Volume Ii Part 10 (2/2)
116.
A HERO IMPOSSIBLE FROM LACK OF COLOUR.-The typical poets and artists of our age like to compose their pictures upon a background of s.h.i.+mmering red, green, grey, and gold, on the background of nervous sensuality-a condition well understood by the children of this century. The drawback comes when we do _not_ look at these pictures with the eyes of our century. Then we see that the great figures painted by these artists have something flickering, tremulous, and dizzy about them, and accordingly we do not ascribe to them heroic deeds, but at best mock-heroic, swaggering _mis_deeds.
117.
OVERLADEN STYLE.-The overladen style is a consequence of the impoverishment of the organising force together with a lavish stock of expedients and intentions. At the beginnings of art the very reverse conditions sometimes appear.
118.
_PULCHRUM EST PAUCORUM HOMINUM._-History and experience tell us that the significant grotesqueness that mysteriously excites the imagination and carries one beyond everyday reality, is older and grows more luxuriantly than the beautiful and reverence for the beautiful in art: and that it begins to flourish exceedingly when the sense for beauty is on the wane.
For the vast majority of mankind this grotesque seems to be a higher need than the beautiful, presumably because it contains a coa.r.s.er narcotic.
119.
ORIGINS OF TASTE IN WORKS OF ART.-If we consider the primary germs of the artistic sense, and ask ourselves what are the various kinds of joy produced by the firstlings of art-as, for example, among savage tribes-we find first of all the joy of understanding what another means. Art in this case is a sort of conundrum, which causes its solver pleasure in his own quick and keen perceptions.-Then the roughest works of art remind us of the pleasant things we have actually experienced, and so give joy-as, for example, when the artist alludes to a chase, a victory, a wedding.-Again, the representation may cause us to feel excited, touched, inflamed, as for instance in the glorification of revenge and danger. Here the enjoyment lies in the excitement itself, in the victory over tedium.-The memory, too, of unpleasant things, so far as they have been overcome or make us appear interesting to the listener as subjects for art (as when the singer describes the mishaps of a daring seaman), can inspire great joy, the credit for which is given to art.-A more subtle variety is the joy that arises at the sight of all that is regular and symmetrical in lines, points, and rhythms. For by a certain a.n.a.logy is awakened the feeling for all that is orderly and regular in life, which one has to thank alone for all well-being. So in the cult of symmetry we unconsciously do homage to rule and proportion as the source of our previous happiness, and the joy in this case is a kind of hymn of thanksgiving. Only when a certain satiety of the last-mentioned joy arises does a more subtle feeling step in, that enjoyment might even lie in a violation of the symmetrical and regular. This feeling, for example, impels us to seek reason in apparent unreason, and the sort of aesthetic riddle-guessing that results is in a way the higher species of the first-named artistic joy.-He who pursues this speculation still further will know what kind of hypotheses for the explanation of aesthetic phenomena are hereby fundamentally rejected.
120.
NOT TOO NEAR.-It is a disadvantage for good thoughts when they follow too closely on one another, for they hide the view from each other. That is why great artists and writers have made an abundant use of the mediocre.
121.
ROUGHNESS AND WEAKNESS.-Artists of all periods have made the discovery that in roughness lies a certain strength, and that not every one can be rough who wants to be: also that many varieties of weakness have a powerful effect on the emotions. From this source are derived many artistic subst.i.tutes, which not even the greatest and most conscientious artists can abstain from using.
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