REPOST: The Art-Work of the Future - Part 2 Chapter 6
Derrick Everett
because of propagation problems with the previous posting. Some
participants in the group have reported that they did not receive
all of the parts. I apologize to anyone who receives them twice.
Part II - Chapter 6. Previous Attempts at the Reunification of the
Three Types of Human Art
In our general survey of the demeanour of each of the three purely-
human (rein menschliche) arts after its severance from their original
unity, we could plainly see that exactly where the one variety
touched on the province of the next, and where the faculty of the
second stepped-in to replace the faculty of the first, there the
first one also found its natural bounds. Beyond these bounds, it
might stretch over from the second art-variety to the third; and
through this third, again, back to itself, back to its own self, but
only in accordance with the natural laws of love, of self-sacrifice
for the common good motivated by love. As man by love sinks his
whole nature in that of woman, in order to pass over through her
into a third being, the child, and yet finds but himself again in
all the loving trinity, though in this self a widened, filled, and
finished whole: so may each of these individual arts find its own
self again in the perfect, throughly liberated art-work -- nay, look
upon itself as grown into this art-work -- so soon as, on the path
of genuine love and by sinking of itself within the kindred arts, it
returns upon itself and finds the wage of its love in the perfect
work of art to which it knows itself expanded. Only that
art-variety, however, which wills the common art-work, reaches by
that willing the highest fill of its own particular nature; whereas
that art which merely wills itself, its own exclusive fill of self;
stays empty and unfree; for all the luxury that it may heap upon its
solitary semblance. But the will to form the common artwork arises
in each branch of art by instinct and unconsciously, so soon as it
reaches its own bounds, and it gives itself to the answering art,
rather than merely striving to take from it. It only remains itself,
when it gives itself away completely: whereas it must become its
very opposite, if it should only feed upon the other: "whose bread I
eat, his song I'll sing." But when it gives itself entirely to the
second, and stays entirely enclosed therein, it is then able to pass
on entirely into the third; and so become once more entirely itself
in highest fullness, in the associate art-work.
(Of all these arts not one so sorely needed to marry with another,
as that of Tone; for her peculiar character is that of a fluid
nature-element poured out betwixt the more defined and
individualised substances of the two other arts.) Only through the
rhythm of Dance, or as bearer of the word, could she brace her
deliquescent being to definite and characteristic corporeality. But
neither of the other arts could bring herself to plunge, in love
without reserve, into the element of Tone: each drew from it so much
stuff as seemed expedient for her own precise and egoistic aims;
each took from Tone, but gave not in return; so that poor Tone, who
of her life-need stretched out her hands in all directions, was
forced at last herself to take for very means of maintenance. Thus
she engulfed the word at first, to make of it what suited best her
pleasure: but while she disposed of this word as her wilful feeling
listed, in Catholic music, she lost its bony framework -- so to say
-- of which, in her desire to become a human being, she stood in
need to bear the liquid volume of her blood, and round which she
might have crystallised a sinewy flesh. A new and energetic handling
of the word, in order to gain shape from it, was shown by
Protestant church-music; which, in the "Passion-music," pressed on
towards an ecclesiastical drama, wherein the word was no longer a
mere shifting vehicle for the expression of feeling, but embodied
thoughts depicting action. In this church-drama, Music, while still
retaining her predominance and building everything else into her own
pedestal, almost compelled Poetry to behave in earnest and like a
man towards her. But coward Poetry appeared to dread this challenge;
she deemed it as well to cast a few neglected morsels to - swell the
meal of this mightily waxing monster, Music, and thus to pacify it;
only, however, to regain the liberty of staying undisturbed within
her own peculiar province, the egoistic sphere of literature. It is
to this selfish, cowardly bearing of Poetry toward Tone that we
stand indebted for that unnatural abortion the oratorio, which
finally transplanted itself from the church into the concert-hall.
The oratorio would give itself the airs of drama; but only precisely
in so far as it might still preserve to Music the unquestioned right
of being the chief concern, the only leader of the drama's 'tone.'
Where Poetry fain would reign in solitude, as in the spoken play,
she took Music into her menial service, for her own convenience; as,
for instance, for the entertainment of the audience between the
acts, or even for the enhancement of the effect of certain dumb
transactions, such as the entry of a cautious burglar, and matters
of that sort Dance did the selfsame thing, when she leapt proudly on
to saddle, and graciously condescended to allow Music to hold the
stirrup. Exactly so did Tone behave to Poetry in the oratorio: she
merely let her pile the heap of stones, from which she might erect
her building as she fancied.
But Music at last capped all this ever-swelling arrogance, by her
shameless insolence in the opera. Here she claimed tribute of the
art of Poetry down to its utmost farthing: it was no longer to
merely make her verses, no longer to merely suggest dramatic
characters and sequences, as in the oratorio, in order to give her a
handle for her own distention but it was to lay down its whole being
and all its powers at her feet, to offer up complete dramatic
characters and complex situations, in short the entire ingredients
of drama; in order that she might take this gift of homage and make
of it whatever she fancied.
The opera, as the seeming point of reunion of all the three related
arts, has become the meeting-place of these sisters' most
self-seeking efforts. Undoubtedly Tone claims for herself the
supreme right of legislation therein; nay, it is solely to her
struggle -- though led by egoism -- towards the genuine artwork of
the Drama, that we owe the opera at all. But in degree as Poetry and
Dance were bid to be her simple slaves, there rose amid their
egoistic ranks a growing spirit of rebellion against their
domineering sister. The arts of Dance and Poetry had taken a
personal lease of drama in their own way: the spectacular play and
the pantomimic ballet were the two territories between which opera
now deployed her troops, taking from each whatever she deemed
indispensable for the self-glorification of Music. Play and ballet,
however, were well aware of her aggressive self-sufficiency: they
only lent themselves to their sister against their will, and in any
case with the mental reservation that on the first favourable
opportunity they each would clear themselves an exclusive field. So
Poetry leaves behind her feeling and her pathos, the only fitting
garment for opera, and throws her net of modern intrigue around her
sister Music; who, without being able to get a proper hold of it,
must willy-nilly twist and turn the empty cobweb, which none but the
nimble theatre seamstress herself can plait into a tissue: and there
she chirps and twitters, as in the French confectionary-operas,
until at last her peevish breath gives out, and sister Prose steps
in to fill the stage. Dance, on the other hand, has only to espy
some breach in the breath-taking of the tyrannising songstress, some
chilling of the lava-stream of musical emotion, and in an instant
she flings her legs astride the boards; trounces sister Music off
the scene, down to the solitary confinement of the orchestra; and
spins, and whirls, and runs around, until the public can no longer
see the wood for the trees, i.e. the opera for the leg-show.
Thus opera becomes the mutual compact of the egoism of the three
related arts. To rescue her supremacy, Tone contracts with Dance for
so many quarters-of-an-hour which shall belong to the latter alone:
during this period the chalk upon the soles shall trace the
regulations of the stage, and music shall be made according to the
system of the leg-, and not the tone-, vibrations; item, that the
singers shall be expressly forbidden to indulge in any sort of
graceful bodily motion; this is to be the exclusive property of the
dancer, whereas the singer is to be pledged to complete abstention
from any fancy for mimetic gestures, a restriction which will have
the additional advantage of conserving his voice. With Poetry, Tone
settles, to the former's highest satisfaction, that she will not
employ her in the slightest on the stage; nay, will as far as
possible not even articulate her words and verses, and will relegate
her instead to the printed text-book, necessarily to be read after
the performance, in literature's decorous garb of black and white.
Thus, then, is the noble bond concluded, each art again itself; and
between the dancing legs and written book, Music once more floats
gaily on through all the length and breadth of her desire. This is
modern freedom in the faithful counterfeit of art!
Yet after such a shameful compact the art of Tone, however
brilliantly she seem to reign in opera, must needs be deeply
conscious of her humiliating dependence. Her life-breath is the
heart's affection; and if this also be centred on itself and its own
contentment, then not only is it as much in need of the wherewithal
of this contentment as are the yearnings of the senses and the
understanding, but it feels its need of that object far more
piercingly and vividly than they. The keenness of this need gives to
the heart its courage of self-sacrifice; and just as Beethoven has
spoken out this courage in a valiant deed, so have tone-poets like
Gluck and Mozart expressed by glorious deeds of love the joy with
which the lover sinks himself within his object; ceasing to be
himself, but becoming in reward an infinitely greater thing.
Wherever the edifice of opera -- though originally erected for the
egoistic manifestoes of segregated arts -- betrayed within itself
the trace of a condition for the full absorption of Music into
Poetry, these masters have accomplished the redemption of their art
into the conjoint artwork. But the baleful influence of the ruling
evil plight explains to us the utter isolation of such radiant
deeds, together with the isolation of the very tone-poets who
fulfilled them. That which was possible to the individual under
certain fortunate, but almost purely accidental circumstances, is
very far indeed from forming a law for the great mass of phenomena;
and in the latter we can only recognise the distracted, egoistic
oscillations of caprice; whose methods indeed are those of all mere
copying, since it cannot originate anything of itself. Gluck and
Mozart, together with the scanty handful of kindred tone-poets,
serve us only as stars by which to steer on the midnight sea of
operatic music, to point the way to the pure artistic possibility of
the ascension of the richest music into a still richer dramatic
poetry, namely into that poetic art which by this free surrender of
Music to her shall first become an all-effectual dramatic art. How
impossible is the perfect artwork amid the ruling state of things,
is proved by the very fact that, after Gluck and Mozart had
disclosed the highest capabilities of Music, these deeds have yet
remained without the smallest influence on our actual modern art's
demeanour; that the sparks which flew from their genius have only
hovered before our art-world like sputtering fireworks, but have
been absolutely unable to light the fire which must have caught its
flame from them, had the fuel for it been to hand.
But even the deeds of Gluck and Mozart were but one-sided deeds,
i.e. they revealed the capability and the instinctive will of Music
without their being understood by her sister arts, without the
latter contributing towards those deeds from a like-felt genuine
impulse to be absorbed in one another, and in fact without any
response from their side. Only, however, from a balanced and common
impulse of all three sister arts, can their redemption into the true
art-work, and thus this artwork itself; become a possibility. When
at last the pride of all three arts in their own self-sufficiency
shall break to pieces, and pass over into love for one another; when
at last each art can only love itself when mirrored in the others;
when at last they cease to be separate arts, then will they all have
power to create the perfect artwork; indeed, their own desistence,
in this sense, is already of itself this art-work: their death
giving it life.
Thus will the Drama of the Future rise up of itself; when nor
comedy, nor opera, nor pantomime, can any longer live; when the
conditions which allowed their origin and sustained their unnatural
life, shall have been entirely removed. These conditions can only be
removed by the advent of those fresh conditions which breed from out
themselves the Art-Work of the Future. The latter, however, cannot
arise alone, but only in the fullest harmony with the conditions of
our whole life. Only when the ruling religion of egoism, which has
split the entire domain of art into crippled, self-seeking
art-tendencies and art- varieties, shall have been mercilessly
dislodged and torn up root and branch from every moment of the life
of man, can the new religion step forth of itself to life; the
religion which includes within itself the conditions of the Art-Work
of the Future.
Before we turn with straining eyes to the prefigurement of this art-
work -- the one that we have to win for ourselves, by completely
disowning our present artistic environment -- it is necessary to
cast a glance upon the nature of the so-called plastic arts.
---- END OF PART TWO ----
(Tr. W.A. Ellis, with some corrections and changes for readability)
--
Derrick Everett
======= Writing from 59°54'N 10°37'E =======
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kate@musicnet
Derrick Everett wrote:
A GREAT POST!!!