Art And Revolution Page 5

  How were this possible? Shall this solitary institution be released from a service to which all men, and every associate enterprise of man, are yoked to-day? Yes: it is precisely the Theatre, that should take precedence of every other institution in this emancipation; for the Theatre is the widest-reaching of Art's institutes, and the richest in its influence; and till man can exercise in freedom his noblest, his artistic powers, how shall he hope to become free and self-dependent in lower walks of life? Since already the service of the State, the military service, is at least no longer an industrial pursuit, let us begin with the enfranchisement of public art; for, as I have pointed out above, it is to it that we must assign an unspeakably lofty mission, an immeasurably weighty influence on our present social upheaval. More and better than a decrepit religion to which the spirit of public intercourse gives the lie direct more effectually and impressively than an incapable statesmanship which has long since host its compass: shall the ever-youthful Art, renewing its freshness from its own well-springs and the noblest spirit of the times, give to the passionate stream of social tumult-now dashing against rugged precipices, now lost in shallow swamps-a fair and lofty goal, the goal of noble Manhood.

  If ye friends of Art are truly concerned to know it saved from the threatening storms: then hear me, when I tell you that it is no mere question of preserving Art, but of first allowing it to reach its own true fill of life !

  Is it your real object, ye honourable Statesmen, confronted with a dreaded social overthrow,-against which, mayhap, ye strive because your shattered faith in human nature's purity prevents your understanding how this overthrow can help but make a bad condition infinitely worse,-is it, I say, your object to graft upon this mighty change a strong and living pledge of future nobler customs? Then lend us all your strength, to give back Art unto itself and to its lofty mission!

  Ye suffering brethren, in every social grade, who brood in hot displeasure how to flee this slavery to money and become free men: fathom ye our purpose, and help us to lift up Art to its due dignity; that so we may show you how ye raise mechanical toil therewith to Art; and the serf of industry to the fair,'self-knowing man who cries, with smiles begotten of intelligence, to sun and stars, to death and to eternity: "Ye, too, are mine, and I your lord!"

  Ye to whom I call, were ye at one with us in heart and mind, how easy were it to your Will to set the simple rules to work, whose following must infallibly ensure the flourishing of that mightiest of all art-establishments,-the Theatre! In the first place it would be the business of the State and the Community to adjust their means to this end: that the Theatre be placed in a position to obey alone its higher and true calling. This end will be attained when the Theatre is so far supported that its management need only be a purely artistic one; and no one will be better situated to carry this out than the general body of the artists themselves, who unite their forces in the art-work and assure the success of their mutual efforts by a fit conception of their task. Only the fullest freedom can bind them to the endeavour to fulfil the object for sake of which they are freed from the fetters of commercial speculation; and this object is Art, which the free man alone can grasp, and not the slave of wages.

  The judge of their performance, will be the free public. Yet, to make this public fully free and independent when face to face with Art, one further step must be taken along this road: the public must have unbought admission to the theatrical representations. So long as money is indispensable for all the needs of life, so long as without pay there remains naught to man but air, and scarcely water: the measures to be taken can only provide that the actual stage-performances, to witness which the populace assembles, shall not take on the semblance of work paid by the piece ,-a mode of regarding them which confessedly leads to the most humiliating misconception of the character of art-productions,-but it must be the duty of the State, or rather of the particular Community, to form a common purse from which to recompense the artists for their performance as a whole, and not in parts.

  Where means should not suffice for this, it were better, both now and always, to allow a theatre which could only be maintained as a commercial undertaking, to close its doors for ever; or at least, for so long as the community's demand had not proved strong enough to bring about the necessary sacrifice for its supply.

  When human fellowship has once developed its manly beauty and nobihity,-in such a way as we shall not attain, however, by the influence of our Art alone, but as we must hope and strive for by union with the great and inevitably approaching social revolution,-then will theatrical performances be the first associate undertaking from which the idea of wage or gain shall disappear entirely. For when, under the above conditions, our education more and more becomes an artistic one, then shall we be ourselves all thus far artists: that we can join together in free and common service for the one great cause of Art, in its special manifestment, abandoning each sidelong glance at gain.

  Art and its institutes, whose desired organisation could here be only briefly touched on, would thus become the herald and the standard of all future communal institutions. The spirit that urges a body of artists to the attainment of its own true goal, would be found again in every other social union which set before itself a definite and honourable aim; for if we reach the right, then all our future social bearing cannot but be of pure artistic nature, such as alone befits the noble faculties of man.

  Thus would Jesus have shown us that we all alike are men and brothers; while Apollo would have stamped this mighty bond of brotherhood with the seal of strength and beauty, and led mankind from doubt of its own worth to consciousness of its highest godlike might. Let us therefore erect the altar of the future, in Life as in the living Art, to the two subhimest teachers of mankind:- Jesus, who suffered for dll men; and Apollo, who raised them to their joyous dignity !

  (1) Book XXI. chap i.-TR.

  (2) Even Carlyle can only betoken this as the "Death of the Anarchies: or a world once more built wholly on Fact better or worse; and the lying jargoning professor of Sham-Fact. . become a species extinct, and well known to be gone down to Tophet !"-R. WAGNER.

  (3) "Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde ;"-see end of the present volume. -TR.

  (4) We have no English equivalents of these words, except in the adjectival form: voluntary and involuntary, in which there lies the same confusion of ideas as that for which Wagner here upbraids himself; and even now, when Schopenhauer's definition of the "Will" is pretty generally accepted, it would seem better, for clearness' sake, to delimit the term hy some such prefix as the "Inner," or "Instinctive" Will, in order to distinguish it from the "Outer" or "Intellectual" Choice. In this series of translations I shall endeavour to render such expressions in the sense the author here indicates.-W. A. E.

  (5) Sinnlichkeit= Qualities appealing to the senses; or again, the bent to an objective method of viewing things. Hence it may at times be best rendered by Physicalism or Materialism; at others, by Physical perception, Physical contemplation, or even-borrowing from Carlyle-Five-sense-philosophy.-TR.

  (6) To use the now more customary antithesis: Socialism v. Individualism. -TR.

  (7) "In the National you will shortly see an important article of mine: Art and Revolution, which I believe will also appear in German at Wigand's in Leipzig."-From Wagner's letter to Uhlig, of 9th August 1849.-TR.

  (8) Volumes III. and IV. of the Gesammelte Schriften, or "Collected Writings."-TR.

  (9) 1868; Constantin Frantz.-TR.

  (10) In the original text of both the present treatise and The Art-work af the Future, the expression "öffentlich" is frequently made use of. In English the only available equivalent is that which I have here employed, viz.: "public"; but our word "public" must be stretched a little in its significance, to answer to Richard Wagner's purpose. When he speaks of "public art" or "public life," it must be borne in mind that the idea of officialdom or State-endowment is not necessarily included; but rather the word is employed in the sense in which we use it
when talking of a "public appearance"; thus "public art" will mean such an art as is not merely designed for private or home consumption. -TR.

  (11) R. Wagner to F. Heine, March 18, '41 :-"This showed me still more decidedly that the religious-catholic part of my Rienzi libretto was a chief stumbling-block. .. . If in my Rienzi the word 'Church' is not allowed to stand," &c.-To W. Fischer, Dec. 8, '4! :-"Sixteen singers must remain for the Priests, or on account of the censorship, aged Citizens."-TR.

  (12) It is impossible to realise the full sting of this allusion, without having read in" Wagner's Letters to Uhlig" (H. Grevel & Co.) the account of the author's own experience at Dresden of the conduct of these gentry.-TR.

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