Section 1. Greek Art an Expression of National Life.
In approaching the subject of the Art of the Greeks we come to what, more plausibly than any other, may be regarded as the central point of their scheme of life. We have already noticed, in dealing with other topics, how constantly the aesthetic point of view emerges and predominates in matters with which, in the modern way of looking at things, it appears to have no direct and natural connection. We saw, for example, how inseparable in their religion was the element of ritual and ceremony from that of idea; how in their ethical conceptions the primary notion was that of beauty; how they aimed throughout at a perfect balance of body and soul, and more generally, in every department, at an expression of the inner by the outer so complete and perfect that the conception of a separation of the two became almost as impossible to their thought as it would have been unpleasing and discordant to their feeling. Now such a point of view is, in fact, that of art; and philosophers of history have been amply justified in characterising the whole Greek epoch as pre-eminently that of Beauty.
But if this be a true way of regarding the matter, we should expect to find that art and beauty had, for the Greeks, a very wide and complex significance. There is a view of art, and it is one that appears to be prevalent in our own time, which sets it altogether outside the general trend of national life and ideas; which asserts that it has no connection with ethics, religion, politics, or any of the general conceptions which regulate action and thought; that its end is in itself, and is simply beauty; and that in beauty there is no distinction of high or low, no preference of one kind above another. Art thus conceived is, in the first place, purely subjective in character; the artist alone is the standard, and any phase or mood of his, however exceptional, personal and transitory, is competent to produce a work of art as satisfying and as great as one whose inspiration was drawn from a nation's life, reflecting its highest moments, and its most universal aspirations and ideals; so that, for example, a butterfly drawn by Mr. Whistler would rank as high, say, as the Parthenon. And in the second place, in this view of art, the subject is a matter of absolute indifference. The standards of ordinary life, ethical or other, do not apply; there is no better or worse, but only a more or less beautiful; and the representation of a music-hall stage or a public house bar may be as great and perfect a work of art as the Venus of Milo or the Madonna of Raphael.
This theory, which arises naturally and perhaps inevitably in an age where national life has degenerated into materialism and squalor, and the artist feels himself a stranger in a world of Philistines, we need not here pause to examine and criticise. It has been mentioned merely to illustrate by contrast the Greek view, which was diametrically opposed to this, and valued art in proportion as it represented in perfect form the highest and most comprehensive aspects of the national ideal.
To say this, is not, of course, to say that the Greek conception of art was didactic; for the word didactic, when applied to art, has usually the implication that the excellence of the moral is the only point to be considered, and that if that is good the work itself must be good. This idea does indeed occur in Greek thought—we find it, for example, paradoxically enough, in so great an artist as Plato—but if it had been the one which really determined their production, there would have been no occasion to write this chapter, for there would have been no Greek art to write about. The truer account of the impulse that urged them to create is that given also by Plato in an earlier and more impassioned work, in which he describes it as a "madness of those who are possessed by the Muses; which enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical and all other numbers; with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of posterity. But he who having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art—he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman." [Footnote: Plato, Phaedrus, 245a.—Translated by Jowett.]
The presupposition, in fact, of all that can be said about the Greek view of art, is that primarily and to begin with they were, by nature, artists. Judged simply by the aesthetic standard, without any consideration of subject matter at all, or any reference to intellectual or ethical ideals, they created works of art more purely beautiful than those of any other age or people. Their mere household crockery, their common pots and pans, are cast in shapes so exquisitely graceful, and painted in designs so admirably drawn and composed, that any one of them has a higher artistic value than the whole contents of the Royal Academy; and the little clay figures they used as we do china ornaments put to shame the most ambitious efforts of modern sculpture. Who, for example, would not rather look at a Tanagra statuette than at the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington?
The Greeks, in fact, quite apart from any theories they may have held, were artists through and through; and that is a fact we must carry with us through the whole of our discussion.