Читать книгу Goethe's Literary Essays - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Страница 8

(1799)

Yesterday a stranger made his appearance, whose name I was already familiar with, and who has the reputation of a skillful connoisseur. I was pleased to see him, made him acquainted generally with my possessions, let him choose what he would from what I exhibited to him. I soon noticed his cultivated eye for works of art, and especially for their history. He knew the masters as well as the scholars; in cases of doubtful works he was familiar with the grounds of uncertainty, and his conversation was highly interesting to me.

Perhaps I should have been hurried on to open myself in a more lively manner towards him, had not my resolve to sound my guest made me from the first take a more quiet tone. His judgment in many cases agreed with mine; in many I was forced to admire his sharp and practiced eye. The first thing that struck me was his unmitigated hatred of all Mannerists. I was in pain for some of my favorite pictures, and was curious to discover from what source such a dislike could spring. . . .

Before we were all assembled I seized an opportunity to lend a helping hand to my poor mannerists against the stranger. I spoke of their beautiful nature, their happy handling, their grace, and added, to keep myself safe: Thus much I say only to claim for them a certain degree of forbearance, though I admit that that high beauty, which is the highest end and aim of Art, is in fact quite a different thing.

He replied — with a smile that did not altogether please me, inasmuch as it seemed to express a special self-satisfaction and a sort of compassion for me: — Are you then stanch in the old-fashioned principle that Beauty is the last aim of art?

I answered that I was not aware of any higher. Can you tell me what Beauty is? he exclaimed. Perhaps not, I replied; but I can show it to you. Let us go and see, even by candlelight, a fine cast of Apollo or a beautiful marble bust of Bacchus that I possess, and try if we cannot agree that they are beautiful.

Before we go upon this quest, said he, it would be necessary for us to examine more closely this word Beauty and its derivation. Beauty (Schönheit) comes from show (Schein); it is an appearance, and not worthy to be the object of art. The perfectly characteristic only deserves to be called beauty; without Character there is no Beauty.

Surprised by this mode of expression, I replied: Granted, though it be not proved, that beauty must be characteristic; yet from this it only follows that character lies at the root of beauty, but by no means that Beauty and Character are the same. Character holds to the beautiful the same relation that the skeleton does to the living man. No one will deny that the osseous system is the foundation of all highly organized forms. It consolidates and defines the form, but is not the form itself; still less does it bring about that last appearance which, as the veil and integument of an organized whole, we call Beauty.

I cannot embark in similitudes, said my guest, and from your own words, moreover, it is evident that beauty is something incomprehensible, or the effect of something incomprehensible. What cannot be comprehended is naught; what we cannot make clear by words is nonsense.

I. — Can you then clearly express in words the effect that a colored body produces on your eyes?

He. — That is again a metaphor that I will not be drawn into. It is enough that character can be indicated. You find no beauty without it, else it would be empty and insignificant. All the beauty of the Ancients is only Character, and only out of this quality is beauty developed.

Our Philosopher had arrived meanwhile and was conversing with my nieces, when, hearing us speak earnestly, he stepped forward; and the stranger, stimulated by the accession of a new hearer, proceeded:

That is just the misfortune when good heads, when people of merit, get hold of such false principles, which have only an appearance of truth, and spread them wider and wider. None appropriate them so willingly as those who know and understand nothing of the subject. Thus has Lessing fastened upon us the principle that the ancients cultivated only the beautiful; thus has Winckelmann put us to sleep with his " noble simplicity and serene greatness "; whereas the art of the ancients appears in all imaginable forms. But these gentlemen tarry by Jupiter and Juno, Genii and Graces, and hide the ignoble forms and skulls of Barbarians, the rough hair, foul beard, gaunt bones, and wrinkled skin of deformed age, the protruding veins and hanging breasts.

In the name of God, I exclaimed, are there then independent, self-existing works of the best age of Ancient Art that exhibit such frightful objects? Or are they not rather subordinate works, occasional pieces, creations of an art that must demean itself according to outward circumstances, an art on the decline?

He. — I give you the specification, you can yourself search and judge. But you will not deny that the Laocoon, that Niobe, that Dirce with her stepsons, are self-subsistent works of art. Stand before the Laocoon and contemplate nature in full revolt and desperation. The last choking pang, the desperate struggle, the maddening convulsion, the working of the corroding poison, the vehement fermenting, the stagnating circulation, suffocating pressure, and paralytic death.

The Philosopher seemed to look at me with astonishment, and I answered: We shudder, we are horrified at the bare description. In sooth, if it be so with the group of Laocoon, what are we to say of the pleasure we find in this as in every other true work of art? But I will not meddle in the question. You must settle it with the authors of the Propylaea, who are of just the opposite mind.

It must be admitted, said my guest, that all Antiquity speaks for me; for where do horror and death rage more hideously than in the representation of the Niobe?

I was confounded by this assertion, for only a short time before I had been looking at the copper-plates in Fabroni, which I immediately brought forward and opened. I find no trace in the statues of raging horror and death, but rather the greatest subordination of tragical situation under the highest ideas of dignity, nobleness, beauty, and simplicity. I trace everywhere the artistic purpose to dispose the limbs agreeably and gracefully. The character is expressed only in the most general lines, which run through the work like a sort of ideal skeleton.

He. — Let us turn to the bas-reliefs, which we shall find at the end of the book.

We turned to them.

I. — Of anything horrible, to speak truly, I see no trace here either. Where is this rage of horror and death? I see figures so artfully interwoven, so happily placed against or extended upon each other, that while they remind me of a mournful destiny, they give room at the same time for the most charming imaginations. All that is characteristic is tempered, the violent is elevated, and I might say that Character lies at the foundation; upon it rest simplicity and dignity; the highest aim of art is beauty and its last effect the feeling of pleasure. The agreeable, which may not be immediately united with the characteristic, comes remarkably before our eyes in these sarcophagi. Are not the dead sons and daughters of Niobe here made use of as ornaments? This is the highest luxury of art; she adorns no longer with flowers and fruits, but with the corpses of men, with the greatest misfortune that can befall a father or mother, to see a blooming family all at once snatched away. Yes, the beauteous genius who stands beside the grave, his torch reversed, has stood beside the artist as he invented and perfected, and over his earthly greatness has breathed a heavenly grace.

My guest looked at me with a smile, and shrugged his shoulders. Alas, — said he, as I concluded, — alas, I see plainly that we can never agree. What a pity that a man of your acquirements, of your sense, will not perceive that these are all empty words; that to a man of understanding Beauty and Ideal must always be a dream which he cannot translate into reality, but finds to be in direct opposition to it. . . .

I. — Will you allow me also to put in a word?

The guest (somewhat scornfully.) — With all my heart, and I hope nothing about mere phantoms.

I. — I have some acquaintance with the poetry of the ancients, but have little knowledge of the plastic arts.

Guest. — That I regret; for in that case we can hardly come to an understanding.

I. — And yet the fine arts are nearly related, and the friends of the separate arts should not misunderstand each other.

Uncle. — Let us hear what you have to say.

I. — The old tragic writers dealt with the stuff in which they worked in the same way as the plastic artists, unless these engravings, representing the family of Niobe, give an altogether false impression of the original.

Guest. — They are passably good. They convey an imperfect but not a false impression.

I. — Well, then, to that extent we can take them for a ground to go upon.

Uncle. — What is it you assert of the treatment of the ancient tragic writers?

I. — The subjects they chose, especially in the early times, were often of an unbearable f rightfulness.

Guest. — Were the ancient fables insupportably frightful?

I. — Undoubtedly; in the same manner as your account of the Laocoon.

Guest. — Did you find that also unbearable?

I. — I ask pardon. I meant the thing you describe, not your description.

Guest. — And the work itself also?

I. — By no means the work itself, but that which you have seen in it, — the fable, the history, the skeleton, — that which you name the characteristic. For if the Laocoon really stood before our eyes such as you have described it, we ought not to hesitate a moment to dash it to pieces.

Guest. — You use strong expressions.

I. — One may do that as well as another.

Uncle. — Now then for the ancient tragedies.

Guest. — Yes, these insupportable subjects.

I. — Very good; but also this manner of treatment that makes everything endurable, beautiful, graceful.

Guest. — And that is effected by means of " simplicity and serene greatness?"

I. — So it appears.

Guest. — By the softening principle of Beauty?

I. — It can be nothing else.

Guest. — And the old tragedies were after all not frightful?

I. — Hardly, so far as my knowledge extends, if you listen to the poets themselves. In fact, if we regard in poetry only the material which lies at the foundation, if we are to speak of works of art as if in their place we had seen the actual circumstances, then even the tragedies of Sophocles can be described as loathsome and horrible.

Guest. — I will not pass judgment on poetry.

I. — Nor I on plastic art.

Guest. — Yes, it is best for each to stick to his own department.

I. — And yet there is a common point of union for all the arts wherefrom the laws of all proceed.

Guest. — And that is —

I. — The soul of man.

Guest. — Ay, ay; that is just the way with you gentlemen of the new school of philosophy. You bring everything upon your own ground and province; and, in fact, it is more convenient to shape the world according to your ideas than to adapt your notions to the truth of things.

I. — Here is no question of any metaphysical dispute.

Guest. — If there were I should certainly decline it.

I. — I shall admit for the sake of argument that Nature can be imagined as absolutely apart from man, but with him art necessarily concerns itself, for art exists only through man and for man.

Guest. — Where does all this tend?

I. — You yourself, when you make Character the end of art, appoint the understanding, which takes cognizance of the characteristic, as the judge.

Guest. — To be sure I do. What I cannot seize with my understanding does not exist for me.

I. — Yet man is not only a being of thought, but also of feeling. He is a whole; a union of various, closely connected powers; and to this whole of man the work of art is to address itself. It must speak to this rich unity, this simple variety in him.

Guest. — Don't carry me with you into these labyrinths, for who could ever help us out again?

I. — It will then be best for us to give up the dispute and each retain his position.

Guest. — I shall at least hold fast to mine.

I. — Perhaps a means may still be found whereby, if one does not take the other's position, he can at least observe him in it.

Guest. — Propose it then.

I. — We will for a moment contemplate art in its origin.

Guest. — Good.

I. — Let us accompany the work of art on its road to perfection.

Guest. — But only by the way of experience, if you expect me to follow. I will have nothing to do with the steep paths of speculation.

I. — You allow me to begin at the beginning.?

Guest. — With all my heart.

I. — A man feels an inclination for some object; let us suppose a single living being.

Guest. — As, for instance, this pretty lap-dog.

Julia. — Come, Bello! It is no small honor to serve as example in such a discussion.

I. — Truly, the dog is pretty enough, and if the man we are speaking of had the gift of imitation, he would try in some way to make a likeness of it. But let him prosper never so well in his imitation, we are still not advanced, for we have at best only two Bellos instead of one.

Guest. — I will not interrupt, but wait and see what is to become of this.

I. — Suppose that this man, to whom for the sake of his talent we will give the name of Artist, has by no means satisfied himself as yet; that his desire seems to him too narrow, too limited; that he busies himself about more individuals, varieties, kinds, species, in such wise that at last not the creature itself, but the Idea of the creature stands before him, and he is able to express this by means of his art.

Guest. — Bravo! That is just my man, and his work must be characteristic.

I. — No doubt.

Guest. — And there I would stop and go no farther.

I. — But we go beyond this.

Guest. — I stop here.

Uncle. — I will go along for the sake of experiment.

I. — By this operation we may arrive at a canon useful indeed, and scientifically valuable, but not satisfactory to the soul of man.

Guest. — How then are you going to satisfy the fantastic demands of this dear soul?

I. — Not fantastic; it is only not satisfied in its just claims. An old tradition informs us that the Elohim once took counsel together, saying, let us make man after our own image; and man says therefore, with good cause, let us make gods and they shall be in our image.

Guest. — We are getting into a dark region.

I. — There is only one light that can aid us here.

Guest. — And that is?

I. — Reason.

Guest. — How far it be a guide or a will-o'-wisp is hard to say.

I. — We need not give it a name; but let us ask ourselves what are the demands the soul makes of a work of art. It is not enough that it fulfils a limited desire, that it satisfies our curiosity, or gives order and stability to our knowledge; that which is Higher in us must be awakened; we must be inspired with reverence, and feel ourselves worthy of reverence.

Guest. — I begin to be at a loss to comprehend you.

Uncle. — But I think I am able to follow in some measure; — how far, I shall try to make clear by an example. We will suppose our artist had made an eagle in bronze which perfectly expressed the idea of the species, but now he would place him on the scepter of Jupiter. Do you think it would be perfectly suitable there?

Guest. — It would depend.

Uncle. — I say, No! The artist must first impart to him something beyond all this.

Guest.— What then?

Uncle. — It is hard to express.

Guest. — So I should think.

I. — And yet something may be done by approximation.

Guest. — To it then.

I. — He must give to the eagle what he gave to Jupiter, in order to make him into a God.

Guest. — And this is —

I. — The Godlike, — which in truth we should never become acquainted with, did not man feel and himself reproduce it.

Guest. — I continue to hold my ground, and let you ascend into the clouds. I see that you mean to indicate the high style of the Greeks, which I prize only so far as it is characteristic.

I. — It is something more to us, however; it answers to a high demand, but still not the highest.

Guest. — You seem to be very hard to satisfy.

I. — It beseems him to demand much for whom much is in store. Let me be brief. The human soul is in an exalted position when it reverences, when it adores; when it elevates an object and is elevated by it again. But it cannot remain long in this state. The general concept of genus leaves it cold; the Ideal raises it above itself; but now it must return again into itself; and it would gladly enjoy once more that affection which it then felt for the Individual, without coming back to the same limited view, and will not forego the significant, the spirit-moving. What would become of it now, if Beauty did not step in and happily solve the riddle? She first gives life and warmth to the Scientific, and breathing her softening influence and heavenly charm over even the Significant and the High, brings it back to us again. A beautiful work of art has gone through the entire circle; it becomes again an Individual that we can embrace with affection, that we can make our own.

Guest. — Have you done?

I. — For the present. The little circle is completed; we have come back to our starting point; the soul has made its demands, and those demands have been satisfied. I have nothing further to add. (Here our good uncle was peremptorily called away to a patient.)

Guest. — It is the custom of you philosophic gentlemen to engage in battle behind high-sounding words, as if it were an aegis.

I. — I can assure you that I have not now been speaking as a philosopher. These are mere matters of experience.

Guest. — Do you call that experience, whereof another can comprehend nothing?

I. — To every experience belongs an organ.

Guest. — Do you mean a separate one?

I. — Not a separate one; but it must have one peculiarity.

Guest. — And what is that?

I. — It must be able to produce.

Guest. — Produce what?

I. — The experience! There is no experience which is not brought forth, produced, created.

Guest. — This is too much!

I. — This is particularly the case with artists.

Guest. — Indeed! How enviable would the portrait painter be, what custom would he not have, if he could reproduce all his customers without troubling people with so many sittings!

I. — I am not deterred by your instance, but rather am convinced no portrait can be worth anything that the painter does not in the strictest sense create.

Guest (springing up). — This is maddening! I would you were making game of me, and all this were only in jest. How happy I should be to have the riddle explained in that manner! How gladly would I give my hand to a worthy man like you!

I. — Unfortunately, I am quite in earnest, and cannot come to any other conclusion.

Guest. — Now I did hope that in parting we should take each other's hand, especially since our good host has departed, who would have held the place of mediator in your dispute. Farewell, Mademoiselle! Farewell, Sir! I shall inquire to-morrow whether I may wait on you again.

So he stormed out of the door, and Julia had scarce time to send the maid, who was ready with the lantern, after him. I remained alone with the sweet child, for Caroline had disappeared some time before, — I think about the time that my opponent had declared that mere beauty, without character, must be insipid.

You went too far, my friend, said Julia, after a short pause. If he did not seem to me altogether in the right, neither can I give unqualified assent to you; for your last assertion was only made to tease him. The portrait painter must make the likeness a pure creation?

Fair Julia, I replied, how much I could wish to make myself clear to you upon this point. Perhaps in time I shall succeed. But you, whose lively spirit is at home in all regions, who not only prize the artist but in some sense anticipate him, and who know how to give form to what your eyes have never seen, as if it stood bodily before you, you should be the last to start when the question is of creation, of production.

Julia. — I see it is your intention to bribe me. That will not be hard, for I like to listen to you.

I. — Let us think well of man, and not trouble ourselves if what we say of him may sound a little bizarre. Everybody admits that the poet must be born. Does not everyone ascribe to genius a creative power, and no one thinks he is repeating a paradox? We do not deny it to works of fancy; but the inactive, the worthless man will not become aware of the good, the noble, the beautiful, either in himself or others. Whence came it, if it did not spring from ourselves? Ask your own heart. Is not the method of intercourse born with intercourse? Is it not the capacity for good deeds that rejoices over the good deed? Who ever feels keenly without the wish to express that feeling? and what do we express but what we create? and in truth, not once only, that it may exist and there end, but that it may operate, ever increase, and again come to life, and again create. This is the godlike power of love, of the singing and speaking of which there is no end, that it reproduces at every moment the noble qualities of the beloved object, perfects it in the least particulars, embraces it in the whole, rests not by day, sleeps not by night, is enchanted with its own work, is astonished at its own restless activity, ever finds the familiar new, because at every moment it is re-created in the sweetest of all occupations. Yes, the picture of the beloved cannot grow old, for every moment is the moment of its birth.

The maid returned from lighting the stranger. She was highly satisfied with his liberality, for he had given her a handsome pourboire; but she praised his politeness still more highly, for he had dismissed her with a friendly word, and, moreover, called her " Pretty Maid."

I was not in a humor to spare him, and exclaimed: " Oh, yes! I can easily credit that one who denies the ideal should take the common for the beautiful."