Читать книгу Art in Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 138

Voltaire was one of the generation of thinkers who established the intellectual atmosphere enabling the French Revolution. His Essai sur les moeurs (1756), whose full title includes the phrase ‘an essay on Universal History’, took as its point of departure Bossuet’s Discourse on Universal History of 1681. In that text Bossuet, writing as a Roman Catholic bishop, had argued for the pre‐eminence of Christian Europe over ‘pagan’ nations. In contrast, Voltaire offered a more nuanced account, one not driven by religious partisanship but speaking to the secular concerns of Enlightenment debate. Bossuet’s book had aspired to cover a period from the beginning of the world to the empire of Charlemagne. It was the latter that Voltaire took as his point of departure. The present short extracts include Voltaire’s initial statement of his reasons for beginning his account of world history with the East, followed by some of his observations on China, India, ancient Persia and the early Islamic state (which was approximately coeval with Charlemagne). Throughout, Voltaire’s position has two sides. On the one hand, he emphasized the much longer period of civilization in the East than in Europe. But on the other, he had to acknowledge that eighteenth‐century European civilization appeared to have advanced in significantly new and powerful ways. That said, Voltaire’s openness to non‐European civilizations did not always extend to their art; his sociocultural radicalism was balanced by something altogether more conventional when it came to matters of ‘taste’ (cf. IIC5). The term ‘moeurs’, in Voltaire’s usage, goes beyond its conventional meaning of ‘customs’ and ‘manners’ to imply something of the sense of culture as a ‘whole way of life’ that did not become widely accepted until the twentieth century. The extracts are taken from An Essay on Universal History, the Manners and Spirit of Nations from the Reign of Charlemaign to the Age of Lewis XIV. Written in French by M. de Voltaire and Translated into English by Mr. Nugent, London 1759, pp. 2–4 (Introduction), 10 and 17–19 (on China), 30 and 32–4 (on India), 37–8 (on ancient Persepolis) and 56–9 (on the early Islamic Caliphate).

The celebrated Bossuet, who in his discourse on one part of universal history has entered into the true spirit of it, went no lower than Charlemaign. Your intent is to begin at this era, and thence to form a general idea of the universe; but you will be often obliged to go back to remoter times.¹ This great writer takes but a slight notice of the Arabians who founded so potent an empire and so flourishing a religion; he makes mention of them as a swarm of barbarians. He expatiates on the Egyptians; but he is silent in regard to the Indians and the Chinese, nations as antient at least, and as considerable as the people of Egypt.

Nourished with the produce of their lands, clothed with their silks, amused by the games which they invented, and even instructed by their moral fables, why should we neglect to be acquainted with the spirit of those nations, to whose coasts our European merchants did not fail to steer, as soon as the way was laid open?

When you consider this globe as a philosopher, you first direct your attention to the east, the nursery of all arts, and from whence they have been communicated to the west. […] The whole Levant from Greece to the extremity of our hemisphere, was long celebrated in history, before we knew enough to convince us that we were barbarians. […]

Let us then survey this globe together. Let us see in what state it was, and consider it in the same order as it seems to have been civilized, that is, by proceeding from the eastern nations to our own; and let us give our attention first of all to a people, who had a connected history in a language already fixed, before we knew how to write.

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The empire of China, even in those days, was larger than that of Charlemaign, especially if we include Corea and Tonquin, provinces at that time tributary to the Chinese: it extends to about 30 degrees in longitude, and 24 in latitude. This state has subsisted in splendour above 4,000 years, without having undergone any material alteration in its laws, manners, language and even in the mode and fashion of dress. […]

This country, so greatly favoured by nature, produces all the different sorts of fruits that grow in Europe, and a great many others which we are strangers to. The earth is covered with wheat, rice, vines, pulse, and trees of every kind; but the inhabitants never make any wine, being satisfied with a liquor of sufficient strength, which they extract from rice.

That precious insect which produces silk, is originally from China, from whence it was not imported into Persia till very late, together with the art of weaving the down, in which it is inveloped: this manufacture was so very scarce even in Justinian’s time, that silk was sold in Europe for its weight in gold.

The Chinese have had a paper manufacture time immemorial; the paper is exceeding white and fine, and made of the strings of boiled bamboo. We cannot tell when first their porcelain was invented, nor that beautiful varnish which we begin now to imitate and to rival in Europe.

They have had glass manufacture these 2,000 years, but their glass is not so fine so transparent as ours.

They invented printing at the same time. It is well known that their method of printing is by engraving on wooden blocks, in the manner as was first practised by Guttenberg at Mentz in the fifteenth century. The art of stamping characters on wood is more improved in China; but such is their attachment to ancient customs, that they have not yet adopted our method of using moveable and fount types, though greatly superior to theirs. […]

Pekin has an observatory full of astrolabes and armillary spheres, inferior indeed to our instruments for exactness, but yet sufficient proofs of the superiority of the Chinese over other nations of Asia.

They were acquainted with the compass, but did not apply it to its right use in navigation. For as they inhabited a land that abounds with every thing, they had no need like us to circumnavigate the globe. The compass as well as gunpowder was only a matter of curiosity in respect to them, nor indeed were they much to be lamented for the want of such improvements.

It is surprizing that this ingenious nation never went beyond the elements of geometry, that they were ignorant of semitones in music, that their astronomy and all their sciences were at the same time so antient and so limited. It seems as if nature had given to this species of men so different from ours, organs formed for discovering all at once whatever was necessary for them, and incapable of going any further. We on the contrary have made our discoveries very late; but we have been quick in bringing things to perfection.

* * *

Following the apparent course of the sun, the next country I come to, is India, a country almost as extensive as China, and more known on account of the precious commodities in all ages brought from thence by the industry of merchants, than from any exact relations of it.

A chain of mountains but little interrupted, seems to have fixed its limits towards China, Tartary and Persia; and the rest is surrounded by the sea. And yet India on this side of the Ganges, was for a long time subject to the Persians; for which reason Alexander the revenger of Greece and the conqueror of Darius, pushed his conquests even into that part of India which was tributary to his enemy. Since the time of Alexander, the Indians have lived in a licentiousness and effeminacy inspired by the goodness of the climate, and the richness of the soil. […]

The figures we make use of in arithmetic, which we received from the Arabs, near the time of Charlemaign, came from India: and perhaps the antient medals so highly valued by the curious among the Chinese, are a proof that the arts were cultivated in India, before they were known in China. […]

Some have imagined that the human race came originally from Indostan, alledging that the weakest animal must have been produced in the mildest climate: but we are in the dark in regard to all originals. Who can say that there were neither insects, nor herbs, nor trees in our climate, when they were in the east?

India was known only by name in the time of Charlemaign; and the Indians were ignorant that there was a Charlemaign. The Arabs, sole masters of the maritime commerce, supplied both Constantinople and the Franks with the commodities of the Indes. The Venetians bought them up at Alexandria. The demand for them in France among private people was not yet very considerable; they were long unknown in Germany, and throughout the north. The Romans had carried on this trade themselves, as soon as they were masters of Egypt. Thus the western nations have always carried their gold and silver to India, and enriched that country, which is so rich of itself.

India having been in all ages a trading industrious nation, its civil polity must have been excellent; and that country, to which Pythagoras had travelled for instruction, must have been governed by good laws, without which the arts are never cultivated.

* * *

If any remains of the Asiatic arts merit our curiosity, it is the ruins of Persepolis described in many books, and copied in several prints. I am not ignorant of the admiration inspired by those ruins, that escaped the torches with which Alexander and the courtesan Thais, set Persepolis in flames. But could a palace erected at the foot of a chain of barren rocks, be a masterpiece of art? The columns which are yet standing, cannot surely be reckoned either of a just proportion, or of an elegant design. The capitals are loaded with foolish ornaments, and nearly as high as the shaft; All the figures are as heavy and hard as those which unluckily disgrace our Gothic churches. They are monuments of grandeur but not of taste; and the whole confirms me in the opinion, that if we confine ourselves to the history of the polite arts, we shall find no more than four ages in the annals of the world, namely those of Alexander, of Augustus, of the Medicis, and of Lewis XIV.

* * *

In proportion as the Mahometans grew powerful, they became polite. These caliphs, who were always acknowledged as the sovereigns of religion, and apparently of the empire, by those who no longer received their orders at such a distance, lived in tranquillity in their new Babylon, and soon revived the arts. Aaron Rachild [Harun al‐Rashid], contemporary of Charlemaign, was more respected than any of his predecessors, and made himself obeyed even in Spain and India; he revived the sciences, taught the agreeable and the useful arts to flourish, drew learned men into his country, composed verses, and made politeness take place of barbarism throughout his vast dominions. […]

An infallible proof of the superior genius of a nation in regard to the polite arts, is the cultivation of true poetry. I speak not of high flown bombast compositions, nor of the heap of insipid commonplaces about the sun, the moon, and the stars, the mountains, and seas; but of that bold yet elegant taste which obtained in the reign of Augustus, and which we have seen revived under Lewis XIV. This poetry which abounds with images and sentiments, was known in the time of Aaron Rachild. Amidst a variety of examples I shall select one that strikes me, and I give it because it is concise. It relates to the famous downfall of Giafar Barmecides.

Weak mortal, whom prosperity

Has intoxicated with its dangerous charms,

Learn how precarious is the favour

Of kings, from the example of Barmecides;

And dread being happy.

This last verse is translated word for word. Nothing can be more beautiful in my opinion than, dread being happy. The Arabic tongue had the advantage of being perfected a great while ago; it was ascertained before the time of Mahomet, and has not altered since. Of the several jargons then spoken in Europe, there is not at present the least vestige. Which way soever we turn ourselves, we must own we were born but yesterday. We go beyond other nations in many respects; and perhaps it is because we came the last.