I have thus far spoken of the form. In regard to content I have only remarked that it must be capable of relative detachment. It must also be capable of interior articulation. The idea that an empirical substratum is to be transformed will here be found helpful in determining what is and what is not a fit subject for art. A vase or a pitcher is a utensil. As such it is a detached thing. Is it capable of articulation without destroying its utility? If it is, as the beautiful vases show, it is a fit subject for art to treat. The embellishment of utensils, of tables, chairs, etc., that is to say, the giving of artistic form to objects with which we bodily come into contact, is a means of casting the appearance of the spiritual relation over these objects, and thus in a fine sense making them congenial to ourselves as spiritual personalities. This justifies the time spent by artist artisans on their handiwork, and also justifies our availing ourselves of their products (provided that the store set by these symbolic reminders of the spiritual relation do not divert us from the main business of life, which is to attempt to realize that relation in human intercourse). The war song sung by a primitive tribe is a detachable, empirical thing, and possesses natural articulation. It has its slow beginning, its gradual rise, its paroxysmic culminations, its wild ecstasy, its final dying down.
The love passion expressed in lyric form has for its basis the natural ups and downs, dejections and transports characteristic of that passion.
The theme of a tragedy, as Aristotle says, must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Repetition (always with a difference), contrast, apparent triumph, defeat, and somehow a triumph in defeat—whatever may be the elements with which the tragic poet deals, the crude substance of them is furnished by the theme itself. And the result becomes artistic when the articulation is such that each part becomes a member of an organized whole, that is, when each part exchanges its first nature for the second nature mentioned above in connection with painting.[80]
The next point of interest to consider is whether beauty is to be regarded as the invariable object of art. Relative detachment and susceptibility to articulation in the manner described are indispensable. But if tragedy is to be included, beauty cannot be the exclusive object. Lear, on the heath, the harpy daughters, Lear and Cordelia perishing together, are not beautiful objects. The task of the artist is to produce the semblance of the spiritual relation in any material which is capable of bearing that imprint. In the great tragedies we are lifted into an exalted mood by the form of the work even though the subject treated evokes horror—perhaps because of the very contrast between the form and the subject-matter. Beauty, on the other hand, is produced when both subject-matter and form are satisfying to our needs or aspirations. A vase is beautiful when perfectly adapted to its use and at the same time perfect in form. For this reason any kind of embellishment, for instance, in architecture not structurally in place is offensive, while on the other hand mere structural utility without the formal touch is mechanical. It is not true that utility itself inevitably flowers into beauty.
It should be added, however, that the artistic expression even of unsatisfied desires may come within the scope of beauty. The “Lycidas” is beautiful, Wordsworth’s “Laodamia” is beautiful, the Gothic form of architecture is beautiful, and so is Keats’ “Ode to the Nightingale,” and Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind.” In such productions the adequate expression of the need itself affords relief and induces tranquillity. The mind ceases to strive toward a beyond longed for, and rests tranquillized in the longing itself. That it should thus aspire and long, in consequence of its higher nature, and the assurance of the existence of this higher nature, as evidenced by the longing, is peace-giving.
But it is hardly possible to discuss even in the most cursory manner the subject matter or content of a work of art without drawing attention to the ideals which at various times have been expressed in art, and to the function of art in respect to these ideals. For here the grandeur of the great art as connected with the ultimate aim and purpose of life appears.
Art in its fictions has endeavored to present to men the solution of the problem of life, the things most worth striving for. The ideals, of course, have varied. In the Greek epic the heroes contend around the walls of wind-swept Ilion. They themselves are wind-swept apparitions. Life is short; presently they too will pass out of sight, yet their names and deeds will live after them. Fate is inscrutable. There is no ulterior meaning in things. To glitter for a time in shining armor, and then to be remembered in the song of the rhapsodists is alone worth while. It is this ideal of life that Homer records.
The romantic ideal of feudalism is reflected in the poems of chivalry. The ideal of the English Renascence is found in Shakespeare. The religious ideals are expressed in the Hindu temples, in the Parthenon, in the mediæval cathedrals, and in the poems of Dante and Milton. The ideals of the oriental monarchs are visibly embodied in the Assyrian and Babylonian palaces; the ideal of the merchant class in the stones of Venice, in the architecture of the German and Flemish cities, etc. The plastic arts especially owe their rise and prosperity to the princely and religious ideals—to the demand for temples, churches and palaces suitable for monarchs or merchant princes to dwell and worship in. The aim of the artificer is to furnish a splendid setting for princes and divinities.
Mankind at different periods is in labor to give birth to ideals representing the purpose for which man exists, or the things that make life worth while, and art assists in bringing to the birth these ideals. It seeks to express them, and in the effort to do so it helps to develop and clarify them. This, and not merely to give pleasure, is its grand function.
In an age like the present, in which a new ideal is in the early stages of formation, art is likely to become, as in fact it has become, uncertain of its function, and hence apt to lose its direction, either turning back to the servile reproduction of past art forms, or seeking to achieve progress in the perfection of technical detail, or in the ways of subjective impressionism.[81]