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Page 29
Now we are better prepared to recognize the characteristic function of
the artist. He is doing exactly the opposite of what the scholar is
aiming at. Both are changing and remolding the given thing or event in
the interest of their ideal aims. But the ideal aim of beauty and art is
in complete contrast to the ideal aim of scholarly knowledge. The
scholar, we see, establishes connections by which the special thing
loses all character of separateness. He binds it to all the remainder of
the physical and social universe. The artist, on the contrary, cuts off
every possible connection. He puts his landscape into a frame so that
every possible link with the surrounding world is severed. He places
his statue on a pedestal so that it cannot possibly step into the room
around it. He makes his persons speak in verse so that they cannot
possibly be connected with the intercourse of the day. He tells his
story so that nothing can happen after the last chapter. _The work of
art shows us the things and events perfectly complete in themselves,
freed from all connections which lead beyond their own limits, that is,
in perfect isolation._
Both the truth which the scholar discovers and the beauty which the
artist creates are valuable; but it is now clear that the value in both
cases lies not in the mere repetition of the offerings of reality. There
is no reason whatever for appreciating a mere imitation or repetition of
that which exists in the world. Neither the scholar nor the artist could
do better than nature or history. The value in both cases lies just in
the deviation from reality in the service of human desires and ideals.
The desire and ideal of the scholar is to give us an interconnected
world in which we understand everything by its being linked with
everything else; and the desire and ideal of the artist in every
possible art is to give us things which are freed from the connection
of the world and which stand before us complete in themselves. The
things of the outer world have thousandfold ties with nature and
history. An object becomes beautiful when it is delivered from these
ties, and in order to secure this result we must take it away from the
background of reality and reproduce it in such a form that it is
unmistakably different from the real things which are enchained by the
causes and effects of nature.
Why does this satisfy us? Why is it valuable to have a part of nature or
life liberated from all connection with the world? Why does it make us
happy to see anything in its perfect isolation, an isolation which real
life seldom offers and which only art can give in complete perfection?
The motives which lead us to value the product of the scholar are easily
recognized. He aims toward connection. He reshapes the world until it
appears connected, because that helps us to foresee the effects of every
event and teaches us to master nature so that we can use it for our
practical achievements. But why do we appreciate no less the opposite
work which the artist is doing? Might we not answer that this enjoyment
of the artistic work results from the fact that only in contact with an
isolated experience can we feel perfectly happy? Whatever we meet in
life or nature awakes in us desires, impulses to action, suggestions and
questions which must be answered. Life is a continuous striving. Nothing
is an end in itself and therefore nothing is a source of complete rest.
Everything is a stimulus to new wishes, a source of new uneasiness which
longs for new satisfaction in the next and again the next thing. Life
pushes us forward. Yet sometimes a touch of nature comes to us; we are
stirred by a thrill of life which awakens plenty of impulses but which
offers satisfaction to all these impulses in itself. It does not lead
beyond itself but contains in its own midst everything which answers the
questions, which brings the desires to rest.
Wherever we meet such an offering of nature, we call it beautiful. We
speak of the beautiful landscape, of the beautiful face. And wherever we
meet it in life, we speak of love, of friendship, of peace, of harmony.
The word harmony may even cover both nature and life. Wherever it
happens that every line and every curve and every color and every
movement in the landscape is so harmonious with all the others that
every suggestion which one stirs up is satisfied by another, there it is
perfect and we are completely happy in it. In the life relations of love
and friendship and peace, there is again this complete harmony of
thought and feeling and will, in which every desire is satisfied. If our
own mind is in such flawless harmony, we feel the true happiness which
crowns our life. Such harmony, in which every part is the complete
fulfillment of that which the other parts demand, when nothing is
suggested which is not fulfilled in the midst of the same experience,
where nothing points beyond and everything is complete in the offering
itself, must be a source of inexhaustible happiness. To remold nature
and life so that it offers such complete harmony in itself that it does
not point beyond its own limits but is an ultimate unity through the
harmony of its parts: this is the aim of the isolation which the artist
alone achieves. That restful happiness which the beautiful landscape or
the harmonious life relation can furnish us in blessed instants of our
struggling life is secured as a joy forever when the painter or the
sculptor, the dramatist or the poet, the composer or the
photoplaywright, recomposes nature and life and shows us a unity which
does not lead beyond itself but is in itself perfectly harmonious.
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