Chapter 6

[1]See his evidence before the Joint Committee on the Stage Censorship.—Daily Press, September 24th, 1909.

[2]T. I., Part 10, Aph. 19: "Man believes the world itself to be overcharged with beauty,—he forgets that he is the cause of it. He alone has endowed it with beauty.... In reality man mirrors himself in things; he counts everything beautiful which reflects his likeness.... Is the world really beautiful, just because man thinks it is? Man has humanized it, that is all."

[3]Æsthetic(Douglas Ainslie's translation), p. 259. See also B. Bosanquet,A History of Æsthetic, pp. 15-18.

[4]Sämmtliche Werke, Vol. V, "Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen Studiums," pp. 346, 347.

[5]Dr. Max Schasler (Kritische Geschichte der Æsthetik, p. 73) agrees that the understanding of Art in classical antiquity seems to be quite barbaric in its stupidity ("von einer geradezu barbarischen Bornirtheit"); but he adds that this may be an argument in favour of the antique; for it may prove the unconsciousness of the artists and the absolute unity of the artistic life and of artistic appreciation in antiquity.

[6]Aristotle was, of course, studied and commentated to a very great extent during these fifteen centuries; but in all the branches of science save Æsthetic. Where his Poetic was examined, the philological or literary-historical interest was paramount. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas do not differ materially from Plotinus and Plato.

[7]Lectures on Art(1870), p. 50.

[8]Aratra Pentelici(1870), p. 118. It is true that this is followed by a restriction; but what does this restriction amount to? Ruskin says: "We must produce what shall look like Nature to people who know what Nature is."

[9]On the Nature of the Gothic(Smith, Elder, 1854), p. 19.

2. A Thrust parried. Police or Detective Art defined.

But to return to the movement initiated by Semper[10]—here we certainly have the scientific and Christiancoup de grâcelevelled at the expiring spirit of nineteenth-century Art. For the actors in this movement not only maintained that Art is imitation, but that it actually took its origin in imitation—and of the basest sort—that is to say, of accidental combinations of lines and colours produced in basket-work, weaving and plaiting.

This conclusion, which was arrived at, once more, by means of a formidable array of facts, and which called itself "Evolution in Art," was, like its first cousin, "Evolution in the Organic World," absolutely democratic, ignoble, and vulgar; seeking the source of the highest human achievements either in automatic mimicry, slavish and even faulty copying, or involuntary adoption of natural or purely utilitarian forms.

Taking the beauty of Nature for granted—an assumption which, as the first part of this lecture shows, is quite unwarrantable—these Art-Evolutionists sought to prove that all artistic beauty was the outcome of man's Simian virtues working either in the realm of Nature or in the realm of his own utilitarian handiwork. And from the purely imitative productions found in the Madeleine Cavern in La Dordogne, to the repetitive patterns worked on wooden bowls by the natives in British New Guinea, the origin of all art lay in schoolboy "cribbing."

This was a new scientific valuation of Art—foreshadowed, as I have shown, by philosophical æsthetic, but arriving independently, as it were, at the conclusion that Art was no longer a giver, but a robber.

Volumes were written to show the origin in technical industry of individual patterns and ornaments on antique vases. And as Alois Riegl rightly observes, the authors of these works spoke with such assurance, that one might almost have believed that they had been present when the vases were made.[11]

Even Semper, however, as Riegl points out, did not go so far as his disciples, and though he believed that art-forms had been evolved—a fact any one would be ready to admit—he did not press the point that technical industry had always been their root.

When we find such delicate and beautifully rhythmic patterns as those which Dr. A. C. Haddon gives us in his interesting work on Evolution in Art, and are told that they originated in the frigate birds, or in woodlarks, which infest the neighbourhood from which these patterns hail;[12]when we are shown a Chinese ornament which resembles nothing so much as the Egyptian honeysuckle and lotus ornament,[13]and we are told that it is derived from the Chinese bat, and when we are persuaded that an ordinary fish-hook can lead to a delightful bell-like[14]design; then our knowledge of what Art is protests against this desecration of its sanctity—more particularly after we have been informed that any beauty that the original "Skeuomorph"[15]may ultimately possess is mostly due to rapid and faulty copying by inexpert draughtsmen, or to a simplifying process which repeated drawings of the same thing must at length involve.

This is nonsense, and of a most pernicious sort. No mechanical copying or involuntary simplification will necessarily lead to designs of great beauty. One has only to set a class of children to make dozens of copies of an object—each more removed than the last from the original —in order to discover that if any beauty arises at all, it is actuallygivenorimpartedto the original by one particular child, who happens to be an artist, and that the rest of the class will be quite innocent of anything in the way of embellishments, or beauty of any kind.

It would be absurd to argue that the beak of a frigate bird had not been noticed by particular natives in those parts of the world where the creature abounds; but the creative act of making an ornamental design based upon a pot-hook unit, such as the frigate bird's beak is, bears no causal relation whatsoever to the original fact in the artist's environment, and to write books in order to show that it does, is as futile as to try and show that pneumonia or bronchitis or pleurisy was the actual cause of Poe's charming poem, "Annabel Lee."

Riegl, Lipps, and Dr. Worringer very rightly oppose this view of Semper and others. In his book,Stilfragen, Riegl successfully disposes of the theory that repetitive patterns have invariably been the outcome of technical processes such as weaving and plaiting, and points out that, very often, a vegetable or animal form is given to an original ornamental figure, only after it has been developed to such an extent that it actually suggests that vegetable or animal form.[16]

Dr. Worringer goes to great pains in order to show that there is an Art-will which is quite distinct from mimicry of any kind, and that this Art-will, beginning in the graphic arts with rhythmic and repetitive geometrical designs, such as zigzags, cross-hatchings and spirals, has nothing whatsoever to do with natural objects or objects of utility, such as baskets and woven work, which these designs happen to resemble.[17]

He points out that there is not only a difference of degree, but actually a marked difference of kind, between the intensely realistic drawing of the Madeleine finds and of some Australian cave painting and rock sculptures,[18]which are the work of the rudest savages, and the rhythmic decoration of other races; and that whereas the former are simply the result of a truly imitative instinct which the savage does well to cultivate for his own self-preservation—since the ability to imitate also implies sharpened detective senses[19]—the latter is the result of a genuine desire for order and simple and organized arrangement, and an attempt in a small way to overcome confusion. "It is man's only possible way of emancipating himself from the accidental and chaotic character of reality."[20]

The author also shows very ably that, even where plant forms are selected by the original geometric artist, it is only owing to some peculiarly orderly or systematic arrangement of their parts, and that the first impulse in the selective artist is not to imitate Nature, but to obtain a symmetrical and systematic arrangement of lines,[21]to gratify his will to be master of natural disorder.

These objections of Riegl and Worringer are both necessary and important; for, as the former declares: "It is now high time that we should retreat from the position in which it is maintained that the roots of Art lie in purely technical prototypes."[22]

Even in the camp of the out-and-out evolutionists, however, there seems always to have been some uncertainty as to whether they were actually on the right scent. One has only to read Grosse, where he throws doubt on the technical origin of ornament, and acknowledges that he clings to it simply because he can see no other,[23]and the concluding word of Dr. Haddon's book,Evolution in Art,[24]in order to understand how very much a proper concept of the Art-instinct would have helped these writers to explain a larger field of facts than they were able to explain, and to do so with greater accuracy.

Nobody, of course, denies that the patterns on alligators' backs, the beaks of birds, and even the regular disposition of features in the human face, have been incorporated into designs; but what must be established, once and for all, is the fact that there is a whole ocean of difference between the theory which would ascribe such coincidences to the imitative faculty, and that which would show them to be merely the outcome of an original desire for rhythmic order, simplification, and organization, which may or may not avail itself of natural or technical forms suggestive of symmetrical arrangement that happen to be at hand.

It is an important controversy, and one to which I should have been glad to devote more attention. In summing up, however, I don't think I could do better than quote the opening lines of the Rev. J. F. Rowbotham's excellentHistory of Music, in which the same questions, although applied to a different branch of Art, are admirably stated and answered.

In this book the author says—

"The twittering of birds, the rustling of leaves, the gurgling of brooks, have provoked the encomiums of poets. Yet none of these has ever so powerfully affected man's mind that he has surmised the existence of something deeper in them than one hearing would suffice to disclose, and has endeavoured by imitating them to familiarize himself with their nature, so that he may repeat the effect at his own will and pleasure in all its various shades. These sounds, with that delicate instinct which has guided him so nicely through this universe of tempting possibilities, he chose deliberately to pass over. He heard them with pleasure maybe. But pleasure must possess some æsthetic value. There must be a secret there to fathom, a mystery to unravel, before we would undertake its serious pursuit.

"And there is a kind of sound which exactly possesses these qualities—a sound fraught with seductive mystery—a sound which is Nature's magic, for by it can dumb things speak.

"The savage who, for the first time in our world's history, knocked two pieces of wood together, and took pleasure in the sound, had other aims than his own delight. He was patiently examining a mystery; he was peering with his simple eyes into one of Nature's greatest secrets. The something he was examining was rhythmic sound, on which rests the whole art of music."[25]

Thus, as you see, there is a goodly array of perfectly sensible people on the other side. Still, the belief that graphic art took its origin in imitation must undoubtedly have done a good deal of damage; for the numbers that hold it and act upon it at the present day are, I am sorry to say, exceedingly great.

By identifying the will to imitate with the instinct of self-preservation pure and simple, however, we immediately obtain its order of rank; for having already established that the will to Art is the will to exist in a certain way—that is to say, with power, all that which ministers to existence alone must of necessity fall below the will to Art. In helping us to make this point, Dr. Worringer and Mr. Felix Clay have done good service, while Riegl's contribution to the side opposed to the Art-Evolutionists cannot be estimated too highly.

We are now able to regard the realistic rockdrawings and cave-paintings of rude Bushmen, as also the finds in the Madeleine Cavern, with an understanding which has not been vouchsafed us before, and in comparing these examples of amazing truth to Nature—which, for want of a better name, we shall call Detective or Police Art[26]—with the double twisted braid, the palmette, and the simple fret in Assyrian ornament, we shall be able to assign to each its proper order of rank.

It seems a pity, before laying down the principles of an art, that it should be necessary to clear away so many false doctrines and prejudices heaped upon it in perfect good faith by scientific men. It is only one proof the more, if such were needed, of the vulgarizing influence science has exercised over everything it has touched, since it began to become almost divinely ascendant in the nineteenth century.

[10]"Der Stil in der technischen und tektonischen Künsten, oder praktische Æsthetik."

[11]See the excellent work,Stilfragen, p. 11.

[12]Evolution in Art, by A. C. Haddon. See especially figures 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, pp. 49-52. See also figure 106, p. 181.

[13]The Evolution of Decorative Art, by Henry J. Balfour, p. 50.

[14]Evolution in Art, by A. C. Haddon, p. 76.

[15]A word Dr. Colley March introduced to express the idea of an ornament due to structure.

[16]Stilfragen, p. 208et seq. See also Dr. W. Worringer's really valuable contribution to this subject:Abstraktion und Einfühlung, p. 58.

[17]Abstraktion und Einfühlung, pp. 4, 8, 9, 11.

[18]Abstraktion und Einfühlung, p. 51. See also Grosse, The Beginnings of Art, pp. 166-169 et seq.

[19]For confirmation of this point see Felix Clay,The Origin of the Sense of Beauty, p. 97.

[20]Abstraktion und Einfühlung, p. 44.

[21]Abstraktion und Einfühlung, p. 58.

[22]Stilfragen, p. 12.

[23]The Beginnings of Art, pp. 145-147.

[24]p. 309: "There are certain styles of ornamentation which, at all events in particular cases, may very well be original, taking that word in its ordinary sense, such, for example, as zigzags, cross-hatching, and so forth. The mere toying with any implement which could make a mark on any surface might suggest the simplest ornamentation [N.B.—It is characteristic of this school that even original design, according to them, must be the result of "toying" with an instrument, and of a suggestion from chance markings it may make] to the most savage mind. This may or may not have been the case, and it is entirely beyond proof either way, and therefore we must not press our analogy too far. It is, however, surprising and is certainly very significant that the origin of so many designs can be determined although they are of unknown age."

[25]The History of Music, by J. F. Rowbotham, 1893, pp. 7, 8. See also Dr. Wallaschek'sAnfänge der Tonkunst(Leipzig, 1903).

[26]The Bertillon system of identification and Madame Tussaud's, together with a large number of modern portraits and landscapes, are the highest development of this art.

3. The Purpose of Art Still the Same as Ever.

But in spite of all the attempts that have been made to democratize Art, and to fit it to the Procrustes bed of modernity, two human factors have remained precisely the same as they ever were, and show no signs of changing. I refer to the general desire to obey and to follow, in the mass of mankind, and to the general desire to prevail in concepts, if not in offspring, among higher men.

Wherever one may turn, wherever one inquires, one will discover that, at the present day, however few and weak the commanders may be, there is among the vast majority of people an insatiable thirst to obey, to find opinions ready-made, and to believe in some one or in some law. The way the name of science is invoked when a high authority is needed—just as the Church or the Bible used to be invoked in years gone by—the love of statistics and the meekness with which a company grows silent when they are quoted; the fact that the most preposterous fashions are set in clothing, in tastes, and in manners; the sheep-like way in which people will follow a leader, whether in politics, literature, or in sport, not to dilate upon the love of great names and the faith in the daily Press which nowadays, so I hear, even prescribes schemes for dinner-table conversation—all these things show what a vast amount of instinctive obedience still remains the birthright of the Greatest Number. For even advertisement hoardings and the excessive use of advertisements in this age, in addition to the fact that they point unmistakably to the almost omnipotent power of the commercial classes (a power which vouchsafes them even the privilege of self-praise, which scarcely any other class of society could claim without incurring the charge of bad-taste), also show how docilely the greatest number must ultimately respond to repeated stimuli, and finally obey if they be told often enough to buy, or to go to see, any particular thing. And, in this respect, the Nietzschean attitude towards the greatest number is one of kindness and consideration.

This instinct to obey, says Nietzsche, is the most natural thing in the world, and it must be gratified. By all means it must be gratified. What is fatal is not that it should be fed with commands, but that it should be starved by the lack of commanders, and so be compelled to go in search of food on its own account.

"Inasmuch as in all ages," says Nietzsche, "as long as mankind has existed, there have always been human herds (family alliances, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches), and always a great number who obey in proportion to the small number who command—in view, therefore, of the fact that obedience has been most practised and fostered among mankind hitherto, one may reasonably suppose that, generally speaking, the need thereof is now innate in every one, as a kind offormal consciencewhich gives the command: 'Thou shalt unconditionally do something, unconditionally refrain from something.' In short, 'Thou shalt.' This need tries to satisfy itself and to fill its form with a content; according to its strength, impatience and eagerness, it thereby seizes, as an omnivorous appetite, with little selection, and accepts whatever is shouted into its ear by all sorts of commanders—parents, teachers, laws, class prejudices, or public opinion."[27]

Everywhere, then, "he who would command finds those who must obey"[28]— this is obvious to the most superficial observer; because it is easier to obey than to command.

"Wherever I found living things," says Zarathustra, "there heard I also the language of obedience. All living things are things that obey.

"And this I heard secondly: whatever cannot obey itself, is commanded. Such is the nature of living things.

"This, however, is the third thing I heard: to command is more difficult than to obey. And not only because the commander beareth the burden of all who obey, and because this burden easily crusheth him:—

"An effort and a risk seemed all commanding unto me; and whenever it commandeth, the living thing risketh itself.

"Yea, even when it commandeth himself, then also must it atone for its commanding. Of its own law must it become the judge and avenger and victim."[29]

For opinions are a matter of will; they are always, or ought to be always, travelling tickets implying a certain definite aim and destination, and the opinions we hold concerning Life must point to a certain object we see in Life;—hence there is just as great a market for opinions, and just as great a demand for fixed values to-day as there ever was, and the jealous love with which men will quote well-established views, or begin to believe when they hear that a view is well established—a fact which is at the root of all the fruits of modern popularity—shows what a need and what a craving there is for authority, for authoritative information, and for unimpeachable coiners of opinions.

Now all the arts either determine values or lay stress upon certain values already established.[30]What, then, are the particular values that the graphic arts determine or accentuate? It must be clear that they determine what is beautiful, desirable, in fact, imperative, in form and colour.

The purpose of the graphic arts, then, has remained the same as it ever was. It is to determine the values "ugly" and "beautiful" for those who wish to know what is ugly and what is beautiful. The fact that painters and sculptors have grown so tremulous and so little self-reliant as to claim only the right to imitate, to please and to amuse, does not affect this statement in the least; it is simply a reflection upon modern artists and sculptors.

Since, however, these values beautiful and ugly are themselves but the outcome of other more fundamental values which have ruled and moulded a race for centuries, it follows that the artist who would accentuate or determine the qualities beautiful or ugly, must bear some intimate relation to the past and possible future of the people.

Place the Hermes of Praxiteles and especially the canon of Polycletus in any part of a cathedral of the late Gothic, and you will see to what extent the values which gave rise to Gothic Art were incompatible with, and antagonistic to, those which reared Praxiteles and Polycletus. Now, if you want a still greater contrast, place an Egyptian granite sculpture inside a building like le Petit Trianon, and this intimate association between the Art and the values of a people will begin to seem clear to you.

You may ask, then, why or how such an art as Ruler-art can please? Since it introduces something definitely associated with a particular set of values, and commands an assent to these values, how is it that one likes it?

The reply is that one does not necessarily like it. One often hates it. One likes it only when one feels that it reveals values which are in sympathy with one's own aspirations. The Ruler-art of Egypt, for instance, can stir no one who, consciously or unconsciously, is not in some deep secret sympathy with the society which produced it; and as an example of this sympathy—if you wish to know why the realism which comes from poverty[31]tends to increase and flourish in democratic times, it is only because there is that absence of particular human power in it which is compatible with a society in which a particular human power is completely lacking.

For it is absolute nonsense to speak ofl'art pour l'artand of the pleasure of art for art's sake as acceptable principles.[32]I will show later on how this notion arose. Suffice it to say, for the present, that this is the death of Art. It is separating Art from Life, and it is relegating it to a sphere—a Beyond—where other things, stronger than Art, have already been known to die. The notion of art for art's sake can only arise in an age when the purpose of Art is no longer known, when its relation to Life has ceased from being recognized, and when artists have grown too weak to find the realization of their will in their works.

[27]G. E., p. 120.

[28]W. P., Vol. I, p. 105.

[29]Z., II, XXXIV.

[30]T. I., Part 10, Aph. 24: "A psychologist asks what does all art do? does it not praise? does it not glorify? does it not select? does it not bring into prominence? In each of these cases it strengthens or weakens certain valuations.... Is this only a contingent matter?—an accident,something with which the instinct of the artist would not at all be concerned? Or rather, is it not the pre-requisite which enables the artist to do something? Is his fundamentalinstinct directed towards art?—or is it not ratherdirected towards the sense of art, namely, life? towards desirableness of life?"

[31]Seep. 119.**

[32]W. P., Vol. I, p. 246. See alsoT. I., Part 10, Aph. 24, andG. E., p. 145.

4. The Artist's and the Layman's View of Life.

If the artist's view of Life can no longer affect Life, if his ordering, simplifying and adjusting mind can no longer make Life simpler, more orderly and better adjusted, then all his power has vanished, and he has ceased from counting in our midst, save, perhaps, as adecoratorof our homes—that is to say, as an artisan; or as anentertainer—that is to say, as a mere illustrator of our literary men's work.

What is so important in the artist is, that disorder and confusion are the loadstones that attract him.[33]Though, in stating this, I should ask you to remember that he sees disorder and confusion where, very often, the ordinary person imagines everything to be admirably arranged. Still, the fact remains that he finds his greatest proof of power only where his ordering and simplifying mind meets with something whereon it may stamp its two strongest features: Order and Simplicity; and where he is strong, relative disorder is his element, and the arrangement of this disorder is his product.[34]Stimulated by disorder, which he despises, he is driven to his work; spurred by the sight of anarchy, his inspiration is government; fertilized by rudeness and ruggedness, his will to power gives birth to culture and refinement. He gives of himself—his business is to make things reflect him.

Thus, even his will to eternalize, and to stamp the nature of stability on Becoming, must not be confounded with that other desire for Being which is a desire for rest and repose and opiates,[35]and which has found its strongest expression in the idea of the Christian Heaven. It is, rather, a feeling of gratitude towards Life, a desire to show thankfulness to Life, which makes him desire to rescue one beautiful body from the river of Becoming, and fix its image for ever in this world,[36]whereas the other is based upon a loathing of Life and a weariness of it.

Defininguglinessprovisionally as disorder, it may have a great attraction for the artist, it may even be the artist's sole attraction, and in converting it—the thing he despises most—intobeauty, which we shall define provisionally as order, he reaches the zenith of his power.[37]

"Where is beauty?" Zarathustra asks. "Where I must will with my whole will; where I will love and perish, that an image may not remain merely an image.[38]

"For to create desireth the loving one, because he despiseth."[39]

It follows from this, therefore, that the realistic artist—the purveyor of Police Art—who goes direct to beauty or ugliness and, after having worked upon either, leaves it just as it was before,[40]shows no proof of power at all, and ranks with the bushmen of Australia and the troglodytes of La Dordogne, as very much below the hierophantic artist who transforms and transfigures. All realists, therefore, from Apelles[41]in the fourth century B.C. to the modern impressionists, portrait painters and landscapists, must step down. Like the scientists, they merely ascertain facts, and, in so doing, leave things precisely as they are.[42]Photography is rapidly outstripping them, and will outstrip them altogether once it has mastered the problem of colour. Photography could never have vied with the artist of Egypt, or even of China and Japan; because in the arts of each of these nations there is an element of human power over Nature or reality, which no mechanical process can emulate.

Now, what is important in the ideal and purely hypothetical layman is, that he has a horror of disorder, of confusion, and of chaos, and flees from it whenever possible. He finds no solace anywhere, except where the artist has been and left things transformed and richer for him. Bewildered by reality, he extends his hands for that which the artist has made of reality. He is a receiver. He reaches his zenith in apprehending.[43]His attitude is that of a woman, as compared with the attitude of the artist which is that of the man.

"Logical and geometrical simplification is the result of an increase of power: conversely, the mere aspect of such simplification increases the sense of power in the beholder."[44]To see what is ugliness to him, represented as what is beauty to him, also impresses the spectator with the feeling of power; of an obstacle overcome, and thereby stimulates his activities. Moreover, the spectator may feel a certain gratitude to Life and Mankind. It often happens, even in our days, that another world is pictured as by no means a better world,[45]and the healthy and optimistic layman may feel a certain thankfulness to Life and to Humanity. It is then once more that he turns to the artist who has felt the same in a greater degree, who can give him this thing—be it a corner of Life or of Humanity—who can snatch it from the eternal flux and torrent of all things into decay or into death, and who can carve or paint it in a form unchanging for him, in spite of a world of Becoming, of Evolution, and of ebb and flow. Just as the musician cries Time! Time! Time! to the cacophonous medley of natural sounds that pour into his ears from all sides, and assembles them rhythmically for our ears hostile to disorder; so the graphic artist cries Time! Time! Time! to the incessant and kaleidoscopic procession of things from birth to death, and places in the layman's arms the eternalized image of that portion of Life for which he happens to feel great gratitude.

[33]W. P., Vol. II, p. 368.

[34]W. P., Vol. II, p. 241.

[35]W. P., Vol. II, p. 280.

[36]W. P., Vol. II, p. 281.

[37]W. P., Vol. II, p. 244.

[38]Z., II, XXXVII.

[39]Z., I. XVIII.

[40]T. I., Part 10, Aph. "Nature, estimated artistically, is no model. It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is accident. Studying 'according to nature' seems to me a bad sign; it betrays subjection, weakness, fatalism; this lying-in-the-dust before petit fails is unworthy of a complete artist. Seeing what is—that belongs to another species of intellects, to the anti-artistic, to the practical."

[41]See Woltmann and Woermann,History of Painting, Vol. I, p. 62

[42]B. T., p. 59. See also Schopenhauer,Parerga und Paralipomena, Vol. II, p. 447.

[43]W. P., Vol. II, p. 255.

[44]W. P., Vol. II, p. 241.

[45]W. P., Vol. II, p. 95: "A people that are proud of themselves, and who are on the ascending path of Life, always picture another existence as lower and less valuable than theirs."

5. The Confusion of the Two Points of View.

It is obvious that if both pleasures are to remain pure and undefiled— if the artist is to attain to his zenith in happiness, and the layman to his also—their particular points of view must not be merged, dulled, or blunted by excessive spiritual intercourse.[46]For a very large amount of the disorder in the arts of the present can easily be traced to a confusion of the two points of view.

In an ideal society, the artist's standpoint would be esoteric, and the layman's exoteric.

Nowadays, of course, owing to the process of universal levelling which has been carried so far that it is invading even the department of sex, it is hard to find such distinctions as the artist's and the layman's standpoint in art sharply and definitely juxtaposed. And this fact accounts for a good deal of the decrease in æsthetic pleasure, which is so characteristic of the age. In fact, it accounts for the decrease of pleasure in general, for only where there are sharp differences can there be any great pleasure. Pessimism and melancholia can arise only in inartistic ages, when a process of levelling has merged all the joys of particular standpoints into one.

Let me give you a simple example, drawn from modern life and the pictorial arts, in order to show you to what extent the standpoint of the people or of the layman has become corrupted by the standpoint of the artist, and vice-versâ.

Strictly speaking, artists in search of scope for their powers should prefer Hampstead Heath or the Forest of Fontainebleau[47]to the carefully laid-out gardens of our parks and of Versailles. Conversely, if their taste were still uncorrupted, the public ought to prefer the carefully arranged gardens of our parks and of Versailles to Hampstead Heath or the Forest of Fontainebleau.

Some of the public, of course, still do hold the proper views on these points, but their number is rapidly diminishing, and most of them assume the airs of artists now, and speak with sentimental enthusiasm about the beautiful ruggedness of craggy rocks, the glorious beauty of uncultivated Nature, and the splendour of wild scenery.[48]

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