30 pages • 1 hour read
Nathaniel HawthorneThe Artist of the Beautiful
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1844A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of Art and the Evolution of the Artist
As many believe this story to be an allegory to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s artistic journey, this narrative focuses on art and the artist. The artist suffers several setbacks, often immediately after encountering the characters who personify Puritan ideals. All those who might value Owen seem to denigrate him instead, and they only appreciate him when he acts dull and regulated, much like his clocks. While Owen is timid and hides his work at the beginning of the story, by the end, he has grown confident in his creation and offers it up freely to his harshest critics and greatest impediments: Robert, Peter, and Annie. When Robert and Annie’s child destroys the creation, Owen is unphased, as Hawthorne suggests it was the act of creation that was important, not the product of creation.
There’s little action in this story, but much inner struggle and strife. Owen is not certain he can achieve what he has set out to do, which is to understand and create beauty that mimics nature. The narrator summarizes his stop-and-start journey with this phrase: “The chase of butterflies was an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had spent so many golden hours; but would the beautiful idea ever be yielded to his hand like the butterfly that symbolized it?” (13).
This theme of the importance of art was also influenced by Romanticism, which posited that imagination, input from the senses, and individual experiences are more important than the hard work, practicality and repression of Puritan ideals.
Self-Isolation and Self-Trust in the Face of Criticism
In “The Artist of the Beautiful,” Owen makes his artistic journey alone. In the beginning, he thinks that Annie might be able to share it with him, but this is an illusion that he has created, perhaps because all humans desire companionship. Instead of finding companionship, Owen is contrasted with every character in the narrative; they are all against him in some way, even Annie, who unconsciously shows her contempt of his final creation.
Though Owen has opportunities to reenter society, he never does so. He isolates himself in a way that is both celebrated and censured by the author; after all, the isolation results in Owen achieving his goal. Isolation also features prominently in Romanticism.
In spurning financial stability, his health, and his love interest in favor of his art, Owen shows a great deal of self-trust. It would be easier to take the path of least resistance and become the dull watchmaker that society expects, but instead he suffers to create. The narrator addresses Owen’s self-trust in the following passage:
It is requisite for the ideal artist to possess a force of character that seems hardly compatible with its delicacy; he must keep his faith in himself while the incredulous world assails him with its utter disbelief; he must stand up against mankind and be his own sole disciple, both as respects his genius and the objects to which it is directed (11).
Perhaps criticism from others is necessary to spur genius. As with many of Hawthorne’s polarities, it could be that these two forces make a complete whole; The critic is needed to push the genius past his limits to strengthen his resolve.
Artistic Beauty vs. Utility
Of all the dualities that author Hawthorne inserts into his story, the idea of beauty and art versus utility and practicality is most prevalent. This theme has much to do with the writer’s background; he grew up in an allegorical, Puritan society that preferred practicality to beauty.
Emerging thought during Hawthorne’s developmental years focused more on the sublime, corruption of personal purity, and the importance of imagination—all ideas the author was attracted to. Romanticism also focused upon nature and experimentation with form, which informs Hawthorne’s views of beauty in “The Artist of the Beautiful,” as Owen’s mechanism mimics nature and takes a unique form without any thought to practicality.
Owen’s critics represent the rational, practical viewpoints from Lockean philosophy, the Industrial Revolution, and Puritanism. Conversely, Owen (Hawthorne’s stand-in) finds beauty and creativity to be superior to the boring, typical lives of those in regular society. He is willing to sacrifice companionship and financial stability to live a genuine life focusing on beauty, and in the end, he seems to be happy with his choice.
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By Nathaniel Hawthorne
