CHAPTER XVIII

SEXUAL LIFE IN ART =The Genesis of Art.=--Art represents in a harmonious form the movements of our sentimental life. The phylogeny of art is still very obscure; Darwin attributes it to sexual attraction, through the efforts made by one sex to attract the other; but his arguments have never convinced me.[15] Aristotle recognized in art the principles of representation of the beautiful and of imitation. Karl Groos, of Giessen, refutes Darwin's hypothesis, and upholds the principle of the representation of self by sensations which relate to the subject, thus giving a tangible object to corresponding internal emotions (among animals, for example, the pleasure of hearing their own voice).[16] The motor instinct and the movements executed in play seem to be among the most primitive autonomous creators of art. Similar play is observed in ants. In man, Groos attributes a considerable role to religious ecstasy and ecstasy in general, in the genesis of art. "Since its object is to excite the sentiments, it is obvious that art utilizes from the first the domain which is richest in emotional sensations, that is the sexual domain." He shows at the same time that erotic subjects have a much more general and definite importance in highly developed art than in what we know of primitive art. Groos is certainly right, for primitive eroticism was too coarse and sensual, too exclusively tactile to affect the mind as deeply and with such gradations of symphony as is the case with civilized man. This reason alone seems to me sufficient to support Groos' view, which is also confirmed by the fact that primitive works of art contain very few erotic subjects. The more delicate art becomes the better it acts. The intensity of its action depends, however, more especially on the power with which it moves our feelings. Art requires discord, not only in music, but elsewhere, in order to act more strongly on the human emotions by the effect of contrast. In describing the ugly it awakens desire for the beautiful. Art should be spontaneous and exuberant with the truth of conviction; it should be free from mannerism and all dogmatism, intellectual or moral. The positive æsthetic sentiment, or sentiment of beauty is very relative, and depends essentially on the phylogenetic adaptation of the human sentiments, as well as on individual habits and popular customs. The odor of manure is no doubt pleasant to a farm laborer, but it is unpleasant to us. The male invert finds man more beautiful than woman. A savage or a peasant regards as beautiful what a cultured man considers ugly. The music of Wagner or Chopin is tiresome to a person with no musical education or ear, while a melomaniac goes into raptures over it. =Erotic Art.=--It is quite natural that the chord whose vibrations influence the most powerful human emotion--sexual love--has an infinite variety of vibrations in all forms of art. Music gives expression to the sexual sensations and their psychic irradiations by tones representing desire, passion, joy, sadness, deception, despair, sacrifice, ecstasy, etc. In sculpture and painting it is love in all its shades which furnishes the inexhaustible theme; but it is in the domain of literature that love celebrates its triumphs, and often also its orgies. The novels and dramas in which it plays no part could be easily counted. I am not referring only to common novelettes, nor to those pot-house dramas which, in spite of repeating continually the same sentimental motives, always succeed in arousing the uncultivated sentiments of the masses. The greatest art aims at representing tragic, refined and complex conflicts of the human sexual sentiments and their irradiations, so as to awaken emotion by causing vibrations in the deepest chords of the human mind. Among poets and authors I may mention Shakespere, Schiller, Goethe, de Musset, Heine, Gotthelf, and de Maupassant; among musicians, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann, Loewe; among painters, Titian, Murillo, Boecklin; and sculptors such as those of the ancient Greeks or the modern French school. Art and pure intellect do not form an antinomy; they are associated together in the human mind as thought and sentiment, each preserving its own, though relative, independence. Every artistic representation requires an intellectual foundation, in the same way as every sentiment is connected with ideas. The artist takes his subjects from the external world, from life, and from the events of all ages. He also utilizes the progress of science for the mechanism of his art. But, to transform the material into a complete picture, with a unity of action, where the different sentiments harmonize; to transform the work of art into a symbol of something human; to make the whole work speak to every mind capable of comprehending it, all this can only be the work of a great artist with creative genius. =Art and Morality.=--True art is in itself neither moral nor immoral. Here we can well say--to the pure everything is pure. In the mirror of an impure mind, every work of art may appear as a pornographic caricature, while to the high-minded it is the incarnation of the noblest ideal. The fault is not with art and its products, but with nature and the peculiarities of many human brains, which deform everything they perceive, so that the most beautiful works of art only awaken in their pornographic minds cynical sexual images. =Art and Pornography.=--After having enunciated the preceding fundamental principles, we must examine the following facts, which have a special importance for the question with which we are dealing. Under the banner of art are grouped a number of human enterprises which are far from deserving this honor. There are few great artists, but thousands of charlatans and plagiarists. Many of those who have never had the least idea of the dignity of art, pander to the lower instincts of the masses and not to their best sentiments. In this connection, erotic subjects play a sad and powerful part. Nothing is too filthy to be used to stimulate the base sensuality of the public. Frivolous songs, licentious novels and plays, obscene dances, pornographic pictures, all without any trace of artistic merit, speculate on the erotic instinct of the masses in order to obtain their money. In these brothels of art, the most obscene vice is glorified, even pathological. Unfortunately, this obscenity spoils the taste of the public and destroys all sense of true and noble art. At the bottom of all this degeneration of the sentiment of art and its products in the sexual domain, we always find on close examination, corruption by money and brutalism by alcohol. I say advisedly, the sentiment of art and the products of art, for it is not sufficient for true artists to create their masterpieces, it is also necessary for them to find an echo in the public, and be understood by them. The two phenomena go hand in hand, as supply and demand. When the sentiment of art is low among the public, the quality of the artistic production is also low, and inversely. Professor Behrens, director of the Industrial School of Art at Dusseldorf, is in complete accord with me in the debasing effect of alcohol on the artistic sentiment. (_Alkohol und Kunst._) After establishing these facts, we return to the fundamental but delicate question: How is true erotic art to be distinguished from the pornographic? While certain ascetic and fanatical preachers of morality would burn and destroy all the erotic creations of art under the pretext that they are pornographic, other disciples of decadence defend the most ignoble pornography under the shield of art. I will cite two examples which have already been mentioned previously (Chapter XIII). In a very primitive and bigoted region of the Tyrol, certain undraped, but very innocent, statues of women were erected in the streets. Feeling their modesty deeply wounded, and regarding the representation of the natural human body as a great inducement to misconduct, the peasants of the district broke up these statues. The same with the captain of police at Zurich, who made himself notorious by ordering the removal of the picture by Boecklin, entitled "The Sport of the Waves," regarding the two mermaids in the picture as a danger to the morality and virtue of the citizens of Zurich! I designate by the term charlatanism, everything which consists in decorating or covering by the term art, all possible perversions of pornography, often pathological. Persons of artistic nature, dominated by emotional sentiments, will no doubt be excused for being often overexcited to a more or less pathological degree, for executing all kinds of fantastic vagaries in their sexual life, and for being capricious and excessive in love. These things are almost inseparable from the artistic temperament. But the systematic education of pornography, and the sexual orgies which are cynically made public, go decidedly beyond what is licit, and cannot be included in the scope of art without degrading it. The individual and pathological failings of artists and the eccentricities to which they often become victims, must not be confounded with art and its products. On the other hand, we often find eroticism hidden where we should least expect it, for instance in certain books for the edification of the pious. Here also it does not fail to produce its effect, although old maids and pious families place these books in their libraries and recommend them as proper reading. It has been said with reason, that "what is improper in the nudity of a statue is the fig-leaf and not what is underneath." It is, in fact, these fig-leaves--sculptured, painted, written or spoken--which awaken lewdness rather than deaden it. By drawing attention to what they conceal, they excite sensuality much more than simple nudity. In short, the eroticism which plays at hide and seek is that which acts with greatest intensity. The directors of ballets and other similar spectacles know this only too well, and arrange accordingly. I have seen at the Paris Exposition an Arab woman perform the erotic dance called the "danse du ventre," in which the various movements of coitus are imitated by movements of the hips and loins. I do not think, however, that this pantomime, as cynical as it is coarse, produces on the spectators such an erotic effect as the _décolleté_ costumes of society ladies, or even certain amorous scenes of religious ecstasy in words or pictures (vide Chapter XII). As the "danse du ventre" was produced under the head of _ethnology_, it was witnessed by society ladies without their being in the least degree wounded in their sentiments of modesty! It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit between art and pornography. I will attempt to give an example. In his novels and romances, Guy de Maupassant has given perhaps the finest and most true descriptions which exist of the psychology of love and the sexual appetite. Although he has depicted the most ticklish sexual situations, often most _recherché_, we can say that with few exceptions he has not written in a pornographic spirit. His descriptions are profound and true, and he does not attempt to make attractive what is ugly and immoral, although he cannot be blamed for moralizing. We have seen that the old hypocritical eroticism consisted essentially in the art of describing sexual forbidden fruit and making it as desirable as possible, at the same time covering it with pious phrases which were only a transparent mask. Vice was condemned, but described in such a way as to make the reader's mouth water. There is nothing of this in Guy de Maupassant, nor in Zola. By their tragic descriptions, they provoke disgust and sadness in the reader, rather than sensuality. It is otherwise with the illustrations which de Maupassant's publisher has added to his works and which are frankly pornographic. These are not fair to the author. Another comparison shows, perhaps, still better the uncertainty of the line of demarcation between pornography and art. If we compare Heine with de Maupassant, I think we must admit that, in spite of the refinement of his art, the pornographic trait is incomparably stronger in the former, because Heine continually loses the thread of moral sense which impregnates most of the works of de Maupassant. The latter author emphasizes evil and injustice in the sexual question. The refined art of the Greeks contains much eroticism and much nudity, but there is nothing whatever immoral in either. Innocence and beauty are so apparent that no one can think of evil. When we look at the antique statues of the Greek sculptors; when we read Homer, especially the story of Ares and Aphrodite; when we read the bucolic idyll of Daphnis and Chloe, we can no longer have any doubt on the point. It is not nudity, it is not the natural description of sexual life, but the obscene intention of the artist, his improper and often venal object, which has a demoralizing effect. Finally, I repeat that the purest artistic creation may serve as a pornographic theme for every individual who is accustomed to introduce into his parodies his own depravity, immorality and obscene sentiments. I do not deny that in antiquity, especially at the time of the decadence of Rome, pornography and cynical coarseness often ruled in the sexual domain. History and the ruins of Pompeii give abundant evidence of it. But such phenomena occurred at the periods of decadence. Who then can decide where art ends and pornography begins, or how far eroticism may without danger be expressed in art? This question is so difficult and delicate that I am unable to answer it with sufficient competence. I think that when the reign of capitalism and alcohol has come to an end, the danger of pornography will be reduced enormously. I believe we ought to avoid extremes in both directions. Wherever pornography manifests itself in a purely cynical way, denuded of all art, society can and should suppress it. When it appears under an artistic mantle, it should be possible in each particular case to weigh the artistic merit of the work against its immoral tendencies, taking all other accessory circumstances into account, in order to decide the real weight of each of these elements. The corrupting action should also be carefully considered, which experience proves to have been exerted on the public by certain so-called works of art, or artistic exhibitions, as for example certain _cafés chantants_, etc. =Pathological Art.=--The progressively pathological nature of certain productions of modern art constitute without any doubt a vicious feature; a fact of special importance in the sexual question. Witness what I have said concerning the poet Baudelaire. Erotic art ought not to become a hospital for perverts and sexual patients, and should not lead these individuals to regard themselves as interesting specimens of the human race. It should not make heroes of them, for in acting thus, it only confirms their morbid state, and often contaminates healthy-minded people. A great number of novels, and even modern pictures, deserve the reproach of being pornographic works. In these are described, or painted, beings that we meet in hospitals for nervous diseases, or even in lunatic asylums, but more often phantoms which only exist in the pathological mind of the author. No doubt, art should not allow itself to be instructed in morality by pedagogues and ascetics; but, on the other hand, artists ought not to forget the high social mission of their art, a mission which consists in elevating man to the ideal, not in letting him sink into a bog. =The Moral Effect of Healthy Art.=--Art has great power, for man is directed by sentiment much more than by reason. Art should be healthy; it should rise toward the heavens and show the public the road to Olympus--not the Olympus of superstition, but that of a better humanity. It is not necessary for this that it should diminish the energy of its eternal theme--love. No truly moral man would wish to eliminate the seasoning of eroticism whenever artistic necessity requires it, but art should never prostitute itself in the service of venal obscenity and degeneration. As to the manner in which it attains its object, while holding to its fundamental principles, that is its own affair, the business of the true artist. I cannot, however, in my capacity as a naturalist, refrain from giving a little modest advice to certain modern artists; that when they wish to take for the subject of their works the themes of social morality, medicine or science, they should avoid previous study of their subject in scientific books; that they should follow the example of de Maupassant and begin by living themselves the situations which they wish to depict, before beginning to model their work. Without this they will completely fail in artistic effect, and will become bad theorists, bad scientists, bad moralists and bad social politicians, at the same time ceasing to be good artists. If Maeterlinck's "Life of Bees" is a fine work of art, it is not only because the author is a distinguished writer, but because he was himself acquainted with bees, being an apicultor, and did not make his book a mere compilation of other scientific works. Along with the struggle against the debasing influence of money and alcohol, the elevation of the artistic sentiment among the public will contribute strongly to condemn pornographic "æsthetics." The false and unnatural sentimentalism, spiced with erotic lewdness, which is displayed in the trash offered to the public under the title of "art," fills every man who possesses the least artistic sense with disgust. Disgust evidently constitutes a beneficial mental medicine in the domain of art, and we cannot agree with the severe and ascetic minds who think that true morality has nothing to do with art, or even that everything moral should be destitute of art. These people are completely deceived and unwittingly promote pornography, by repelling humanity with their austerity and driving it to the opposite extreme. The æsthetic and moral sentiments should be harmoniously combined with intelligence and will, each of these departments of the mind participating by its special energies in the elevation of man. =Anticonceptional Measures from the Æsthetic Point of View.=--In conclusion, I will refer to a subject which is perhaps not quite in its place in this chapter. The anticonceptional measures recommended for reasons of social hygiene, which tend to regulate conceptions and improve their quality, have been often condemned, sometimes as immoral, sometimes as contrary to æsthetics. To interfere in this way with the action of nature is said to injure the poetry of love and the moral feeling, and at the same time to disturb natural selection. There are several replies to these objections: In the first place, it is wrong to maintain that man cannot encroach on the life of nature. If this were the case, the earth would now be a virgin forest and a great many animals and plants would not have been adapted to the use of man. Our fields, our gardens and our domestic animals would die, instead of bearing fruit and multiplying as they do at present. The naturalist has much more fear of seeing rare and interesting wild plants and animals exterminated from the face of the earth by the egoistic and pitiless hand of man. He seeks in vain the means of checking this work of destruction. We have proved without the least deference, often with a brutal hand, to the misfortune of art and poetry, that we are capable of successfully intermeddling with the machinery of nature, even in what concerns our own persons. I shall not return here to the subject of ethics. In Chapter XV, I have sufficiently shown how false is our present sexual morality, and I have proved in Chapter XIV the absolute necessity of measures to regulate conception in order to realize an efficacious social sexual morality. The æsthetic argument appears at first sight more valid; it is unnecessary, however, to discuss matters of taste. Spectacles are certainly not particularly æsthetic; nevertheless the poetry of love does not suffer much from their use, and when one is shortsighted or longsighted one cannot do without them. Great artists wear spectacles. It is the same with false teeth, with clothes, with bicycles and a hundred other artificial things which man makes use of to make his life more easy. So long as they are novel and unusual they wound the æsthetic sentiment; but when we become accustomed to them we no longer take notice of them. Man has even come to regard as æsthetic, women's corsets which deform their chests, and pointed shoes which deform the feet. I am certain that the first man who mounted a horse was accused by his contemporaries of committing an act contrary to æsthetics! From all points of view, the details of coitus leave much to be desired from the æsthetic point of view, and such a slight addition as a membranous protective does not appear to make any serious difference. It is impossible for me to recognize the validity of such an objection, which I attribute to the prejudice against anything which disturbs our habits. FOOTNOTES: [15] See also Lameere "_L'Évolution des ornements sexuels_," 1904. [16] "Die Anfänge der Kunst und die Theorie Darwins." _Hessiche Blätter für Volkskunde_, Vol. III, Part 2.