登陆注册
5262000000013

第13章 IV. MEN AND ART.(3)

As practiced by women alone we have one of the clearest proofs of the degrading effect of masculine dominance:--the dancing girl. In the frank sensualism of the Orient, this personage is admired and enjoyed on her merits. We, more sophisticated in this matter, joke shamefacedly about "the bald-headed row," and occasionally burst forth in shrill scandal over some dinner party where ladies clad in a veil and a bracelet dance on the table. Nowhere else in the whole range of life on earth, is this degradation found--the female capering and prancing before the male. It is absolutely and essentially his function, not hers. That we, as a race, present this pitiful spectacle, a natural art wrested to unnatural ends, a noble art degraded to ignoble ends, has one clear cause.

Architecture, in its own nature, is least affected by that same cause.

The human needs secured by it, are so human, so unescapably human, that we find less trace of excessive masculinity than in other arts. It meets our social demands, it expresses in lasting form our social feeling, up to the highest; and it has been injured not so much by an excess of masculinity as by a lack of femininity.

The most universal architectural expression is in the home; the home is essentially a place for the woman and the child; yet the needs of woman and child are not expressed in our domestic architecture. The home is built on lines of ancient precedent, mainly as an industrial form; the kitchen is its working centre rather than the nursery.

Each man wishes his home to preserve and seclude his woman, his little harem of one; and in it she is to labor for his comfort or to manifest his ability to maintain her in idleness. The house is the physical expression of the limitations of women; and as such it fills the world with a small drab ugliness. A dwelling house is rarely a beautiful object. In order to be such, it should truly express simple and natural relations; or grow in larger beauty as our lives develop.

The deadlock for architectural progress, the low level of our general taste, the everlasting predominance of the commonplace in buildings, is the natural result of the proprietary family and its expression in this form.

In sculpture we have a noble art forcing itself into some service through many limitations. Its check, as far as it comes under this line of study, has been indicated in our last chapter; the degradation of the human body, the vicious standards of sex-consciousness enforced under the name of modesty, the covered ugliness, which we do not recognize, all this is a deadly injury to free high work in sculpture.

With a nobly equal womanhood, stalwart and athletic; with the high standards of beauty and of decorum which we can never have without free womanhood; we should show a different product in this great art.

An interesting note in passing is this: when we seek to express socially our noblest, ideas, Truth; Justice; Liberty; we use the woman's body as the highest human type. But in doing this, the artist, true to humanity and not biassed by sex, gives us a strong, grand figure, beautiful indeed, but never _decorated_. Fancy Liberty in ruffles and frills, with rings in her ears--or nose.

Music is injured by a one-sided handling, partly in the excess of the one dominant masculine passion, partly by the general presence of egoism; that tendency to self-expression instead of social expression, which so disfigures our art; and this is true also of poetry.

Miles and miles of poetry consist of the ceaseless outcry of the male for the female, which is by no means so overwhelming as a feature of human life as he imagines it; and other miles express his other feelings, with that ingenuous lack of reticence which is at its base essentially masculine. Having a pain, the poet must needs pour it forth, that his woe be shared and sympathized with.

As more and more women writers flock into the field there is room for fine historic study of the difference in sex feeling, and the gradual emergence of the human note.

Literature, and in especial the art of fiction, is so large a field for this study that it will have a chapter to itself; this one but touching on these various forms; and indicating lines of observation.

That best known form of art which to my mind needs no qualifying description--painting--is also a wide field; and cannot be done full justice to within these limits. The effect upon it of too much masculinity is not so much in choice of subject as in method and spirit.

The artist sees beauty of form and color where the ordinary observer does not; and paints the old and ugly with as much enthusiasm as the young and beautiful--sometimes. If there is in some an over-emphasis of feminine attractions it is counterbalanced in others by a far broader line of work.

But the main evils of a too masculine art lie in the emphasis laid on self-expression. The artist, passionately conscious of how he feels, strives to make other people aware of these sensations. This is now so generally accepted by critics, so seriously advanced by painters, that what is called "the art world" accepts it as established.

If a man paints the sea, it is not to make you see and feel as a sight of that same ocean would, but to make you see and feel how he, personally, was affected by it; a matter surely of the narrowest importance. The ultra-masculine artist, extremely sensitive, necessarily, and full of the natural urge to expression of the sex, uses the medium of art as ingenuously as the partridge-cock uses his wings in drumming on the log; or the bull moose stamps and bellows; not narrowly as a mate call, but as a form of expression of his personal sensations.

The higher the artist the more human he is, the broader his vision, the more he sees for humanity, and expresses for humanity, and the less personal, the less ultra-masculine, is his expression.

同类推荐
  • 无生诀经

    无生诀经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 医学妙谛

    医学妙谛

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 释门归敬仪通真记

    释门归敬仪通真记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 太上洞玄灵宝救苦妙经

    太上洞玄灵宝救苦妙经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 俱舍论记

    俱舍论记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 我就是那个女配

    我就是那个女配

    孟蝶在古城淘到一本旧书,穿越成了里面的一个女配。命运天定?我呸!!可她穿剥开重重烟幕,才发现原来一切都是一场利用。且看她遇神杀神,遇佛杀佛,连自己都杀!又名《仙杯记》
  • 庄子(中华国学经典)

    庄子(中华国学经典)

    《庄子》分“内篇”、“外篇”、“杂篇”三个部分。相传“内篇”全为庄周所著;“外篇”和“杂篇”有的出自庄周门人或庄子学派之人之手。《庄子》注释本较多,以清末郭庆藩《庄子集释》最为详明。本书即采用该书为底本。注释根据语境用白话解释,力求简明扼要;翻译根据注释采用直译的方法进行,力求保持原意和文句的晓畅。本书在注、译中因本人水平所限,难免出现讹误。恳切地希望有关专家、学者、读者多提宝贵意见。
  • 穿越娇妃太嚣张

    穿越娇妃太嚣张

    一朝穿越,她来到波谲云诡的后宫如不是怀了皇嗣,皇上要了她的命弄清后宫时局,她展开疯狂报复后宫与她为敌者,皆败下阵来她步步为营稳操胜券揭开良妃的真面目,冷帝才明了当初冤枉了她冷帝想方设法讨她欢心,她欲擒故纵却不知对冷帝动了情…
  • 我的青春你的城

    我的青春你的城

    卓燕是个粗线条的女生。面对着外冷内热的张一迪和对她流露出特殊好感的江山,她陷入了青春的迷局。青春年少的时光,那最美好的年华里,你有没有过一个心爱的人?你把ta藏在心底,为ta欢笑,为ta流泪,为ta改变自己,为ta做各种傻事。也许最终,你和ta并没有在一起。到了多年以后,再回首时,你,是不是还一样的爱着ta?每个女人都在寻找一座叫做“张一迪”的城……
  • 总裁的抢手小女人

    总裁的抢手小女人

    “爸爸……爸爸……你不要这样……我是你的女儿……我是你的亲生女儿……”她的小手四处飞舞,眼底有着惊悚的泪水。醉醺醺的父亲竟然压在她的身上,大为惊骇的南宫雪拼命挣扎,努力推挡,“不要……”大叫一声的她猛地坐起,这才发现自己紧紧的抓着被子,身上的睡衣已经汗湿,那种恐慌绝望的感觉布满了她大汗淋漓而又苍白的小脸。噩梦再一次重现!如果记忆可以抹杀,那么她愿意让两年前的一幕成……
  • 东方兵圣:孙武(创造历史的风云人物)

    东方兵圣:孙武(创造历史的风云人物)

    名人创造了历史,名人改写了历史,那些走在时代最前列、深深影响和推动了历史进程的名人永远会被广大人民所拥戴、所尊重、所铭记。古往今来,有多少中外名人不断地涌现在人们的目光里,这些出类拔萃、彪炳千古、流芳百世的名人中,有家国天下的政治家,有叱咤风云的军事家,有超乎凡人的思想家,有妙笔生花的文学家,有造福人类的科学家,有想象非凡的艺术家……他们永远不会被人们忘记!
  • 大沩五峰学禅师语录

    大沩五峰学禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 怡情绝恋

    怡情绝恋

    此文原名《花似雪》,是侠王胤祥的传奇爱情故事,喜欢的朋友请进来~第一卷怡然素心初相照第二卷诺言旖旎晓梦寒第三卷千回百转情意浓第四卷年过春回心依然——*————*————*————*————*————*————*——玉宇薰风,宝阶明月,翠丛万点晴雪。炼霜不就,散广寒霏屑。采珠蓓、绿萼露滋,嗔银艳、小莲冰洁。花痕在,纤指嫩痕,素英重结。枝头香未绝。还是过中秋,丹桂时节。醉乡冷境,怕翻成悄歇。玩芳味、春焙旋熏,贮农韵、水沈频爇。堪怜处,输与夜凉睡蝶。——*————*————*————*————*————*————*——“你看,这颗水滴,多像一滴眼泪。”“为什么是眼泪?难道它不能是别的什么?比如珍珠,比如水晶……”“那些东西都是无情的,只有眼泪,带着情。”“哦,是的,只有眼泪,是有情的,可是有情,又怎么有泪?”“伤情,绝情,不都会有泪吗?”“伤情,绝情,应是无情,无情,应无泪。”“哦,有情,又爱,有幸福,也会有泪,那是幸福的眼泪。”“茉儿,我会让你幸福,但不会让你有泪。”胤祥牵过她的手,把冰凉的指尖含在口中,那一丝冰凉顿时沁入心脾。——*————*————*————*————*————*————*——她是今世的天之骄女,文采斐然,商情卓绝。他是大清王朝的龙子,圣学渊源,风流倜傥。曾几何时,她从这个时空莫名的穿越,只为不老的诺言,还他一朝相守的美梦。曾几何时,他执意留在那个空间,不肯轮回,只为等待那一刻的花前月下。“不要来寻我,你只要好好的活着,便是给我最好的安慰。”他看着她哀伤的眼神,沙哑的说。“不,无论你是尊贵的贝勒,还是阶下囚,我都会跟着你。”“傻瓜……”他伸出手去,却握不住她冰凉的小手。“你到底是谁?为何这样伤我的心?”他痛苦的看着她,不敢面对这样的背叛。“我不是谁,我只是那个等在千年之外的一支孤魂……”长剑横过,鲜血如桃花绽放,她哀伤的倒下去,目光中依然是浓浓的爱意。……——*————*————*————*————*————*————*——酒阑娇惰抱琵琶,茉莉新堆两鬓鸦。消受香风在良夜,枕边俱是助情花。——*————*————*————*————*————*————*——广告区:推荐我自己的红楼V文《红楼惊梦之黛灵》给大家一个玄幻武侠版的林妹妹
  • 破九天

    破九天

    武林绝顶高手洛风,因挚爱病故,心灰意冷之下,带着挚爱自绝于天山中。五百年后,天降异像,使天机紊乱,让神州大地天翻地覆。再过一千五百年,天山之巅,洛风竟破冰重生。
  • 农业经济法学

    农业经济法学

    本书主要内容和结构是:全书垠据当下我国农业、农村经济去律体系和内容编排,主要包括:农业和农村经济民事关系(或称农业和农村民事经济关系)、农业和农村经济行政关系以及农业和农村经济管理关系。全书共十章,各章分别是:第一章,农业经济法概述;第二章,农业基本法研究;第三章,农业科技、教育与农业技术推广法研究;第四章,土地管理法研究;第五章,农村土地承包法研究;第六章,农村企业法研究;第七章,农村税收以及农民负担问题法律研究;第八章,农业产业法律研究;第九章,农业环境资源法研究;第十章,食品卫生和农业生产安全的法律研究。此外,另设,“农业知识产权研究”为附录。