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Notre Dame Scholastic, Vol. 22, No. 23

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Notre Dame Scholastic, Vol. 22, No. 23 DTHEllAMESHDIiASTI •I)ISCEQMSI.SEHPEI1-YICTURTIS- ^<Qfy^ 'YIYE.QMSI-CR^S-MORITITHIJS:; VOL. XXII. NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, FEBRUARV 9, 1889: No: 23. Education without aesthetics is like a sonnet- The Real Meaning- of Esthetics. without metre,—a peach without bloom,—a thrush without a voice,—a woman withoutgentle BY PROF. MAURICE FRANCIS E CAN, A.M. manners. /Esthetics does not consist of the painting of a bunch of golden rod or a sumach . (CONCLUSION.) leaf on every available spot. The young woman IV. who in search of new worlds to conquer painted True aesthetics is the seeking of beauty in a pansy on her father's bald head while he, was the life around us. A Turkish writer has said: asleep made a mistake. She probably found it " If I had two loaves of bread, I would give one out when he awoke. It consists in using and seek­ for a hyacinth, for the hyacinth would feed my ing to use the gifts God has bestowed on us in soul." There is a great deal in that. Who that order to make our lives and the lives of our. has watched the bulb of the hyacinth in its neighbors more pleasant and beautiful; it glass, at first a mere brown, clod-like thing, teaches us to value the little pleasure of .life;, change, like a buried body, at the Resurrection, it helps to put sweetness and light into, dark - to a being replete with life and beauty and per­ and gloomy days. I use sweetness and light, fume, does not feel that it is worth some self- not because Matthew Arnold used them, but denial? The creature who would not do without because when used by a-great "theologian; cen­ some luxury to buy a great book, to read a great turies before Arnold was born, they expressed . poem, to see a fine picture, to hear the organ what I mean.- , .. throb or the voice of the violin pulsate under To be an-aesthete in'the common .meaning the force of genius is nothing but a Philistine, of the word is to be a fool. It.is to. loye art half a barbarian, for his best faculties are par­ because it is fashionable; or. rather to .pretend alyzed. to love it. Not long ago, every.second house ' ^Esthetics ought to be a part of our lives. It showed a spinning-wheel in its parlor decorated is a part of the every-day life of the Christian with orange, pink,'or blue bo%vs of ribbons.- Why. Church. The Church has drawn to /ier sevvice. wa's the old-fashioned spinning-wheel given such the great masters of aesthetics in all ages. She prominence? Not because it is beautiful; not made Raphael and Murillo possible. Botticelli because it" is old and the property of a mother and Fra Ahgelico could not have existed with­ or grandmother; for these spinning-wheels are out her. She created the music of Palestrina, made by the hundred in the.furniture factories, inspired Mozart and forced Hayd'en to join her but because it suddenly became fashionable to choirs. Her ancient stained glass is the despair have American ancestors. And the spinning- of modern artists. The carving in wood in her wheels and grandfathers' clocks, bought by the old cathedrals the unapproachable models for dozen in old farm houses or made to order, were carvers of the present day. Jewels, lace, flowers put for show in conspicuous and. inappropriate were drawn to her shrines. These sham aesthetes' places. Now this, was false aesthetics. It was may praise paganism and make paeans in its all sham. If I have an old cup, an old table, honor, but true aestheticism is essentially Chris­ an old sideboard which belonged to my grand-, tian. • - . mother, it is right that, I should value it, no 374 filE NufRE DAME SCMOLAsflC. matter how ugly it is. But if I buy an old thing, will be in a position, when you enter the world, not because it is beautiful, but because it is to distinguish between the true and the false fashionable to have it, I become part of a sham. aesthetics. To buy an old and beautiful thing is commend­ In order to make a good confession, one must able; but if I buy it because it is fashionable, have committed sin. In order to acquire good not. caring whether it be beautiful or not; I fall taste, one must know what bad taste is.' It is below the level of good taste. bad taste to prefer costliness to elegance,—to The rich man who comes from Europe bring­ imagine that costlj^ things are always elegant. ing with him a miscellaneous collection of things It is bad taste to admire things because they Avhich he has purchased for the reason that he are fashionable Avithout knowing why. As per­ has been told that they are fine, and for another haps you discovered from my last lecture, I am reason—that they are dear,—is a pitiable object. not an authority on the subject of ladies' dress, In his pretence and ignorance he reminds, one but I do know that no young lady with a tip- of the old Irish adage: "A well-dressed man tilted retrousse,—or, let us put it more gently,—a without education is like a boneen with a jewel snub nose should wear a Grecian knot. Why? in his ear." A bonec7i,xa.y friends, is a little pig; Because this fashion of wearing the hair was perhaps you know it in French as cochon. Riches invented by the Greeks, a people who were more cannot bu}?^ culture when the fine instinct does particular about the form and the fitness of not exist; nor can they obtain true aesthetics things than even the F*renich, who are the real through old clocks made last year in New Jer­ modern Greeks in spirit. You will find in the sey, or somebody else's old spinningrwheels. famous head of the Clytie an example of this To be" aesthetic," in the true sense, one must be style of hair-dressing now so fashionable. You honest and sincere; not afraid to confess that one will observe, however, that she has not a nose likes a simple and common thing, and not afraid "tip-tilted like a flower." The Grecian knot was to give one's reasons for such a liking. For invented to accompany the Grecian nose. And myself, I have been in houses which were pal­ the young lady with a Roman or a retrousse nose aces in which I was unhappy. And I have been who adopts the Grecian knot because it is the in little houses which were anything but palaces fashion errs against perfect taste. For the sesthet- and I have been very happy. The house which ics. of dress are worth considering if you con­ is like a museum, where a flamboyant copy of sider dress at all. And even in small things it is one of Rubens's Mary Magdalens jostles the best to be correct. Mercury of Praxitiles, where solferino-colored V. cushions bought at a "fancy" shop and Japanese screens, imitation armor and modern stained It is bad taste, when you are" permitted to glass make confusion,—where a goblet carved hear good singing, to admire and to think of by Cellini, a lion of Bar3'-e's and a tambourine the costumes of t\\e.prima donna, or at a-fine play painted with sunflowers repose side by side to consider the question whether the actress's near the, inevitable spinning-wheel, and where dresses are by Worth, or not, as of as much impor­ everything says: "All this cost money."—that tance as her delivery of the words. It seems to me is a vulgar house. to be bad taste not to choose religious pictures There:,are probably more rich sav^ages in and statues with some regard to the rules of America than anvwhere else, for the reason that art. It is a large part of the pretentious aesthet­ many of, our rich people have not yet learned ics of our time to dwell more on the effect than that one of the greatest privileges wealth gives on the cause,—to think more of the attitude of, them is that of exercising good taste to-the the Mater Dolorosa oi Carlo Dolce than of the utmost. .A rich woman can afford to be ele­ ineffable woe her face expresses,—to rave about gant and simple. But too often she does not the opaline color of Fra Angelico's angels and understand this. She glitters with diamonds in to think nothing of the fervent religious spirit the morning and walks in the streets in gowns which created them. But some of us Catholics that, in Europe, no decent woman would wear are prone to go to the other extreme. The unless she rode in a carriage.. But this will be gaudiest religious print is good enough for us. changed when we become more civilized; when And while we revere unspeakably the Passion we learn that the possession of riches does not of Our Lord, we keep in our. oratories cruci­ makeipeople worthy of respect and admiration, fixes whose workmanship the most.untutored but tha.t-they must deserve it in other ways. Tyrolean peasant would not tolerate. I have - With your advantages of home training and seen pictures of Our Blessed Lady which were the incomparable training you receive here, you positively sacrilegious.
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