“The Compleat Amateur”

or How Not to be An Artist

HAROLD BAUER

(No, I cannot write you an article. And I add to this the expression of my fervent hope that no Amateurs are going to be allowed to scribble for The Little Review. Speaking as a subscriber, I haven’t the least desire to read any of H. Bauer’s clumsy attempts to express himself in a medium that is foreign to him. Let him stick to his business.... You must write the article you have in mind yourself. From the depths of your artistic intuitions draw forth the material and give away the secrets—which are no secrets. Moreover, don’t confine yourself to music, much less to piano playing; take in the whole field of art and call it “The Compleat Amateur, or, How Not To Be an Artist.” I suggest the following headings.—Extract from a letter of the Author.)

I. “Le Style fait l’homme”

If you want to become an author, give up your life to the study of calligraphy, if a painter, devote yourself to the manufacture of paints and brushes, if a composer, commit to memory the number of notes in every standard classical work, and if a singer or instrumentalist, spend your whole energy in the establishing of a “sound technical foundation.” Emotional expression can then, if desired, be subsequently smeared like treacle on bread over all these different stylistic bases, this operation requiring neither skill nor expression.

II. “Means to an End”

The amateur must learn that technique represents an obstacle to be overcome and a set of tools to be acquired. It has nothing to do with expression. Only an imaginative artist like Maeterlinck would suggest that the road along which the student travels towards his destination is in reality a link, a connection joining one with the other—an umbilical cord partaking of the nature and attributes of both traveler and goal. To a perfectly rational person the road is merely a distance to be covered, a separation.

III. Personality, or, as some authorities have it: Individuality

This is the greatest asset of the Amateur. An artist is like everybody in the world. The book we read, the picture we see or the music we hear which renders tangible our own dimly-felt thoughts and emotional stirrings shows that we are in reality one with the artist and with the universe of which these expressions are but reflections of unseen and unheard forces. An artist combines the power and responsibilities of the aristocrat with the feelings of an anarchist, he is the guardian of privilege and the destroyer of authority, the leveler of barriers and the creator of the superman, the leader and the servant of humanity and ... the Arch Enemy of the Amateur! The artist is like all humanity, but the Amateur is not like the Artist. The Amateur must hang on for dear life to his precious soul and resist to the last gasp the incursions of any outside force in which he can trace the semblance of his own nature, for if anything gets in something may get out and he won’t be able to sort himself out afterwards. Hence the Amateur must be an Individualist; otherwise he is doomed to extinction. The Amateur’s business is to interpret the universe in terms eternally incomprehensible to anyone but himself, and to compromise with the necessity for intercourse with his fellow-creatures by the adoption of an artificial language which can convey thoughts and feelings of a superficial character, but nothing more.

The tale that points a moral, the picture that suggests a tale, and the music that evokes a picture; these are the vehicles for “personality” and your fine amateur must cultivate the pride that the realization of an exclusive understanding of these things gives. If Hamlet had been an amateur instead of being an artist he would never have suggested that a cloud was like a camel, a weasel, or a whale; he would have pointed out its resemblance to a mathematical calculation or a treatise on political economy, and Polonius would have been far more impressed—for this would have shown Great Individuality.

IV. The Mission of Amateurism

A true Amateur must learn the value of success, the immense importance of achievement, the inward meaning of gratified self-conceit. Praise from small minds represents the highest possible attainment of accomplished Amateurism. The object of Amateurishness is, like the puzzle pictures in the daily papers, to present a pretty little problem with a perfectly simple and obvious solution, thus giving effortless pleasure and satisfaction to all concerned.

The opportunities afforded by collective Amateurism for the repression of Art are invaluable and as the study of the subject is within the reach of all, including those who are congenitally afflicted with artistic talent, it devolves upon everyone who holds the opinion that this is the best of all possible worlds, to make it his life’s occupation and aim to be a “compleat amateur”.