Read Ebook: Rajalahden torppa: Kertomus viimeisestä Suomen sodasta by Berg J O Johan Olof

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"A primrose on the river's brim A yellow primrose is to him And it is nothing more."

But to the artist

"The meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

And it is these thoughts that he cares to express and not the visible truth about the flower. A writer was walking along the streets of Paris on a day in early March.

"It was dark and rather cold. I was gloomy, and walked because I had nothing to do. I passed by some flowers placed breast-high upon a wall. A jonquil in bloom was there. It is the strongest expression of desire: it was the first perfume of the year. I felt all the happiness destined for man. This unutterable harmony of souls, the phantom of the ideal world, arose in me complete. I never felt anything so great or so instantaneous. I know not what shape, what analogy, what secret of relation it was that made me see in this flower a limitless beauty. . . . I shall never enclose in a conception this power, this immensity that nothing will express; this form that nothing will contain; this ideal of a better world which one feels, but which it would seem that nature has not made."

And if S?nancour had set himself to paint his jonquil as he has written about it, how that tender flower would have been transfigured and glorified!

What the artist aims to render is not the rose but the beauty of the rose, his sense of one chord in the universal harmony which the rose sounds for him, not that only, but the beauty of all roses that ever were or ever shall be; and inevitably he will select such colors and such lines as bring that special and interpreted beauty into relief, and so make manifest to the beholder what was revealed to his own higher vision, by virtue of which, and not because of any exceptional technical skill, he is an artist.

ART AND APPRECIATION

It may be that some reader of the foregoing pages will attempt to apply the principles therein set forth to the pictures shown in the next exhibition he happens to attend. It is more than probable that in his first efforts he will be disappointed. For the principles discussed have dealt with art in its authentic manifestations; and not every painter is an artist, not every picture is a work of art.

At the very outset it should be said that an exhibition of paintings as ordinarily made up is confusing and wholly illogical. We may suppose that a volume to be read through in one sitting of two hours is placed in the hands of an intelligent reader. The book consists of essays, poems, short stories, and dramatic dialogue, each within the compass of a few pages, each contributed by a different writer as an example of his work for the year. We may suppose now that the reader is asked to gather from this volume, read hastily and either superficially or in random bits, some idea of the significance of each author and of the import and scope of contemporary American literature. Is it a fair test? This volume, we may further suppose, is practically the only means by which the writer can get his work before the public. A public means a purchaser, and of course the writer must live. Is it reasonable to think that every number contributed to such a volume will be a work of art, wrought with singleness of heart and in loving devotion to an ideal? There are still with us those who "work for money" and those who "work for fame." There are those who believe in "giving the public what it wants," and the numbers they contribute to the yearly volumes are samples of the sort of thing they do, from which the public may order. In the table of contents stand celebrated names; and to the work of such men, perhaps, will turn the seeker after what he thinks ought to be the best, not realizing that these are the men who have known how to "give the people what they want," that the people do not always want the good and right thing, and that it is somewhat the habit of genius to dispense with contemporary recognition. If there is here or there in the book an essay or a poem the product of thought and effort and offered in all seriousness, how little chance it has of being appreciated, except by a few, even if it is remarked at all in the jumble of miscellaneous contributions.

This hypothetical volume is a fair parallel of an annual exhibition of paintings. In such an exhibition the number of works of art, the true, inevitable expression of a new message, is relatively small. The most celebrated and most popular painters are not necessarily by that fact great artists, or indeed artists at all. Contemporary judgment is notoriously liable to go astray. The gods of one generation are often the laughing stock of the next; the idols of the fathers are torn down and trampled under foot by the children. Some spirits there have been of liberal promise who have not been able to withstand the demands made upon them by early popular approval. Such is the struggle and soul's tragedy which is studied convincingly in Mr. Zangwill's novel, "The Master." No assault on the artist's integrity is so insidious as immediate favor, which in its turn begets the fatal desire to please.

To the "successful" painters, however, are for the most part accorded the places of honor on academy walls. The canvases of these men are seen first by the visitor; but they are not all. There are other pictures which promise neither better nor worse. Here are paintings of merit, good in color and good in drawing, but empty of any meaning. Scattered through the exhibition are the works of a group of able men, imitating themselves, each trying to outdo the others by a display of cleverness in solving some "painter's problem" or by some startling effect of subject or handling. But it is a sad day for any artist when he ceases to find his impulse and inspiration either in his own spirit or in nature, and when he looks to his fellow craftsmen for the motive of his work. Again, there are pictures by men who, equipped with adequate technical skill, have caught the manner of a master, and mistaking the manner for the message it was simply intended to express, they degrade it into a mannerism and turn out a product which people do not distinguish from the authentic utterances of the master. The artist is a seer and prophet, the channel of divine influences: the individual painter, sculptor, writer, is a very human being.

As he looks over these walls, clamorous of the commonplace and the commercial, the seeker after what is good and true in art realizes how very few of these pictures have been rendered in the spirit of love and joy. The painter has one eye on his object and one eye on the public; and too often, as a distinguished actor once said of the stage manager whose vision is divided between art and the box office, the painter is a one-eyed man.

A painter once refused to find anything to interest him, still less to move him, in a silent street with a noble spire detaching itself vaguely from the luminous blue depths of a midnight sky, because, he said, "People won't buy dark things, so what's the use? You might as well do bright, pretty things that they will buy, and that are just as easy to make." A portrait-painter gives up landscape subjects because, as he does not hesitate to declare, it hurts his business. And the painters themselves are not altogether to blame for this attitude towards their work. The fault lies half with the people who buy pictures, having the money, and who have not a gleam of understanding of the meaning of art. A woman who had ordered her house to be furnished and decorated expensively, remarked to a caller who commented on a water-color hanging in the drawing-room: "Yes, I think it matches the wall-paper very nicely." When such is the purpose of those who paint pictures and such is the understanding of those who buy them, it is not surprising that not every picture is inevitably a work of art.

But what is the poor seeker after art to do? The case is by no means hopeless. In current exhibitions a few canvases strike a new note; and by senses delicately attuned this note can be distinguished within the jangle of far louder and popular tunes ground out, as it were, by the street-piano. Seriously to study contemporary painting, however, the logical opportunity is furnished by the exhibitions of the works of single men or of small groups. As the reader who wishes to understand an author or perhaps a school does not content himself with random extracts, but instead isolates the man for the moment and reads his work consecutively and one book in its relation to his others; so the student of pictures can appreciate the work and understand the significance of a given painter only as he sees a number of his canvases together and in relation. So, he is able to gather something of the man's total meaning.

Widely different from annual exhibitions, too, are galleries and museums; for here the proportion of really good things is immeasurably larger. In the study of masterpieces, it need hardly be said, the amateur may exercise judgment and moderation. He should not try to do too much at one time, for he can truly appreciate only as he enters fully into the spirit of the work and allows it to possess him. To achieve this sympathy and understanding within the same hour for more than a very few great works is manifestly impossible. Such appreciation involves fundamentally a quick sensitiveness to the appeal and the variously expressive power of color and line and form. To win from the picture its fullest meaning, the observer may bring to bear some knowledge of the artist who produced it and of the age and conditions in which he lived. But in the end he must surrender himself to the work of art, bringing to it his intellectual equipment, his store of sensuous and emotional experience, his entire power of being moved.

For when all is said, there is no single invariable standard by which to try a work of art: its significance to the appreciator rests upon his capacity at the moment to receive it. "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it." The appreciator need simply ask himself, "What has this work to reveal to me of beauty that I have not perceived for myself? I shall not look for the pretty and the agreeable. But what of new significance, energy, life, has this work to express to me? I will accept no man entirely and unquestioningly, I will condemn no one unheard. No man has the whole truth; every man has some measure of the truth, however small. Let it be my task to find it and to separate it from what is unessential and false. In my search for what is true, I will conserve my integrity and maintain my independence. And I shall recognize my own wherever I may find it."

"Man is the measure of all things," declared an ancient philosopher. And his teaching has not been superseded to-day. The individual is the creator of his own universe; he is the focus of the currents and forces of his world. The meaning of all things is subjective. So the measure of beauty in life for a man is determined by his capacity to receive and understand. Thus it is that a man's joy in experience and his appreciation of art in any of its manifestations are conditioned by the opportunity that nature or art furnishes for his spirit to exercise itself. In the reading of poetry, for example, we seek the expression of ourselves. Our first emotion is, perhaps, a simple, unreflecting delight, the delight which a butterfly must feel among the flowers or that of a child playing in the fields under the warm sun; it is a delight wholly physical,--pure sensation. A quick taking of the breath, the escape of a sigh, inarticulate and uncritical, are the only expression we can find at that instant for what we feel: as when an abrupt turn of the road spreads out before us a landscape of which we had not dreamed, or we enter for the first time the presence of the Apollo Belvedere. We know simply that we are pleased. But after nerves have ceased to tingle so acutely, we begin to think; and we seek to give account to ourselves of the beauty which for the moment we could but feel. Once arrived at the attitude of reflection, we find that the poetry which affects us most and to which we oftenest return is the poetry that contains the record of our own experience, but heightened, the poetry which expresses our desires and aspirations, that in which we recognize ourselves elevated and idealized. In so far as we see in it the ennobled image of our own nature, so far it has power to hold us and to stir us.

An elementary manifestation of the tendency to seek in art the record of our own experience is seen in the popularity of those pictures whose subjects are familiar and can be immediateniille tyt?lle!"

"Mutta... mutta..." ?nkytti Onni nolona, "vanha Yrj? ei siihen suostu!"

"Miksi ei?"

"Siksi ett? min? olen k?yh?."

"Se vanha kettu. Mutta kyll? min? opetan h?net suostumaan."

Ja n?in sanoen l?ksi reipas v??peli onkaloon p?in.

Toisena p?iv?n? juuri ennen l?ht?? meni Onni j?lleen l?ntiselle rannalle luoden kaipaavia katseita hauskaa pikku torppaa kohti. Seisoessaan siin? syviss? ajatuksissaan huomasi h?n ?kki? pienen aluksen l?henev?n saarta. Se liiti nopeasti juuri kohti sit? paikkaa, miss? Onni seisoi.

Suuri oli Onnin h?mm?stys, kun h?n veneen tultua l?hemm?ksi huomasi soutajan naiseksi. Voimakkain vedoin h?n souti kohti rantaa. Vihdoin h?n tunsi siin? istujan Vappu-muoriksi.

"Jotakin on varmaan tapahtunut, koska eukko noin rient??", ajatteli Onni itsekseen. "Mutta mit??"

Pian kolahti veneen kokka rantaan, ja yhdell? hypp?yksell? oli Vappu-muori maalla.

"Mit? n?en, Onni", huudahti h?n iloisena. "No, olipa hyv?, ett? sinut tapasin. Minulla on sinulle oikein t?rke?? ilmoitettavaa. Mutta katsoppa miten mitali sinua kaunistaa. On varmaa, ett? Yrj?nkin suu on hyv?ll? paikalla, jahka saa sinut n?hd?."

"Luuletteko niin, Vappu-muori?" kysyi Onni, ja h?nen entinen hilpeytens? alkoi palata.

"Luulen kyll?kin, mutta nyt minulla on pieni uutinen sinulle kerrottavana."

Samassa tuli eukon ilme niin vakavaksi, ett? Onni pelj?styen huudahti:

"Mit? sitten on tapahtunut, Vappu, koska olette niin ylen juhlallisen n?k?inen?"

"Niin, Yrj? tahtoo heti naittaa Ilman Pekkalan Eerikille."

"Pekkalan Eerikille", huudahti Yrj? h?mm?styneen?, "milloin on ollut puhetta siit??"

"Heti l?hdetty?si sotaan." Ja Vappu kuvasi tarkoin k?yntins? Rajalahden torpassa vakuuttaen, ett? Ilmaan ei pysty Yrj? Kinnusen enemm?n kuin Pekkalan Eerikink??n rukoukset. "Siksi ei sinun tarvitse ollenkaan pelj?t?", sanoi h?n lopuksi, "ett? tuo kitupiikki veisi h?net sinulta."

Eukon viimeisiss? sanoissa oli sellainen ??nenpaino, ett? se sai Onnin levottomaksi. H?n kysyi sen vuoksi:

"Miksi puhutte niin, Vappu-muori? Onko mit??n muuta tapahtunut?"

"No, poikaseni, ?l?h?n pelj?sty, ei kai se ole niin vaarallista. No niin, kuulehan sitten. Poikettuani sotilastorpasta mets?polulle n?in v?kijoukon, joka piiloutui pensaihin. Huomasin selv?sti, ett? se oli sotav?ke?, mutta en voinut ensiksi huomata, olivatko ne ven?l?isi? vaiko suomalaisia. Pian kuitenkin tunsin heid?t vihollisiksi. K?tkeydyin niin hyvin kuin voin ja huomasin nyt punatukka Niilon noin kahdenkymmenen sotilaan etunen?ss? kulkevan Yrj? Kinnusen kotia kohti. Min?..."

"Niilon", keskeytti Onni jyrisev?ll? ??nell?. "Niin, tuo konna on tullut salmen poikki ja viholliset h?nen mukanaan!"

"Niin, Onni, se on totinen tosi. N?hty?ni tuon heitti?n vihollisten joukossa aavistin h?nell? olevan konnanjuonia. P??tin sen vuoksi ilmoittaa v??pelille vaarasta ja nyt olenkin kohdannut sinut. Oli onni, sill?..."

"Kiitos, kiitos, Vappu-muori!" huudahti Onni ja tarttui eukon molempiin k?siin. "Jos onnistun p??sem??n kaikista koetuksista, jotka ovat edess?ni, on teill? oleva leip?? ja lepoa kuolinp?iv??nne asti."

"En tee sit? oman voittoni vuoksi", vastasi kelpo eukko, "vaan siksi ett? pid?n sinusta ja Ilmasta ja vihaan pahuutta. Mutta nyt kiiruhda sinne mahdollisimman nopeasti!"

N?in sanoen Vappu-eukko riensi j?lleen veneeseen, viittasi yst?v?llisesti j??hyv?isiksi ja sousi kaikin voimin mantereelle.

Onni taasen kiiruhti mahdollisimman nopeasti v??peli Rothin luo ja selvitti muutamin sanoin mit? eukko oli kertonut ja lausui pelk??v?ns?, ett? punatukka Niilo p??sisi ennen heit?.

"Ole rauhassa, poikani", vastasi v??peli levollisena, "ennen meit? h?n ei p??se."

Hetkisen kuluttua oli suurin osa Rothin joukosta matkalla mantereelle.

Pekkalan Eerikin huuto: "Herra Jumala, ven?l?isi?, ven?l?isi?", oli kovin kauhistuttanut Yrj? Kinnusta ja Ilmaa, mutta ainoastaan hetkiseksi.

"Ah, se ei varmaankaan ole niin vaarallista", vastasi vanha soturi hieman toinnuttuaan, "miss? niit? on?"

"Tuolla, tuolla", huusi Pekkalan Eerikki ja viittasi pieneen puutarhatilkkuun. "Kas vaan, tuolla ne tulevat."

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