WHAT IS ART?
Introduction
What thoughtful man has not been perplexed by problemsrelating to art?
An estimable and charming Russian lady I knew, feltthe charm of the music and ritual of the services of theRusso-Greek Church so strongly that she wished thepeasants, in whom she was interested, to retain their blindfaith, though she herself disbelieved the church doctrines.“Their lives are so poor and bare—they have so little art,so little poetry and colour in their lives—let them at leastenjoy what they have; it would be cruel to undeceivethem,” said she.
A false and antiquated view of life is supported by meansof art, and is inseparably linked to some manifestations ofart which we enjoy and prize. If the false view of life bedestroyed this art will cease to appear valuable. Is it bestto screen the error for the sake of preserving the art? Orshould the art be sacrificed for the sake of truthfulness?
Again and again in history a dominant church hasutilised art to maintain its sway over men. Reformers(early Christians, Mohammedans, Puritans, and others)have perceived that art bound people to the old faith, andthey were angry with art. They diligently chipped the nosesfrom statues and images, and were wroth with ceremonies,decorations, stained-glass windows, and processions. Theywere even ready to banish art altogether, for, besides thevisuperstitions it upheld, they saw that it depraved and pervertedmen by dramas, drinking-songs, novels, pictures, anddances, of a kind that awakened man’s lower nature. Yetart always reasserted her sway, and to-day we are told bymany that art has nothing to do with morality—that “artshould be followed for art’s sake.”
I went one day, with a lady artist, to the Bodkin ArtGallery in Moscow. In one of the rooms, on a table, lay abook of coloured pictures, issued in Paris and supplied, Ibelieve, to private subscribers only. The pictures wereadmirably executed, but represented scenes in the privatecabinets of a restaurant. Sexual indulgence was the chiefsubject of each picture. Women extravagantly dressed andpartly undressed, women exposing their legs and breasts tomen in evening dress; men and women taking libertieswith each other, or dancing the “can-can,” etc., etc. Mycompanion the artist, a maiden lady of irreproachableconduct and reputation, began deliberately to look at thesepictures. I could not let my attention dwell on them withoutill effects. Such things had a certain attraction for me,and tended to make me restless and nervous. I venturedto suggest that the subject-matter of the pictures wasobjectionable. But my companion (who prided herself onbeing an artist) remarked