Chapter III: Introduction

There is little to say by way of introduction to this study, as the title, I imagine, explains the subject, with the possible exception that it does not, for reasons of space, indicate that I have reviewed only certain tendencies in art and ideas in this country. I have had, of course, to refer, incidentally, to the work of foreign writers and painters, but only as part of the process of tracing origins and lines of development. This is said not as excuse but in explanation of omissions which might otherwise be questioned. The movement which I have described in the British Islands was, to be sure, but one phase of a literary and artistic awakening which had its counterparts in many countries, particularly in France and Germany, and to some extent in Italy and Russia. Mr Arthur Symons, in the _Symbolist Movement in Literature_, has given us a valuable interpretation of one of its important phases in France, and Mr W. G. Blaikie Murdoch, in _The Renaissance of the Nineties_, has dealt eloquently, but all too briefly, with certain manifestations of the awakening in our own country, whilst Mr J. M. Kennedy in _English Literature, 1880–1905_, has made the literary history of the quarter century he reviews the basis of an argument in defence of the classical as against the romantic idea. My intention has been to co-ordinate the various movements of the period, and avoiding sectional or specialised argument, to interpret them not only in relation to one another, but in relation to their foreign influences and the main trend of our national art and life. Thus my aim may be described as interpretative rather than critical, although criticism is not easily avoided by one who engages to select examples and instances from a great body of work.

No excuse need be made by me for confining my review to so limited a period as the last decade of the nineteenth century, for once having decided to write about the art and ideas of the closing years of that century, the final ten years insisted upon definite recognition by the coincidence of position in time and appropriate happenings in literature, painting, and other arts and crafts. But, as a matter of fact, I have not confined myself strictly to a single decade, for it will be seen that my Nineties trespass upon the adjoining territory of the Eighties and the Nineteen Hundreds, and, to protect myself as far as possible against extraneous argument, I have adopted in the initial chapter the dates “1890–1900” as a kind of symbol for the period. The compromise is defensible, as I have not wilfully singled out a decade for review; that decade had singled itself out, the Eighteen Nineties having already become a distinctive epoch in the minds of those who concern themselves with art and ideas.

Anybody who studies the moods and thoughts of the Eighteen Nineties cannot fail to observe their central characteristic in a widespread concern for the correct--that is, the most effective, the most powerful, the most righteous--mode of living. For myself, however, the awakening of the Nineties does not appear to be the realisation of a purpose, but the realisation of a possibility. Life aroused curiosity. People became enthusiastic about the way it should be used. And in proof of sincerity there were opinionated battles--most of them inconclusive. But they were not wasteful on that account, for the very circumstance of idea pitting itself against idea, vision against vision, mood against mood, and, indeed, whim against whim, cleared the way for more definite action when the time ripened. It was an epoch of experiment, with some achievement and some remorse. The former is to be seen in certain lasting works of art and in the acceptance of new, and sometimes revolutionary, social ideas; the latter in the repentant attitude of so many poets and other artists of the time who, after tasting more life than was good for them, reluctantly sought peace in an escape from material concerns. The decade began with a dash for life and ended with a retreat--but not defeat. It was the old battle between heterodoxy and orthodoxy, materialist and mystic, Christian and Pagan, but fought from a great variety of positions. Arthur Symons summed up the situation very effectively in the conclusion to _Studies in Prose and Verse_, where he discusses the conversion of Huysmans. “He has realised,” Mr Symons wrote, “the great choice between the world and something which is not the visible world, but out of which the visible world has been made, does not lie in the mere contrast of the subtler and grosser senses. He has come to realise what the choice really is, and he has chosen. Yet the choice is not quite so narrow as Barbey D’Aurevilly thought; perhaps it is a choice between actualising this dream or actualising that dream. In his escape from the world, one man chooses religion, and seems to find himself; another choosing love may seem also to find himself; and may not another, coming to art as to a religion and as to a woman, seem to find himself not less effectively? The one certainty is that society is the enemy of man, and that formal art is the enemy of the artist. We shall not find ourselves in drawing-rooms or in museums. A man who goes through a day without some fine emotion has wasted his day, whatever he has gained by it. And it is so easy to go through day after day, busily and agreeably, without ever really living for a single instant. Art begins when a man wishes to immortalise the most vivid moment he has ever lived. Life has already, to one not an artist, become art in that moment. And the making of one’s life into art is after all the first duty and privilege of every man. It is to escape from material reality into whatever form of ecstasy is our own form of spiritual existence.” There we have the attitude of the Eighteen Nineties from which most pilgrimages into life began. In the following pages I have endeavoured to expound the attitude and to indicate its victories and defeats.

Finally, I have to thank all those who have so willingly given me their aid by permitting me to quote from their works and to use the illustrations written and pictorial which add so much to the grace and value of this book. Particularly I must thank Mr John Lane for permission to use the following designs by Aubrey Beardsley:--“The Rape of the Lock,” “Tail-piece from _Salomé_,” and the cover designs from _The Yellow Book_ and _The Savoy_; Mr William Heinemann, for the study of Rudyard Kipling from _Twelve Portraits_ by William Nicholson; Messrs J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., for Aubrey Beardsley’s page decoration from the _Morte d’Arthur_; Messrs George Routledge & Sons Ltd., for the frontispiece and title-page of _The House of Joy_, by Laurence Housman; the proprietors of _Punch_, for “A Lecture in Store,” by Phil May; the editor of _Vanity Fair_, for the caricature of Phil May by Spy; the editor of _The Saturday Review_, for William Rothenstein’s cover design of the Christmas Supplement, 1896; Mr Walter Crane and Messrs George Allen & Co. Ltd., for the illustration from the decorated edition of the _Faerie Queene_; Mr Walter Crane, for the Socialist cartoon, “A Garland for May Day”; Mr Francis Meynell, for the photograph of the life mask of Francis Thompson; Mr Raven Hill, for “A Voluptuary,” from _Pick-me-up_; Mr Charles Ricketts, for the decorated pages from the Vale Press edition of John Gray’s _Spiritual Poems_; the executors of William Morris, for the page from the Kelmscott _Coleridge_; Mr Max Beerbohm, for his caricature of Aubrey Beardsley and “Mr W. B. Yeats introducing Mr George Moore to the Queen of the Fairies”; and my friends, Mr Frederick H. Evans, for his portrait study of Beardsley; Mr William Rothenstein, for his drawing of A. E. Housman; Mr S. H. Sime, for “The Banks of the Styx”; Mr Grant Richards, for the “Arrival of Prince Charming,” and “The Peacock Fan,” by Charles Conder; and Mr Frederick Richardson, for untiring help and many suggestions during the making of the book in all its stages.

HOLBROOK JACKSON.

LONDON, _October, 1913_.