Schopenhauer

by Margrieta Beer

It is interesting to compare the view of Schopenhauer, that music is a copy of the will itself, with the theory of Plato and Aristotle, which maintained that music is a direct reflection of character. The modern art of music was not developed in their day, and yet both these philosophers seem to have had prophetic insight in understanding the nature of the marvellous spell and power of sound. Music to them was an imitation, a copy of character, and as such of profound importance in education. Music reflects character, and therefore moulds and influences it. The foundations of character, says Plato, are laid in music, which charms the souls of the young into the path of virtue. Rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, making the soul harmonious and graceful. "If our youth are to do their work in life, they must make harmony their perpetual aim," and the soul can only be reached and educated in this way through music.

It is Schopenhauer's theory of music which has influenced most directly the world of art. It was hailed by Wagner as a revelation, and it determined his musical development and all his æsthetic theories. Through Wagner it may be said to have revolutionised much of modern music. After reading The World as Will and Idea, Wagner wrote, "I must confess to having arrived at a clear understanding of my own works of art through the help of another, who has provided me with the reasoned conceptions corresponding to my intuitive principles." This philosophy contained, he said, the intellectual demonstration of the conflict of human forces, which he himself had demonstrated artistically.

Architecture.—In Schopenhauer's arrangement of the arts, music, as we have seen, occupies the supreme place, being the highest expression in art which man can achieve. At the other end of the scale stands architecture. Its aim is to bring to greater distinctness some of the ideas which represent the lowest grades of the will, such as gravity, cohesion, rigidity, and hardness. These are the universal qualities of stone, and the simplest, most inarticulate manifestations of will. They may be called the bass notes of nature. The conflict between gravity and rigidity is the sole æsthetic material of architecture. Its problem is to make this conflict appear distinctly in a multitude of different ways. The beauty of a building lies in the obvious adaptation of every part to the stability of the whole. The position, size, and form of every part must be so related to the whole, that it forms a necessary and inevitable part of an organic unity. Each arch, column, and capital must be determined by its relation to the whole building.

It is the function of architecture to reveal also the nature of light. For the light is intercepted, confined, and reflected by the mass of the building. It is thrown into high relief by the receding forms, which supply the contrasting depths of shade. It thus unfolds its nature and qualities in the clearest and most definite way. It is not merely form and symmetry which appeal to us in architecture, but primarily the fundamental forces of nature, the simplest qualities of matter. The quality of the material, therefore, is of great importance. The fundamental law of architecture is that no burden shall be without sufficient support, and no support without a suitable burden. The purest example of this principle is the column and entablature. In separating completely the support and burden in the column and entablature, the reciprocal action of the two and their relation to each other become perfectly clear. For this reason the simplest building in Italy gives æsthetic pleasure, due to the flatness of the roof. A high roof is neither support nor burden, for its two halves support each other. It serves merely a useful end, presenting to the eye an extended mass, which is wholly alien to the æsthetic sense. Architecture requires large masses, in order to be felt adequately, and it must work out its own character under the law of the most perfect clearness to the eye. It exists in space-perception, and must make a direct and inevitable appeal to the æsthetic sense. This demands symmetry, which is necessary to mark out the work as a whole. It is only through symmetry that a work of architecture reveals itself as an organic unity and as the development of a central thought. Architecture ought not to imitate the forms of nature, and yet it should work in the spirit of nature. It should reveal the end in view quite openly, and should avoid everything which is merely aimless. Thus it achieves the grace which is the result of ease, and the subordination of every detail to its purpose.

It follows from Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture that he held Greek work of the best period to be the highest type of building which it is possible to attain. In its best examples that style is perfect and complete, and is not susceptible of any important improvement. The modern architect, he held, cannot depart, to any great extent, from the rules and models of the Greeks, without descending the path of deterioration. There remains nothing for him to do but to apply the art transmitted to him, and to carry out the rules laid down, so far as he is able under the limitations of climate, age, and country.

Schopenhauer, therefore, had no appreciation of Gothic architecture. The simple rationality of the Greek temple delights him, but the Gothic cathedral leaves him cold and unmoved. He makes the naïve admission, that approval of Gothic architecture would upset all his theories of the æsthetic significance of architecture. To compare the two is, he says, a barbarous presumption, although he allows, somewhat grudgingly, that a certain beauty of its own cannot be denied to the Gothic style. Our pleasure in it, however, is to be traced mainly to the association of ideas, and to historical memories. That pure rationality by which every part admits instantly of strict account in its subordination to the plan as a whole, is not to be found in Gothic work. Greek architecture is conceived in a purely objective spirit, whereas Gothic is rather subjective in spirit. But Schopenhauer cannot reason away entirely the impression created by the Gothic interior. That, he admits, is the finest part of the whole, and it is here that the mind is impressed by the effect of the groined vaulting, borne by slender, aspiring pillars, soaring upwards. All burden seems to have disappeared, promising eternal security. Most of the faults, however, appear upon the exterior, whereas in Greek buildings the exterior is the finer; in the interior the flat roof retains something depressing and prosaic.

Of the ideals and aspirations which the great builders of the Middle Ages so wonderfully transmuted into stone, Schopenhauer has nothing to tell us. The men "who sang their souls in stone" were for him pre-eminently the builders of Greek temples.

In his insistence on the open display of the relation between burden and support, and also on the importance of bringing out the qualities of the material, Schopenhauer's treatment of architecture recalls many passages in Ruskin, in which he insists repeatedly, that both truth and feeling require that the conditions of support should be clearly understood, and that the quality of the material must find expression.

The analogy of architecture to music is one of the most characteristic and suggestive portions of Schopenhauer's æsthetic. He emphasises the great difference between the two arts, pointing out that according to their inner nature, in their potency, extent, and significance they are indeed true antipodes. Architecture exists in space, unrelated to time, whereas music is in time alone, having no relation to space. But the principle which gives coherency to architecture is symmetry, that which gives coherency to music is rhythm. The close relationship between these two principles is obvious. It is this resemblance which has led to the saying that architecture is "frozen music," which Schopenhauer quotes from Goethe.

This relation between the two arts, however, extends only to the outward form. In their inner nature they are entirely different. In essential qualities, Schopenhauer maintains, architecture is the most limited and the weakest of all the arts, whereas music is the most far-reaching, and possesses the deepest significance.