the modern theory of Art, after Winckelmann,
not only as the highest, but as the only standard. But as the deep
foundation upon which it rests was overlooked, it resulted that a
negative conception was formed even of that which is the sum of all
affirmation.
Winckelmann compares Beauty with water drawn from the bosom of the
spring, which, the less taste it has, the wholesomer it is esteemed.
It is true that the highest Beauty is characterless, but so we say
of the Universe that it has no determinate dimension, neither length,
breadth nor depth, since it has all in equal infinity; or that the Art
of creative Nature is formless, because she herself is subjected to no
form.
In this and in no other sense can we say that Grecian art in its
highest development rises into the characterless; but it did not aim
immediately at this. It was from the bonds of Nature that it struggled
upward to divine freedom. From no lightly scattered seed, but only
from a deeply infolded kernel, could this heroic growth spring up.
Only mighty emotions, only a deep stirring of the fancy through the
impression of all-enlivening, all-commanding energies of Nature,
could stamp upon Art that invincible vigor with which from the rigid,
secluded earnestness of earlier productions up to the period of works
overflowing with sensuous grace, it ever remained faithful to truth,
and produced the highest spiritual Reality which it is given to
mortals to behold.
In like manner, as their Tragedy commences with the grandest
characteristicness in morals, so the beginning of their Plastic Art
was the earnestness of Nature, and the stern goddess of Athens its
first and only Muse.
This epoch is marked by that style which Winckelmann describes as the
still harsh and severe, from which the next or lofty style was able to
develop itself by the mere enhancement of the Characteristic into the
Sublime and the Simple.
For in the statues of the most perfect or divine natures not only
all the complexity of form of which human nature is capable had to
be united, but moreover the union must be such as may be conceived to
exist in the system of the Universe itself—the lower forms, or those
relating to inferior attributes, being comprehended under higher, and
all at last under one supreme form, in which they indeed extinguish
one another as separately existing, but still continue in Essence and
efficiency.
Thus, though we cannot call this high and self-sufficing Beauty
characteristic, so far as herewith is connected the notion of
limitation or conditionality in the manifestation, yet still the
characteristic continues efficient, though indistinguishable, within;
as in the crystal, although transparent, the texture nevertheless
remains; each characteristic element has its weight, however slight,
and helps to bring about the sublime equipoise of Beauty.
The outer side or basis of all Beauty is beauty of form. But as
Form cannot exist without Essence, wherever Form is, there also is
Character, whether in visible presence or only perceptible in its
effects. Characteristic Beauty, therefore, is Beauty in the root,
from which alone Beauty can arise as the fruit. Essence may, indeed,
outgrow Form, but even then the Characteristic remains as the still
efficient groundwork of the Beautiful.
That most excellent critic,[6] to whom the gods have given sway over
Nature as well as Art, compares the Characteristic in its relation to
Beauty, with the skeleton in its relation to the living form. Were we
to interpret this striking simile in our sense, we should say that
the skeleton, in Nature, is not, as in our thought, detached from the
living whole; that the firm and the yielding, the determining and
the determined, mutually presuppose each other, and can exist only
together; thus that the vitally Characteristic is already the whole
form, the result of the action and reaction of bone and flesh, of
Active and Passive. And although Art, like Nature, in its higher
developments, thrusts inward the previously visible skeleton, yet the
latter can never be opposed to Shape and Beauty, since it has always
a determining share in the production of the one as well as of the
other.
But whether that high and independent Beauty should be the only
standard in Art, as it is the highest, seems to depend on the degree
of fulness and extent that belongs to the particular Art.
Nature, in her wide circumference, ever exhibits the higher with the
lower; creating in Man the godlike, she elaborates in all her other
productions only its material and foundation, which must exist in
order that in contrast with it the Essence as such may appear. And
even in the higher world of Man the great mass serves again as the
basis upon which the godlike that is preserved pure in the few,
manifests itself in legislation, government, and the establishment of
Religion. So that wherever Art works with more of the complexity of
Nature, it may and must display, together with the highest measure of
Beauty, also its groundwork and raw material, as it were, in distinct
appropriate forms.
Here first prominently unfolds itself the difference in Nature of the
forms of Art.
Plastic Art, in the more exact sense of the term, disdains to give
Space outwardly to the object, but bears it within itself. This,
however, narrows its field; it is compelled, indeed, to display the
beauty of the Universe almost in a single point. It must therefore aim
immediately at the highest, and can attain complexity only separately
and in the strictest exclusion of all conflicting elements. By
isolating the purely animal in human nature it succeeds in forming
inferior creations too, harmonious and even beautiful, as we are
taught by the beauty of numerous Fauns preserved from antiquity; yea,
it can, parodying itself like the merry spirit of Nature, reverse
its own Ideal, and, for instance, in the extravagance of the Silenic
figures, by light and sportive treatment appear freed again from the
pressure of matter.
But in all cases it is compelled strictly to isolate the work, in
order to make it self-consistent and a world in itself; since for
this form of Art there is no higher unity, in which the dissonance of
particulars should be melted into harmony.
Painting, on the contrary, in the very extent of its sphere, can
better measure itself with the Universe, and create with epic
profusion. In an Iliad there is room even for a Thersites; and what
does not find a place in the great epic of Nature and History!
Here the Particular scarcely counts anything by itself; the Universe
takes its place, and that, which by itself would not be beautiful,
becomes so in the harmony of the whole. If in an extensive painting,
uniting forms by the allotted space, by light, by shade, by
reflection, the highest measure of Beauty were everywhere employed,
the result would be the most unnatural monotony; for, as Winckelmann
says, the highest idea of Beauty is everywhere one and the same, and
scarcely admits of variation. The detail would be preferred to
the whole, where, as in every case in which the whole is formed by
multiplicity, the detail must be subordinate to it.
[Illustration: THE JUNGFRAU From the Painting by Moritz von Schwind]
In such a work, therefore, a gradation of Beauty must be observed, by
which alone the full Beauty concentrated in the focus becomes visible;
and from an exaggeration of particulars proceeds an equipoise of the
whole. Here, then, the limited and characteristic finds its place; and
theory at least should direct the painter, not so much to the narrow
space in which the entire Beauty is concentrically collected, as to
the characteristic complexity of Nature, through which alone he can
impart to an extensive work the full measure of living significance.
Thus thought, among the founders of modern art, the noble Leonardo;
thus Raphael, the master of high Beauty, who shunned not to exhibit
it in smaller measure, rather than to appear monotonous, lifeless, and
unreal—though he understood not only how to produce it, but also how
to break up uniformity by variety of expression.
For, although Character can show itself also in rest and equilibrium
of form, it is only in action that it becomes truly alive.
By character we understand a unity of several forces, operating
constantly to produce among them a certain equipoise and determinate
proportion, to which, if undisturbed, a like equipoise in the symmetry
of the forms corresponds. But if this vital Unity is to display itself
in act and operation, this can only be when the forces, excited by
some cause to rebellion, forsake their equilibrium. Every one sees
that this is the case in the Passions.
Here we are met by the well-known maxim of the theorists, which
demands that Passion should be moderated as far as possible, in its
actual outburst, that beauty of Form may not be injured. But we think
this maxim should rather be reversed, and read thus—that Passion
should be moderated by Beauty itself. For it is much to be feared that
this desired moderation too may be taken in a negative sense—whereas,
what is really requisite is to oppose to Passion a positive force. For
as Virtue consists, not in the absence of passions, but in the mastery
of the spirit over them, so Beauty is preserved, not by their removal
or abatement, but by the mastery of Beauty over them.
The forces of Passion must actually show themselves—it must be seen
that they are prepared to rise in mutiny, but are kept down by the
power of Character, and break against the forms of firmly-founded
Beauty, as the waves of a stream that just fills, but cannot overflow
its banks. Otherwise, this striving after moderation would resemble
only the method of those shallow moralists, who, the more readily
to dispose of Man, prefer to mutilate his nature; and who have so
entirely removed every positive element from actions that the
people gloat over the spectacle of great crimes, in order to refresh
themselves at last with the view of something positive.
In Nature and Art the Essence strives first after actualization,
or exhibition of itself in the Particular. Thus in each the utmost
severity is manifested at the commencement; for without bound, the
boundless could not appear; without severity, gentleness could not
exist; and if unity is to be perceptible, it can only be through
particularity, detachment, and opposition. In the beginning,
therefore, the creative spirit shows itself entirely lost in the Form,
inaccessibly shut up, and even in its grandeur still harsh. But the
more it succeeds in uniting its entire fulness in one product, the
more it gradually relaxes from its severity; and where it has fully
developed the form, so as to rest contented and self-collected in it,
it seems to become cheerful and begins to move in gentle lines. This
is the period of its fairest maturity and blossom, in which the pure
vessel has arrived at perfection; the spirit of Nature becomes free
from its bonds, and feels its relationship to the soul. By a gentle
morning blush stealing over the whole form, the coming soul announces
itself; it is not yet present, but everything prepares for its
reception by the delicate play of gentle movements; the rigid outlines
melt and temper themselves into flexibility; a lovely essence, neither
sensuous nor spiritual, but which cannot be grasped, diffuses itself
over the form, and intwines itself with every outline, every vibration
of the frame.
This essence, not to be seized, as we have already remarked, but yet
perceptible to all, is what the language of the Greeks designated by
the name Charis, ours as Grace.
Wherever, in a fully developed form, Grace appears, the work is
complete on the side of Nature; nothing more is wanting; all demands
are satisfied. Here, already, soul and body are in complete harmony;
Body is Form, Grace is Soul, although not Soul in itself, but the Soul
of Form, or the Soul of Nature.
Art may linger, and remain stationary at this point; for already,
on one side at least, its whole task is finished. The pure image of
Beauty arrested at this point is the Goddess of Love.
But the beauty of the Soul in itself, joined to sensuous Grace, is the
highest apotheosis of Nature.
The spirit of Nature is only in appearance opposed to the Soul;
essentially, it is the instrument of its revelation; it brings about
indeed the antagonism that exists in all things, but only that the
one essence may come forth, as the utmost benignity, and the
reconciliation of all the forces.
All other creatures are driven by the mere force of Nature, and
through it maintain their individuality; in Man alone, as the central
point, arises the soul, without which the world would be like the
natural universe without the sun. The Soul in Man, therefore, is not
the principle of individuality, but that whereby he raises himself
above all egoism, whereby he becomes capable of self-sacrifice, of
disinterested love, and (which is the highest) of the contemplation
and knowledge of the Essence of things, and thus of Art.
In him it is no longer concerned about Matter nor has it immediate
concern with it, but with the spirit only as the life of things.
Even while appearing in the body, it is yet free from the body, the
consciousness of which hovers in the soul in the most beauteous shapes
only as a light, undisturbing dream. It is no quality, no faculty, nor
anything special of the sort; it knows not, but is Science; it is
not good, but Goodness; it is not beautiful, as body even may be, but
Beauty itself.
In the first instance, it is true, in a work of art, the soul of the
artist is seen as invention in the detail, and in the total result as
the unity that hovers over the work in serene stillness. But the Soul
must be visible in objective representation, as the primeval energy
of thought, in portraitures of human beings, altogether filled by an
idea, by a noble contemplation; or as indwelling, essential Goodness.
Each of these finds its distinct expression even in the completest
repose, but a more living one where the Soul can reveal itself in
activity and antagonism; and since it is by the passions mainly that
the peace of life is interrupted, it is the generally received opinion
that the beauty of the Soul shows itself especially in its quiet
supremacy amid the storm of the passions.
But here an important distinction is to be made. For the Soul must not
be called upon to moderate those passions which are only an outbreak
of the lower spirits of Nature, nor can it be displayed in antithesis
with these; for where calm considerateness is still in contention
with them, the Soul has not yet appeared; they must be moderated by
unassisted Nature in Man, by the might of the Spirit. But there are
cases of a higher sort, in which not a single force alone, but the
intelligent Spirit itself breaks down all barriers—cases, indeed,
where even the Soul is subjected by the bond that connects it with
sensuous existence, to pain, which should be foreign to its divine
nature; where Man feels himself hard fought and attacked in the root
of his existence, not by mere powers of Nature, but by moral forces;
where innocent error hurries him into crime, and thus into misery;
where deep-felt injustice excites to rebellion the holiest feelings of
humanity.
This is the case in all situations, truly, and, in a high sense,
tragic, such as the Tragedy of the ancients brings before our eyes.
Where blindly passionate forces are aroused, the collected Spirit is
present as the guardian of Beauty; but if the Spirit itself be carried
away, as by an irresistible might, what power shall watch over
and protect sacred beauty? Or, if even the soul participate in the
struggle, how shall it save itself from pain and from desecration?
Arbitrarily to restrain the power of pain, of feeling in revolt, would
be to sin against the very meaning and aim of Art, and would betray a
want of feeling and soul in the artist himself.
Already therein, that Beauty, based on grand and firmly established
forms, has become Character, Art has provided the means of displaying
without injury to symmetry the whole intensity of Feeling. For where
Beauty rests on mighty forms, as upon immovable pillars, even a slight
change in its relations, scarcely touching the form, causes us to
infer the great force that was necessary in order to provide it. Still
more does Grace sanctify pain. It is the essential nature of Grace
that it does not know itself; but not being wilfully acquired, it also
cannot be wilfully lost. When intolerable anguish, when even madness,
sent by avenging gods, takes away consciousness and reason, Grace
stands as a protecting demon by the suffering person, and prevents it
from manifesting anything unseemly, anything discordant to Humanity,
but sees to it that, if the person falls, it falls at least a pure and
unspotted victim.
Although not yet the Soul itself, but its forebodings only, Grace
accomplishes by natural means what the Soul does by a divine power, in
transforming pain, torpor, even death itself, into Beauty.
Yet Grace, which thus maintained itself in the extremest adversity,
would be dead, without its transfiguration by the Soul. But what
expression can belong to the Soul in this situation? It delivers
itself from pain, and comes forth conquering, not conquered, by
relinquishing its connection with sensuous existence.
It is for the natural Spirit to exert its energies for the
preservation of sensuous existence; the Soul enters not into
this contest, but its presence moderates even the storms of
painfully-struggling life. Outward force can take away only outward
goods, but not reach the Soul; it can tear asunder a temporal bond,
not dissolve the eternal one of a truly divine love. Not hard and
unfeeling, nor giving up love itself, on the contrary the Soul
displays in pain this love alone, as the sentiment that outlasts
sensuous existence, and thus raises itself above the ruins of outward
life or fortune in divine glory.
It is this expression of the Soul that the creator of the Niobe has
presented to us. All the means by which Art tempers even the Terrible,
are here made use of. Mightiness of form, sensuous Grace, nay, even
the nature of the subject-matter itself, soften the expression,
through this, that Pain, transcending all expression, annihilates
itself, and Beauty, which it seemed impossible to preserve from
destruction when alive, is protected from injury by the commencing
torpor.
But what would it all be without the Soul, and how does this manifest
itself?
We see on the countenance of the mother, not grief alone for the
already prostrated flower of her children; not alone deadly anxiety
for the preservation of those yet remaining, and of the youngest
daughter, who has fled for safety to her bosom; nor resentment against
the cruel deities; least of all, as is pretended, cool defiance-all
these we see, indeed, but not these alone; for, through grief,
anxiety, and resentment streams, like a divine light, eternal love, as
that which alone remains; and in this is preserved the mother, as
one who was not, but now is a mother, and who remains united with the
beloved ones by an eternal bond.
Every one acknowledges that greatness, purity, and goodness of Soul
have also their sensuous expressions. But how is this conceivable,
unless the principle that acts in Matter be itself cognate and similar
to Soul?
For the representation of the Soul there are again gradations in
Art, according as it is joined with the merely Characteristic, or in
visible union with the Charming and Graceful.
Who perceives not already, in the tragedies of Æschylus, the presence
of that lofty morality which is predominant in the works of Sophocles?
But in the former it is enveloped in a bitter rind, and passes
less into the whole work, since the bond of sensuous Grace is still
wanting. But out of this severity, and the still rude charms of
earlier Art, could proceed the grace of Sophocles, and with it the
complete fusion of the two elements, which leaves us doubtful whether
it is more moral or sensuous Grace that enchants us in the works of
this poet.
The same is true of the plastic productions of the early and severe
style, in comparison with the gentleness of the later.
If Grace, besides being the transfiguration of the spirit of Nature,
is also the medium of connection between moral Goodness and sensuous
Appearance, it is evident how Art must tend from all points toward
it as its centre. This Beauty, which results from the perfect
interpenetration of moral Goodness and sensuous Grace, seizes and
enchants us when we meet it, with the force of a miracle. For, whilst
the spirit of Nature shows itself everywhere else independent of the
Soul, and, indeed, in a measure opposed to it, here, it seems, as if
by voluntary accord, and the inward fire of divine love, to melt into
union with it; the remembrance of the fundamental unity of the essence
of Nature and the essence of the Soul comes over the beholder with
sudden clearness—the conviction that all antagonism is only apparent,
that Love is the bond of all things, and pure Goodness the foundation
and substance of the whole Creation.
Here Art, as it were, transcends itself, and again becomes means only.
On this summit sensuous Grace becomes in turn only the husk and body
of a higher life; what was before a whole is treated as a part, and
the highest relation of Art and Nature is reached in this—that it
makes Nature the medium of manifesting the soul which it contains.
But though in this blossoming of Art, as in the blossoming of the
vegetable kingdom, all the previous stages are repeated, yet, on the
other hand, we may see in what various directions Art can proceed from
this centre. Especially does the difference in nature of the two
forms of Plastic Art here show itself most strongly. For Sculpture,
representing its ideas by corporeal things, seems to reach its highest
point in the complete equilibrium of Soul and Matter—if it give a
preponderance to the latter it sinks below its own idea—but it seems
altogether impossible for it to elevate the Soul at the expense of
Matter, since it must thereby transcend itself. The perfect sculptor
indeed, as Winckelmann remarks apropos of the Belvedere Apollo, will
use no more material than is needful to accomplish his spiritual
purpose; but also, on the other hand, he will put into the Soul no
more energy than is at the same time expressed in the material; for
precisely upon this, fully to embody the spiritual, depends his
art. Sculpture, therefore, can reach its true summit only in the
representation of those natures in whose constitution it is implied
that they actually embody all that is contained in their Idea or Soul;
thus only in divine natures. So that Sculpture, even if no Mythology
had preceded it, would of itself have come upon gods, and have
invented such if it found none.
Moreover as the Spirit, on this lower platform, has again the same
relation to Matter that we have ascribed to the Soul (being the
principle of activity and motion, as Matter is that of rest and
inaction), the law that regulates Expression and Passion must be a
fundamental principle of its nature.
But this law must be applicable not only to the lower passions, but
also equally to those higher and godlike passions, if it is permitted
so to call them, by which the Soul is affected in rapture, in
devotion, in adoration. Hence, since from these passions the gods
alone are exempt, Sculpture is inclined from this side also to the
imaging of divine natures.
The nature of Painting, however, seems to differ entirely from that of
Sculpture. For the former represents objects, not like the latter, by
corporeal things, but by light and color, through a medium therefore
itself incorporeal and in a measure spiritual. Painting, moreover,
gives out its productions nowise as the things themselves, but
expressly as pictures. From its very nature therefore it does not lay
as much stress on the material as Sculpture, and seems indeed for
this reason, while exalting the material above the spirit, to degrade
itself more than Sculpture in a like case; on the other hand to be so
much more justified in giving a clear preponderance to the Soul.
Where it aims at the highest it will indeed ennoble the passions by
Character, or moderate them by Grace, or manifest in them the power of
the Soul: but on the other hand it is precisely those higher passions,
depending on the relationship of the Soul with a Supreme Being, that
are entirely suited to the nature of Painting. Indeed, while Sculpture
maintains an exact balance between the force whereby a thing exists
outwardly and acts in Nature and that by virtue of which it lives
inwardly and as Soul, and excludes mere suffering even from Matter,
Painting may soften in favor of the Soul the characteristicness of the
force and activity in Matter, and transform it into resignation
and endurance, making it apparent that Man becomes more generally
susceptible to the inspirations of the Soul, and to higher influences
in general.
This diametrical difference explains of itself not only the necessary
predominance of Sculpture in the ancient, and of Painting in the
modern world (since in the former the tone of mind was thoroughly
plastic, whereas the latter makes even the Soul the passive instrument
of higher revelations); but this also is evident—that it is
not enough to strive after the Plastic in form and manner of
representation, but that it is requisite, before all, to think and to
feel plastically, that is, antiquely.
And as the deviation of Sculpture into the picturesque is destructive
to Art, so the narrowing down of Painting to the conditions and forms
belonging to Sculpture is an arbitrarily imposed limitation. For while
Sculpture, like gravitation, acts toward one point, it is permitted to
Painting, as to light, to fill all space with its creative energy.
This unlimited universality of Painting is demonstrated by History
itself, and by the examples of the greatest masters, who, without
injury to the essential character of their art, have developed to
perfection each particular stage by itself, so that we can find also
in the history of Art the same sequence that may be pointed out in its
nature—not indeed in exact order of time, but yet substantially. For
thus is represented in Michelangelo the oldest and mightiest epoch of
liberated Art, that in which it displays its yet uncontrolled strength
in gigantic progeny; as in the fables of the symbolic Fore-world, the
Earth, after the embrace of Uranus, brought forth at first Titans and
heaven-storming giants before the mild reign of the serene gods began.
Thus the painting of the Last Judgment, with which, as the sum of his
art, that giant spirit filled the Sistine Chapel, seems to remind
us more of the first ages of the Earth and its products, than of
its last. Attracted toward the most hidden abysses of organic,
particularly of the human form, he shuns not the Terrible; nay,
he seeks it purposely, and startles it from its repose in the dark
workshops of Nature. Want of delicacy, grace, pleasingness, he
balances by the extremest energy; and if he excites horror by his
representations, it is the terror that, according to fable, the
ancient god Pan spreads around him when he suddenly appears in the
assemblies of men.
It is the method of Nature to produce the extraordinary by isolation
and the exclusion of opposed qualities. Thus, it was necessary that,
in Michelangelo, earnestness and the deep significant energy of Nature
should prevail, rather than a sense of the grace and sensibility that
belong to the Soul, in order to display the extreme of pure plastic
force in the painting of modern times.
After the earlier violence and the vehement impulse of birth is
assuaged, the spirit of Nature is transfigured into Soul, and Grace is
born. This point Art reached, after Leonardo da Vinci, in Correggio,
in whose works the sensuous Soul is the active principle of Beauty.
* * * * *
As the modern fable of Psyche closes the circle of the old mythology;
so Painting, by giving a preponderance to the Soul, attained a new,
though not a higher step of Art.
This Guido Reni strove after, and became the proper painter of the
Soul. Such seems to us to be the necessary interpretation of his whole
endeavor, often uncertain, and, in many of his works, losing itself in
the vague.
This is shown, as, perhaps, in few of his other pictures, in the
masterpiece that is offered to the admiration of all in the great
collection of our king.
In the figure of the heavenward-ascending Virgin, all harshness and
sternness are effaced, even to the last trace; and, indeed, does not
Painting itself seem in it to soar upward, transfigured on its own
pinions, as the liberated Psyche delivered from the severity of Form?
Here nothing outward remains, with separate natural force; everything
expresses receptivity and still endurance, even the perishable flesh,
the character of which the Italian language designates by the term
morbidezza, altogether unlike that with which Raphael invests the
descending Queen of Heaven, as she appears to the adoring pope and a
saint.
Though the remark be well-founded, that the original of Guido's female
heads is the Niobe of antiquity, yet the ground of this similarity is
surely no mere intentional imitation; perhaps a like aim led to like
means.
As the Florentine Niobe is an extreme in Sculpture, and the
representation in it of the Soul, so this well-known picture is
an extreme in Painting, which here ventures to lay aside even the
requisite of shade and the obscure, and to work almost with pure
Light.
Even though it might be permitted to Painting, from its peculiar
nature, to give a distinct preponderance to the Soul, yet theory and
instruction will do best constantly to aim at that original Centre,
whence alone Art may be produced ever anew; whereas, at the stage last
mentioned, it must necessarily stand still, or degenerate into cramped
mannerism. For even that higher passion is opposed to the idea of
having reached the acme of energy, whose image and reflex Art is
called upon to display.
A right intelligence will ever enjoy seeing a creature worthily, and,
as far as possible, also individually, represented; yea, Deity itself
would look down with pleasure on a being that, gifted with a pure
soul, should stoutly assert the dignity of its nature outwardly also,
and by its sensually efficient existence.
We have seen how the work of Art, springing up out of the depths of
Nature, begins with determinateness and limitation, unfolds its inward
plenitude and infinity, is finally transfigured in Grace, and at
last attains to Soul. But we can conceive only in detail what, in the
creative act of mature Art, is but one operation. No theory and no
rules can give this spiritual, creative power. It is the pure gift of
Nature, which here, for the second time, makes a close; for, having
fully actualized herself, she invests the creature with her creative
energy. But as, in the grand progress of Art, these different stages
appeared successively, until, at the highest, all joined in one; so
also, in particulars, sound culture can spring up only where it has
unfolded itself regularly from the germ and root to the blossom.
The requirement that Art, like everything living, should commence from
the first rudiments, and, to renew its youth, constantly return
to them, may seem a hard doctrine to an age that has so often
been assured that it has only to take from works of Art already in
existence the most consummate Beauty, and thus, as at a step, to reach
the final goal. Have we not already the Excellent, the Perfect? How
then should we return to the rudimentary and unformed?
Had the great founders of modern Art thought thus, we should never
have seen their miracles. Before them also stood the creations of the
ancients, round statues and works in relief, which they might have
transferred immediately to their canvas. But such an appropriation of
a Beauty not self-won, and therefore unintelligible, would not satisfy
an artistic instinct that aimed throughout at the fundamental, and
from which the Beautiful was again to create itself with free original
energy. They were not afraid, therefore, to appear simple, artless,
dry, beside those exalted ancients; nor to cherish Art for a long time
in the undistinguished bud, until the period of Grace had arrived.
Whence comes it that we still look upon these works of the older
masters, from Giotto to the teacher of Raphael, with a sort of
reverence, indeed with a certain predilection, if not that the
faithfulness of their endeavor, and the grand earnestness of their
serene voluntary limitation, compel our respect and admiration.
The same relation that they held to the ancients, the present
generation holds to them. Their time and ours are joined by no living
transmission, no link of continuous, organic growth; we must reproduce
Art in the way they did, but with energy of our own, in order to be
like them.
Even that Indian-summer of Art, at the end of the sixteenth and the
beginning of the seventeenth centuries, could call forth only a few
new blossoms on the old stem, but no productive germs, still less
plant a new tree of Art. But to set aside the works of perfected
Art, and to seek out its scanty and simple beginnings, as some have
desired, would be a new and perhaps greater mistake; it would be no
real return to the fundamental; simplicity would be affectation, and
grow into hypocritical show.
But what prospect does the present time offer for an Art springing
from a vigorous germ, and growing up from the root? For it is in a
great measure dependent on the character of its time; and who
would promise the approbation of the present time to such earnest
beginnings, when Art, on the one hand, scarcely obtains equal
consideration with other instruments of prodigal luxury, and, on the
other, artists and amateurs, with entire want of ability to grasp
Nature, praise and demand the Ideal?
Art springs only from that powerful striving of the inmost powers of
the heart and the spirit, which we call Inspiration. Everything that
from difficult or small beginnings has grown up to great power and
height, owes its growth to Inspiration. Thus spring empires and
states, thus arts and sciences. But it is not the power of the
individual that accomplishes this, but the Spirit alone, that diffuses
itself over all. For Art especially is dependent on the tone of the
public mind, as the more delicate plants on atmosphere and weather; it
needs a general enthusiasm for Sublimity and Beauty, like that which,
in the time of the Medici, as a warm breath of spring, called forth at
once and together all those great spirits.
* * * * *
It is only when the public life is actuated by the same forces through
whose energy Art is elevated, that the latter can derive any advantage
from it; for Art cannot, without giving up the nobility of its nature,
aim at anything outward.
Art and Science can move only on their own axes; the artist, like
every spiritual laborer, can follow only the law that God and Nature
have written in his heart. None can help him—he must help himself;
nor can he be outwardly rewarded, since anything that he should
produce for the sake of aught out of itself, would thereby become a
nullity; hence, too, no one can direct him, nor prescribe the path
he is to tread. Is he to be pitied if he have to contend against his
time, he is deserving of contempt if he truckle to it. But how
should it be even possible for him to do this? Without great general
enthusiasm there are only sects—no public opinion; not an established
taste, not the great ideas of a whole people, but the voices of a few
arbitrarily-appointed judges, determine as to merit; and Art, which
in its elevation is self-sufficing, courts favor, and serves where it
should rule.
To different ages are given different inspirations. Can we expect none
for this age, since the new world now forming itself, as it exists in
part already outwardly, in part inwardly and in the hearts of men, can
no longer be measured by any standard of previous opinion, and since
everything, on the contrary, loudly demands higher standards and an
entire renovation?
Should not the sense to which Nature and History have more livingly
unfolded themselves, restore to Art also its great arguments? The
attempt to draw sparks from the ashes of the Past, and fan them again
into universal flame, is a vain endeavor. Only a revolution in the
ideas themselves is able to raise Art from its exhaustion; only new
Knowledge, new Faith, can inspire it for the work by which it can
display, in a renewed life, a splendor like the past.
An Art in all respects the same as that of foregoing centuries, will
never return; for Nature never repeats herself. Such a Raphael will
never be again, but another, who shall have reached in an equally
original manner the summit of Art. Only let the fundamental conditions
be fulfilled, and renewed Art will show, like that which preceded
it, in its first works, its aim and intent. In the production of the
distinctly characteristic, if it proceed from a fresh original energy,
Grace is already present, even though hidden, and in both the advent
of the Soul already determined. Works produced in this manner, even in
their rudimentary imperfection, are necessary and eternal. * * *