There remains to be considered the much less difficult problem of the sort of progress likely to be made in the mechanical implements of the fine arts. Some conceivable developments in what may be called the mechanism of literature have been discussed in the chapter on journalism, and just as it was there predicted that the forms of language hallowed by tradition and made classic by antiquity and intrinsic beauty must always continue to be employed, so in the arts it is impossible to believe that the classical methods of expression can ever become obsolete. But to say this is not to imply that new processes are incapable of being applied to the arts. Nothing which the future may evolve as a modelling substance can conceivably render obsolete clay or make marble antiquated; but innovation is always possible and may always in the right hands yield new tributes of loveliness. Prejudice is difficult to overcome where art is in question. But as was recently seen in the invention of solid oil paints, new media are quite capable of creating new modes of expression, and daring as is the flight of imagination required by such a notion, may it not be conceived that the new methods of intercommunication between mind and mind, which may develop out of the new psychology of our own age, might furnish the medium of a new literature?
In music it does not seem necessary to surmise that the classical gamut must be the last word of melodic thought. The barrier between East and West in regard to musical expression—a barrier as yet so firm as to make us feel that “never the twain can meet”—is precisely of this nature. A remark by an Indian scholar educated in England, and as well versed in Western as in Eastern art, is pregnant of promise. He said to a friend of the present writer, “There is no doubt that in every form of invention, in every development of intellect, you surpass us, save in one. Your music is poor and mean, compared with the music of the East.”
Now to any English ear the music of Asia is as yet a mere snarl of incomprehensible cacophonies, destitute alike of melody, harmony or rhythm. But that it has laws of its own, intricate, involved and subtle, no one can doubt. I remember, one night, finding my way into a Chinese lodging-house in an Australian city. From one of the cubicles with which it was filled came what seemed to me “a rueful noise and a ghastful”—a noise as if some more than usually vocal tom-cat were being severely ill-used.
From time to time the noise ceased, to be succeeded by energetic disputations in the thin nasal and guttural tones of South China, themselves, I knew, graduated in pitch, as all Chinese talk requires to be in order to be understood. Making my way to the source of these sounds, I found four young Chinamen. One of them was engaged in an unabashed bathing of his lower limbs. Other two were squatting on the floor to enjoy the music of the fourth, who sat on a high packing-case, holding a book in his toes, and performing on an instrument something like a violin. From time to time one of the others would interrupt, criticising the executant, and the book would then be referred to with energy and something as much like excitement as one ever sees a Chinaman display. The musician would extract a few notes from the instrument, clearly in defence of his rendering. Then the tumult would die down while the wailing of the smitten strings went on again.
Now it cannot be impossible to fathom the obscurities of Oriental music: and it is quite possible that they may, in the future, yield new harmonies and melodies as yet undreamed-of to the West; for the difference is mainly, if I understand aright what Orientals say of it, a difference of scale. No doubt the conventions are all different. I have often observed in India that music considered to possess a jovial character is a shrill wailing in slow time; whereas funereal music always sounds a lively air. Western civilisation finds no difficulty in comprehending the decorative art of India and the Far East, nor in highly appreciating it. May not Eastern music have gifts for us as yet undreamed-of?
But of course painting has a much more direct appeal to the emotions than music, and it is not at all difficult to imagine—nay, it is hardly possible to doubt—that a new manner in painting will from time to time develop, arriving out of newly-invented implements and materials.
Doubtless improved methods of reproduction will multiply the numbers of those who can enjoy the masterpieces of the new age and of the old, just as in music it will unquestionably be possible to repeat satisfactorily an indefinite number of times any sounds that have once existed. Neither will any of the arts permanently suffer by the mechanical improvements applied to them—though the first employment of the latter will doubtless often have results which will be, to the artist, rather terrible.
[1] Over-civilised, if one please, but I do not admit for an instant that man can be over-civilised. [↑]
[2] Ante, [Chapter III]. [↑]