Читать книгу Ananias or the False Artist - Walter Pach - Страница 6

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Let us have a look at the claim that nothing is certain. It was the basis of the Sophist philosophy in Athens, which was opposed by Socrates with his grand affirmation that a real knowledge of men showed their beliefs to be identical. I think that only the Sophist can affirm the existence of any important fluctuation in our idea of the value of the older arts. When one goes out to seek evidence in support of this claim, he can find a period here and there, usually a short one, when the Greeks, or Michael Angelo, or Rembrandt were held in low esteem. He can point out, for example, the burning of the marbles of Greece to produce lime, and argue from such contempt for classical art that it is no more a permanent guide than the most ephemeral things of today. The answer to that argument, in the changes of religion and in the coming of the barbarians, seems too obvious for mention. One can point to the slight opinion that was held of Egyptian art a century or so ago, or to the position as mere curios of Chinese and Japanese objects hardly more than half a century ago, and the neglect of El Greco which obtained till within very recent years. But again the simple reply must occur to everyone: the arts in question were barely known, or even unknown, when the world left them out of its reckoning. “Your modernist friends have come up very suddenly,” I am told; “they will sink back to where they belong just as suddenly—and stay there.” Excuse me, but now you are assuming to speak for the future; I think we must wait and let it speak for itself.

The “objective” school, eschewing the question of right and wrong, gives its attention to matters of chronology, attribution, derivation, methods, materials, etc.; to these things scientific research may be applied—and has been applied—with truly admirable results. But when the most difficult of such problems are finally solved, there still remains the more important question of the value of the different arts. And that matter presses for a decision in one place if in no other. Since a century and a quarter, or a little more, the world has possessed an institution unknown previously—the Museum. As it now exists, taking in all periods and all forms of effort (the applied as well as the fine arts), it forces us to define our terms by our acts, by including certain works and excluding others.

We are told that the Museum expresses no opinion on its possessions but simply exhibits the various paintings and sculptures to public view, as the natural-history museum presents all stones, all insects, with perfect impartiality. Does anyone really believe that? If so he must be one who can apply to himself the words: “He who thus believes has the faith which opens the gates of heaven.” And such faith becomes difficult to maintain when one even glances at the facts. Whole races are excluded from the art museum: the Africans (save for the Egyptians and the Moors, who are partly Arab) and the American Indians—even including such mighty contributors to the human record as the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Peruvians. As to the schools accepted as being within the purview of the Museum, see whether there is no expression of opinion. How much of the work in the Luxembourg will go to the Louvre? Only what time decides on as the best. This is, indeed, as it should be, and perhaps there should be yet more time allowed than now for the reaching of a decision. Or perhaps we may reach the point of getting museum authorities capable of making valid decisions in a short time. It is difficult today, with the immense political power of the False Artist. Yet the existence of great private collections shows that the only thing needed is leadership. The public collections, as a rule, give the main weight of their testimony in favor of Ananias, and the future would be black indeed if his products did not have the peculiarity of revealing their shoddiness in a generation or two—or often in a much shorter time.

Even as to the ancient schools the great museums are forever reconsidering their estimates—seeking to obtain the master forgotten before, or sending to the provinces the man whose previous acceptance was merely a matter of passing favor. To note this is not to lean toward the Sophist in his denial of absolute values. The action of the Museum is rather a confirmation of the claim that in the long view we do come to agreement. But if one thing is certain, it is that the Museum is the place to which we repair for standards and, even more, for a training of judgment to fit us for our new problems. It will not tolerate that refusal to choose between true and false artists which would expel me from the genteel quiet of the London art club, because I say that much which hangs on museum walls is the work of Ananias. In passing, I should like to ask the guardians of the proprieties who are so shocked at my language a question or two as to their own words—and their acts—when the matter is one of the things they dislike in modern art. Did not that pillar of the National Academy, Mr. Robert Aitken, give legal testimony at the Customs House that the sculptures of a man he disapproved were not works of art at all? That being the case, they could be admitted only under the provisions covering manufactured articles. Yet their producer had been a favorite pupil of Rodin’s, and one who has come to be regarded as one of the ablest representatives of the later tendencies. Here was no matter of calm, philosophic discussion, but one of practical, financial results: Brancusi and the purchasers of his work had their choice between seeing the sculptures remain under the objectionable classification of commercial work in metal, or prove to the satisfaction of officialdom that free entry to our ports was their right as original works of art.

Nothing is commoner than to hear artists charged with insanity and dishonesty. The two things are, of course, quite separate, but both may be given a moment’s attention. There have been men whose minds were deranged as far as ordinary affairs were concerned, but who expressed themselves in their art with perfect clarity; and everyone agrees that they have done so—if he happens to like the work. Certain psychopathic experts say they can plainly see insanity in the painting of van Gogh (when they know from other sources about his abnormal conduct—under the strain of tragic circumstances). They must explain, if they want to be accepted as scientists, why they see no insanity in the style of Meryon, a downright madman. In one or two of his plates, outstanding masterpieces of the art of etching, there are fanciful figures flying through the sky over Paris, and in these, as in his great picture of the demon who looks down from Notre Dame, some writers have imagined that they saw a trace of Meryon’s insanity. But such figures are to be found in work by men of the sanest mind. Moreover, it is not in van Gogh’s subjects, but in his style—his drawing and his color—that the doctors claim to see the expression of an impaired mind. If they can do that, what reason can they give for failing to find such evidence in the case of Meryon? The reason is that they are not talking science but art. They dislike the painting of van Gogh, and knowing him to have had seizures of dementia, they say his art was crazy; but Meryon did work they admire, therefore his art was not crazy. To speak so is to use the word insane merely as an epithet, in the way that certain people refer to the race or religion of men they dislike. Perhaps, starting with the fact that demented people have done admirable work, like that of van Gogh, Jongkind, and Meryon (add Blakelock, if you are so disposed), and also, that other demented persons have done perfectly commonplace work, a genuinely scientific consideration of insanity might arrive at the conclusion of separate functions of the mind—the art-function sharing or not sharing the derangement of the rest, according to the particular case.

The charge of dishonesty lies in a different category. There has probably never been a real artist who was dishonest in his work—who did things he believed to be false. The artist knows that the whole of his honor resides in the faith with which he holds to his conception of his work. As business men, as husbands, as Sons of Temperance, as citizens, and perhaps—in a few cases—as friends, artists have sometimes left a bad record. It may be neglected even when we should most like to see it changed. For the essential point is not to be found in those parts of the record. It lies wholly, uniquely, absolutely in the man’s attitude toward his work. Once more the matter comes back to a religious issue. Beauty of form and color is simply the attribute by which we judge the artist’s success in conveying his idea. It is a by-product which cannot be reached by direct effort. The man who makes such an effort is the æsthete, and the world is right in regarding him with suspicion. The artist searches for certain lines and colors so that he may render the sense of the world which it awakens in his brain. Whether he makes a portrait, a still-life, or a landscape, a piece of armor or a palace or a rug, all the science, all the workmanship, all the knowledge of the precious materials he employs, all the study that makes him master of the flux of appearances in the surrounding world, are only the means for telling what it signifies to him. If he has done so, we and all the generations after us, see that he has spoken the truth. And to denote the special type of truth that is open to the artist we say his work is beautiful.

We are not disturbed by the fact that the various periods bring forth very different phases of truth. On the contrary, when we find that a Greek does one thing and a Dutchman a thing quite unlike it, we see that both are right and feel only the more gratitude for our heritage. The Dutchman is untroubled by the fact that his work does not look like the art of the Greek, and his concern need not begin until his people go after the strange gods that will mislead them as to their proper idea. The artist has often been beset by poverty, but even that fact does not permit him to tamper with his idea for the sake of gain—either of goods or of fame. He does not need to be told the parable in those chapters of the Acts in order to avoid the penalty that waits like Fate itself for those who lie “not to men, but to God.” Honesty being the first condition of his whole nature, he goes on in his work without a suspicion that he could do it otherwise, without understanding the man who sets some other reward above the knowledge of the work well done. Ananias has the mind most completely alien to his own; the other men of the time do not see the truth at all, but the False Artist knows what the issue is and tries to be on both sides.