RODIN IN HIS GARDEN.
RODIN IN HIS GARDEN.
The very soul of meditation dwells in this garden, in this alley of trees. Polyhymnia, the Muse, in her graceful draperies, walks with me, and I follow her reverently.
Away from the turmoil, I can forget the constant hurry of our days. How we allow ourselves to be harassed! Reaching out for everything without possessing anything truly, we do not even realize what treasures we have lost. A few puffs of empty air are not poetry, and seeing happiness in the distance is not enjoying it. What hurries you? Ah, your life is out there, elsewhere? Go, then; but I shall remain here with the antique in my charming garden.
I will sit down on this old stone bench, surrounded by dense shrubs. The dead wood is piled in little heaps. The tree-tops form a semicircle, and stand out like a pantheon against the sky. The branches bear the marks of lightning and grow in zigzag. The sap of the earth rises in the arteries of the trees, ever ready to take part in the great festival of spring.
Now the charm of the alley consists in the differences of light and shade. As the one strives to advance, the other recedes toward the dale. The shadows disperse for the morning, leaving behind their beneficent moisture for their friends, the flowers of this dale.
Before me, on a knoll, stands a beautiful column, as if in prayer. It seems to have sprung from the kingdom of Pluto, and now, like us, it stands in the bright sunlight, a part of the out-of-doors.
Stone, pure and beautiful material, destined for the work of men, just as flax is destined for the work of women. A gift scarcely hidden under the earth, man has seized upon stones with rapture, carefully drawing them from their dark hiding-place, to raise them on high as in church towers, making them tractable, transforming the crude rocks, and appropriating them for masterpieces. Under the protection of man's sacrilegious hand, these stones lend beauty to our cities. They have a tender sympathy with the trees, the roots of which join their own.
Both hard and soft stones have a place in man's esteem. Sculpture has glorified them. The column is like a tree, but simpler than a tree, with a silent life of its own. And like the plants which cling about it, it also has its foliage and leaves. The artist who conceived the Sphinx made her to be the guardian of temples and secrets.
That column there rises up like a druid-stone, as though to converse with the moon at night. It awaits the appearance of man in the solemn ritual of night, for in its immensity it bears witness that man has created it. Man, too, has had his part, an ephemeral part, in the creation; his idea strives with the works of God, as Israel strove with the angel. His illuminating thought, expressed in stone, arouses those who otherwise might be insensible to beauty. The hand of man, like the hand of God, can transform a soul and make it new.
Mystery in which I have lived, but which I understand only now that I am about to depart. The marvel of it all! And to think that one must leave it! Well, that is the lot of all other living creatures.
And now the blue of the sky has grown darker, without a shadow, while beauty itself has taken its abode in these avenues of trees. Now and then passing clouds dim the glory of this splendid youth of nature, but the green is brilliant even in the shadow. High up among the trees, I see a blue river, the sky, while the great clouds, mountains of water, are hanging above to quench the thirst of the flowers.
[1]Salle de pas perdusis the name given to the large hall of the Gare St. Lazare, Paris.
[1]Salle de pas perdusis the name given to the large hall of the Gare St. Lazare, Paris.
Twenty times a day I walk in front of this little torso. I bring all my friends to see it, for Greek sculpture is the very source of beauty.
Why am I surprised whenever I look upon this torso? I think it is because nature, which is behind this work of art, always calls forth new, unlooked-for sensations.
Venus, glorious Venus, model of all women, your purity survives even after two thousand years. Your charm charms me—me who have admirers for my own sculpture. Before you they remain cold; but I, with a spirit that sees further—I admit my defeat as an artist, my poor ability vanishes before your grace.
Form, as I used to express it, seems a mere illusion before the harmonious strength of your lines, which embody the very truth of life. Divine fragment, I shall live by you! What days you recall to me! Perhaps the last moments of the soul of Greek sculpture, ever-increasingly my Muse.
This torso shows the suppleness and strength of the joints. It is a summing-up of former masterpieces of the artist. Those endless studies that grow into experience and all the qualities of balance are here concealed beneath the beauty and the gracious inspiration of the figure. The inspired sculptor has just discovered all these qualities, and in appreciation has given expression to them with his very soul.
An antique piece of sculpture cannot be imitated. This torso seems to have a soul. Are not the shadows trembling on it there? One can see them move.
What a progress toward truth we find in the advance from Assyrian and Egyptian to Greek art! Antique things, if we knew how to look at them, would bring about a new renaissance for us, we who stagnate in the Parisian spirit. The Parisian spirit, young though it is, is already too old to serve us. It is like those pretentious monuments, those constructions in plaster, which are hollow and horrible under their crumbling stucco.
Greece was the land of sculpture beyond all others. The subject of their sculpture was life. The people concealed it under names and symbols,—Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, the fauns,—but behind all these was the eternal truth of life.
This torso on my table looks as though it had been washed to the shore by the loving waves, as boats are stranded on the beach at low tide. What more beautiful offering could be made to men and gods? For is this fragment not an eternal prayer?
The thoughts expressed in this torso are numerous, infinite. I could write about it forever. Do I bring these thoughts with me? Is it I who put them into the marble? No, for when it is out of my sight, this divinity of life vanishes from me at the same time. Since it ceases to be in me, it must be the fragment which possesses it. It teaches a sculptor more than any professor could. It whispers secrets to me, and if I am true to it, it will tell me more and more; it will transform me in harmony with the soul of its friend, the Greek sculptor. For are not the thoughts of God expressed all the world over? Are they not the fruitful germs, now growing within a brain, now in a beautiful grouping of stone, and now captured by those magicians, the poets? And are sculptors, too, not like poets?
Where can one find more perfect harmony than in this fragment? It is a monument. And is it not providential? It is only a fragment, yet it seems to embody the whole Acropolis. Truth, that lasting joy, fills in all that is missing. It is a fact that this torso, which weighs one hundred and sixty pounds, seems as light as the woman herself would be, as light as her gracious, swelling flesh. I know contours, but the contours of a masterpiece always surprise me anew. Whenever I see you, beautiful little torso, my eyes and my soul feast on you. Masterpiece, you are my master, too.
If, as they say, stones have fallen from heaven, this surely must be one of them. I leave it in the condition in which I found it, as it first appealed to me, with all its charm, as I carried it in my arms to this table. The changing lights of day mold it; but I shall not touch it, I shall not change it. It is truth itself, and it shines in no matter what surroundings.
This torso has within it the seductiveness of woman, that garden of pleasure the secret charms of which imbue old and young alike with a terrible power. Feminine charm which crushes our destiny, mysterious feminine power that retards the thinker, the worker, and the artist, while at the same time it inspires them—a compensation for those who play with fire!
It is not by analysis that you will learn to understand art, you who are ignorant. Greek art eludes the imbeciles and ignorant who have always undervalued it. How can one comprehend this beauty by mere analysis? Where lies the secret of force? It is ever shifting. And the shadow, so genially arranged, varies with the way the light strikes it. In art, what do we call life? That which speaks to you through all your senses. If this torso were to bleed, it could not be more lifelike. The harmony of its lines dominates my soul. The soul lives and grows on masterpieces. That is why we have a soul.
Is it surprising, then, that I live with these antiques of mine, poets far more inspiring than any of our day? They have created beings that will live to survive us.
I leave my exacting work always more and more its slave. Walking, because of its regularity, always refreshes me. Such a walk means a great deal to me. It puts my nerves into a state of delightful tranquillity.
The trees are still bare of leaves and have a wintry look. At their base there are dainty sprouts, clouds of green. The lawns are ponds of emerald green. The charm of this alley is partly due to the twigs and shoots that sprout out of the ground and spring up like a cloud of lace.
There is a faint decline in this soft brightness, for now the sun is setting. The sun-god is moderating his power for the benefit of the little flowers which otherwise would dry up and fade. This is the hour when the sun lends full value to the works of man, so that architecture stands out in all its beauty, while at the same time the sun softly colors the lovely clouds.
The pediment of the Palais Biron is brilliant in the sunlight. The balcony casts shadows on the grimacing consoles, and the shell-work is luminous in this glorious light. The window-panes glow in glory. The great staircase seems arranged for ladies to descend on their way to the garden, graciously trailing their long robes, which rustle over the steps.
Like a pilgrim, full of hope, who rests a moment at the gates of a town, and breathes the balmy evening air, so I seat myself in this garden. The hour passes quickly, but it could not be better employed than in absorbing these marvels.
When the sun drops behind the horizon, with its glowing colors like the flaming fires of a forge, our hearts are filled with wonder and awe. It gilds all in a last golden glory of triumph, the sky so brilliant that one cannot define the line of the horizon. There, where the sun disappeared, the sky is now orange. Everything is fading away; another immensity spreads out before us. The glory of night is about to extend over the firmament its melancholy charm.
THE POET AND THE MUSES.
THE POET AND THE MUSES.
The corner of this garden is a corner of happiness, a corner of eternity. Here thoughts can thrive and worship, for here they have everything. For the great things in life are not the exceptional things, but the beauties of every day, which we do not stop to notice. These vast treasures, within our grasp, which we do not even touch, they are the things that count.
The public believes that one is happy in the admiration of nature; but there are various degrees of happiness. Doubtless a glorious feeling of admiration may take hold of one; but if one does not constantly cling to one's admiration as a matter of habit, one grows weary and becomes superficial. Indeed, I do not know why we demand another life, since we have not learned to enjoy and understand this one fully. In any case, if we find this a bad world, it is our fault. We are childish about it. We belittle one another wilfully. Fancy the trees doing that, if one could suspect them of such a thing!
When I descend the steps, I am overwhelmed by that fluid which is life. I am in touch with life. What more can I want? This tenderness which surrounds me everywhere, this ever-varying nature which says so much to me, the atmosphere which envelops me—am I already in heaven, or am I a poet?
One of Rodin's friends, M. Léon Bourgeois, the eminent, highly cultivated French statesman, has said, "Rodin is himself a cathedral." This remark wonderfully characterizes Rodin's intellectuality as it appears to us to-day. Rich in years and experience, his intellect is in truth as complicated as a cathedral, but like it, too, superbly simple in its general structure. His intellect possesses the wealth of detail that makes up life and the calm balance of the laws that govern nature. His mind, formed on principles scrupulously controlled by observation, abounds in that wonderful artistic imagination which is the poetry of life. Ever renewing itself, ever active, his mind inspires intense confidence because it is deeply rooted in truth. It looks at its subjects of study with such conscientious devotion that it perceives every phase of reality; for it is only love such as this, a love springing not from impatience and passion, but from faith and hope, that is always victorious in the end.Churches! He lives near them, so as to study them in the fleeting changes of the hours. He likes to be enveloped by the sound of the church bells that for seven or eight centuries have spoken the same language of discipline to the spirit of France. Day and night he visits the naves. There his soul feels the sacred mystery. The churches are truly the cradle of his artistic faith.But it is only recently that the joys which he drew from them reached their height; for although he was long under the influence of Gothic art, that most extraordinary product of the hand of man, only in the last few years has he learned to penetrate its principles and understand its methods.How often in my youth I questioned him about the cathedrals! He always replied with that caution which in deep natures is a form of deference: "I am pervaded by the marvel of this art; but I cannot as yet explain it to myself. The Gothic is the world foreshortened. Where am I to begin? For more than thirty years I have been accumulating and comparing my observations. Perhaps eventually I shall succeed in deducing the rule, the law of divine intelligence; but perhaps I shall not have sufficient time. Then it will be the task of another, younger than myself, who will start his researches earlier, and who, besides, will have been informed by me."On his return from each of these pilgrimages he was possessed by the happy restlessness of one who would soon be able to give expression to his secret. One felt that "the law of divine intelligence" was being formulated in his mind. I then hoped and expected that soon he would reap the fruit of his long labors.At last one day Rodin took me to Notre Dame, beautiful among the beautiful, despite the modern restorations that have detracted from the grace and suppleness of its sculpture. Notre Dame of Paris is beautiful in itself and in its situation on the banks of the Seine, that river of feminine grace, which in its innocent course draws with it the memory of many terrible historic events.From Notre Dame to Saint-Eustache, from the Tour Saint-Jacques to Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, during this long walk of ours Rodin talked, quite unaware of the curious glances of those who recognized him, and of the scoffing of the street urchins, who mistook the great Frenchman for a stranger discovering the capital of France. Later he gave me numerous notes that supplemented his conversations.His words and notes combined form the clearest and most important lesson on Gothic art that has been handed down since the days of the Gild of the Francs-Maçons, by one of their own sort, a craftsman such as they were, a veritable sculptor, a stone-cutter loving the material in which he works.Has Rodin, after so thoroughly grasping the secrets of the builders of bygone days, never felt the desire to apply them in the execution of some work of architecture? Was he never tempted by their example and by that of Michelangelo to expand his resources beyond those of the sculptor? Those who know the creative power and the vastness of imagination of the modeler of "The Burghers of Calais" and of "The Gate of Hell" may well ask this question.Well, yes, he has had that great dream, which in more prolific times would have become a glorious reality. He hoped to revive the spirit of a day when a whole nation of artists covered France with masterpieces; he hoped to organize labor collectively, and to gather about him a legion of artisans to work together on a monument which should become in a certain sense the cathedral of the modern age.He even drew up plans for that wonderful project, the subject of which was to be the glorification of labor, that triumphant force of our present civilization. He did not plan to rival the Gothic style, the prodigious achievement of which would have required throngs of workmen thoroughly organized and disciplined, well trained under the system of master and apprentice, accomplishing their common task in the joy of work and the enthusiasm of faith. He planned to approximate the art of the Renaissance, less removed from modern intellectuality, and simpler of execution.
One of Rodin's friends, M. Léon Bourgeois, the eminent, highly cultivated French statesman, has said, "Rodin is himself a cathedral." This remark wonderfully characterizes Rodin's intellectuality as it appears to us to-day. Rich in years and experience, his intellect is in truth as complicated as a cathedral, but like it, too, superbly simple in its general structure. His intellect possesses the wealth of detail that makes up life and the calm balance of the laws that govern nature. His mind, formed on principles scrupulously controlled by observation, abounds in that wonderful artistic imagination which is the poetry of life. Ever renewing itself, ever active, his mind inspires intense confidence because it is deeply rooted in truth. It looks at its subjects of study with such conscientious devotion that it perceives every phase of reality; for it is only love such as this, a love springing not from impatience and passion, but from faith and hope, that is always victorious in the end.
Churches! He lives near them, so as to study them in the fleeting changes of the hours. He likes to be enveloped by the sound of the church bells that for seven or eight centuries have spoken the same language of discipline to the spirit of France. Day and night he visits the naves. There his soul feels the sacred mystery. The churches are truly the cradle of his artistic faith.
But it is only recently that the joys which he drew from them reached their height; for although he was long under the influence of Gothic art, that most extraordinary product of the hand of man, only in the last few years has he learned to penetrate its principles and understand its methods.
How often in my youth I questioned him about the cathedrals! He always replied with that caution which in deep natures is a form of deference: "I am pervaded by the marvel of this art; but I cannot as yet explain it to myself. The Gothic is the world foreshortened. Where am I to begin? For more than thirty years I have been accumulating and comparing my observations. Perhaps eventually I shall succeed in deducing the rule, the law of divine intelligence; but perhaps I shall not have sufficient time. Then it will be the task of another, younger than myself, who will start his researches earlier, and who, besides, will have been informed by me."
On his return from each of these pilgrimages he was possessed by the happy restlessness of one who would soon be able to give expression to his secret. One felt that "the law of divine intelligence" was being formulated in his mind. I then hoped and expected that soon he would reap the fruit of his long labors.
At last one day Rodin took me to Notre Dame, beautiful among the beautiful, despite the modern restorations that have detracted from the grace and suppleness of its sculpture. Notre Dame of Paris is beautiful in itself and in its situation on the banks of the Seine, that river of feminine grace, which in its innocent course draws with it the memory of many terrible historic events.
From Notre Dame to Saint-Eustache, from the Tour Saint-Jacques to Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, during this long walk of ours Rodin talked, quite unaware of the curious glances of those who recognized him, and of the scoffing of the street urchins, who mistook the great Frenchman for a stranger discovering the capital of France. Later he gave me numerous notes that supplemented his conversations.
His words and notes combined form the clearest and most important lesson on Gothic art that has been handed down since the days of the Gild of the Francs-Maçons, by one of their own sort, a craftsman such as they were, a veritable sculptor, a stone-cutter loving the material in which he works.
Has Rodin, after so thoroughly grasping the secrets of the builders of bygone days, never felt the desire to apply them in the execution of some work of architecture? Was he never tempted by their example and by that of Michelangelo to expand his resources beyond those of the sculptor? Those who know the creative power and the vastness of imagination of the modeler of "The Burghers of Calais" and of "The Gate of Hell" may well ask this question.
Well, yes, he has had that great dream, which in more prolific times would have become a glorious reality. He hoped to revive the spirit of a day when a whole nation of artists covered France with masterpieces; he hoped to organize labor collectively, and to gather about him a legion of artisans to work together on a monument which should become in a certain sense the cathedral of the modern age.
He even drew up plans for that wonderful project, the subject of which was to be the glorification of labor, that triumphant force of our present civilization. He did not plan to rival the Gothic style, the prodigious achievement of which would have required throngs of workmen thoroughly organized and disciplined, well trained under the system of master and apprentice, accomplishing their common task in the joy of work and the enthusiasm of faith. He planned to approximate the art of the Renaissance, less removed from modern intellectuality, and simpler of execution.
THE TOWER OF LABOR.
THE TOWER OF LABOR.
In Rodin's studio at Meudon one can see the plan for this monument. The axis is a high column calling to mind Trajan's Column, and, like it, covered with bas-reliefs. A tower broken by large openings, as in the Tower of Pisa, encircles it. In the interior a gradually inclining way leads one from the base to the top along the bas-reliefs. These represent all the active crafts and trades: those of the cities, such as masons, carpenters, weavers, bakers, brewers, glass-workers, and goldsmiths; and those of the country, such as plowmen, harvesters, vintagers, vine-dressers, shepherds, and farmers. On the exterior, between the arches, stand statues of the great geniuses that have led humanity, whose efforts have raised them to celestial heights; that is, to the peace and happiness of creating. There great thinkers, inventors, and artists have their niches, just as the prophets have theirs in the vaults of cathedrals. The edifice rests on a crypt where groups of sculpture are devoted to the glorification of work under the earth and its obscure heroes, miners, divers, pearl-fishers. At the time when the plan for this monument was advanced, and was exciting the imagination of European writers and journalists, an ardent admirer of Rodin even proposed to build the tomb of the master under the crypt, where he would have had a resting-place worthy of a Pharaoh. On each side of the entrance is a statue representing Morning and Evening, and at the summit of the column two angels, messengers of God, their hands outstretched toward the earth with a gesture of exquisite tenderness, shed the blessings of heaven on the work of man.Alas! this noble, stirring project will not be realized during the life of the artist. Will there some day be another possessed of the ardor and love of beauty necessary to build this mountain of stone?For a time Rodin's friends hoped that America, the nation of work par excellence, would seize upon this idea. They pictured the philanthropists of the New World in characteristic fashion pouring forth millions for this work of universal art and national glorification; they saw Rodin being called to the United States, gathering about him not only American artists, but all the intelligent forces of the world of culture. They saw the Tower of Labor, with its angels bestowing their benediction over some formidable industrial city, New York, Pittsburgh, or Chicago. This might have been the starting-point for a new era of art, for nothing is more contagious than the realization of beauty in actual form.Doubtless the writers of France did not discuss the matter long or forcibly enough, and the Tour de Travail, which might have been the ardent expression of a whole race, will remain the idea of a solitary genius, a last offshoot of the masters of the Middle Ages.But if the hour has not yet struck for the construction of the modern cathedral, at least we possess, thanks to the man who dreamed of erecting it, the secrets and principles of those who constructed the cathedrals of bygone days.
In Rodin's studio at Meudon one can see the plan for this monument. The axis is a high column calling to mind Trajan's Column, and, like it, covered with bas-reliefs. A tower broken by large openings, as in the Tower of Pisa, encircles it. In the interior a gradually inclining way leads one from the base to the top along the bas-reliefs. These represent all the active crafts and trades: those of the cities, such as masons, carpenters, weavers, bakers, brewers, glass-workers, and goldsmiths; and those of the country, such as plowmen, harvesters, vintagers, vine-dressers, shepherds, and farmers. On the exterior, between the arches, stand statues of the great geniuses that have led humanity, whose efforts have raised them to celestial heights; that is, to the peace and happiness of creating. There great thinkers, inventors, and artists have their niches, just as the prophets have theirs in the vaults of cathedrals. The edifice rests on a crypt where groups of sculpture are devoted to the glorification of work under the earth and its obscure heroes, miners, divers, pearl-fishers. At the time when the plan for this monument was advanced, and was exciting the imagination of European writers and journalists, an ardent admirer of Rodin even proposed to build the tomb of the master under the crypt, where he would have had a resting-place worthy of a Pharaoh. On each side of the entrance is a statue representing Morning and Evening, and at the summit of the column two angels, messengers of God, their hands outstretched toward the earth with a gesture of exquisite tenderness, shed the blessings of heaven on the work of man.
Alas! this noble, stirring project will not be realized during the life of the artist. Will there some day be another possessed of the ardor and love of beauty necessary to build this mountain of stone?
For a time Rodin's friends hoped that America, the nation of work par excellence, would seize upon this idea. They pictured the philanthropists of the New World in characteristic fashion pouring forth millions for this work of universal art and national glorification; they saw Rodin being called to the United States, gathering about him not only American artists, but all the intelligent forces of the world of culture. They saw the Tower of Labor, with its angels bestowing their benediction over some formidable industrial city, New York, Pittsburgh, or Chicago. This might have been the starting-point for a new era of art, for nothing is more contagious than the realization of beauty in actual form.
Doubtless the writers of France did not discuss the matter long or forcibly enough, and the Tour de Travail, which might have been the ardent expression of a whole race, will remain the idea of a solitary genius, a last offshoot of the masters of the Middle Ages.
But if the hour has not yet struck for the construction of the modern cathedral, at least we possess, thanks to the man who dreamed of erecting it, the secrets and principles of those who constructed the cathedrals of bygone days.
To acquire a thorough and fruitful understanding of the cathedrals, we must break away from the narrow and cold spirit of the present day. The spirit of our time does not harmonize in architecture with the monuments of the past.
First let us contemplate the whole. The church is a cliff. The construction of the slender side springing up is quite in the spirit of our race. The Gothic towers are stones set up like Druidic monuments. The church is laid out like a dolmen, and the towers are the menhirs. Like the menhirs, they have beautiful, flexible lines; they possess the eloquence of natural outlines, which are never cold or meager.
The line of the Gothic tower is slightly curved, swelling like that of a barrel. A straight line is hard and cold. The Greeks perceived that; they refrained from straight lines, and the columns of their temples also show a slight swelling.
The two sides of the Gothic tower are not alike. The architects considered that preferable to obvious symmetry. Look at the Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris. One of the sides shows a long, sloping hollow, making it look quite different from the other, which, again, is like stones set on high. The hollowed line permits protuberances, details of ornamentation that soften and harmonize with the line of the ensemble. It has been restored, and therefore from near at hand seems cold, for our workmen have lost the science and art of modeling. But the beauty of the general structure remains; they could not detract from that.
This softened line, this line full of life, is one of the chief characteristics of the Gothic. The sky of our northern climates ordained it so, for the architects of the Middle Ages carved their monuments out of doors. Once the general plan was established, they easily found the details while working with their tools, guided by the light and influenced by natural conditions.
Our light is not that of Greece. Humanity the world over is akin; but to what the Greek expressed in a chastened manner, in keeping with his eternally pure light, we have added the oblique slant of our sun, our reality, our country, our autumns, the sting of our winters, our less definite spirit, our remoteness from the glaring Olympian sun; and, last of all, we have added our trees.
We also have light, but it is frequently obscured by passing clouds. Is it not natural that we should reproduce them in our art? And the line, the abundant line, is more accentuated in the half-night of our long autumns. Thus we are more in the mood of our woods and our forests. Our souls have more shadows than the Greek soul, our determinations are more varied; for our clouds and our forests are reflected in our hearts.
Artists, let us, then, revert to the interpretation of our race, but in the spirit, not in the letter. Let us copy only the soul of our external nature, not its Gothic form, for a mere copy is cold and dead. Beautiful architecture is a reproduction by man, but from a divine model. From this it receives the warmth of life. If architecture is true to the spirit of nature, it is embraced by the trees, the rocks, the clouds; they are the silent company of beauty.
O Cathedral! Sphinx of Northern life! although mutilated, are you not eternal? Do you cease to live? From a distance, and in the evening, when dusk sets in, you seem truly a great sphinx crouching in the country.
The drama that unfolds itself on the stone pages of the churches recalls to us with a very few gestures and movements the silent drama of antiquity, the sculptures, illustrations of Æschylus and Sophocles.
From the Greek type, in truth, sprang the thoughts that guide man, and again from the Egyptian granite; and eventually from the stone of the Gothic, that Gothic which leads to the period of Louis XVI, and which in France is always the principal path of art. Other styles were derived from it, those of the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Their basis is Gothic; therefore the Gothic is the fundamental style, which ought to keep us from the path of decadence, if that is possible. You do not understand it? You say you prefer the Greek? O ye mortals that wish to pass judgment on all matters, take heed lest these masterpieces prevail against you! The cathedral is as beautiful, perhaps more beautiful, than the Parthenon. If you do not understand this style, then you are still further removed from the Greek, which is of another country and epoch. It is more beautiful, perhaps more concise, more marble; but we belong more with stone and forests, we are more autumnal, more of the cold and melancholy season.
Do not let us lose sight of the fact that beneath this poem of stone there is a foundation of knowledge based on a close and comprehensive study.
To-day I understand it. As a result of study, one truth after another comes to light. At the outset one is lost before these marvels. Where is one to begin studying? One's thoughts and one's admiration rise like clouds. The mind makes prodigious leaps to grasp again what it already knows, to combine it with the recently acquired knowledge, to attempt to draw conclusions which simplify and generalize the study, and thus to discern the fundamental law.
For a long time during my youth I thought, like many others, that Gothic art was poor. I was so ungrateful during the first enthusiasm of my liberty! I learned to understand its grandeur only through traveling. Observation and work led me back to the right road. In the course of my efforts I have grasped the meaning of the thoughts of the masters. My persistent work was not futile, and, like one of the Magi, I have at last come to bow in humble reverence before them.
A true artist must penetrate the primordial principles of creation; only by understanding the beautiful does he become inspired, and that not through a sudden awakening of his sensibilities, but by slow penetration and perception, by patient love. The mind need not be quick, for slow progress should imply precaution in every direction.
The Gothic builders are the greatest observers of nature that have ever existed, the greatest realists, despite all that professors and critics say to the contrary. They call them idealists. They say the same of the Greeks and of all artists whose profound knowledge has enabled them to borrow their effects and charm from nature. Idealists! That is a term which signifies nothing and merely confounds cause and effect.
Builders of the Middle Ages, you independent scholars, models of a profound intelligence, this is what our age has found as an explanation of your masterpieces!
I have devoted my whole life in endeavoring to catch a glimpse of the rules, the secrets of experience, which you transmitted to one another, and it is only now, when my days are numbered, that I am at last grasping the synthesis of beauty. To whom shall I confide the fruit of my research? Some future genius will gather it. The cathedral is eternal, rising toward the sky. When we think it has attained its ultimate height, it rises again higher still, like a mountain of truth.
The architects of our churches subordinated detail to arrive at a more effective whole. That is why our churches are so beautiful when seen from a distance. They sacrificed everything to the essential, the "plan."
The plan? Like all synthetic conceptions, this is difficult to define. It is the space that an object displaces in the atmosphere, its volume. When an artist is able to determine exactly the space an object occupies in the atmosphere, be he painter, sculptor, or architect, he possesses the real science of plans.
What is detail in a plan? Nothing. The towers of the church at Bruges are superb in their bareness, while our modern houses, overladen with detail, are hideous to look upon. Of the two towers of the cathedral at Chartres, the one is bare, just a huge wall; the other is covered with ornamentation, and the first is possibly the more beautiful because of the potency of its plan. What does this force of simplicity express to us? It is the soul of a nation. A people expresses its nature through the medium of its architecture. Stones are faithful when we do not retouch them. They are the signatures of a nation.
HEADLESS FIGURE.
HEADLESS FIGURE.
Through the science of plans the great oppositions or contrasts of light and shadow are obtained. They give life and color to the structure. According to the position of the sun, the appearance of a building varies. One part is in the shade, the other in the light, and between these two is the gradation of shadings.
The master architects did not set their edifices apart from the universe; they gave them the benefit of all the phenomena of nature—dawn and dusk, twilight, cloud effects, haze, and fog. Every moment of the day adds to or detracts from their effect.
Sometimes I stand before a cathedral, and it does not seem at all beautiful. I feel I should like to alter it. Then I revisit it at another hour and see it in a different lighting. The light strikes it aslant, the shadows are deeper; the cathedral is absolutely beautiful, and I feel abashed at my former impatience and critical mistrust.
These great effects of light and shade, obtained by the plan—effects simple in their means, yet mysterious in their power of attraction for us, have strengthened the idea that Gothic art is idealistic. The masses who see the cathedral dominating the city, with its two slanting roofs like hands joined at the finger-tips, certainly feel in it the great idea, the poem. They do not realize that the sentiments aroused in them by the beauty of the building are wholly due to the science of the plans.
By means of what principle did the master builders support the weight of these enormous masses of stone, which yet join lovingly in the imponderable atmosphere? By obeying the law of equilibrium of the human body. The human body, standing upright, the feet joined, in equilibrium, is the basis of the Greek column. Pediments and roof, supported by a series of these standing bodies, these human columns, that is the Greek temple. The architecture of the Parthenon reproduces the equilibrium of the body in a state of rest. In action the body sways; that is to say, the weight rests on only one leg, while the body inclines to the opposite side to regain its balance by counterpoise. That is the sway of Gothic architecture. This sway constitutes the law of motion for the body of man and animal, ever seeking perfect equilibrium.
Without this law we could not move; we would be like blocks of stone. Every motion that we make produces an initial swaying, which an opposing weight instantaneously balances. Thus without any consciousness on our part a perpetual balancing is taking place within us, a change as facile and immediate as the changes which take place in the phenomena of respiration and circulation. All goes on with the speed, order, and silence that exist in the domain of electricity. It is a perpetual prodigy to which we do not even give a thought.
It is not surprising that the Gothic masters, who copied from all nature, took from man and animals the charm of balance.
The ogive (pointed arch) of the cathedral, is achieved by two opposing thrusts. But the archivolts do not always harmonize with the capitals; they are not set exactly over them, they are out of the perpendicular. Two movements of equal force, exactly opposed, cause a stable equilibrium. Just so the masses of stone are supported by this same opposition of thrusts.
The interior of the cathedral is high and vast, broken by large windows that diminish the resistance and help to support the great weight. It was necessary to find a way of reëstablishing the equilibrium, lest the nave break down under its own weight. That is the purpose of the flying buttresses. Like the arms of giants, they throw their opposing weight against the exterior walls.
Some have drawn the conclusion that cathedrals are imperfect, since they cannot stand without this support. It is a characteristic idea of our age. Just as though one would reproach the human body for bearing first on one leg and then on the other.
These powerful buttresses are wonderfully effective in their contrast to the lacework of the sculpture. What is more beautiful than Notre Dame in Paris at night, with its island as its pedestal? It is the huge skeleton of the France of the Middle Ages which appears to us here. How attractive the light and shade on the buttresses! Indeed, it took genius to bring out beauty in that which is in reality only the skeleton of the edifice, and which could be offensive, were it badly carried out.
The Gothic style exists by virtue of oppositions, contrasts in effects and in balance. They built huge bare walls, but in the upper heights ornamentation flourishes and abounds. There the "increase and multiply" of the Bible has been figuratively carried out.
Once the basis of construction was established, the masons embellished the "line" by admirable ornamentation, due to their splendid workmanship. We should never forget that modeling supplies the life-blood to the mass; without it we can have neither grace nor power.
Formerly I did not understand the architecture; I merely saw the lacework of the Gothic. But even in my conception of that I was mistaken, for I thought it a caprice of genius. I did not know that it had a scientificraison d'être; namely, to break and soften the line. Now I see its importance: it rounds off the outlines; it gives them life and warmth. These statues, these graceful caryatids, propping up the portals, these copings in the covings, are like vegetation which softens the rigid summit of a wall. There again we find the Gothic artists as skilful colorists as the cleverest painters, because they have gained insight from the vegetation of our country. In our plants, in our trees, all is light and shadowy, and from them they gained their wonderful mastery of the art of depth, which brings out the finest shadings of light, the mellowness of half-tints. To-day we misuse black, the medium of power. We use it too extensively; we put it everywhere for the sake of effect, and therefore lose its effect entirely.
The Gothic is nature transposed and reproduced in stone. To show admiration for this form of art is to preserve the memory of the creation. The artist is the confidant of nature. Shakspere says in "King Lear," we
... take upon 's the mystery of things,As if we were God's spies.
A church is spread out like a dolmen between two menhirs. The interior breathes the solemn calm of a forest, the columns are the trees, the masses of the base are the rocks, the pointed arches are the massive roots, the vaultings are the caves, and the windows are radiant flowers in large bowls. When I emerge from the darkness of a cathedral, I feel as if I came from the shadow of a vast, extinguished world.
Without the brightening light of the stained-glass windows, our churches would be sad. In Spain the gloom is funereal, but the genius of France has understood how to capture the caressing light through its windows. The productiveness of the Celtic spirit is also noticeable in the capitals. Gothic art abandoned Greek ornament, which had been reproduced so often that it lost all significance. It found its models in the woods and gardens. From the oak it took its crown of foliage, from the thistle and cabbage their gracefully drooping leaves, and from the bramble its intertwined thorns. They made wonderful capitals by reversing the acanthus, and copying the languid grace of falling blossoms.
The cathedral of Bourges—the vastness of this church makes me tremble. One might say there are three churches in its three naves. Grandeur demands repetition. The superbness of this work of architecture enforces silence. People attribute their emotion here to religious sentiment alone, and do not realize that it is due also to the correct calculations of art. They do not realize that the impressive darkness of the vast church, its lighting, the wax tapers here, and the daylight with its brilliancy there, have all been planned beforehand. The stained-glass windows of Bourges are dazzling, almost terrible, in their beauty. There are flashes as red as blood, and dashes of blue, a flame—the wounds of Christ, the funeral pile of Jeanne d'Arc. When the sun sinks, the bright light will fade away; then we have before us only the charming effect of bowls of flowers.
The legends which are told on the stained-glass are good enough to amuse children; but the glass itself, the splendor of its colors, the extent to which it harmonizes with the nave—all that is the actual result and object of profound thought. The Middle Ages put life into everything; they worshiped life. They drew extensively from nature, wisely realizing that its source is inexhaustible, while the day of man is fleeting.
The science of plans, balance of volumes, and proportion in the moldings govern the spirit of Gothic art. Of late I believe I have discovered how the masters struck upon the beautiful Gothic molding, that undulating molding which gives so much suppleness to the architecture. I have found something new in the well-known, and beauty in forms which I did not understand before. This change is due above all to my work. Having always studied more intensely, I can say that I have always loved more ardently.
I believe the masters of Gothic art got their ideas of molding through their understanding of the human body, and perhaps above all of the body of woman. The body, that human column, seen in profile is a line of projections and protuberances, of the nose, the chin, the breast, the flank. Thence springs the beautiful undulating line which is the outline of Gothic molding. For Gothic molding, like the Greek, is soft and swelling. The "doucine" (a molding, concave above, convex below), a term of the trade, tender as the name of a woman, well expresses the charm of the beautiful French molding.
The proportions of molding exist in nature, but in such form that we have not yet been able to subject them to rules. It required men of positive taste, of most profound understanding, to grasp the harmony of these proportions and to express them in sculpture. One might say the Gothic architects understood molding by means of their intelligence as well as by means of their heart.
By means of the cathedral the artists of the Middle Ages have shown us the most impressive drama in existence—the mass. The mass has the grandeur of the antique drama. Greek tragedies are in fact only a form of the mass. The human mind starts afresh at different epochs. When the priest officiates, his gestures have the beauty of the antique, and this beauty merges into that of the church music, that sublime tongue, the voice of the sea. Then, when the crowds prostrate themselves, when they arise simultaneously, the undulation of their bending bodies is like the waves of the ocean. Truly the Gothic master builders were the familiar friends of the sublime. From what source did these men spring! From what minds did those ideas arise! God has shared his power with some of his sons.
Criticizing nature is as stupid as criticizing the cathedrals. It is the vice of our cold and petty age to criticize. It is the evil of decadent races. We are constantly being told that we live in an age of progress, an age of civilization. That is perhaps true from the point of view of science and mechanics; from the point of view of art it is wholly false.
Does science give happiness? I am not aware of it; and as to mechanics, they lower the common intelligence. Mechanics replace the work of the human mind with the work of a machine. That is the death of art. It is that which has destroyed the pleasure of the inner life, the grace of that which we call industrial art—the art of the furniture-maker, the tapestry-worker, the goldsmith. It overwhelms the world with uniformity. Once artisans created; to-day they manufacture. Once they rejoiced in the pleasure of making a work of art; to-day the workman is so bored in his shop that he has invented sabotage and has made alcoholism general.
The sight of a modern monument throws one into melancholy even while an ancient one has not ceased to enrapture. I visit a small city, and, losing my train, am obliged to wait for the next one. I take a walk about the ancient church, a delicious thing, very simple, but with its Gothic ornaments placed with taste, in a delicate relief that, in the light, provides an enchantment for my friendly glances. In the little nave, which invites to calm, to thought,—thought as soft and composed as the light shadows that move slowly across the pillars,—I settle myself. Ah, I come away charmed. If I had waited in the station, I would have been wearied to death, and would have returned home fatigued and discontented. As it is, I have gained something—the beautiful counsels of moderation and the fine charm of a monument of former days.
Art alone gives happiness. And I call art the study of nature, the perpetual communion with her through the spirit of analysis.
He who knows how to see and feel may find everywhere and always things to admire. He who knows how to see and feel is preserved from ennui, thatbête noireof modern society. He who sees and feels deeply never lacks the desire to express his feelings, to be an artist. Is not nature the source of all beauty? Is she not the only creator? It is only by drawing near to her that the artist can bring back to us all that she has revealed to him.
When one says this, the public thinks it a commonplace. All the world believes that it knows that; but it knows it only in seeming, the truth penetrates only the superficial shell of its intelligence. There are so many degrees in real comprehension! Comprehension is like a divine ladder. Only he who has reached the top rounds has a view of the world. The public is astonished or shocked when some one goes against its preconceived notions, against the prejudices of a badly interpreted or degenerate tradition. Words are nothing; the deed alone counts. It is not by reading manuals of esthetics, but by leaning on nature herself that the artist discovers and expresses beauty.
Alas! we are not prepared to see and to feel. Our sorry education, far from cultivating in us the feeling for enthusiasm, makes us in our youth little pedants who without result overwhelm ourselves and others with our pretensions. Those who too late, by long efforts, escape this demon of folly arrive only after that education has fatally sapped their strength and has destroyed the flower of enthusiasm that God had planted in them as a sign of His paradise. People without enthusiasm are like men who carry their flags pointed down to the ground instead of proudly above their heads.
Constantly I hear: "What an ugly age! That woman is plain. That dog is horrible." It is neither the age nor the woman nor the dog which is ugly, but your eyes, which do not understand. One generally disparages the things that are above one's comprehension. Disparagement is the child of ignorance. As soon as you discover that, you enter into the circle of joy.
RODIN'S HOUSE AND STUDIO AT MEUDON.
RODIN'S HOUSE AND STUDIO AT MEUDON.
Man, animals, down to the smallest insects, down to the infinitesimal; the earth, the waters, the woods, the sky—all are marvelous. The firmament is the vastest landscape, the most profound, the most enchanting, with its variations, its effects of color and light, which delight the eye, astonish the thought, and subjugate the heart. And to say that artists—those who consider themselves such—attempt to represent all that simply as it appears to them, without having studied it, without having deciphered it, without having felt it! I pity them. They are prisoners, slaves of stupidity.
I was like them in the first periods of my perverted youth, but I have delivered myself. I have regained the liberty to approach the things that I love by the pathway of true study. Who follows me on the road? Who can learn it from a study of sculpture and design in books? You who have caught a glimpse of the splendor of that tree, of that giant whose magnificent column has been denuded by autumn of its leafy capital, but which is perhaps more beautiful in the nudity of its members; you who admire the structure of its branches and twigs, etched in an infinitude of forms against the sky, where they resemble the lacework of the windows of our churches, would you not understand far better that beauty, would not your pleasure be far more complete, if you sketched that tree not only in the mass, but in the innumerable details of its framework? And to think that the schools recommend to pupils, painters, and sculptors research on the subject! The subject! The subject does not exist in that—the poor little arrangement that you, one and all, summon up while poring over the same anecdotes, the same conventional attitudes. The human imagination is narrow, and you do not see the hundred thousand motives of art that multiply themselves under your eye. I could pass my whole life in the garden where I walk without exhausting them.
The subject is everywhere. Every manifestation of nature is a subject. Artists, pause here! Sketch these flowers; writers, describe them for me, not in the mass, as has always been done, but in minute detail, in the marvelous precision of their organs, in their characteristics, which are as varied as are those of animals and men. How beautiful to be in the same moment an artist and a botanist, to paint and model the plant at the same time that one studied it! Those great realists, the Japanese, understand this, and make the knowledge and cultivation of plants one of the bases of their education.
We place love and sensual pleasure in the same category. Undoubtedly it is nature herself who has led is astray in this by the instinct to perpetuate ourselves, in youth this instinct is like an overflowing river; it sweeps away everything, yet pleasure is everywhere about us. I imbibe it in the forms of the clouds that build their majestic architecture in the sky, in the rapture of this woman who holds her child in her arms, an attitude divine, so beautiful indeed, that the poet of the Gospels has deified it. It is the attitude of the Virgin. I imbibe it in the atmosphere which bathes me now, and will still continue to bless me, bringing me peace, rest, and health.
For that which is beautiful in a landscape is that which is beautiful in architecture—the air, space. No one in these days realizes its depth. It is this quality of depth that carries the soul where it wishes to go. In a well-constructed monument that which enraptures us is the science of its depths. The throngs in the churches attribute their emotion to mysticism, to the transport of the soul toward divinity. They are unaware that they owe their emotion to the exact knowledge of great planes possessed by the architects of former days. Even upon the most ignorant beholder they impose this. Man disregards that which he already has, and longs for something else. He longs for swiftness, to have wings like a bird. He does not know that he already enjoys this pleasure of moving through space. He rejoices in it in his soul, which takes wing and goes where it pleases, through the sky, on the waters, to the depths of the forests.
All the misfortune here below arises from a lack of comprehension. We classify our limited knowledge in narrow systems, like the card-systems of an office, and these pitiful conventions we take seriously. They teach us disconnected things, and we leave them disconnected. Those who have a little patience assemble these isolated facts; but such patient ones are rare, and nothing is so unbearable as that man who, not having it, speaks ill of him who has a sense of the truth. To see accurately is the secret of good design. Objects dart at one another, unite, and throw light on one another, explain themselves. That is life; a marvelous beauty covers all things like a garment, like an ægis.
God created the great laws of opposition, of equilibrium. Good and evil are brothers, but we desire the good, which pleases us, and not the evil, which seems to us error. When we consider matters from a distance, does not evil often seem good, and good, evil? That is only because we have judged without proper consideration. Just as white and black are necessary in a drawing, so good and evil are necessary in life. Sorrow ought not to be cast out. As long as we live it is as strong a part of life as radiant joy. Without it we would be very ill trained.
To comprehend nature it is of importance that we never substitute ourselves for it. The corrections that a man imposes upon himself are a mass of mistakes. The tiger has claws and teeth and uses them skilfully; man at times shows himself inferior. Possessing intelligence, too often he strives to turn to that. Animals respect everything and touch nothing. The dog loves his master, and has no thought of criticizing him. The average man does not care that his daughter should be beautiful. He has in his mind certain ideas of manner and instruction, and the beauty of his daughter does not enter into the program that he has made. But the daughter herself feels the influence of nature, and displays her modest and triumphant movements, which this blind one does not see, but which fascinate the artist.
The artist who tells us of his ideal commits the same error that this average man commits. His ideal is false, in the name of this ideal he pretends to rectify his model, retouching a profound organism which admirably combined laws regulate. Through his so-called corrections he destroys the ensemble; he composes a mosaic instead of creating a work of art; the faults of his model do not exist. If we correct that which we call a fault, we simply present something in the place of that which nature has presented. We destroy the equilibrium; the rectified part is always that which is necessary to the harmony of the whole. There is nothing paradoxical here, because a law that is all-powerful keeps the harmony of opposites. That is the law of life. Everything, therefore, is good, but we discover this only when our thought acquires power; that is to say, when it attaches itself indissolubly to nature, for then it becomes part of a great whole, a part of united and complex forces. Otherwise it is a miserable, debased, detached part contending with a whole that is formed of innumerable units.
Nature, therefore, is the only guide that it is necessary to follow. She gives us the truth of an impression because she gives us that of its forms, and if we copy this with sincerity, she points out the means of uniting these forms and expressing them.
Sincerity, conscience—these are the true bases of thought in the work of an artist; but whenever the artist attains to a certain facility of expression, too often he is wont to replace conscience with skill. The reign of skill is the ruin of art. It is organized falsehood. Sincerity with one fault, indeed with many faults, still preserves its integrity. The facility that believes that it has no faults has them all. The primitives, who ignored the laws of perspective, nevertheless created great works of art because they brought to them absolute sincerity. Look at this Persian miniature, the admirable reverence of this illuminator for the form of these plants and animals, and the attitudes of these persons which he has forced himself to render just as he saw them. How eagerly has he painted that, this man who loved it all! Do you tell me that his work is bad because he is ignorant of the laws of perspective? And the great French primitives and the Roman architects and sculptors! Has it not been repeatedly said that their style is a barbaric style? On the contrary, it has a formidable beauty. It breathes the sacred awe of those who have been impressed by the great works of nature herself. It offers us the strongest proof that these men had made themselves part of life and also a part of its mystery.
To express life it is necessary to desire to express it. The art of statuary is made up of conscience, precision, and will. If I had not had tenacity of purpose, I should not have produced my work. If I had ceased to make my researches, the book of nature would have been for me a dead letter, or at least it would have withheld from me its meaning. Now, on the contrary, it is a book that is constantly renewed, and I go to it, knowing well that I have only spelled out certain pages. In art to admit only that which one comprehends leads to impotence. Nature remains full of unknown forces.
As for me, I have certainly lost some time through the fault of my period. I should have been able to learn much more than I have grasped with so much slowness and circumlocution; but I should not have tasted less happiness through that highest form of loss; that is, work. And when my hour shall come, I shall dwell in nature, and shall regret nothing.
If the artists of antiquity are the greatest of all it is because they approached most closely to Nature.
They studied it with magnificent sincerity and copied it with all their intelligence. They never wasted their time in trying to invent something. To invent, to create, these are words that mean nothing. They contented themselves with rendering the adorable model that enchanted their eyes. This love and this respect for creation has never since their time been surpassed. They did not copy literally what they saw; to a certain degree they interpreted the character of forms. The aim of art is not to copy literally. It consists in slightly exaggerating the character of the model in order to make it salient; it consists also in reassembling in a single expression the successive expressions given by the same model. Art is the living synthesis.
This is what the ancients did, with what taste, what incomparable science! From this science that respected unity their works derived their calm, contained force, the sentiment of grand serenity, the atmosphere of peace that envelops them. The ignorant and the professors of esthetics who do not know the source of all this have named it Greek idealism. This is nothing but a word that serves to conceal a want of understanding. There is no idealism in the ancients; there is an exercise of choice, a marvelous taste; but it is by the most realistic means that they render human beauty.