What is Art?

Appendix 4
BAUDELAIRE’S “FLOWERS OF EVIL.” No. XXIV. I adore thee as much as the vaults of night, O vase full of grief, taciturnity great, And I love thee the more because of thy flight. It seemeth, my night’s beautifier, that you Still heap up those leagues—yes! ironically heap!— That divide from my arms the immensity blue. I advance to attack, I climb to assault, Like a choir of young worms at a corpse in the vault; Thy coldness, oh cruel, implacable beast! Yet heightens thy beauty, on which my eyes feast! BA... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

Appendix 3
These are the contents of The Nibelung’s Ring:— The first part tells that the nymphs, the daughters of the Rhine, for some reason guard gold in the Rhine, and sing: Weia, Waga, Woge du Welle, Walle zur Wiege, Wagalaweia, Wallala, Weiala, Weia, and so forth. These singing nymphs are pursued by a gnome (a nibelung) who desires to seize them. The gnome cannot catch any of them. Then the nymphs guarding the gold tell the gnome just what they ought to keep secret, namely, that whoever renounces love will be able to steal the gold they are guarding. And the gnome renounces love, and steals the gold. This ends the first scene. In the second scene a god and a goddess lie in a field in sight of a castle which giants have built for them. Presently they wake up and are pleased with the castle, and they relate that in payment for this work they must give the goddess Freia to the giants. The giants come for their pay. But the god W... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

Appendix 2
No. 1. The following verses are by Vielé-Griffin, from page 28 of a volume of his Poems:— OISEAU BLEU COULEUR DU TEMPS. 1. Sait-tu l’oubli D’un vain doux rêve, Oiseau moqueur De la forêt? Le jor pâlit, La nuit se lève, Et dans mon cœur L’omber a pleuré; 2. O chante-moi Ta folle gamme, Car j’ai dormi... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

Appendix 1
This is the first page of Mallarmé’s book Divagations:— LE PHÉNOMÈNE FUTUR. Un ciel pâle, sur le monde qui finit de décrépitude, va peut-être partir avec les nuages: les lambeaux de la pourpre usée des couchants déteignent dans une rivière dormant à l’horizon submergé de rayons et d’eau. Les arbres s’ennuient, et, sous leur feuillage blanchi (de la poussière du temps plutôt que celle des chemins) monte la maison en toile de Montreur de choses Passées: maint réverbère attend le crépuscule et ravive les visages d’une malheureuse foule, vaincue par la maladie immortelle et le péché des siècles, d’hommes près de leurs chétives complices enceintes des fruits misérables avec lesquels périra la terre. Dans le silence inquiet de tous les yeux... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

Chapter 20
I have accomplished, to the best of my ability, this work which has occupied me for 15 years, on a subject near to me—that of art. By saying that this subject has occupied me for 15 years, I do not mean that I have been writing this book 15 years, but only that I began to write on art 15 years ago, thinking that when once I undertook the task I should be able to accomplish it without a break. It proved, however, that my views on the matter then were so far from clear that I could not arrange them in a way that satisfied me. From that time I have never ceased to think on the subject, and I have recommenced to write on it 6 or 7 times; but each time, after writing a considerable part of it, I have found myself unable to bring the work to a satisfactory conclusion, and have had to put it aside. Now I have finished it; and however badly I may have performed the task, my hope is that my fundamental thought as to the false direction the art of our society has taken... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

Appendix I 215 Appendix II 218 Appendix III 226 Appendix IV 232... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

To what an extent people of our circle and time have lost the capacity to receive real art, and have become accustomed to accept as art things that have nothing in common with it, is best seen from the works of Richard Wagner, which have latterly come to be more and more esteemed, not only by the Germans but also by the French and the English, as the very highest art, revealing new horizons to us. The peculiarity of Wagner’s music, as is known, consists in this, that he considered that music should serve poetry, expressing all the shades of a poetical work. The union of the drama with music, devised in the fifteenth century in Italy for the revival of what they imagined to have been the ancient Greek drama with music, is an artificial... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

The unbelief of the upper classes of the European world had this effect, that instead of an artistic activity aiming at transmitting the highest feelings to which humanity has attained,—those flowing from religious perception,—we have an activity which aims at affording the greatest enjoyment to a certain class of society. And of all the immense domain of art, that part has been fenced off, and is alone called art, which affords enjoyment to the people of this particular circle. Apart from the moral effects on European society of such a selection from the whole sphere of art of what did not deserve such a valuation, and the acknowledgment of it as important art, this perversion of art has weakened art itself, and well-nigh destr... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

But how could it happen that that very art, which in ancient times was merely tolerated (if tolerated at all), should have come, in our times, to be invariably considered a good thing if only it affords pleasure? It has resulted from the following causes. The estimation of the value of art (i.e. of the feelings it transmits) depends on men’s perception of the meaning of life; depends on what they consider to be the good and the evil of life. And what is good and what is evil is defined by what are termed religions. Humanity unceasingly moves forward from a lower, more partial, and obscure understanding of life, to one more general and more lucid. And in this, as in every movement, there are leaders,—those who have understood the... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

I begin with the founder of æsthetics, Baumgarten (1714-1762). According to Baumgarten, the object of logical knowledge is Truth, the object of æsthetic (i.e. sensuous) knowledge is Beauty. Beauty is the Perfect (the Absolute), recognized through the senses; Truth is the Perfect perceived through reason; Goodness is the Perfect reached by moral will. Beauty is defined by Baumgarten as a correspondence, i.e. an order of the parts in their mutual relations to each other and in their relation to the whole. The aim of beauty itself is to please and excite a desire, “Wohlgefallen und Erregung eines Verlangens.” (A position precisely the opposite of Kant’s definition of the nature and sign of beauty.) With reference ... (From : Gutenberg.org.)