In Paradise (Musaicum Must Classics). Paul Heyse
a little tower, Felix was forced to ask whether he had not made some progress after all.
"Progress? Why, that depends upon the way you look at it."
"And how do you look at it, old fellow?"
"I?--Hm! I look at it from a geographical point of view."
"You are very good. I understand perfectly."
"Don't be angry, my dear fellow, but understand me rightly. I mean, on the path of dilettantism, on which you have been wandering up to this date, all progress must necessarily be deceptive, even though, outwardly, you have circumnavigated the world; for, after all, all your efforts move in a circle. I am very sorry for it, though."
"For what?"
"That you really want to take up art in earnest. You might have remained such an enviable dilettante, for you have all the necessary qualifications to an uncommon degree."
"And they are?"
"Self-confidence, time, and money. No, don't be angry. I am truly serious when I say this to you, and of course it would be needless for me to assure you that I mean well when I say it. Seriously: these traveling sketches of yours are done so skillfully that any of the illustrated papers might consider themselves lucky if they had such special artists. And yet I wish, since you are determined to be an artist, that they were not half so skillful."
"If it is nothing more than that, a remedy can easily be found. You will soon see how much talent I have for unskillfulness, when you give me something to model."
The sculptor shook his head gently. "It is not the hands," he said. "It is the mind that has already attained a very respectable maturity and facility in you; only, unfortunately, in a wrong direction. For the truth is, my dear fellow, the very things that please you best, and have probably most impressed unprofessional persons, the dash and readiness, the so-called artist's touch, those are the very things that stand most in the way of your getting back into the right track. It is just as if, instead of learning to write in the ordinary way, one should begin with stenography. He never in all his life will have a good handwriting. For the spirit of dilettantism, take it for all in all, is, like that of stenography, in the art of abbreviation; in substituting a symbol for the form, just as in the other case we substitute one for the letter, so that in the course of time all real feelings--yes, the very want of and appreciation of the rightly-developed natural form--are hopelessly lost. Why is it then that the dilettanti attain their end so much more quickly than the true artists? Because, with this system of abbreviation, they steer straight for those results which seem to them of the most importance: resemblance, spirit, elegance of execution. For that reason they are often marvelously skillful in mastering the proportions of a face, for instance, and setting it off by a few dots and strokes so that everybody cries: 'Oh! how like! how speaking! and how quickly done!' The true artist knows that the length of time spent in the production is by no means a measure of excellence; and as he has not only a general sense of proportion, but also a feeling for the true form itself, he does not rest until he has done it full justice--until, so to speak, he has worked outward from the very core of that the exterior of which his eyes have already taken in and fully comprehended. However," he went on after a short pause, during which he unwound the wet cloths from his Bacchante, "you are at liberty to believe that all this is merely my personal opinion and nothing more than exaggerated estimate of what constitutes true art. In ordinary life the artist is distinguished from the dilettante only by the fact that the former follows the thing as a calling, and the latter only for his own amusement. According to this, you would be an artist from the moment you cast aside the baron, the statesman or jurist, the homme d'action, that you have in you, and regularly devoted a certain number of hours of the day to dirtying your fingers with clay. If you stick to it persistently, it would be very hard lines indeed if, in the course of several years, you should not possess the necessary mechanical skill just as well as any one else. Even to become an academic professor need not be an unattainable aim of your ambition. And if, in spite of all that, I should still continue, in my heart, to look upon you as a born dilettante, you could smile down upon me graciously, and heap coals of fire upon my head by proposing me as an honorary member of your academy. Ah! my dear boy, I tell you, if you should make a close examination of many of our most famous great men, you would bring to light little else than a disguised and beautiful dilettantism, made up of humbug, elegant trappings, and perhaps a few so-called ideas. I know painters who dash off a hand or a foot, a horse's head or an oak-tree, with as unerring an audacity as--well, as a thorough stenographer will bring a two hours' speech into the compass of an octavo page. But Lord have mercy upon them, for they have long since ceased to know what they do; and as the dear public has an even coarser sense, a still blunter natural feeling, and even more respect for appearances--why, it's all just as it should be, and no one can complain that he has been cheated."
For some time after this speech silence reigned in the studio. There were heard only the fluttering of the sparrows, the heavy breathing of Homo, for the old fellow was already enjoying his morning nap again, and, in the saint-factory near by, the clatter and scraping and picking of seven or eight chisels in the hands of the assistants who were hard at work.
"Thank you, Dædalus," said Felix, at last. "Upon the whole you are perfectly right, and I think it very kind of you to try and scare me off so thoroughly. But, with your permission, I intend to hold to my intentions until I have been made wise by my own experience. If, a year from this time, you preach me the same sermon, you shall see how penitently I will beat my breast and become converted from all my sins. But now, first give me something to sin with. Look here, my coat is already off, and I have nothing more to do but to roll up my shirt-sleeves."
"So be it, then!" replied Jansen, with a good-natured smile. "Not as God wills, but as you wish--here!"
He went to the large closet and took out a skull, which he laid on a little table near the window. At the same time he wheeled a modeling-bench out of the corner, placed it before the table, and pointed, without speaking, to a big lump of clay that lay moist and shiny in a tub.
"Are we to study phrenology?" laughed Felix, rather nervously, for a suspicion began to dawn upon him.
"No, my dear fellow, but we must take pains to make as exact a copy as possible of this round mass of bones. … We shall have plenty of time for the flesh when we have first mastered the skeleton."
"I am to model a whole skeleton?"
"Bone for bone, down to the big toe. In this way we combine an anatomical course with practice in modeling forms. Yes, my dear fellow," he smilingly continued, as he perceived the horrified expression of his pupil; "if you thought to begin your apprenticeship with the soft, white flesh of a woman, you have greatly deceived yourself. However, since you have already done quite enough preparatory studying in this field--"
He suddenly broke off. On the landing, outside, they heard a pleasant feminine voice say:
"Is this the way to Fräulein Minna Engelken's studio?"
"If you will kindly give yourself the trouble to mount a flight higher," responded the hoarse bass of the janitor. "The door to the right--the name is on the sign. The Fräulein has been there for the last two hours."
"Thanks."
At the first sound of the voice Jansen had hurried to the door; he now opened it a little and peeped out. Then he came back to Felix, and, with his face slightly flushed, went silently to work.
"Who was the lady?" asked Felix, though he felt no particular curiosity on the subject.
"The stranger we saw yesterday. Strange! when I heard that unknown voice her face suddenly came up before my eyes again."
Felix said nothing. He had gone up to the modeling-bench, had begun to work at a great ball of clay about as large as the skull, and appeared to be completely absorbed in his task.
But they had scarcely been working on in this way, side by side and in silence, for more than a quarter of an hour when some one knocked softly on the door and Rosenbusch entered, looking excited, merry, and full of mischief.
He nodded to the friends, stepped close up to them and said, with an air of mysterious