L’homme subit l’effêt sans connaître les causes;
Tout ce qu’il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.”[[5]]
“The poet has put it better than I,” Rodin said, smiling, and he continued: “Great works of art, which are the highest proof of human intelligence and sincerity, say all that can be said on man and on the world, and, besides, they teach that there is something more that cannot be known.
“Every great work has this quality of mystery. You always find a little ‘fine frenzy.’ Recall the note of interrogation which hovers over all of Leonardo da Vinci’s pictures. But I am wrong to choose that great mystic as an example, for he proves my thesis too easily. Let us rather take the Concert Champêtre by Giorgione. Here is all the sweet joy of life, but added to that there is a kind of melancholy intoxication. What is human joy? Whence comes it? Where does it go? The puzzle of existence!
“Again, let us take, if you will, The Gleaners, by Millet. One of these women who toil so hard beneath the blazing sun rises and looks away to the horizon. And we feel that in that head a question has flashed from the submerged mind: What is the meaning of it all?
The Gleaners
By Millet
“That is the mystery that floats over all great work. What is the meaning of the law which chains these creatures to existence only to make them suffer? What is the meaning of this eternal enticement which makes them love life, however sad it is? Oh, agonizing problem!
“Yet it is not only the masterpieces of Christian civilization which produced this impression of mystery. It is felt before the masterpieces of antique art, before the Three Fates of the Parthenon, for example. I call them the Fates because it is the accepted name, though in the opinion of many students they are other goddesses; it makes little difference either way! They are only three women seated, but their pose is so serene, so august, that they seem to be taking part in something of enormous import that we do not see. Over them reigns the great mystery, the immaterial, eternal Reason whom all nature obeys, and of whom they are themselves the celestial servants.