Albert Durer
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T. Sturge Moore >> Albert Durer
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Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does
not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the
typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though
destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for
self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he
immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But Duerer follows him
even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.
"Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and
they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby
rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know
not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot
describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,
to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain
pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great
labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,
therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one
figure beautiful at one time and another at another....
"Because now we cannot altogether attain unto perfection, shall we
therefore wholly cease from learning? By no means. Let us not take unto
ourselves thoughts fit for cattle. For evil and good lie before men,
wherefore it behoveth the rational man to choose the good."[7]
A man may see, if he will but watch, who is more finely touched and
gifted than himself. In all the various fields of human endeavour, on
such men he should try to form himself; for only thus can he enlarge his
nature, correct his opinions. Something he can learn from this man,
something from that, and it is rational to learn and be taught. Are we
to be cattle or gods? "Is it not written in your law, I said, 'Ye are
gods?'" Reason demands that each man form himself on the pattern of a
god, and God is an empty name if reason be not the will of God. Then he
whom reason hath brought up may properly be called a son of God, a son
of man, a child of light. But it is easier to bob to such phrases than
to understand them. However, their mechanical repetition does not
prevent their having meant something once, does not prevent their
meaning being their true value. It is time we understood our art, just
as it is time we understood our religion. Docility, as I have pointed
out elsewhere, is one of the marks of genius. Duerer's spirit is the
spirit of the great artist who will learn even from "dull men of little
judgment."
"Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel.
Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts, let him take it from
one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with
his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done
a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men
of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule
they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the
good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayst thus better
thy work."[8]
Those who are thoroughly versed in art are the great artists; we have
guides then, and we have a way--the path they have trodden--and we have
company, the gifted and docile men of to-day whom we see to be improving
themselves; and, in so far as we are reasonable, a sense of proportion
is ours, which we may improve; and it will help us to catch up better
and yet better company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and
know as we are known. Then: "May we not consider it a sign of sanity
when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written
poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is
merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great
things gone before?"[9] For my own part, those appear to me the grandest
characters who, on finding that there is no other purchase for effort
but only hope, and that they can never cease from hope but by ceasing to
live, clear their minds of all idle acquiescence in what could never be
hoped, and concentrate their energies on conquering whatever in their
own nature, and in the world about them, militates against their most
essential character--reason, which seeks always to give a higher
value to life.
IV
When we speak of the sense of proportion displayed in the design of a
building, many will think that the word is used in quite a different
sense, and one totally unrelated to those which I have been discussing.
But no; life and art are parallel and correspond throughout; ethics are
the Esthetics of life, religion the art of living. Taste and conscience
only differ in their provinces, not in their procedure. Both are based
on instinctive preferences; the canon of either is merely so many of
those preferences as, by their constant recurrence to individuals gifted
with the power of drawing others after them, are widely accepted.
The preference of serenity to melancholy, of light to darkness, are
among the most firmly established in the canon, that is all. The sense
of proportion within a design is employed to stimulate and delight the
eye. Ordinary people may fear there is some abstruse science about this.
Not at all; it is as simple as relishing milk and honey, and its
development an exact parallel to the training of the palate to
distinguish the flavours of teas, coffees and wines. "Taste and see" is
the whole business. There are many people who have no hesitation in
picking out what to their eye is the wainscot panel with the richest
grain: they see it at once. So with etchings; if people would only
forget that they are works of art, forget all the false or
ill-understood standards which they have been led to suppose applicable,
and look at them as they might at agate stones; or choose out the
richest in effect: the most suitable for a gay room, or a hall, or a
library, as though they were patterned stuffs for curtains; they would
come a thousand times nearer a right appreciation of Duerer's success
than by making a pot-shot to lasso the masterpiece with the tangle of
literary rubbish which is known as art criticism.
The harmonies and contrasts of juxtaposed colours or textures are
affected by quantity, and a sense of proportion decides what quantities
best produce this effect and what that. The correctness or amount of
information to be conveyed in the delineation of some object, in
relation to the mood which the artist has chosen shall dominate his
work, is determined by his sense of proportion. He may distort an object
to any extent or leave it as vague as the shadow on a wall in diffused
light, or he may make it precise and particular as ever Jan Van Eyck
did; so only that its distortion or elaboration is so proportioned to
the other objects and intentions of his work as to promote its success
in the eyes of the beholder.
There are no fallacies greater than the prevalent ones conveyed by the
expressions "out of drawing" or "untrue to nature." There is no such
thing as correct drawing or an outside standard of truth for works
of art.
"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
method, which must be found out before it can be achieved." "Chaque
oeuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver," said Flaubert.
Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really
means--shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful--is all that
reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his
not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate
his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly
sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the
inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than
oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience.
When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is
direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of
effectiveness. So the naiveties of early art put to shame the
purposeless parade of prodigious skill. Wherever there is communication
there is art; but there are evil communications and there is vicious
art, though, perhaps, great sincerity is incompatible with either. For
an artist to be deterred by other people's demands means that he is not
artist enough; it is what his reason teaches him to demand of himself
that matters, though, doubtless, the good desire the approval of
kindred natures.
A work of art addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may
present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the
eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a
scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are
better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with
poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate
story in it; but, if it offend the eye, it is merely a misapplication of
imagination, invention or learning, and the girl who puts a charming
nosegay together is a better artist than he who painted it. On the other
hand, though it have no more significance than a glass of wine and a
loaf of bread, if the eye is rejoiced by gazing on the paint that
expresses them, it is a work of art and a fine achievement. Still, it
may be as fanciful as a fairy-tale, or as loaded with import as the
Crucifixion; and, if it stimulates the eye to take delight in its
surfaces over and above mere curiosity, it is a work of art, and great
in proportion as the significance of what it conveys is brought home to
us by the very quality of the stimulus that is created in return for our
gaze. For painting is the result of a power to speak beautifully with
paint, as poetry is of a power to express beautifully by means of words
either simple things or those which demand the effort of a welltrained
mind in order to be received and comprehended. The mistake made by
impressionists, luminarists, and other modern artists, is that a true
statement of how things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless
things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It
will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different
thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading;
whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is
always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is
inspiring--is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands
that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, and give such pleasure as best
consists with the universe becoming what reason demands that it shall
become. This demand of reason is perfectly arbitrary? Yes, but it is
also inevitable, necessitated by the nature of the human character. It
is equally arbitrary and equally inevitable that man must, where science
is called for, in the long run prefer a true statement to a lie. From
art reason demands beautiful objects, from science true statements: such
is human nature; for the possession of this reason that judges and
condemns the universe, and demands and attempts to create something
better, is that which differentiates human life from all other known
forces--is that by which men may be more than conquerors, may make peace
with the universe; for
"A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
For then both parties nobly are subdued
And neither party loser."
Of such a nature is the only peace that the soul can make with the
body--that man can make with nature--that habit can make with
instinct--that art can make with impulse. In order to establish such a
peace the imagination must train reason to see a friend in her enemy,
the physical order. For, as Reynolds says of the complete artist:
"He will pick up from dunghills, what, by a nice chemistry, passing
through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold, and under the
rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even
sublime inventions."[10]
It is not too much to say that the nature both of the artist and of the
dunghills is "subdued" by such a process, and yet neither is a "loser."
Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was
reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that
which was beneath it. This great critic also said, "Only with difficulty
do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the _DESIRED_
word, the congenial. Men find what the artist brings intelligible and to
their taste, stimulating and alluring, genial and friendly, spiritually
nourishing, formative and elevating. Thus the artist, grateful to the
nature that made him, weaves a second nature--but a conscious, a fuller,
a more perfectly human nature."
[Illustration: Water-colour drawing of a Hare]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Swift, "Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome."]
[Footnote 2: It may be urged that diversities of opinion exist as to
what good is. The convenience of the words "good" and "evil" corresponds
to a need created by a common experience in the same way as the
convenience of the words "light" and "darkness" does. A child might
consider that a diamond generated light in the same way as a candle
does. He would be mistaken, but this would not affect the correctness of
his application of the word "light" to his experience; if he confused
light with darkness he must immediately become unintelligible. Good and
light are perceived and named--no one can say more of them; the effects
of both may be described with more or less accuracy. To say that light
is a mode of motion does not define it; we ask at once, What mode? And
the only answer is, that which produces the effect of light. A man born
blind, though he knew what was meant by motion, could never deduce from
this knowledge a conception of light.]
[Footnote 3: The Monthly Review, October 1902, "Rodin."]
[Footnote 4: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 177.]
[Footnote 5: Ibid. p. 247.]
[Footnote 6: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 252.]
[Footnote 7: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," pp, 244 and 245.]
[Footnote 8: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 180.]
[Footnote 9: The Monthly Review, April 1901, "In Defence of Reynolds."]
[Footnote 10: Sixth Discourse.]
CHAPTER II
THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
I
There are some artists of whom one would naturally write in a lyrical
strain, with praise of the flesh, and those things which add to its
beauty, freshness, and mystery--fair scenes of mountain, woodland, or
sea-shore; blue sky, white cloud and sunlight, or the deep and starry
night; youth and health, strength and fertility, frankness and freedom.
And, in such a strain, one would insist that the fondness and
intoxication which these things quicken was natural, wise, and lovely.
But, quite as naturally, when one has to speak of Duerer, the mind
becomes filled with the exhilaration and the staidness that the desire
to know and the desire to act rightly beget; with the dignity of
conscious comprehension, the serenity of accomplished duty with all the
strenuousness and ardour of which the soul is capable; with science
and religion.
It is natural to refer often to the towering eminence of these virtues
in Michael Angelo; both he and Duerer were not only great artists, and
active and powerful minds, but men imbued with, and conservative of,
piety. And it seems to me, if we are to appreciate and sympathise deeply
with such men, we must try to understand the religion they believed in;
to estimate, not only what its value was supposed to be in those days,
but what value it still has for us. Surely what they prized so highly
must have had real and lasting worth? Surely it can only be the relation
of that value to common speech and common thought which has changed, not
its relation to man's most essential nature? Therefore I will first try
to arrive at a general notion of the real worth of their ideas,--that
is, the worth that is equally great from their point of view and ours.
The whole of that period, the period of the so belauded Renascence, had
within it (or so it seems to me) an incurable insufficiency, which
troubles the affections of those who praise or condemn it; so that they
show themselves more passionate than those who praise or condemn the art
and life of ancient Greece. This insufficiency I believe to have been
due to the fact that Christian ideas were more firmly rooted in, than
they were understood by, the society of those days. And to-day I think
the same cause continues to propagate a like insufficiency, a like lack
of correspondence between effort and aim. Certain ideas found in the
reported sayings of Jesus have so fastened upon the European intellect
that they seem well-nigh inseparable from it. We are told that the
effort of the Greek, of Aristotle, was to "submit to the empire of
fact." The effort of the Jew was very similar; for the prophets, what
happened was the will of God, what will happen is what God intends. Now
it is noteworthy that Aristotle did not wish to submit to ignorance,
though it and the causes which produce it and preserve it in human minds
are among the most horrible and tremendous of facts; and it is the
imperishable glory of the prophets, that, whatever the priest the king,
the Sadducee or Pharisee might do, _they_ could not rest in or abide the
idea that God's will was ever evil; no inconsistency was too glaring to
check their indignation at Eastern fatalism which quietly supposed that
as things went wrong it was their nature to do so;--vanity, vanity, all
is vanity!--or that if men did wrong and prospered, it was God's doing,
and showed that they had pleased Him with sacrifices and performances.
II
'Wherever poetry, imagination, or art had been busy, there had appeared,
both in Judea and Greece, some degree of rebellion against the empire of
fact.. When Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven is within you," he
recognised that the human reason was the antagonist of all other known
forces, and he declared war on the god of this world and prophesied the
downfall of--the empire of the apparent fact;--not with fume and fret,
not with rant and rage, as poets and seers had done, but mildly
affirming that with the soul what is best is strongest, has in the long
run most influence; that there is one fact in the essential nature of
man which, antagonist to the influence of all other facts, wields an
influence destined to conquer or absorb all other influences. He said:
"My Father which is in heaven, the master influence within me, has
declared that I shall never find rest to my soul until I prefer His
kingdom, the conception of my heart, to the kingdoms of earth and the
glory of the earth." 'We have seen that Duerer describes the miracle; the
work of art, thus:
"The secret treasure which a man conceived in his heart shall appear as
a thing" (see page 10).
And we know that he prized this, the master thing, the conception of the
heart, above everything else.
Much learning is not evil to a man, though some be stiffly set against
it, saying that art puffeth up. Were that so, then were none prouder
than God who hath formed all arts, but that cannot be, for God is
perfect in goodness. The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the
better doth he become, and so much the more love doth he win for the
arts and for things exalted.
The learning Duerer chiefly intends is not book-learning or critical
lore, but knowledge how to make, by which man becomes a creator in
imitation of God; for this is of necessity the most perfect knowledge,
rivalling the sureness of intuition and instinct.
III
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
Every one knows how anxious great artists become for the preservation of
their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed,
and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the
positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted
cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the
roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the
influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men--the
kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth--he did no more than every
victorious soul strives to effect, and to feel assured that it has in
some large degree effected; the difference between him and them is one
of degree. It may be objected that different hearts harbour and cherish
contradictory conceptions. Doubtless; but does the desire to win the
co-operation and approval of other men consist with the higher
developments of human faculties? Is it, perhaps, essential to them? If
so, in so far as every man increases in vitality and the employment of
his powers, he will be forced to reverence and desire the solidarity of
the race, and consequently to relinquish or neglect whatever in his own
ideal militates against such solidarity. And this will be the case
whether he judge such eccentric elements to be nobler or less noble than
the qualities which are fostered in him by the co-operation of his
fellows. Jesus, at any rate, affirmed that the law of the kingdom within
a man's soul was: "Love thy neighbour as thyself"; and that obedience to
it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the
lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole
in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the
glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, and nourishes a
new life.
So he that should follow Jesus by obeying the laws of the kingdom, by
loving God (the begetter or fountainhead of a man's most essential
conception of what is right and good) and his neighbour, was assured by
his mild and gracious Master that he would inherit, by way of a return
for the sacrifices which such obedience would entail, a new and better
life. (Follow me, I laid down my life in order that I might take it
again. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his
life _for_ my _sake_--as I did, in imitation of me--shall find it.) For
in order to make this very difficult obedience possible, it was to be
turned into a labour of love done for the Master's sake. As Goethe said:
"Against the superiority of another, there is no remedy
but love."
Is it not true that the superiority of another man humiliates, crushes
and degrades us in our own eyes, if we envy it or hate it instead of
loving it? while by loving it we make it in a sense ours, and can
rejoice in it. So Jesus affirmed that he had made the superiority of the
ideal his; so that he was in it, and it was in him, so that men who
could no longer fix their attention on it in their own souls might love
it in him. He was their master-conception, their true ideal, acting
before them, captivating the attention of their senses and emotions.
This is what a man of our times, possessed of rare receptivity and great
range of comprehension, considered to be the pith of Jesus' teaching.
Matthew Arnold gave much time and labour to trying to persuade men that
this was what the religion they professed, or which was professed around
them, most essentially meant. And he reminded us that the adequacy of
such ideas for governing man's life depended not on the authority of a
book or writings by eye-witnesses with or without intelligence, but on
whether they were true in experience. He quoted Goethe's test for every
idea about life, "But is it true, is it true for me, now?" "Taste and
see," as the prophets put it; or as Jesus said, "Follow me." For an
ideal must be followed, as a man woos a woman; the pursuit may have to
be dropped, in order to be more surely recovered; an ideal must be
humoured, not seized at once as a man seizes command over a machine.
This _secret of success was_ was only to be won by the development of a
temper, a spirit of docility. To love it in an example was the best,
perhaps the only way of gaining possession of it.
IV
As we are placed, what hope can we have but to learn? and what is there
from which we might not learn? An artist is taught by the materials he
uses more essentially than by the objects he contemplates; for these
teach him "how," and perfect him in creating, those only teach him
"what," and suggest forms to be created. But for men in general the
"what" is more important than the "how"; and only very powerful art can
exhilarate and refine them by means of subjects which they dislike
or avoid.
Every seer of beauty is not a creator of beautiful things; and in art
the "how" is so much more essential than the "what," that artists create
unworthy or degrading objects beautifully, so that we admire their art
as much as we loathe its employment; in nature, too, such objects are
met with, created by the god of this world. A good man, too, may create
in a repulsive manner objects whose every association is ennobling or
elevating.
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