ARTIST AGAINST SOCIETY
73
Unfortunately, with the last and highest category of
artist–
the genius-the test of time comes too late. For when alive he will
probably defy recognition by signs. Either he resembles ordinary men
too much for our storybook minds, or he gives so few proofs of worldly
judgment that it is hard to credit him with any capacity whatever, or
again the mixture in him of talent and folly, or talent and turpitude,
discourages further inquiry.
It is safer to go to the work than to the man. But the work, the
masterpiece, presents difficulties of its own, the chief of which is
that it usually does not correspond to any established taste, however
sophisticated, and hence is literally of no use. In effect, no one really
wants a masterpiece, there is no demand for it, which is why it
ultimately signifies an addition to our riches. The only desire for
it at first is in the breast of the maker and it is for this that he is
called a creator. Mter a while we see that he belongs to a tradition,
that he has forged the next link in a chain, but this hindsight takes
a great deal of effort, and often requires the removal of the rub–
bish that stood between the masterpiece and the world, namely the
rubbish of pseudo-art representing as real a world departed.
When the world and the new work are confronted, they are
seen to bear a likeness, but as in a good portrait the implied com–
ment is not flattering. We may think today that Dante was a true
seer and that we should have been glad to meet him. But it is more
likely that we would have thought him too angry and egotistical to be
quite sound on Church and State. His remarks on the late Pope, his
gossip about
his
friends, his naming himself as the sixth great poet
of the world-the man's bad taste is writ in
his
own hand. And
such parts of the poem as are not disgusting are dull. Here and there
a fine image, to be sure, or a brief scene but-no, not a master–
piece, a labored monster: to change this view at large took roughly
five hundred years.
Now why should the highest art bear one or both of these
stigmata, incomprehensibility and offensiveness? Why is the great
artist at loggerheads with society? The answer is implied in the ad–
jective great, which being interpreted means searching, thorough,
outspoken, final. These are qualities commonly praised, but their
ef–
fect when added together in a fixed utterance can only be expressed
in
one word: terrifying. Masterpieces are terrifying because they call
