Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

the same care and guidance are necessary in reference to one of the notions as to either of the others.

If any one of the three notions be not absolute but be left to education and discipline for proper development in the soul, so with the others. The ordinary acceptation is that it is a very simple matter to be truthful. In fact, it is at times very difficult to tell what the truth may be. Truth is comparative and exists with different degrees of clearness and force in different minds as they have been trained in detecting and estimating it. It is only the germs of these notions that exist by nature in the soul.

The object of legal training is to assist in the discovery of truth. Law is to establish truth. The Supreme Court of the United States is regarded as the highest, best, and purest judicial body, yet, with given facts, there is often in its decisions dissent, rarely unanimity, in the declaration and application of truth.

So with goodness. All the hospitals, all the criminal courts, and all the labor bureaus in the country are efforts to find out goodness and to put it into action. So all artists and art critics are endeavoring to establish beauty. And these three bodies are working together for the glory of God and the good of mankind.

On a lower plane, perhaps, though intimately related, comes the refined and pure enjoyment to be derived from the study and contact of the beautiful. Here the Fine Arts are factors. No living being can fail to be benefited by contact with art. No child should be allowed to grow up without being put into practical contact with some phase of art. Even a jews-harp may awaken the echoes of Divine sound; and a few watercolors in a ten cent box may lead to a clear apprehension, and delightful enjoyment, of color. Every living being should be taught to sing. An artistic hobby will make bright moments of rest from labor and will save the idle from giving time to evil. Hear what Levèque, the prize man, says on this point. His language is clear. The passage shows the quality of his introspection.

"The pleasure caused by a beautiful object is an elevated pleasure. It excites exclusively the noble qualities of the soul.

While the soul experiences it, the soul has no regard for the low and the vile; and if the soul make a constant habit of this pleasure, it becomes disgusted with low pleasures and entirely free from their attractions. In the second place, the pleasure afforded by the beautiful is complete. The whole soul is satisfied with it. While it dilates the heart, reason approves and conscience commends. Again; this pleasure is deep. It does not skim the surface of the soul as do the pleasures of the senses; but penetrates into it, establishes itself, and from time to time, excited by recollections, pours out anew fresh and abundant joy. Therefore, the pleasure of the beautiful is elevated, complete, and profound. In one word, it is grand.

On the other hand, the affection I feel for the beauty which has touched me is also elevated. It is not selfish nor gross; but disinterested, respectful, and like in character to religious devotion. The affection moreover is complete and entire because the soul does not begrudge it, and because in any object altogether beautiful there is no part the soul does not love. Finally, the love devoted to a beautiful object does not fade away like a fugitive sensation. As it has established itself in the most secret parts of the soul, it stays there: takes root, and becomes solid and durable. Solidity and durability are the two essential characteristics of every profound sentiment. The love of the beautiful is, therefore, elevated, complete and profound. In one word, its first characteristic, like the first characteristic of æsthetic pleasure, is grandeur."

The third and last point is the claim of everyday life on æsthetics. A point is of such vast and practical importance that it may only be mentioned at this time. The sense of beauty is universal. The manifestation of this sense is universal. There is not a lassie in the country who will not enforce her beauty with a ribbon or a frill. But she must know what ribbon to select and how to make the frill. Every country bumpkin will put under his chin on Sunday a flaming bow knot two feet long to attract the aforesaid lassie. Let him be taught to tone it down to the requirements of true art, and the lassie will be attracted. Nor will they both fail to be edified by the dominie if he in turn have pursued seriously and follows conscien

tiously such a work as Prof. Hoppin's "Homiletics"; and if his garb as well as his conduct be strictly ministerial.

We may not be able to go as far as dear old Hutcheson and discover more beauty in a square than in a triangle, and more in a pentagon than in a square; but to feel harmony and discord in lines is no difficult attainment: while the laws of the contrasts of complemental colors are so plain and so universal in their application that all may learn them and profit by them. The man who would look his best will be housed his best; and then will behave his best and will help others to do likewise. If harmony be a fundamental principle of beauty, let harmony prevail. Don't build barns like churches; churches like jails; nor jails like comfortable hotels. Don't try to appear young when you are old. Let dress and conduct show forth individual character and circumstances truthfully, strongly, and gracefully.

I presumed that the time and the circumstances would neither call for any solemn or serious exposition of principles, nor permit detail. Nor can a paper written at idle moments during a summer's vacation, with only a peep now and then at one's library, contain things the writer would care to swear by.

I have not spoken of Taine, of Sutter, of Caborit, or of many other brilliant lights of modern French æsthetics. It must suffice if I have called attention to the existence of the subject. So far as I know there is not chair of æsthetics in this country; nor do I know where at home one would go for full information. Existing information must be superficial for it is only by teaching that a subject is mastered. But if the attention of scholars could be once attracted to a consideration of the importance and far-reaching value of this philosophy, I do not doubt that we in this country are in a moral and mental condition to formulate and apply an æsthetics more complete and more practical than any the schools have as yet produced.

D. CADY EATON.

ARTICLE III.-ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICA: ITS MENTAL AND MATERIAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

I.

In the broad progressive movement of our day there is an element not well understood, and therefore not sufficiently appreciated, although it has grown and taken direction simultaneously with the development of the useful and fine arts of our civilization. This particular element manifests itself in our midst in various degrees of success, but it is not recognized, in manner or degree, as other elements of our higher progress are recognized. Judging from the literature, the rostrum, and the stage of the day; and judging from our every day conversation which, after all, is the most trustworthy gauge of average thought and taste, Painting, Sculpture, Music, the Drama, and Belles-Lettres excite in us an interest bordering on enthusiasm, while Architecture, as a comprehensive art, slowly appeals to our mind.

The daily press which, with us in particular, is the medium of familiarizing the people with the manifold influences, methods and forms of human activities seems to make an exception of Architecture. We have technically architectural periodicals which, as organs of judgment, exponents of principles and methods, and general guides of the profession to which they are devoted, are a national credit. These periodicals cannot, however, be taken as a measure of public knowledge or appreciation of the subject of which they particularly treat; for, in their technical character they are organs of a profession and not exponents of popular thought and taste. If we turn to the general press for the amount and quality of interest in our subject, we find that our newspaper does not notice the work of the architect in the complete and often masterly manner in which it notices that of the painter, sculptor, writer, or actor.

The newspaper notices a projected or completed building in an incomplete and rather crude description of its material aspect, or in a detailed statement of its commercial value;

whereas it reviews a painting, a statue, a play, a concert, or a book critically and exhaustively in all its aspects. Moreover, the newspaper seldom, if ever, mentions the name of the architect, but seldom fails to give the name of the contractor; while it invariably gives the name of the painter or sculptor, as it invariably omits the name of the maker of the canvas, colors, and frame, or the name of the man that quarries the statuary marble. And, a leading metropolitan journal, referring to an exhibition held under the auspices of an architectural society, tells us that: 66... . In itself a collection of architectural drawings is unlikely to attract general attention, but the present exhibition contains a gallery full of examples of decorative art, with paintings, black and white and stained glass, to say nothing of the water-colors and pen and ink drawings

[ocr errors]

"; thus making the main object of the exhibition a secondary consideration, and conditional to the supplementary show at that. In short, the newspaper merely chronicles the architect's work, and critically reviews the painter's, sculptor's, or writer's. It places the former's in the catalogue of material growth without due reference to the mind that underlies it; and places the latter's in the nation's spiritual sphere without losing sight of its material influences.

It is remarkable that in this country where the architect's work appears, and perhaps is, more varied and extensive than in any other land, the art of building should be popularly so much less known, in its principles, methods, and beauty, than the other arts; and that it should be almost ignored in its relations to temperament and thought, feeling, and habit. There is certainly a reason for this lack of appreciation of Architecture on one hand, and popular sympathy for the arts in general on the other. To broadly point out the cause, or causes, of such a phenomenon is the aim of the following notes.

II.

It is one of the commonplaces of criticism to explain or excuse our shortcomings on the plea of our nation's youth. Our national youth is certainly a circumstance to be taken into account in a critical survey of our intellectual and artistic state, but care should be taken not to accept it as too extenuating a

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »