Zoophites were developed into megatheriums and mastodons. Mammoths and elks sported on plains which now form the mountain tops of our continents. Scarcely visible coral animals were still engaged in constructing mountain chains, and a luxuriant vegetation covered the small continents. Such transformations, convulsions, and changes are gigantic, grand, awe-inspiring—sublime, but not beautiful. Whenever nature is at work, disturbing the air with electric currents or shaking huge mountains, so that they bow their lofty summits, or when the dry soil is rent asunder, and sends forth streams of glowing lava, we are in the presence of the sublime, not of the beautiful. Whenever man’s nature is overawed, whenever he is made to feel his impotence by the phenomena of nature, he faces the sublime. In art, only a few divinely-gifted and chosen geniuses have ever reached the sublime.
When, however, the cosmical forces had expended their exuberant powers—when a diversified climate had produced those plants and animals that surround us—when man appeared on this revolving planet, and by degrees reached self-consciousness as his highest development—then only beauty acquired existence and dominion on earth. Without men capable of understanding what is beautiful, art would have no meaning.
The aim of science is to vanquish error; the province of industry to subdue matter, and the vocation of art to produce beauty. The artist must not neglect science, for he has to be truthful, as error is ugly; he must make himself well acquainted with matter, for he has to use, to transform, and to modify it; and, finally, he has to hallow this scientifically-treated matter by impressing it with the stamp of ideal beauty.
The attainment of this, the perfection of art, has been slow and gradual. Though art, like all the inventions, took its origin in want and necessity, the utilitarian spirit is the very bane of art, for art flourishes only under the influence of the very highest intellectual culture.
Nature produces like art; but the products of nature are the unconscious effects of the immutable law of causation. The products of art are the results of the conscious intellectual power of the artist. It is the free, yet well-regulated, consciousness of the artist that elevates his productions into works of art. Undoubtedly the great store-house of the artist is nature; he learns from nature how to ornament, but he has to discern, to combine, to adapt, to select, his forms. The whole success of the artist, in whatever branch he works, must depend on an earnest and severe use of the word CHOICE.
‘He is truly great who knows the value of everything, and distinguishes what is more or less great, and what is most estimable, so as to begin from that, and to apply the genius, and fix the desires upon the execution of things worthy and great.’ This mode of thinking was followed by the most celebrated and enlightened artists from the ancient Greeks to our own time. They knew to distinguish that which was most worthy in nature, and to this they directed their study, diligence, and industry. Inferior geniuses, because they are attached to mediocrity, believe that a mere clinging to nature constitutes all art; and the lowest artists are enchanted with the minutiæ of little works, taking them for principal things; so that human ignorance passes from the trifling to the useless, from the useless to the ugly, and from the ugly to the false and chimerical.
In treating of the historical development of art, to enable artists to distinguish and to choose the best, and not only to imitate but to create consciously for themselves, it is necessary to make them theoretically acquainted with the progress of art.
To trace historically the changes art had to undergo is necessary for all really self-conscious artists. Art with us is still looked upon as entirely subject to individual taste. Everyone thinks himself competent to have an opinion on products of art. ‘De gustibus non est disputandum’ is heard not only in our drawing-rooms, but also in art-circles. This false and utterly untenable adage is the cause of the chaotic anarchy in our art-world.
So little as there can be differences in truth, can there be differences in beauty. It is the duty of philosophy to strive for truth; it is the task of the theoretical artist to point out what is beautiful.
We may treat art from three different points of view:—