Part 1
# On art and artists ### By Nordau, Max Simon
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ON ART AND ARTISTS
BY MAX NORDAU AUTHOR OF “DEGENERATION”
TRANSLATED BY W. F. HARVEY, M.A.
LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN ADELPHI TERRACE MCMVII
[_All rights reserved._]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Social Mission of Art 1
II. Socialistic Art—Constantin Meunier 30
III. The Question of Style 44
IV. The Old French Masters 56
V. A Century of French Art 70
VI. The School of 1830 96
VII. The Triumph of a Revolution— The Realists 107 Alfred Sisley 123 Camille Pissarro 133 Whistler’s Psychology 145
VIII. Gustave Moreau 155
IX. Eugène Carrière 166
X. Puvis de Chavannes 185
XI. Bright and Dark Painting—Charles Cottet 201
XII. Physiognomies in Painting 217
XIII. Auguste Rodin 275
XIV. Resurrection—Bartholomé 294
XV. Jean Carriès 308
XVI. Works of Art and Art Criticisms 320
XVII. My Own Opinion 336
Index 349
ON ART AND ARTISTS
ON ART AND ARTISTS
I
THE SOCIAL MISSION OF ART
There exists a school of æstheticism which laughs contemptuously at the mere sight of this superscription. Art having a mission! What utter nonsense. A person must be a rank Philistine to connect with the idea of art the conception of a non-artistic mission, be it social or otherwise. Has a work of art any other mission than to give pleasure by beauty? It strives to attain no goal that lies outside of itself. It is its own object, and whoever assigns to it another, sins against the sanctity of art.
This is, in short, the theory of art for art’s sake: _l’art pour l’art_. I deem this theory false and a hallmark of crass ignorance, for psychology and the history of civilisation and art, the history of all arts, prove irrefutably the vanity and worthlessness of the concept that denies to art any other task and mission than that of being beautiful.
Certainly art is, in the main, a purely subjective activity, in which the artist wishes solely to satisfy himself, without thinking of any person or thing external to himself. The psychological roots of all artistic creation are, in fact, an exceptional sensitiveness and feeling on the part of the artist. We know that every moderately strong impression which man—and, moreover, not only man, but also every living creature, however low in the scale—receives from the external world, excites in him processes, which, in the case of man and the higher animals, attain consciousness as emotion or passion. The emotion imperiously urges in towards liberation through movements, that is to say, muscular activity, which, in many cases, is accompanied by glandular activity, _e.g._ tears, secretion of saliva, perspiration, etc. To men of the average type the usual forms of manifesting their emotion suffice. If they have wept in sorrow, laughed for joy, cursed or clenched their fist in anger, they are pacified. Their emotion has spent itself and become exhausted, and their physical life once more flows in its accustomed channels.
However, if, instead of the average man, we have before us a creature of exceptional sensitiveness and emotionality, the psychical processes assume another shape. This creature feels all phenomena more acutely; they arouse in him more violent passions; his emotions are deeper and more lasting. Their normal forms of expression do not suffice to lull them. They take possession of his soul, organise themselves, show a tendency to become compelling ideas, and oppress it with psycho-motorial incitements or impulses until it has freed itself from them by acts which stand in proper ratio to the number or violence of the emotions. A being whose excessive emotionality is of an angry, malicious nature attains relief only through deeds of destruction. Such is the case with most sub-species of born criminals. Should the exceptionally strong emotions not be of a destructive nature, they find their outlet otherwise by artistic creations, which, therefore, are a liberation and solution of emotion that has become overmastering.
But this simple, as it were, normal case, in which the work of art actually fulfils a purely subjective mission, and aims at no other object than to relieve the artist’s nervous system and to unburden his mind of a compelling idea—this case is actually met with only in the earliest ages of mankind. Art for art’s sake—the art which is practised purely for the relief and satisfaction of the artist—is that of the cave-man of the quaternary period. The artist who adorned the walls of the Caves of Mouthe[1] with figures of animals; who scratched the famous mammoth on the tusk of La Madeleine in the Dordogne; the draughtsman of Bruniquel, of Schaffhausen; the author of the rock-pictures in Sweden, probably did not trouble himself as to whether he was producing any effect on others. In all likelihood he did not work for society. His psychology is disclosed to us by the subjects he treated. He was an enthusiastic hunter, endowed with a particularly lively intuition and manual dexterity. On the days when he could not go hunting, either because bad weather prevented him doing so, or external compulsion—perhaps an accident met with in the chase—confined him to his cave, he thought longingly of his favourite occupation. The beasts that composed his usual booty lived in his imagination. His grotto was peopled with the monsters of the forest and plain of primitive times. He saw the mammoth with its stiff mane, the grisly cave-bear, the aurochs and giant-elk, the shaggy, thick-set horse of Solutré; he pursued, fought, slew them. He felt all the keen joys of these mighty deeds, and became so strongly excited that he could not refrain from realising the lively pictures of his fancy, by drawing them on bones, tusks, or rocks, or carving them on stags’ horns and elephants’ teeth. It would not gainsay this psychology of primitive human art, if the artists in remote ages (as the latest pre-historic investigations seem to attest) connected superstitious ideas with the imitation of their animals of the chase, perhaps believed by such means they cast a spell on the animals portrayed, and facilitated their capture. A superstition like this would, in its turn, become a source of fresh emotions which also seek outward expression.
Besides the hunter there was also the warrior, who liked to portray his conquered enemies, and the sensualist, who sought delight in carving female busts, the types of which, to our taste, seem very ugly, but may have appeared alluring to him.
These savage forefathers who adorned the caves of the early stone age with works of art not invariably crude; who woke the echo of the forest valleys with plaintive or yearning melodies; who excited themselves by sensuous dances in the moonlight nights of spring; who formed, in symbolic and allegorical songs, their mystic impressions of the great phenomena of the weather and sky;—these savage forefathers were the first, but at the same time last, purely subjective artists, the only real believers in the dogma of “art for art’s sake.”
In order to find them once more in our own times, we must seek them in the nursery or the Board School class-room. The artist of primitive times survives by atavism in the child. But he substitutes for the rock-wall of the cave and the mammoth’s tooth his slate, copy-book, school-books, often enough his desk and form, which he adorns with drawings that, if not particularly finished, are, nevertheless, always full of expression, and recognisable. The child does not give way to his artistic wantonness in order to please others. He hides it, moreover, mostly for obvious reasons, from the eyes of strangers; he only draws to portray symbolically that which has made a strong impression on him. He always notes down the important, distinguishing features which have struck him in the phenomenon. This fierce mustache, the circle drawn across which represents the head, is for the little draughtsman the characteristic of manly dignity; this right-angled broken stroke, which bristles up over a row of men, is the formidable bayonet that marks the soldier; this disproportionately big stick in another man’s hand is the dreaded badge that embodies the schoolmaster’s power. The young artist has obeyed genuine impulses. His art forms really spring out of the deep grounds of his emotion.
With advancing civilisation, however, this state of things quickly changes. The artist soon notices that he is differently conditioned to the rest, the average men; that his feelings are keener, their manifestation more expressive than with the latter. He becomes conscious of his superiority, fancies himself something in regard to it, and cultivates it. Other men find æsthetic pleasure in his creations, and encourage him by flattering applause which easily rises to admiration. That calls forth an energetic metamorphosis in the inmost processes of his work, in its causes and aims. What was once organic necessity now becomes craftsmanship; uncontrollable inspiration is replaced by custom and by style. The artist becomes his own imitator. In years of cool, methodical, routine work, he simply calls to mind the moment when the feverish workings of his brain powerfully drove him into the paths of art. He observes all rites of the creator by impulse, but they are now only an attitude which he has learnt. In theory he is still inspired by impulse; practically, he is a professional craftsman who performs the day’s work imposed on him by intelligent volition. He is still always in search of self-satisfaction whilst engaged on works of art, but it is of another nature than that of the unsophisticated artist. The unconscious aim of his efforts is not to find relief from an emotional tension: he strives after the voluptuous feeling of flattered _amour propre_; he grows ambitious, very often, indeed, only vain. He thinks of his public. He anticipates his success. The thought of approbation takes the place of the effort to deliver himself from a painfully obsessing conception.
This also is always the psychology of the born artist, who is one because his organisation forces him to it. Beside him, however, swarms the innumerable crowd of imitation artists, of average, and very average men, who would never of themselves have thought of becoming artists—men who would never have discovered art of themselves, if they had not had before their eyes the example of the original artists, their successes, their recognition by civilised society. These individuals pursue art, not to deliver themselves from an obsessing conception, but as a means of attaining privileges, gold, and honours. For them art is an avocation like any other, a trade learnt, which is to bring them, not to subjective psychological, but to practical and social ends. They try by a sort of mimicry to become like the original artists, but they belong to another species. Nevertheless, it is not permissible to neglect them in this consideration, for, for one thing, they constitute the vast majority of artists, from the moment when the pursuit of art has become a differentiated activity, the habitual and exclusive occupation of a separate class of society; and then the productions of these imitators are always modelled after works done through organic necessity. They are, to a certain extent, the small change of originally great values; they would like to be changed for them, and everything which is to be said of any particular problem of art, necessarily finds its application to the imitations as well as to the original pictures.
These are then the origins and stages of development of art. At the outset, it is actually what the school of “art for art’s sake” asserts of it: a subjective purpose, a satisfaction of an organic need on the part of the artist. Soon, however, the artist ceases to confine himself to satisfying himself in relieving himself; he also seeks to please others. In the most secret and mysterious moments of creation, the thought of other men is present in his mind; considerations as to effect and success are mixed with his productive emotions. Substitute mere craftsmanship for inspiration, then these considerations become more and more dominant, and when art has once become a regular ordinary business, and the imitators, the mere echoes and reflections, have once become the majority among those who practise it, then the artist has his eyes continually fixed on his tribunal, viz., society. In the moment his work of art is germinating, it is strongly influenced by consideration of the known or the supposed taste of the society whose applause the artist courts, and the work undergoes a development more or less remote from the form it would have acquired under the pure influence of emotion, its primary source.
Society naturally sees what place it occupies in the artist’s mind, what share it has in his creations, and how important to him its verdict is. It promptly perceives its advantage. It takes possession of the artist, forces its tastes on him, and insists on his working, not for himself, but for it. Henceforward it has in him a paid servant; he has to conform his special energy to the general plan of the society organism of which he is a part, and, in this way, a manifestation which was originally a purely subjective performance becomes a social performance.
Art, engendered by individual emotion and transfigured into a social work, shares this lot which we have no right to call a degradation, with innumerable other main instincts, strivings, desires. It is the peculiarity of civilisation that it subdues to itself human emotions, and applies them as motive powers for the purpose of creating results which are not always, which are not even frequently, the natural purpose of these emotions. The whole existence of society, every organisation, every civilisation, rests on the application of this method; in fact, every attitude and action of man is affected by an emotion at its base. Without emotion, man is a sluggish mass, with which nothing can be done. In order to get anything from him, he must first have his mind excited, and after that we must be able to direct this excitement. All usages and regulations are merely a collection of channels dug in order to act as conduits to the emotions, and to utilise their force in regular employment. By the help of the emotions of love, society has been enabled to create marriage, which does not serve for the satisfaction of the instinct, but should guarantee economic security for the wife and children. With the emotion of sympathy—this preliminary condition of every social structure—with this fount of pity, altruism, and solidarity, mankind has created the political order, the State, with all its burdensome tyranny, which seems no longer to have anything at all in common with sympathy, which is, nevertheless, its emotional root. With the emotion of mysticism and superstition, society has produced practical morality and all its constraint; with self-love and vanity, patriotism and its caricature, Chauvinism; with the wicked impulses to destruction and murder, the professional qualities of the soldier, still indispensable for the security of the political organism. In short, the whole work of civilisation consists in making itself master of individual emotions, diverting them from their natural goals, applying them to the good of the whole body. The State society is a machine that is moved only by the emotions of individuals. Social life is simply the product of a very complex and skilfully conducted work of primitive emotions. If, therefore, any one exclaims slightingly at the mention of the social productions of art: “That’s common, rank utilitarianism!” we are justified in shrugging our shoulders. Utilitarianism? Why, certainly. Utility is the primary law of every society, of every living organism. The lowest living creature of one cell could not support itself for a single instant, unless all its parts were continually working with the object of promoting its existence, of serving the demands of its life—in short, making themselves useful to the whole.
When men came to observe that they possessed among them beings who had stronger emotions than the rest, and made these emotions evident by creations which were calculated to make a deep impression on other men, they, according to the standing rule—I might say, according to the biological rule—of society, made haste to place these exceptional natures, these artists, in the service of the great interests of society.
Whoever can still entertain a doubt that art has always performed a task which was by no means æsthetic, even if fulfilled by æsthetic means, let him cast a glance at the history of the arts.
Let him read the poems of antiquity, gaze on the sculptures and paintings of the Egyptians or Assyrians or Greeks. Let him listen to the far-off, and doubtless sadly distorted echo of ancient music in the Hymn to Apollo, restored by over-daring scholarship. Where will he find a work—a single work—which corresponds with the psychological scheme of the origin of artistic creation and with the definitions of the party of “Art for art’s sake”? Where is the work that has been achieved purely for self-satisfaction, for the relief of the artist’s nerves? Where is the work that is only to serve beauty? I cannot see it; but what I do see is that all known works serve some purpose of society. They glorify the gods, the kings, the commonwealth. They extol the dignity of belief, of government, of the mother-country. Homer shows the heroes of the Hellenic race in the bloody apotheosis of their exploits. Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides unfold on the stage the myths and sagas of their ancestors. On the Acropolis, in the Parthenon, gleam the gods of the mother-country, the guardians of the commonwealth, shaped by the magic chisel of Phidias. The Stoa, the Poikile, the Stadium, are peopled with the monuments of athletes, warriors, archons, legislators, of all great men who are the people’s pride, and are to serve them as models. Tyrtæus chants his sublime marches to excite the warriors to fight for their country. The singer of the Hymn to Apollo composes his cantatas to make the temple service more impressive. I am well aware that, besides these monuments, there are the little lyric poems of the Anthology, the charming little Tanagra figures, that is to say, very individual revelations, which sing the joys and sorrows of a single soul, which seize the graceful movements and gait of young women who had enraptured a single kneader of the clay. But these pretty little things, although _chef d’œuvres_ of their kind, are not, however, to be compared with the triumphant creations prompted by religious belief and patriotism, whose superhuman splendour fills the centuries.
If we go from pagan antiquity to the Christian Middle Ages and the free-thinking or the openly atheistic Renaissance, the _rôle_ of art remains unchanged. For whom does the artist work? Only for the Church and the palace. The pope, the bishop, the abbot demand of him the decoration of the cathedral and monastery. The priest under the vaulted arch, the monk in his refectory—these must have before their eyes images to remind them of the doctrines of which they are preachers and servants. The people, when they enter God’s house, must be caught hold of by the representations of suffering and martyrdoms, of beneficent and comforting miracles, of the horrors of hell and the bliss of paradise, and be strengthened in their faith, seeing with their eyes and touching with their hands what religion teaches. The king’s castle, the palace of the great vassals, plume themselves on the works of arts that are consecrated to the glory of their ancestors, of their rank, or, simply, of the dominant system. Here the stately tombs of kings or knights, here the statues showing the ancestor as hero or demi-god. Here the pictures of battles and sieges, of butcheries and victories. Here the painted memorials of great state ceremonies, triumphal entries, receptions of ambassadors, conclusions of advantageous treaties, famous meetings of mighty lords. The object of all this art is always to flatter the vanity of the great, to impose on the populace a high notion of their wealth and power, to make it feel, by all possible means of expression, the superiority of its leaders. We must go down to the Italian Renaissance in order to discover, by the side of religious, dynastic, aristocratic, and political art—for historical art was always designed to serve a political idea or arrangement—in order to discover, I say, by the side of this prescriptive art, the beginning of a purely æsthetic art. When Mantegna paints the “Muses on Olympus,” or Leonardo the “Mona Lisa,” they are no longer desirous of kindling faith or strengthening subjects in obedience, but they want to enrich and brighten existence. But whose existence? That of a wealthy and distinguished patron, of him who has placed the order with them. It is not before the Renaissance that we see the artist gradually emancipate himself from the rule that sternly dictates to him the choice of his theme, and even, up to a certain point, the method of his treatment. He then acquired to some degree the freedom to follow his own power of imagination, and could hope to get a return for his creations, even if he did not serve a dogma or a policy, even if he did not glorify a saint, a king, or a nobleman; if he simply tried to move a man’s soul by revealing the secret movements of a human soul.
We see then that, through long centuries, art had the sole task to serve the great institutions of society: religion, monarchy, or one’s native country under another form of government, the dominant castes. The mechanism by which art was held in bondage was the simplest and most naïve: the artist had no other customer for his works except the powers that be. These bound him by his necessity to eat daily, or nearly so. The Church, the king, the republic, the city, the ruler, gave the artist commissions, and paid him. If he found no patron in the castle or palace, he had no gold or honour to hope for from any other quarter. Now neither the Church, nor the Government, nor the privileged classes were in the habit of throwing their money out of the window. The money they expended had to bring them profit. They wanted the artist in their pay to become a champion for their cause, in exactly the same way as the cross-bowmen of their body-guard, their judge, their herald, steward, aye, their jailer and executioner. Art, in those days, preached the fear of God and his servants, submission to the king and the State, respect for nobles and officials. The ruling powers made the artist suggest to the people all that was favourable to them. Art was the school of the good subject, the artist the main prop of priestly and monarchical-aristocratic society. The common herd, the million, found none of their human emotions satisfied in art; the voices that rang out of these works only cried to them: “Pray, obey, tremble.”