The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14,
December 1858, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858

Author: Various

Release Date: May 2, 2007 [EBook #21273]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. II.--DECEMBER, 1858.--NO. XIV.

THE IDEAL TENDENCY.

We are all interested in Art; yet few of us have taken pains to justify
the delight we feel in it. No philosophy can win us away from
Shakspeare, Plato, Angelo, Beethoven, Goethe, Phidias,--from the masters
of sculpture, painting, music, and metaphor. Their truth is larger than
any other,--too large to be stated directly and lodged in systems,
theories, definitions, or formulas. They suggest and assure to us what
cannot be spoken. They communicate life, because they do not endeavor to
measure life. Philosophy will present the definite; Art refers always to
the vast,--to that which cannot be comprehended, but only enjoyed and
adored. Art is the largest expression. It is not, like Science, a basket
in which meat and drink may be carried, but a hand which points toward
the sky. Our eyes follow its direction, and our souls follow our eyes.
Man needs only to be shown an open space. He will rise into it with
instant expansion. We are made partakers of that illimitable energy.
Only poetry can give account of poetry, only Art can justify Art; and we
cannot hope to speak finally of this elastic Truth, to draw a circle
around that which is vital, because it has in it something of
infinity,--but we may hope to remove a doubt growing out of the very
largeness which exalts and refreshes us. Art is not practical. It offers
no precept, but lies abroad like Nature, not to be grasped and
exhausted. Neither is it anxious about its own reception, as though any
m