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Page 31
Yet again is the case of a red tree different. The fundamental
value of red remains, as in every case. But the association of
"autumn" creeps in.
The colour combines easily with this association, and there is no
dramatic clash as in the case of the red cloak.
Finally, the red horse provides a further variation. The very
words put us in another atmosphere. The impossibility of a red
horse demands an unreal world. It is possible that this
combination of colour and form will appeal as a freak--a purely
superficial and non-artistic appeal--or as a hint of a fairy
story [Footnote: An incomplete fairy story works on the mind as
does a cinematograph film.]--once more a non-artistic appeal. To
set this red horse in a careful naturalistic landscape would
create such a discord as to produce no appeal and no coherence.
The need for coherence is the essential of harmony--whether
founded on conventional discord or concord. The new harmony
demands that the inner value of a picture should remain unified
whatever the variations or contrasts of outward form or colour.
The elements of the new art are to be found, therefore, in the
inner and not the outer qualities of nature.
The spectator is too ready to look for a meaning in a picture--
i.e., some outward connection between its various parts. Our
materialistic age has produced a type of spectator or
"connoisseur," who is not content to put himself opposite a
picture and let it say its own message. Instead of allowing the
inner value of the picture to work, he worries himself in looking
for "closeness to nature," or "temperament," or "handling," or
"tonality," or "perspective," or what not. His eye does not probe
the outer expression to arrive at the inner meaning. In a
conversation with an interesting person, we endeavour to get at
his fundamental ideas and feelings. We do not bother about the
words he uses, nor the spelling of those words, nor the breath
necessary for speaking them, nor the movements of his tongue and
lips, nor the psychological working on our brain, nor the
physical sound in our ear, nor the physiological effect on our
nerves. We realize that these things, though interesting and
important, are not the main things of the moment, but that the
meaning and idea is what concerns us. We should have the same
feeling when confronted with a work of art. When this becomes
general the artist will be able to dispense with natural form and
colour and speak in purely artistic language.
To return to the combination of colour and form, there is another
possibility which should be noted. Non-naturalistic objects in a
picture may have a "literary" appeal, and the whole picture may
have the working of a fable. The spectator is put in an
atmosphere which does not disturb him because he accepts it as
fabulous, and in which he tries to trace the story and undergoes
more or less the various appeals of colour. But the pure inner
working of colour is impossible; the outward idea has the mastery
still. For the spectator has only exchanged a blind reality for a
blind dreamland, where the truth of inner feeling cannot be felt.
We must find, therefore, a form of expression which excludes the
fable and yet does not restrict the free working of colour in any
way. The forms, movement, and colours which we borrow from nature
must produce no outward effect nor be associated with external
objects. The more obvious is the separation from nature, the more
likely is the inner meaning to be pure and unhampered.
The tendency of a work of art may be very simple, but provided it
is not dictated by any external motive and provided it is not
working to any material end, the harmony will be pure. The most
ordinary action--for example, preparation for lifting a heavy
weight--becomes mysterious and dramatic, when its actual purpose
is not revealed. We stand and gaze fascinated, till of a sudden
the explanation bursts suddenly upon us. It is the conviction
that nothing mysterious can ever happen in our everyday life that
has destroyed the joy of abstract thought. Practical
considerations have ousted all else. It is with this fact in view
that the new dancing is being evolved--as, that is to say, the
only means of giving in terms of time and space the real inner
meaning of motion. The origin of dancing is probably purely
sexual. In folk-dances we still see this element plainly. The
later development of dancing as a religious ceremony joins itself
to the preceding element and the two together take artistic form
and emerge as the ballet.
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