G.K. Chesterton
Alarms and Discursions 1910
Introductory: On Gargoyles
ALONE at some distance from the wasting walls of a disused abbey I found half sunken in the grass the grey and goggle-eyed visage of one of those graven monsters that made the ornamental water-spouts in the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. It lay there, scoured by ancient rains or striped by recent fungus, but still looking like the head of some huge dragon slain by a primeval hero. And as I looked at it, I thought of the meaning of the grotesque, and passed into some symbolic reverie of the three great stages of art.
I
Once upon a time there lived upon an island a merry and innocent people, mostly shepherds and tillers of the earth. They were republicans, like all primitive and simple souls; they talked over their affairs under a tree, and the nearest approach they had to a personal ruler was a sort of priest or white witch who said their prayers for them. They worshipped the sun, not idolatrously, but as the golden crown of the god whom all such infants see almost as plainly as the sun.
Now this priest was told by his people to build a great tower, pointing to the sky in salutation of the Sun-god; and he pondered long and heavily before he picked his materials. For he was resolved to use nothing that was not almost as clear and exquisite as sunshine itself; he would use nothing that was not washed as white as the rain can wash the heavens, nothing that did not sparkle as spotlessly as that crown of God. He would have nothing grotesque or obscure; he would not even have anything emphatic or even anything mysterious. He would have all the arches as light as laughter and as candid as logic. He built the temple in three concentric courts, which were cooler and more exquisite in substance each than the other. For the outer wall was a hedge of white lillies, ranked so thick that a green stalk was hardly to be seen; and the wall within that was of crystal, which smashed the sun into a million stars. And the wall within that, which was the tower itself, was a tower of pure water, forced up in an everlasting fountain; and upon the very tip and crest of that foaming spire was one big and blazing diamond, which the water tossed up eternally and caught again as a child catches a ball.
“Now,” said the priest, “I have made a tower which is a little worthy of the sun.”
II
But about this time the island was caught in a swarm of pirates; and the shepherds had to turn themselves into rude warriors and seamen; and at first they were utterly broken down in blood and shame; and the pirates might have taken the jewel flung up for ever from their sacred fount. And then, after years of horror and humiliation, they gained a little and began to conquer because they did not mind defeat. And the pride of the pirates went sick within them after a few unexpected foils; and at last the invasion rolled back into the empty seas and the island was delivered. And for some reason after this men began to talk quite differently about the temple and the sun. Some, indeed, said, “You must not touch the temple; it is classical; it is perfect, since it admits no imperfections.” But the others answered, “In that it differs from the sun, that shines on the evil and the good and on mud and monsters everywhere. The temple is of the noon; it is made of white marble clouds and sapphire sky. But the sun is not always of the noon. The sun dies daily; every night he is crucified in blood and fire.”
Now the priest had taught and fought through all the war, and his hair had grown white, but his eyes had grown young. And he said, “I was wrong and they are right. The sun, the symbol of our father, gives life to all those earthly things that are full of ugliness and energy. All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing. Let us point to heaven with tusks and horns and fins and trunks and tails so long as they all point to heaven. The ugly animals praise God as much as the beautiful. The frog’s eyes stand out of his head because he is staring at heaven. The giraffe’s neck is long because he is stretching towards heaven. The donkey has ears to hear-let him hear.”
And under the new inspiration they planned a gorgeous cathedral in the Gothic manner, with all the animals of the earth crawling all over it, and all the possible ugly things making up one common beauty, because they all appealed to the god. The columns of the temple were carved like necks of giraffes; the dome was like an ugly tortoise; and the highest pinnacle was a monkey standing on his head with his tail pointing at the sun. And yet the whole was beautiful, because it was lifted up in one living and religious gesture as a man lifts his hands in prayer.
III
But this great plan was never properly completed. The people had brought up on great wagons the heavy tortoise roof and the huge necks of stone, and all the thousand and one oddities that made up that unity, the owls and the efts and the crocodiles and the kangaroos, which hideous by themselves might have been magnificent if reared in one definite proportion and dedicated to the sun. For this was Gothic, this was romantic, this was Christian art; this was the whole advance of Shakespeare upon Sophocles. And that symbol which was to crown it all, the ape upside down, was really Christian; for man is the ape upside down.
But the rich, who had grown riotous in the long peace, obstructed the thing, and in some squabble a stone struck the priest on the head and he lost his memory. He saw piled in front of him frogs and elephants, monkeys and giraffes, toadstools and sharks, all the ugly things of the universe which he had collected to do honour to God. But he forgot why he had collected them. He could not remember the design or the object. He piled them all wildly into one heap fifty feet high; and when he had done it all the rich and influential went into a passion of applause and cried, “This is real art! This is Realism! This is things as they really are!”
That, I fancy is the only true origin of Realism. Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason. This is so not merely in the sense of insanity but of suicide. It has lost its reason; that is its reason for existing. The Old Greeks summoned godlike things to worship their god. The medieval Christians summoned all things to worship theirs, dwarfs and pelicans, monkeys and madmen. The modern realists summon all these million creatures to worship their god; and then have no god for them to worship. Paganism was in art a pure beauty; that was the dawn. Christianity was a beauty created by controlling a million monsters of ugliness; and that in my belief was the zenith and the noon. Modern art and science practically mean having the million monsters and being unable to control them; and I will venture to call that the disruption and the decay. The finest lengths of the Elgin marbles consist of splendid horses going to the temple of a virgin. Christianity, with its gargoyles and grotesques, really amounted to saying this: that a donkey could go before all the horses of the world when it was really going to the temple. Romance means a holy donkey going to the temple. Realism means a lost donkey going nowhere.
The fragments of futile journalism or fleeting impression which are here collected are very like the wrecks and riven blocks that were piled in a heap round my imaginary priest of the sun. They are very like that grey and gaping head of stone. Yet I will venture to make even of these trivial fragments the high boast that I am a medievalist and not a modern. That is, I really have a notion of why I have collected all the nonsensical things there are. I have not the patience nor perhaps the constructive intelligence to state the connecting links between all these chaotic papers. But it could be stated. This row of shapeless and ungainly monsters which I now set before the reader does not consist of separate idols cut out capriciously in lonely valleys or various islands. These monsters are meant for the gargoyles of a definite cathedral. I have to carve the gargoyles, because I can carve nothing else; I leave to others the angels and the arches and the spires. But I am very sure of the style of the architecture and of the consecration of the church.
G.K. Chesterton
Alarms and Discursions 1910
Introductory: On Gargoyles
ALONE at some distance from the wasting walls of a disused abbey I found half sunken in the grass the grey and goggle-eyed visage of one of those graven monsters that made the ornamental water-spouts in the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. It lay there, scoured by ancient rains or striped by recent fungus, but still looking like the head of some huge dragon slain by a primeval hero. And as I looked at it, I thought of the meaning of the grotesque, and passed into some symbolic reverie of the three great stages of art.
I
Once upon a time there lived upon an island a merry and innocent people, mostly shepherds and tillers of the earth. They were republicans, like all primitive and simple souls; they talked over their affairs under a tree, and the nearest approach they had to a personal ruler was a sort of priest or white witch who said their prayers for them. They worshipped the sun, not idolatrously, but as the golden crown of the god whom all such infants see almost as plainly as the sun.
Now this priest was told by his people to build a great tower, pointing to the sky in salutation of the Sun-god; and he pondered long and heavily before he picked his materials. For he was resolved to use nothing that was not almost as clear and exquisite as sunshine itself; he would use nothing that was not washed as white as the rain can wash the heavens, nothing that did not sparkle as spotlessly as that crown of God. He would have nothing grotesque or obscure; he would not even have anything emphatic or even anything mysterious. He would have all the arches as light as laughter and as candid as logic. He built the temple in three concentric courts, which were cooler and more exquisite in substance each than the other. For the outer wall was a hedge of white lillies, ranked so thick that a green stalk was hardly to be seen; and the wall within that was of crystal, which smashed the sun into a million stars. And the wall within that, which was the tower itself, was a tower of pure water, forced up in an everlasting fountain; and upon the very tip and crest of that foaming spire was one big and blazing diamond, which the water tossed up eternally and caught again as a child catches a ball.
“Now,” said the priest, “I have made a tower which is a little worthy of the sun.”
II
But about this time the island was caught in a swarm of pirates; and the shepherds had to turn themselves into rude warriors and seamen; and at first they were utterly broken down in blood and shame; and the pirates might have taken the jewel flung up for ever from their sacred fount. And then, after years of horror and humiliation, they gained a little and began to conquer because they did not mind defeat. And the pride of the pirates went sick within them after a few unexpected foils; and at last the invasion rolled back into the empty seas and the island was delivered. And for some reason after this men began to talk quite differently about the temple and the sun. Some, indeed, said, “You must not touch the temple; it is classical; it is perfect, since it admits no imperfections.” But the others answered, “In that it differs from the sun, that shines on the evil and the good and on mud and monsters everywhere. The temple is of the noon; it is made of white marble clouds and sapphire sky. But the sun is not always of the noon. The sun dies daily; every night he is crucified in blood and fire.”
Now the priest had taught and fought through all the war, and his hair had grown white, but his eyes had grown young. And he said, “I was wrong and they are right. The sun, the symbol of our father, gives life to all those earthly things that are full of ugliness and energy. All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing. Let us point to heaven with tusks and horns and fins and trunks and tails so long as they all point to heaven. The ugly animals praise God as much as the beautiful. The frog’s eyes stand out of his head because he is staring at heaven. The giraffe’s neck is long because he is stretching towards heaven. The donkey has ears to hear-let him hear.”
And under the new inspiration they planned a gorgeous cathedral in the Gothic manner, with all the animals of the earth crawling all over it, and all the possible ugly things making up one common beauty, because they all appealed to the god. The columns of the temple were carved like necks of giraffes; the dome was like an ugly tortoise; and the highest pinnacle was a monkey standing on his head with his tail pointing at the sun. And yet the whole was beautiful, because it was lifted up in one living and religious gesture as a man lifts his hands in prayer.
III
But this great plan was never properly completed. The people had brought up on great wagons the heavy tortoise roof and the huge necks of stone, and all the thousand and one oddities that made up that unity, the owls and the efts and the crocodiles and the kangaroos, which hideous by themselves might have been magnificent if reared in one definite proportion and dedicated to the sun. For this was Gothic, this was romantic, this was Christian art; this was the whole advance of Shakespeare upon Sophocles. And that symbol which was to crown it all, the ape upside down, was really Christian; for man is the ape upside down.
G.K. Chesterton
Alarms and Discursions 1910
Introduzione: Sui Gargoyle
SOLITARIO e a una certa distanza dalle mura sgretolate di un’abbazia in rovina, trovai, mezzo affondato nell’erba, il volto grigio e dagli occhi sporgenti di uno di quei mostri scolpiti che formavano gli ornamentali doccioni delle cattedrali del Medioevo. Giaceva là, dilavato da piogge antiche o striato da funghi recenti, ma ancora simile alla testa di un enorme drago abbattuto da qualche eroe primevo. E mentre lo contemplavo, pensai al significato del grottesco, e trascorsi in una fantasticheria simbolica sui tre grandi stadi dell’arte.
I
C’era una volta, su un’isola, un popolo allegro e innocente, per lo più pastori e coltivatori della terra. Erano repubblicani, come tutte le anime primitive e semplici; discutevano i propri affari sotto un albero, e ciò che più si avvicinava a un sovrano in carne e ossa era una sorta di sacerdote, o bianco stregone, che recitava per loro le preghiere. Adoravano il sole, non in modo idolatra, ma come l’aurea corona del dio che tutti quei fanciulli vedono quasi con la stessa chiarezza del sole.
Ora, questo sacerdote fu incaricato dal suo popolo di erigere una grande torre, che si levasse verso il cielo in saluto al Dio-Sole; ed egli meditò a lungo e gravemente prima di scegliere i suoi materiali. Poiché era risoluto a non adoperare nulla che non fosse limpido e squisito quasi quanto la luce del sole stessa; nulla avrebbe usato che non fosse lavato bianco come la pioggia sa lavare i cieli, nulla che non brillasse immacolato come quella corona di Dio. Non avrebbe voluto nulla di grottesco né di oscuro; non avrebbe voluto nemmeno nulla di enfatico né tanto meno di misterioso. Avrebbe voluto tutte le arcate lievi come il riso e candide come la logica. Costruì il tempio in tre corti concentriche, ciascuna più fresca e più squisita di sostanza dell’altra. Poiché il muro esterno era una siepe di gigli bianchi, allineati così fitti che a stento si scorgeva uno stelo verde; e il muro entro di quello era di cristallo, che frantumava il sole in un milione di stelle. E il muro entro di quello, che era la torre stessa, era una torre di pura acqua, sospinta in alto in una fontana perenne; e sulla punta stessa e sulla cresta di quella spira spumeggiante stava un grande e sfolgorante diamante, che l’acqua lanciava in eterno e riafferrava come un bambino afferra una palla.
«Ora», disse il sacerdote, «ho fatto una torre che è un poco degna del sole».
II
Ma verso quel tempo l’isola fu colta in uno sciame di pirati; e i pastori dovettero mutarsi in rozzi guerrieri e marinai; e dapprima furono interamente prostrati nel sangue e nella vergogna; e i pirati avrebbero potuto impadronirsi del gioiello lanciato per sempre in alto dalla loro sacra fonte. E poi, dopo anni di orrore e di umiliazione, guadagnarono un poco e cominciarono a vincere perché non si curavano della sconfitta. E l’orgoglio dei pirati si ammalò dentro di loro dopo qualche inaspettato scacco; e infine l’invasione rifluì nei mari deserti e l’isola fu liberata. E per qualche ragione, dopo di ciò, gli uomini cominciarono a parlare in modo assai diverso del tempio e del sole. Alcuni, invero, dicevano: «Non dovete toccare il tempio; è classico; è perfetto, poiché non ammette imperfezioni». Ma gli altri rispondevano: «In ciò esso differisce dal sole, che risplende sui malvagi e sui buoni, e sul fango e sui mostri d’ogni dove. Il tempio è del mezzogiorno; è fatto di bianche nubi di marmo e di cielo di zaffiro. Ma il sole non è sempre del mezzogiorno. Il sole muore ogni giorno; ogni notte è crocifisso nel sangue e nel fuoco».
Ora il sacerdote aveva insegnato e combattuto per tutta la guerra, e i suoi capelli erano incanutiti, ma i suoi occhi si erano fatti giovani. Ed egli disse: «Io avevo torto ed essi hanno ragione. Il sole, simbolo del nostro padre, dà vita a tutte quelle cose terrene che sono piene di bruttezza e di energia. Tutte le esagerazioni sono giuste, se esagerano la cosa giusta. Additiamo il cielo con zanne e corna e pinne e proboscidi e code, purché tutte additino il cielo. Gli animali brutti lodano Dio non meno dei belli. Gli occhi del rospo gli sporgono dal capo perché sta fissando il cielo. Il collo della giraffa è lungo perché ella si protende verso il cielo. L’asino ha orecchie per udire: che oda».
E sotto la nuova ispirazione progettarono una splendida cattedrale alla maniera gotica, con tutti gli animali della terra che le strisciavano dappertutto sopra, e tutte le possibili cose brutte che componevano un’unica comune bellezza, perché tutte si appellavano al dio. Le colonne del tempio erano scolpite come colli di giraffe; la cupola era come una brutta tartaruga; e il pinnacolo più alto era una scimmia ritta sul capo con la coda puntata verso il sole. Eppure l’insieme era bello, perché era innalzato in un unico gesto vivo e religioso, come un uomo leva le mani nella preghiera.
III
Ma questo grande disegno non fu mai compiuto a dovere. Il popolo aveva trasportato su grandi carri il pesante tetto a tartaruga e gli enormi colli di pietra, e tutte le mille e una stranezza che componevano quell’unità, i gufi e i tritoni e i coccodrilli e i canguri, che, brutti presi da soli, sarebbero potuti essere magnifici se allevati in una determinata proporzione e consacrati al sole. Poiché questo era gotico, questo era romantico, questa era arte cristiana; questo era l’intero progresso di Shakespeare rispetto a Sofocle. E quel simbolo che doveva coronare il tutto, la scimmia a testa in giù, era davvero cristiano; poiché l’uomo è la scimmia a testa in giù.
But the rich, who had grown riotous in the long peace, obstructed the thing, and in some squabble a stone struck the priest on the head and he lost his memory. He saw piled in front of him frogs and elephants, monkeys and giraffes, toadstools and sharks, all the ugly things of the universe which he had collected to do honour to God. But he forgot why he had collected them. He could not remember the design or the object. He piled them all wildly into one heap fifty feet high; and when he had done it all the rich and influential went into a passion of applause and cried, “This is real art! This is Realism! This is things as they really are!”
That, I fancy is the only true origin of Realism. Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason. This is so not merely in the sense of insanity but of suicide. It has lost its reason; that is its reason for existing. The Old Greeks summoned godlike things to worship their god. The medieval Christians summoned all things to worship theirs, dwarfs and pelicans, monkeys and madmen. The modern realists summon all these million creatures to worship their god; and then have no god for them to worship. Paganism was in art a pure beauty; that was the dawn. Christianity was a beauty created by controlling a million monsters of ugliness; and that in my belief was the zenith and the noon. Modern art and science practically mean having the million monsters and being unable to control them; and I will venture to call that the disruption and the decay. The finest lengths of the Elgin marbles consist of splendid horses going to the temple of a virgin. Christianity, with its gargoyles and grotesques, really amounted to saying this: that a donkey could go before all the horses of the world when it was really going to the temple. Romance means a holy donkey going to the temple. Realism means a lost donkey going nowhere.
The fragments of futile journalism or fleeting impression which are here collected are very like the wrecks and riven blocks that were piled in a heap round my imaginary priest of the sun. They are very like that grey and gaping head of stone. Yet I will venture to make even of these trivial fragments the high boast that I am a medievalist and not a modern. That is, I really have a notion of why I have collected all the nonsensical things there are. I have not the patience nor perhaps the constructive intelligence to state the connecting links between all these chaotic papers. But it could be stated. This row of shapeless and ungainly monsters which I now set before the reader does not consist of separate idols cut out capriciously in lonely valleys or various islands. These monsters are meant for the gargoyles of a definite cathedral. I have to carve the gargoyles, because I can carve nothing else; I leave to others the angels and the arches and the spires. But I am very sure of the style of the architecture and of the consecration of the church.
Ma i ricchi, divenuti sfrenati nella lunga pace, ostacolarono l’impresa, e in una qualche zuffa una pietra colpì il sacerdote alla testa ed egli perse la memoria. Vide ammucchiati davanti a sé rane ed elefanti, scimmie e giraffe, funghi velenosi e squali, tutte le cose brutte dell’universo che aveva raccolto per rendere onore a Dio. Ma dimenticò perché le aveva raccolte. Non riusciva a ricordare il disegno né lo scopo. Le ammassò tutte alla rinfusa in un unico cumulo alto quindici metri; e quando ebbe finito, tutti i ricchi e influenti proruppero in una passione di applausi e gridarono: “Questa è vera arte! Questo è Realismo! Queste sono le cose come sono davvero!”
Questa, immagino, è l’unica vera origine del Realismo. Il Realismo è semplicemente Romanticismo che ha perduto la ragione. Ed è così non solo nel senso della follia ma del suicidio. Ha perduto la ragione; questa è la sua ragione d’esistere. Gli antichi Greci convocarono cose divine ad adorare il loro dio. I Cristiani medievali convocarono tutte le cose ad adorare il loro, nani e pellicani, scimmie e pazzi. I moderni realisti convocano tutte queste milioni di creature ad adorare il loro dio; e poi non hanno alcun dio da far loro adorare. Il Paganesimo fu, nell’arte, pura bellezza; quella fu l’alba. Il Cristianesimo fu una bellezza creata dominando un milione di mostri di bruttezza; e ciò, a mio credere, fu lo zenit e il mezzogiorno. L’arte e la scienza moderne significano in pratica avere il milione di mostri ed essere incapaci di dominarli; e mi arrischierò a chiamare tutto ciò la disgregazione e la decadenza. I tratti più belli dei marmi di Elgin consistono in splendidi cavalli che vanno al tempio di una vergine. Il Cristianesimo, con le sue gargolle e i suoi grotteschi, equivaleva in fondo a dire questo: che un asino poteva precedere tutti i cavalli del mondo quando esso andava davvero al tempio. Il Romanzesco è un santo asino che va al tempio. Il Realismo è un asino smarrito che non va in nessun luogo.
I frammenti di futile giornalismo o di fugace impressione qui raccolti somigliano molto ai relitti e ai blocchi spaccati che stavano ammucchiati intorno al mio immaginario sacerdote del sole. Somigliano molto a quella grigia e spalancata testa di pietra. Eppure mi arrischierò a fare anche di questi frammenti insignificanti l’alto vanto di essere un medievalista e non un moderno. Cioè, ho davvero una nozione del perché io abbia raccolto tutte le cose insensate che vi sono. Non ho la pazienza né forse l’intelligenza costruttiva per enunciare i legami che connettono tutte queste carte caotiche. Ma si potrebbe enunciarli. Questa fila di mostri informi e sgraziati che ora pongo davanti al lettore non consiste di idoli separati intagliati capricciosamente in solitarie valli o in varie isole. Questi mostri sono destinati a essere le gargolle di una precisa cattedrale. Devo intagliare le gargolle, perché non so intagliare altro; lascio ad altri gli angeli e gli archi e le guglie. Ma sono ben certo dello stile dell’architettura e della consacrazione della chiesa.