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Page 21
Without such development as this, form-composition is impossible.
To anyone who cannot experience the inner appeal of form (whether
material or abstract) such composition can never be other than
meaningless. Apparently aimless alterations in form-arrangement
will make art seem merely a game. So once more we are faced with
the same principle, which is to set art free, the principle of
the inner need.
When features or limbs for artistic reasons are changed or
distorted, men reject the artistic problem and fall back on the
secondary question of anatomy. But, on our argument, this
secondary consideration does not appear, only the real, artistic
question remaining. These apparently irresponsible, but really
well-reasoned alterations in form provide one of the storehouses
of artistic possibilities.
The adaptability of forms, their organic but inward variations,
their motion in the picture, their inclination to material or
abstract, their mutual relations, either individually or as parts
of a whole; further, the concord or discord of the various
elements of a picture, the handling of groups, the combinations
of veiled and openly expressed appeals, the use of rhythmical or
unrhythmical, of geometrical or non-geometrical forms, their
contiguity or separation--all these things are the material for
counterpoint in painting.
But so long as colour is excluded, such counterpoint is confined
to black and white. Colour provides a whole wealth of
possibilities of her own, and when combined with form, yet a
further series of possibilities. And all these will be
expressions of the inner need.
The inner need is built up of three mystical elements: (1) Every
artist, as a creator, has something in him which calls for
expression (this is the element of personality). (2) Every
artist, as child of his age, is impelled to express the spirit of
his age (this is the element of style)--dictated by the period
and particular country to which the artist belongs (it is
doubtful how long the latter distinction will continue to exist).
(3) Every artist, as a servant of art, has to help the cause of
art (this is the element of pure artistry, which is constant in
all ages and among all nationalities).
A full understanding of the first two elements is necessary for a
realization of the third. But he who has this realization will
recognize that a rudely carved Indian column is an expression of
the same spirit as actuates any real work of art of today.
In the past and even today much talk is heard of "personality" in
art. Talk of the coming "style" becomes more frequent daily. But
for all their importance today, these questions will have
disappeared after a few hundred or thousand years.
Only the third element--that of pure artistry--will remain for
ever. An Egyptian carving speaks to us today more subtly than it
did to its chronological contemporaries; for they judged it with
the hampering knowledge of period and personality. But we can
judge purely as an expression of the eternal artistry.
Similarly--the greater the part played in a modern work of art by
the two elements of style and personality, the better will it be
appreciated by people today; but a modern work of art which is
full of the third element, will fail to reach the contemporary
soul. For many centuries have to pass away before the third
element can be received with understanding. But the artist in
whose work this third element predominates is the really great
artist.
Because the elements of style and personality make up what is
called the periodic characteristics of any work of art, the
"development" of artistic forms must depend on their separation
from the element of pure artistry, which knows neither period nor
nationality. But as style and personality create in every epoch
certain definite forms, which, for all their superficial
differences, are really closely related, these forms can be
spoken of as one side of art--the SUBJECTIVE. Every artist
chooses, from the forms which reflect his own time, those which
are sympathetic to him, and expresses himself through them. So
the subjective element is the definite and external expression of
the inner, objective element.
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