ENGLISH POETRY IN ITS RELATION TO PAINTING AND THE OTHER
ARTS.*
A VERY interesting lecture by Mr. Laurence Binyon upon English Poetry in its Relation to Painting and the other Arts was lately delivered in connexion,with the British Academy, and has been published in pamphlet form by the Oxford University Press. His lecture is a plea for artistic unity. The theory—founded, as he is inolined to think, upon certain dicta of Pater's—which puts music and painting into one category, and poetry into a completely separate one, he regards as a fundamental error. He further laments as unfortunate the " curious horror of the intrusion into art of anything which might be suspected' of being literature," which has taken possession of so many critics lately. The unifying principle of all the arts is, he deelares, " rhythm." This phrase would lead his readers to imagine that he regarded music and poetry as most nearly related ; but he does not., This may, he admits, be true of them in their origin, but if we are discussing the arts in maturity he believes we' shall fled poetry and painting to have the most in common. The' word " rhythm " as applied to painting may well confuse a simple reader: Mr. Pinyon, however, makes his meaning fairly plain by saying that just as poetry may be nothing but musical• words, ere painting may be reduced to mere arabesque. Neither art, however, Is at its greatest when thus simplified. All through his very eloquent leeture it is.taken for granted that. poetry is thegreatest of/ the arts under discussion. "The essential characteristic of poetryis its• power of focussing the whole range of our sensibilities. Its primary appeal is the music of rhythmical language, but into this it fuses a. world of sensation and a world of emotion and a world of thought." A poet " thinks in images" ; he is, in fact, a painter, though he may also be a musioian and a philosopher. There is a sense, if we understand Mr. Binyon aright, in which he regards word-painting as greater. than oolour-painting, greater even in its own sphere• because poetry involves "sequence, movement, action," while " painting and sculpture are stationary."
Greece during her greatest period expressed herself " in every medium known," says Mr. Binyon ; and he adds that it would be hard to say in which of the arts she most excelled. Here the reader• is inclined to interrupt. It would, no doubt, be " hard to say" because we are almost completely ignorant of Greek musks, but the- difficulty surely arises because of our ignorance, not, as he implies, from the impossibility of comparison between degrees of perfection. "At other great periods it seems as-if one kind of art attracted to- itself all the genius of the time," he goes on, " and other kinds warmly counted in comparison." This foot is specially marked in the history of English art, where we get "extraordinary burets followed by long lethargies." The result of this tendency is seen, he thinks, to-day. He takes a cheerful view of the present artistic. situation. Poetry " renews itself once again with fresh vigour and a rich abundance. In the other arts, too, there is both plenty and variety of gift." All the same, there is much to be desired. There is a feeling of dissatisfaction among the abler oritios. They are conscious of " waste," " division," " incoherence." Is not this due, he asks, " in part, at least, to an unrelatednesa of the various arts, including poetry, the most pregnant and articulate of them all ? The arts have each their boundaries, each the separate felicities • EngliRli Poetry in tie relation to Painting and the other Art*, By Laurence Binyon London : Humphrey Milford. Ile. ed. net.]
1 elonging to their medium. But it is well also to remember that they have their common spring of inspiration in the imaginative life ; and it is that fundamental unity which best preserves them from chaos, triviality, and caprice."
What can we do to attain to this imaginative and intellectual unity ? Mr. Binyon has no plan of s-dva'ion to suggest, but he Points out how we have missed it in the past, and his object is evidently to persuade his readers to think upon his lines, not to indicate to them any definite conclusions. Between the mediaeval time and the eighteenth century, he writes, the " imaginative intellect of our country had divided itself and lived in different compartments." Even when the Church and the feudal system held a small world in a species of union the relation of the arts wa3 fitful. At the time of Chaucer painting and sculpture had othing comparable with his poetry to offer—even taking into ace mnt the fact that the inner furnishings of the great cathedrals have been destroyed. Still, the pictorial art of the time was "rich in promise," and Mr. Binyon accuses war and the Puritan spirit of rendering that promise void. Forms of imagination which should have found pictorial expression were confined to words, for literature can live under almost any conditions. It " demands no costly apparatus," and "does not present itself in the market-place to every eye." The pictorial element in Elizabethan poetry is obvious, but the lecturer finds it for us even in the Puritanism of Milton, whose poetry has, generally speaking, so much more relation to music than to painting. Did Italian pictures suggest to Milton the following magical effects ? Mr. Binyon thinks not, but says that in reading the description of the tempter's feast in the wilderness we are reminded of Veronese :-
" And at a stately side-board by the wine That fragrant smell diffused, in order stood Tall stripling youths rich clad, of fairer hue Than 0 anymed or Hylas ; distant more Under the trees now tripped, now solemn stood Nymphs of Diana's train, and Naiades With fruits and flowers from Arnelthea's horn, And ladies of the Hesperides, that seemed Fairer than feigned of old, or fabled since .
Of fairy damsels met in forest wide By knights of Logres, or of Lyonness, Lancelot or Pekes or Pellenore ; And all the while harmonious airs were heard Of chiming strings or charming pipes, and winds Of gentlest gale Arabian odours fanned From their soft wings, and Flora's earliest smells."
In the time of Pope Mr. Binyon finds once more artistic solidarity. "The typical poet of the eighteenth century constructed his poem in the manner of an essayist." " Reason gives the law to all the arts, and reason alone inspires the critic." " Neither Shakespeare nor Milton intimidated Dr. Johnson." A " cohesion " like the " cohesion " of the Middle Ages, we read, returned to the world. Fielding and Smollett found their counterpart in Hogarth, and though he thinks the subservience of Reynolds to the canons of his time can be exaggerated, it undoubtedly existed. All the same,
in. imaginative creation the period failed." " The temperature of the mind was lowered. The aims thought worthiest were those demonstrably standing within attainment."
Space fails us to follow the lecturer further—to listen to his Briticism of Chatterton, Gray, and Blake, to stand with him before the canvases of Turner and Constable. We hope we have quoted enough to make our readers go with him to the end of his two dozen short pages. Every reader who picks up the pamphlet will finish it, but probably he will come away still convinced of the theories of which he was convinced when he began to read. Indeed, it seems to us that Mr. Binyon's arguments tell both for and against his theory. The only period in which the " solidarity" he desires was attained, he admits, failed in creative power, while the greater periods were those in which the divorce he laments seems obvious. It is not the object of the present writer to do more than give a partial summary of an exceedingly interesting and suggestive discourse. It is for the reader to comply with or demur to the thesis.
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