Its comparative difficulty—Its varieties—Its limitations.

Right through the degrees of the art of the painter till we reach still-life, the difficulty in producing the art is in proportion to the general beauty therein, but in the case of still-life the object is much less readily gained than in simple landscape which is on a higher level in painting. The causes of this apparent anomaly appear to be as follows:—Firstly in miniature painting one does not expect such close resemblance to nature as in still-life which usually represents things in their natural size: secondly, in still-life the relative position of the parts can never be such as to appear novel, whereas in landscape their position is always more or less unexpected: thirdly, in still-life the colours are practically fixed, for the painter cannot depart from the limited variety of tints commonly connected with the objects indicated, while in landscape the colouring may vary almost indefinitely from sun effects without appearing to depart from nature.

The beauty in still-life paintings may arise from several causes, namely, the pleasure experienced from the excellence of the imitation; the harmony of tones; the beauty of the things imitated; the association of ideas; and the pleasure derived from the acquisition of knowledge. Aristotle seemed to think this last one of the principal reasons for our appreciation of the painter's work, though he agreed that the better the imitation, the greater the pleasure to the observer. The argument appears to apply particularly to the lower forms of life because in nature they are not often closely examined. A cauliflower for instance may be seen a thousand times by one who would not carefully note its structure, but if he see an imitation of it painted by a good artist, his astonishment at the excellence of the imitation might cause him to observe the representation closely, and learn much about the vegetable which he did not know before. In this way the information gained would add to his pleasure.

As in landscape, from the absence of abstract qualities from the things represented, and since the position of the signs may be indefinitely varied without a sense of incongruity resulting, there can be no ideal in still-life, and so the painter cannot pass beyond experience without achieving the abnormal.

The painter of still-life has the choice of four kinds of imitation, namely, the representation of products of nature which are in themselves beautiful, as roses and fine plumaged birds; the imitation of products of human industry which are in themselves beautiful, as sculptured plate or fine porcelain; the representation of natural and manual products which in themselves are neither beautiful nor displeasing, but interest from association of ideas, as certain fruits, books, and musical instruments; and the imitation of things which in themselves are not pleasing to the sight, as dead game, kitchen utensils, and so on. Obviously the artist may assort any two or more of these varieties in the same picture. He may also associate them with life, but here he is met with a grave difficulty which goes to the very root of art. If two forms, not being merely accessories, are associated together in a design, the lower form must necessarily be subordinated, otherwise the mind of the observer will be disturbed by the apparent double objective. A live dog or other animal in a still-life composition will immediately attract the eye of the observer, drawing off his attention from the inanimate objects represented, which will consequently thereafter lose much of their interest. The presence of a man is still worse. Not only is it natural and inevitable that a human being should take precedence of whatever is inanimate in a work of art, but in the case of still-life, where he is painted of natural size, he must necessarily overshadow everything else in the picture. Further, his own representation is much injured because the surroundings exercise a disconcerting influence. Even with the human figures of such a work executed by a painter of the first rank, they are quite uninteresting.[a]

Beautiful products of nature such as brilliant flowers and butterflies, cannot be imitated so well that the representations appear as beautiful as the things themselves, and so are unsuited as entire subjects for paintings, for we are usually well acquainted with these things, and consciously or unconsciously recognize the inferiority of the imitation. The greatest flower painters have therefore wisely refrained from introducing into their works more than a few fine roses or similar blooms. The presence of many less beautiful flowers in which the imitation is, or appears to be, more pleasing than the natural forms, neutralizes or overcomes the effect of the inferior imitation of the more beautiful. In fact the extent to which natural products which are necessarily more beautiful than the imitations, may be used in painting, except as incidentals, is very limited. They cannot appropriately be used at all on walls and curtains where they continually cross the vision, for they would there quickly tire owing to the involuntary dissatisfaction with the representation. The Japanese, whose whole art of painting was for centuries concentrated upon light internal decoration, rightly discard from this form of art all natural products which are necessarily superior to the imitations, and confine their attention to those signs which, while being actually more beautiful, when closely seen, than the imitations, do not appear to be so in nature where they are usually observed at some distance from the eye. Thus, waterfowl of various kinds, small birds of the hedges, storks, herons, branches of fruit blossoms, light trees and vegetation, are infinitely preferable to the more beautiful products for purely decorative purposes. A common pigeon with an added bright feather, is better on a wall or screen than the most brilliant pheasant, for in the one case the representation appears above ordinary experience, and in the other case, below it.

The decorative artist then is at liberty to enhance the beauty of his signs, but not to take for them things which are commonly observed in nature, and whose beauty he cannot equal. But there should be no wide divergence between the natural beauty and the art, and nothing which in itself is unpleasing is suitable for decoration. It may be introduced in a hanging picture, because here a sense of beauty may be derived from the excellence of the imitation, as in the case of a dead hare or a basket of vegetables; but in pure decoration the effect is general and not particular, and so the imitation yields no beauty apart from that of the thing imitated.