The artist was a figure of great importance to the Modernist writer. One need only look through the literature of the time to see this. Hardly a book was written that didn't include as at least a minor character an artist of some sort. In this time of waning faith in God, the figure of the man who creates, who makes order from chaos, was very tantalizing. The modern artist was seen as a trailblazer, standing at the vanguard of humanity and cutting away the undergrowth of the past to create a path to the future. This path wasn't always pleasant -- in fact it was often disturbing and frightening to the average human being -- but it was a necessary step for the artist to explore that territory, so that the rest of humanity could follow.

        However, the Modern period was also one of questioning absolutes, of distrusting the so-called "objective" viewpoint. Especially after World War I, this disillusionment ran deep in European and American culture. If this is the case, though, how can one even define what "the modern artist" is, much less analyze how that figure functions across multiple works of literature? That question is, perhaps, impossible to answer, but, if one makes a few assumptions at the start, one may at least attempt to define and analyze the figure of the modern artist. Many critics and philosophers of the time offered forth their beliefs about the modern artist and, based on these essays, particular literary figures can be looked at in terms of how well they live up to the ideal of that critic. More specifically, the respective merits of Charles Strickland in W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence and Axel Olsen in Nella Larsen's Quicksand as modern artists can be judged by the standards of the artist set up by Paul Valéry in "Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci" and Wallace Stevens in "Two or Three Ideas."

        Valéry writes in "Introduction…" that, "Since mind has found no limit to its activity, and since no idea marks the end of the business of consciousness, it must most likely perish in some incomprehensible climax foreshadowed and prepared by those terrors and odd sensations of which I have spoken; they give us glimpses of worlds that are unstable and incompatible with fullness of life." (Valéry, 89) His main argument is that the mind of the artist, seeing this reality as only one choice among infinite possibilities, goes beyond this choice of reality and sees what is actually there, the essential elements of life, and then imparts that knowledge in some degree to humanity in general. The artist sees that, "all things are equalÂ…All things are replaceable by all things." (Ibid. 92) Physical phenomena become unimportant—all is merely things, which are no better or worse than other things that could be just as easily be in their place. The artist, "has passed beyond all creations, all works, beyond even his greatest designs at the same time that he has put away from him all tenderness for himself and all preference for his own desires. He immolates, in one instant, his individuality." (Ibid. 94) The artist who has perfected himself and his work, who has forsaken the care of his physical form, is destroyed by the very same forces that allowed him to create. In a sense, he is a candle that has burned too hot and too fast to live, his human form disintegrates and he dies in a blaze of creativity.

        This is, of course, a rather romantic portrait of the artist, but one, it seems, that is borne out in The Moon and Sixpence. Charles Strickland is most certainly a man who sees beyond the everyday and to something essential. In the climactic scene in which Strickland finally shows the narrator his pictures, the narrator is confused and unable to fully appreciate them, but is left with this impression:
 

   The final impression I received was of a prodigious effort to express some state of the soul, and in this effect, I fancied, must be sought the explanation of what so utterly perplexed me. It was evident that colours and forms had a significance for Strckland that was peculiar to himself. He was under an intolerable necessity to convey something that he felt, and he created them with that intention alone. He did not hesitate to simplify or to distort if he could get nearer to that unknown thing he sought. Facts were nothing to him, for beneath the mass of irrelevant incidents he looked for something significant to himself. It was a though he had become aware of the soul of the universe and were compelled to express it.       (Maugham, 150)

The particular does not interest Strickland. He is not a realist. He does not exist in the world in which everything is set—he sees beyond surface reality, distorting normal everyday forms in a way that suggests that their forms are not essential to them, they are merely a convention of this reality. He seeks for something essential, something eternal in ordinary forms by distorting them in ways that prompt the viewer to question his own reality frame, and allow for the possibility of others.

        Just as outward forms are merely "things" to Strickland, so too are human relationships. He is not, as some readings of the novel may suggest, a misanthrope. It is simply that in the world in which he exists, human beings don't matter. They are just "things," and are infinitely replaceable. The narrator asks Strickland, "You don't care if people think you are an utter blackguard? You don't care if [your wife] and your children have to beg their bread?' ‘Not a damn.'… ‘You are a most unmitigated cad.' ‘Now that you've got that off your chest, let's go and have dinner.'" (Maugham, 49) Why should it matter to Strickland what people think of him or who he has relationships with? Indeed, as Val¾ry says, "Is it not the chief and secret achievement of the greatest mind to isolate this substantial permanence from the strife of everyday truths?" (94)

        Strickland's end also dovetails with 's views. Valéry says, "This final clarity, however, is only found after long wanderings, inevitable idolatries. The consciousness of the operations of thought, the unrecognized logic of which  I have spoken, exists but rarely, even in the most powerful minds." (99) Strickland's "long wanderings" bring him eventually to Tahiti, where he finds peace, artistic fulfilment, and, finally, death. He finds a native woman, Ata, who is his ideal woman; she feeds him, fulfils his sexual needs, and keeps from underfoot. He finds artistic fulfilment in his hut, which he makes into his masterpiece. As Dr. Coutras remembers,
 

   From floor to ceiling the walls were covered with a strange and elaborate composition… It was the work of a man who knew things which it is unholy for men to know. There was something primeval there and terrible. It was not human. It brought to his mind vague recollections of black magic. It was beautiful and obscene.
   ‘Mon Dieu, this is genius.'
     The words were wrung from him, and he did not know he had spoken.
       (Maugham, 207)

However, this final artistic glory does not survive. As per his deathbed instructions, the hut is burned to the ground. Strickland's flame has burnt both his body and his work to ash; the leprosy that claims him is an expression of the power of his mind eating away at his physical form. He dies, as all artists die, in his final act of creation.

        Axel Olsen in Quicksand, however, does not seem to fit into Valéry's mould of the artist. He seems to care a great deal of what the world thinks, which is reflected in his style of dress. He is first seen as "a tallish man with a flying mane of reddish blond hair. He was wearing a great black cape, which swung gracefully from his huge shoulders, and in his long, nervous hand he held a wide soft hat… How affected! How theatrical!" (Larsen, 70) For a way to fit him into the concept of the modern artist, one must look elsewhere.

        Wallace Stevens, in his essay, "Two or Three Ideas," postulates that, "the style of a poem and the poem itself are one." (Stevens, 202) In other words, the representation of a thing ("the style") is equated with the thing itself ("the poem"). They are one. Olsen most certainly adheres to this idea. The first time he meets Helga Crane, all his words concern her physical form, "Superb eyes… color… neck column… yellow… hair… alive… wonderful…" (Larsen, 71) He is looking only at her shape, her form, her style. Then when he proceeds to paint her portrait, according to Helga he paints only that external form, seeing nothing of the person within, "It wasn't, she contended, herself at all, but some disgusting sensual creature with her features." (Ibid. 89) For Olsen, however, the internal being and the external form are one, "I think that my picture of you is, after all, the true Helga Crane." (Ibid. 88) Helga denies this every step of the way, but there is enough ambivalence in the novel to allow for either interpretation.

        If, however, Stevens' definition is to be used to support Olsen's classification as a modern artist, it must be shown to support Strickland as well (beyond the obvious link to Formalism through Strickland being depicted reading Mallarm¾). This link to Stevens can be found through Blanche Stroeve. The narrator says of Strickland's relationship with Blanche, "I felt that he was at once too great and too small for love… I suppose that everyone's conception of the passion is formed on his own idiosyncrasies and it is different with every different person. A man like Strickland would love in a manner peculiar to himself. It was vain to seek the analysis of his emotion." (Maugham, 113)

        The key to this relationship can be found in Strickland's reasoning for letting Blanche stay with him. He says, "I told her that when I'd had enough of her she'd have to go, and she said she's risk that… She had a wonderful body, and I wanted to paint a nude. When I'd finished my picture I took no more interest in her." (Maugham, 143) Strickland's desire for Blanche is not a desire for partnership, for relationship, it is a desire for possession. He can have her body, but that's not enough for him, he wants more. So he paints her, he captures her outward form, and, in doing so, captures everything about her that makes her unique. He has captured the form, what more need does he have for the physical reality? He has the essential, why retain the particular?  And so he leaves her. Her suicide can be looked at as a further confirmation of this identity of form and content. The portrait has been painted, her form has been captured and possessed by Strickland, therefore there is no need to continue living. So, she drinks the oxalic acid and thereafter exists only in the portrait.

        Perhaps the true nature of the modern artist cannot be defined. Perhaps so many authors used that general character type in their works that any clear-cut definition would immediately be struck down with exceptions from all sides. But, if we are to truly understand the nature of Modernism, this is a project which must be undertaken. The character is so pervasive and so emblematic of the intellectual struggles of that time that any attempt to understand the period without some sort of working definition of the figure would be shallow and nearly useless. The method of cross-referencing philosophers and critics with the literature of the time seems a sound one, and perhaps one way of more fully understanding the underpinnings of humanity during the Modern period.
 
 
 

Works Cited

 
 
 

Larsen, Nella. Quicksand. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers UP,    1996.

Maugham, W. Somerset. The Moon and Sixpence. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1944.

Stevens, Wallace. Opus Posthumous. New York: Alfred K. Knopf, 1957.

Valéry, Paul. Selected Writings of Paul Valéry.  New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1950.