Part 28

I asked Alfred why he had kept so silent. Did he agree with us?

“Yes,” he said, “I do. It is very interesting. But I don’t talk unless I disagree.”

EIGHTH MEETING

Henry came several days ago to tell me he would be unable to attend this meeting, as he was going to Washington. “I will think of the subject we were going to discuss,” he said.

I opened the meeting with Marian’s paper:

“At a meeting of the Seekers, held on November 22d, we discussed the relation which our previous discussions had to Art. We set up a standard for judging Art, and agreed that a good piece of Art is one that makes us feel that unity and completeness for which we are striving. Two things are necessary, a good thought and good workmanship. We also said that details in Art, particularly in painting, are bad because they distract us, and we don’t see the picture as a whole. I was very glad to have a standard by which to judge Art.”

I said to her that I hardly thought she could already have that standard.

“No,” she said, “but I am going to get it.”

Then I read Virginia’s paper:

“Art as it is connected with our previous discussions:

“When an artist dies he leaves behind him all the beautiful ideas he has put on his canvas, or in his books. To be a true artist one must possess an idea of the beautiful, and also be sympathetic with all his fellow beings. Not only humans, but flowers and beasts also. A person who possesses these qualities is a genius. But to be an artist one must also have talent. Either he must have a talent for writing, music or painting, or he cannot express the genius within himself.

“This sympathy, this love, is something we cannot explain. And so we call it the soul, because it is a puzzle, and we do not know what it is. Everybody possesses some of it, even the most heartless. It may be the love of a plant or dumb animal, but still it is love for a fellow creature. So all of us possess genius, though few of us are artists.”

Next I read Alfred’s paper:

“On Sunday, the 22d, we discussed the subject of art. We said that for a thing to be high art it must be pleasing to the eye or ear, and complete in itself; that is, the artist or composer must so construct his work that it will fully express some idea. In painting a picture an artist may choose to convey some gruesome idea, and do so perfectly, but that will not be high art, because it will be displeasing to the eye.

“It may also be applied to books; if the author tells something so well that it gives the reader a perfect picture of the thought, the writing may be considered a good one.”

I said I could tell by Alfred’s paper that he had not grasped just what was the object of art. The children repeated that it symbolized the unity for which we longed. I asked, did they see why we took up this subject of art at all, what it had to do with religion? Marian had said, before the others came, that it was the expression of our religion. Virginia now used almost the same words, and Alfred, speaking after her, said it in such a way as to make me believe he understood.

I replied, this was true; art was the service of religion, the expression of that sense of oneness with the world which can speak only in creations, because life is an endless creation. Beauty, I said, seemed to me the perfect symbol of truth, of completeness and symmetry. I quoted the lines from Keats:

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

“The subject of beauty always puzzles me,” said Ruth, “because beautiful things so often are not good. Take the ocean, for instance. It is so beautiful; it gives us above all things the sense of immensity and harmony. And yet, think how cruel it is! Think of the shipwrecks and the suffering!”

“It is not the ocean’s fault,” said Virginia. “That is because we are adventurous and go out in ships.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and we are willing to take the chance and pay the price. But surely you do not think of the ocean as cruel, as either good or bad. Beauty is not in anything, but is in the vision of him who beholds it. It is a momentary vision of the completeness of life.”

“Beauty is always a thing of moments. Don’t you think so?” asked Marian. “It depends upon you. At one time you may see a thing as beautiful, and at another time not.”

“Surely,” I said.

“Why is it,” she asked, “that some people cannot appreciate beauty in one special form, either in music, or painting, or poetry?”

I said: “Our senses are channels through which we get the feeling of beauty. But no matter whence the feeling comes, it is that same joy. One man finds it in a picture, and another in a symphony, and another in the woods. Do you know those two lines by William Blake:

‘Who knows but every bird that cleaves the air Is an immense world of delight closed by our senses five.’

“There may be other senses than ours which bring the same message. Helen Keller hears and sees it with her fingers in her world of darkness.

“Throughout the centuries,” I went on, “in all beginnings and primitive times, art was the expression of religion. The first rude drawings were religious symbols; drama and the dance and music were religious; and all the oldest literature in the world, the Vedas, the Bible, and the old Scandinavian myths were religious books: the Greek drama, and—can you think of others?”