Where in the arts themselves are we to find that breadth of human
sympathy which is the condition of all noble work; where in the

arts are we to look for what Mazzini would call the social ideas as
opposed to the merely personal ideas? By virtue of what claim do I

demand for the artist the love and loyalty of the men and women of
the world? I think I can answer that.

Whatever spiritual message an artist brings to his aid is a matter
for his own soul. He may bring judgment like Michael Angelo or

peace like Angelico; he may come with mourning like the great
Athenian or with mirth like the singer of Sicily; nor is it for us

to do aught but accept his teaching, knowing that we cannot smite
the bitter lips of Leopardi into laughter or burden with our

discontent Goethe's serene calm. But for warrant of its truth such
message must have the flame of eloquence in the lips that speak it,

splendour and glory in the vision that is its witness, being
justified by one thing only - the flawless beauty and perfect form

of its expression: this indeed being the social idea, being the
meaning of joy in art.

Not laughter where none should laugh, nor the calling of peace
where there is no peace; not in painting the subject ever, but the

pictorial charm only, the wonder of its colour, the satisfying
beauty of its design.

You have most of you seen, probably, that great masterpiece of
Rubens which hangs in the gallery of Brussels, that swift and

wonderful pageant of horse and rider arrested in its most exquisite
and fiery moment when the winds are caught in crimsonbanner and

the air lit by the gleam of armour and the flash of plume. Well,
that is joy in art, though that golden hillside be trodden by the

wounded feet of Christ and it is for the death of the Son of Man
that that gorgeous cavalcade is passing.

But this restless modern intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual spirit of ours is not
receptive enough of the sensuous element of art; and so the real

influence of the arts is hidden from many of us: only a few,
escaping from the tyranny of the soul, have learned the secret of

those high hours when thought is not.
And this indeed is the reason of the influence which Eastern art is

having on us in Europe, and of the fascination of all Japanese
work. While the Western world has been laying on art the

intolerable burden of its own intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual doubts and the spiritual
tragedy of its own sorrows, the East has always kept true to art's

primary and pictorial conditions.
In judging of a beautiful statue the aesthetic faculty is

absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those
marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of

those limbs that are powerless to help us. In its primaryaspect a
painting has no more spiritual message or meaning than an exquisite

fragment of Venetian glass or a blue tile from the wall of
Damascus: it is a beautifully coloured surface, nothing more. The

channels by which all noble imaginative work in painting should
touch, and do touch the soul, are not those of the truths of life,

nor metaphysical truths. But that pictorial charm which does not
depend on any literary reminiscence for its effect on the one hand,

nor is yet a mere result of communicable technical skill on the
other, comes of a certain inventive and creative handling of

colour. Nearly always in Dutch painting and often in the works of
Giorgione or Titian, it is entirely independent of anything

definitely poetical in the subject, a kind of form and choice in
workmanship which is itself entirely satisfying, and is (as the

Greeks would say) an end in itself.
And so in poetry too, the real poetical quality, the joy of poetry,

comes never from the subject but from an inventive handling of
rhythmical language, from what Keats called the 'sensuous life of

verse.' The element of song in the singing accompanied by the
profound joy of motion, is so sweet that, while the incomplete

lives of ordinary men bring no healing power with them, the thorn-
crown of the poet will blossom into roses for our pleasure; for our

delight his despair will gild its own thorns, and his pain, like
Adonis, be beautiful in its agony; and when the poet's heart breaks

it will break in music.
And health in art - what is that? It has nothing to do with a sane

criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism of life. There is more health in Baudelaire than there
is in [Kingsley]. Health is the artist's recognition of the

limitations of the form in which he works. It is the honour and
the homage which he gives to the material he uses - whether it be

language with its glories, or marble or pigment with their glories
- knowing that the true brotherhood of the arts consists not in

their borrowing one another's method, but in their producing, each
of them by its own individual means, each of them by keeping its

objective limits, the same uniqueartistic delight. The delight is
like that given to us by music - for music is the art in which form

and matter are always one, the art whose subject cannot be
separated from the method of its expression, the art which most

completely realises the artistic ideal, and is the condition to
which all the other arts are constantly aspiring.

And criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism - what place is that to have in our culture? Well, I
think that the first duty of an art critic is to hold his tongue at

all times, and upon all subjects: C'EST UN GRAND AVANTAGE DE
N'AVOIR RIEN FAIT, MAIS IL NE FAUT PAS EN ABUSER.

It is only through the mystery of creation that one can gain any
knowledge of the quality of created things. You have listened to

PATIENCE for a hundred nights and you have heard me for one only.
It will make, no doubt, that satire more piquant by knowing

something about the subject of it, but you must not judge of
aestheticism by the satire of Mr. Gilbert. As little should you

judge of the strength and splendour of sun or sea by the dust that
dances in the beam, or the bubble that breaks on the wave, as take

your critic for any sane test of art. For the artists, like the
Greek gods, are revealed only to one another, as Emerson says

somewhere; their real value and place time only can show. In this
respect also omnipotence is with the ages. The true critic

addresses not the artist ever but the public only. His work lies
with them. Art can never have any other claim but her own

perfection: it is for the critic to create for art the social aim,
too, by teaching the people the spirit in which they are to

approach all artistic work, the love they are to give it, the
lesson they are to draw from it.

All these appeals to art to set herself more in harmony with modern
progress and civilisation, and to make herself the mouthpiece for

the voice of humanity, these appeals to art 'to have a mission,'
are appeals which should be made to the public. The art which has

fulfilled the conditions of beauty has fulfilled all conditions:
it is for the critic to teach the people how to find in the calm of

such art the highest expression of their own most stormy passions.
'I have no reverence,' said Keats, 'for the public, nor for

anything in existence but the Eternal Being, the memory of great
men and the principle of Beauty.'

Such then is the principle which I believe to be guiding and
underlying our English Renaissance, a Renaissance many-sided and

wonderful, productive of strong ambitions and lofty personalities,
yet for all its splendid achievements in poetry and in the

decorative arts and in painting, for all the increased comeliness
and grace of dress, and the furniture of houses and the like, not

complete. For there can be no great sculpture without a beautiful
national life, and the commercial spirit of England has killed

that; no great drama without a noble national life, and the
commercial spirit of England has killed that too.

It is not that the flawless serenity of marble cannot bear the
burden of the modern intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual spirit, or become instinct with

the fire of romanticpassion - the tomb of Duke Lorenzo and the
chapel of the Medici show us that - but it is that, as Theophile

Gautier used to say, the visible world is dead, LE MONDE VISIBLE A
DISPARU.

Nor is it again that the novel has killed the play, as some critics
would persuade us - the romanticmovement of France shows us that.

The work of Balzac and of Hugo grew up side by side together; nay,
more, were complementary to each other, though neither of them saw

it. While all other forms of poetry may flourish in an ignoble
age, the splendid individualism of the lyrist, fed by its own

passion, and lit by its own power, may pass as a pillar of fire as
well across the desert as across places that are pleasant. It is

none the less glorious though no man follow it - nay, by the