Read Online Glory and the Lightning by Taylor Caldwell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Taylor Caldwell
Ads: Link
bring to art all our falsities and degradation, but in themselves the objects are neither lewd nor meretricious. In short, what we view can be interpreted innocently and with admiration, or debauched. It is in ourselves.”
The majority of the maidens preferred to peek and giggle, which outraged Tmolus. “You are fools!” he would cry. “Did not the gods create man and woman? Did they find either licentious, in their bodies, or obscene? These things are in your own minds, and that is sad. But I have discerned that youth is innately gross and is born impure. That is the curse of mankind.”
Once Aspasia had said to him, “But does not the belief that certain things are evil and disgusting enhance their value in human minds?”
Tmolus considered this. Then he said, “Alas, it is true.”
But still he struggled with the young girls assigned to him. Art, he would tell them, is above good and evil. He knew that in this he defied the purse-lipped Ecclesia who found evil in everything, and even denounced naked athletes, and, of a certainty, beauty itself. “No doubt they would destroy bees, who fertilize the flowers, if they dared,” Tmolus complained bitterly.
Aspasia put this into her mind and pondered on it, and knew it was true. Like Tmolus she deplored the fact that sculptors painted the noble white majesty of marble statues. “Let there be innocence,” Tmolus endlessly repeated. “Why must mankind inflict its meanness and mediocrity on that which is natively simple and complete? If there is any evil at all it is in the complicated intricacy of the deformed human soul, which must daub and smear its offal on that which is pure.”
From Tmolus she learned more of true glory and reverence than she did from her teachers of theology.
She had known since childhood that she was not capable of creating great sculpture nor was she adept at painting, for all her efforts. Tmolus consoled her. “It is not necessary to create beauty to appreciate it, my child. For what do sculptors and painters labor? For the joy of those who view. We cannot all be artists. But is the viewer who loves and reverences less than he who also loves and creates and reverences? Do the gods demand that we be gods also? No. It is enough for us to rejoice in them and in those they have gifted.”
Aspasia would hold cool marble in her hands and often she became ecstatic over it. Her heart lifted when she touched mosaics and gazed on pictures. This reproduction of nature exalted her. Her taste was immaculate and sure. She, like her teacher, hated mediocrity. “Excellence,” said Tmolus, “is the utter goal of a true artist. It is not relevant that all who love excellence in art be artists themselves. It is enough to appreciate it. That appreciation is the accolade and the contentment of all artists. Without an understanding of excellence a man is an animal.”
He would add, “Alas, no artist ever attains, in his work, the perfection for which he strives. Perfection is beyond humanity, but that does not mean we should abandon it as a goal.”
To Aspasia, who desired to be excellent in all things, this was a consolation. So she cultivated her adoration of beauty and her understanding of it. She fervently hoped that some day she would be able to influence a powerful man to become a patron of the arts. It would not be possible to endure a man who would revel in her own loveliness and not be aware of its greater meaning. Sensuality was not enough. Physical beauty was transient. That which was graven in stone and was painted in luminous colors and written eloquently in books endured. Helen of Troy was dead, but the memory of her beauteousness remained to inspire poets and artists. Legend was eternal, and never grew old and ugly. That was why the gods continued to be magnificent, beyond human pollution.
Today, Tmolus had a new model for his maidens.
The young girl, nude and gleaming like amber, was of some twelve years, innocently unaware of her
The majority of the maidens preferred to peek and giggle, which outraged Tmolus. “You are fools!” he would cry. “Did not the gods create man and woman? Did they find either licentious, in their bodies, or obscene? These things are in your own minds, and that is sad. But I have discerned that youth is innately gross and is born impure. That is the curse of mankind.”
Once Aspasia had said to him, “But does not the belief that certain things are evil and disgusting enhance their value in human minds?”
Tmolus considered this. Then he said, “Alas, it is true.”
But still he struggled with the young girls assigned to him. Art, he would tell them, is above good and evil. He knew that in this he defied the purse-lipped Ecclesia who found evil in everything, and even denounced naked athletes, and, of a certainty, beauty itself. “No doubt they would destroy bees, who fertilize the flowers, if they dared,” Tmolus complained bitterly.
Aspasia put this into her mind and pondered on it, and knew it was true. Like Tmolus she deplored the fact that sculptors painted the noble white majesty of marble statues. “Let there be innocence,” Tmolus endlessly repeated. “Why must mankind inflict its meanness and mediocrity on that which is natively simple and complete? If there is any evil at all it is in the complicated intricacy of the deformed human soul, which must daub and smear its offal on that which is pure.”
From Tmolus she learned more of true glory and reverence than she did from her teachers of theology.
She had known since childhood that she was not capable of creating great sculpture nor was she adept at painting, for all her efforts. Tmolus consoled her. “It is not necessary to create beauty to appreciate it, my child. For what do sculptors and painters labor? For the joy of those who view. We cannot all be artists. But is the viewer who loves and reverences less than he who also loves and creates and reverences? Do the gods demand that we be gods also? No. It is enough for us to rejoice in them and in those they have gifted.”
Aspasia would hold cool marble in her hands and often she became ecstatic over it. Her heart lifted when she touched mosaics and gazed on pictures. This reproduction of nature exalted her. Her taste was immaculate and sure. She, like her teacher, hated mediocrity. “Excellence,” said Tmolus, “is the utter goal of a true artist. It is not relevant that all who love excellence in art be artists themselves. It is enough to appreciate it. That appreciation is the accolade and the contentment of all artists. Without an understanding of excellence a man is an animal.”
He would add, “Alas, no artist ever attains, in his work, the perfection for which he strives. Perfection is beyond humanity, but that does not mean we should abandon it as a goal.”
To Aspasia, who desired to be excellent in all things, this was a consolation. So she cultivated her adoration of beauty and her understanding of it. She fervently hoped that some day she would be able to influence a powerful man to become a patron of the arts. It would not be possible to endure a man who would revel in her own loveliness and not be aware of its greater meaning. Sensuality was not enough. Physical beauty was transient. That which was graven in stone and was painted in luminous colors and written eloquently in books endured. Helen of Troy was dead, but the memory of her beauteousness remained to inspire poets and artists. Legend was eternal, and never grew old and ugly. That was why the gods continued to be magnificent, beyond human pollution.
Today, Tmolus had a new model for his maidens.
The young girl, nude and gleaming like amber, was of some twelve years, innocently unaware of her
Similar Books
