Wagner as Man & Artist

by Ernest Newman

VII

The years 1848 to 1852 were for Wagner a long spell of intellectual and spiritual indigestion; his too receptive brain was taking into itself more impressions of all kinds than it could assimilate. Art and life, opera and politics, called clamorously to him, and all at the same time, deafening and confusing him. With Lohengrin his second great creative epoch, that had commenced with the Flying Dutchman, had come to its perfect end. New ideas of music and drama were ripening in him, but as yet he had no clear conception of their drift. He had gradually become profoundly disgusted with the theatre, yet saw no possible reformation of it except by way of a reformation of man and society as a whole. So he became a revolutionist,—not for politics' sake but for art's sake. To cooler heads than his own he seemed to be drifting towards destruction. Minna saw clearly enough that his views on politics were too idealistic to have any real bearing on the practicalities of the day; and other sympathisers no doubt regretted that the artist in him should be in danger of being ruined by the politician.[330]

At first he thought it possible to reform the theatre from the inside: and apparently nothing could surpass the zeal he showed in his work at the opera house, or the sincerity of his desire to raise the music of the town to the highest possible efficiency. In February 1846 he drafted a scheme for the improvement of the orchestra, that runs to nearly sixty pages of close print in the Gesammelte Schriften, and leaves not the smallest practical detail untouched.[331] Two years later he worked out his admirable scheme for the organisation of a German National Theatre for the Kingdom of Saxony. Here again one is struck by the practical nature of his genius.[332] But once more his appeal fell on deaf ears.

His failure to interest the theatre authorities in his schemes for the regeneration of the drama and music drove him deeper into politics. Only from a new humanity, a new relationship between man and the State, could come a clean and healthy and art-loving civilisation. In June 1848 he made his famous "Vaterlandsverein" speech, that created so many new enemies for him at the Court.[333] In February 1849 he wrote an article on "Man and Existing Society"[334] for Roeckel's Volksblätter, and in April one on "The Revolution" for the same journal.[335] Each of these is a passionate cry of welcome to the new era that he thought was dawning. "In the year 1848 began the war of man's fight against existing society." For society as at present constituted "is an attack on man: the ordering of existing society is inimical to the destiny, the right of man.... Man's destiny is, through the ever higher perfecting of his mental, moral, and bodily faculties, to attain an ever higher, purer happiness. Man's right is, through the ever higher perfecting of his mental, moral and bodily faculties, to achieve the enjoyment of a constantly increasing, purer happiness." But this can only be done by the union of all, not by the unit. "Men therefore are not only entitled but bound to demand of society that it shall lead them to ever higher, purer happiness through the perfecting of their mental, moral and bodily faculties." The second of the essays chants a dithyramb to the coming revolution. Volcano rumblings are to be heard beneath the soil of all Europe; soon the great upheaval will come. "The old world is crumbling to ruin; a new world will be born from it." The artist burns with sympathy for the poor, the suffering, the oppressed, and looks forward to a new civilisation, in which man will be free and have joy of his labour. It is impossible not to be moved to this day by the eloquence and passionate sincerity of his cry, and the purity of his hopes.

But the end was near,—a very different end from the one anticipated by this ardent soul. All hope of success faded before the Prussian rifles, and on the 9th May the disillusioned idealist was in flight.

It was long, however, before the hopes and dreams of 1848 and 1849 finally forsook him. From his Swiss and Parisian exile he sent forth two treatises—Art and Revolution (written in June 1849), and the Art-Work of the Future (written in October of the same year),—in which he voices once more his aspirations for a new humanity and a new art.

VIII

In an interesting introduction that he wrote to Art and Revolution when reprinting the essay in his collective works in 1872, Wagner speaks of the influence of Feuerbach upon him at this time: in Feuerbach's conception of art he thought he recognised his own artistic ideal. What that ideal was is painted for us in full in the heated pages of Art and Revolution.

His central point is the one to which he remained true his whole life long,—that art should be the pure expression of a free community's joy in itself; it should be accessible to all, and placed beyond the necessity of maintaining itself by commercial means. He paints a fancy picture of "the free Greek,"—a being evolved by Wagner out of his own inner consciousness,—and elaborates the theory that the community as a whole creates great art. "The tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles were the work of Athens." "The public art of the Greeks, which reached its highest point in tragedy, was the expression of the deepest and noblest consciousness of the people: with us the deepest and noblest of man's consciousness is the direct antithesis of this,—the denial of our public art." The Greek tragedy was witnessed by the whole populace: in our superior theatres only the well-to-do can watch the play. Among the Greeks the production of a tragedy was a religious festival: in the modern State art is only an amusement or a distraction for tired people in the evening. The Greek was educated to make an artistic whole of his body and his spirit; we are trained merely for industrial gain. "Whereas the Greek artist found his reward in his own enjoyment of the work of art, in its success, and in the public approval, the modern artist is maintained—and paid. Thus we attain the clear definition of the essential distinction between the two. Greek public art was really Art; with us it is artistic handicraft." He admits that the Greek freedom was the result of the State being founded on slavery; but to-day all are slaves together. "Our god is gold, our religion the pursuit of wealth." With the Greeks, art lived in the public conscience: with us it lives only in the conscience of private individuals. "Greek art was therefore conservative, because it was a worthy and adequate expression of the public conscience: with us, true art is revolutionary, because it exists only in opposition to the community in general." "This is art," he cries, "as it now fills the whole civilised world. Its real essence is industry; its ethical aim the gaining of gold; its æsthetic pretext the entertainment of bored minds."