Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/866

IN reply to the inquiry, What is art? an answer may be made as follows: art is the involuntary dramatization of subjective experience. In other words, the crystallization of a state of mind in images (whether visual, auditory, or otherwise). This excludes from art the practical activity of mere illustration, which involves only the combination of empirical observation. with skill of craftsmanship. Even the setting down on papér of the signs, lines, words, musical notes, and so forth, that serve to communicate aesthetic experience, or the transmission of such an experience by the indications of gesture, or audible sounds, is a practical activity—in kinema phraseology, "registering"—to be distinguished from that of creation. However swiftly the record may follow on the heels of the single spiritual activity of intuition-expression, it is always the externalization of an already completed cycle. The words of a poem, the lines of a drawing are not expressive, but indicative; they are the catalytic stimuli to a renewed aesthetic activity, or expression, on the part of the hearer. It is therefore by ellipsis that we call them expressive, as it is by ellipsis that we speak of a physical work of art as beautiful. It is scarcely needful to add that questions of personal taste or interest have nothing to do with aesthetic values, however legitimately they may govern conduct.

The element of skill enters only into the voluntary practical activity of externalization, the use of the language of stimulation. We cannot measure qualities of art by, measuring degrees of skill. In fact, there are no degrees of art: nor is it possible to speak of a progress or degeneration of art, in individuals or schools, as we can speak of progress or loss in the realm of knowledge, technique, and skill. In the words of Blake: "The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that art can go beyond the finest specimens of art that are now in the world is not knowing what art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the Spirit." Wagner and Raphael are not necessarily superior to Palestrina and Giotto because of their more elaborate technique or superior