The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Part 23

It thus, in his hands, becomes merely a means of perpetrating something further, and its mission is made a secondary one, even as a means is second to an end.

The thoughts emphasised, n.o.ble or other, are inevitably attached to the incident, and become more or less n.o.ble, according to the eloquence or mental quality of the writer, who looks the while, with disdain, upon what he holds as "mere execution"--a matter belonging, he believes, to the training of the schools, and the reward of a.s.siduity. So that, as he goes on with his translation from canvas to paper, the work becomes his own. He finds poetry where he would feel it were he himself transcribing the event, invention in the intricacy of the _mise en scene_, and n.o.ble philosophy in some detail of philanthropy, courage, modesty, or virtue, suggested to him by the occurrence.

All this might be brought before him, and his imagination be appealed to, by a very poor picture--indeed, I might safely say that it generally is.

Meanwhile, the _painter's_ poetry is quite lost to him--the amazing invention that shall have put form and colour into such perfect harmony, that exquisiteness is the result, he is without understanding--the n.o.bility of thought, that shall have given the artist's dignity to the whole, says to him absolutely nothing.

So that his praises are published, for virtues we would blush to possess--while the great qualities, that distinguish the one work from the thousand, that make of the masterpiece the thing of beauty that it is--have never been seen at all.

That this is so, we can make sure of, by looking back at old reviews upon past exhibitions, and reading the flatteries lavished upon men who have since been forgotten altogether--but, upon whose works, the language has been exhausted, in rhapsodies--that left nothing for the National Gallery.

A curious matter, in its effect upon the judgment of these gentlemen, is the accepted vocabulary of poetic symbolism, that helps them, by habit, in dealing with Nature: a mountain, to them, is synonymous with height--a lake, with depth--the ocean, with vastness--the sun, with glory.

So that a picture with a mountain, a lake, and an ocean--however poor in paint--is inevitably "lofty," "vast," "infinite," and "glorious"--on paper.

There are those also, sombre of mien, and wise with the wisdom of books, who frequent museums and burrow in crypts; collecting--comparing--compiling--cla.s.sifying--contradicting.

Experts these--for whom a date is an accomplishment--a hall mark, success!

Careful in scrutiny are they, and conscientious of judgment--establishing, with due weight, unimportant reputations--discovering the picture, by the stain on the back--testing the torso, by the leg that is missing--filling folios with doubts on the way of that limb--disputatious and dictatorial, concerning the birthplace of inferior persons--speculating, in much writing, upon the great worth of bad work.

True clerks of the collection, they mix memoranda with ambition, and, reducing Art to statistics, they "file" the fifteenth century, and "pigeon-hole" the antique!

Then the Preacher "appointed"!

He stands in high places--harangues and holds forth.

Sage of the Universities--learned in many matters, and of much experience in all, save his subject.

Exhorting--denouncing--directing.

Filled with wrath and earnestness.

Bringing powers of persuasion, and polish of language, to prove--nothing.

Torn with much teaching--having naught to impart.

Impressive--important--shallow.

Defiant--distressed--desperate.

Crying out, and cutting himself--while the G.o.ds hear not.

Gentle priest of the Philistine withal, again he ambles pleasantly from all point, and through many volumes, escaping scientific a.s.sertion--"babbles of green fields."

So Art has become foolishly confounded with education--that all should be equally qualified.

Whereas, while polish, refinement, culture, and breeding, are in no way arguments for artistic result, it is also no reproach to the most finished scholar or greatest gentleman in the land that he be absolutely without eye for painting or ear for music--that in his heart he prefer the popular print to the scratch of Rembrandt's needle, or the songs of the hall to Beethoven's "C minor Symphony."

Let him have but the wit to say so, and not feel the admission a proof of inferiority.

Art happens--no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coa.r.s.e farce.

This is as it should be--and all attempts to make it otherwise are due to the eloquence of the ignorant, the zeal of the conceited.

The boundary line is clear. Far from me to propose to bridge it over--that the pestered people be pushed across. No! I would save them from further fatigue. I would come to their relief, and would lift from their shoulders this incubus of Art.

Why, after centuries of freedom from it, and indifference to it, should it now be thrust upon them by the blind--until wearied and puzzled, they know no longer how they shall eat or drink--how they shall sit or stand--or wherewithal they shall clothe themselves--without afflicting Art.

But, lo! there is much talk without!

Triumphantly they cry, "Beware! This matter does indeed concern us. We also have our part in all true Art!--for, remember the 'one touch of Nature' that 'makes the whole world kin.'"

True, indeed. But let not the unwary jauntily suppose that Shakespeare herewith hands him his pa.s.sport to Paradise, and thus permits him speech among the chosen. Rather, learn that, in this very sentence, he is condemned to remain without--to continue with the common.

This one chord that vibrates with all--this "one touch of Nature" that calls aloud to the response of each--that explains the popularity of the "Bull" of Paul Potter--that excuses the price of Murillo's "Conception"--this one unspoken sympathy that pervades humanity, is--Vulgarity!

Vulgarity--under whose fascinating influence "the many" have elbowed "the few," and the gentle circle of Art swarms with the intoxicated mob of mediocrity, whose leaders prate and counsel, and call aloud, where the G.o.ds once spoke in whisper!

And now from their midst the Dilettante stalks abroad. The amateur is loosed. The voice of the aesthete is heard in the land, and catastrophe is upon us.

The meddler beckons the vengeance of the G.o.ds, and ridicule threatens the fair daughters of the land.

And there are curious converts to a weird _culte_, in which all instinct for attractiveness--all freshness and sparkle--all woman's winsomeness--is to give way to a strange vocation for the unlovely--and this desecration in the name of the Graces!

Shall this gaunt, ill-at-ease, distressed, abashed mixture of _mauvaise honte_ and desperate a.s.sertion call itself artistic, and claim cousinship with the artist--who delights in the dainty, the sharp, bright gaiety of beauty?

No!--a thousand times no! Here are no connections of ours.

We will have nothing to do with them.

Forced to seriousness, that emptiness may be hidden, they dare not smile--

While the artist, in fulness of heart and head, is glad, and laughs aloud, and is happy in his strength, and is merry at the pompous pretension--the solemn silliness that surrounds him.

For Art and Joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand--fearing naught, and dreading no exposure.

Know, then, all beautiful women, that we are with you. Pay no heed, we pray you, to this outcry of the unbecoming--this last plea for the plain.