The Artist of the Beautiful

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works are full of symbolism, metaphors, and allegories. His narratives also examine contemporary issues. Hawthorne (1804–1864) published novels as well as stories in periodicals during his life, many with a moral message. Critics consider his tales part of the dark Romanticism movement, though there are Transcendentalist influences. His family’s background was Puritan; their original last name was Hathorne, but Hawthorne changed his moniker to hide his connection to several recent ancestors who presided over the Salem witch trials.

Hawthorne went to Bowdoin College but was a poor student. He also edited a magazine, served as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House, and began to contribute stories to several publications. He joined a Transcendentalist community to save money, and married Sophia Peabody in 1942. They had three children, and by most accounts the marriage was happy, even if he may have felt his work was not meaningful.

The publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1950 revived Hawthorne’s writing career. His non-writing work, which delved into the political sphere, led to appointments overseas. His contemporaries, friends and neighbors included Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and President Franklin Pierce. He died in 1864.

Experts often describe “The Artist of the Beautiful” as a reflection of Hawthorne’s history as an artist working in a newly industrialized era. Owen, “the artist,” is someone whose importance to the world is in dispute. Hawthorne presents the artist in an erratic, fanciful way, pitting him against the practicality and rationality of the modern age; Owen doesn’t care about the money he might earn from pleasing clients, about the disapproval of society, nor even of his own health when these things run contrary to his aspirations of creating beauty.  

The main themes of the story focus upon the artist versus society and practicality versus beauty. The life of the artist is important here; the reader follows the artist’s creation of an ultimate masterpiece, complete with stops and starts caused directly, in two cases, by the skeptical or disparaging attitudes of others.  In other cases, certain events plague the artist’s mind, halting the work, like Annie’s engagement. The artist perseveres, despite isolation from society—or, perhaps, because in some sense that isolation is necessary for him to unleash a higher, more creative consciousness.

In the very first paragraph of the story, Hawthorne introduces young Owen Warland, “bent earnestly over some delicate piece of mechanism on which was thrown the complicated lustre of a shade lamp” (5). Peter disparages Owen to Annie, and paints Owen as a frail, dim, impractical and obsessive person. Peter compares Owen to Robert Danforth, who acts as Owen’s foil. Hawthorne describes Robert’s setting differently than Owen’s:

[T]he fire seemed to be glimmering amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. Moving about in this red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the blacksmith, well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of light and shade, where the bright blaze struggled with the black night, as if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other (6).

Here, Hawthorne uses light to contrast the two characters; Owen’s lamp is a “complicated lustre,” indicating that Owen himself is a complex, if soft, person. The light in Danforth’s description is an “alternate dusk” that fights the night, just as Robert is an evident force of strength and traditional masculinity.

These first few pages are vital in terms of character development, introducing three out of the four characters that appear in the story with all their major qualities. Peter is critical and represents Puritan values of hard work, honesty, responsibility, and self-control. Annie, urging caution lest either man overhear her, shows general kindness and consideration. Each of the characters represent certain segments of society that surround the artist.

Following these introductions, Owen’s character becomes more fully developed as Hawthorne introduces the main theme, that of the artist’s life and struggles. Owen’s artistic qualities are fully illuminated here. Owen has always striven to re-create the beautiful: “He looked with singular distaste upon the stiff and regular processes of ordinary machinery” (7). In fact, the sight of a steam engine physically sickens him—in part because of its monstrous size, which is antithetical to the microscopic minuteness that attracts him.

Owen cares nothing for the practical aspects of his work, and his values are informed not by the Puritanism of the past, but the emerging Victorian-era ideals of individuality, influenced in the US by American exceptionalism, and the 19th-century’s more liberal views of society and lifestyles. Here, the narrative voice firmly establishes Owen as an Artist (with a capital A), once oppressed by his Puritan-influenced master but now, on his own, developing unconventional, ingenious ideas and methods that discomfit others in his sphere. Along with this characterization that puts him at odds with others, readers learn of Owen’s hopeless love for Annie, whom he considers to be his muse.

Owen has an encounter with Robert Danforth, having need of his services. During their conversation, Hawthorne again stresses the differences between the two: the strength and good humor of Robert, and the spiritual force and “little petulances” of Owen. Hawthorne also notes the different metals the two men work with, contrasting the unyielding nature of iron with the flexibility and more intransient nature of gold, which is incorporated into Owen’s watches and his butterfly mechanism.

The presence of Robert makes Owen feel as though his more refined sensibilities and “passion for the beautiful” are “vain and idle” (10). Unlike Peter, who expresses his criticism clearly, Robert’s disapproval is jovial and non-judgmental, but still dampens Owen’s spirit in a completely different, but not less insidious, way. The narrator notes here that the artist must have a different kind of strength to withstand Robert’s overpowering personality: Owen says, “I, too, will be strong in my own way. I will not yield to him” (10). This scene points out several dualities, the most profound of which may be the conflict between practicality and beauty. Here, Robert and his iron represents practicality, while Owen and his soft, pliable gold represent art and beauty.

Following his encounter with Robert, Owen experiences the first setback of his work, exhibiting how the opinions of others influence him. He loses inspiration, but in the view of the less imaginative around him, this is good because he is finally applying himself to working conventionally. He does such a good job, the townspeople ask him to regulate the church steeple clock, a piece of technology “with its iron accents” (11) that weighs on Owen when he hears its chime. The “iron,” of the clock seems to shackle Owen to his conventional responsibilities.

As Owen is suffering under this sluggish period, his old master comes to see him. Owen finds Peter’s praise oppressive, “for he was weighed down by his old master’s presence” (12). Peter means to be giving Owen a compliment when he says he might even eventually let Owen touch and regulate his personal watch, but the older man’s “cold, unimaginative sagacity” (12) makes Owen feel depressed. Peter Hovenden’s views represent that of the world, minimizing the artist’s skill and pursuit of beauty while glamorizing and validating the mundanity of practicality. In that way, he personifies the values the artist is rebelling against and acts as an enemy of art. He even threatens to destroy Owen’s “mechanical something,” the beginnings of his ultimate project, saying, “[I]n this small piece of mechanism lives your evil spirit. Shall I exorcise him?” (12). Yet, the artist believes Peter is the evil spirit, acting to retard and torment him in “the task that I was created for” (13). In a very telling passage, Owen says, “You are my evil spirit […] you and the hard, coarse world! The leaden thoughts and the despondency that you fling upon me are my clogs, lest I should long ago have achieved the task that I was created for” (13).

Here, Hawthorne adds another description to his thematic dichotomy: weight. Owen has a “heavy weight” on him at this point in his life, and he describes Peter’s thoughts as “leaden.” This suits the symbol of the artist as the light metal, gold, and normal society’s symbol as the heavy metal, iron. In casting the artist as “light,” Hawthorne foreshadows Owen’s creation: a butterfly.

Eventually, the effects of Peter’s visit wane, and Owen relinquishes his business, goes out into the sun, chases butterflies, and pursues an idea that the people around him do not understand. During the summer, the narrator says, the chase of butterflies is “an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had spent so many golden hours” (13). In addition to that chase, Owen’s fits and starts as an artist are much like the life cycle of a butterfly, which begins as something ugly and earthbound, but eventually ends up beautiful and graceful, after periods of dormancy and inner growth. Thus, the butterfly acts as a material symbol of the creative process that Owen is going through. In a very real sense, it is a personification of his mortal soul, as well as his aspirations.

Likewise, Owen’s creative process seems to be dependent on the seasons. In the winter, he languishes, and in the summer, he sets about his work again. As Owen “the artist,” Hawthorne seems to suggest that summer is the season of creativity.

When Annie touches Owen’s artwork, it is perhaps representative of the rationality and empiricism of John Locke’s philosophies and a desire to experience and “prove” the existence of the art. This rationality sets Owen back again, and he claims she has ruined the piece. This is the third time that Owen’s work has been disrupted by outside influences, once each by Peter, Robert, and Annie. Every time he encounters people, they ruin his work. This is a clear message that Owen’s work is in conflict to the status quo, and regular people do not understand how to estimate the worth of his art or the life of the artist. This is, of course, the main idea of the story; his work is not practical, but only beautiful and spiritual, and therefore, people do not know how to estimate his abilities or his quest.

The interaction with Annie leads to yet another period of “normal” behavior, in which Owen drinks too much. Despite the fact that this is a vice, this kind of behavior is something people around him can understand. Yet the butterfly, here a spiritual symbol, returns along with the warm weather to revive his creativity.

Owen once again retreats into nature, another symbol of note in this short story. Whenever he is at odds, it is nature’s inspiration that revives him. The narrator points out a lack of sympathy between Owen and his neighbors, highlighting Owen’s struggle against the mundane in his search for something more meaningful. It also stresses how unique his desire for beauty is.

Peter gives Owen news of Annie’s engagement and Owen becomes ill. Strangely, Owen’s illness makes him fatter rather than thinner, making him less fit for his delicate work: “[I]t was as if the spirit had gone out of him, leaving the body to flourish in a sort of vegetable existence” (19). He babbles about marvels of mechanism, which makes others think he is insane, but actually are related to his work, which he still clearly has on his mind. The illness is another archetypal setback.

It is following this interlude that he appears at the Danforths’ door, having realized his dream, despite all the various handicaps and obstacles. The artist’s journey is complete. He has done this all alone with active disapproval from his peers. He has triumphed, in terms of beauty over practicality, and while the other characters may not know how to estimate Owen’s achievement, it is clear he has done something extraordinary.

When Owen presents his butterfly to Annie, it is his short period of triumph and serves as proof that he is capable of creating something of ultimate beauty. He offers the butterfly to Annie, saying, “[I]f you know how—to value this gift, it can never come too late” (23). That Owen finds himself able to speak to Annie here when he cowered from her before, suggests that Owen developed along with his creation. It is the culmination of the artist’s journey.

The butterfly is a delicate mechanism that almost seems to live; it is, as Owen intended, a piece of machinery so beautiful that it seems to imbibe the spiritual, specifically, his own spirit. Annie, in her concern for proving and explaining things, wants to know if it is alive or if Owen created it, not even considering that the two might not be mutually exclusive. She also secretly scorns it. Robert Danforth points out that the butterfly is not exactly a useful object. Both parents admire their own, naturally wrought creation, their child, more. Even though they have acknowledged the worth of Owen’s butterfly, their ingrained values appear in the way they admire the artist’s accomplishment.

Peter’s disapproval, stemming from his respect for practicality and utility, is clear when the butterfly fails to thrive while sitting on his finger. It is the child’s reaction, that is most telling; at first, the butterfly lights on the baby’s finger, but when Owen sends the butterfly away, the baby destroys the butterfly while wearing a “sharp and shrewd expression in his face” (27) that is reminiscent of his grandfather. This event suggests that the child-faith that the baby has when he first sees the butterfly is quickly overcome by the practicality of his lineage.

The butterfly’s survival depends on the perceptions and judgment of others, so its death is inevitable in an environment that is hostile to artists. Owen’s indifference to the butterfly’s death suggests that the product of art isn’t as important to the artist as the creation of the art: “[T]he symbol by which he made [beauty] perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality” (28).

The story focuses on the importance of art and the life of the artist, pitting a sensitive, inventive, and physically frail individual, within the Romantic tradition, against a materialistic and dull society that admires Puritan values, like regulation, self-control, hard labor, and brawniness. Hawthorne also explores the drawbacks of art and the artist’s life, and whether the price of retaining artistic purity is too high. While Hawthorne paints his characters simply as “artist” or “other,” he seems to concede that real people are more complicated. Perhaps his own foray into other career paths informs this concession.