DOI article:
Maurice Maeterlinck, I Believe
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31745#0009
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BELIEVE that here are observable the first steps,
still somewhat hesitating but already significant,
toward an important evolution. Art has held
itself aloof from the great movement, which for
half a century has engrossed all forms of human
activity in profitably exploiting the natural forces
that fill heaven and earth. Instead of calling to
his aid the enormous forces ever ready to serve
the wants of the world, as an assistance in those mechanical and
unnecessarily fatiguing portions of his labor, the artist has remained
true to processes which are primitive, traditional, narrow, small,
egotistical, and overscrupulous, and thus has lost the better part of
his time and energy. These processes date from the days when
man believed himself alone in the universe, confronted by innu-
merable enemies. Little by little he discovers that these innumera-
ble enemies were but allies and mysterious slaves of man which had
not been taught to serve him. Man, to-day, is on the point of
realizing that everything around him begs to be allowed to come
to his assistance, and is ever ready to work with him and for him,
if he will but make his wishes understood. This glad message is
daily spreading more widely through all the domains of human
intelligence. The artist alone, moved by a sort of superannuated
pride, has refused to listen to the modern voice. He reminds one
of one of those unhappy solitary weavers, still to be found in
remote parts of the country, who, though weighed down by the
misery of poverty and useless fatigue, yet absolutely continues to
weave coarse fabric by an antiquated and obsolete method, and this
although but a few steps from his cabin are to be found the power
of the torrent, of coal and of wind, which offer to do twenty
times in one hour the work which cost him a long month of
slavery, and to do it better.
It is already many years since the sun revealed to us its power
to portray objects and beings more quickly and more accurately than
can pencil or crayon. It seemed to work only its own way and at
its own pleasure. At first man was restricted to making permanent
that which the impersonal and unsympathetic light had registered.
He had not yet been permitted to imbue it with thought. But to-
day it seems that thought has found a fissure through which to
penetrate the mystery of this anonymous force, invade it, subjugate it,
animate it, and compel it to say such things as have not yet been said
in all the realm of chiaroscuro, of grace, of beauty and of truth.
Maurice Maeterlinck.
still somewhat hesitating but already significant,
toward an important evolution. Art has held
itself aloof from the great movement, which for
half a century has engrossed all forms of human
activity in profitably exploiting the natural forces
that fill heaven and earth. Instead of calling to
his aid the enormous forces ever ready to serve
the wants of the world, as an assistance in those mechanical and
unnecessarily fatiguing portions of his labor, the artist has remained
true to processes which are primitive, traditional, narrow, small,
egotistical, and overscrupulous, and thus has lost the better part of
his time and energy. These processes date from the days when
man believed himself alone in the universe, confronted by innu-
merable enemies. Little by little he discovers that these innumera-
ble enemies were but allies and mysterious slaves of man which had
not been taught to serve him. Man, to-day, is on the point of
realizing that everything around him begs to be allowed to come
to his assistance, and is ever ready to work with him and for him,
if he will but make his wishes understood. This glad message is
daily spreading more widely through all the domains of human
intelligence. The artist alone, moved by a sort of superannuated
pride, has refused to listen to the modern voice. He reminds one
of one of those unhappy solitary weavers, still to be found in
remote parts of the country, who, though weighed down by the
misery of poverty and useless fatigue, yet absolutely continues to
weave coarse fabric by an antiquated and obsolete method, and this
although but a few steps from his cabin are to be found the power
of the torrent, of coal and of wind, which offer to do twenty
times in one hour the work which cost him a long month of
slavery, and to do it better.
It is already many years since the sun revealed to us its power
to portray objects and beings more quickly and more accurately than
can pencil or crayon. It seemed to work only its own way and at
its own pleasure. At first man was restricted to making permanent
that which the impersonal and unsympathetic light had registered.
He had not yet been permitted to imbue it with thought. But to-
day it seems that thought has found a fissure through which to
penetrate the mystery of this anonymous force, invade it, subjugate it,
animate it, and compel it to say such things as have not yet been said
in all the realm of chiaroscuro, of grace, of beauty and of truth.
Maurice Maeterlinck.
