The Arts and SpiritismParis, Group Desliens, November 25
th, 1868 – medium Mr. Desliens
“Was there ever a time when there were more poets, more painters, sculptors, literati, artists of all kinds? Was there ever a time when poetry, painting, sculpture, any kind of art, was greeted with more disdain? Everything is in the doldrums, and nothing currently has a chance of being favorably appreciated, except what relates directly to the positivist fury of the century. There is still, no doubt, some friends of the beautiful, the great, the true; but sided by how many profaners, either among the professionals, or among the amateurs! There are no more painters; there are only makers! It is not glory that is pursued; it comes at too slow a speed for our generation of rushed people. Fame and the halo of talent crowning an existence in decline, what is that? A chimera, good at least for the artists of the past! We had time to live then; today we barely have time to enjoy! Now it is necessary to promptly get a fortune; one must make a name for oneself by an original action, by intrigue, by any not much confessable means, with which civilization fulfills the peoples who reach an immense progress for the future, or an unforgiving decadence. What does it matter if the conquered celebrity disappears as quickly as the existence of the ephemeral! What does it matter the brevity of celebrity! … It is an eternity if that time was enough to acquire fortune, the key to pleasures and the dolce far niente![1] It is the courageous struggle in the ordeal that makes talent; the struggle with fortune annoys and kills him! Everything falls, everything collapses, because there is no belief anymore! Do you think the painter believes in himself? Yes, he does sometimes; but, in general, he believes only in blindness, in the passion of the public, and he profits from it until a new whim moves elsewhere the torrent of favors that came his way! How to make religious or mythological paintings that strike and touch, when the beliefs in the ideas they represent have disappeared? We have the talent, we sculpt the marble, we give it the human form; but it is still a cold and insensible stone: it is lifeless! Beautiful shapes, but not the spark that creates immortality! The masters of antiquity made gods because they believed in these gods. Our current sculptors, who do not believe in that, hardly make men. But come faith, however illogical and without a serious goal, and it will give birth to masterpieces, and if guided by reason, there will be no limits that it cannot reach! Immense, completely unexplored fields are opening to today's youth, to all those who are driven by a powerful feeling of conviction in any direction whatsoever. Literature, architecture, painting, history, everything will receive from the Spiritist spur the new baptism of fire, necessary to restore energy and vitality to the dying society; for it will have engraved in the hearts of all those who accept it, an ardent love of humanity and an unshakeable faith in its destiny.An artist, Ducornet.”
[1] Pleasant idleness (T.N.)
