32

ART AS IDEALITY: It is my firm contention that an artist is never more genuine than when he adheres to ideality and, like Blake, Dadd, Dali, Turner, Picasso, Bourne-Jones, Chagall, Burra, Van Gogh, and Kandinsky, invents a world largely of his own which contrasts with the everyday reality to which one is normally accustomed. He who paints me another world, creates unique images or, alternatively, reproduces images from myth, religion, or literature, I regard as a genuine artist. The others, the portrait painters, realists, and naturalists, I regard as craftsmen or draughtsmen, men who apply an almost scientifically literal approach to their work, who create a hybrid which, in sacrificing imagination to factual reproduction, is neither science nor art but a mediator between the two, a sort of parallel to academic philosophy, which usually has its boundaries somewhere between the realms of science and religion.

But the truly creative artist deals chiefly with the ideal, the world of the imagination. It is he who establishes an antithesis to science and temporarily frees us from the oppressiveness and overwhelming seriousness of factual truth. His greatness is guaranteed by the combination of two indispensable ingredients - imagination and technique. With only one of these he is not an artist but, at best, a dilettante or craftsman, depending on the ingredient in question. With both, however, he is the true spokesman and practitioner of a discipline which stands in an antithetical relationship to science - not, be it noted, as its enemy, but as its complement, the negative pole of a dual integrity and, consequently, a vocation dedicated to the service of creatures who are unable to live without illusions but must forever oscillate between the two poles if they are to remain balanced, or relatively sane.

Yes, in the final analysis, art is dualistically inferior to science, as illusion to truth. But science is in no way able to exist without art, not, anyway, while there is anything approximating to a civilized view of life in the world. For the two pursuits are interdependent and therefore must remain firmly committed to their respective tasks.

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as 'scientific art' (not to be confused with science-fiction), any more than there is really such a thing as 'artistic science'. An art which deserts its rightful responsibility in imagination to serve the cause of science, i.e. by drawing inspiration directly from scientific fact, is unwittingly hindering both itself and science by being insufficiently antithetical to it. An art which draws its inspiration from the 'real' instead of the 'ideal' is fundamentally perverse. In fact, it is no longer art at all but, as mentioned above, a kind of hybrid, and very often a lost cause in a dark age.

No, if art is to do itself proper justice it must find its chief inspiration within the imagination, within that strangely disguised mythical world, surreal world, impressionistic world, expressionistic world, abstract world, fantasy world, or any other 'illusory' world which affords us an authentic contrast to everyday reality. Is it any wonder that those artists whom I listed at the beginning of this essay have all achieved due recognition as great painters? No, not if one understands exactly what a true artist is.

Now what applies to the art of painting applies no less to the 'arts' of music, literature, and sculpture, where imagination and technique are still the tools most needed for the shaping of anything artistically worthwhile. But let us leave the final word on this subject with Oscar Wilde, whose Decay of Lying remains one of the most eloquent, lucid, and pertinent dialogues ever written in defence of art: 'Art begins with abstract decoration, with purely imaginative and pleasurable work dealing with what is unreal and non-existent. This is the first stage. Then Life becomes fascinated with this new wonder, and asks to be admitted into the charmed circle. Art takes Life as part of her rough material, recreates it, and refashions it in fresh forms, is absolutely indifferent to fact, invents, imagines, dreams, and keeps between itself and reality the impenetrable barrier of beautiful style, of decorative or ideal treatment. The third stage is when Life gets the upper hand, and drives Art out into the wilderness. This is the true decadence, and it is from this that we are now suffering.'