DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0026
INTRODUCTION
actions could only be attained by a long process of trial and error.’
The portals of Chartres and Rheims were the errors, and it was only
quite recently that the Church had evolved what the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries had tried in vain to produce, the painted, waxen,
simpering bondieuseries of modern Catholicism.
In the face of this entertaining but extravagant hypothesis we must,
I think, be aware that Fry’s theory of the freedom of art was not founded
solely on pure aesthetic experiences. It was, indeed, deeply coloured by
his moral ideas. This interference of moral ideas was never obvious.
He could look with generous detachment at works of art conceived in
a spirit contrary to his beliefs. Morality did not bedaub his judgments,
but tinted them with a subtle transparent glaze which is not the less
important for being almost invisible at the first glance. Let me give
an instance which may seem far-fetched, but which I believe is an im-
portant clue to the workings of his mind. Throughout the following
pages, the reader will find a few terms of abuse recurring whenever an
object meets with the author’s disapproval, and amongst them he will
notice the word ‘finish’. Finish is used as the antithesis of that sensibility
which Fry valued so highly and which he made one of the touchstones
of his enquiry. Now there is no doubt that it is possible to dislike finish
on purely aesthetic grounds. The polishing of a material till all trace of
its true nature or its maker’s hand has been obliterated is one of the
commonest symptoms of bad art; an insistence on detail is the most
familiar proof of a trivial and uncreative mind. But finish may also be
the expression of a heightened intensity; it may be in itself a formal
language in which some moods can find their only possible utterance.
In condemning finish as a whole Fry was influenced by his deep love
of individual freedom. As an artist he himself felt no impulse to finish
and was impatient of the drudgery involved; and so at the back
of his mind was the feeling that all finish was the result either of
stupidity or of slavery, the stupidity of the craftsman who wishes to
conceal his lack of invention, or the slavery of an artist forced by his
vulgar patrons to polish away every trace of his sensibility. For, since
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actions could only be attained by a long process of trial and error.’
The portals of Chartres and Rheims were the errors, and it was only
quite recently that the Church had evolved what the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries had tried in vain to produce, the painted, waxen,
simpering bondieuseries of modern Catholicism.
In the face of this entertaining but extravagant hypothesis we must,
I think, be aware that Fry’s theory of the freedom of art was not founded
solely on pure aesthetic experiences. It was, indeed, deeply coloured by
his moral ideas. This interference of moral ideas was never obvious.
He could look with generous detachment at works of art conceived in
a spirit contrary to his beliefs. Morality did not bedaub his judgments,
but tinted them with a subtle transparent glaze which is not the less
important for being almost invisible at the first glance. Let me give
an instance which may seem far-fetched, but which I believe is an im-
portant clue to the workings of his mind. Throughout the following
pages, the reader will find a few terms of abuse recurring whenever an
object meets with the author’s disapproval, and amongst them he will
notice the word ‘finish’. Finish is used as the antithesis of that sensibility
which Fry valued so highly and which he made one of the touchstones
of his enquiry. Now there is no doubt that it is possible to dislike finish
on purely aesthetic grounds. The polishing of a material till all trace of
its true nature or its maker’s hand has been obliterated is one of the
commonest symptoms of bad art; an insistence on detail is the most
familiar proof of a trivial and uncreative mind. But finish may also be
the expression of a heightened intensity; it may be in itself a formal
language in which some moods can find their only possible utterance.
In condemning finish as a whole Fry was influenced by his deep love
of individual freedom. As an artist he himself felt no impulse to finish
and was impatient of the drudgery involved; and so at the back
of his mind was the feeling that all finish was the result either of
stupidity or of slavery, the stupidity of the craftsman who wishes to
conceal his lack of invention, or the slavery of an artist forced by his
vulgar patrons to polish away every trace of his sensibility. For, since
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