113TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)Q If art excludes moral purpose, what, according
to Nietzsche, might be the purpose of art?CHAPTER 31 The Move Toward Modernism 113113life for us? And indeed there have been philosophers who
attributed this sense to it: “liberation from the will” was what
Schopenhauer taught as the over-all end of art; and with
admiration he found the great utility of tragedy in its “evoking
resignation.” But this, as I have already suggested, is the
pessimist’s perspective and “evil eye.” We must appeal to the
artists themselves. What does the tragic artist communicate of
himself? Is it not precisely the state withoutfear in the face of
the fearful and questionable that he is showing? This state
itself is a great desideratum;^1 whoever knows it, honors it with 30
the greatest honors. He communicates it—mustcommunicate
it, provided he is an artist, a genius of communication. Courage
and freedom of feeling before a powerful enemy, before a
sublime calamity, before a problem that arouses dread—this
triumphant state is what the tragic artist chooses, what he
glorifies. Before tragedy, what is warlike in our soul celebrates
its Saturnalia;^2 whoever is used to suffering, whoever seeks
out suffering, the heroic man praises his own being through
tragedy—to him alone the tragedian presents this drink of
sweetest cruelty. 40
..........
One might say that in a certain sense the nineteenth century
alsostrove for all that which Goethe as a person had striven
for: universality in understanding and in welcoming, letting
everything come close to oneself, an audacious realism, a
reverence for everything factual. How is it that the over-all
result is no Goethe, but chaos, a nihilistic sigh, an utter
bewilderment, an instinct of weariness which in practice
continually drives toward a recourse to the eighteenth century?
(For example, as a romanticism of feeling, as altruism and
hypersentimentality, as feminism in taste, as socialism in 50
politics.) Is not the nineteenth century, especially at its close,
merely an intensified, brutalizedeighteenth century, that is, a
century of decadence? So that Goethe would have been—not
merely for Germany, but for all of Europe—a mere interlude,
a beautiful “in vain”? But one misunderstands great human
beings if one views them from the miserable perspective of
some public use. That one cannot put them to any use, that in
itself may belong to greatness....Bergson: Intellect and Intuition
While Nietzsche anticipated the darker side of modernism,
Henri Bergson (1859–1941) presented a more positive
point of view. Bergson, the most important French philoso-
pher of his time, offered a picture of the world that paral-
leled key developments in the arts and sciences and
anticipated modern notions of time and space. Bergson
viewed life as a vital impulse that evolved creatively, much
like a work of art.do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it
moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all
suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward,
forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we
not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the
breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night
and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be 20
lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of
the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell
anything yet of God’s decomposition? Gods too decompose.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How
shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves?
What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has
yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe
this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean
ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games
shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too 30
great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to
seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and
whoever will be born after us—for the sake of this deed he
will be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.”
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his
listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in
astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and
it broke and went out. “I come too early,” he said then; “my
time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its
way, still wandering—it has not yet reached the ears of man. 40
Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars
requires time, deeds require time even after they are done,
before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more
distant from them than the most distant stars—and yet they
have done it themselves.”
It has been related further that on that same day the
madman entered divers churches and there sang his requiem
aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said to have
replied each time, “What are these churches now if they are
not the tombs and sepulchers of God?” 50
Twilight of the Idols(1888)
L’art pour l’art. The fight against purpose in art is always a fight 1
against the moralizing tendency in art, against its subordination
to morality. L’art pour l’artmeans, “The devil take morality!” But
even this hostility still betrays the overpowering force of the
prejudice. When the purpose of moral preaching and of
improving man has been excluded from art, it still does not
follow by any means that art is altogether purposeless, aimless,
senseless—in short, l’art pour l’art, a worm chewing its own
tail. “Rather no purpose at all than a moral purpose!”—that is
the talk of mere passion. A psychologist, on the other hand, 10
asks: what does all art do? does it not praise? glorify? choose?
prefer? With all this it strengthens or weakens certain
valuations. Is this merely a “moreover”? an accident? something
in which the artist’s instinct had no share? Or is it not the very
presupposition of the artist’s ability? Does his basic instinct aim
at art, or rather at the sense of art, at life? at a desirability of
life? Art is the great stimulus to life: how could one understand
it as purposeless, as aimless, as l’art pour l’art?
One question remains: art also makes apparent much that is
ugly, hard, and questionable in life; does it not thereby spoil 20
(^1) Something desired as essential.
(^2) An orgy, or unrestrained celebration.