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Page 10
Competition arises. The wild battle for success becomes more and
more material. Small groups who have fought their way to the top
of the chaotic world of art and picture-making entrench
themselves in the territory they have won. The public, left far
behind, looks on bewildered, loses interest and turns away.
But despite all this confusion, this chaos, this wild hunt for
notoriety, the spiritual triangle, slowly but surely, with
irresistible strength, moves onwards and upwards.
The invisible Moses descends from the mountain and sees the dance
round the golden calf. But he brings with him fresh stores of
wisdom to man.
First by the artist is heard his voice, the voice that is
inaudible to the crowd. Almost unknowingly the artist follows the
call. Already in that very question "how?" lies a hidden seed of
renaissance. For when this "how?" remains without any fruitful
answer, there is always a possibility that the same "something"
(which we call personality today) may be able to see in the
objects about it not only what is purely material but also
something less solid; something less "bodily" than was seen in
the period of realism, when the universal aim was to reproduce
anything "as it really is" and without fantastic imagination.
[Footnote: Frequent use is made here of the terms "material" and
"non-material," and of the intermediate phrases "more" or "less
material." Is everything material? or is EVERYTHING spiritual?
Can the distinctions we make between matter and spirit be nothing
but relative modifications of one or the other? Thought which,
although a product of the spirit, can be defined with positive
science, is matter, but of fine and not coarse substance. Is
whatever cannot be touched with the hand, spiritual? The
discussion lies beyond the scope of this little book; all that
matters here is that the boundaries drawn should not be too
definite.]
If the emotional power of the artist can overwhelm the "how?" and
can give free scope to his finer feelings, then art is on the
crest of the road by which she will not fail later on to find the
"what" she has lost, the "what" which will show the way to the
spiritual food of the newly awakened spiritual life. This "what?"
will no longer be the material, objective "what" of the former
period, but the internal truth of art, the soul without which the
body (i.e. the "how") can never be healthy, whether in an
individual or in a whole people.
THIS "WHAT" IS THE INTERNAL TRUTH WHICH ONLY ART CAN DIVINE,
WHICH ONLY ART CAN EXPRESS BY THOSE MEANS OF EXPRESSION WHICH ARE
HERS ALONE.
III. SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION
The spiritual triangle moves slowly onwards and upwards. Today
one of the largest of the lower segments has reached the point of
using the first battle cry of the materialist creed. The dwellers
in this segment group themselves round various banners in
religion. They call themselves Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc.
But they are really atheists, and this a few either of the
boldest or the narrowest openly avow. "Heaven is empty," "God is
dead." In politics these people are democrats and republicans.
The fear, horror and hatred which yesterday they felt for these
political creeds they now direct against anarchism, of which they
know nothing but its much dreaded name.
In economics these people are Socialists. They make sharp the
sword of justice with which to slay the hydra of capitalism and
to hew off the head of evil.
Because the inhabitants of this great segment of the triangle
have never solved any problem independently, but are dragged as
it were in a cart by those the noblest of their fellowmen who
have sacrificed themselves, they know nothing of the vital
impulse of life which they regard always vaguely from a great
distance. They rate this impulse lightly, putting their trust in
purposeless theory and in the working of some logical method.
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