THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE OF ART
1. THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE OF ART (continued)
But, as in your cities so in your literature, it is a permanent
canon and standard of taste, an increased sensibility to beauty (if
I may say so) that is lacking. All noble work is not national
merely, but universal. The political independence of a nation must
not be confused with any intellectual isolation. The spiritual
freedom, indeed, your own generous lives and liberal air will give
you. From us you will learn the classical restraint of form.
For all great art is delicate art, roughness having very little to
do with strength, and harshness very little to do with power. 'The
artist,' as Mr. Swinburne says, 'must be perfectly articulate.'
This limitation is for the artist perfect freedom: it is at once
the origin and the sign of his strength. So that all the supreme
masters of style - Dante, Sophocles, Shakespeare - are the supreme
masters of spiritual and intellectual vision also.
Love art for its own sake, and then all things that you need will
be added to you.
This devotion to beauty and to the creation of beautiful things is
the test of all great civilised nations. Philosophy may teach us
to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of our neighbours, and
science resolve the moral sense into a secretion of sugar, but art
is what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament and not a
speculation, art is what makes the life of the whole race immortal.
For beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies
fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the
withered leaves of autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all
seasons and a possession for all eternity.
Wars and the clash of armies and the meeting of men in battle by
trampled field or leaguered city, and the rising of nations there
must always be. But I think that art, by creating a common
intellectual atmosphere between all countries, might - if it could
not overshadow the world with the silver wings of peace - at least
make men such brothers that they would not go out to slay one
another for the whim or folly of some king or minister, as they do
in Europe. Fraternity would come no more with the hands of Cain,
nor Liberty betray freedom with the kiss of Anarchy; for national
hatreds are always strongest where culture is lowest.
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