In Search of the Miraculous

"You must first of all remember that there are two kinds of art, one quite different from the other—objective art and subjective art. All that

you know, all that you call art, is subjective art, that is, something that I do not call art at all because it is only objective art that I call art.

"To define what I call objective art is difficult first of all because you ascribe to subjective art the characteristics of objective art, and secondly because when you

happen upon objective works of art you take them as being on the same level as

subjective works of art.

"I will try to make my idea clear. You say—an artist creates. I say this only in connection with objective art. In relation to subjective art I say that with him 'it is

created.' You do not differentiate between these, but this is where the whole

difference lies. Further you ascribe to subjective art an invariable action, that is, you expect works of subjective art to have the same reaction on everybody. You think, for

instance, that a funeral march should provoke in everyone sad and solemn thoughts

and that any dance music, a komarinsky for instance, will provoke happy thoughts.

But in actual fact this is not so at all. Everything depends upon association. If on a day that a great misfortune happens to me I hear some lively tune for the first time this

tune will evoke in me sad and oppressive thoughts for my whole life afterwards. And

if on a day when I am particularly happy I hear a sad tune, this tune will always evoke

happy thoughts. And so with everything else.

"The difference between objective art and subjective art is that in objective art the artist really does 'create,' that is, he makes what he intended, he puts into his work

whatever ideas and feelings he wants to put into it. And the action of this work upon

men is absolutely definite;

they will, of course each according to his own level, receive the same ideas and the

same feelings that the artist wanted to transmit to them. There can be nothing

accidental either in the creation or in the impressions of objective art.

"In subjective art everything is accidental. The artist, as I have already said, does not create; with him 'it creates itself.' This means that he is in the power of ideas,

thoughts, and moods which he himself does not understand and over which he has no

control whatever. They rule him and they express themselves in one form or another.

And when they have accidentally taken this or that form, this form just as accidentally

produces on man this or that action according to his mood, tastes, habits, the nature of

the hypnosis under which he lives, and so on. There is nothing invariable; nothing is

definite here. In objective art there is nothing indefinite."

"Would not art disappear in being definite in this way?" asked one of us. "And is not a certain indefiniteness, elusiveness, exactly what distinguishes art from, let us

say, science? If this indefiniteness is taken away, if you take away the fact that the

artist himself does not know what he will obtain or what impression his work will

produce on people, it will then be a 'book' and not art."

"I do not know what you are talking about," said G. "We have different standards: I measure the merit of art by its consciousness and you measure it by its

unconsciousness. We cannot understand one another. A work of objective art ought to be a 'book' as you. call it; the only difference is that the artist transmits his ideas not directly through words or signs or hieroglyphs, but through certain feelings which he

excites consciously and in an orderly way, knowing what he is doing and why he does

it."

"Legends," said one of those present, "have been preserved of statues of gods in ancient Greek temples, for example the statue of Zeus at Olympia, which produced

upon everybody a definite and always identical impression."

"Quite true," said G., "and even the fact that such stories exist shows that people understood that the difference between real and unreal art lay precisely in this, an

invariable or else an accidental action."

"Can you not indicate other works of objective art?" "Is there anything that it is possible to call objective in contemporary art?" "When was the last objective work of art created?" Nearly everyone present began to put these and similar questions to G.

"Before speaking of this," said G., "principles must be understood. If you grasp the principles you will be able to answer these questions yourselves. But if you do not

grasp them nothing that I may say will explain anything to you. It was exactly about

this that it was said—they will see with their eyes and will not perceive, they will hear with their ears and will not understand.

"I will cite you one example only—music. Objective music is all based on 'inner

octaves.' And it can obtain not only definite psychological results but definite physical results. There can be such music as would freeze water. There can be such music as