In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically
Recently, I was looking at a list of quotations having to do with skepticism. Most were unexceptional platitudes either for or against. One, however, was extraordinary: “In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically.”
The first thing that is odd about this is the grouping of cynicism, skepticism, and humbug. Then there is the contrast between those and living musically. And of course there is the question as to what “to live more musically” means.
The author of this peculiar utterance was Vincent Van Gogh, who has come to be regarded as the archetype of the mentally and emotionally unstable artist. But those who have read Van Gogh’s letters know that he was also a remarkably lucid and insightful writer. The quote I have cited may seem odd at first glance, but it richly repays a closer look.
To begin with, there is a brand of skepticism that is merely cynical and amounts to little more than humbug. It is routinely on display at cocktail parties, art openings, and on television talk shows. It is the main ingredient in what is called conventional wisdom, and amounts to nothing more than ideas diluted into fashion statements.
It must be accounted among the wonders of the contemporary world how one can move from a conversation over dinner to a chat in a theater lobby to a brief exchange in a supermarket checkout line and hear different people saying the same things about the same subjects in pretty much the same terms. It’s as if everyone were all reading from the same script. Among a certain set, conversation has devolved into a game of Chinese whispers. One is reminded of Yeats’s poem “The Scholars”:
All shuffle there, all cough in ink;
All wear the carpet with their shoes;
All think what other people think;
All know the man their neighbour knows.
It is easy to see why Van Gogh would have contrasted the version of this he was familiar with to music. What could be more unmusical than saying what everybody else is saying? There is a place for unison in music, but no place for monotony, absence of variation, no change of tempo, and — above all — lack of invention.
But Van Gogh’s point actually has little to do with the terms of contrast and everything to do with the relation between the things being contrasted. He does not suggest that we do anything about the cynicism, skepticism, and humbug. He says only that eventually we will have had our fill of them.
Notice, though, what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say that, when we have had our fill of them, we will live more musically. He says only that we will want to. It is a subtle point, subtly made. There is a wistfulness to it, a gentleness, that makes the sentence itself — which is perfectly shaped — seem almost like a melody.
So what might it mean, to live more musically? Well, to spell it out in any great detail would, I suspect, be most unmusical. Think instead of song and dance, of themes and variations, of counterpoint, how voices and tunes can weave in and out among each other, and think of how life — or at least the living of it — could more nearly resemble those.
In the meantime, we are left having to put up with a badinage of talking points.
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Ah, but then we must decide if we want our musical lives to resemble something by W. A. Mozart or something by John Cage (to name just two possibilities among many thousands). That, of course, is a different discussion.
Maybe not so different as it might seem, R.T. I’d go with W.A. because I don’t hear much music in Cage (except the early music for prepared piano).
Wow, that’s an absolutely perfect sentence. I had read The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh several years ago, but don’t remember coming across that gem. Do you know if he had written that quote in one of his letters? If so, which one? I’d be interested in reading the context of the quote. Thanks for the great article!
Cage lived one of the most creatively integrated and continuously creatively-organized lives of any artist of the 20th century. Everything he did was about making art, every day.
Mozart’s life was chaotic, crazy, uprooted, full of clamor and controversy, escapades and his follies were numerous and well-gossiped about. The ONLY thing organized and serene about Mozart’s life was his music.
I know which life I’d choose to emulate, and have already done so.
Agreed, Art – and much the same could be said of Beethoven and many other composers. Come to think of it the same could be said of Van Gogh’s. But I think it would be hard to say that Cage’s music is on a par with Wolfie’s or Ludwig Van’s. And Van Gogh’s idea, I think, has to do with life mirroring music, not how to live in order to create music. A better exemplar than Cage, in my view, would be Lou Harrison.
Well, I certainly accept and approve of Lou Harrison in this context, but I’m biased because he was one of my mentors. he was a role model for the life fully engaged with music and creativity—but then so were most of the composers of his generation, including Cage, Alan Hovhaness, Dane Rudhyar, Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow, and several others.
As an amateur Cage scholar, I’d point out at this point that the typical misconceptions of Cage’s music AND his intent for his music are being recycled here, and I suppose I’ll leave it that. Except to say that in terms of invention, ideas, and contribution to the “evolution” of musical idea, Cage is very much on a par with those others. His basic idea was that any sort of sound can be perceived as music, if you define it as such, and create a musical space in which to hear it. (Beethoven said something similar.)
I’m not sure how I’d interpret van Gogh’s statement, but I certainly do like it, and it does make one think. To be honest, I don’t see any difference at all between “life mirroring music” and “how to live in order to create music (art)”—those are conjoined ways of life, mutually supportive, and mutually necessary. van Gogh’s life as well as his art is a very good example of both the supportive and the shadow sides of a life lived in order to make art. And I do rather think he lived his life musically—but his life was more like Mahler’s music than Mozart’s.
Of course, Art (and Frank), my allusion to Mozart and Cage was not based on lives of the musicians but on their styles of music. Perhaps I should have been more clear at the outset. Still, the comparison may not work for you as it does me.
We’ve veered away from van Gogh, sorry. One last thought:
Living in harmony is certainly musical living.
But there this analogy might break down, as living in discord (dis-chord) might simply be another kind of order, a perhaps Webernian order as opposed to a Mozartian order.
The “well-composed” life can be lived many different ways. The analogy to composer’s styles of music is here a bit retrograde, and beside the point—okay, you like Mozart and you don’t like Cage, that’s fine—because Cage’s compositions were just as carefully composed as Mozart’s. (And Mozart wrote a piece to be composed using dice, so the indeterminacy angle was also something they shared.)
So, no, the musical comparison doesn’t work at all for me.
The problem is your analogy devolves to stylistic taste, nothing more. Which if fine as far as that goes, and we’re all free to like or dislike whatever we want to. My point was that the artistic life as lived often contradicts the surface appearance of the art produced.
No intent to offend. Music composition is my chief area of expertise, so I like being precise rather than sloppy about it.
You remind me, Art, that discord is in fact an essential element in music and that I overlooked it in my piece. I don’t think that Van Gogh was thinking of how artists live their lives, but rather how all of us, whether artists or not, could live lives that have the shape and flow of music. My own life has been filled with discord from time to time, but that discord was necessary, in my view, and altogether as valuable as any of the other ingredients. I must confess, though, that I could never agree with Cage’s notion that sound and music are the same.
What you are really talking about is the difference between talking, and doing.
Cynicism, skepticism and humbug are the words people use when they do not have an original idea, and want to take down someone else so they can feel better. By doing, I mean living life in a thoughtful, creative, and productive way.