Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/397

Rh his realism leading him to advocate the characteristic view that the poet thinks in pictures. But he did not fail to emphasise also the work done by the poet in the field of thought. In 1842 he wrote that living contemporary science had become the foster-mother of art, for without science talent was weak and enthusiasm lacked energy. At an earlier date Venevitinov had said that Russian literature "must think rather than create"—a one-sided rule, but one whose formulation was readily comprehensible in the Russia of Nicholas.

These views remind us of Schelling, but also of Hegel, for in æsthetics as in philosophy Bělinskii was influenced by both the German thinkers. The giving of art precedence over practice and theory is Schellingian, and when the author is in this vein we are told that the good is based upon æsthetic sentiments; but after Bělinskii has made acquaintance with Hegel his tendency is rather to range the beautiful beside religion and philosophy, and to insist that the beautiful too is moral.

We find echoes of Schelling and Hegel, in addition, in the conflict between romanticism and classicism which continues unceasingly in Bělinskii's mind, and which Russian realism hoped to bring to an end. But Bělinskii himself is as little successful here as in his attempts at a more precise demarcation between subjectivism and objectivism in general. On the one hand we are told that art, as the product of genius (genius being appraised à la Schelling) is subjective; yet at the same time he assures us that art is objective and must be nothing else. During the years when Bělinskii was idolising reality it was natural that in the sphere of æsthetics he should insist that art must represent reality alone.

The question whether art may have a purpose, exercised Bělinskii's mind greatly. At one time he would insist that art must never be tendentious, and yet shortly afterwards he would say that art pure and simple must be supplemented by tendentious belletristics, for this was extremely useful.

Bělinskii never failed to esteem the beautiful, the artistic, most highly; but as his mind matured he came more and more to look for ideas, for thought-content, in works of art. This