



Produced by Ruth Hart




[Note:  for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to
the beginning of the text.]



THE ENJOYMENT OF ART

BY

CARLETON NOYES


BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1903


COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CARLETON NOYES
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published, March, 1903_


To
ROBERT HENRI
AND
VAN D. PERRINE


This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at
     the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit _When we become the enfolders of
     those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every
     thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?_
And my spirit said _No, we but level that lift to pass and
     continue beyond._

WALT WHITMAN


CONTENTS

Preface
I.     The Picture and the Man         i
II.    The Work of Art as Symbol      19
III.   The Work of Art as Beautiful   41
IV.    Art and Appreciation           67
V.     The Artist                     86



PREFACE

The following pages are the answer to questions which a young man
asked himself when, fresh from the university, he found himself
adrift in the great galleries of Europe. As he stood helpless and
confused in the presence of the visible expressions of the spirit of
man in so many ages and so many lands, one question recurred
insistently: _Why_ are these pictures? What is the meaning of all
this striving after expression? What was the aim of these men who
have left their record here? What was their moving impulse? Why,
why does the human spirit seek to manifest itself in forms which we
call beautiful?

He turned to histories of art and to biographies of artists, but he
found no answer! to the "Why?" The philosophers with their
theories of aesthetics helped him little to understand the dignity and
force of this portrait or the beauty of that landscape. In the
conversation of his artist friends there was no enlightenment, for
they talked about "values" and "planes of modeling" and the
mysteries of "tone." At last he turned in upon himself: What does
this canvas mean to me? And here he found his answer. This work
of art is the revelation to me of a fuller beauty, a deeper harmony,
than I have ever seen or felt. The artist is he who has experienced
this new wonder in nature and who wants to communicate his joy, in
concrete forms, to his fellow men.

The purpose of this book is to set forth in simple, untechnical
fashion the nature and the meaning of a work of art. Although the
illustrations of the underlying principles are drawn mainly from
pictures, yet the conclusions apply equally to books and to music. It
is true that the manifestations of the art-impulse are innumerable,
embracing not only painting, sculpture, literature, music, and
architecture, but also the handiwork of the craftsman in the
designing of a rug or in the fashioning of a cup or a candlestick; it is
true that each art has its special province and function, and that each
is peculiarly adapted to the expression of a certain order of emotion
or idea, and that the distinctions between one art and another are not
to be inconsiderately swept aside or obscured. Yet art is one. It is
possible, without confusing the individual characteristics essential to
each, to discuss these principles under the comprehensive rubric of
Art.

The attempt is made here to reduce the supposed mysteries of art
discussion to the basis of practical, every-day intelligence and
common sense. What the ordinary man who feels himself in any
way attracted; towards art needs is not more and constantly more
pictures to look at, not added lore about them, not further knowledge
of the men and the times that have produced them; but rather what
he needs is some understanding of what the artist has aimed to
express, and, as reinforcing that understanding, the capacity rightly
to appreciate and enjoy.

It is hoped that in this book the artist may find expressed with
simplicity and justice his own highest aims; and that the appreciator
and the layman may gain some insight into the meaning of art
expression, and that they may be helped a little on their way to the
enjoyment of art.

HARVARD COLLEGE, _December tenth, 1902._



I

THE PICTURE AND THE MAN

At any exhibition of paintings, more particularly at some public
gallery or museum, one can hardly fail to reflect that an interest in
pictures is unmistakably widespread. People are there in
considerable numbers, and what is more striking, they seem to
represent every station and walk in life. It is evident that pictures, as
exhibited to the public, are not the cult of an initiated few; their
appeal is manifestly to no one class; and this popular interest is as
genuine as it is extended.

Thus reflectively scanning the crowd, the observer asks himself:
What has attracted these numbers to that which might be supposed
not to be understood of the many? And what are the pictures that in
general draw the popular attention?

A few persons have of course drifted into the exhibition out of
curiosity or from lack of something better to do. So much is evident
at once, for these file past the walls listlessly, seldom stopping, and
then but to glance at those pictures which are most obviously like
the familiar object they pretend to represent,--such as the bowl of
flowers which the beholder can almost smell, the theatre-checks and
five-dollar note pasted on a wall which tempt him to finger them, or
the panel of game birds which puzzles him to determine whether the
birds are real or not. These visitors, however, are not the most
numerous. With the great majority it is not enough that the picture
be a clever piece of imitation or illusion: transferring their interest
from the mere execution, they demand further that the subjects
represented shall be pleasing. The crowd pause before a sunny
landscape, with cows standing by the shaded pool; they gather about
the brilliant portrait of a woman splendidly arrayed,--a favorite
actress or a social celebrity; they linger before a group of children
wading in a brook, or a dog crouching mournfully by an empty
cradle. At length, with an approving and sympathetic word of
comment, they pass on to the next pleasing picture. Some canvases,
not the most popular ones, are yet not without their interest for a few;
these visitors are taking things a little more seriously; they do not try
to see every picture, they do not hurry; they seem to be considering
the canvas immediately before them with concentrated attention.

No one of all these people is insensible to the appeal of the
picturesque: their presence at the exhibition is evidence of that. In
life they like to see a bowl of flowers, a sunny landscape, a beautiful
woman in beautiful surroundings; and naturally they are interested
in that which represents and recalls the reality. At once it is plain,
however, that to different individuals the various pictures appeal in
different measure and for differing reasons. To one the very fact of
representation is a mystery and fascination. To another the important
thing is the subject; the picture must represent what he likes in
nature or in life. To a third the subject itself is of less concern than
what the painter wanted to say about it: the artist saw a beauty
manifested by an ugly beggar, perhaps, and he wanted to show that
beauty to his fellows, who could not perceive it for themselves.

The special interest in pictures of each of these three men is not
without its warrant in experience. What man is wholly indifferent to
the display of human skill? Who is there without his store of
pleasurable associations, who is not stirred by any call which rouses
them into play? What lover of beauty is not ever awake to the
revelation of new beauty? Indeed, upon these three principles
together, though in varying proportion, depends the full significance
of a great work of art.

As the lover of pictures looks back over the period of his conscious
interest in exhibitions and galleries, it is not improbable that his
earliest memories attach themselves to those paintings which most
closely resembled the object represented. He remembers the great
wonder which he felt that a man with mere paint and canvas could
so reproduce the reality of nature. So it is that those paintings which
are perhaps the first to attract the man who feels an interest in
pictures awakening are such as display most obviously the painter's
skill. Whatever the subject imitated, the fascination remains; that
such illusion is possible at all is the mystery and the delight.

But as his interest in pictures grows with indulgence, as his
experience widens, the beholder becomes gradually aware that he is
making a larger demand. After the first shock of pleasurable surprise
is worn away, he finds that the repeated exhibition of the painter's
dexterity ceases to satisfy him; these clever pieces of deception
manifest a wearying sameness, after all; and the beholder begins
now to look for something more than mere expertness. Thinking on
his experience, he concludes that the subjects which can be imitated
deceptively are limited in range and interest; he has a vague,
disquieting sense that somehow these pictures do not mean anything.
Yet he is puzzled. Art aims to represent, he tells himself, and it
should follow that the best art is that which represents most closely
and exactly. He recalls, perhaps, the legend of the two Greek
painters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew down
to peck at, the other with his painting of a