Yet what great diversity of opinion obtains among the very band of self-constituted elect! How few possess the requisite mastery of the rules, and what an immense number of the human race would thus be excluded from the elevating sources of enjoyment to be found in poetry and the fine arts! Such scholastic critics confound two things to be distinguished in every work in all branches of art; viz., the pure idea, and the material form through which it is manifested. It is indeed necessary that the artist should make severe studies, and thoroughly master the technics of his chosen art, whatever it may be; for, as means to facilitate the clearest manifestation of his conceptions, such formulæ are of immense importance;—but an erudite acquaintance with the technics of art is not necessary for the comprehension of the idea, manifested; for the idea itself is ever within the range of the human intellect, and the soul may always consider the thought of the soul, when appropriately manifested, face to face. 'Imbibe not your opinions from professional artists,' says Diderot; 'they always prefer the difficult to the beautiful!'
Artistic judgment is, indeed, too apt to be satisfied with correct drawing and harmony of colors; harmony and keeping of plastic forms; harmony of tones; harmony of thoughts in relation to one another; without considering that to these necessary harmonies two more, primarily essential, must be added: harmony of thought with the eternal, with the divine attributes of truth, infinity, unity, and love; and harmony of expression with what ought to be—which is indeed to assert that true Beauty is neither sensuous nor scholastic, but vitally and essentially moral. True Beauty lingers not in the soft halls of the Circean senses; it wanders not in the trim paths, beaten walks, or dusty highways of the schools, though the artist must indeed be familiar with all the intricacies of their windings, that he may there master the laws and proportions of the form through which he is to manifest the supernal essence through our senses to our souls; it dwells above, too high to be degraded by our low sensualism, too ethereal to lose its sweet freedom in the logically woven links of our scholastic trammels. 'Ye shall know the truth, and it shall make you free,' is a proposition not only of moral, but of universal artistic application.
Disgusted by the idle pretensions and stilted pedantry of the men of the schools, can we wonder if good and earnest men still refuse to acknowledge the high worth and dignity of art, which, in accordance with such definitions, would be nothing but a manifestation and studied application of the rules and laws of the limited and pedantic human understanding? To prove art essentially moral, in exact correspondence with the triune being of man addressing itself through his senses, in accordance with the requisitions of his understanding, to his soul—and that it is only delightful to the soul created for the enjoyment of God, in so far as it is successful in manifesting or suggesting some portion of the Divine attributes—are the chief objects of the book here offered to the reader. If art were indeed to be degraded into nothing higher than the exponent or incarnation of the logical data and rigid formulæ of the limited understanding of man, the writer would be frozen to death in the attempt to plant its chilling banner. She too would regard it but as a solemn trifling with time and the fearful responsibilities of eternity.
Having failed to obtain any elevated or satisfactory definition of Art and Beauty from the men of the senses, or the men of the schools; as the supporters of a government founded upon a belief in the virtues of the people, we turn to them in our despair to ask for deeper insight into these important subjects. Alas! they are as yet too busy and too ignorant to formulate for us a definite reply! But from them must come the sibylline response, for the true artist has no home upon earth save the heart of humanity! The kingdom of the Beautiful belongs not exclusively to the luxurious, nor to any aristocracy of the refined and cultivated, but, like the blue depths of God's heaven arch, spans the world, everywhere visible, and everywhere beneficent!
As they may not formulate for us a definite reply, let us place our ears close to the throbbing heart of the masses, that we may hear what effect the Beautiful, as manifested in art, has upon the electric pulses. And now our despair passes forever, for men made in the image of God, when not degraded by a corrupting materialism, nor lost in the bewildering mazes of a luxurious sensualism, nor puffed up with the vain conceit of the limited understanding, and thus holding themselves above all the high enthusiasm and holy mysteries of art, always seem able to recognize that which awakens in them noble thoughts or tender feelings; so that when a poet sings to them of heroism, of liberty, of fraternity, of justice, of love, of home, of God, if he can succeed in causing their hearts to throb with generous emotions, they stop not to consult the critics, they listen only to the voice of their own naive souls, and at once and with one accord enthusiastically cry: 'Beautiful! beautiful! how beautiful!' La Bruyère himself says: 'When a poem elevates your mind, when it inspires you with noble and heroic feeling, it is altogether useless to seek other rules by which to judge it; it is—it must be good, and the work of a true artist.' Such is really the criterion consulted by the people, and on this broad and just base rests the general correctness of their judgments.
Uncultured as they may be, is it not, indeed, among the people that we see the most vivid sympathies with the really great artists, the true poets? It is among them we most frequently find that glowing enthusiasm which excites and transports them until they lose all selfish thoughts; contrasting strongly with the measured calm, the still and prudent reserve of the elite, the connoisseurs, which an impassioned artist (Liszt) truly says 'is like the glacés on their own tables.' Let the artist but strike some of the simple but sublime chords which, the Creator has tuned to the same harmony in human bosoms, and they will respond from the heart of the people in an instantaneous thrill of noble instincts and generous emotions. It is ever with the people that the artist meets with that profound and loving admiration which so greatly increases his own powers, and which always leads them to noble acts of devotion for those who have succeeded in touching the harmonizing chords vibrating through the mighty bosom of humanity made in the image of God!
If we would learn something of the effect of art on the soul, and understand the secrets of its power, we should go to a representation of one of Shakspeare's tragedies, and mark the attentive crowd silently contemplating the high scenes which the poet unrolls before them. Immersed in poverty and suffering as they may themselves be, we will see that at the words 'glory, honor, liberty, patriotism, love'; at the sight of the courageous struggle of the just against the unjust; at the fall of the wicked, the triumph of the innocent,—the furrowed and rugged faces glow with sympathy, all hearts proclaim the loveliness of virtue, or are unanimous in the condemnation of vice. Full of just indignation against the aggressor, of generous sympathy with the oppressed, shall the palpitating throng stay the quick throbbing of their hearts to inquire of the men of the senses if they may admire, or of the critics and schoolmen if they may approve? Their intuitions have already decided the question for them. Why do the masses always accord in their estimation of the just and unjust? why do they always agree about glory and shame, vice and virtue, courage and cowardice? why do they always find Beauty in the success of suffering virtue, the triumph of oppressed innocence, the rescue of the wronged and helpless? The answer throws its light over the whole world of art: Because God's justice, even when it condemns themselves, is one of the Divine attributes for whose enjoyment they were created; because it stands pledged that whatever may be the disorder visible upon earth, it will rule in awful majesty over the final ordering of all things. The soul, urged on by an unconscious yet imperative thirst for the Absolute, having in vain tried to find its realization in a world furrowed by vanities and scared by vices, takes its flight to the clime of the ideal, to find there the growth of eternal realities. The poet builds ideal worlds in which he strives to find the absolute, adorning them with all the beauties for which the human heart pines: heroism, patriotism, devotion, love, take form and find appropriate expression; for all is wisdom, power, liberty, and harmony in the artistic realms. Art is a celestial vision which God sends to his exiled children, to give them news of the invisible world for which they were created, to soothe their sorrows, to turn their thoughts and affections to their true centre. Art is the transient realization, the momentary possession of the desires of the soul!
There is then a Beauty inaccessible to the senses, above the narrow limit of technical laws, which a simple and uncorrupted people intuitively feel and love, for which the masses reserve their most profound admiration, and which it is unquestionably the province of the true artist to manifest through whatever medium he may have chosen as his specific branch of art. The delight felt in the Beautiful arises from the fact that it manifests or suggests, in a greater or less degree, some portion of the Divine attributes for whose enjoyment we were created. Is it not then time that the good and earnest men of our own broad land should cease to ignore, if not to persecute, art; should indeed reverently pause to inquire into the resources and capabilities of the mighty symbolism used and wielded by the fine arts?