fully expressed appeals suggest new LEITMOTIVEN in composition.
Without such development as this, form-composition is impossible.
To anyone who cannot experience the inner appeal of form (whether
material or abstract) such composition can never be other than
meaningless. Apparently aimless alterations in form-arrangement
will make art seem merely a game. So once more we are faced with
the same principle, which is to set art free, the principle of
the inner need.
When features or limbs for artistic reasons are changed or
distorted, men reject the artistic problem and fall back on the
secondary question of anatomy. But, on our argument, this
secondary consideration does not appear, only the real, artistic
question remaining. These apparently irresponsible, but really
well-reasoned alterations in form provide one of the storehouses
of artistic possibilities.
The adaptability of forms, their organic but inward variations,
their motion in the picture, their inclination to material or
abstract, their mutual relations, either individually or as parts
of a whole; further, the concord or discord of the various
elements of a picture, the handling of groups, the combinations
of veiled and openly expressed appeals, the use of rhythmical or
unrhythmical, of geometrical or non-geometrical forms, their
contiguity or separation--all these things are the material for
counterpoint in painting.
But so long as colour is excluded, such counterpoint is confined
to black and white. Colour provides a whole wealth of
possibilities of her own, and when combined with form, yet a
further series of possibilities. And all these will be
expressions of the inner need.
The inner need is built up of three mystical elements: (1) Every
artist, as a creator, has something in him which calls for
expression (this is the element of personality). (2) Every
artist, as child of his age, is impelled to express the spirit of
his age (this is the element of style)--dictated by the period
and particular country to which the artist belongs (it is
doubtful how long the latter distinction will continue to exist).
(3) Every artist, as a servant of art, has to help the cause of
art (this is the element of pure artistry, which is constant in
all ages and among all nationalities).
A full understanding of the first two elements is necessary for a
realization of the third. But he who has this realization will
recognize that a rudely carved Indian column is an expression of
the same spirit as actuates any real work of art of today.
In the past and even today much talk is heard of "personality" in
art. Talk of the coming "style" becomes more frequent daily. But
for all their importance today, these questions will have
disappeared after a few hundred or thousand years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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