painting. We may call this third art painting, that being its most popular phase.”
“I see your difficulty,” said I. “If drama is not one of the arts, the procession cannot be a branch of drama. But I think the drama is one of the arts all the same.”
“Please do not be in a hurry,” said the French gentleman. “Any two of these arts cover some ground in common where they can meet, unite and give birth to another distinct art related to both as a child is related to its parents, and inheriting qualities from both. It is to these happy marriages that we owe drama—the offspring of literature and painting; song—the offspring of literature and music; and dance—the offspring of music and painting. This gives us altogether six creative arts.
“And now observe what follows. In the first place, these six arts exist for the purpose of expressing ideas. In the next place, painting is without movement, its descendants, drama and dance, inherit movement, the one from literature, and the other from music. Again, inasmuch as a painter must paint his own pictures, painting does not
tolerate the intervention of a third person to interpret between the creator and the public. The painter is his own executive artist; when his creative work is done, nothing more is wanted than a frame and a good light. Literature permits such intervention, for a book can be read aloud. Music and song demand performance, and will continue to do so until the public can read musical notation, and probably afterwards, for even Mozart said that it does make a difference when you hear the music performed; while in the case of the drama and the dance the performers are so much part of the material of the work of art that it can hardly be said to exist without them. Is not this a striking way of pointing the essential difference between the creative artist and the executive?”
“Very,” I replied. “I am afraid, however, that you have not a high opinion of the executive artist.”
“I will confess that he sometimes reminds me of the proverb, ‘God sends the tune and the devil sends the singer.’“
I laughed and said, “We have not exactly that proverb in English, though I have heard something like it. It can, however, only
apply to the performer at his worst, whereas you are inclined to look upon him, even at his best, as nothing more than a picture frame.”
“And a good light,” he added. “Don’t forget the good light. Frame or no frame, a picture presented in a bad light or in the dark is no more than a sonata performed badly or not at all.”