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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In an exposition of the chief views of art set forth by Oswald Spengler anyone familiar with The Decline of the West will realize at once that a short paper can present only a very brief summary of the material on art scattered throughout the two volumes. Moreover, Spengler's views of art are so completely intertwined with information relative to the other activities of life that an essay may not be wholly restrictive in subject matter. Spengler makes the task doubly uninviting for the investigator by erecting a pons asinorum between himself and the would-be critic. Note, for example, the following sentence:
Nichts ist einfacher, als an Stelle von Gedanken, die man nicht hat, ein System zu begründen. Aber selbst ein guter Gedanke ist wenig wert, wenn er von einem Flachkopf ausgesprochen ist.
1 Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte: Erster Band, Gestalt und Wirklichkeit, 60. bis 63. Auflage: Zweiter Band, Welthistorische Perspektiven, 50. bis 53. Auflage. München: Beck, 1927 (as of the revised edition of 1923. First editions: Vol. i, 1918; Vol. ii, 1923). English translations by Charles F. Atkinson, The Decline of the West, Vol. i, Form and Actuality; Vol. ii, Perspectives of World History (New York: Knopf, 1926, 1928). The original German text will hereafter be referred to as g-i, g-ii; the translation, as e-i, e-ii.
2 g-i, 55; e-i, 41.
3 In the manner set forth by Morris R. Cohen in his Reason and Nature (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1931), Chap. iii, Sec. iii.—Doubtless Cohen himself would declare that Spengler leaps to conclusions rather than arrives at them through reason.
4 Without question, attained intuitively when logic de rigueur fails him.—Spengler repeatedly invokes flair and vision, and at times taunts the reader with the statement that some lofty concept is either understood or not understood and there is nothing more to be said about it. Regarding Spengler's originality, see especially the introduction to Egon Friedell's A Cultural History of the Modern Age, translated from the German by C. F. Atkinson (New York: Knopf, 1930), i, 3–47. Note also a footnote in Prince D. S. Mirsky's Contemporary Russian Literature (New York: Knopf, 1926), p. 48. Mirsky seems convinced that Spengler has derived from Nicholas Danilevsky's Russia and Europe.
5 The first edition of Vol. i of The Decline was completed in December, 1917, and evidently was teeming with errors of reference. These have supposedly been corrected and additional references offered in the revised edition. In the German text used for this paper, Spengler has thus had advantage of the issue of Logos (1921–22) in which he was subjected to a veritable barrage of venomous attacks.
6 e-i, 15; g-i, 20.
7 e-i, 21; g-i, 27–28. See also the complete introduction to the first volume.—At this point it is likewise well to call attention to the fact that Spengler and his translator make full use of all the devices of a printer, regardless of modern criteria of good taste. In the quotations given throughout this paper, I have recorded the devices used in the text.
8 g-i, 23; e-i, 18. See also g-i, Chap. ii; e-i, Chap. iii.
9 e-i, 93–94; g-i, 125.
10 A position for viewing cultures objectively would have to be assumed as constant, an impossibility for a creature caught in this world of change. Spengler's position can only be taken subjectively with the result that the probability of error is greatly increased. We should doubtlessly be more sympathetically inclined toward the man if he were less insistent on the absolute validity of his point of view. It is an amusing paradox, moreover, that in his attempt to gain objectivity the scholar is forced into subjective manipulation.
11 e-i, 21–22; g-i, 28.—Spengler has evidently failed to sense the possibility of both views coalescing into one.
12 Repeated warnings regarding the black pessimism contained in the work need not be taken too seriously, nor, indeed, the pronounced stoicism of Spengler himself in facing the “hard cold facts of a late life.” If the western world has been as gloriously creative as Spengler would have us believe, we should all be willing to die rejoicing, the futility of our own efforts notwithstanding. The Decline is really an aesthetic concoction of the great comedy and tragedy of human effort. Note Friedell's qualification, “a fascinating fiction” (op. cit., i, 39).
13 g-i, 134; e-i, 100.
14 See, for example, g-i, 139; e-i, 104.
15 This also holds true for Spengler's Man and Technics, A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life, translated by C. F. Atkinson (Knopf: New York, 1932)—original edition (München: Beck, 1931).
16 e-i, 59; g-i, 78.—The matter of discontinuity among cultures is beyond rational acceptance, so far as the necessity of such a condition is admitted. The peaks of cultures may loom up separately above the clouds; and, by accident, the inhabitants of one peak may not have communication with those of another. At the same time, however, all these mountains rest on one foundation. So, too, all cultures derive from the common experiences of a single unit, the human species. Spengler actually admits relationship that smacks of continuity in his discussion of homologous and analogous forms (g-i, 147–149; e-i, 110–112. See also g-i, 143; e-i, 107). As other critics have declared, The Decline is in itself a witness to the fact of continuity.
17 g-i, 28; e-i, 21. Note also g-i, 286; e-i, 221–222.
18 g-i, 7–8, 63, 299, et al.; e-i, 6–7, 47, 232.
19 g-i, 149–150; e-i, 112.—Observe Spengler's special use of the word “contemporary.”
20 g-i, 283; e-i, 219.
21 Man and Technics, p. 90 (see also pp. 44, 78, 94).—Likewise, note g-i, 205; e-i, 158.
22 g-ii, 59, 204; e-ii, 49, 170–171.—For non-cultural, pre-cultural, and also post-cultural men there is no historical activity to be recorded; there is only zoölogical activity.
23 See g-i, 226–227; e-i, 174–175 regarding the “prime symbol.”
24 Among others, note the following references: e-i, 33–34, 40, 41, 44, 48, 105, 107–108, 112, 167–168, 193 (note 1), 197, 206–207, 222–223, 232, 241, 277, 281, 282–285, 289–295, 329, 346, 357, 359, 363, 420, 424; ii, 81, 92, 103, 105, 107, 109, 171, 253.
25 Pp. 13–14. “But impermanence, the birth and the passing, is the form of all that is actual—from the stars, whose destiny is for us incalculable, right down to the ephemeral concourses on our planet. The life of the individual—whether this be animal or plant or man—is as perishable as that of peoples of Cultures. Every creation is foredoomed to decay, every thought, every discovery, every deed to oblivion. Here, there, and everywhere we are sensible of grandly fated courses of history that have vanished. Ruins of the ‘have-been’ works of dead Cultures lie all about us. The hybris of Prometheus, who thrust his hand into the heavens in order to make the divine powers subject to man, carries with it his fall. What, then, becomes of the chatter about ‘undying achievements’?” Spengler . does not mean that the artifacts must necessarily disappear; rather, “every thought, faith and science dies as soon as the spirits in whose worlds their ‘eternal truths’ were true and necessary are extinguished.” (e-i, 168; g-i, 217).
26 See especially the following references to the Renaissance: e-i, 221, 232–238, 252, 272, 273–281, 345, 414; ii, 58, 291. Spengler is insistent, in his deploying of evidence as well as in his pronunciamentos, that the Renaissance may be considered as a struggle of Western man against fulfilment of his destiny but never as a rebirth of the classical culture. Note also Friedell, op. cit., Chap. iv, La Rinascita; also, pp. 28, 45. Likewise observe that Merejkovski's novel The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci presents the Renaissance almost Spenglerwise.
27 g-i, 217–218; e-i, 168.—After reading such a passage we may have the good grace to show humility. Moreover, we become increasingly more cautious in our acceptance of conventional views of the various cultures, regardless of our attitude toward Spengler. Our disputes in literary history alone are sufficient to make us wonder whether we have history or fiction. Our myth-building capacity parallels our impotence of interpretation with the result that the “understanding eye and ear” pass out of existence. We speak ex cathedra out of habit rather than on the basis of incontrovertible evidence.
28 g-ii, 42; e-ii, 36.—Friedell is scarcely justified in adding the Russian as a ninth culture (op. cit., p. 38).
29 See note 23 above. See also e-i, 109–110; g-i, 146–147.
30 g-i, 233–234; e-i, 179–180.
31 Pp. 43–44.
32 See note 17 above.
33 e-i, 100; g-i, 134.
34 e-i, 157; g-i, 204.
35 e-i, 56; g-i, 75.
36 e-i, 101; g-i, 136.
37 e-i, 97; g-i, 130.
38 e-i, 117; g-i, 152.
39 e-i, 139; g-i, 180.
40 e-i, 358; g-i, 455.
41 e-i, 94; g-i, 127.
42 e-i, 58; g-i, 77–78.
43 e-i, 221; g-i, 285–286.
44 e-i, 227; g-i, 293. See also e-i, 21; g-i, 28.
45 We all know that Spengler is faced with an almost insuperable problem in the definition of art. We further recognize that our limits are set more or less arbitrarily in the establishment of the various genera. At the same time, however, it seems that Spengler moves toward greater confusion in setting only historical limits and thus presenting us with a myriad of arts.
46 g-i, 237–238; e-i, 185–186.
47 g-i, 94, 320–321, 486; e-i, 70, 248–249, 380. Even western aviation is related to painting and to religion (g-i, 355–356; e-i, 279).
48 g-ii, 264; e-ii, 217.
49 Religious ceremonies, of course, are the primary form of symbolic objectification of this metaphysic. The ceremonies, however, need tangible form and setting which lead to the exploitation in art of secondary forms of objectification; viz., architecture, sculpture, painting, music, literature, the dance.
50 e-i, 14, 131, 140–141, 183, 261, 262–266, 273; ii, 293–295.
51 e-i, 14; e-i, 18.—Strindberg's works are also confessional to the highest degree. The Swedish writer even went so far as to embarass others by confessing for them in his novels, short stories, and plays.
52 In fact, as confessions these are often far less reliable than many works not so labelled.
53 e-i, Chap. vi; g-i, Chap. iii, Sect. ii. See also e-i, 140–141; g-i, 181–183.
54 e-i, 317–326, 395–396; g-i, 405–417, 505–506.
55 e-i, 79, 80, 127; ii, 8, 12, 16, 114, 133, 139, 212, 213, 265–266, 345.
56 e-i, 186, 187, 241, 246, 273, 386, 402.
57 e-i, 127, 237, 396–397.
58 e-i, 136, 267, 422.
59 e-ii, 7; g-ii, 8.
60 Spengler insists that the Greek view of otherworldliness obtains from adherence to the tangible present.
61 Even the language of a cultural people betrays the subjective depth of its metaphysic. See g-i, 334–335; e-i, 262.
62 “We have learned to understand arts as primary phenomena. We no longer look to the operations of cause and effect to give unity to the story of development. Instead, we have set up the idea of the Destiny of an art, and admitted arts to be organisms of the Culture, organisms which are born, ripen, age and for ever die.” e-i, 281; g-i, 359.—See also e-i, 222–224; g-i, 286–289.
63 e-i, 277; g-i, 354.
64 e-i, 245; g-i, 316.
65 e-i, 237; g-i, 305.
66 e-i, 226–232; g-i, 292–299.—Music, according to Spengler, not only has a period of dominancy in the west; it predominates over all the other forms. See the later section, The Highest Expression.
67 e-i, 239; g-i, 308.
68 e-i, 107–108, 205–207; g-i, 143–144, 264–267.
69 e-i, 112; g-i, 150.
70 See note 26.
71 e-i, 27, 178, 227–228; g-i, 35–36, 231, 293–294.
72 e-ii, 44; g-ii, 52.
73 e-i, 401; g-i, 513.
74 e-i, 198–200; g-i, 254–257.
75 e-i, 30, 323; g-i, 39, 413.
76 With regard to contemporaneity, and morphological and functional equivalences. See note 16 above.
77 e-i, 145; g-i, 188.
78 e-i, 205; g-i, 264.—Note also Friedell's paradoxical statements regarding the individual and his age (op. cit., pp. 25–28).
79 See Spengler's account of the Arabian or Magian culture: g-ii, Chap. iii; e-ii, Chap. vii. Observe that Dr. Eduard Meyer does not agree with Spengler in the views set forth (translator's preface, e-i).
80 The factor of necessity is stressed throughout The Decline. Among other references note the following: e-i, 38, 39, 139, 197, 261, 274, 293, 346, 363, 364, 368, 400, 409, 424, 427; ii, 37. See also Man and Technics, p. 72.
81 Spengler thinks himself an opponent of Darwinism. See, however, Friedell, op. cit., pp. 39–40.
82 e-i, 21; g-i, 27.
83 See note 78 above
84 e-i, 221; g-i, 285.
85 e-ii, 109; g-ii, 130.—This is a strikingly awkward translation from the German, “Stil ist in Kulturen der Pulsschalg des Sicherfüllens.”
86 e-i, 205; g-i, 264.
87 e-i, 206; g-i, 265.
88 Note especially the noise created by expressionistic and stream-of-consciousness writers. Too often the limelight performers, and especially their barkers, have the conceit of Goethe's Baccalaureus when he says, “Die Welt, sie war nicht, eh' ich sie erschuf.”
89 e-ii, 133; g-ii, 159.
90 e-i, 231; g-i, 298.
91 g-i, 361; e-i, 283.
92 If the idea were developed a little more, one might conceivably arrive at the position that a culture has only one form of art; all other manifestations may be regarded as struggles toward the highest expression.
93 e-i, 35; e-i, 46–47.
94 e-i, 40; g-i, 53.
95 e-i, 39; g-i, 52–53.
96 Man and Technics, p. 104.
97 e-i, 41; g-i, 54.
98 g-i, 254, 375–378; e-i, 197, 293–295.
99 See note 25 above.—Buildings may be preserved; so, too, books, works of sculpture, paintings, and musical scores and instruments. But, according to Spengler, if these have no meaning for a people of a later age, they are also without existence. Indeed, non-existence is not merely a state of physical destuction of all objectivity; it may also be induced by permanent concealment of objects in ruins, a break in tradition sufficiently great to preclude the possibility of recapturing original meanings, or by myth making which suffocates all that is inherent and essential.