It is the maturing of a generation that has produced the change. For
each generation the works of art produced by its members have a distinct
importance. Out of them, during their time, there sparks the creative
impulse. For every generation is something of a unit.
"Chaque generation d'hommes
Germant du champs maternal en sa saison,
Garde en elle un secret commun, un certain noeud
dans la profonde contexture de son bois,"
Claudel assures us through the mask of Tete d'Or. And the resemblances
between works produced independently of each other within the space of a
few years, generally so much greater than those that exist between any
one work of one age and any of another, bears him out. The styles of
Palestrina and Vittoria, which are obviously dissimilar, are
nevertheless more alike than those of Palestrina and Bach, Vittoria and
Haendel; just as those of Bach and Haendel, dissimilar as they are, have
a greater similarity than that which exists between those of Bach and
Mozart, of Haendel and Haydn. And so, for the men of a single period the
work produced during their time is a powerful encouragement to
self-realization, to the espousal of their destiny, to the fulfilment of
their life. For the motion of one part of a machine stirs all the
others.
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