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Some
Portraits Of Early Ideas Leonard
Feeney, S. J. (Sheed and Ward, 1941) IX. ART It will be largely among those people
called philosophers that a child’s thoughts will be developed. Therefore a
child should admire the philosophers. Theirs may not be an adventurous
voyage, but theirs is indeed a safe harbor, and one a child will never want
to be out of reach of as he bobs around in his little boat. Whenever he is
beyond his depths and in danger, these faithful lifeguards of logic will rush
out to rescue him. And a child in the arms of a lifeguard is surely one of
the most beautiful sights in the world. It
will be largely apart from those people called mystics that a child’s
devotions will be pursued. But he will come to learn that it is because of
their prayers that he is what little he is. Therefore a child should love the
mystics. Theirs is a perilous experience, but a child will no more want to
uncrown a mystic of a halo than he will want to quench a lighthouse, faithful
and constant, beckoning ships with treasures to come to him, winking to
himself to stay where he is. The time has come, the walrus said, To
talk of many things: Of ships and shoes and sealing wax And
cabbages and kings. Somewhere
between the lifeguard and the lighthouse you will find the child at his best,
without ship or shoe under him, running barefooted in the wind. It will be
just at that point where the sea and land meet each other on those terms we
call the shore. There the child is at once safest and most adventuresome.
There he is most himself. He will imprint his footsteps on the wax of the
soft beach and watch them being washed away by the wave. He will furrow with
his motions the foamy ruffles of surf and watch them being absorbed by the
sand. In point of importance he will think himself to be no more than a
rolling pebble or a drifting seaweed. But in point of independence he will be
king of all creation. The
wind on the seashore comes at you in widths and depths. It has no length. So
you trap it and send it streaming through the smallest aperture you can find
— your own lips pursed — and release it in the form of pure line. You whistle.
And lo, you have music! Later
on when this pure line begins to surface (to paint) itself in your music
lessons, you will have harmony. Still later when it begins to shape (to
sculpture) itself, you will have symphony, as you discover the afternoon your
mother and father bring you to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra, just
twelve miles away from Lynn. There in a large hall, with lowered lights and
hundreds of people listening ever so intently, you will find that music is
still music, able to triumph over any instrument that can make it. Being
music it will never be able to define itself, for art cannot define anything,
least of all itself. It does not know what anything is or what it is for, but
simply that it is, and points to that. Its only credential is beauty (the splendor
formæ of St. Thomas). Its only excuse is delight (the id quod visum
placet). What music is or why it is, we do not know. But that it
is we do, because we have heard it giving such a magnificent account of
itself in symphony, pitched half way between sheer silence and sheer noise —
sculptured with noise by the mallet of the kettledrummer, sculptured with
silence by the baton of the conductor. And yet, brought indoors and put on
expensive display, music will never be more or less than the same little free
whistle you made on the beach when you were running barefooted in the wind. However,
I have no intention of experimenting with childhood so as to discover the
meaning of art. There are some child psychologists who enjoy doing this. They
put a child in a nursery, surround him with tunes, pictures and blocks so
that grown-ups may learn from his unerring reactions what are music, painting
and sculpture. The compliment is enormous, but the procedure is vicious, and
one that is violently protested by the child’s Guardian Angel. Art is for childhood, not childhood for
art, The lesser for
the greater; Neither is the other and they must be
pried apart, Sooner or later. Fortunately
the job of prying them apart was nicely done for me by the Providence of God. In
the year 1907, when I was ten years old, my father and I went to New
York for a business trip. My father went for the business, and I for the
trip. We had relatives there — “distant relatives,” my father called them —
and with them we stayed. At least I stayed while my father went — about his
business. These
relatives could not get over the fact that I was their relative, for they had
never seen me before. I could not get on to the fact that they were my
relatives, for I had never seen them before either. They seemed afraid that
at any moment I might stop being their relative, so they tried to talk me
into it, even saying I looked like them. I was afraid that at any moment they
might begin to be my relatives, so I tried to stare them out of the notion,
inwardly denying that I looked like anyone. They spent most of the time
talking, and I staring. There
is nothing so dangerous as an epidemic of cousins. Once you get infected with
the idea it will begin to spread. You will end up by being related to
practically everybody. Grownups are great ones for claiming relationship.
Children are great ones for protesting it. I thought these cousins of mine
were called “distant cousins” because New York was so far away from Lynn. Across
the hall from my cousins lived a young lady who was in love. She was the
great subject of interest and discussion among my cousins while I was
visiting them. The young lady across the hall was in love with an artist.
Thinking love to be art, she went in for it all day long, and gave up all
leisure. He, thinking art to be love, went in for it all day long too, and
gave up all work. Mornings, noons, nights made no difference, for they had
both lost all sense of time. They broke up later with a big bang, as my
cousins predicted, and as was bound to be, for she expected marriage to be a
perpetual courtship and he wanted it to be an unperpetual vow. By
the very worst of luck I unstabilized this romance. My cousins had to go one
morning to a funeral, and they left me in charge of the young lady across the
hall. I was, for the space of a morning, on the young lady’s hands and in her
artist’s way. So we compromised in terms of a triangle — love, art and childhood
— and went out for a walk. With
my left hand in hers and my right in his, you might have met us promenading
on Fifth Avenue one morning back in 1907. We looked just like a
husband, a wife and a child, and were greatly admired by all who passed us. The
young lady enjoyed the experience because it seemed so real. The artist was
pleased because it was so make-believe. I was totally disinterested either
way, had serious distractions when passing store windows, and at times had to
be forcibly dragged along. Where
did we go? To the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sent there undoubtedly by the
Devil. The Devil can never touch love, nor art, nor childhood, but he can
raise the devil with them when they enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
the form of a triangle. The
artist was continually paying the lady compliments born of his trade. She was
a picture, a song, a poem. I believe he even mentioned Helen of Troy, Venus
of Milo, and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. The lady kept returning him
tokens born less of judgment than of sheer affection. He was the equal of
Rubens, Rembrandt, Raphael — in fact, on the point of surpassing them. But
here was the devil to pay. She came off badly as a masterpiece and he as one
of the masters, the moment we entered . . . the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Sensing
this clearly, they immediately made frantic efforts to keep up the pretense
when genius and the fruits thereof threatened to destroy it. They proceeded
to become totally oblivious of all the Metropolitan Museum of Art contained
except themselves. I was the very first item included in this sweet
forgetfulness, and I went around the place for a solid hour, totally lost. When
I found myself alone, I first made sure there was nothing there to frighten
me, and found nothing. So I kept on walking and looking. None of the things I
saw either surprised or interested me. I knew too little about art to be
surprised at anything, and art knew too little about me to keep me
interested. I simply wandered, and wondered. Private
faces in public places Are
wiser and nicer Than
public faces in private places says the poet,
W. H. Auden, and he is right. But he is describing surprise and
fright, not wonder. Private faces in public places are surprising: for
instance, meeting your next-door neighbor in London. You say: “Why, my
goodness me! My goodness gracious! Mrs. Jones! You? And of all places!”
Public faces in private places are frightening: for instance, meeting Mahatma
Gandhi in your bath. You scream!! But
when you wonder, you neither talk nor scream. You take out of the storehouse
of silence one of those little soft exclamatory syllables which are words
pared down to a point, to show you have seen the point of something. Surprise
is a love disturbed. Fright is a thought disturbed. But wonder
is a silence disturbed. You say: Oh! . . . Ah!
. . . Say! . . . My! . . . Gee! . . .
Gosh! . . . Wow! . . . These are the wonder words. What
did I wonder at, when I was lost in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Well, I
wondered at a number of things in a simple sort of way. I did not know what
the pictures and statues were about, or who had painted or carved them. I was
absorbed merely in the fact that they were there, and kept noticing what
wonderful things they did to a room simply by being in it. For instance, the
paintings made the small rooms seem large. And the sculptures made the large
rooms seem small. This rather primitive discovery delighted me, and I began
to whistle softly to myself. The setting was now complete. For one of the
three r’s of aesthetics is missing in the Metropolitan, but the music of my
whistle added Rubenstein to Rembrandt and Rodin. And my little whistle,
though smaller than any of the paintings or sculptures, easily filled every
room I entered. Music is the only art that leaves rooms at their proper
sizes. I
think it was the half-truth lurking in this absurdity that caused me to burst
into laughter (a series of silly syllables, totally uncontrolled, the result
of almost seeing too many points at once). At any rate, the only thing that
surprised and interested me in the Metropolitan Museum of Art was what I
myself had contributed. So I laughed all the more. But
I stopped suddenly when I saw the artist and the lady returning. The
artist came up to me angrily, seized me by the arm, and was prepared to scold
me. “Where
have you been?” he said. “Here!” “What
were you laughing at?” and his eyes filled with suspicions. “Nothing!” But
beware of the dissyllable in direct reply. It is hesitating around the truth.
The truthful answer was: “You!” |