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THE MEANING OF ART.
Translated from the Russian of VLADIMIR SOLOVYEV by R. GILL
(University College, Nottingham).
I.
A TREE growing in its natural beauty, and the same tree beautifully
painted on canvas, produce analogous impressions, and are subject to
the same aesthetic valuation. In both cases the same word is fitly
employed for the expression of this valuation. But if there were
nothing beyond this evident superficial analogy, the question might
be, and actually has been, raised: What is the use of this duplication of
beauty? Is it not a childish pastime to reproduce in a picture what
already has a beautiful existence in nature? The usual answer to this
is that art does not produce the exact objects and phenomena of reality,
but only what the artist sees in them, and the true artist sees only what
is typical and characteristic; the aesthetic element of natural phenomena,
passing through the mind and imagination of the artist, is purged of all
that is material and casual. Intensified by this process it stands out
more clearly; beauty diffused in the forms and colours of nature, is
presented in the picture concentrated, condensed, and accentuated.
But this explanation cannot be regarded as completely satisfactory,
for the simple reason that it is wholly inapplicable to certain important
branches of art. For instance, what natural phenomena are accentuated
in Beethoven's sonatas? It is evident that the aesthetic connection
between art and nature is much deeper and more significant. As a
matter of fact it consists, not in the repetition, but in the continuation
of the artistic work begun in nature, in the further and fuller realisation
of the same aesthetic aim.
Man in his double significance, firstly as the most beautiful' and,
secondly, as the most conscious being in nature, is the highest product
of evolution. By virtue of the second quality, man himself, from being
a product of evolution, becomes an agent in the evolutionary process.
As such, he the more fully promotes his ideal purpose, which consists
in the fusion and unconstrained unification of the spiritual and the
material, the ideal and the actual, the subjective and objective factors
and elements of the universe. But why, it may be asked, does the world
process commenced by nature and continued by man, present itself
to us precisely in its aesthetic aspect, as the realisation of some artistic
aim? Is it not better to recognise as its task the realisation of truth
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THE MEANING OF ART. 51
and good, the triumph of the higher reason and will? If in answer
to this we call to mind that beauty is only a realisation in physical forms
of that very thing which, until then, had been known as the
good and the true, then this provokes a fresh objection. The good and
the true, the strict moralist will say, do not need an aesthetic realisation.
To do good, and to know the truth, is all that is necessary.
In reply to this objection let us suppose that good has been realised,
and this, not in any individual life, but in the life of society as a -whole,
that an ideal organisation of society has been attained, that universal
brotherhood prevails. Let us suppose that egoism has been abolished,
that all men see themselves in each, and each in all. But if this general
unity, in which lies the essence of moral good, does not extend to material
nature, if the spiritual principle after penetrating the density of human
psychological egoism cannot force a way into the egoism of matter,
then the power of goodness or love is not sufficiently strong. This
means that the moral principle cannot be realised to the full and com-
pletely justified. The question then arises: if the power of matter
triumphs in the end, if it cannot be conquered by the principle of good,
then there does not reside in that power the real truth of existence,
and is not that which we call good merely a subjective delusion? And,
indeed, is it possible to speak of the triumph of good, when a society
organised in accordance with ideal moral principles may be destroyed
in a moment by some geological or astronomical convulsion? The
complete separation of the moral principle from matter is by no means
destructive to the latter, but it is to the former. The very existence of
moral order in the world presupposes its connection with the material,
some co-ordination between the two. But if this is so, ought we not
to seek this connection, apart from aesthetics, in the direct control of
the blind powers of nature by human intelligence, in the absolute
supremacy of mind over matter? It is evident that great progress
towards this goal has already been made. When it has been reached,
when, thanks to the progress of the applied sciences, we have conquered,
as some optimists think we shall, not only time and space but even
death, then the existence of a moral life on earth (on a material basis)
will be finally secured, and this without any connection whatever with
aesthetics, so that even then it may be maintained that beauty is not
necessary for the existence of the good. But, in such a case, would the
good itself be complete? It is seen that it consists, not in the triumph
of one thing over another, but in a free, all-embracing unity. But is it
possible to exclude from this unity beings and agents of the natural
world? As we cannot, we may not look upon them merely as meanls
or instruments of human existence; they, too, are bound to enter as
a positive element into the ideal organisation of our life. If moral order
to be stable is bound to rest upon material natire as the medium and
means of its existence, then, for its own fulness and perfection, it must
include matter as an independent ethical factor. In this case the ethical
D 2
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52 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.
II.
A worthy, ideal existence requires the same room for the whole as
for the parts, and therefore is not a freedom from individualities, but
only from their exclusiveness. The fulness of this freedom requires
that all the particular elements should be found in one another and in
the whole, that each should fit in with the others, and should feel in
its individual existence the unity of the whole, and in the whole its
individual existence-in short, there must be an absolute inner union
in all existence, God all in all.
A full physical realisation of this general inner union or positive
all-embracing unity-perfect beauty, not as a mere reflection of the
Idea from matter but its actual presence in matter, presupposes first
of all the deepest and closest interaction between the inner or spiritual,
and the outer or material existence. This is a fundamental and purely
vesthetical requirement. Here beauty is specifically distinguished from
the other two aspects of the absolute Idea. The ideal contents, if
remaining only as an inner attribute of the spirit, of its will and thought,
are devoid of beauty, but absence of beauty is equivalent to the impotence
of the Idea. As a matter of fact, as long as the spirit is incapable of
giving a direct external expression to its inner contents, as long as it
cannot embody itself in a mnaterial phenomenon, and on the other hand,
as long as matter is incapable of receiving the ideal action of the spirit, is
incapable of being permeated by it, cannot transmute itself into it,
so long is there no inner union between these main provinces of existence.
This means that the Idea itself, which is precisely the perfect inner
union of all that exists, still does not possess in this its phenomenon
sufficient power for the definite realisation or fulfilment of its nature.
An abstract spirit, incapable of creative realisation; and soulless matter,
which cannot be spiritualised, are alike incompatible with ideal or worthy
existence. Both bear in themselves the clear indication of their un-
worthiness in the fact that neither of them can be beautiful. And so
for beauty two things are required: firstly, the direct materialisation
of the spiritual nature; and secondly, the complete spiritualisation of
the material phenomenon as a true and inseparable form of the ideal
contents. To these two conditions is necessarily associated or, to express
oneself better, from them directly issues, a third. For in a direct and
inseparable union in beauty of the spiritual contents and the physical
expression, in their full and mutual permeation, the material phenomenon
really becomes beautiful, that is, it really incarnates the Idea, and so
must be just as enduring and immortal as the Idea itself. According
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THE MEANING OF ART. 53
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54 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.
III.
These anticipations of perfect beauty in human art fall into three
classes: (i) The direct or magical. These occur when the deepest inner
qualities uniting us with the true substance of things and the unseen
world (or if the term be permitted, with existence " an sich " of all that
is) break through all conditionality and material limitations, and find
a direct and complete expression in beautiful sounds and words (music
and in part pure lyric poetry). (2) The indirect. These are produced
by the intensification of given beauty. The inner essential and etemal
meaning of life is hidden in the particular and casual phenomena of the
world of nature and man, and is only dimly and inadequately expressed
in their natural beauty. But when this inner meaning is revealed and
made clear by the artist by his reproduction of these phenomena in a
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THE MEANING OF ART. 55
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56 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.
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THE MEANING OF ART. 57
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