The Esperanto of Art
It is established and accepted to-day that a painter may not like music,that a writer may yawn in a picture-gallery: though we proclaim that artis universal, it certainly is not universal for the universe. Thisshould not surprise us who know that van Gogh wrote: 'To paint and tolove women is incompatible'; van Gogh was right for himself, which doesnot mean that he was right for everybody, and I will not draw from hisdictum the probably incorrect conclusion that 'To paint and to loveliterature is incompatible.' But van Gogh, who had not read Bergson, wasindicating clearly enough that he knew he must canalise his powers,therefore exclude from his emotional purview all things which did notappertain directly to his own form of art.
Form of art! Those three words hold the difficulty of mutualunderstanding among artists. While sympathising with van Gogh in hisxenophobia, I cannot accept that because certain artists did notappreciate certain forms of art, no artist can understand another whoseform is alien to him. There is, there must be a link between thepainter, the sculptor, the writer, the musician, the actor, between thepoet in words and the one, to-day most common, who wishes to expresshimself in the deeds of his own life. For art is, we are assuredthereof, all of one stuff. A symphony and a poem may be allotropic formsof the same matter: to use a common simile, there is red phosphorus andthere is yellow, but both are phosphorus. Likewise there are differentforms of art, but there is only one art.
It is important that artists should understand one another so thatconflict may arise from their impressions, so that they may form acritical brotherhood. Some, to-day, are able to grasp one another'smeaning and yet find it difficult, because every form of art has its ownjargon, to express what they mean; they can grasp that the painterequally with the writer is striving to express himself, but they fail tophrase their appreciation and their criticism because writers cannottalk of masses or painters of style. There stands between them a hedgeof technique; so thick is it that often they cannot see the spirit ofthe works; their difficulty is one of terms. Now I do not suggest thatthe musician should study Praxiteles and himself carve marble; he isbetter employed expressing his own passion in the Key of C. But I dofeel that if technical terms are the preserve of each form of art,general terms are not; that _continuity_, _rhythm_, _harmony_, to quotebut a few, have a precise meaning, that they are inherent in no form ofart because they are inherent in art itself.
The following, then, is a forlorn attempt to find the common language,the esperanto of art. It is made up of general terms (in italics); itrepresents no more than a personal point of view, and is for this reasonlaid down in a tentative spirit: it is not a solution but a finger-post.Order being a necessary antidote for the abstruse, I have divided theterms into groups, according to their nature, to the dimension theyaffect or the matter to which they refer. Following this line of thoughtwe find that works of art affect us in virtue of four properties: theirpower, their logic, their movement, and their attitude; this leads us tofour groups of properties:--
Group A. (Volumetric): _Concentration_, _Relief_, _Density_, _Depth_.
Group B. (Linear): _Linking Continuity_.
Group C. (Kinetic): _Rhythm_, _Intensity_, _Reaction_, _Key_, _Culmination_.
Group D. (Static): _Grace_, _Balance_, _Harmony_.
This is a rough classification, for an opera does not necessarilycompare with a square rood of paint or a novel of Tolstoyan length;indeed, on the volumetric basis, an opera may have less bulk than asonnet.
Group A. (Volumetric). By _concentration_ we mean the quality ofconveying a great deal within a small space. It follows that_concentration_ is in inverse ratio to area, though it does not followthat area is in inverse ratio to _concentration_. While _Anna Karenin_is an enormous novel it is as concentrated as the sonnet of d'Arvers; onthe other hand, Francis Thompson's _Arab Love Song_ is more concentratedthan the complete works of Mrs Barclay; while any Rubens is moreconcentrated than a modern miniature, an intaglio may be moreconcentrated than twenty square yards of Delacroix. We nullify areas,therefore, and must lay down that the test of concentration is theeffect: if the painter realises that the author has felt all he wrote,if the writer sees that every line was necessary, then both can be surethat they are respectively in presence of concentrated works.
Likewise with _relief_. A bas-relief may have none. A fresco may._Relief_ then is a matter of contrast, as is shown especially in themosaics of Taj Mahal; but its nature is easily seen if we compare prosewith paint:--
'He stood at the edge of the sea while the waves crept towards him, nearer and nearer, sinuously flowing and ebbing, but ever nearer. Ever.'
I give this as an instance, not as a fragment of literature. The lonely'ever' gives _relief_ to the sentence of twenty-four words if we assumethat another long sentence follows. (If no sentence follows, 'ever' isno longer _relief_ but _culmination_, see Group C.) The painter rendersthe same effect by a more vivid line of foam in the middle distance,the musician by interposing a treble motif between basses. Thus, if wefind variety of sentence, variety of tone, we have _relief_.
_Density_ and _Depth_ need not detain us long. Flaubert, the Psalms,Jacob Epstein's _Oscar Wilde_, the Eroica and Velasquez all give thesensation we call by those names; we mean by them that the work containsa suggestion of something behind. Atmospheric quality, then, togetherwith thought withdrawn, echo unheard and space unlimned, are the baseson which the two terms rest. The suggestion that this 'behind' exists isof course essential, for we must not conclude that where there isnothing to be seen there is something to be guessed: there must be noguessing, but if a feeling of reserve is created then _density_ and_depth_ exist.
Group B. (Linear). The quality of _linking_ is opposed to the quality ofdiscord, though a discord may prove to be a link. The most perfectinstances of _linking_ and _continuity_, for I almost identify theterms, are the solar spectrum and the song of the lark, but in the fieldof art we must be content with the gamut, the sequence of shades andthe concatenation of phrases. In prose:--
'The bird rose up into the air, and its wings beat slowly. The air wasladen with mist. The bird rose towards the clouds ...' is an instancewhere there is a solution of continuity, which could be remedied if thesecond sentence were related to the flight of the bird. And the samelack of continuity would exist if the painter of a harlequin were tomake his skull-cap brown, if in a pause of some work of Locatelli themusician interposed (however skilfully and gradually) somecharacteristic Grieg chords.
It does not, of course, follow that a discord is discontinuous.Providing it recurs within the scheme of the work, as the clashes in_Elektra_, the sequence of discords becomes a sequence of links, and wearrive at this paradox, that it is the solutions of continuity providethe continuity, while the apparently continuous portions of the work arecarried by the discordant sections. Thus there is continuity in theLouvre Ghirlandajo because equivalent, if minor, discords repeat themotif of the red mantle in two other portions of the picture. Therelation of the discords is sometimes vital to more than continuity,namely to _rhythm_ (Group C.).
With Group C. (Kinetic) we touch the most vital portion of the subject,for the kinetic quality in art amounts to the quality of life in man.And its chief component is _rhythm_. If _rhythm_ be taken as a conditionof internal movement within the inanimate, as a suggestion of expandingand retracting life, of phrases (musical, pictorial, or literary) thatcome to an inevitable resolution, it is seen that its presence in a workof art must baffle until it is realised under what guise it appears. Asimple instance of prose rhythm is:--
'The wayfarer stopped by the well. He looked within its depths and the water was far below. Idly he dropped a pebble between the walls; and it seemed minutes while he waited until the water sped its thanks.'
This is not metrical but rhythmic prose, and it would be wearisome ifthe rhythm were not altered from paragraph to paragraph; short sentencesalternate with long at fixed intervals, or passive verbs
are insetbetween actives, while Gothic words, juxtaposed to Latin, or adjectivalcombinations produce the same effect of rise and fall. The rhythm may beregular as the movement of a woman's breast or spasmodic within theregular as the flight of a gull.
Pictorially _rhythm_ is best gauged by certain tapestries based on theflower backgrounds of Fergusson and Anne Estelle Rice. Assume a blacksquare of cloth; if the flowers are grouped thus from left to right:dark red, pink, white, there is no rhythm, for the mental line is a meredowngrade; if they are grouped: dark red, light blue, dark green, thereis no rhythm, for the mental line is a mere curve, a circular or perhapsparabolic basin; but if the grouping amounts to: dark red, pink, lightblue, black, light green, cream, dark brown, there is a succession ofebb and flow, rise and fall, _rhythm_. And this applies to drawing also,if we accept that colour is indicated by line, that lines are coloursand that colours are tenses. That line can indicate colour is beyonddenial, for we accept that colour is not material while tone ismaterial. Colour being the _relation_ between an impression and theimpression of colourlessness, and tone being the resultant translationof the intensity of the colour, then it is feasible to reproduce a redand blue combination by a green and yellow combination of equalcontrast.[9] Therefore a combination of blacks may be made to balance acombination of even seven colours, provided the relative intensity(amount) of the blacks is in a true relation, in tone, with the relativeintensity of the colours. C. R. W. Nevinson achieves this with grays andblacks, while Wyndham Lewis forgoes it.
[Footnote 9: Hence, _if the colour relations are maintained_, it iscorrect to represent a blue-eyed rubicund man by red eyes and a violetface.]
The quality of _rhythm_ being obvious in music needs no discussion; itis the only form of rhythm the popular can recognise, but if we acceptthe principles of grouping in phrase and colour, no musician will failto recognise a sarabande in a dance of Matisse or in the posturings ofKellermann's clown.
As for _intensity_, with which goes _reaction_, for the first cannotexist without the second, it is naturally brought about by the rhythmicfocusing of the subject's attention upon words, colours or notes.Intensity is marked, for instance, by the triplets of the Venusbergmusic, their continual slow billowing; it can be found, less easily, inphrases and colours, but it must exist if the work is art. In prose itis marked by a general nervousness of form and word:--
'Upon the crag the tower pointed to the sky like a finger of stone, and about its base were thick bushes, which had burst forth into flower patches of purple and scarlet. The air was heavy with their scent.'
Here the _intensity_ is confined within the simile and the colourscheme; the intervening space corresponds to the background of apicture, while the final short sentence, purposely dulled, is the_reaction_. Evidently (and all the more so as I have chosen a pictorialeffect) an analogous intensity could be obtained in a painting; theflower patches could be exaggerated in colour to the uttermost limit ofthe palette, while the reagent final sentence was figured by a filmytreatment of the atmosphere. The limit to _intensity_ is the _key_ inwhich the work is conceived. But the word _key_ must not be taken inits purely musical sense; obviously, within the same piece the governingmotif must not be andante at the beginning and presto at the end, but inartistic generalisations it must be taken as the spirit that informsrather than as the technical rule which controls. Thus, in literature,the _key_ is the attitude of the writer: if in one part of the book histhought recalls Thackeray and in another Paul de Kock the _key_ has beenchanged; and again if the left side of the picture is pointillist, theright side cubist, the _key_ has been changed. I choose exaggerated,almost absurd instances to make the point clear; in practice, when thewriter, the musician, or the painter appears to have seen consistently,the key he has worked in is steadfast.
It should be said that uniformity of _key_ does not imply absence of_reaction_; there is room, while the _key_ remains uniform, for thejuxtaposition of burlesque and romance, just as there is room inHolbein's 'Ambassadors' for the incomprehensible object in theforeground, said to embody a pun (Hohl Bein). But the _key_ needs to bekept in mind as its maximum expression is the _culmination_ of theeffect. The _culmination_ of a speech is in its peroration; of a poemin its incorporated envoi. Thus in the _Arab Love Song_, the culminationis:--
'And thou what needest with thy tribe's black tents Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?'
There is no difficulty there. But in painting the _culmination_ is moresubtle. It consists in the isolation of the chief object. Say that wehave from left to right: Black, yellow, dark brown, light blue, darkred; then add on the extreme right, crimson, then gold. The picture_culminates_ on the extreme right, with the result that attention isdirected there and that any object in that section of the picturebenefits by an influence about equivalent to that of footlights._Culmination_, involves the painter in great difficulties, for theremust be _culmination_, while an effect in the wrong place may destroythe _balance_ of his work. This appertains to
Group D. (Static). Its chief quality, _balance_, is easily defined inpainting. Where there is correspondence between every section of thepicture, where no value is exaggerated, _balance_ exists. Hence thefailure of Futurism. While the Futurists understand very well_intensity_, _reaction_, and _relief_, they refuse to give _balance_ anyattention at all; leaving aside the absurdity of rendering the mentalinto terms of the pictorial, and taking as an instance one who was onceless Futurist than the Futurists, Severini, we see in his 'Pan-panDance' how he detached himself from his school: he attained _balance_ bygiving every object an equal _intensity_. Such is also the tendency ofWadsworth. Evidently if there are no clashes of tone-values, there mustbe _balance_, and the instance serves to show that where there areclashes of tone-values _balance_ must be ensured by the artist's hand.There is always _balance_ in the purely decorative; in the realisticthere is _balance_ if the attention of the beholder is directedsimultaneously to the several points of _culmination_ indicated by the_rhythm_ of the picture. Thus there is _balance_ in Rothenstein's'Chloe' because the rocks on the right repeat the significance of therocks on the left.
Likewise in literature there is balance in certain groupings ofphrases:--
'The waves rolled in. Every one, edged with foam, curved forward to kiss the sand. Silvery in the sun they rolled. And they came assured, as if they had forgotten that they had come at other dawns, only to retire before the inert earth.'
This is almost the exact 'short-long-short-long' of waves themselves,and there is _balance_ because each short-long grouping figures onecurled wave. Nothing clarifies this idea so well as the Morse Code.
With perfect _balance_ go _grace_ and _harmony_. While _grace_ muststand by itself as a not especially important quality because it is not,need not, always be present, _harmony_ must be recognised as a synonymof _balance_. It is only because _grace_ is often used where _harmony_is meant that it finds a place in this glossary. Obviously there is no_grace_ in Rodin's Balzac, while there is _grace_ in every note of Lulliand Glueck; by _grace_ we mean the quality of lightness we find in Pater,Meredith, Andre Gide, Mozart, Watteau, Donatello: the instances sufficeto indicate the meaning, while _harmony_, if it be taken as a synonym of_balance_, needs no further explanation than has been given for thatterm.
I venture to repeat in conclusion that there is nothing dogmatic aboutthese ideas. They are subject to criticism and objection, for we aregroping in the dark towards what Mr Leonard Inkster calls thestandardisation of artistic terms; if I prefer to his scientific way themore inspired suggestion of 'esperanto,' that is a common language ofthe arts, it is without fear of being called metaphysical. It may beargued that a purely intellectual attempt to extract and correlate theinspirations of forms of art is a metaphysical exercise doomed tofailure by its own ambition. I do not think so. For art is universalenough to contain all the appeals, the sensuous, the intellectual, and,for those who perceive it, the spiritual; but the sensuous is incapableof explanatio
n because sensuousness is a thing of perceptions whichvanish as soon as the brain attempts to state them in mental terms; andthe spiritual, which I will define much as I would faith as astimulation produced by a thing which one knows to be inexistent, alsoresists analysis; if we are to bridge the gulfs that separate thevarious forms of art, some intellectual process must be applied. Now itmay be metaphysical to treat of the soul in terms of the intellect, butthe intellect has never in philosophic matters refrained from layinghands upon the alleged soul of man; I see no reason, therefore, to placeart higher than the essence of human life and grant it immunity fromattack and exegesis by the intellect. Indeed, the intellect in itsmetaphysical moods is alone capable of solving the riddle of artisticsensation. Once defined by intellect and applied by intellect, theesperanto of the arts may well serve to reconcile them and demonstrateto their various forms, against their will, their fundamental unity.