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Page 28
It is often said that admission of the possibility of one art
helping another amounts to a denial of the necessary differences
between the arts. This is, however, not the case. As has been
said, an absolutely similar inner appeal cannot be achieved by
two different arts. Even if it were possible the second version
would differ at least outwardly. But suppose this were not the
case, that is to say, suppose a repetition of the same appeal
exactly alike both outwardly and inwardly could be achieved by
different arts, such repetition would not be merely superfluous.
To begin with, different people find sympathy in different forms
of art (alike on the active and passive side among the creators
or the receivers of the appeal); but further and more important,
repetition of the same appeal thickens the spiritual atmosphere
which is necessary for the maturing of the finest feelings, in
the same way as the hot air of a greenhouse is necessary for the
ripening of certain fruit. An example of this is the case of the
individual who receives a powerful impression from constantly
repeated actions, thoughts or feelings, although if they came
singly they might have passed by unnoticed. [Footnote: This idea
forms, of course, the fundamental reason for advertisement.] We
must not, however, apply this rule only to the simple examples of
the spiritual atmosphere. For this atmosphere is like air, which
can be either pure or filled with various alien elements. Not
only visible actions, thoughts and feelings, with outward
expression, make up this atmosphere, but secret happenings of
which no one knows, unspoken thoughts, hidden feelings are also
elements in it. Suicide, murder, violence, low and unworthy
thoughts, hate, hostility, egotism, envy, narrow "patriotism,"
partisanship, are elements in the spiritual atmosphere.
[Footnote: Epidemics of suicide or of violent warlike feeling,
etc., are products of this impure atmosphere.]
And conversely, self-sacrifice, mutual help, lofty thoughts,
love, un-selfishness, joy in the success of others, humanity,
justness, are the elements which slay those already enumerated as
the sun slays the microbes, and restore the atmosphere to purity.
[Footnote: These elements likewise have their historical
periods.]
The second and more complicated form of repetition is that in
which several different elements make mutual use of different
forms. In our case these elements are the different arts summed
up in the art of the future. And this form of repetition is even
more powerful, for the different natures of men respond to the
different elements in the combination. For one the musical form
is the most moving and impressive; for another the pictorial, for
the third the literary, and so on. There reside, therefore, in
arts which are outwardly different, hidden forces equally
different, so that they may all work in one man towards a single
result, even though each art may be working in isolation.
This sharply defined working of individual colours is the basis
on which various values can be built up in harmony. Pictures will
come to be painted--veritable artistic arrangements, planned in
shades of one colour chosen according to artistic feeling. The
carrying out of one colour, the binding together and admixture of
two related colours, are the foundations of most coloured
harmonies. From what has been said above about colour working,
from the fact that we live in a time of questioning, experiment
and contradiction, we can draw the easy conclusion that for a
harmonization on the basis of individual colours our age is
especially unsuitable. Perhaps with envy and with a mournful
sympathy we listen to the music of Mozart. It acts as a welcome
pause in the turmoil of our inner life, as a consolation and as a
hope, but we hear it as the echo of something from another age
long past and fundamentally strange to us. The strife of colours,
the sense of balance we have lost, tottering principles,
unexpected assaults, great questions, apparently useless
striving, storm and tempest, broken chains, antitheses and
contradictions, these make up our harmony. The composition
arising from this harmony is a mingling of colour and form each
with its separate existence, but each blended into a common life
which is called a picture by the force of the inner need. Only
these individual parts are vital. Everything else (such as
surrounding conditions) is subsidiary. The combination of two
colours is a logical outcome of modern conditions. The
combination of colours hitherto considered discordant, is merely
a further development. For example, the use, side by side, of red
and blue, colours in themselves of no physical relationship, but
from their very spiritual contrast of the strongest effect, is
one of the most frequent occurrences in modern choice of harmony.
[Footnote: Cf. Gauguin, Noa Noa, where the artist states his
disinclination when he first arrived in Tahiti to juxtapose red
and blue.] Harmony today rests chiefly on the principle of
contrast which has for all time been one of the most important
principles of art. But our contrast is an inner contrast which
stands alone and rejects the help (for that help would mean
destruction) of any other principles of harmony. It is
interesting to note that this very placing together of red and
blue was so beloved by the primitive both in Germany and Italy
that it has till today survived, principally in folk pictures of
religious subjects. One often sees in such pictures the Virgin in
a red gown and a blue cloak. It seems that the artists wished to
express the grace of heaven in terms of humanity, and humanity in
terms of heaven. Legitimate and illegitimate combinations of
colours, contrasts of various colours, the over-painting of one
colour with another, the definition of coloured surfaces by
boundaries of various forms, the overstepping of these
boundaries, the mingling and the sharp separation of surfaces,
all these open great vistas of artistic possibility.
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