MR. ASQUITH ON CRITICISM. T HE address on criticism delivered by
Mr. Asquith to the. University Extension students last Saturday was, from every point of view, an excellent piece of work. It was as clear in manner as it was sensible and sound in matter. Mr. Asquith's best point was his insistence upon the fact- that interpretation is the function of criticism. Properly understood this is all that need be said, or can be said, in regard to criticism. The true critic is primarily the interpreter of the work of art or literature with which he deals. His first business is to understand, and then to tell, what the poet, the novelist, or the essayist, the sculptor or the• painter, was trying to express. This done, he may go on to- inform us whether the thing said, or sought to be said, was- worth saying, or whether it was badly or well said, but till the critic has reached the artist's motive his criticism can have no point. The mere censor who says This is bad,' or ' This is good,' and gives no reason, is a very useless person. The critic, on the other hand, who first interprets, and then pronounces an. opinion as to the merits, if he is fair and also able to express himself, may be a source of pleasure, help, and interest even to those who disagree with its ultimate conclusions. For example, modern readers disagree with many of Dr. Johnson's con- clusions, but that does not prevent them experiencing the greatest possible delight in much of his literary criticism, because, as a rule, he tried to get to the motive-power behind the men he criticised. You cannot, of course; reduce criticism to a rigid system, for it is an art, but the critic who desires to do more than tick off the work as- " good " or " bad," should always keep before him this function of interpretation. He may do so conveniently by asking four questions of every work before him. Firstly, what was the exact notion which the creator of the work- criticised had in his mind when he wrote or painted,—i.e., what was it that he was anxious to express P Secondly, what are the means which he has chosen for expressing his motives, what- ever they were ? Thirdly, is his theme one worth expressing or treating, and if not, why not P Fourthly, has the form of expression been well and truly chosen,—has be, that is, given the fullest and most characteristic and moat specific expression to the theme of which it was capable ? If, and when, criticism proceeds on these lines it will never be a mere thing of flouts and jeers, but will be sure, whatever are the conclusions, to be interesting and suggestive. Think for a moment of a specific example. When Coleridge wrote his "Lines to a Young Ass " the critics all screamed " Fool" and' "Ninny." Very likely they were right in the particular instance, but their criticism was of a very poor and thin kind. Had they first asked what was the poetic mood Coleridge wished to express, and then got en rapport as far as they could with his style, and finally pointed out that his sentiment was not worth expressing, and his method silly and sentimental, they would have performed the work of critics. As it was, they merely called names, which happened in the particular case to be more or less justified. De Quincey, who in spite of his long-winded, dust-cloud manner was a great critic, put the matter well when he distinguished between the sympathy of approbation and the sympathy of comprehension. The sympathy of comprehension is what the critic wants. Without it he is always in danger of being nothing but a sheet of brass which reverberates to all the prejudices and ignorances of his own age.
Another excellent point in Mr. Asquith's address was his denunciation of critical formula. " It was a sure sign of the degeneration of the critic, as such, when he lapsed into the habitual use of catchwords and formulae. There was nothing more hampering to the free and elastic play of the judgment than the habit, easily acquired because it saved trouble, of drawing one's words and phrases from a particular literary or artistic dialect." Without any doubt, the critic who uses, as it were, a little verbal tape-measure, and tests every work by
its centimetres and millimetres, will prove of very little use
to the public he professes to instruct or enlighten. Even formulae which are sound and excellent in themselves when first used, are apt from constant application to become worn or distorted. The critic who uses a good formula too often tends little by little to twist its meaning till at last what was a useful standard of comparison becomes a sort of literary strait-waistcoat. The critic is so anxious to apply his formula,
that he uses it the instant he is in the presence of a work of literature or art, and before he has allowed himself the time to ask what it is that the poet or painter is trying to say. Burke said that nothing absolute could be affirmed on any moral or political subject. It is still truer to say that nothing absolute can be affirmed upon any literary or artistic subject. But critical formulae are, or always tend to contain, absolute affirmations. Let the critic then beware of them, or he will find that he has petrified his mind. On one point only do we seriously disagree with Mr. Asquith. That is when he infers that art criticism is necessarily of little or no value. No doubt most of the so-called art criticism is perfectly worthless, but to say that is not to condemn art criticism altogether, but merely to state that art critics, as a rule, do not know their own business. If they would endeavour to be interpreters, and not merely censors, there is no reason why they should not be of real use both to the painters and to the public. "As a rale, it must be said of art criticism that it had a blighting effect even upon good artists, that it had been comparatively unproductive either in speculative or practical guidance, and that it consisted to a large extent in the unillaminating dis- =salon of unreal problems in unintelligible language. Horn said of Goethe that everywhere in him 'you are on firm land or island, nowhere the infinite sea.' It was exactly the reverse with the bulk of their modern professors of aesthetic. To change the metaphor, and to borrow a phrase, he thought from Matthew Arnold, they seemed to spend their lives in `always beating the bush and never starting a hare.' Carlyle had told them," continued Mr. Asquith, " that at one time John Sterling took to art criticism, for which he was well fitted by technical and historical knowledge. But, said his biographer, ' of all subjects this was the one I cared least to hear even Sterling talk of.' Indeed,' he added—and he (i.e., Mr. Asquith) was disposed respectfully to agree with him- ' it is a subject on which earnest men, abhorrent of hypocrisy and speech that has no meaning, are admonished to silence in this said time, and had better perambulate their picture-galleries with little or no speech.' " In spite of the fact that art criticism seems, as a rule, so barren and so wordy, so full of wild enormities in thought and language, we cannot for a moment admit that art criticism is as bad as Mr. Asquith represents it, and had better be given up altogether. On the contrary, we think that criticism in the sense of inter- pretation is more necessary in art even than in literature. If a picture, as in fact it is, is a painter's thoughts expressed in paint, then we specially need an interpreter, because to most of no the medium is so unfamiliar. A painter paints a dunghill. The public very naturally, and as we should probably say, very rightly, is ready to condemn the picture out of hand merely for its subject. The critic, however, if he is worth anything, may point out that what the artist has been trying to do is not to imitate manure, but to show bow beautifully the light falls on a moist and shiny surface. The critic will then inquire whether the actual painting—i.e., the method of expression—is good. Next, he will ask whether the subject is one worth painting, and whether it has been well treated. Probably he will come to Millet's conclusion, that though every subject may at first sight appear to be fit for a picture, every sub- ject is not, since passion is the essential of all art, and "on ne pent pas se passionner de rien,"—much less of a dung-heap. In truth, there is plenty of room for the art critic if he would only speak like a human being, and not fill his mind and his mouth with half-understood catchwords and foolish formulae. His first duty is to have no prejudices, and to look every picture straight in the face. It is not enough to say—.
"Le dessein est sec at In couleur mauvaiae,
Et ce n'est pas ainsi quo paint Paul Veronese,"
no matter whether Paul Veronese, or Velasquez, or whoever is the last fad, painted like that or not. What the world wants to know is what the painter in question had got in his head, and how he was trying to say it. Some- times, of course, the critic must say : Ladies and gentle. men, he has nothing to say, and is only gibbering ; ' but the critic who says that must be prepared to justify his words. Unfortunately, no doubt, art criticism just at present is seldom conducted on sound lines, and the last thing mentioned or thought of is the motive and intention behind the picture and its expression. Still, there is no reason why these conditions should prevail for ever. Common-sense wins in the long run, and if once common-sense is applied to art criticism, the bombast, the affectation, and the convention- ality, the present faults of art criticism, will be abandoned for honest attempts to discover what thought, if any, the painter had in his head, and how he set about the work of putting it on canvas.
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