Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/296

270 poets; in this realm of art they are the arch-controllers of the force of "fantastic imagination." (Solov'ev translated Hoffmann's The Golden Pot into Russian.)

Solov'ev considers art higher than philosophy. Artistic creation, as a form of activity, is more akin than philosophy to moral action; it is an image of the divine work of creation. Solov'ev's views concerning the mission of free theurgy have already been discussed.

In his Three Addresses in commemoration of Dostoevskii (1881–1883), Solov'ev expresses the hope that poesy, the poesy of the future, will reunite itself with religion, reconstituting the union that existed in the primitive days of our race, when poets were prophets and priests. He discerns in Dostoevskii as contrasted with the artists of materialist realism, the precursor of the art of the future, which will work in free association with religion.

By his antipathy for materialism, Solov'ev had his attention directed to the definition of ugliness. The ugly contrasts with unity and harmony; it is found in chaos, and in the opposition of chaos to the higher world and to ideas.

Although he thus clings to metaphysical aesthetics, from time to time Solov'ev gives expression to more realist notions on the subject, endeavouring, for example, to furnish a systematic exposition of the gradations of beauty in nature. His classification of natural beauties is based upon the physical classifications of the external world. First comes the quiescent world of light—sun, moon, stars, atmosphere (the rainbow), the sea in a calm, matter (the noble metals, and above all the diamond). Next comes nature in motion. Solov'ev then gives an analysis of beauty in organic life, and tells us that the worm is here the archetype of ugliness; living beings are beautiful in proportion as their organisation contrasts with that of the worm. In this disquisition Solov'ev avails himself of modern zoological theories, borrowing in especial from the ideas of Darwin.

Solov'ev wrote a few studies dealing with poets he admired. He distinguished three categories among Russian poets, according to the degree to which their art was self-conscious Puškin's relationship to his creative work was directly organic, not reflective. By reference to the poems wherein Puškin wrote concerning poetry and the poet, Solov'ev endeavoured to show that Puškin's views concerning art and the artist's