CHAPTER XIV.

THE ETHICS OF ART.

XIV.

of the argu

EAR the beginning of this treatise, CHAPTER when pointing out the various lines of comparison which criticism, to be Retrospect really scientific, ought to pursue, I stated that ment. the present instalment of my work should be mainly psychological, for that nothing is so much wanted in criticism as a correct psychology. It is in art as in life, and it is in criticism more than all-we know little, and our little knowledge is of little use to us until we know our own minds. Accordingly I have at some length attempted to ascertain what is the mind of art. We have touched on nearly all the psychological questions relating to criticism The discuswhich need elucidation, and which criticism has been remust fully master before it can with effect advance a step. And now it may be expected,

sion hitherto

stricted to psychology.

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CHAPTER in the course of this inquiry, that we should proceed to apply the principles which have thus been worked out to a solution of the great problems of criticism. That is a task which in due time will have to engage our attention; but in the meantime it may be right to complete the psychological view of the subject. It is best that all the psychological questions should, as far as possible, be treated by themselves; and, And to psy- therefore, although strictly an inquiry into the ethical influence of art ought, in point of time, the ethics to be the last of all critical discussions, it will be most convenient to attempt it now.

chology belongs an

inquiry into

of art.

The question of su

rest in art relates to ethics.

After all, the question of supreme interest in preme inte- art, the question upon which depends our whole care for art is, What are its relations to life; to life individual, to life national; to the life here, to the life hereafter? Is it divine as the lyre of Amphion, that raised the walls of Thebes? or fatal as the fiddle of Nero, that warbled to the flames of Rome ? or is it neither the one nor the other-neither good nor bad-but a harmless, worthless plaything; in poetry, what Malherbe suggests, a game of ninepins; and in sculpture, what Newton supposed, a stone doll; only so far to be scouted, if-as when the king Al Haquem, instead of fighting a battle loitered in his tent to mend the notes of his albogon-it lure us from more serious work? Although these are the questions which in formal criticism

XIV.

we discuss last of all, they are the questions CHAPTER which in our own minds we settle first of all. Before we begin to criticise, we have the foregone conclusion in our minds that criticism will not be wasted upon unworthy objects. And it may be well, therefore, before we enter upon criticism proper, to articulate and reason out our belief as to the moral influence of art. Is it good, or is it bad, or is it nought?

portance of

We may at once dismiss the idea that art is a On the imtoy to be tossed aside like a toy. It may have art. sprung out of trifles. There are fables which trace painting to the shadow of a candle, and music to the stroke of a hammer, Corinthian capitals to acanthus leaves overhanging a basket, and cathedral naves to forest avenues. But the seed which was small of size and of promise has grown to a mighty tree that spreads abroad its branches, and shelters under them civilization itself. It is in art that the history of the world How art is enshrined-almost in art alone that the far flourishes. past survives. When we draw near to modern. times there may be found in works of mere utility the monuments of what has been but as musical notes carry further than common sounds, so the more we go back we discover that of the useful arts there are few relics, and that it is to the fine arts we owe the record of grey antiquity. In Rome where the people are degraded and inert, where the Cæsars are forgotten and the

VOL. II.

L

endures and

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CHAPTER Pope is moribund, the Antinous is as beautiful and rounded as ever, and the Dying Gladiator is as keen in his expression of agony as when first chiselled. Art is as green and as fresh there as the people are withered and effete. The pomp of empires has faded in their purple dyes, the bravery of armies has gone with the flashing of their spears, the busy hum of countless generations has come like a cloud and cloudlike fled. What remains when the bones of the warrior lie undistinguished from the wreck of his horse, and when the dust of kings is of less account than the lithe worm which inhabits it? There remain the songs of the people, the engravings upon their friezes, the marbles they loved, their carved cups, their painted vases, their curious coins, their seals, their palaces, the altars of their gods and the tombs of their friends. The bard, the painter, the sculptor, the potter, the architect, the musician-theirs is the cunning that outlasts time, and supplies us with the only sure fragments of ancient life. The statesman and the soldier, the merchant and the mechanic, leave but few marks: they live chiefly in the artist, and with his handiwork they die. Many were the heroes before Agamemnon, racter of art says Horace, yet all are forced into the long night for want of a bard. This has been so

The memorial cha

often repeated that it has lost some of its meaning. But it is no rhetorical flourish it is a

XIV.

fact. People have lately been complaining that CHAPTER there is no monument to Shakespeare, and have been proposing to build him one. Those who make the proposal overlook the most striking characteristic of that which they desire to honour. The essence of art is a secret, but it is an importunate secret that insists on being flaunted before us in visible and attractive disguises. It is a secret that demands to be seen and to be known. Its monument is like that of Wren in his cathedral-circumspice. Raise pyramids to your warriors and your statesmen who leave no monuments behind them, and after they have lived their lives are as a wind that is past. Nelson and Wellington sleep side by side under the dome of St. Paul's; but where is the visible semblance of their power as of Wren's? There is nothing to be seen at Trafalgar-nothing on the field of Waterloo. Of all Pitt's vast combinations there remain only the ugly columns of the national debt. Build rows of stately columns for these men if you will, but not for men who build their own memorials. Art is its own remembrancer. Men's works of labour die; their works of pleasure live. Their science pales, age after age is forgotten, and age after age has to be freshened; but the secret thinking of humanity, embalmed in art, survives as nothing else in life survives. And the argument seems to hold