“Well, let us leave the performer for the present and return to your second trio of arts. Are you now going to combine them, as you did the first, and raise a third family in which a place may be found for such things as processions?”
“That,” he replied, “may hardly be, for there is no couple of them that has not a parent in common. But there is no reason why any two or more of the six arts should not appear simultaneously, assisting one another to express an idea. Thus an illustrated book is not drama—it is literature assisted by painting. And so a symphony illustrating a poem is not song—it is music assisted by literature, or vice versa, and is sometimes called Programme Music. When we look at dissolving views accompanied by a piano, we are not contemplating a
dance—we are looking at painting illustrated by music; and, if there is some one to explain the views in words, literature is also present. When you come to think of it, it is rare to find music and painting either alone or together without literature. Except in the case of fugues or sonatas and symphonies, which are headed ‘Op. ---’ so-and-so, or ‘No. ---’ whatever it may be, music usually has a title. And except in the case of such things as decorative arabesques and sometimes landscapes, painting usually has a title. The opportunity of supplying a title is peculiarly tempting to literature who produces so many of her effects by putting the right word in the right place.”
I said that this was all very interesting, but what had become of the procession? He replied that he was giving me, as I had requested, a preliminary exposition of his scheme.
“Comic opera,” he continued, “is drama interrupted by song and dance. Grand opera is the simultaneous presentation of most, perhaps all, of the six arts. There is no reason in nature against any conceivable combination; it is for the creative
artist to direct and for the performing artists to execute the combination so that it shall please and convince the public. And now, revenons à nos processions, where can we find a place for them?”
“Surely,” said I, “some such combination will include them—unless they have nothing to do with art.”
“I have thought that perhaps they have nothing to do with art, for art should not be tainted with utility; but religious pictures are tainted with utility just as much. Besides, I do not like to confess myself beaten.”
It was plain the procession was not going to be allowed to escape. I considered for a moment and said—
“I suppose we may not classify the procession as literature assisted by dance, because literature ought to have words and dance ought to have music.”