DOI article:
John Galsworthy, Vague Thoughts on Art [reprint from Fortnightly Review (London), February 1912; Atlantic Monthly, April 1912; The Inn of Tranquility by John Galsworthy, 1912]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31217#0041
A manually made transcription or edition is also available for this page. Please change to the tab "transrciption" or "edition."
spection causes discomfort, and disturbs the grooves of action. But to say
that the object of the realist is to enlighten rather than to delight, is not to say
that in his art the realist is not amusing himself as much as ever is the teller
of a fairy-tale, though he does not deliberately start out to do so; he is amusing,
too, a large part of mankind. For, admitted that the object and the test of
Art is the awakening of vibration, of impersonal emotion, it is still usually
forgotten that men fall, roughly speaking, into two flocks—those whose intel-
ligence is uninquiring in the face of Art, and does not demand to be appeased
before their emotions can be stirred; and those who, having a speculative bent
of mind, must first be satisfied by the enlightening quality in a work of Art
before that work of Art can make them feel at all. The audience of the realist
is drawn from this latter type of man; the much larger audience of the romantic
artist from the former; together with, in both cases, those fastidious few for
whom all Art is style and only style, and who welcome either kind so long as
it is good enough.
To me, then—I thought—this division into Realism and Romance, so
understood, is the main cleavage in all the Arts; but it is hard to find pure
examples of either kind. For even the most determined realist has more than
a streak in him of the romanticist, and the most resolute romanticist finds it
impossible at times to be quite unreal. Correggio, Guido Reni, Watteau,
Leighton—were they not perhaps somewhat pure romanticists; Leonardo,
Rembrandt, Hogarth, Watts—mainly realist; and Botticelli, Titian, Raphael,
a blend of both. Dumas pere, and Scott, surely romantic; Flaubert and
Tolstoy as surely realists; Dickens and Cervantes, blended. Keats and
Swinburne—romantic; Browning and Whitman—realistic; Shakespeare and
Goethe, both. The Greek dramatists—realists. The Arabian Nights and
Malory—romantic. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Old Testament, both
realism and romance. But how thin often is the hedge! And how poor a
business the partisan abuse of either kind of art in a world where each sort of
mind has full right to its own due expression, and grumbling lawful only when
due expression is not attained. One man may not care for a Rembrandt
portrait of a plain old woman; a graceful Watteau decoration may leave
another cold; but foolish will he be who denies that both are faithful to their
conceiving moods, and so proportioned part to part, and part to whole, as to
have, each in its own way, that inherent rhythm or vitality which is the hall-
mark of Art. He is but a poor philosopher who holds a view so narrow as to
exclude forms not to his personal taste. No realist can love romantic Art so
much as he loves his own, but when that Art fulfils the laws of its peculiar being,
if he would be no blind partisan, he must admit it. The romanticist will never
be amused by realism, but let him not for that reason be so parochial as to
think that realism, when it achieves vitality, is not Art. Art is but the per-
fected expression of self in contact with the world; whether that self be of
enlightening, or of fairy-telling temperament, is of no moment whatever. The
tossing of abuse from realist to romanticist and back is but the sword-play of
two one-eyed men with their blind side turned towards each other. Shall not
that the object of the realist is to enlighten rather than to delight, is not to say
that in his art the realist is not amusing himself as much as ever is the teller
of a fairy-tale, though he does not deliberately start out to do so; he is amusing,
too, a large part of mankind. For, admitted that the object and the test of
Art is the awakening of vibration, of impersonal emotion, it is still usually
forgotten that men fall, roughly speaking, into two flocks—those whose intel-
ligence is uninquiring in the face of Art, and does not demand to be appeased
before their emotions can be stirred; and those who, having a speculative bent
of mind, must first be satisfied by the enlightening quality in a work of Art
before that work of Art can make them feel at all. The audience of the realist
is drawn from this latter type of man; the much larger audience of the romantic
artist from the former; together with, in both cases, those fastidious few for
whom all Art is style and only style, and who welcome either kind so long as
it is good enough.
To me, then—I thought—this division into Realism and Romance, so
understood, is the main cleavage in all the Arts; but it is hard to find pure
examples of either kind. For even the most determined realist has more than
a streak in him of the romanticist, and the most resolute romanticist finds it
impossible at times to be quite unreal. Correggio, Guido Reni, Watteau,
Leighton—were they not perhaps somewhat pure romanticists; Leonardo,
Rembrandt, Hogarth, Watts—mainly realist; and Botticelli, Titian, Raphael,
a blend of both. Dumas pere, and Scott, surely romantic; Flaubert and
Tolstoy as surely realists; Dickens and Cervantes, blended. Keats and
Swinburne—romantic; Browning and Whitman—realistic; Shakespeare and
Goethe, both. The Greek dramatists—realists. The Arabian Nights and
Malory—romantic. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Old Testament, both
realism and romance. But how thin often is the hedge! And how poor a
business the partisan abuse of either kind of art in a world where each sort of
mind has full right to its own due expression, and grumbling lawful only when
due expression is not attained. One man may not care for a Rembrandt
portrait of a plain old woman; a graceful Watteau decoration may leave
another cold; but foolish will he be who denies that both are faithful to their
conceiving moods, and so proportioned part to part, and part to whole, as to
have, each in its own way, that inherent rhythm or vitality which is the hall-
mark of Art. He is but a poor philosopher who holds a view so narrow as to
exclude forms not to his personal taste. No realist can love romantic Art so
much as he loves his own, but when that Art fulfils the laws of its peculiar being,
if he would be no blind partisan, he must admit it. The romanticist will never
be amused by realism, but let him not for that reason be so parochial as to
think that realism, when it achieves vitality, is not Art. Art is but the per-
fected expression of self in contact with the world; whether that self be of
enlightening, or of fairy-telling temperament, is of no moment whatever. The
tossing of abuse from realist to romanticist and back is but the sword-play of
two one-eyed men with their blind side turned towards each other. Shall not
