The Writer's/Artist Job is to Tell the Truth
by Joseph Conrad
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry
its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a
single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible
universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its
every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colours, in
its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and in the facts of
life what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and essential—their
one illuminating and convincing quality—the very truth of their
existence. The artist, then, like the thinker or the scientist, seeks the
truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect of the world the
thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts—whence,
presently, emerging they make their appeal to those qualities of our being
that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They speak
authoritatively to our common-sense, to our intelligence, to our desire of
peace or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our prejudices, sometimes
to our fears, often to our egoism—but always to our credulity. And
their words are heard with reverence, for their concern is with weighty
matters: with the cultivation of our minds and the proper care of our
bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions, with the perfection of the
means and the glorification of our precious aims.
It is otherwise with the artist.
Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within
himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be
deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is
made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which,
because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out of
sight within the more resisting and hard qualities—like the
vulnerable body within a steel armour. His appeal is less loud, more
profound, less distinct, more stirring—and sooner forgotten. Yet its
effect endures forever. The changing wisdom of successive generations
discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist
appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to
that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition—and, therefore,
more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and
wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of
pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all
creation—and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity
that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the
solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in
hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all
humanity—the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
It is only some such train of thought, or rather of feeling, that can in a
measure explain the aim of the attempt, made in the tale which follows, to
present an unrestful episode in the obscure lives of a few individuals out
of all the disregarded multitude of the bewildered, the simple and the
voiceless. For, if any part of truth dwells in the belief confessed above,
it becomes evident that there is not a place of splendour or a dark corner
of the earth that does not deserve, if only a passing glance of wonder and
pity. The motive then, may be held to justify the matter of the work; but
this preface, which is simply an avowal of endeavour, cannot end here—for
the avowal is not yet complete. Fiction—if it at all aspires to be
art—appeals to temperament. And in truth it must be, like painting,
like music, like all art, the appeal of one temperament to all the other
innumerable temperaments whose subtle and resistless power endows passing
events with their true meaning, and creates the moral, the emotional
atmosphere of the place and time. Such an appeal to be effective must be
an impression conveyed through the senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made
in any other way, because temperament, whether individual or collective,
is not amenable to persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to
the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words
must also make its appeal through the senses, if its highest desire is to
reach the secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire
to the plasticity of sculpture, to the colour of painting, and to the
magic suggestiveness of music—which is the art of arts. And it is
only through complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form
and substance; it is only through an unremitting never-discouraged care
for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can be made to
plasticity, to colour, and that the light of magic suggestiveness may be
brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface of
words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless
usage.
The sincere endeavour to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on
that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering,
weariness or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker in
prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who in the
fulness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand specifically
to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly improved, or
encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must run thus:—My
task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to
make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.
That—and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find
there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm—all
you demand—and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you
have forgotten to ask. To snatch in a moment of courage, from the
remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the beginning
of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up
unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment
before all eyes in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its
vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and
its colour, reveal the substance of its truth—disclose its inspiring
secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment.
In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and
fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at
last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall
awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable
solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in
hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to
the visible world. It is evident that he who, rightly or wrongly, holds by
the convictions expressed above cannot be faithful to any one of the
temporary formulas of his craft. The enduring part of them—the truth
which each only imperfectly veils—should abide with him as the most
precious of his possessions, but they all: Realism, Romanticism,
Naturalism, even the unofficial sentimentalism (which like the poor, is
exceedingly difficult to get rid of,) all these gods must, after a short
period of fellowship, abandon him—even on the very threshold of the
temple—to the stammerings of his conscience and to the outspoken
consciousness of the difficulties of his work. In that uneasy solitude the
supreme cry of Art for Art itself, loses the exciting ring of its apparent
immorality. It sounds far off. It has ceased to be a cry, and is heard
only as a whisper, often incomprehensible, but at times and faintly
encouraging.
Sometimes, stretched at ease in the shade of a roadside tree, we watch the
motions of a labourer in a distant field, and after a time, begin to
wonder languidly as to what the fellow may be at. We watch the movements
of his body, the waving of his arms, we see him bend down, stand up,
hesitate, begin again. It may add to the charm of an idle hour to be told
the purpose of his exertions. If we know he is trying to lift a stone, to
dig a ditch, to uproot a stump, we look with a more real interest at his
efforts; we are disposed to condone the jar of his agitation upon the
restfulness of the landscape; and even, if in a brotherly frame of mind,
we may bring ourselves to forgive his failure. We understood his object,
and, after all, the fellow has tried, and perhaps he had not the strength—and
perhaps he had not the knowledge. We forgive, go on our way—and
forget.
And so it is with the workman of art. Art is long and life is short, and
success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel so far,
we talk a little about the aim—the aim of art, which, like life
itself, is inspiring, difficult—obscured by mists; it is not in the
clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of one
of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It is not
less great, but only more difficult.
To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of the
earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to glance
for a moment at the surrounding vision of form and colour, of sunshine and
shadows; to make them pause for a look, for a sigh, for a smile—such
is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for a very few to
achieve. But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task
is accomplished. And when it is accomplished—behold!—all the
truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile—and the
return to an eternal rest.
1897. J. C.
Excrepted from The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecast by Joseph Conrad
About the Author
Joseph Conrad (born
Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski,
Polish: [ˈjuzɛf tɛˈɔdɔr ˈkɔnrat kɔʐɛˈɲɔfskʲi] (audio speaker
iconlisten); 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British
writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English
language. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties,
he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English
sensibility into English literature. He wrote stories and novels, many
with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the
midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe.
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