By the time Turner was seventy years of age his bodily infirmities prevented him from visiting Switzerland. For a year or two we find him haunting the coast of Normandy, about Dieppe, Eu and Ambleteuse. Then he is unable to cross the Channel. For a short season he flits about Sussex and Kent—at Folkestone, Margate, Deal, and Sandwich—and then there is silence.
CHAPTER IX
CONCLUSION
The distinction between Art Criticism and Aesthetic—The aim of this chapter—Art and physical fact—The ‘common-sense’ conception of landscape art as evidence of fact—The relation of Art and Nature—Mr. Ruskin’s treatment of this subject—He distinguishes (a) physical fact and (b) the artist’s thoughts and feelings about these facts, yet maintains that the representation of (a) is equivalent to the expression of (b)—His confusion of Nature and Mind exemplified in his remarks on the ‘Pass of Faïdo’—Art as the organ of Beauty implies that the dualism of Nature and Mind is transcended—Nature is neither given nor immediate—Art therefore cannot copy nature—What does art represent?—An individualised psychical content present to the mind of the artist—Classification of Turner’s sketches and studies from the point of view of their logical content—The difference between (1) Studies of particular objects, (2) Drawings from nature, and (3) Works of art proper—The logical reference of a work of art—The assertions in a work of art do not directly qualify the ordinary world of reality, but an imaginary world specially constructed for the artist’s purpose—The ideal of complete definition—Yet the content must determine the form—Plea for a dynamic or physiological study of artistic forms.
WE have been engaged thus far upon a genuinely inductive investigation, upon a voyage of discovery, and not upon a dogmatic exposition of ultimate aesthetic principles. Our general aim has been to study the processes of artistic expression, but to study them as we find them in definite concrete instances. Moreover, the nature of our subject-matter rendered it necessary to keep faithful to the point of view of art criticism. We were dealing with particular works of art, and to leave them while we plunged into general questions of aesthetic would hardly have been polite. But, as I have ventured to observe before, though art criticism and general aesthetic can be distinguished they cannot be rigidly separated. Aesthetic without close conversance with the concrete subject-matter of art criticism is necessarily loose and empty, while art criticism without a firm grasp of the broad principles of beauty easily degenerates into casuistry or a useless and rather despicable form of self-assertion. And however much we try to keep questions of principle apart from our estimation and study of particular works of art, we are bound inevitably to fail. We can begin as it were at either end of the scale, we can busy ourselves with the one or with the many, but before we have gone very far we are bound to realise that we are concerned with exactly the same problems. The distinction of art criticism from aesthetic is merely one of convenience and degree.
In all that has gone before we have been concerned with the fundamental problems of aesthetic, though we have not treated them directly. In all that we have written a more or less definite and consistent answer to these problems has been implied. In this final chapter, therefore, I propose to draw out as well as I can some of the more general results of our observations and analyses, or rather to endeavour to state in a more general form the laws of artistic expression and action which we have discovered. The ultimate aim of art criticism, as I understand it, is to grasp and render intelligible the whole region of artistic activity, and I cannot but think that it will facilitate our grasp of the wider laws of artistic phenomena, as well as help to consolidate or disprove the results of our detailed observations, if I make an attempt to render explicit what has only been implied in our remarks upon particular concrete instances.
I will begin by calling attention to a fact that has been repeatedly forced upon our notice. Though our attention has been mainly fixed upon Turner’s studies and sketches from nature, we have never come into direct contact with the plain physical reality which, according to the invariable usage of common-sense, it is the mission of art to represent. Common-sense tells us that the ‘subject’ of every landscape painting is a group of physical realities—the fields, rivers, mountains, trees, houses, etc., in such and such a place, together with their invariable physical accompaniments, the air and any particular effect of light and weather that the artist may choose to select. Our analysis has invariably shown us that the slightest sketch—much more then a fully organised work of art!—is something more than and something radically different from a mere representation of such physical constituents. The physical objects are indeed portrayed, but when we have recognised this touch of colour or that shape as the representation of this or that natural fact, we have not exhausted the meaning of the artist’s work. This recognition is nothing more than what I may call the plain dictionary meaning of the words the artist has chosen to employ. It is not till we have gone on to grasp the special significance of the order in which these elements have been grouped, that we really begin to come into contact with the work of art itself. As we cannot interpret the meaning of the simplest sentence unless we give due weight to its grammatical construction, so with a picture we must take into consideration what I can only call the grammatical construction and distinctions proper to pictorial expression. When we penetrate in this way to the real significance of any of Turner’s works we find we have been brought into contact with the artist’s thoughts and emotions. We start, as it were, with trees and rocks and physical details, which, as such, are independent of man and indifferent if not actually hostile to human hopes and fears, joys and sorrows; and we end by finding that our so-called physical facts are but elements in a definitely organised whole of thought and feeling. We seem to start with natural facts, and they change under our hands into the symbols of mere ideas and emotions.
Our whole conception of the scope and possibilities of art turns upon the view we take of the artist’s means of expression. Are we to regard pictorial art as a medium for imaging and recording the visible facts of the physical world, or as symbols of states of consciousness? And if we take the latter view, what is the exact relation of these symbols to the visible world, to the world of common perception?
So far as I know, only one English art critic has attempted anything like an adequate discussion of these questions. It will help us, I think, if we glance for a moment at Mr. Ruskin’s treatment of these subjects. In the first volume of Modern Painters we are told that the two great ends of landscape painting are (1) to induce in the spectator’s mind the faithful conception of any natural object whatsoever, and (2) to inform him of the thoughts and feelings with which these’ (i.e. the natural objects) ‘were regarded by the artist himself (Modern Painters, Part II., Sec. 1, Ch. i. p. 44).
In attaining the first end, Mr. Ruskin adds, ‘the painter only places the spectator where he stands himself; he sets him before the landscape and leaves him.... But he [the spectator] has nothing of thought given to him, no new ideas, no unknown feelings, forced on his attention or his heart.’
‘But in attaining the second end, the artist not only places the spectator, but—makes him a sharer in his own strong feelings and quick thoughts;—and leaves him ... ennobled and instructed, under the sense of having not only beheld a new scene, but of having held communion with a new mind, and having been endowed for a time with the keen perception and the impetuous emotions of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence.’