Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1885-03-18
THE MORALITY OF ART.
Professor HOppin's Lecture at the A
school Yesterday.

THE MORAA OF ART
Professor Hoppin's Lecture at the Art |
school Yesterday.
Professor Hoppin in his lecture at the Art |
school yesterday touched upon the topic of |
morals in art
I confess, he said, that there is much in |
our modern and so-called Christian art which |
fairly loathe, much that is absolutely i'm
moral but what is immoral is not art at all,
and this is an important distinction which
should be ever kept in mind, since the best
thing on earth may be travestied and falsi-
fed
The subject of the morality of art, how
ever, is too large q. one to be summarily
treated, and must be reserved for another
occasion. But will here say that, oddly
enough it is in Christian lands and times
that the morality of art has been most seri-
ously impugned. The grotesque coarseness
of ancient art, even the grossest, cannot be-
gin to compare with the lewdness, the subtle,
diabolic spirit of impurity of some modern
pictures chiefly of the French school, which
school in technique and otherwise has many
admirable qualities.
The ancients were more truly aesthetic
and understood the principles of
art better than we do, and therefore they
violated these everlasting principles of truth
and purity less frequently than we do.
Their artistic intuition prevented this
Their works almost always possess dignity.
The lascivious art of later Roman days, as
exhibited in what has been found in Pompeii
and Italy, is no fair exponent of Greek or true
r. - Gy~rrs- A1c
worst poems are of true English poetry.
The fact of the impure character of some
modern pictures and works of art of
Christian lands is not the fault of
Christianity God forbid whose mission it is
to elevate whatever it touches. Christianity
is free from this charge; though I think that
the failure on the part of Christian teachers
of making intelligent, broad and clear dis
tinctions between right and wrong, the true
and the false, and bringing these ethical
distinctions to bear upon the hearts and con-
duct of men, has had something to do with
dulling the popular moral sense, and raising
false issues in the religious sentiment of the
community. But just at this present time
there exists certain manneristic and i'm
pressionist school of art as well as of poetry
in England and France which, notwithstand-
ing its brilliancy and marked individuality
of genius, has had, I confess, together with
the naterialistic philosophy of the times, q
decided tendency to make art thing of the
senses, exquisitely refined though this mate
rialism be, to make it sensual, SO that
all its fascinating loneliness cannot save it.
say ito make art sensual" that is the word,
because recent writer in the New York
Tribune, who processes to talk learnedly- on
the subject, commits b1under, or at least,
fails in just discrimination of ideas, when he
says that art is made immoral by making it
realistic, for the real is no more essentially
immoral than the ideal, and is as important
| an element in art as the ideal, and, in fact,
forms its basis. The real cannot be left out
| of art without destroying it, though it may be
| introduced in undue proportions, and art
may be rendered ugly by not being mixed
| with the ideal and finer poetic element.
This impressionist school is not only in
some of it's features unchristian but false;
| whereas true art is a genuine thing, its roots
are spiritual and divine; it is one of the God
given instincts of humanity. Though be-
| longing to the more attractive and pleasing
| side of the mind it is as noble and indestruct-
| ible an expression of the human mind as is
| literature or science.
| I would condense and adapt very COM
| pact argument to prove the morality of art
| and leave it for the present. This is the ar
gument in nutshell:
A poet in Iawless frame of mind may see
| fit to praise an igneble type of sentiment, or a
| painter to beautify subjects drawn from the
base and sensual regions of human life. But
blemish constitute at the same time an artis-
| tic blemish. To answer this question we
must clearly go back to some fundamental
conception of art. Now, psychological in
| quiry, taken in the broad sense, tells us that
art is essentially the product of social,
not personal taste or instinct; that it is
something intended to be seen, admired and
enjoyed by many; that it only appeal to
emotions that are common to society
and which moreover express them
selves in mass. that is, in a public
| and sympathetic form; and that since no
| immoral, that is anti-social sentiment, can
permanently express itself in this concerted
| form, art has to avoid the immoral as one
| branch of the inartistic. What is immoral,
| therefore, is not, and never can be, art.
Art is not morality, nor is it religion, but
partakes of both. True art is humble. It
does not vaunt its superiority over religion
but is and is willing to be its servant-to aid
it in all lowly and loving ways of worship
and life, and any attempt from any quarter
to thrust art entirely out of religion and to
brand it with irreligion and immortality,
to call it pagan a term of indignity, is
irrational and vain. It is serving the cause
of untruth and cannot stand before the
light.
The subject of the lecture was ''Scopas."
and that of the lecture next week will be
''The Niobe Group"