Emerson's "Art"

For outside research this week, I read Emerson’s essay entitled “Art” from www.rwe.org, the same website that “The American Scholar” is from. I was interested particularly in this article because when we were discussing the meaning of authorship for the first time in the first week of class, some of us defined the author as an artist, and I wanted to get Emerson’s opinion on artists to see how it compared with his opinions of the poet.

In the very first sentence of the essay, Emerson addresses the soul and how it progresses, and immediately begins to talk about the other world beyond this world, referring to it as “a new and fairer whole” (Art 1). He goes on to say that “in our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim” (Art 1), just as he said about poetry and imagination. Emerson believes that, like the poet, the artist has an “englarged sense” of the world and the symbols around him, and that in order for the artist to create art, he must “form…[it]…out of the old” (Art 1).

So Emerson basically has the same viewpoint of the artist as he does of the poet, but what about the reader and the person who studies art? Does Emerson think that art is meant only for inspiration, like books? Is he suspicious of those who study art in the same way that he is hesitant about the motives of the reader? Unfortunately, Emerson does not discuss the man who studies art, but he does discuss the extent of art, sort of like the extent of poetry.

When I say “extent,” I mean how far can art go? How far can it take us? For Emerson, “we must end with a frank confession, that the arts, as we know them, are but initial” (Art 4), that is to say, the arts are only the beginning. Once again, with a finite mind, the artist can attempt to reach truth through his art, but it is just the beginning of an attempt that will always fail. In the same way as Emerson’s idea of poetry, art will not suffice to reach truth.