International studio (14.1901)

Reviews of Books

being overshadowed not only by the greed of the
materialist, but by the fondness of socialism and
philanthropy.

“While no one asks for beauty none will be
found; but to those who knock with importunity,
the gate of her garden never remains fast closed.
Effort should be led aside from the mere mill-work
of material production and directed towards the
true goal of humanity, virtue, and beauty. It is
because the traditions of life in early ages did this
that there then were living art traditions and not
merely isolated artists.

“ Among those who desire aesthetic advance, the
arch enemy of progress is the pretention that Beauty
has been found in this or that popular resort, where
people plume themselves on being her friends, or
her guests, who have never even dreamed of air
so bracing as is that which she must breathe or
languish.

“ Great need then is ours to plunge back into
the past, and refresh ourselves with contemplation
of conditions that allowed art a national or at least
urban importance.”

This is the thought to which Mr. Moore is urged
by a consideration of Altdorfer. It is a fine thought,
and well it is that opportunity is seized to make
new occasion both for its expression and insist-
ence. But after all is said and done, it is but an
imperfect thought. Or, rather, it is but one thought
of a mighty mother of thoughts which a philosophic
contemplation of art invokes. The trouble is that
the specialist in any department of human activity,
and with him the specialist critic of that depart-
ment, takes the part for the whole, —and the whole
is greater than its part. Art is less than life. It
may be that Mr. Sturge Moore is absolutely right
in insisting that Art should reveal beauty; but even
that purpose is yet subservient to the purpose for
which beauty shall be revealed. There is another
arch enemy to progress in addition to the preten-
sion “ that Beauty has been found in this or that pop-
ular resort,” and that arch enemy is the pretension
that Beauty can be found only in this or that sphere
of human activity. Just as in each religion or cult
we find the claim to special revelations of the Spirit
of the universe, so do we find in each exposition
of formalized effort the claim to revelations that
abide not our questionings.

Who shall deny the possibility of a revelation of
Beauty in the potentialities of steam, if we permit
it in the clouds? Do we grant such Beauty in the
flowing of the many waters of Niagara, and deny it
to the marvellous embodiment of human thought as
revealed in the Power House, which can capture
the energy of such waters and make it serve as
pillars of fire by night, even as the Spirit of Beauty
has made it serve for pillars of cloud by day?

May we only find the beautiful in the lightning
riving the black thunder-clouds, and not in silent
flowings of the subtle fluid through the depths of
ocean or across almost limitless spaces of air? But,
Mr. Moore may urge, these are not art. Art is
a special form of human activity, the only pur-

xii

pose of which is to elevate by revealing beauty.
The answer to this is a question — What is Beauty?
And to this question Mr. Moore gives no reply.

Mr. Moore urges that “ the atmosphere main-
tained by racial traditions has become, as a rule,
almost entirely engrossed by the mere machinery of
society.” He thinks that the struggle for existence
occupies so much of our time that none is left
either for the desire for beauty or for its apprecia-
tion. Now to put it thus is to overstate an esti-
mate of modern movements in order to give greater
prominence to an under-statement or to a partial
statement of ancient movements. The “mere ma-
chinery of society,” the struggle for existence, the
insistence on the bare fact of living, have been
as much in evidence in the past as they are now.
Indeed, it is because of these struggles for bare
life that art may be said to owe its deepest revela-
tions ; for art is a result of a conflict, — the conflict
that gives meaning to virtue also. It is the expres-
sion of the conquest of the human mind over the
seemingly meaningless appearances of nature,— the
objectified solution of the riddle of apparently un-
related phenomena, — the revelation of the unity
between the separated facts of existence, and hence
the revealing of Beauty. What is it in Beauty that
holds all its beholders in spell? It is the homage
of the soul towards the Unknown. Beauty is the
one touchstone that draws all alike, irrespective of
traditions of race or education. It is inexpressible,
and yet is the source of all expression. It is the
philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, for which all
true seekers are forever searching. How best to
fashion what insight is vouchsafed us is the good
work ; and this good work is being done to-day in
just the same spirit as it was done in the days of
Botticelli, Titian, Cellini, Raphael, Michaelangelo,
and the rest.

Revelations have never been special, nor have
they been confined to any particular age or clime.
There is as much revelation to-day as there ever
has been. Nay, we might even say, there is more
to-day ; for we are knocking more frequently at
the door of the House of Beauty.

There is always “great need ... to plunge back
into the past,” because there is always courage and
joy to be obtained from a study of the mighty
travails of mighty men and their victories. We care
not a rap for the “contemplation of conditions that
allowed art a national or at least urban impor-
tance;” but we do care a greal deal for the men
who fought and conquered, who worked and real-
ized, in spite of conditions. For these are the men
who give us courage and teach us how to avoid
mistakes. And yet we make mistakes now just as
they did then. In truth, the attempt to reveal
beauty, like the attempt to name the unnameable,
must always result in differences of expression, and
with the most expert of us always be unsatisfying.
But the attempt that is made for the sake of making
it will never be without some of the shining light
that visits the face of him who has wrestled with
the angel, and has overcome him. T. S.