Thus the lofty mountain peaks of Bierstadt, which rise up into the regions of clearness and sunshine, beyond the realms of change, do this, only because of a force that contradicts gravitation, which continually abases them. The contrast of the high with the low, of the clear and untrammelled with the dark and impeded, symbolizes, in the most natural manner, to every one, the higher conflicts of spirit. It strikes a chord that vibrates, unconsciously perhaps, but, nevertheless, inevitably. On the other hand, when we take the other extreme of painting, and look at the “Last Judgment” of Michael Angelo, or the “Transfiguration” of Raphael, we find comparatively no ambiguity; there the Infinite is visibly portrayed, and the collision in which it is displayed is evidently of the highest order.
5. Art, from its definition, must relate to Time and Space, and in proportion as the grosser elements are subordinated and the spiritual adequately manifested, we find that we approach a form of art wherein the form and matter are both the products of spirit.
Thus we have arts whose matter is taken from (a) Space, (b) Time, and (c) Language (the product of Spirit).
Space is the grossest material. We have on its plane, I. Architecture, II. Sculpture, and III. Painting. (In the latter, color and perspective give the artist power to represent distance and magnitude, and internality, without any one of them, in fact. Upon a piece of ivory no larger than a man’s hand a “Heart of the Andes” might be painted.) In Time we have IV. Music, while in Language we have V. Poetry (in the three forms of Epic, Lyric, and Dramatic) as the last and highest of the forms of Art.
6. An interpretation of a work of art should consist in a translation of it into the form of science. Hence, first, one must seize the general content of it—or the collision portrayed. Then, secondly, the form of art employed comes in, whether it be Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, or Poetry. Thirdly, the relation which the content has to the form, brings out the superior merits, or the limits and defects of the work of art in question. Thus, at the end, we have universalized the piece of art—digested it, as it were. A true interpretation does not destroy a work of art, but rather furnishes a guide to its highest enjoyment. We have the double pleasure of immediate sensuous enjoyment produced by the artistic execution, and the higher one of finding our rational nature mirrored therein so that we recognize the eternal nature of Spirit there manifested.
7. The peculiar nature of music, as contrasted with other arts, will, if exhibited, best prepare us for what we are to expect from it. The less definitely the mode of art allows its content to be seized, the wider may be its application. Landscape painting may have a very wide scope for its interpretation, while a drama of Goethe or Shakspeare definitely seizes the particulars of its collision, and leaves no doubt as to its sphere. So in the art of music, and especially instrumental music. Music does not portray an object directly, like the plastic arts, but it calls up the internal feeling which is caused by the object itself. It gives us, therefore, a reflection of our impressions excited in the immediate contemplation of the object. Thus we have a reflection of a reflection, as it were.
Since its material is Time rather than Space, we have this contrast with the plastic arts: Architecture, and more especially Sculpture and Painting, are obliged to select a special moment of time for the representation of the collision. As Goethe shows in the Laocoon, it will not do to select a moment at random, but that point of time must be chosen in which the collision has reached its height, and in which there is a tension of all the elements that enter the contest on both sides. A moment earlier, or a moment later, some of these elements would be eliminated from the problem, and the comprehensiveness of the work destroyed. When this proper moment is seized in Sculpture, as in the Laocoon, we can see what has been before the present moment, and easily tell what will come later. In Painting, through the fact that coloring enables more subtle effects to be wrought out, and deeper internal movements to be brought to the surface, we are not so closely confined to the “supreme moment” as in Sculpture. But it is in Music that we first get entirely free from that which confines the plastic arts. Since its form is time, it can convey the whole movement of the collision from its inception to its conclusion. Hence Music is superior to the Arts of Space, in that it can portray the internal creative process, rather than the dead results. It gives us the content in its whole process of development in a fluid form, while the Sculptor must fix it in a frigid form at a certain stage. Goethe and others have compared Music to Architecture—the latter is “frozen Music”; but they have not compared it to Sculpture nor Painting, for the reason that in these two arts there is a possibility of seizing the form of the individual more definitely, while in Architecture and Music the point of repose does not appear as the human form, but only as the more general one of self-relation or harmony. Thus quantitative ratios—mathematical laws—pervade and govern these two forms of Art.
8. Music, more definitely considered, arises from vibrations, producing waves in the atmosphere. The cohesive attraction of some body is attacked, and successful resistance is made; if not, there is no vibration. Thus the feeling of victory over a foreign foe is conveyed in the most elementary tones, and this is the distinction of tone from noise, in which there is the irregularity of disruption, and not the regularity of self-equality.
Again, in the obedience of the whole musical structure to its fundamental scale-note, we have something like the obedience of Architecture to Gravity. In order to make an exhibition of Gravity, a pillar is necessary; for the solid wall does not isolate sufficiently the function of support. With the pillar we can have exhibited the effects of Gravity drawing down to the earth, and of the support holding up the shelter. The pillar in classic art exhibits the equipoise of the two tendencies. In Romantic or Gothic Architecture it exhibits a preponderance of the aspiring tendency—the soaring aloft like the plant to reach the light—a contempt for mere gravity—slender pillars seeming to be let down from the roof, and to draw up something, rather than to support anything. On the other hand, in Symbolic Architecture, (as found in Egypt) we have the overwhelming power of gravity exhibited so as to crush out all humanity—the Pyramid, in whose shape Gravity has done its work. In Music we have continually the conflict of these two tendencies, the upward and downward. The Music that moves upward and shows its ground or point of repose in the octave above the scale-note of the basis, corresponds to the Gothic Architecture. This aspiring movement occurs again and again in chorals; it—like all romantic art—expresses the Christian solution of the problem of life.