{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-11:art-and-morality",
  "slug": "art-and-morality",
  "title": "Art and Morality",
  "subtitle": "Essay.",
  "excerpt": "On the supposed conflict between art and morals — and the real source of both in the experience, sympathy, and imagination of human beings.",
  "year": 1888,
  "volume": 11,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/art-and-morality/",
  "wordCount": 2913,
  "body": "ART is the highest form of expression, and exists for the sake of\nexpression. Through art thoughts become visible. Back of forms are the\ndesire, the longing, the brooding creative instinct, the maternity of\nmind and the passion that give pose and swell, outline and color.\n\nOf course there is no such thing as absolute beauty or absolute\nmorality. We now clearly perceive that beauty and conduct are relative.\nWe have outgrown the provincialism that thought is back of substance,\nas well as the old Platonic absurdity, that ideas existed before the\nsubjects of thought. So far, at least, as man is concerned, his thoughts\nhave been produced by his surroundings, by the action and interaction\nof things upon his mind; and so far as man is concerned, things have\npreceded thoughts. The impressions that these things make upon us\nare what we know of them. The absolute is beyond the human mind. Our\nknowledge is confined to the relations that exist between the totality\nof things that we call the universe, and the effect upon ourselves.\n\nActions are deemed right or wrong, according to experience and the\nconclusions of reason. Things are beautiful by the relation that certain\nforms, colors, and modes of expression bear to us. At the foundation of\nthe beautiful will be found the fact of happiness, the gratification of\nthe senses, the delight of intellectual discovery and the surprise and\nthrill of appreciation. That which we call the beautiful, wakens into\nlife through the association of ideas, of memories, of experiences, of\nsuggestions of pleasure past and the perception that the prophecies of\nthe ideal have been and will be fulfilled.\n\nArt cultivates and kindles the imagination, and quickens the conscience.\nIt is by imagination that we put ourselves in the place of another. When\nthe wings of that faculty are folded, the master does not put himself in\nthe place of the slave; the tyrant is not locked in the dungeon, chained\nwith his victim. The inquisitor did not feel the flames that devoured\nthe martyr. The imaginative man, giving to the beggar, gives to himself.\nThose who feel indignant at the perpetration of wrong, feel for the\ninstant that they are the victims; and when they attack the aggressor\nthey feel that they are defending themselves. Love and pity are the\nchildren of the imagination.\n\nOur fathers read with great approbation the mechanical sermons in rhyme\nwritten by Milton, Young and Pollok. Those theological poets wrote\nfor the purpose of convincing their readers that the mind of man\nis diseased, filled with infirmities, and that poetic poultices and\nplasters tend to purify and strengthen the moral nature of the human\nrace. Nothing to the true artist, to the real genius, is so contemptible\nas the \"medicinal view.\"\n\nPoems were written to prove that the practice of virtue was an\ninvestment for another world, and that whoever followed the advice found\nin those solemn, insincere and lugubrious rhymes, although he might\nbe exceedingly unhappy in this world, would with great certainty be\nrewarded in the next. These writers assumed that there was a kind of\nrelation between rhyme and religion, between verse and virtue; and that\nit was their duty to call the attention of the world to all the snares\nand pitfalls of pleasure. They wrote with a purpose. They had a distinct\nmoral end in view. They had a plan. They were missionaries, and their\nobject was to show the world how wicked it was and how good they, the\nwriters, were. They could not conceive of a man being so happy that\neverything in nature partook of his feeling; that all the birds were\nsinging for him, and singing by reason of his joy; that everything\nsparkled and shone and moved in the glad rhythm of his heart. They could\nnot appreciate this feeling. They could not think of this joy guiding\nthe artist's hand, seeking expression in form and color. They did not\nlook upon poems, pictures, and statues as results, as children of the\nbrain fathered by sea and sky, by flower and star, by love and light.\nThey were not moved by gladness. They felt the responsibility of\nperpetual duty. They had a desire to teach, to sermonize, to point\nout and exaggerate the faults of others and to describe the virtues\npracticed by themselves. Art became a colporteur, a distributer of\ntracts, a mendicant missionary whose highest ambition was to suppress\nall heathen joy.\n\nHappy people were supposed to have forgotten, in a reckless moment, duty\nand responsibility. True poetry would call them back to a realization of\ntheir meanness and their misery. It was the skeleton at the feast, the\nrattle of whose bones had a rhythmic sound. It was the forefinger of\nwarning and doom held up in the presence of a smile.\n\nThese moral poets taught the \"unwelcome truths,\" and by the paths of\nlife put posts on which they painted hands pointing at graves. They\nloved to see the pallor on the cheek of youth, while they talked, in\nsolemn tones, of age, decrepitude and lifeless clay.\n\nBefore the eyes of love they thrust, with eager hands, the skull of\ndeath. They crushed the flowers beneath their feet and plaited crowns of\nthorns for every brow.\n\nAccording to these poets, happiness was inconsistent with virtue. The\nsense of infinite obligation should be perpetually present. They assumed\nan attitude of superiority. They denounced and calumniated the reader.\nThey enjoyed his confusion when charged with total depravity. They loved\nto paint the sufferings of the lost, the worthlessness of human life,\nthe littleness of mankind, and the beauties of an unknown world. They\nknew but little of the heart. They did not know that without passion\nthere is no virtue, and that the really passionate are the virtuous.\n\nArt has nothing to do directly with morality or immorality. It is its\nown excuse for being; it exists for itself.\n\nThe artist who endeavors to enforce a lesson, becomes a preacher; and\nthe artist who tries by hint and suggestion to enforce the immoral,\nbecomes a pander.\n\nThere is an infinite difference between the nude and the naked, between\nthe natural and the undressed. In the presence of the pure, unconscious\nnude, nothing can be more contemptible than those forms in which are\nthe hints and suggestions of drapery, the pretence of exposure, and the\nfailure to conceal. The undressed is vulgar—the nude is pure.\n\nThe old Greek statues, frankly, proudly nude, whose free and perfect\nlimbs have never known the sacrilege of clothes, were and are as free\nfrom taint, as pure, as stainless, as the image of the morning star\ntrembling in a drop of perfumed dew.\n\nMorality is the harmony between act and circumstance. It is the melody\nof conduct. A wonderful statue is the melody of proportion. A great\npicture is the melody of form and color. A great statue does not suggest\nlabor; it seems to have been created as a joy. A great painting suggests\nno weariness and no effort; the greater, the easier it seems. So a great\nand splendid life seems to have been without effort. There is in it no\nidea of obligation, no idea of responsibility or of duty. The idea of\nduty changes to a kind of drudgery that which should be, in the perfect\nman, a perfect pleasure.\n\nThe artist, working simply for the sake of enforcing a moral, becomes\na laborer. The freedom of genius is lost, and the artist is absorbed in\nthe citizen. The soul of the real artist should be moved by this melody\nof proportion as the body is unconsciously swayed by the rhythm of a\nsymphony. No one can imagine that the great men who chiseled the statues\nof antiquity intended to teach the youth of Greece to be obedient\nto their parents. We cannot believe that Michael Angelo painted his\ngrotesque and somewhat vulgar \"Day of Judgment\" for the purpose of\nreforming Italian thieves. The subject was in all probability selected\nby his employeer, and the treatment was a question of art, without\nthe slightest reference to the moral effect, even upon priests. We are\nperfectly certain that Corot painted those infinitely poetic\nlandscapes, those cottages, those sad poplars, those leafless vines on\nweather-tinted walls, those quiet pools, those contented cattle, those\nfields flecked with light, over which bend the skies, tender as the\nbreast of a mother, without once thinking of the ten commandments. There\nis the same difference between moral art and the product of true genius,\nthat there is between prudery and virtue.\n\nThe novelists who endeavor to enforce what they are pleased to\ncall \"moral truths,\" cease to be artists. They create two kinds of\ncharacters—types and caricatures. The first never has lived, and the\nsecond never will. The real artist produces neither. In his pages you\nwill find individuals, natural people, who have the contradictions and\ninconsistencies inseparable from humanity. The great artists \"hold the\nmirror up to nature,\" and this mirror reflects with absolute accuracy.\nThe moral and the immoral writers—that is to say, those who have some\nobject besides that of art—use convex or concave mirrors, or those with\nuneven surfaces, and the result is that the images are monstrous and\ndeformed. The little novelist and the little artist deal either in the\nimpossible or the exceptional. The men of genius touch the universal.\nTheir words and works throb in unison with the great ebb and flow of\nthings. They write and work for all races and for all time.\n\nIt has been the object of thousands of reformers to destroy\nthe passions, to do away with desires; and could this object be\naccomplished, life would become a burden, with but one desire—that is\nto say, the desire for extinction. Art in its highest forms increases\npassion, gives tone and color and zest to life. But while it increases\npassion, it refines. It extends the horizon. The bare necessities of\nlife constitute a prison, a dungeon. Under the influence of art the\nwalls expand, the roof rises, and it becomes a temple.\n\nArt is not a sermon, and the artist is not a preacher. Art accomplishes\nby indirection. The beautiful refines. The perfect in art suggests the\nperfect in conduct. The harmony in music teaches, without intention, the\nlesson of proportion in life. The bird in his song has no moral purpose,\nand yet the influence is humanizing. The beautiful in nature acts\nthrough appreciation and sympathy. It does not browbeat, neither does\nit humiliate. It is beautiful without regard to you. Roses would be\nunbearable if in their red and perfumed hearts were mottoes to the\neffect that bears eat bad boys and that honesty is the best policy.\n\nArt creates an atmosphere in which the proprieties, the amenities, and\nthe virtues unconsciously grow. The rain does not lecture the seed. The\nlight does not make rules for the vine and flower.\n\nThe heart is softened by the pathos of the perfect.\n\nThe world is a dictionary of the mind, and in this dictionary of things\ngenius discovers analogies, resemblances, and parallels amid opposites,\nlikeness in difference, and corroboration in contradiction. Language\nis but a multitude of pictures. Nearly every word is a work of art, a\npicture represented by a sound, and this sound represented by a mark,\nand this mark gives not only the sound, but the picture of something in\nthe outward world and the picture of something within the mind, and with\nthese words which were once pictures, other pictures are made.\n\nThe greatest pictures and the greatest statues, the most wonderful and\nmarvelous groups, have been painted and chiseled with words. They are as\nfresh to-day as when they fell from human lips. Penelope still ravels,\nweaves, and waits; Ulysses' bow is bent, and through the level rings\nthe eager arrow flies. Cordelia's tears are falling now. The greatest\ngallery of the world is found in Shakespeare's book. The pictures and\nthe marbles of the Vatican and Louvre are faded, crumbling things,\ncompared with his, in which perfect color gives to perfect form the glow\nand movement of passion's highest life.\n\nEverything except the truth wears, and needs to wear, a mask. Little\nsouls are ashamed of nature. Prudery pretends to have only those\npassions that it cannot feel. Moral poetry is like a respectable canal\nthat never overflows its banks. It has weirs through which slowly\nand without damage any excess of feeling is allowed to flow. It makes\nexcuses for nature, and regards love as an interesting convict. Moral\nart paints or chisels feet, faces, and rags. It regards the body as\nobscene. It hides with drapery that which it has not the genius purely\nto portray. Mediocrity becomes moral from a necessity which it has\nthe impudence to call virtue. It pretends to regard ignorance as the\nfoundation of purity and insists that virtue seeks the companionship of\nthe blind.\n\nArt creates, combines, and reveals. It is the highest manifestation of\nthought, of passion, of love, of intuition. It is the highest form of\nexpression, of history and prophecy. It allows us to look at an unmasked\nsoul, to fathom the abysses of passion, to understand the heights and\ndepths of love.\n\nCompared with what is in the mind of man, the outward world almost\nceases to excite our wonder. The impression produced by mountains, seas,\nand stars is not so great, so thrilling, as the music of Wagner.\nThe constellations themselves grow small when we read \"Troilus and\nCres-sida,\" \"Hamlet,\" or \"Lear.\" What are seas and stars in the presence\nof a heroism that holds pain and death as naught? What are seas and\nstars compared with human hearts? What is the quarry compared with the\nstatue?\n\nArt civilizes because it enlightens, develops, strengthens, ennobles. It\ndeals with the beautiful, with the passionate, with the ideal. It is the\nchild of the heart. To be great, it must deal with the human. It must be\nin accordance with the experience, with the hopes, with the fears, and\nwith the possibilities of man. No one cares to paint a palace, because\nthere is nothing in such a picture to touch the heart. It tells of\nresponsibility, of the prison, of the conventional. It suggests a\nload—it tells of apprehension, of weariness and ennui. The picture of\na cottage, over which runs a vine, a little home thatched with content,\nwith its simple life, its natural sunshine and shadow, its trees bending\nwith fruit, its hollyhocks and pinks, its happy children, its hum of\nbees, is a poem—a smile in the desert of this world.\n\nThe great lady, in velvet and jewels, makes but a poor picture. There is\nnot freedom enough in her life. She is constrained. She is too far away\nfrom the simplicity of happiness. In her thought there is too much of\nthe mathematical. In all art you will find a touch of chaos, of liberty;\nand there is in all artists a little of the vagabond—that is to say,\ngenius.\n\nThe nude in art has rendered holy the beauty of woman. Every Greek\nstatue pleads for mothers and sisters. From these marbles come strains\nof music. They have filled the heart of man with tenderness and worship.\nThey have kindled reverence, admiration and love. The Venus de Milo,\nthat even mutilation cannot mar, tends only to the elevation of our\nrace. It is a miracle of majesty and beauty, the supreme idea of the\nsupreme woman. It is a melody in marble. All the lines meet in a kind\nof voluptuous and glad content. The pose is rest itself. The eyes are\nfilled with thoughts of love. The breast seems dreaming of a child.\n\nThe prudent is not the poetic; it is the mathematical. Genius is the\nspirit of abandon; it is joyous, irresponsible. It moves in the swell\nand curve of billows; it is careless of conduct and consequence. For a\nmoment, the chain of cause and effect seems broken; the soul is free. It\ngives an account not even to itself. Limitations are forgotten; nature\nseems obedient to the will; the ideal alone exists; the universe is a\nsymphony.\n\nEvery brain is a gallery of art, and every soul is, to a greater or less\ndegree, an artist. The pictures and statues that now enrich and adorn\nthe walls and niches of the world, as well as those that illuminate\nthe pages of its literature, were taken originally from the private\ngalleries of the brain.\n\nThe soul—that is to say the artist—compares the pictures in its own\nbrain with the pictures that have been taken from the galleries of\nothers and made visible. This soul, this artist, selects that which is\nnearest perfection in each, takes such parts as it deems perfect, puts\nthem together, forms new pictures, new statues, and in this way creates\nthe ideal.\n\nTo express desires, longings, ecstasies, prophecies and passions in form\nand color; to put love, hope, heroism and triumph in marble; to paint\ndreams and memories with words; to portray the purity of dawn, the\nintensity and glory of noon, the tenderness of twilight, the splendor\nand mystery of night, with sounds; to give the invisible to sight and\ntouch, and to enrich the common things of earth with gems and jewels of\nthe mind—this is Art.—North American Review, March, 1888.\n"
}