When we compare these stupid abortions with the pictures inspired by insanity (I am not now speaking of those painters who, like various poets and musicians, in losing their reason, lost artistically more than they gained—especially in right proportion and the harmony of colour), we shall often find the absurd and disproportionate; but also, at the same time, a true, even excessive originality, mingled with a savage beauty sui generis, which, up to a certain point, recalls the masterpieces of mediæval, and, still more, of Chinese and Japanese, art, so extraordinarily rich in symbols. We shall see, in short, that art suffers here, not from a defect, but from an excess of genius, which ends by crushing itself.
In conclusion, it is very evident that the insane artist is as superior to the mattoid in the practice of his art, as he is inferior to him in practical life; that, in short, in the region of art, the mattoid approaches nearest to the imbecile, and the lunatic to the man of genius.
CHAPTER IV.
Political and Religious Lunatics and Mattoids.
Part played by the insane in the progressive movements of humanity—Examples—Probable causes—Religious epidemics of the Middle Ages—Francis of Assisi—Luther—Savonarola—Cola da Rienzi—San Juan de Dios—Campanella—Prosper Enfantin—Lazzaretti—Passanante—Guiteau—South Americans.
ALL this helps us to understand why the great progressive movements of nations, in politics and religion, have so often been brought about, or at least determined, by insane or half-insane persons. The reason is that in these alone is to be found, coupled with originality (which is the special characteristic of the genius and the lunatic, and still more of those who partake of the character of both), the exaltation capable of generating a sufficient amount of altruism to sacrifice their own interests, and their lives, for the sake of making known the new truths, and, often, of getting them accepted by a public to which innovations are always unwelcome, and which frequently takes a bloody revenge on the innovator.
“Such persons,” says Maudsley, “are apt to seize on and pursue the bypaths of thought, which have been overlooked by more stable intellects, and so, by throwing a side-light on things, to discover unthought-of relations. One observes this tendency of mind even in those of them who have no particular genius or talent; for they have a novel way of looking at things, do not run in the common groove of action, or follow the ordinary routine of thought and feeling, but discover in their remarks a certain originality and perhaps singularity, sometimes at a very early period of life.
“Notable, again, is the emancipated way in which some of them discuss, as if they were problems of mechanics, objects or events round which the associations of ideas and feelings have thrown a glamour of conventional sentiment. In regard to most beliefs, they are usually more or less heterodox or heretical, though not often constant, being apt to swing round suddenly from one point to a quite opposite point of the compass of belief.... Inspired with strong faith in the opinions which they adopt, they exhibit much zeal and energy in the propagation of them.”[357] They are careless of every obstacle, and untroubled by the doubts which arise in the minds of calm and sceptical thinkers. Thus they are frequently social or religious reformers.
It should be understood that they do not create anything, but only give a direction to the latest movements prepared by time and circumstances, as also—thanks to their passion for novelty and originality—they are nearly always inspired by the latest discoveries or innovations, and use these as their starting-point in guessing at the future.
Thus Schopenhauer wrote at an epoch in which pessimism was beginning to be fashionable, together with mysticism, and only fused the whole into one philosophic system. Cæsar found the ground prepared for him by the Tribunes.
When, says Taine, a new civilization produces a new art, there are ten men of talent who express the idea of the public and group themselves round one man of genius who gives it actuality; thus De Castro, Moreto, Lopez de la Vega, round Calderon; Van Dyck, Jordaens, De Vos, and Snyders round Rubens.