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#0042
A manually made transcription or edition is also available for this page. Please change to the tab "transrciption" or "edition."
each attempt at Art be judged on its own merits ? If found not shoddy, faked,
or forced, but true to itself, true to its conceiving mood, and fair-proportioned
part to whole, so that it lives—then, realistic or romantic, in the name of fair-
ness let it pass! For of all kinds of human energy, Art is the most free, the
least parochial, and demands of us an essential tolerance of all its forms. Shall
we, then, waste breath and ink in condemnation of artists because their
temperaments are not our own?
But the shapes and colors of the day were now all blurred; every tree
and stone entangled in the dusk. How different the world seemed from that
in which I had first sat down, with the swallows flitting past. And my mood
was different, for each of those worlds had brought to my heart its proper
feeling—painted on my eyes the just picture. And Night, that was coming,
would bring me yet another mood that would frame itself with consciousness
at its own fair moment, and hang before me. A quiet owl stole by in the field
below and vanished into the heart of a tree. And suddenly above the moor-
line I saw the large moon rising. Cinnamon-colored, it made all things swim,
made me uncertain of my thoughts, vague with a mazy feeling. Shapes
seemed but drifts of moon-dust, and true reality nothing save a sort of still
listening to the wind. And for long I sat, just watching the moon creep up,
and hearing the thin, dry rustle of the leaves along the holly hedge. And there
came to me this thought: What is this Universe—that never had beginning
and will never have an end—but a myriad striving to perfect pictures never
the same, so blending and fading one into another that all form one great
perfected picture. And what are we—ripples on the tides of a birthless, death-
less, equipoised Creative Purpose—but little works of Art?
But trying to record that thought, I noticed that my notebook was damp
with dew. The cattle were lying down. It was too dark to see.
John Galsworthy.
26
or forced, but true to itself, true to its conceiving mood, and fair-proportioned
part to whole, so that it lives—then, realistic or romantic, in the name of fair-
ness let it pass! For of all kinds of human energy, Art is the most free, the
least parochial, and demands of us an essential tolerance of all its forms. Shall
we, then, waste breath and ink in condemnation of artists because their
temperaments are not our own?
But the shapes and colors of the day were now all blurred; every tree
and stone entangled in the dusk. How different the world seemed from that
in which I had first sat down, with the swallows flitting past. And my mood
was different, for each of those worlds had brought to my heart its proper
feeling—painted on my eyes the just picture. And Night, that was coming,
would bring me yet another mood that would frame itself with consciousness
at its own fair moment, and hang before me. A quiet owl stole by in the field
below and vanished into the heart of a tree. And suddenly above the moor-
line I saw the large moon rising. Cinnamon-colored, it made all things swim,
made me uncertain of my thoughts, vague with a mazy feeling. Shapes
seemed but drifts of moon-dust, and true reality nothing save a sort of still
listening to the wind. And for long I sat, just watching the moon creep up,
and hearing the thin, dry rustle of the leaves along the holly hedge. And there
came to me this thought: What is this Universe—that never had beginning
and will never have an end—but a myriad striving to perfect pictures never
the same, so blending and fading one into another that all form one great
perfected picture. And what are we—ripples on the tides of a birthless, death-
less, equipoised Creative Purpose—but little works of Art?
But trying to record that thought, I noticed that my notebook was damp
with dew. The cattle were lying down. It was too dark to see.
John Galsworthy.
26
