It bases itself on
nature even while making something quite different in response to a
special, inexplicable need of the human spirit. Accordingly nothing can
be more chimerical or vain than the advice so often given to the artist
to be truthful. Art can never be true, even though it should not be
false. It should be true artistically, by giving an artistic translation
which will satisfy the sense of style of which we have spoken. When Art
has satisfied this sense of style, the object of artistic expression has
been attained; nothing more can be asked. But it is not the "vain effort
of an unproductive cleverness," as our M. de Mun has said; it is an
effort to satisfy a legitimate need, one of the loftiest and most
honorable in human nature--the need of art.
If this is so, why should we demand that Art be useful or moral? It is
both in its own way, for it awakens noble and honest sentiments in the
soul. That was the opinion of Theophile Gautier, but Victor Hugo
disagreed. The sun is beautiful, he used to say, and it is useful. That
is true, but the sun is not an object of art. Besides, how many times
Victor Hugo denied his own doctrine by writing verses which were merely
brilliant descriptions or admirable bits of imagination?
We are, however, talking of art and not of literature.
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