Les Mouches Fantastiques (amateur journal)/June 1918/Editorial

​Editorial
A certain illustrious contemporary has stated that Les Mouches Fantastiques is nothing more than a series of sense impressions, mostly in execrable taste. He has declared that the editors are a pair of solemn super-esthetes, having a creed which is earthly, fleshly, sensual and sodden. That his own limited imagination and his own astigmatic vision may have led him far astray from the real object of Les Mouches Fantastiques does not seem to occur to him. His own superiority of culture, intelligence and kindred virtues places him beyond the peradventure of an error in judgement. As an object, apparently, of worthy imitation he offers his Conservative. It is deplorable that with paper and printing so expensive money should be wasted on the publication of such atrocities as "The Spirit of Summer" or the vulgar burlesque of a supremely lovely prose poem appearing therein. If such things are in good taste, then surely Les Mouches is not; if such things are artistic in any way, then assuredly Les Mouches is hopelessly inartistic.

We live and have our being in a physical world; all our impressions come to us from physical sources; even our furthest flights of imagination spring from physical apprehensions. It is only possible in a physical world to represent a spiritual idea in a physical manner; that the representation be not taken for the idea itself rests solely with the beholder. Art is never obvious; if it becomes so it at once ceases to be art although the creation may be artistic; its prime object is to raise an object in the soul of the beholder, to stir the imagination, to create in the beholder an imagistic atmosphere. The appreciation and comprehension of beautiful objects, that is, art, is governed solely by the quality of the beholder's imagination, and his sympathetic discernment.

Now, of all physical sources the most potent to the artist is that of sex, of which is based the whole of society, and without which the universe could not be. And it is this mighty source that such carping critics as the Conservative would have us ignore, and rather would have us peddle in silly little puddles of "innocent imagery" instead of breasting a mighty stream in the search for Truth, or Beauty, or Art; by all names it is the same in substance. If The Conservative writes of Summer as an "aerial nymph", and I write a sonnet to a boy, it is because I believe that the boy is more vital than the fact that Summer can be imagined as an "aerial nymph", which is far too impersonal ever to rise to the dignity of art; ​for that which makes art great is its egoism; its singleness; its absolute individuality. Had not great artists stamped indelibly their personalities on what we are pleased to call their masterpieces whose works could never have survived. The more intensely personal an art creation is the more universal it becomes; an artist cannot be other than personal if he wishes to do great things; impersonal art is a contradiction in terms. And how else is he to feel unless through physical channels? how else be actuated to sense himself unless through sex? It is according to the intensity of personality and sex displayed that makes great such creations as Angelo's David, Botticelli's Primavera, Flaubert's Salambo, Fleurs du Mal of Baudelaire, Poe's poetry, Maaterlincke's dramas; Masefield's Nan, or the tragedies of D'Annunzio.

It is notable that with two exceptions not one of our critics has taken cognisance of a certain element in our work which, much as they might condemn it as immoral and depraved, is nevertheless the inspiration of some of the most beautiful lines ever written, some of the most perfect marble ever carved, some of the most brilliant pictures ever limned, some of the most glorious music ever sounded. Sappho's poetry (despite this, to the average narrow- evil-minded person, objectionable strain) can never be other than perfect; Michael Angelo's best was inspired by this emotion; it gave the world its most perfect sonnet sequence in that of Shakespere; the music of Beethoven is pregnated with it.

All our critics have fastened upon Wilde's name and thrown it in our teeth. How perfectly ridiculous! It is only the gasp of the bourgeois at the (to them) incomprehensible. Instead of using that name derogatorily, our critics would do better if they endeavored to approach him in their work. Where else shall they find such matchless sustained prose as in De Profundis, such burning imagery as in Salome, such power as in the The Ballad of Reading Gaol, such fantasy as in The Happy Prince or in the Prose Poems? Not in the pages of such as The Conservative at least.