Page:The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).djvu/286

254 concept, or describing some visible reality, will exhaust the whole treasure of the ineffable. Unless rhythm or accent save it by their own charms, the effect of the poem will depend solely on the echo which the subject, the thought in itself, awakens in the soul of the hearer. A contemporary will be thrilled by the poet's word, for the thought which the latter expresses also forms an integral part of his own life, and it will appear the more striking to him in so far as its form is more brilliant. A happy selection of terms will suffice to make the expression of it acceptable and charming to him. As soon, however, as this thought is worn out and no longer responds to the preoccupations of the soul of the period, nothing of value is left to the poem except its form. No doubt, that is of extreme value. Sometimes it is so fresh and so touching that it makes us forget the insignificance of the contents. A new beauty of form was already revealing itself in the literature of the fifteenth century; still, in the greater number of its productions, the form as well was worn out and the qualities of rhythm and tone are poor. In such a case, without novelty of thought or form, nought remains but an interminable postlude on hackneyed themes, a poetry without a future.

The painter of the same epoch and of the same mentality as the poet will have nothing to fear from time. For the inexpressible which he has put into his work will always be there as fresh as on the first day. Let us consider the portraits of Jan van Eyck, the somewhat pointed and pinched face of his wife, the aristocratic, impassible and morose head of Baudouin de Lannoy, the suffering and resigned visage of the Arnolfini at Berlin, the enigmatic candour of "Leal Souvenir" in the National Gallery. In each of these physiognomies the personality was probed to the last inch. It is the profoundest character-drawing possible. These characters were not analysed by the artist, but seen as a whole and then revealed to us by his picture. He could not have described them in words, even though he had been, at the same time, the greatest poet of his age. Painting, even when it professes no more than to render the outward appearance of things, preserves its mystery for all time to come.

Hence the art and the literature of the fifteenth century, though born of the same inspiration and the same spirit,