Part 14 (2/2)
Nurtured in narrowness on the ground that should grow other instincts, it disappears in the suns.h.i.+ne of happiness, when the heart is furrowed and tilled by the experiences of life and planted with the fruit of happiness.
If we cannot do that, at least we can recognise that it, as all instincts, has its uses, and exists in and because of that use, never because of any abuse.
And where the instinct exists it is attracted as are nearly all the instincts into that great bundle of emotions called religion.
But if those who support Christian missions wonder why they are not more successful, here is another reason. What satisfies your instinct revolts theirs. They do not require it. Orientals, even peasants, live such wide lives compared with many in the West, that they need not the stimulus, and their hard lives lessen the emotional powers. And if Christians are often unable to understand the charm of Buddhism to its believers, it is because western people seek and require the stimulus of miracle which is here wanting. It is as if you offered them water while they cared only for wine. But Easterns care not for your strong emotions. They are simpler and more easily pleased.
CHAPTER XXVI.
RELIGION AND ART.
”This is not the place, nor have I s.p.a.ce left here, to explain all I mean when I say that art is a mode of religion, and can flourish only under the inspiration of living and practical religion.”--_Frederic Harrison._
”No one indeed can successfully uphold the idea that the high development of art in any shape is of necessity coincident with a strong growth of religious or moral sentiment. Perugino made no secret of being an atheist; Leonardo da Vinci was a scientific sceptic; Raphael was an amiable rake, no better and no worse than the majority of those gifted pupils to whom he was at once a model of perfection and an example of free living; and those who maintain that art is always the expression of a people's religion have but an imperfect acquaintance with the age of Praxiteles, Apelles, and Zeuxis.
Yet the idea itself has a foundation, lying in something which is as hard to define as it is impossible to ignore; for if art be not a growth out of faith, it is always the result of a faith that has been.”--_Marion Crawford._
Quotation on both sides could be multiplied without end, but there seems no reason to do so. The question is the relation of religion to art, and it has but the two sides. Indeed, the subject seems difficult, for there is so much to be said on both sides.
On one side it may be said:--Art is the result of and the outcome of religion. Look at the greatest works of art the world has to show. Are they not all religious? There are the Parthenon, the temples of Karnac, the cathedral at Milan, St. Peter's at Rome, and others too numerous to mention; the Mosque of St. Sophia and the Kutub Minar, the temples of Humpi, the Shwe Dagon paG.o.da, the temples of China and j.a.pan. What has secular art to show to compare with these? Are not the Venus de Milo, the statue of Athena, and all the famous Greek sculptures those of G.o.ds?
What is the most famous painting in the world? It is the Sistine Madonna of Raphael. Even in literature, is there anything secular to compare with the sacred books of the world? The oratorios and ma.s.ses are the finest music. What can be more certain than that only religion gives the necessary stimulus to art and furnishes the most inspiring subjects?
Great art is born of great faiths, great faiths produce great art.
To which there is the reply:--Many of the greatest Greek statues were of G.o.ds truly, but was it a religious age that produced them? Were Phidias and Zeuxis religious or moral men?
Was the thirteenth century which saw the building of most of the best cathedrals, a religious age? Is it not the fact that for many cathedrals the capital was borrowed from the Jews, enemies of Christ, and the interest paid by the sweat of slaves; and when the interest was too heavy, religious bigotry was resorted to and the Jews persecuted, killed, and banished. It is probable that of all ages the thirteenth century was the worst. Were the painters of great pictures religious or moral? Raphael painted the most wonderful religious paintings the world has seen--how much religion had Raphael? Leonardo da Vinci painted ”The Last Supper”; he was a sceptic. Are not artistic people notoriously irreligious? The pyramids of Egypt and the Taj at Agra are not religious buildings; they are tombs. The sentiment that raised them was the emotion of death. In music and literature secular art rivals religion.
And even if great art be allied to religion, deep religious feeling does not necessarily produce art. Indeed, it is the reverse. The most serious forms of belief have not done so. Where is the art of the Reformation?
Protestants will be slow to admit that there was no deep religious feeling there. Yet their great cathedrals were all built by Roman Catholics. Were not the Puritans religious? They hated all art. Is there no religious feeling in the North of America? Where is its religious art? In Europe there is no religious art out of Catholicism.
In that alone has it succeeded. And again, although some religious art is great, such is the exception. The bulk of religious art all over the world is bad--very bad--the worst. What art is there in the crucifixes of the Catholic world, in the sacred pictures in their chapels, in the eikons of Russia, in the G.o.ds of the Hindus, in the Buddhas of Buddhism, and the popular religious pictures of England? They are one and all as Art simply deplorable. There is grand religious literature, but what of the bulk of it? Most of the hymns, the sermons, the tracts, the religious literature of England and other countries cannot be matched for badness in any secular work. It is the same everywhere. The Salvation Army had to borrow secular music to make its hymns attractive.
Striking an average, which is best--secular or religious literature, art, music, and architecture? Without a doubt secular art is the best all round.
Art may often be the representative of religion, it is never the outcome of religious people or a religious age. The very contrary is the fact.
These are strong arguments, and there are more. But these will suffice.
What is the truth? What connection has art with religion?
I do not think the answer is difficult. The connection depends upon what you define religion and art respectively to be. With the old definitions no answer is forthcoming. But when you see religion as it really is, when you understand its genesis and its growth, the answer is clear.
Religion, as I have tried to show, arises from instincts. The instincts of the savage are few, the emotions he is capable of feeling are limited. As his civilisation progresses his instinctive desires increase, his emotions are more numerous. And as the greater attracts the less, the older and more established attract the newer, so religion attracts to itself and incorporates all it can. Religions have varied in this matter; but of all, Catholicism has been the most wide-armed, it has always justified its name. Where a new emotion arose and became strong the Roman Church always if possible attracted it into the fold. I have already shown how this was done. There is hardly an emotion of the human heart that Roman Catholicism has not made its own.
Now what is Art?
Art, as Tolstoi explains, is also an expression of the emotions, and therefore the difference between religion and art lies in the emotions expressed and the method of expression.
Different peoples express in their religions different emotions. What some of these emotions are I explain in Chapter x.x.x. Different people are also more or less susceptible to art, and express in their art different emotions. Where a great religion has absorbed certain emotions, and a great art subsequently arises and wishes to express in art some of the same emotions, then the art becomes religious art. The two domains have overlapped. But there is no distinction between secular and religious art. Nor is there any necessary connection between Art and Religion. Neither is dependent on the other. They are quite distinct domains, each existing to fulfil the necessities and desires of man.
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