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.)

Art is one of two organs of human progress. By words man interchanges thoughts, by the forms of art he interchanges feelings, and this with all men, not only of the present time, but also of the past and the future. It is natural to human beings to employ both these organs of intercommunication, and therefore the perversion of either of them must cause evil results to the society in which it occurs. And these results will be of two kinds: first, the absence, in that society, of the work which should be performed by the organ; and secondly, the harmful activity of the perverted organ. And just these results have shown themselves in our society. The organ of art has been perverted, and therefore the upper classes of society have, to a great e... (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.)

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.)

In our society three conditions co-operate to cause the production of objects of counterfeit art. They are— the considerable remuneration of artists for their productions and the professionalization of artists which this has produced, art criticism, and schools of art. While art was as yet undivided, and only religious art was valued and rewarded while indiscriminate art was left unrewarded, there were no counterfeits of art, or, if any existed, being exposed to the criticism of the whole people, they quickly disappeared. But as soon as that division occurred, and the upper classes acclaimed every kind of art as good if only it afforded them pleasure, and began to reward such art more highly than any other social activity, immediately... (From : Gutenberg.org.)

I know that most men—not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical or philosophic problems—can very seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as to oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty—conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives. And therefore I have little hope that what I adduce as to the perversion of art and taste in our society will be accepted or even seriously considered. Nevertheless, I must state fully the inevitable conclusion to which my investigation into the question o... (From : Gutenberg.org.)