THE UNITY OF THE ARTS: A LECTURE AND A FIVE O’CLOCK

(Pall Mall Gazette, December 12, 1887.)

Last Saturday afternoon, at Willis’s Rooms, Mr. Selwyn Image delivered the first of a series of four lectures on Modern Art before a select and distinguished audience.  The chief point on which he dwelt was the absolute unity of all the arts and, in order to convey this idea, he framed a definition wide enough to include Shakespeare’s King Lear and Michael Angelo’s Creation, Paul Veronese’s picture of Alexander and Darius, and Gibbon’s description of the entry of Heliogabalus into Rome.  All these he regarded as so many expressions of man’s thoughts and emotions on fine things, conveyed through visible or audible modes; and starting from this point he approached the question of the true relation of literature to painting, always keeping in view the central motive of his creed, Credo in unam artem multipartitam, indivisibilem, and dwelling on resemblances rather than differences.  The result at which he ultimately arrived was this: the Impressionists, with their frank artistic acceptance of form and colour as things absolutely satisfying in themselves, have produced very beautiful work, but painting has something more to give us than the mere visible aspect of things.  The lofty spiritual visions of William Blake, and the marvellous romance of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, can find their perfect expression in painting; every mood has its colour and every dream has its form.  The chief quality of Mr. Image’s lecture was its absolute fairness, but this was, to a certain portion of the audience, its chief defect.  ‘Sweet reasonableness,’ said one, ‘is always admirable in a spectator, but from a leader we want something more.’  ‘It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art,’ said another; while a third sighed over what he called ‘the fatal sterility of the judicial mind,’ and expressed a perfectly groundless fear that the Century Guild was becoming rational.  For, with a courtesy and a generosity that we strongly recommend to other lecturers, Mr. Image provided refreshments for his audience after his address was over, and it was extremely interesting to listen to the various opinions expressed by the great Five-o’clock-tea School of Criticism which was largely represented.  For our own part, we found Mr. Image’s lecture extremely suggestive.  It was sometimes difficult to understand in what exact sense he was using the word ‘literary,’ and we do not think that a course of drawing from the plaster cast of the Dying Gaul would in the slightest degree improve the ordinary art critic.  The true unity of the arts is to be found, not in any resemblance of one art to another, but in the fact that to the really artistic nature all the arts have the same message and speak the same language though with different tongues.  No amount of daubing on a cellar wall will make a man understand the mystery of Michael Angelo’s Sybils, nor is it necessary to write a blank verse drama before one can appreciate the beauty of Hamlet.  It is essential that an art critic should have a nature receptive of beautiful impressions, and sufficient intuition to recognise style when he meets with it, and truth when it is shown to him; but, if he does not possess these qualities, a reckless career of water-colour painting will not give them to him, for, if from the incompetent critic all things be hidden, to the bad painter nothing shall be revealed.

ART AT WILLIS’S ROOMS

(Sunday Times, December 25, 1887.)

Accepting a suggestion made by a friendly critic last week, Mr. Selwyn Image began his second lecture by explaining more fully what he meant by literary art, and pointed out the difference between an ordinary illustration to a book and such creative and original works as Michael Angelo’s fresco of The Expulsion from Eden and Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix.  In the latter case the artist treats literature as if it were life itself, and gives a new and delightful form to what seer or singer has shown us; in the former we have merely a translation which misses the music and adds no marvel.  As for subject, Mr. Image protested against the studio-slang that no subject is necessary, defining subject as the thought, emotion or impression which a man desires to embody in form and colour, and admitting Mr. Whistler’s fireworks as readily as Giotto’s angels, and Van Huysum’s roses no less than Mantegna’s gods.  Here, we think that Mr. Image might have pointed out more clearly the contrast between the purely pictorial subject and the subject that includes among its elements such things as historical associations or poetic memories; the contrast, in fact, between impressive art and the art that is expressive also.  However, the topics he had to deal with were so varied that it was, no doubt, difficult for him to do more than suggest.  From subject he passed to style, which he described as ‘that masterful but restrained individuality of manner by which one artist is differentiated from another.’  The true qualities of style he found in restraint which is submission to law; simplicity which is unity of vision; and severity, for le beau est toujours sévère.

The realist he defined as one who aims at reproducing the external phenomena of nature, while the idealist is the man who ‘imagines things of fine interest.’  Yet, while he defined them he would not separate them.  The true artist is a realist, for he recognises an external world of truth; an idealist, for he has selection, abstraction and the power of individualisation.  To stand apart from the world of nature is fatal, but it is no less fatal merely to reproduce facts.

Art, in a word, must not content itself simply with holding the mirror up to nature, for it is a re-creation more than a reflection, and not a repetition but rather a new song.  As for finish, it must not be confused with elaboration.  A picture, said Mr. Image, is finished when the means of form and colour employed by the artist are adequate to convey the artist’s intention; and, with this definition and a peroration suitable to the season, he concluded his interesting and intellectual lecture.

Light refreshments were then served to the audience, and the five-o’clock-tea school of criticism came very much to the front.  Mr. Image’s entire freedom from dogmatism and self-assertion was in some quarters rather severely commented on, and one young gentleman declared that such virtuous modesty as the lecturer’s might easily become a most vicious mannerism.  Everybody, however, was extremely pleased to learn that it is no longer the duty of art to hold the mirror up to nature, and the few Philistines who dissented from this view received that most terrible of all punishments—the contempt of the highly cultured.

Mr. Image’s third lecture will be delivered on January 21 and will, no doubt, be largely attended, as the subjects advertised are full of interest, and though ‘sweet reasonableness’ may not convert, it always charms.