Goethe's Literary Essays. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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СКАЧАТЬ Philosopher seemed to look at me with astonishment, and I answered: We shudder, we are horrified at the bare description. In sooth, if it be so with the group of Laocoon, what are we to say of the pleasure we find in this as in every other true work of art? But I will not meddle in the question. You must settle it with the authors of the Propylaea, who are of just the opposite mind.

      It must be admitted, said my guest, that all Antiquity speaks for me; for where do horror and death rage more hideously than in the representation of the Niobe?

      I was confounded by this assertion, for only a short time before I had been looking at the copper-plates in Fabroni, which I immediately brought forward and opened. I find no trace in the statues of raging horror and death, but rather the greatest subordination of tragical situation under the highest ideas of dignity, nobleness, beauty, and simplicity. I trace everywhere the artistic purpose to dispose the limbs agreeably and gracefully. The character is expressed only in the most general lines, which run through the work like a sort of ideal skeleton.

      He. — Let us turn to the bas-reliefs, which we shall find at the end of the book.

      We turned to them.

      I. — Of anything horrible, to speak truly, I see no trace here either. Where is this rage of horror and death? I see figures so artfully interwoven, so happily placed against or extended upon each other, that while they remind me of a mournful destiny, they give room at the same time for the most charming imaginations. All that is characteristic is tempered, the violent is elevated, and I might say that Character lies at the foundation; upon it rest simplicity and dignity; the highest aim of art is beauty and its last effect the feeling of pleasure. The agreeable, which may not be immediately united with the characteristic, comes remarkably before our eyes in these sarcophagi. Are not the dead sons and daughters of Niobe here made use of as ornaments? This is the highest luxury of art; she adorns no longer with flowers and fruits, but with the corpses of men, with the greatest misfortune that can befall a father or mother, to see a blooming family all at once snatched away. Yes, the beauteous genius who stands beside the grave, his torch reversed, has stood beside the artist as he invented and perfected, and over his earthly greatness has breathed a heavenly grace.

      My guest looked at me with a smile, and shrugged his shoulders. Alas, — said he, as I concluded, — alas, I see plainly that we can never agree. What a pity that a man of your acquirements, of your sense, will not perceive that these are all empty words; that to a man of understanding Beauty and Ideal must always be a dream which he cannot translate into reality, but finds to be in direct opposition to it. . . .

      I. — Will you allow me also to put in a word?

      The guest (somewhat scornfully.) — With all my heart, and I hope nothing about mere phantoms.

      I. — I have some acquaintance with the poetry of the ancients, but have little knowledge of the plastic arts.

      Guest. — That I regret; for in that case we can hardly come to an understanding.

      I. — And yet the fine arts are nearly related, and the friends of the separate arts should not misunderstand each other.

      Uncle. — Let us hear what you have to say.

      I. — The old tragic writers dealt with the stuff in which they worked in the same way as the plastic artists, unless these engravings, representing the family of Niobe, give an altogether false impression of the original.

      Guest. — They are passably good. They convey an imperfect but not a false impression.

      I. — Well, then, to that extent we can take them for a ground to go upon.

      Uncle. — What is it you assert of the treatment of the ancient tragic writers?

      I. — The subjects they chose, especially in the early times, were often of an unbearable f rightfulness.

      Guest. — Were the ancient fables insupportably frightful?

      I. — Undoubtedly; in the same manner as your account of the Laocoon.

      Guest. — Did you find that also unbearable?

      I. — I ask pardon. I meant the thing you describe, not your description.

      Guest. — And the work itself also?

      I. — By no means the work itself, but that which you have seen in it, — the fable, the history, the skeleton, — that which you name the characteristic. For if the Laocoon really stood before our eyes such as you have described it, we ought not to hesitate a moment to dash it to pieces.

      Guest. — You use strong expressions.

      I. — One may do that as well as another.

      Uncle. — Now then for the ancient tragedies.

      Guest. — Yes, these insupportable subjects.

      I. — Very good; but also this manner of treatment that makes everything endurable, beautiful, graceful.

      Guest. — And that is effected by means of " simplicity and serene greatness?"

      I. — So it appears.

      Guest. — By the softening principle of Beauty?

      I. — It can be nothing else.

      Guest. — And the old tragedies were after all not frightful?

      I. — Hardly, so far as my knowledge extends, if you listen to the poets themselves. In fact, if we regard in poetry only the material which lies at the foundation, if we are to speak of works of art as if in their place we had seen the actual circumstances, then even the tragedies of Sophocles can be described as loathsome and horrible.

      Guest. — I will not pass judgment on poetry.

      I. — Nor I on plastic art.

      Guest. — Yes, it is best for each to stick to his own department.

      I. — And yet there is a common point of union for all the arts wherefrom the laws of all proceed.

      Guest. — And that is —

      I. — The soul of man.

      Guest. — Ay, ay; that is just the way with you gentlemen of the new school of philosophy. You bring everything upon your own ground and province; and, in fact, it is more convenient to shape the world according to your ideas than to adapt your notions to the truth of things.

      I. — Here is no question of any metaphysical dispute.

      Guest. — If there were I should certainly decline it.

      I. — I shall admit for the sake of argument that Nature can be imagined as absolutely apart from man, but with him art necessarily concerns itself, for art exists only through man and for man.

      Guest. — Where does all this tend?

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