Notes on Dilettantism
(1799)
Dilettantism presupposes Art, as botch-work does handicraft.—Idea of Artist, in opposition to Dilettante.—Practice of Art scientifically.—Adoption of an Objective Art.—Legitimate progress and advancement.—Calling and profession.—Connection with a world of Art and Artists.—Schools.
The Dilettante does not hold the same relation to all the arts.
All the arts have an objective and a subjective side, and according as one or the other of these is predominant, the Dilettante has value or not.
Where the subjective of itself is of great importance, the Dilettante must and can approximate to the artist. For instance, oratory, lyrical poetry, music, dance.
Where the reverse is the case, there is a more marked distinction between Artist and Dilettante, as in architecture, the arts of design, epic and dramatic poetry.
Art itself gives laws, and commands the time.
Dilettantism follows the lead of the time.
When masters in art follow a false taste, the Dilettante expects so much the sooner to reach the level of art.
The Dilettante, receiving his first impulse to self-production from the effect of works of art on him, confounds these effects with the objective causes and motives, and would now make the state of feeling he has been put into productive and practical; as if out of the fragrance of flowers one should try to reproduce flowers themselves.
The speaking to the feelings, the last effect of all poetical organization, but which presupposes the concurrences of the whole of art, seems to the Dilettante to be the thing itself, and out of it he endeavors to produce.
In general, the Dilettante, in his ignorance of himself, puts the passive in the place of the active, and because he receives a lively impression from effects, thinks from these impressed effects to produce other effects.
The peculiar want of the Dilettante is Architectonic, in the highest sense,—that practical power which creates, forms, constitutes. Of this he has only a sort of misgiving, and submits himself to his material, instead of commanding it.
It will be found that the Dilettante runs particularly to neatness, which is the completion of the thing in hand, wherefrom a sort of illusion arises, as if the thing itself were worthy of existing. The same holds true of accuracy (accuratesse), and all the last conditions of Form, which can just as well accompany the formless.
General principles on which Dilettantism is allowable:—
When the Dilettante subjects himself to the severest rules at the outset, and undertakes to complete all the successive steps with the greatest strictness,—which he can the better afford to do, inasmuch as (1) the goal is not demanded of him; and, (2) if he wishes to retreat, he has prepared the surest path to connoisseurship.
In opposition to the general maxim, the Dilettante will thus be subject to more severe criticism than the Artist, who, resting upon a secure basis of art, incurs less danger in departing from rules, and may even by that means enlarge the province of art itself. The true artist rests firmly and securely upon himself. His endeavor, his mark, is the highest aim of art. In his own estimation he will always be far from that aim, and necessarily, therefore, will be always modest in regard to art or the idea of art, and will maintain that he has as yet accomplished little, no matter how excellent his work may be, or how high his consciousness of superiority, in reference to the world, may reach. Dilettanti, or real botchers, seem, on the other hand, not to strive towards an aim, not to see what is beyond, but only what is beside them. On this account they are always comparing, are for the most part extravagant in their praise, unskilful where they blame, have an infinite deference for their like, thus giving themselves an air of friendliness and fairness, which is in fact only to exalt themselves.