International studio (54.1914/1915)

Inspiration and Divagation

INSPIRATION AND DIVAGATION
BY WILLIAM WALTON
It is known that even axioms, like other
fine things, through no fault of their own,
have a way of slipping occasionally out of the care-
less mind of the general public, and it then be-
comes a duty to recall them. In the present con-
dition of contemporary art, at home and abroad,
it seems to be as well to call attention occasionally
to the regrettable fact (universally known) that
professing an enthusiastic allegiance to the tradi-
tional great truths of art—now sometimes noisily
flouted—does not necessarily ensure artistic salva-
tion. Anything that would even seem to impair
the authority of these first principles is perhaps
unfortunate—but we may not shut our eyes to
things as they are. So that when one who is
generally accepted as a leader of men wanders off
into the darkness carrying the light in his hand, it is
time for an alarm. There will be only too many
to accept his leadership in any direction without
reflection—the great multitude of the unthinking
does not diminish with the progress of the ages.
The woolly sheep who follow the bell-wether if
only this bell be resonant are past counting.
Certain artists, through force of their genius or
the wide-spread influence they exert upon other
workers in their particular art, or the extensive
human interest they awaken—become interna-
tional. It did not need the collection of numerous
important examples of Rodin’s sculpture in the
Metropolitan and other museums of art and in
some private galleries to establish in this country
for him an authority, an emotion and curiosity,
probably greater than any vouchsafed to any one
of the native sculptors. It does not appear to be
generally known, however, that he is not one of
men limited to a single mode of expression, articu-
late or inarticulate, not one of those who—in his
own words, “however intelligent they may be,
appear shallow and dull, simply because they have
not that facility of speech and reply which, for the
casual observer, is the only evidence of acute-
ness.” Both of Sir Oliver Lodge’s methods of
carrying on “intelligent intercourse with our fel-
lows” are open to him, “by a timed succession of
vibratory movements (as in speech and music), or
by a static distribution of materials (as in writing,
painting and sculpture).” Indeed, his facility in
the first of these methods may be matter of sur-
prise to many who are not entirely converted by
his output in the second. Of making discourses

on “ art ” there is no end, but for eloquence, intelli-
gence and general truthfulness there are few which
excel his brief ode in prose to the Venus of Melos,
or the much longer and more exhaustive report of
numerous confidential interviews with him by one
of his admirers, M. Paul Gaell. The most wearied
reader finds a new interest awakened in him by
many of these passages, in which the old wine
sparkles more clearly in the new bottles. “Art,”
records M. Gaell, “art, it is contemplation. It is
the pleasure experienced by the mind when it
penetrates nature and when it discovers in her
the spirit with which it is itself animated. It is
the joy of the intelligence which sees clearly in the
universe and which recreates it in illuminating it
with consciousness. Art, it is the most sublime
mission of man, since it is the exercise of thought
which seeks to comprehend the world and to make
it comprehended by others.”
The two men were standing before a cast of the
Fates of the Parthenon in his studio. “It is only
three women, seated,” said the sculptor, “but
their pose is so serene, so august, that they seem
to participate in something immense which we
may not see. Above them reigns, in fact, the
great mystery, the Reason, immaterial, eternal,
whom all Nature obeys and of whom they are
themselves the celestial servitors. Thus do all the
great masters advance as far as the reserved
enclosure of the Unknowable. Some of them
crush their countenances lamentably against this
wall; others, whose imagination is more lightsome,
think that they hear, over the wall, the song of the
melodious birds who people this secret orchard.”
In his little tribute to the Venus: “The antique
and nature are bound by the same mystery. The
antique—it is the human workman arrived at a
supreme degree of mastery. But Nature is above
him. The mystery of Nature is even more unsolv-
able than that of genius. The glory of the antique
is in having understood Nature.
“0, Venus of Melos, the prodigious sculptor
that fashioned you knew how to make the thrill of
that generous Nature flow in you, the thrill of life
itself. O, Venus, arch of the triumph of life, bridge
of truth, circle of grace!”
From all this he deduces naturally the duty
of the artist: “The lines and the shades and tones
are for us only the outward signs of the hidden
realities. Beyond the surface our regard plunges
deep to the spirit within, and when, later, we
reproduce the contours, we enrich them with the
spiritual contents which they envelope. The artist
worthy of that name should express all the truth

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