It is usual and proper to distinguish three kinds of beauty in painting, namely, of colour, of form, and of expression. But form must be defined by tones, and colour without form is meaningless: hence in the general consideration of the painter's art, it is convenient to place form and colour together as representing the sensorial element of beauty. Nevertheless colour and form are not on the same plane in regard to sense perception. Harmony of colour is distinguished involuntarily by nerve sensations, but in the case of harmony of form there must be a certain consideration before its Æsthetic determination. The recognition of this harmony commonly appears to be instantaneous, but still it is delayed, the delay varying with the complexity of the signs, that is to say, with the quality of the beauty. Benedetto Croce, the inventor of the latest serious Æsthetic system, talks of the "science of art," but he says[a]: Science—true science, is a science of the spirit—Philosophy. Natural sciences spoken of apart from philosophy, are complexes of knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed.
It is perhaps needless to say that Croce's Æsthetic system, like all the others, collapses on a breath of inquiry. On the purely philosophical side of it, further criticism is unnecessary, and its practical outcome from the point of view of art is not far removed from the amazing conclusions of Hegel. From the latter philosopher we learn that an idol in the form of a stone pillar, or an animal set up by the primitive races, is higher art than a drama by Shakespeare, or a portrait by Titian, because it represents the Idea (Hegel's unintelligible abstraction—see Note 5), while Croce tells us that "the art of savages is not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples, provided it be correlated to the impressions of the savages." Clearly if this be so, we are not surprised to learn from Croce that Aristotle "failed to discern the true nature of the Æsthetic." Nevertheless, whatever be the outcome of Croce's arguments, his system is at least more plausible than that of either Hegel or Schopenhauer, for while these two invent highly improbable abstractions upon which to base their systems, Croce only gives new functions to an old and reasonable abstraction. The writer does not mean to suggest that these systems are set up for the purpose of being knocked down: he desires only to indicate surprise that in new works dealing with the perception of beauty, it is considered necessary to restate the old Æsthetic theories and to point out their drawbacks, albeit the fatal objections to them are so numerous that there is always fresh ground available for destructive criticism. The best of the recent works on the subject that have come under the notice of the writer, is E. F. Carritt's review of the present position in respect of Æsthetic systems. Though profound, he is so comprehensive that he leaves little or nothing of importance for succeeding critics to say till the next system is put forward. Yet here is his conclusion[a]: If any point can be thought to have emerged from the foregoing considerations, it is this: that in the history of Æsthetics we may discover a growing pressure of emphasis upon the doctrine that all beauty is the expression of what may be generally called emotion, and that all such expression is beautiful. This is all that an acute investigator can draw from the sum of the Æsthetic systems advanced. Now what does this mean? Let us turn to the last page of Carritt's book and find the object of the search after a satisfactory Æsthetic system. It is, he says, "the desire to understand goodness and beauty and their relations with each other or with knowledge, as well as to practise or enjoy them." If we accept beauty as the expression of emotion, how far have we progressed towards the indicated goal? Not a step, for we have only agreed upon a new way of stating an obvious condition which applies to the animal world as well as to human beings. Beyond this there is nothing—not a glimpse of sunshine from all the Æsthetic systems laid down since the time of Baumgarten. More than twenty years ago Leo Tolstoy pointed out the unintelligible character of these systems, but no further light has been thrown upon them. Nevertheless Tolstoy's own interpretation of the significance of beauty cannot possibly meet with general approval. He disputes that art is directly associated with beauty or pleasure, and finds in fact that what we call the beautiful representation of nature is not necessarily art, but that[b] Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are affected by these feelings, and also experience them. This definition may mean almost anything, and particularly it may imply pure imitation which Tolstoy condemns as outside of art. But it certainly does not include many forms of what we call art, the author specially condemning for instance, Romeo and Juliet, and declaring that while Faust is beautiful, "it cannot produce a really artistic impression." The definition then seems to represent little more than a quibble over terms. Tolstoy says that the beautiful representation of nature is not art, but something else is. Very well then, all we have to do is to find a new term for this representation of nature, and the position remains as before except that the meaning of the term "art" has been changed. PLATE 24 PLATE 24 The Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo
(Vatican) (See page 260) The evolutionary principle has been applied to art by Herbert Spencer and J. A. Symonds, but not in the sense in which it is used in connection with the development of living organisms. Spencer traces a progression from the simple to the complex in the application of the arts, but not in the arts themselves[a]; and Symonds endeavours to prove that each separate marked period of art shows a progression which is common to all; that is, from immature variations to a high type, then downwards through a lower form represented by romanticism or elegance, to realism, and from this to hybrid forms.[b] Spencer's argument is suggestive, but his conclusions have been mostly upset by archaeological discoveries made since his great book was published. The illustrations given by Symonds are highly illuminating, but they are very far from postulating a general law of evolution operating in the production of art.
It seems necessary to mention Hegel's art periods, though one can only do so with a feeling of regret that a man who achieved a high reputation as a philosopher should have entered the province of art only to misconstrue its purpose with fantastic propositions which have no historical or other apparent foundation. He divides art history into Symbolic, Classic, and Romantic periods respectively. To accomplish this he invents or discovers a new abstraction which he calls the Idea, this representing man's conception, not of God, but of His perfection—His supreme qualities, so that in one sense the Idea may be called the Absolute, in another the Spirit, and in another, Truth. These terms are in fact interchangeable, and each may be a manifestation of another, or of God. This Idea, he says, being perfect beauty, is the basic concept of art. In archaic times man was unable to give expression to this concept, so he represented it by symbols: hence the earliest art was Symbolic art. In the time of the Greeks man had so advanced that he was able to give higher expression to the Idea, and he embodied it in a perfect human form. This is the Classic period, which Hegel indicates continued till Christianity spread abroad, when Classic form, though perfect as art, was found insufficient for the now desired still higher expression of the Idea. This expression could not be put into stone, so other arts than sculpture were used for it, namely, poetry, painting, and music, which are placed together as Romantic art. This is as nearly as possible a statement of the periods of Hegel in short compass. It is impossible to interpret logically his arguments, nor is it necessary, for his conclusions when tested in the light of experience, develop into inexplicable paradoxes and contradictions which border on the ridiculous. Needless to say, the acceptance of this division means the annihilation of our ideas of the meaning of art, and the condemnation to the limbo of forgetfulness of nearly all the artists whose memory is honoured. The general interpretation of the terms "Classic Art" and "Romantic Art" widely differs from that of Hegel, and varies with the arts. In the literary arts the distinction is obvious, but the terms are used to define both periods and classes; in architecture the Gothic period is usually called the Romantic epoch; and in painting the terms have reference to manner, the more formal manner being called Classic, and the soft manner, Romantic; though it is commonly understood that Romantic art is especially concerned with subjects associated with the gentler side of life. But there is no general agreement. Some writers assert that Giorgione was the first of the romanticists, others give the palm to Watteau, a third section to Delacroix, and a fourth to the Barbizon School. We must await a clear definition of "Romantic Art." It may be reasonably argued that the want of development of the plastic arts in England during the literary revival, was largely due to artificial restrictions. Fine paintings were ordered out of the churches by Elizabeth, and many were destroyed; while, following the lead of the court, there was little or no encouragement offered by the public to artists except perhaps in portraiture. Flaxman truly said of the destruction of works of art in this period, that the check to the national art in England occurred at a time which offered the most essential and extraordinary assistance to its progress. During the last half century or so, various writers of repute, including Ruskin and Dean Farrar, have professed to find in the poorer works of the Italian painters of the fourteenth century, and even in paintings of Margaritone and others of the previous century, evidence of strong religious emotion on the part of the artists. It is claimed that their purpose in giving simple solemn faces to their Madonnas and Saints, was "to tell the sacred story in all its beauty and simplicity"; that they possessed a "powerful sincerity of emotion"; that they "delivered the burning messages of prophecy with the stammering lips of infancy," and so on. It is proper to say that there is nothing to support this view of the early painters. We find no trace of any suggestions of the kind till the last of these artists had been dead for about four hundred years, while their lives, so far as we have any record, lend no warranty to the statements. The painters of the fourteenth century took their art seriously, but purely as a craft, and it was not uncommon with them to combine two or three other crafts with that of painting. They designed mostly sacred subjects for the simple reason that the art patrons of the day seldom ordered anything else. In their private lives they associated together, were generally agreeable companions, and not averse to an occasional escapade. Moreover the time in which they lived was notable for what we should call loose habits, and indeed from the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth, religious observances and practices were of a more hollow and formal character than they have ever been since. The position occupied by these painters in the progression of art from the crude Byzantine period upwards, corresponds with that of the Roman painters of the third and fourth centuries in the progression downwards to the Byzantine epoch, and there is no more reason for supposing that the Italians were actuated by special emotions in their work, than that the Romans were so moved. In both cases the character of the work, as Reynolds put it in referring to the Italians, was the result of want of knowledge. The countenances usually presented by both Roman and Italian artists have a half sad, half resigned expression, because this was the only kind of expression that could be given by an immature painter whose ideal was restricted by the necessity of eliminating elements which might indicate happiness. Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi, Duccio, and a few more, were exceptions in that their art was infinitely superior to the average of the century, but all from Giotto downwards, laboured as craftsmen only. No doubt they often worked with enthusiasm, and in this way their emotions may have been brought into play, but there is no possible means of identifying in a picture the emotions which an artist may have experienced while he was painting it. As to the sad expression referred to in these Italian works, it may be observed that Edgar A. Poe held that the tone of the highest manifestation of beauty is one of sadness. "Beauty of whatever kind," he says, "in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."[a] But Poe is clearly mistaken here. It is not the beauty of the work that affects the emotions to tears, when they are so affected, but the subject of the design exhibiting the beauty. A picture or poem representing a sad subject may be very beautiful, but the sadness itself would not assist the beauty, though it might increase the emotional effect. The higher forms of beauty rarely draw our tears, but elicit our admiration without direct thought of anything but the beauty. Who would weep when in front of the greatest marvels of Greek sculpture? It is commonly, but wrongfully, supposed that Rembrandt used his broadest manner in painting commissioned portraits. The number of his portraits known to exist is about 450, of which fifty-five are representations of himself, and fifty-four of members of his household, or relatives. There are, further, more than seventy studies of old men and women, and thirty of younger men. The balance are commissioned portraits or groups. This last section includes none at all of his palette knife pictures, and not more than two or three which are executed with his heaviest brushes. Generally his work broadened in his later period, but up to the end of his life his more important works were often painted in a comparatively fine manner, though the handling was less careful and close.[a] The broadest style of the artist is rarely exhibited except in his studies and family portraits. Further it is extremely unlikely that a palette-knife picture would have been accepted in Holland during Rembrandt's time as a serious work in portraiture. Darwin pointed out the permanent character of the changes in the nerves, though he submitted another demonstration[a]: That some physical change is produced in the nerve cells or nerves which are habitually used can hardly be doubted, for otherwise it is impossible to understand how the tendency to certain acquired movements is inherited.
Reynolds evidently had little faith in original genius. Addressing Royal Academy students, he said[a]: You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply the deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it.... I will venture to assert that assiduity unabated by difficulty, and a disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will produce effects similar to those which some call the result of natural powers. On another occasion Reynolds observed of Michelangelo[b]: He appears not to have had the least conception that his art was to be acquired by any other means than great labour; and yet he of all men that ever lived, might make the greatest pretensions to the efficacy of native genius and inspiration. Gibbon said that Reynolds agreed with Dr. Johnson in denying all original genius, any natural propensity of the mind to one art or science rather than another.[c] Hogarth also agreed with Reynolds, for he describes genius as "nothing but labour and diligence." Croce says that genius has a quantitative and not a qualitative signification, but he offers no demonstration.[d] Evidently he is mistaken, for the signification is both quantitative and qualitative. It is true that what a Phidias, or a Raphael, or a Beethoven puts together is a sum of small beauties, any one of which may be equalled by another man, but he does more than represent a number of beauties, for he combines these into a beautiful whole which is superior in quality and cannot be estimated quantitatively. We may possibly call Darwin a genius because of the large number of facts he ascertained, and the correct inferences he drew from them, but we particularly apply the term to him by reason of the general result of all these facts and inferences, this result being qualitative and not quantitative. Croce probably took his dictum from Schopenhauer, who, however, represented degrees of quality as quantitative,[e] which is of course confusing the issue. It is often observed by advocates of "new" forms of art that the work of many great artists has been variously valued at different periods—that leaders of marked departures in art now honoured, were frequently more or less ignored in their own time, while other artists who acquired a great reputation when living, have been properly put into the background by succeeding generations. For the first statement no solid ground can be shown. In painting, the artists since the Dark Age who can be said to have led departures of any importance, are Cimabue, Giotto, the Van Eycks, Masaccio, Lionardo, DÜrer, Giorgione, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Holbein, Claude, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Watteau, Reynolds, and Fragonard. All of these had their high talents recognized and thoroughly appreciated in their lifetime. In sculpture the experience is the same, for there is no sculptor now honoured whose work was not highly valued by his contemporaries. So with poetry, but before the invention of printing and in the earlier days of this industry, poetry of any kind was very slow in finding its way among the people. What might seem nowadays to have been inappreciation of certain poets was really want of knowledge of them. There is more truth in the assertion that many artists who had a high reputation in their lifetime are now more or less disregarded, though it does not follow from this that there has been a reversal of opinion on the part of the public, or a variation in the acuteness of Æsthetic perception. Generally we find that these artists very properly held the position they occupied in their time and country, and if they do not now stand on exalted pedestals it is only because we compare them with men of other periods and places, which their contemporary countrymen did not do, at least for the purpose of establishing their permanent position in art. Carlo Maratta for instance was celebrated in Italy as the best painter of his country in his time, and even now we must so regard him, but his contemporaries as with ourselves did not place him on so high a level as his great predecessors of the sixteenth century, and some of the seventeenth. A special reason why many of the seventeenth century artists of Italy have fallen in public esteem may be found in the fact that they excelled mostly in the production of sensorial beauty, paying little attention to intellectual grace, and the ripening of general intelligence as time goes on makes us more and more sensitive to beauty of mind. There have been many definitions of "Impressionism" given, but they vary considerably. Professor Clausen describes it as the work of a number of artists whose interest is in recording effects of light, seeking to express nature only and disregarding old conventions.[a] Mr. D. S. MacColl says that an impressionist is[b] a painter who, out of the completed contacts of vision constructs an image moulded upon his own interest in the thing seen, and not on that of any imaginary schoolmaster.
This definition is insufficient by itself, but the writer makes his meaning clearer in the same article when he says: Impressionism is the art that surveys the field, and determines which of the shapes and tones are of chief importance to the interested eye, and expresses these and sacrifices the rest. According to C. Mauclair, an acknowledged authority on impressionism, the impressionist holds: Light becomes the one subject of a picture. The interest of the objects on which it shines is secondary. Painting thus understood becomes an art of pure optics, a seeking for harmonies, a species of natural poem, entirely distinct from expression, style, drawing, which have formed the main endeavour of preceding painting. It is almost necessary to invent a new word for this special art, which, while remaining throughout pictural, approaches music in the same degree as it departs from literature or psychology.[c] What can be said of so amazing a declaration? The arts of painting and music do not, and cannot, have any connection with each other. They are concerned with different senses and different signs, and by no stretch of the imagination can they be combined. Seeing that musical terms when used in respect of painting by modern critics are almost invariably made to apply to colour harmonies, we may infer that a confusion of thought arises in the minds of the writers from the similar physical means by which colour and sound are conveyed to the senses concerned. But this similarity has nothing to do with the appreciation of art. The Æsthetic value of a work is determined when it is conveyed to the mind, irrespective of the means by which it is so conveyed. According to La Touche it was Fantin Latour who invented modern impressionism. Braquemond relates that La Touche told him the following story.[d] He (La Touche) was one day at the Louvre with Manet, when they saw Latour copying Paolo Veronese's Marriage at Cana in a novel manner, for instead of blending his colours in the usual way, he laid them on in small touches of separate tones. The result was an unexpected brilliancy ("papillotage imprevu") which amazed but charmed the visitors. Nevertheless when Manet left the Louvre with La Touche, he appeared anything but satisfied with what he had seen, and pronounced it humbug. But Latour's method evidently sunk into his mind, for a few days later he commenced to use it himself. Thus, added La Touche, was modern impressionism unchained. The date of this visit was not given by La Touche, but 1874 was subsequently suggested. This account does not fit in with the statement of MacColl that when Monet and Pissarro were in London during the siege of Paris, the study of Turner's pictures gave them the suggestion of these broken patches of colour.[e] If this be true Monet must have antedated Manet in the application of isolated tones. D. S. Eaton asserts that in the Salon of 1867, there was exhibited a picture by Monet which was entitled Impressions,[f] and from this arose the word "Impressionist"; but Phythian says that the word resulted from Monet's "Impression, soleil levant," exhibited in 1874 at the Nadar Gallery in Paris with other works from Le SociÉtÉ Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, et Graveurs. Phythian adds[g]: Thus, unwittingly led by one of the exhibitors, visitors to the exhibition came to use the word "impressioniste," and within a few days a contemptuously unfavourable notice of the exhibition appeared in Le Charivari under the heading "Exposition des Impressionistes." It was not until the lapse of several years that the name came into general use. The painters to whom it was applied disowned it because it was used in a depreciatory sense. Eventually however, unable to find a better one, they adopted it. Another origin of Impressionism is given by Muther. He says[h]: The name "Impressionists" dates from an exhibition in Paris which was given at Nadar's in 1871. The catalogue contained a great deal about impressions—for instance, "Impression de mon pot au feu," "Impression d'un chat qui se promene." In his criticism Claretie summed up the impressions, and spoke of the Salon des Impressionistes. But the real origin of impressionism must be sought earlier than 1871, for in 1865 Manet exhibited his Olympia in the Salon des RefusÉs. This picture did not represent what was understood as impressionism ten years later, but it led the way towards the establishment of the innovation, in that it pretended that healthy ideas and noble designs were secondary considerations in art. Certainly Manet could not descend lower than this wretched picture, and in this sense his subsequent work was a distinct advance. The reason given by impressionists for the juxtaposition of pure colours is that the natural blend produced is more brilliant than the tone from the mixed colours applied, but it is pointed out by Moreau-Vauthier that the contrary is the case. He says[a]: We find in practice that the parent colours do not, with material colours, produce the theoretical binaries. We get dark, dull greens, oranges, and violets, that clash with the parent colours. To make them harmonize we should be obliged to dim these material colours, to transform them, and consequently to lose them partly. PLATE 25 PLATE 25 The Pleiads, by M. Schwind (See page 269) CÉzanne and Van Gogh are not usually put forward as representative impressionists, but it is impossible to differentiate logically between the various "isms" of which impressionism is the mother, and to attempt a serious argument upon them would be apt to reflect upon the common sense of the reader. The sincere impressionist certainly produces a thing of beauty, however ephemeral and lacking in high character the beauty may be, but most of the productions of the other "isms" only serve the purpose of degrading the artist and the art. This form of picture is by no means new, though except among the inventors of sprezzatura, and the modern impressionists, it has always been executed as a rough sketch for the purpose of settling harmonies for serious work. Lomazzo relates that Aurelio, son of Bernadino Luini, while visiting Titian, asked him how he managed to make his landscape tones harmonize so well. For reply the great master showed Aurelio a large sketch, the character of which could not be distinguished when it was closely inspected, but on the observer stepping back, a landscape appeared "as if it had suddenly been lit up by a ray of the sun."[a] From Luini's surprise, and inasmuch as we have no record of similar work before his time, it is reasonable to suppose that Titian was the first great artist to use this form of sketch for experimental purposes.
The example of this picture at the Pitti Palace is specially noted because it seems impossible that the duplicate in the Uffizi Gallery can be by Raphael, for it has obvious defects, some of which have many times been pointed out. The expression is vastly inferior to that in the Pitti portrait, for instead of a calm, noble, benign countenance, we have a half-worried senile face which is anything but pleasant. Raphael was the last man to execute a portrait of a Pope without generalizing high character in the features. It will be observed also that in the Uffizi portrait, the left hand is stiff and cramped, and the drapery ungracefully flowing, while both uprights of the chair are actually out of drawing. There are other examples of the same picture in different museums, but the Pitti work is far above these in every respect, and seems the only one which can be properly attributed to the master. Passavant affirms that some of the repetitions of the work were certainly made in the studio of Raphael under his orders, and thinks that the duplicates passed for originals even in his time.[a] To the knowledge of the writer, the only logical connection between the work of Rembrandt and impressionism that has been suggested, is from the pen of Professor Baldwin Brown, who remarks[a]: Rembrandt in his later work attended to the pictorial effect alone, and practically annulled the objects by reducing them to pure tone and colour. Things are not there at all, but only the semblance, or effect, or impression of things. Breadth is in this way combined with the most delicate variety, and a new form of painting, now called "impressionism" has come into being. The professor is mistaken here. During the last fifteen years of his life, apart from portraits, a few studies of heads, and some colour experiments with carcases of meat, Rembrandt executed, so far as is known, about three dozen pictures, and in all of these he effectually prevents us from forming a general impression of the designs before considering the more important details, by concentrating nearly all the available light upon the countenances of the principal personages represented; while in the management of the features, the whole purpose of the chiaroscuro is for the purpose of obtaining relief. Moreover the pictures are nearly all groups of personages in set subjects, and there would be no meaning in the designs if the objects were "practically annulled," for particular action and expression are necessary for their comprehension. As to Velasquez there is no evidence tending to support the statement that he was an impressionist. The first authority on the artist has definitely pointed out that he never took up his brushes except for an important and definite work: "he neither painted impressions nor daubs."[b] It will always be a matter of surprise that so much popularity was secured by the light sketches of the Barbizon School, considering their general insignificance from the point of view of art, and the conspicuously artificial means adopted for their exploitation. Some of the artists of this school, having accomplished many studio works of merit, acquired the habit of painting in the open air. By this method it is impossible to execute a comprehensive natural scene, and the painters did not attempt the task, but they produced numberless sketchy works of local scenes under particular atmospheric conditions. They laboured honestly and conscientiously, and their sketches were put out for what they were and nothing more. The paintings would probably have retained their place as simple studies had not some commercial genius conceived the idea of putting them into heavy, gorgeous, gilt frames. With this embellishment they were successfully scattered round the world, mostly in the newer portions, much to the general astonishment. The raison d'Être of the frames puzzled many persons, though it was frequently observed that the pictures do not look well unless surrounded by ample gold leaf. Thus, C. J. Holmes, Director of the London National Gallery, and an authority on impressionism, notes[a]: Barbizon pictures are almost invariably set in frames with an undeniably vulgar look. Yet in such a rectangle of gilded contortion a Corot or a Daubigny shows to perfection: place it in a frame of more reticent design, and it becomes in a moment flat, empty, and tame. The purpose of this frame is obvious. The eye is caught by the dazzling glitter, and feels immediate relief when it rests upon the quiet grey tone of the painting, the pleasurable sensation resulting therefrom being mistaken for involuntary appreciation of the beauty of the work. As finished paintings these Barbizon sketches are novel, but as studies they are not, for similar work has been executed for two or three centuries, and particularly by the Dutch artists of the seventeenth century. In every considerable collection of drawings such sketches may be found, and there is scarcely a Barbizon painter whose work was not anticipated by a Dutch master. One has only to examine the drawings in the public art institutions of Europe by De Molyn, Blyhooft, Jan de Bischop, Lambert Doomer, Berghem, Avercamp, and others, to find examples which, if executed now, might easily be taken for works by the Barbizon masters. In recent times attempts have been made to upset the dictum of Aristotle as to the imitative character of the arts generally, exception being taken in respect of music and architecture. The first objection as to music arose with Schopenhauer, though he does not appear to have been quite certain of his position. He stated that while the other arts represent ideas, music does not, but being an art it must represent something, and he suggested that this something is the "Will," the term being used in the Schopenhauer philosophical sense, that is to say, implying the active principle of the universe, not being God. This means nothing at all from the point of view of art, and cannot even be seriously considered. The most notable essay on the subject since Schopenhauer is from the pen of Sidney Colvin who places music and architecture in a non-imitative group by themselves, the former on the principal ground that "it is like nothing else; it is no representation or similitude of anything whatever"; while architecture, he says, "appeals to our faculties for taking pleasure in non-imitative combinations of stationary masses."[a] But what Aristotle meant is that the arts are imitative in character, and not that they necessarily attempt to produce works of similitude with nature, this being evident from the fact that he pointed out that the higher works of art surpass nature, and he divided poetry and painting into three sections, of which the first is better than life, and the third inferior to it. The musician in producing his art proceeds in precisely the same way as the poet or painter. He takes natural signs and rearranges them in a new order, producing a combination which is not to be found complete in nature, but every sign therein is natural and must necessarily be so. The higher the flight of the poet, or musician, or painter, or sculptor, the farther is the result from nature, but nevertheless the whole aim of the musician, as of the poet, is to represent emotional effects or natural phenomena beyond experience in life, as the great sculptor represents form and expression, and the great poet besides these things, every abstract quality, passion, and emotional effect, above this experience; but he cannot do more; he cannot represent something outside of nature, and so must imitate, that is, in the sense of representation. Darwin notes that even a perfect musical scale can be found in nature. He says[b]: It is a remarkable fact that an ape, a species of the gibbon family, produces an exact octave of musical sounds, ascending and descending the scale by half tones. From this fact, and from the analogy of other animals, I have been led to infer that the progenitors of man probably uttered musical tones, and that consequently, when the voice is used under any strong emotion, it tends to assume, through the principle of association, a musical character. It has been further demonstrated that the strength of the sensory impressions from certain sounds is due to the structure of the ear, and that generally a particular kind of sound produces a similar kind of emotional effect in animals as in man. Obviously the musician is powerless to do more than widen or deepen this effect. Colvin admits that the musician sometimes directly imitates, as when he produces the notes of birds or the sounds of natural forces, or when he represents particular emotions; but he regards the former instances as hazardous and exceptional, and indicates that a particular emotional harmony may affect the hearers differently. True, but the hazard of the first condition is the result of the limitations of the artist, and the second condition is the consequence of the limitations of the art. The effect of music being purely sensorial must vary with the emotional conditions surrounding the hearer. The musician does what he can, but he is unable to go so far as the poet and produce an emotional effect which will with certainty be recognized by every person affected, at all times, as having the same particular bearing. Taine separates music ("properly so called" as distinguished from dramatic music) and architecture from the imitative arts, as they "combine mathematical relationships so as to create works that do not correspond with real objects."[c] Obviously the whole purpose of dramatic music is to imitate the effects of the passions, but its necessary inclusion amongst the imitative arts upsets the dictum of Taine, for the emotional effects of one kind of music only differ from those of another kind when they differ at all, in the character of the natural emotional effects represented. In the case of the architect, seeing that his art is subordinated to utility, his scheme, his measurements, and the character of his materials, are largely or almost entirely governed by conditions outside of his art, and consequently it is only possible for him to represent nature to a limited extent. Rarely can he vaguely suggest a natural aisle beneath the celestial dome, a rock-walled cave whose roof soars into obscurity, or a fairy grotto backed by a beetling cliff. Sometimes he may cause us to experience similar effects in kind to those we feel when we recognize grandeur in nature, but usually he is compelled to confine his beauty to harmonies produced by symmetrical designs of straight lines and curves. But in his simplest as in his most complex designs, he must follow nature as closely as possible. Purely ornamental forms always appear more beautiful when the parts have a direct mathematical relationship with each other than when they have not; that is to say, when the parts appear to be naturally related. Thus, that a cross appears to be less agreeable to the sight when the horizontal bar is below the centre of the perpendicular than when it is above this point, is due to what appears to be a want of balance because the form is unobservable in nature. In trees the horizontal parts are usually above the middle of the height of the observable trunk, and in the exceptions nature gives the whole tree a conical or other shape, the relative position of the horizontal parts being obscured in the general form. As with parts of forms, so with the forms as wholes. Other things being equal, that design is the best where the forms are directly proportioned one with the other and with the whole, and this is because we are accustomed to the order of design in nature where everything is balanced by means of direct proportions and corresponding relations. The architect therefore, like the musician or poet, must represent nature so far as he can within the limits of his art, though his representation is comparatively weak owing to the artificial restrictions imposed upon him.
The dictum of Aristotle in reference to metre in poetry related only to epic and dramatic verse, for what we understand as lyric poetry was separated by the Greeks as song in which of course metre is compulsory. It is doubtful whether a single definition can cover both epic poetry, whose beauty lies almost wholly in the substance, and lyric verse where the beauty rests chiefly in qualities of expression and musical form, and in which indeed the substance may be altogether negligible. A cursory examination of Watts-Dunton's definition of "Poetry," which is admittedly the best put forward in recent times, shows its entire inadequacy. "Absolute poetry," he says, "is the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language."[a] This would exclude from the art some of the finest sacred verse, which, though in the form of prose, has been recognized as poetry from time immemorial. Metre is only one of the devices of the poet for accomplishing his end—-the presentation of beautiful pictures upon the mind, but in high poetry there is a still more compulsory artifice which is not included in Watts-Dunton's definition, and that is metaphor. In the form of words the details of a picture can only be dealt with successively, and not simultaneously, and without metaphor the poet would sometimes be in the position of the painter who should present a dozen different pictures each containing only one part of a composition, and call upon the observer to put the pieces together in his mind. Further the term "absolute" in the definition quoted has no comprehensible meaning if it does not exclude a good deal of verse which is commonly recognized as poetry, while, as is admitted by Watts-Dunton, there is much accepted lyric verse without concrete expression. In high poetry as in high painting, the beauty appeals both to the senses and the mind, and in each art the quality descends as the sensorial overbalances the intellectual appeal, and the effect becomes more ephemeral. In the very highest of the plastic arts, colour has little value except in assisting definition; and in the very highest poetry musical form has only an emphasizing value, for the sensorial beauty arising from form in the one case, and form and action in the other, entirely overpowers the harmonies of colour and tone respectively. But colour without design is meaningless, so that it cannot be applied in the fine arts apart from design: hence in painting, colour presents no complication in respect of definition. On the other hand music, with or without association with poetry, is equally an art since in either case it imitates the effects of human emotions in a beautiful way. Thus, where metre is present poetry is a combined art, and seeing that metre may not be present, a definition of "Poetry" must cover what may be in one case a pure, and in another, a compound art. There seems to be a tendency to overestimate the disparity between translations of high poetry and the originals. The value of a translation depends primarily upon the character of the thing translated, since it is the form that is unreproducible in another tongue, and not the substance. In epic and dramatic poetry where the form is of secondary importance, a good literal translation may come much nearer to the original than a translation of a lyric where the form is usually of at least equal importance with the substance. We lose less of Homer or Sophocles than of Sappho or Theocritus in translation. In the case of epic poetry the higher its character, the closer to the original appears the translation, because the form is of less relative importance. More of Dante is lost than of Homer in literal translation, but the difference narrows when the new versions are in metrical form, for the use of metre in translation is necessarily more detrimental as the substance of the original increases in power, and this relative weakening is emphasized as the beauty of form in the translation is raised. Pope is farther from Homer than Chapman, and Chapman than the prose translations of Buckley and Lang. As we descend in the scale of the art, so it becomes more difficult to reproduce the poet in translation, and in most lyric poetry the beauty seems almost entirely lost in another tongue from the original, though when the substance is of weight, and the translator is himself a good poet, he sometimes gives us a paraphrase with a high beauty of its own. Some modern poets seem to eschew substance altogether. Much of the verse of esteemed French and Belgian poets is quite meaningless in literal translation, the authors relying for the effects entirely upon musical form and beauty of expression. Lessing points out this remarkable picture of Homer as emphasizing the beauty of Helen, observing: What could produce a more vivid idea of beauty than making old age confess that it is well worth while the war which cost so much blood, and so much treasure? Nevertheless the remark of the old men does not seem to mean so much as the description of the sages and their reference to the goddesses. It is difficult to imagine several wise men agreeing that the sanguinary war of nine years was really excusable in view of Helen's beauty, and the statement therefore is naturally received as a permissible overcolour. Consequently the effect of the remark would be discounted, and unlikely to be sufficient for the purpose of the poet. True, the Greeks seem to have been childlike sometimes in their simplicity, but there is no evidence that they were so wanting in a sense of proportion as to accept literally this opinion of the elders. But when we observe the senility of the elders, and the physical feebleness which has apparently rendered them incapable of sensual pleasures, then indeed we must marvel at a beauty which excites their emotions so powerfully as to bring the goddesses to their minds.[a] In discussing the suitableness of this incident as a subject for a painting, Lessing remarks that the passion felt by the old men was "a momentary spark which their wisdom at once extinguished," but later on, referring to the possibility that the veil worn by Helen when she passed through the streets of Troy had not been removed when she was seen by the elders, he points out[b]: When the elders displayed their admiration for her, it must not be forgotten that they were not seeing her for the first time. Their confession therefore did not necessarily arise from the present momentary view of her, for they had doubtless often experienced before the feelings which they now for the first time acknowledged. This is very true, but it only serves to deepen the impression of Helen's beauty, for the element of surprise is removed from the minds of the elders, the mere sight of her, veiled or unveiled, being sufficient to recall the passionate thrills previously experienced.
In nearly all the instances of sublimity quoted by Longinus there is this particular merit of brevity—-the picture is thrown upon the brain immediately, without pause or anything whatever to complicate the beauty. But the learned critic directs attention only to the magnificent thoughts and the appropriate use of them, without pointing out the extraordinary condensation of the language employed. Apart from the instance from Genesis given, there is another of his examples in which practically the whole beauty of the picture is produced by the rapidity of its presentation. This is the exclamation of Hyperides when accused of passing an illegal decree for the liberation of slaves—"It was not an orator that made this decree, but the battle of ChÆronea." Longinus observes[a]: At the same time that he exhibits proof of his legal proceedings, he intermixes an image of the battle, and by that stroke of art quite passes the bounds of mere persuasion. But it was rather the manner in which the battle was introduced than the fact of its introduction, that gave force to the argument. If instead of confining himself to a short brilliant observation, Hyperides had carefully traced cause and effect in the matter, he would still have intermixed an image of the battle, but he would not then have produced a work of art. Still finer instances of the use of brevity in expresssion by the orator are to be found in the speeches of Demosthenes. For example in his oration On the Crown he says: "Man is not born to his parents only, but to his country." A whole volume on the meaning and virtue of patriotism could not say more: hence the sublime art. The simple statement lights a torch by which we examine every convulsion in history; presents a moving picture in which we see the motives and aspirations guiding the patriots of a hundred generations; sets an eternal seal of nobility upon the love of man for his native country. And a few words suffice. The same thought might be elaborated into a large volume, but the art would fly with the brevity. There are many translations of the Ode to Anactoria, but the best of them reflects only slightly the depth of passion in the original. The version which most nearly represents the substance, while maintaining the unhalting flow of language, is perhaps that of Ambrose Philips (1675-1749), which runs thus:—- Blest as th' immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears, and sees thee all the while
Softly speak, and sweetly smile.
'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast;
For while I gazed, in transport tost,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost.
My bosom glowed; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.
In dewy damps my limbs were chilled;
My blood with gentle horrors thrilled;
My feeble pulse forgot to play;
I fainted, sunk, and died away. The English reproductions of this ode in the Sapphic measure are not very successful, the difficulty of course being due to the practical impossibility of fulfilling the quantitative conditions of the strophe without stilting the flow of language, or unduly varying the substance. But it has been shown by Dr. Marion Miller in his translation of Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite, which is much higher in substance and somewhat less condensed in expression than the Ode to Anactoria, that with certain liberties in respect of quantities, a very beautiful semblance of the Sapphic measure may be produced in English. His translation of this hymn is unquestionably the best in our language, though this is perhaps partly due to the fact that he is almost the only translator who has adhered to the text in regard to the sex of the loved person. To make the object of affection a man seems inappropriate to the language employed in the verse. (It is proper to mention that a license taken by Dr. Miller in his translation—-where he renders the passage relating to the sparrows, as "clouding with their pinions, Earth's wide dominions"—suggested to the present writer the somewhat similar picture to be found on Page 111.) PLATE 26 PLATE 26 St. Margaret, by Raphael
(Louvre) (See page 250) The gradual decadence of the great period of Grecian sculpture is well marked by the successive variations of the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles. The copy of this at the Vatican is no doubt a close representation of the original, but later there was commenced a long series of variations, all of them more or less complicating the design. First a pillar was substituted for the vase, reaching nearly to the armpits, and the left forearm rested upon it, while drapery fell down the front, so that some exertion was required to separate the figure to the eye. Then a dolphin was substituted for the pillar, the head of the animal resting on the ground, and the body rising up straight with the bent tail forming the support. Then for this was placed a dolphin with its body corkscrew shaped, which was particularly weak as it tended to deprive the figure of repose. After this, while the dolphin was maintained, a cestus was sometimes added, and heavy drapery applied in various folds. Finally the attitude of the figure was changed, that of the Venus de' Medici being adopted, while the pillar or dolphin was retained. Each alteration necessarily diminished the beauty of the figure. Reynolds seems to have been disappointed with the frescoes of Raphael when he first saw them, and this fact has been called in evidence by some modern critics to support their contention that the art of the great masters is really inferior to that wherein design is subordinated to colour. But Reynolds very definitely admitted that his first impression was wrong, for after studying the frescoes, he notes[a]: In a short time a new taste and a new perception began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the admiration of the world. Reynolds was quite a young man when he went to Rome, and his appreciation of Raphael increased as his experience matured. More than twenty years after the visit, he remarked that Raphael had "a greater combination of the high qualities of the art than any other man,"[b] and ten years later he affirmed that the Urbino artist stood foremost among the first painters.[c] Reynolds supposed that his lack of appreciation of the frescoes when he first saw them arose from want of immediate comprehension of them: he was unaccustomed to works of such great power, but it is to be observed that his inspection was a very short one, and we may reasonably draw the conclusion that changing light conditions had much to do with the effect the paintings left upon him at the time. When one enters a room where the light differs materially in intensity or quality from that experienced just previously, it is advisable to rest quietly for a little while before examining works defined by colour, in order that the eyes may become accustomed to the new light. [a] Reynolds's Italian Note Book. That the judgment of the public upon a work of art is final seems to have been recognized by all the ancient writers who dealt with the matter, and that the Greeks generally held this view is evident from many incidents, notably the reference to public judgment in the great competition between Phidias and Alcamenes. During the Renaissance also the opinion held good, and it is worth noting that the suggestion sometimes made that Michelangelo did not conform to this view is unsupported by evidence. Vasari relates the following anecdote[a]: He [Michelangelo] went to see a work of sculpture which was about to be sent out because it was finished, and the sculptor was taking much trouble to arrange the lights from the windows to the end that it might show up well; whereupon Michelangelo said to him: "Do not trouble yourself, the important thing will be the light of the piazza"; meaning to infer that when works are in public places, the people must judge whether they are good or bad. Lionardo went so far as to advise artists to hear any man's opinion on his work, "for," he said, "we know very well that though a man may not be a painter, he has a true conception of the form of another man."[b] It is a common misconception with the general public, though not among serious artists, that by reason of their profession artists are better judges of works of art than other men. Obviously the recognition of beauty in art is apart altogether from the means by which it is created, and subject to the exceptions noted elsewhere, all men are alike able to appreciate high beauty. Winckelmann even advised his readers against the judgment of artists on the ground that they generally preferred what is difficult to what is beautiful,[c] but experience with the great art bodies in Europe who hold exhibitions does not support this view. It is only the weaker artists who are liable to be prejudiced in such matters, and when the judges are of high attainments in art, they almost invariably make the same choice in competitions that would be made if general opinion were solicited. But although artists cannot be better judges of high-class works of art (as beautiful things) than other men of equal intelligence, their training usually enables them to distinguish obscure forms of beauty which would be unrecognized by the general public, and in matters of colour to differentiate between ephemeral and more or less permanent harmonies. Hence while the public interests would not suffer from the introduction of the lay element in judging high class sculpture and painting, it is obvious that the consideration of works where the lower forms of beauty only are produced, as in formal decoration, should be confined to the profession. In music alone of the arts, for reasons already given, special cultivation is necessary for the judgment of the higher forms of beauty.
It is commonly supposed that the vast multitude of men and women—the toilers in the fields and factories, and their families, do not appreciate great works of art; that rarely they take an interest in any kind of art, and then only in simple representations of everyday incidents. This is so apparently, but it is not strictly true. The great bulk of working people grow up amidst surroundings where they do not have an opportunity of seeing good works of art. They toil from morn to eve during their whole life: their imaginations are almost entirely confined to their means of livelihood, their daily routine of labour, and their household duties. A "mute inglorious Milton" remains mute because he wants the knowledge and experience around which his fancy may roam, and a potential Raphael dies in obscurity from the enforced rigidity of his imagination. But even so, notwithstanding that the nervous activities and the imaginations of the poorer workers remain undeveloped, they are still subservient to the irrevocable laws of nature. Their faculties may be little changed from childhood in respect of matters appertaining to the higher senses, but they still exist. So it comes about that in all times since art has been practised, the paintings and sculptures of the greater masters have been well appreciated by the multitude when they could come into contact with them. In modern times great works of art are seldom available to the masses except in public galleries where their sense perception and minds are quickly confused and fatigued—in fact rendered incapable of legitimate use, but the trend of popular opinion is very decidedly settled by the experience of those business houses which undertake the reproduction of important works. There are many times the demand for prints and cards of pictures belonging to the higher forms of art, as for instance, sacred and historical subjects, and portraits, than for interiors and landscapes, and so incessant is this demand for the better works, that a painter desiring to copy one of the great Raphael or Correggio Madonnas at Florence for reproduction, will usually have to wait three or four years after entering his name, before his turn comes to set up his easel. It is rather the want of intelligent contact with them, than indifference to them, that is due the apparent lack of interest in great works of art on the part of the labouring classes. There is a deal of truth in the incisive remarks of Leo Tolstoy when dealing with this question. He says [a]: Art cannot be incomprehensible to the great masses only because it is very good, as artists of our day are fond of telling us. Rather we are bound to conclude that this art is unintelligible because it is very bad art, or even is not art at all. So that the favourite argument (naÏvely accepted by the cultured crowd), that in order to feel art one has first to understand it (which really means to habituate oneself to it), is the truest indication that what we are asked to understand by such a method, is either very bad art, exclusive art, or is not art at all. One may observe however that, as a rule, it is only inferior artists who complain of the want of public appreciation of great works of art. According to Lessing and Watts-Dunton, what the former calls the dazzling antithesis of Simonides—"Poetry is speaking painting, and painting dumb poetry"—has had a wide and deleterious effect upon art criticism. Lessing, who wrote Laocoon about 1761, said in his preface in reference to this saying: It was one of those ideas held by Simonides, the truth of which is so obvious that one feels compelled to overlook the indistinctness and falsehood which accompany it.... But of late many critics, just as though no difference existed, have drawn the crudest conclusions one can imagine from this harmony of painting and poetry. Watts-Dunton, writing a few years ago, added to this[a]: It [the saying of Simonides] appears to have had upon modern criticism as much influence since the publication of Lessing's Laocoon as it had before. Lessing points out that the Greeks confined the saying to the effect produced by the two arts, and (evidently referring to Aristotle) did not forget to inculcate that these arts differed from each other in the things imitated and the manner of imitation. Since the business of both poetry and painting is to throw pictures on the mind, the declaration of Simonides must be accepted, but it has no particular meaning as applied either to criticism or the practice of the arts. It is merely a fact of common knowledge put into the form of a misleading jeu d'esprit, though one has a natural reluctance in so describing a time-honoured saying. There is room for doubt whether it really had the effect upon criticism that is alleged. Annibale Carracci varied it slightly into a better form with "Poets paint with words, and painters speak with the pencil," and it was certainly as well known in his time as in the eighteenth century, yet we find no particular evidence of weak art criticism either in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Moreover allegorical painting was not less common in these centuries than in the century following; and while there was unquestionably a spurt of descriptive poetry in the eighteenth, it is difficult to trace a connection between this phenomenon and general criticism based upon the dictum of Simonides. In regard to later times, the statement of Watts-Dunton wants demonstration. A few distinguished poets have attempted to portray beauty of form by description of features, but they have all been signally unsuccessful. The best known essay of the kind is Ariosto's portrait of Araminta, where he closely describes all details of her features and form, using forty lines for the purpose; but put together the pieces as one will, it is quite impossible to gain from them an idea of the beauty of her countenance.[a] This is pointed out by Lessing. The very length of the catalogue is apt to kill the beauty as one endeavours to dovetail the separate elements. Perhaps the lines of Cornelius Gallus to Lydia form the most perfect poetical delineation of a beautiful face known to us, but as will be seen from the translation below, they are quite insufficient to enable us to picture the beauty of the combined features on our minds.[b] Lydia! girl of prettiest mien,
And fairest skin, that e'er were seen:
Lilies, cream, thy cheeks disclose;
The ruddy and the milky rose;
Smooth thy limbs as ivory shine,
Burnished from the Indic mine.
Oh, sweet girl! those ringlets spread
Long and loose, from all thy head;
Glistening like gold in yellow light
O'er thy falling shoulders white.
Show, sweet girl! thy starry eyes,
And black brows that arching rise:
Show, sweet girl! thy rose-bloom cheeks,
Which Tyre's vermillion scarlet streaks:
Drop those pouting lips to mine,
Those ripe, those coral lips of thine.
If there be one example of descriptive poetry relating to landscape which throws upon the mind a complete natural scene during the process of reading, it is the beautiful chant of the Chorus in Œdipus Coloneus. The perfection of form and majestic diction of this poetry are remarkable, but the successful presentation of the picture on the mind is largely due to the simple and direct language used, and the astonishing brevity with which the many features of the scene are described. Green dells, fields, plains, groves, rocks, flowers, fruit, and rushing waters, are all brought in, and the few lines used do not prevent the introduction of the Muses, the jovial Bacchus with the nursing nymphs, and radiant Aphrodite. All modern poetry descriptive of landscape entirely fails in presenting a comprehensive view. It is too discursive—over descriptive, to permit of the mind collecting the details together as one whole. Here is the best prose version of the lines of Sophocles[a]: Thou hast come, O stranger, to the seats of this land, renowned for the steed; to seats the fairest on earth, the chalky Colonus; where the vocal nightingale, chief abounding, trills her plaintive note in the green dells, tenanting the dark-hued ivy, and the leafy grove of the god, untrodden, teeming with fruits, impervious to the sun, and unshaken by the winds of every storm; where Bacchus the reveller ever roams attending his divine nurses. And ever day by day the narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, bursts into bloom by heaven's dew, the ancient coronet of the mighty goddesses, and the saffron with golden ray; nor do the sleepless founts of Cephisus that wander through the fields fail, but every day it rushes o'er the plains with its limpid wave, fertilizing the bosom of the earth; nor have the choirs of the Muses loathed this clime; nor Aphrodite too, of the golden reign. It is perhaps necessary to remind some readers that the term "invention" is used in two senses in art, referring to the original idea or scheme, or to the preparation of the design embodying the idea. In poetry and fiction the term has the former significance; in painting and sculpture the latter. The restriction in the use of the term in the last named arts is compulsory. (See Chap. III., and Note 33.) Apparently Lessing did not observe that inasmuch as the painter cannot present the beginning and end of an incident, he must necessarily take his moment of action from the literary arts or from nature. The critic notices that the painter does not invent the action he depicts, but states that this is due to his indifference towards invention, developed by the natural readiness of the public to dispense with the merit of invention in his case. That is to say, the public expects the painter to take his idea from the poet or from nature, and looks to him only for correct design and execution: hence the painter is under no necessity to invent his own scheme. It is curious that a reason of this kind for the practice of the painter should be put forward by so keen a critic as Lessing, but it is not altogether surprising when we remember the discussion as to whether Virgil drew his representation of the Laocoon incident from the celebrated sculptured group, or the sculptors adopted the device of the poet. Lessing definitely settled the point in favour of the poet as the author of the design, and since his time this decision has been confirmed over and over again by practical evidence. But the conclusion of Lessing seems obvious in the absence of any such evidence. As we must exclude the possibility of both poet and sculptors taking the design from the same original source, it is clear that the poet could only have imitated the sculptors on the supposition that they had so widely varied the legend as to necessitate a new beginning and end of the story, these being provided by the poet. Consideration of such a series of events is not permissible, as it would reflect upon the common sense of the sculptors, and actually degrade the poet. Consequent upon the inability of the painter to originate a scheme for a picture, the famous proposition of Lessing as to the relative importance of invention and execution with the poet and painter, must fall to the ground. The critic states that our admiration of Homer would be less if we knew that he took certain of his work from pictures, and asks[a]: How does it happen that we withdraw none of our esteem from the painter when he does no more than express the words of the poem in forms and colours? He suggests as an answer to this: With the painter, execution appears to be more difficult than invention: with the poet on the other hand the case seems to be reversed, and his execution seems to be an easier achievement than the invention. The word "invention" is to be taken here in the sense of plot or fable, and not as the details of design invented by the painter for the purpose of representing the action described by the poet. The premisses of Lessing's argument therefore will not stand, for the painter cannot originate a fable by means of a picture. And sequential to this of course, the painter can be of no service to the poet. Homer could not draw an original scheme from a painting. Nor may the poet take a detail from the painter, for this has already been borrowed. A poet may vary a detail in a legend because he can make the successive parts of his relation fit in with the variation, but the painter can only deal with a single moment of action, and if this does not correspond with an accepted legend, then his design appears to be untrue. It may be said in regard to painting, that the relative difficulty of the invention (the work of gathering and arranging the signs) and the execution, varies with the character of the art. In the higher forms, as sacred and historical work, the invention is the more difficult; in ordinary scenes of life and labour the trouble involved in invention would about equal that in execution; while in the lower forms, as landscape and still-life, the execution is obviously the more difficult. In the case of the poet, the idea or fable is the hardest part of his work, but the relative difficulty of the arrangement of the parts, and the execution, would naturally depend upon the general character of the composition, and the form of the poem. The works here referred to are those designed for the purpose of achieving a political or social aim, or conveying instruction or moral lessons. There are many examples of good art where advocacy of a social or administrative reform is presented by way of incident or accessory, though the art itself is never, and cannot be, assisted thereby. "Didactic Art," if such a term may be appropriately used, is practically a thing of the past, but judging from certain conventions the opinion seems to be rather widely held that art should point a moral when possible, and an opinion of Aristotle is not infrequently called in to support this view. But when Aristotle connected morals with art, he evidently did not mean to suggest that art should have a moral purpose, but that it should have a moral tendency in not being morally harmful, for art which is not morally harmful must necessarily be morally beneficial. The general connection of the good with the beautiful in ancient Greece seems to have merely implied that what is good is beautiful, and what is beautiful is good, or should be good, and not that goodness is a manifestation of beauty, or beauty of goodness. It was admitted that the two things may not coincide. That landscape painting may be of considerable value in assisting scientific exploration is instanced by an anecdote related to the writer by a geological friend. Professor Jack, formerly Government Geologist of Queensland, while travelling in that colony, having put up one night at the house of a small squatter, noticed on the walls of the interior, a number of colour drawings which had been painted by a son of the settler from views in the neighbouring hills. One of these drawings showed a reddish-brown tint running down the slope of a grey and nearly barren hill. This caught the eye of the professor who asked the artist if the colours roughly represented the natural conditions, and receiving an affirmative reply, recommended the squatter to prospect the ground for minerals. This was done with the result that profitable copper deposits were found. It seems that in Australia many of the best mineral veins are capped with iron, and run through schistose rocks traversed by dioritic dykes. Professor Jack was well aware that the hills in the district were formed of these rocks and dykes, and as the reddish-brown streak indicated iron oxide, it occurred to him that the iron might be the cap of a lode holding valuable minerals.[a] Remarkable evidence of the universality of ideals, is afforded by the galaxy of French sculptors who appeared in the thirteenth century. They could have had no teachers beyond those responsible for the stiff and formal works characterizing the merging of Norman with Gothic art; they could have seen few of the fragments of ancient sculpture; and yet they left behind them monuments which rival in noble beauty much of the work produced in the greatest art period. How their art grew, and how it withered; how such a brilliant bloom in the life of a nation should so quickly fade, needs too detailed an argument to be ventured upon here, if indeed a properly reasoned explanation can be given at all; but the flower remains, as great a pride to mankind as it is a glory to France: remains, though sadly drooping, for the petals of Rheims are gone. Now these Frenchmen were in much the same position as the early Greeks. They were confronted with the task of making images of their objects of worship for great temples. They had no more real knowledge of the Personality of Christ, the Virgin, and most of the Saints than had the Greeks of the Homeric gods and legendary heroes, and like the Grecian sculptors they fully believed in the spiritual personages and religious events with which they dealt. The Grecian and French artists therefore started from the same line with similar general ideals, for the ancient workers took no heed of Homer and Hesiod in respect of the failings of their gods; and they both had only pure formalities in sculpture behind them. And what was the result? The ideal divine head of the Christian Frenchman is much the same as that of the Greeks in regard to form, and only varies in expression with the character of the respective religious conceptions. The French sculptors did not reach the sublime height of the Phidian school, nor did they attempt the more human beauty typified by the giants of the fourth century B.C.; but apart from these, and leaving aside considerations of the nude with which they were little concerned, they climbed to the highest level of the latter end of the fourth century and the beginning of the third—the level attained by those Grecian sculptors who more or less idealized portrait heads by adding Phidian traits. And it would appear that in reaching towards their goal they followed the same line of thought as the Greeks, and arrived at similar conclusions in respect to every detail of the head and pose of the figure. As a rule they gave to the faces of Christ and the Saints a large facial angle, set the eyes in deeply and the ears close to the head, and generally worked on parallel lines with the principal sculptors of Peloponesia living sixteen hundred years before their time. It is perhaps natural that they should make similar variations in the proportions of the figures to provide for the different levels from which they were to be seen, but it is curious that they should adopt the practice followed by the Greeks in the representation of children in arms, by minimizing to the last degree the figure of the Infant Christ in the arms of the Madonna. They could not have more closely imitated the Greeks in this respect had they had Grecian models in front of them. No doubt they fixed the position of the Child at the side of the Virgin in order that the line of her majestic form might not be broken, and that her face might be revealed to observers below the level of the statues, but that they should have made the Child so extremely small and insignificant considering His relative importance compared with that of the Grecian infant in arms, is remarkable. It is too early yet to fix definitely the position of Rodin in art. There is much sifting of his works to be done, for of all artists with a wide reputation, he was perhaps the most variable. Still he may be called one of the greater artists, and so is amongst the rare exceptions mentioned, for he executed one or two hideous figures, the most notable being La Vieille HeaulmiÈre.[a] This cannot properly be described as a work of art because it is revolting to the senses: it is merely a species of writing—a hieroglyph, and Rodin's own apology for it is a direct condemnation, since a work of sculpture cannot be good if general opinion does not approve of it. He says[b]: What matters solely to me is the opinion of people of taste, and I have been delighted to gain their approbation for my La Vieille HeaulmiÈre. I am like the Roman singer who replied to the jeers of the populace, Equitibus Cano. I sing only for the nobles; that is to say for the connoisseurs. The vulgar readily imagine that what they consider ugly is not a fit subject for the artist. They would like to forbid us to represent what displeases and offends them in nature. It is a great error on their part. What is commonly called "ugliness" in nature can in art become full of great beauty. In the domain of art we call ugly what is deformed, whatever is unhealthy.... Ugly also is the soul of the vicious or criminal man.... But let a great artist or writer make use of one or other of these uglinesses, instantly it becomes transfigured: with a touch of his fairy wand he has turned it into beauty: it is alchemy: it is enchantment.
Rodin then goes on to refer to the description of ugly objects by the poets, in support of his argument that they may be represented by the painter! It was his error in confusing the objects of the literary with those of the plastic arts, that led him to carve La Vieille HeaulmiÈre, for he admitted that he wished to put into sculpture what Villon had put into a poem. Professor Waldstein properly pointed out that, this being so, the observer of the sculpture should be provided with a copy of the poem when in front of the statue, adding[c]: and even then the work remains only the presentation of a female figure deformed in every detail by the wear and tear of time, and of a life ending in disease and nothing more. It is the worst form of literary sculpture, of which we have had so much by artists who represent the very opposite pole of the modern realists. Elsewhere the respective positions of the poet and painter (or sculptor) in the representation of ugliness are dealt with, but it may be added that in the case of La Vieille HeaulmiÈre, Rodin does not render in sculpture the poem of Villion, but only a part of it, for of course he could not show the progression in the life of the courtesan, indicated by the poet, which progression puts an entirely different complexion upon the ugly figure of the poet compared with that of the sculptor. Clearly Rodin was misled when he said that people of taste have given their approbation to his appalling figure, for it has been condemned among all classes, while its few defenders have failed to support their opinions by reason or experience. PLATE 27 PLATE 27 Diana and Nymphs, by Rubens
(Prado, Madrid) (See page 254) We may note that at another time Rodin reflected upon the character of the ancient Greek sculpture for the very reason upon which he bases his claim for public approval of La Vieille HeaulmiÈre. He says[d]: That was the fault of the Hellenic ideal. The beauty conceived by the Greeks was the order dreamed of by intelligence, but it only appealed to the cultivated mind, disdaining the humble. Here also is a confusion of ideas, for the intelligence cannot dream of a special kind of beauty which would not be recognized by the humble, unless it were so feeble as to be altogether below Greek conceptions. The aim of the Greek sculptors was to appeal to all classes, and in this they were eminently successful. Ruskin considered the figure of Christ, known as Le Bon Dieu d'Amiens, at Amiens Cathedral, the noblest ideal of Christ in existence,[a] and Dean Farrar wrote of it: "Christ is represented as standing at the central point of all history, and of all Revelation."[b] It is true that the sculpture is a noble representation of Christ, but this is not because it is a Christian ideal. In type it is purely Greek of the late fourth or early third century B.C. The expression is general, exhibiting the calm repose that the Greeks gave to a great philosopher. In the case of the Madonna, Michelangelo does not appear to produce an ideal woman: he only gives an improved woman. His nearest approach to the ideal is in his early Pieta at St. Peter's, but even here the Virgin is only a less earthly prototype of his later figures. The Madonna in the Holy Family at the Uffizi is much inferior, being merely a slightly ennobled Italian peasant. The other Madonnas are far higher in character and seem to suggest the antique, except that the more material qualities of woman are always present. The Madonnas at the Bargello and San Lorenzo are of the same general type as the figure in the Last Judgment, the Night in the Medici Chapel, the Leda in the Bargello, and the Venus in the sketch made for Pontormo. This being so, it may be imagined when the Leda is called to mind, that it is hard to associate the two Madonnas with Christian ideals. The figures are magnificent works, but they are behind the Madonnas of Raphael from the point of view of Christian conceptions. The expression is general, and all the countenances except one, indicate unconcern with surroundings; not the sublime unconcern of a Phidian god, which implies an apparent disregard of particulars because they are necessarily understood with an all-powerful comprehension of principles, but an unconcern which suggests a want of deep interest in life. The exception is the San Lorenzo Madonna, in which a certain calm resignation is the principal feature in expression. Michelangelo was more successful with his men than with his women. His painted prophets in the Sistine Chapel are as sublime as his scenes from the Creation; and his Moses in St. Peter's is rightly regarded as the first sculpture of the Renaissance. When the Pieta of Michelangelo (in St. Peter's, Rome) was first exposed, some comment was made upon the comparatively youthful appearance of the Virgin, and Condivi relates that he spoke to the sculptor on the subject. In reply Michelangelo said[a]: Don't you know that chaste women preserve their beauty and youthful character much longer than those who are not chaste? How youthful then must appear the immaculate Virgin who cannot be supposed ever to have had a vitiated thought. And this is only according to the natural order of things: but why may not we suppose in this particular case, that nature might be assisted by Divine interposition, to demonstrate to the world the virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother? This was not necessary in the Son, nay, rather on the contrary, since Divine omnipotence was willing to show that the Son of God would take upon Him, as he did, the body of man, with all his earthly infirmities except that of sin. Therefore it was not necessary for me to make the human subordinate to the Divine character, but to consider it in the ordinary course of nature under the actual existing circumstances. Hence you ought not to wonder that from such a consideration, I should make the most holy Virgin-Mother of God, in comparison with the Son, much younger than would otherwise be required, and that I should have represented the Son at His proper age. A few modern painters have produced works in which the Holy Family are pictured in lowly surroundings, but generally they appear to shock the public sense of propriety. Many persons will remember the sensation caused by Millais's The Carpenter's Shop, where Christ is shown as a boy of about ten years of age in the workshop of St. Joseph, and Holman Hunt's Shadow of the Cross. Later artists have been still more realistic, notably Uhde, whose sacred scenes almost stagger one with their modern suggestions, and Demont-Breton, whose Divine Apprentice represents the Boy Christ sharpening a tool at a grindstone which is turned by the Virgin. Unquestionably the rapid advance in Italian art in the fifteenth century was largely due to the influence of the ancient Greek and Roman remains. Indeed there are very few sculptors of the period who fail to show evidence of studies in Greek forms and ornaments, while in painting there are hundreds of figures which could scarcely have been designed in the absence of antique models. True in some cases the artists do not appear to have gone beyond the ancient literature, as with Masaccio who must have had Homer in his mind when he painted his figures of Eve in the Florence frescoes, and Piero di Cosimo, whose fanciful compositions savour of the old legends wrapped up in fairy stories; but many painters were steeped both in the art and literature of Greece and Rome, and made good use of them. But the most direct evidence of the influence of Greek art upon Italian artists of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, is to be found in the splendid series of bronze statuettes of the period. In their monumental figures the sculptors were more or less confined in their designs by considerations of portraiture, conventional drapery and symbols, and local requirements, and while they were greatly assisted by Greek experience, yet only rarely were they strictly at liberty except with ornaments and accessories. But in the small bronze figures their fancy could roam at will, and they made good use of this freedom in displaying their ready acceptance of the first principle in the design of the human figure recognized by the Greeks—that the sculptor must arrive at perfection of form if that be possible; that this perfection is not to be found in any single form in life, and consequently the artist must combine perfected parts into a harmonious whole, independently of particular models. The agreement with this principle was general, with scarcely an exception amongst the bronze figure designers, and the result was that in the period say, from 1450 to 1525, there was executed a series of bronzes fully representative of the highest level which plastic art has reached since the greater days of Greece. Right up to the time of the maturity of Michelangelo, nearly every bronze figurine cast is purely Grecian in type, and every ornament, and even every accessory which is not from its nature of contemporary style, can be traced to Greece, either directly or through Rome. Michelangelo brought about a change in accentuating the muscular development of the body, and before the middle of the sixteenth century most sculptors had come under his influence. This was unfortunate for he alone seemed to be capable of harmoniously combining Greek lines with muscular power. A few of his contemporaries, as Sansovino, Leone, Cellini, learned how to join, with due restraint, his innovations with modifications of the Greek torso, but generally the imitation of the great Florentine initiated a decadence, as it was bound to do, for it was accompanied with life modelling, and so meant a radical departure from the Greek forms. Giovanni di Bologna alone among the later sixteenth century sculptors, was strong enough to move in an independent direction. He restrained the accentuation of the muscles, and lightened the Greek type of torso, combining with these conditions an elegance in design which has never since been surpassed. This then is the principal cause of the high Æsthetic value of the Renaissance bronzes: the human form exhibited by them is altogether more beautiful than the form coming within the compass of life experience. Then the details of work on the bronzes are immensely superior to those of the general modern handiwork. For instance the chiselling of such men as Riccio and Cellini, has never been equalled since their time, save perhaps by GouthiÈre. And how poor, comparatively, are the present-day castings! How carefully the old masters worked; how particular they were with their clay; how skilfully they prepared their wax, and how slowly and deliberately the mould! How many artists now would have the patience to make such a mould? For the beautiful patinas on many of the Renaissance bronzes, age is mostly responsible, though lacquers were often used for the provision of artificial patinas, particularly after the middle of the sixteenth century, the finest being found on some of the works of Giovanni di Bologna. The tone of natural patina depends largely upon the kind of oxidation to which the bronze has been subjected, and it is no doubt often affected by the alloy used. Few modern artists have given close attention to the alloys, while the method of casting is now usually regarded as a detail of minor importance. Seeing that the production of figurines accompanied every civilization from the dawn of history to the collapse of the Roman Empire, it is curious that the renaissance of sculpture after the Dark Age should have progressed a long way before general attention was again turned to these bronzes. There are a few figures of animals which seem to be Italian work of the late trecento, but beyond these the small cast bronzes made in Italy before the maturity of Ghiberti, were practically confined to Madonnas and Saints, mostly gilt, made to fill Gothic niches, or adorn the altars of churches and private chapels. Slender Saints they were as a rule, but always elegant, with serene countenances and delicate features; beautifully modelled as became the inheritors of the traditions of the Pisanos. It was somewhere about the middle of the fifteenth century that Italy commenced to make ungilt statuettes suitable for household ornaments, and fully ten or fifteen years more passed away before they were produced with any regularity. The earliest of them of any importance appear to be a couple of Flagellators from the design of Ghiberti. They are fine pieces of work, evidently from clay models made for the scourging scene in one of the gates of the Florence Baptistry—gates described by Michelangelo as worthy to fill the portals of Paradise. These figures date about 1440. There is a Child Christ of a few years later by Luca della Robbia; and two or three figures from models of Donatello may be assigned to the neighbourhood of 1450. In the next ten years were turned out some figures from remaining models of Donatello which had been used for his work at Prato and Padua. So far the small bronzes made were from studies for larger works of sculpture, but about this time intense interest began to be taken in the remains of Greek and Roman art, and no doubt it was the increased importance attached to the antique bronze figures, mostly household gods of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, that first led the principal Renaissance artists to turn their attention to similar work. From this time on, for a century and a half, these bronze figures were regularly made. The existing figurines may be broadly classified in four divisions, namely, the Paduan and Florentine figures executed prior to 1525; those of the school of Michelangelo; those of the Venetian school headed by Sansovino; and those of Giovanni di Bologna and his school. Leaving out of consideration the small ornaments for inkstands, vases, etc., the little animals, and the purely commercial imitations, chiefly Venetian, made at the end of the sixteenth century, the total number of Renaissance bronzes now known is roughly six thousand. Of these under a hundred are from models for larger works by Ghiberti, Donatello, Verrocchio, Lionardo, Michelangelo, and a few lesser lights; about two thousand represent original designs specially prepared for bronze production; some three thousand five hundred are duplicates of, or slight variations from, these originals, executed by pupils or near contemporaries of the masters; and the balance of four hundred or so, are direct reproductions of, or variations from, antique sculptures. Naturally all collectors aim for the first two sections, but the third section contains many fine bronzes, often close to the originals, with equally good patinas. They vary greatly, though they are all ascribed in commerce to the artists responsible for the originals. The character of these variations is best seen in the case of Riccio, the most prolific of the bronze workers of the Renaissance. He designed and executed under forty small bronze figures and groups, besides some large bronze works of high importance. Of his small pieces there are in existence about a hundred duplicates made by his pupils and immediate contemporaries, who also adapted into household ornaments, various details from his larger works, bringing up the number of Riccios made from his models during his lifetime, other than by himself, to about a hundred and fifty. These are all bronzes of a high order. Then about an equal number of both kinds of models were reproduced during the twenty years following his death, all fairly good, but often slightly varied from the originals; and finally there are Riccios copied by Venetian craftsmen in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, sometimes considerably varied, and occasionally with purely Venetian ornaments added. These last mark the first distinct decadence in the small bronze art of the period. Next to Riccio among the earlier sculptors, in the number of bronzes designed, was his great contemporary, Antico, who accomplished some thirty or so. He differed from Riccio in that while the latter adhered to the Grecian practice in the design of details and ornaments, but varied the modelling somewhat to bring it more in conformity with the contemporary ideas of elegance, Antico kept strictly to the Grecian modelling, but commonly varied the ancient designs. There are few duplicates of Antico's work, made either during his lifetime or after. As with Riccio, his imitators overcame the difficulty of the chiselling by leaving it out, relying upon the wax to give close enough resemblance to the originals. Of the other small bronze sculptors prior to the maturity of Michelangelo, few executed more than half a score of figures. The best known are the immediate successors of Donatello in the Paduan school, as Bertoldo and Bellano, and the giants of the Florentine school, as Filarete and A. Pollaiuolo. Bronzes by these artists are very rare, and so are the duplicates of them made by pupils, though Bertoldo, who reminds one strangely of Lysippus, had occasional imitators for the next two centuries. These bronzes include many models which have not been equalled by the greatest of later sculptors, and they will never be matched until there arises a new school of sculptors resolved to imbibe the truths which the Renaissance artists gleaned from the ancient Greeks. The writer has used Greek and Roman names for these gods to some extent indiscriminately, in accordance with the universal custom in art. Nevertheless the practice is to be regretted as it tends to complicate the general ideas of the Greek and Roman religions. Notwithstanding the occasional direct association of some of their deities with human personages by their poets, the Romans regarded their gods as purely spiritual beings, having no special earthly habitation, or sex relations with the human race, while their powers widely differed from those of the respective Greek deities with whom they are commonly identified. Authorities differ as to whether the gods were supposed to have spiritual marital relations with each other.[a] In any case the whole nature of their religion precluded the development amongst the Romans of a separate sacred art. Their sculptured gods, which were taken from Grecian models, were symbols rather than presumed types. [a] See J. G. Frazer's Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 1914, vol. ii.; and W. W. Fowler's Religious Experience of the Roman People, 1911. If we may judge from the headless figures of the goddesses, commonly known as the Three Fates, from the east pediment of the Parthenon, there seems to be little difference between the general lines of the feminine torso represented by the Phidian ideal, and those of the Praxitelean model. The Parthenon torsos are more massive proportionately, but the object of both Phidias and Praxiteles was evidently to straighten the outer lines of the torso as nearly as possible, making due allowance for the varied natural swellings of their respective forms. It is obvious that the use of attire gave Phidias (presuming the Parthenon figures referred to were designed by him, as they probably were) a latitude in varying the proportions of the torsos which he could not have exercised in the case of nude forms. Unclothed, the figures would appear unwieldy, and the graceful flowing lines resulting from the partly clinging drapery could not be so completely presented with nude reclining or semi-reclining figures. There are other features also which prevent the nude representation of such massive forms. Thus, the breasts would necessarily be out of proportion in size, and widely separated. These conditions are common in fifth century and archaic figures, and do not appear to be defects in forms of life size or less, but they would be strikingly noticeable in super figures of the broad massive type with Phidian lines. The addition of light drapery, however, converts the apparent faults into virtues, for the artist is enabled therewith to give new sweeping curves to the forms which conspicuously enhance the general beauty of the figure. A still more amazing instance where the use of drapery allows the artist to vary the recognized proportions of the feminine form to an extent which would be impossible with nude figures, is the celebrated Ariadne at the Vatican.[a] This beautiful work, which is of the Hellenistic period, shows the daughter of Minos attired in a light flowing single garment, and reclining on a couch, asleep. The upper part of her body leans against the head of the couch, but the remainder is extended nearly at full length. The extraordinary feature of the work is that the length of the figure is altogether out of proportion with the head and with the breadth of the torso, being much too great, and yet so skilfully is the drapery arranged that this very defect becomes an advantage, for it enables a lofty grace, almost approaching grandeur, to be given to the figure, which would be impossible without the exaggeration. By the excellent device of a closely arranged cross fold of drapery passing round the middle of the figure, the artist apparently shortens it, so that the eye of the observer is not held by its great length. Only one other example of the supreme use of drapery in this way seems to be known—a bronze sitting figure of Calliope,[b] which is of the late Hellenistic period, and is obviously of the same school as the Ariadne marble. Praxiteles is known to have executed at least four other statues of Aphrodite besides the Cnidian example, but this last is the only one as to which we have fairly complete records, and of which copies have been closely identified. It is also the most celebrated. We may therefore accept the work as typical for comparative purposes. There has been much discussion as to whether Apelles showed the same extent of figure as is represented in the sculpture, a common suggestion being that he brought the surface of the water to the waist line; but it is evident that the painting corresponded with the sculpture in this particular. The artist had to represent the goddess walking towards the shore. If he brought the water to the waist line he could not definitely suggest movement, as a deflection of the shoulder line might mean that the goddess was in an attitude of rest, corresponding to the pose of nearly all the sculptured figures of the Praxitelean school. On the other hand if he carried the water line down towards the knees, the advance of the right leg would be most marked, and the effect disturbing because of the loss of repose, a quality at all times valuable in a painting of a single figure, and really necessary in the representation of Venus. The artist very properly reduced the portion of the thighs visible to the smallest fraction possible compatible with an expression of movement, in order to give the figure the greatest repose attainable. Under any circumstances there was nothing to gain by showing the water reaching to the waist. Certain details of the picture by Apelles are to be obtained from Grecian epigrams. Thus, one by Antipater of Sidon contains these lines[a]: Venus, emerging from her parent sea,
Apelles' graphic skill does here portray:
She wrings her hair, while round the bright drops flee,
And presses from her locks the foamy spray. From this it would appear that the position of the goddess when painted was presumed to be comparatively near the artist, otherwise the separate drops of falling water would not have been observed. The last line in the following epigram by Leonides of Tarentum indicates the ideal character of the countenance, though evidence of this is scarcely necessary[b]: As Venus from her mother's bosom rose
(Her beauty with the murmuring sea-foam glows),
Apelles caught and fixed each heavenly charm;
No picture, but the life, sincere and warm.
See how those finger tips those tresses wring!
See how those eyes a calm-like radiance fling!
So far as the writer knows, Piero was the only artist of the Renaissance who used this mythological story for a composition (his picture has hitherto been called an allegory), a circumstance which is rather singular considering the suitableness of the subject for the provision of effective designs. The Greek sculptors in dealing with the legend confined themselves to the moment when Athena threw down the pipes, apparently for the reason that this instant gave an opportunity of rendering Marsyas in a strong dramatic action. The famous statue of the faun after Myron in Rome, is supposed to have formed part of a group representing Athena and Marsyas immediately after the pipes were dropped, and the design appears on still existing coins and vases of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Piero takes a later moment, showing Marsyas comfortably squatting in the foreground of a delightful fanciful landscape, expressing boyish satisfaction with the prizes he is about to try. He is properly shown as a satyr instead of in the faun form of the sculptor. There appears to be no legitimate place in painting for a faun, while a satyr may at times be appropriately introduced into a pastoral composition. Controversy has raged around this picture for something like seventy years. The work came to light before 1850 at a public auction sale when it was attributed to Mantegna, with whom of course it had nothing to do. Then it was pronounced a Raphael, but this was disputed by Passavant who held that on account of the thin lower limbs of the figures, and the minute way in which the landscape was painted, it could not be by Raphael, but was of the school of Francia, or by Timoteo della Viti. Morelli brought back the attribution to Raphael, and the work then came into the possession of the Louvre. Subsequently Pinturicchio and Perugino were alternately suggested as the painter, and to the latter the picture was assigned by the Louvre authorities. All are agreed that the date of the work is about 1502. It does not seem possible that Perugino could have painted the picture, for the subject and invention are entirely foreign to him, while the lithe active form of Apollo does not consort with the least formal of his known figures. The landscape is much in his manner, but so it is also in the style of Raphael's early period, while the small buildings therein are closely finished as in some of Raphael's other works of the time.[a] Perugino used similar towers and buildings, but being a more experienced painter he did not so finely elaborate the details. The suggestion relating to the school of Francia was afterwards very properly withdrawn, and Pinturicchio must be ruled out on account of the landscape, apart from the supple figure of Apollo of which he was incapable. There remain then only Timoteo della Viti and Raphael as the possible painters of the work. But it cannot reasonably be suggested that Timoteo could have accomplished so perfect a figure as the Apollo, and moreover so original a figure. It certainly required an exceptionally bold mind to overcome the difficulty in rendering the traditionally semi-feminine form of Apollo by representing him as a young man just past his teens. Besides, the general delicacy of the work is not in the style of Timoteo. Passavant's objection to the limbs is overruled by the presence of similar limbs in the Mond Crucifixion. It would seem then that Morelli was right in assigning the beautiful little picture to the youthful period of the greatest of all painters. The white races are here referred to merely by way of example, and there is no intention to suggest that the more or less uncivilized peoples have no perception of beauty. It is well known that both semi-civilized and savage races differ from the whites in the matter of beauty, and the fact has been partly responsible for several theories for explaining Æsthetic perception, notably that of association, laid down by Alison and Jeffrey, but long since discarded. Seeing that there is no difference in kind between the sense nerves of the whites and the blacks, they must necessarily act in the same way. That the blacks appreciate as beautiful forms which the whites disregard, seems to arise partly from want of experience, partly from training, and partly from neglect in the exercise of the sense nerves. Take for example an inhabitant of Morocco where corpulency is commonly regarded as an element of beauty in women. If none but Moroccan women are seen or pictured, it is impossible for a higher form of beauty than is to be found amongst them to be conceived, for the imagination cannot act beyond experience. In cases where the Moroccan has had experience of both white and black, it is certain that, other things being equal, the white woman would be the more admired, for this is the general experience among the black races, and is strikingly noticeable in America with the descendants of African tribes. The appreciation of very fat women can easily be understood on the ground of custom or training. A youthful Moroccan may be firmly of opinion that corpulency is not an element of beauty, but seeing that his older acquaintances hold a contrary view, he may well form the conclusion that his judgment is wrong, and so accept the decision of his more mature countrymen. It is quite common among the whites for people to doubt their own Æsthetic perceptions when an inferior work of art is put forward as a thing of beauty. The general want of appreciation of certain musical harmonies on the part of uncivilized peoples is undoubtedly due to the neglect of the sense nerves concerned, for these are not cultivated except to a small extent involuntarily. The most ignorant and poor of the whites unavoidably come into frequent contact with the simpler forms of art, but the savage races see only the result of their own handiwork. The uncivilized races can scarcely be expected to admire the higher reaches of art wherein intellectual considerations enter, except for their sensorial excellence. PLATE 28 PLATE 28 Automedon and the Horse of Achilles, by Regnault
(Boston Museum) (See page 256)
There seems to be some uncertainty as to whether Fragonard intended his splendid series of the Frick collection to represent the subjects usually assigned to them, namely, The Pursuit (or The Flight of Design, a title given to the original sketch for the picture); The Rendezvous (or The Surprise, or The Escalade); Souvenirs (or Confidences, or The Reader); The Lover Crowned (or Before the Painter); and The Abandonment (or The Reverie). It is suggested that the works have an allegorical signification connected with art, and certainly three of them—the first, second, and fourth—could be so interpreted. But magnificent paintings of this kind are usually fitted for many allegorical suggestions. Each picture represents an incident of common experience, elaborated with beautiful figures in a perfect setting. This approaches the summit of the painter's art, for no conception can be greater apart from spiritual ideals. It is symbolism in its highest form—of universal experience in which all are interested. The works are not to be taken as a necessary sequence (the last of the series was painted twenty years after the others), but the scheme of one or more of them has come within the experience of every man and woman since the world began. Seeing that this precise dignified pose, coming so near the line of exaggeration, but never crossing it, is present in all the authenticated portraits of Titian, save those of very aged persons, we may reasonably consider the pose an important factor in determining the validity of certain portraits as to which a doubt has arisen. Thus in the case of the Physician of Parma[a] (this title is admittedly wrong), which has been variously given to Titian and Giorgione, the verdict must be in favour of Titian, for the pose is certainly his, while it is unknown in any work of Giorgione. On the other hand, the portrait of Catherine Cornara,[b] commonly ascribed to Titian, but also attributed to Giorgione,[c] cannot be by the former master; nor is the Portrait of a Man (with his hand on a bust),[d] which seems to pair with the Cornara portrait. The portrait known as An Old Man Asleep,[e] sometimes given to Titian, clearly does not belong to him. It should be noted that the general confusion observable for many years in the estimation of Giorgione's work arose from the attribution to him of paintings executed in the comparatively broad manner of Titian, but which this artist did not adopt till Giorgione had been dead for a decade or more. The recent exhaustive critique of Lionelli Venturi[f] of the earlier master has cleared the air, and we now know the range of his work very positively. Giorgione was less fine in some of his paintings than in others, for he paid more attention to chiaroscuro as he matured, but there is no instance where he painted in the broader manner occasionally exhibited by Titian. All the works in the style of The Concert and The Three Ages are now known to be by other hands than those of Giorgione, and it must be unfortunately admitted that not a single painting by him exists either in England or America. Hals is another artist as to whom many misconceptions have arisen in regard to his use of a very broad manner in his portraits. There is a total of about 350 works attributed to him, of which some two thirds are single portraits, and twenty are portrait groups. The balance includes over thirty genre pictures, mostly with single figures, and fifty heads of boys and girls generally shown in the act of laughing. It is in his genre work that the broad manner is mostly observable, and only very occasionally is it to be found in his portraits. In the more important works of the artist, even during his later period, his manner is by no means broad,[a] though it is not so fine as in his best years, say from 1635 to 1650. This estimate can however only be general, as his dated paintings of different periods after 1630 often correspond so closely that it is difficult to assign dates to the other pictures with certainty. Perhaps the frequent attribution to Hals of works by his pupils and imitators, has had something to do with the public estimation of the breadth of his manner. This was often greatly exaggerated by his followers, and many portraits are given to him which he could not possibly have painted. In his important work on the artist, Dr. von Bode points out that some of the duplicates of his pictures were apparently executed by his pupils, but these are not separated in the book.[b] It is a simple matter to divide the works painted by Hals from the studio copies and the portraits of imitators. His brushwork and impasto were quite exceptional. He had a firm direct stroke, never niggled or scumbled, and his loading was restrained though very effective. Quite naturally his pupils, however industrious and skilled, could not closely imitate his remarkable freedom in handling. They were incapable of firm decisive strokes throughout a portrait, and endeavoured to overcome the loading difficulty by using brushes of a coarseness foreign to the master when rendering light tones. Moreover Hals was nearly perfect in drawing, and in this there are usually marked defects in the studio copies. The term "grace" as applied in art has so many significations that it is difficult to deal with one of them without confusion. What is here specially referred to is the grace of pose designed by the artist. The object of the portrait painter is to pose his sitter so that the grace indicated shall appear natural and habitual, a feature as important now in the appearance of women as it was twenty-five centuries ago when Sappho asked[a]: What country maiden charms thee,
However fair her face,
Who knows not how to gather
Her dress with artless grace? But the grace of pose never appears to be artless, after the first inspection, unless there is something in the expression to hold the mind. Without this appeal to the mind the portrait must soon tire, and the pose become artificial and stiff, that is to say, in representations of life size, for in miniature portraiture the countenance seldom or never crosses the vision involuntarily. In the ancient Greek forms, Winckelmann distinguishes four kinds of grace—lofty, pleasing, humble, and comic—but the grace exhibited by sculptured forms necessarily depends upon the harmony of expression, character of form, and pose. This should be the case with painted portraits also, but drapery restrictions and accessories commonly compel a limitation in the design of the artist. In three quarter and full length portraits it is impossible to depart from the dress customary at the period of execution, unless the sitter assume a classical character, and this is only possible in comparatively few instances. In any case the pose should always be subordinated to the expression. The remarkable range of Raphael in expression has been commented upon by many critics, and practically all agree with Lanzi in his eloquent summary[a]: There is not a movement of the soul, there is not a character of passion known to the ancients and capable of being expressed in art, that he (Raphael) has not caught, expressed, and varied in a thousand different ways, and always within the bounds of propriety.... His figures are passions personified; and love, hope, fear, desire, anger, placability, humility, and pride, assume their places by turns as the subject changes; and while the spectator regards the countenances, the air, and the gestures of the figures, he forgets that they are the work of art, and is surprised to find his own feelings excited, and himself an actor in the scene before him. This Pompeian fresco is supposed to be a copy of the picture of Timanthes, but there is an ancient marble relief of the same subject at Florence, the design of which is also said to have been taken from the Grecian painter, though it differs considerably from the fresco. Quintilian observes as to the work of Timanthes, that having rendered Calchas sad, Ulysses still more sad, and Menelaus with the deepest expression of grief possible in art, the painter could not properly portray the countenance of Agamemnon, who as father of Iphigenia was presumed to be the most deeply affected of all present, and so covered his head, leaving the intensity of his suffering to be understood.[a] The authenticity of the Boston example of Mona Lisa is still in dispute. So far no serious objection to it has been brought forward, and there are certain points in its favour, as the presence of the columns which are reproduced in Raphael's sketch, and the bold brushwork of the drapery where this can be distinguished. But there is another example of the work in existence, and this fact, with the natural hesitation in pronouncing definitely on so important a matter, will probably leave the authenticity of the picture undecided for a long time. Meanwhile the literature upon Mona Lisa is ever increasing, and some important facts have been recently brought out. Amongst these is an announcement by A. C. Coppier that the lady was not a Florentine, but a Neapolitan of the Gheradini family, and that she was married in 1495, when eighteen years of age.[a] She would therefore be twenty-seven years old in 1504 when the picture which Raphael sketched is supposed to have been painted. But the Mona Lisa in the Louvre was completed between 1515 and 1519; hence there is much to ascertain as to the history of the work. The various suggestions that have been made as to the meaning of Mona Lisa's smile, seem to have no other foundation than the fancies of mystic minds. The smile has been called dangerous, sinister, ambiguous, provocative, purposely enigmatic, significant of a loose woman, expressive of sublime motherhood, reminiscent of Eastern intrigue, and so on, the mildest criticism of this kind affirming that the smile will ever remain an enigma. It is of course impossible for any meaning to be put into a smile by the painter, other than that of pleasure. Psychological suggestions are possible with the poet or novelist, but not with the painter. If there be any enigma or mystery in a picture, then the art is bad, for the work is incomprehensible, but there is no problem to be solved in Mona Lisa's smile. It is not different from any other smile except in degree, and of course in the quality appertaining to the particular countenance. Lionardo, with his scientific turn of mind, was not likely to attempt the impossible by trying to mix psychology with paint. It is necessary to dissent from the conclusion of Lessing as to the representation of ugliness by the poet. He says in referring to Homer's portrayal of Thersites[a]: Why in the case of ugliness did he adopt a method from which he so judiciously refrained in that of beauty? Does not a successive enumeration of its compound parts diminish the effect of ugliness, just as a similar enumeration of its parts destroys that of beauty? Undoubtedly it does, but in this very fact lies Homer's justification. For the very reason that ugliness in the poet's description is reduced to a less repulsive appearance of bodily imperfection, and in point of its effect ceases as it were to be ugliness, the poet is enabled to make use of it. It is true that as he cannot present a particular form of beauty by description, so the poet cannot describe an ugly countenance in such a way that it may be pictured on the mind as a whole; but on the other hand, as he can, by reference to its effect, or by imagery, present a greater beauty than the painter can portray, so he may by similar means suggest a more hideous form of ugliness. And apart from this, while a detail in the description of a beautiful countenance is immaterial until it is combined with other details, a detail of ugliness may in itself be sufficient to render the countenance wholly repulsive to the reader. Thus, if one said of a maid that her cheeks were a compound of the lily and the rose, this would not necessarily imply that she was generally beautiful; but if it were said of a man that he had a large bulbous nose, we should consider him ugly whatever the character of his other features. It was only necessary for Milton to refer to one or two details of the figure of Sin, to throw upon our minds a form of appalling ugliness.[b] A successive enumeration of its component parts, does not therefore diminish the effect of ugliness, as Lessing claims, but increases it. On the other hand a successive enumeration of the parts of beauty does not destroy the beauty, but simply fails to represent it. The poet may use ugliness where the painter cannot, because his ugly form does not dominate the scene, save for an instant or two, being quickly subordinated by surrounding conditions of speech and action; whereas the ugly figure of the painter is fixed for ever. Further, the poet may surround his description of the ugly thing with beautiful imagery and lofty sentiment, practically hiding the ugliness with a cloak of beauty; but the painter can only depict the ugly thing as it is, naked to the sight, without gloss or apology. It has been suggested that the foot of Hercules in this fine bronze was placed upon the skull of an ox to indicate a successful hunt,[a] but Hercules was a demigod, and so could not be connected in art with any but a superhuman task or exploit. Moreover the only instance recorded in mythological history where Hercules fought with an ox (unless the feat of strength against the white bull of Augeas be called a fight), is that of the Cretan bull, which was captured and not killed. There is no other sculptured figure now known where a foot is placed on the skull of an ox, but Pausanias records that he saw one in a temple of Apollo at PatrÆ, the figure being that of the god himself.[b] Pausanias attributes the motive of the design to Apollo's love of cattle. There is no doubt about the significance of the Frick bronze. The skull of an ox, and rams' heads are frequently found on ancient tombs, and acanthus leaves were commonly used both in Greece and Rome as funereal signs, while the base of the statuette, which is cast with the figure, is clearly intended to represent an altar. It is noticeable that the form of acanthus leaf used is Roman, suggesting that Pollaiuolo had access to the reproductions of tomb inscriptions made to the order of Lorenzo de' Medici. There is apparently no other existing design of a hero contemplating death, but Lysippus carved several figures, now lost, of Hercules in a sad or depressed mood. In the most celebrated of these, the demigod was seated in a thoughtful attitude on a lion's skin, and it is possible that this design was connected with the contemplation of death, because it was produced in relief soon after the time of Lysippus, and later in a Pompeian fresco, in both cases in the presence of Lichas, the bearer of the poisoned garment. The attempt of Ruskin to raise landscape to a high level in the art of the painter[a] need scarcely be referred to here, so completely have his arguments been refuted elsewhere. The authority of Alexander Humboldt has been sometimes quoted in support of the assertion that landscape can appeal to the higher attributes, the passage relied upon affirming that descriptive poetry and landscape painting "are alike capable in a greater or lesser degree of combining the visible and invisible in our contemplation of nature." But it is clear from the whole references of the writer to these arts, that he means nothing more by his statement than that a painting or descriptive poem may, like an actual landscape, induce a feeling of wonder at the powers of the original Cause of nature. The opinion of Humboldt upon the position of landscape painting may be gathered from his definite observation that it has "a more material origin and a more earthly limitation than the art which deals with the human form."[b] It is doubtful whether an artist can invent a form of tree which does not exist in nature, without producing something of the character of a monstrosity. From the point of view of dimensions, the two extreme forms of trees used in painting, are represented in Raphael's Madonna with the Goldfinch[a] as to the slender forms, and as to the giant trunks, in two or three of Claude's pictures. The very beautiful trees of Raphael have been often regarded as pure inventions, and Ruskin was actually surprised that the artist did not delineate the "true form of the trees and the true thickness of the boughs";[b] but as a matter of fact precisely similar trees (a variety of ash) are to be found in the valleys of the Apennines to this day. All the change that Raphael made was to transport the trees from a sheltered spot to an open position. Very similar trees are introduced in the same master's Apollo and Marsyas.[c] Perugino was the first painter to use them, and in some of his earlier works he made them of great height,[d] but he gradually modified the form till he approached the perfect symmetry and delicacy of Raphael's examples.[e] Marco Basaiti introduced them into at least three of his pictures, and they are also to be found in works by Timoteo della Viti and Francia.[f] Higher and equally slender trees have been appropriately used by Antonio della Ceraiuolo,[g] and even by so late a painter as Nicholas Poussin.[h] [f] Madonna and Child in a Rose Garden, Munich. In noting the fact that the great landscape artist invents his designs, Byron observes that nature does not furnish him with the scenes that he requires, and adds[a]: Nature is not lavish of her beauties; they are widely scattered, and occasionally displayed, to be selected with care, and gathered with difficulty. Had Byron been a painter, he would have known that the trouble of the artist is due to the over, and not the under, supply of beauty by nature. The artist sees the beauty, but cannot identify it with particular signs, and so has to invent a scene himself, using nature only for sketches or ideas.
"The force of natural signs," says Lessing, "consists in their resemblance to the things they represent."[a] In a criticism upon the second part of Faust, G. H. Lewes writes[b]: The forms which are his (the artist's) materials, the symbols which are his language, must in themselves have beauty and an interest readily appreciable by those who do not understand the occult meaning. Unless they have this they cease to be art: they become hieroglyphs. Art is picture painting, not picture writing. While this is generally true, beauty in the lesser signs of the poet is of greater importance than in those of the painter, because a painting is looked upon direct as a whole, while a poem has to be comprehended in its parts before it can be properly considered as a whole. Although those of the fifteenth-century artists who treated landscape seriously did not thoroughly understand perspective, yet they were seldom at a loss in representing distance, that is, in the clear atmosphere which they invariably used. They were diffident in attempting distance with unbroken level country, and till quite the end of the century there is no instance where middle and far distance are shown together, even with the assistance of hilly ground. The almost invariable practice of the leading painters who made landscape a feature in their works, was to introduce water leading back from the foreground, so that breaks therein could be used to indicate distance. More or less numerous jutting forks of low lying land were thrown into the stream from either side, this plan being successfully adopted in Italy,[a] Flanders,[b] and Germany.[c] Early in the sixteenth century much improvement was made in the use of water for providing distance, and a few of the Venetian painters gave some consideration to aerial perspective, but the most perfect example of this perspective in the period is contained in an early work of Raphael.[d] In the background is a lake extending into a gradually deepening haze, and in this a boat is so skilfully placed as to increase considerably the apparent distance to the horizon. This picture is a distinct advance upon the Venetian distance work of the time.[e] Later on in the century an artist rarely introduced water into a view specially to assist in producing distance by means of boats, more advanced methods being adopted. Titian used sunlight effects with varying shadows,[f] or alternating clear and wooded ground.[g] These plans, and the use of water with the addition of trees and low hills,[h] constitute the chief devices to be found in the late sixteenth-century Italian pictures. Some of the sun effects rendered for distance purposes even before Titian's best time are quite effective, though formal.[i] PLATE 29 PLATE 29 Greek Sculpture of Ariadne
(Vatican) (See page 329) Lessing apparently overlooked the possibilities of landscape painting in his dictum as to progressive actions. He writes[a]: If painting on account of the signs and means of imitation which it employs, and which can only be combined in space, must entirely renounce time, then progressive actions cannot, in so far as they are progressive, be included in the number of its subjects, but it must content itself with coexistent actions, or with mere bodies, which on account of their position cause an action to be suspected. It is true that a series of progressive human actions cannot be included in one painting, but progressive natural actions can be so included when the progression is regular and repeated and the actions are clearly separated to the eye. Although the painter can only depict a moment of time, he can show the whole progression, which is not the case in a series of human actions, as in the example quoted by Lessing, of Pandarus arranging his bow, opening his quiver, choosing an arrow, and so on. Strange to say, De Quincey, in an explanatory note to Lessing's observations, also overlooks the movement of water broken by rocks, though he refers specially to landscape painting. He says[b]: In the succession of parts which make up appearance in nature, either the parts simply repeat each other (as in the case of a man walking, a river flowing, etc.), or they unfold themselves through a cycle, in which each step effaces the preceding, as in the case of a gun exploding, where the flash is swallowed up by the smoke effaced by its own dispersion. But for the purpose of the painter, the action of water breaking over ledges and boulders does not correspond with the case of a man walking or a river flowing, because the series of events forming the progression in the case of the water breaking, cover such time and space that the events can be distinctly separated by the eye. Clearly also this action should not be included in De Quincey's second category, because the repetition is both regular and (to all intents and purposes) perpetual. There should therefore be a third category to comprise those repeated progressive acts in which the events can be so separated by the eye as to be portrayed on canvas in the order of their progression, and in such a way that the whole progression, and the meaning of it, are at once apparent. Professor Clausen relates that Whistler told him that his object in painting nocturnes was to try and exhibit the "mystery and beauty of the night." It is obvious that Whistler was here confusing psychological with visual impressions. The depth of gloom, the apparently limitless dark void which the eye cannot penetrate, mean mystery in a sense, because we can never accustom ourselves to the suggestion of infinity involved in something which is boundless to the senses. A sensation of the sublime may consequently arise, and this means beauty in a psychological sense. But we are considering art and not psychology. Where nothing is distinguished, nothing can be painted, and if there be sufficient light for objects to be determined, there can be no mystery for the painter. If he be desirous of representing Night, he must follow the example of Michelangelo and symbolize it. It is curious that since the death of Whistler, a picture entitled Mysteries of the Night has been painted by another American artist—J. H. Johnston. A figure of a beautiful nude woman is standing on a rocky shore in a contemplative attitude, with the moonlight thrown upon her. The design is excellent, but the realistic modelling of the figure effectually kills any suggestion of mystery. Vasari mentions that Michelangelo, though admiring the colour and manner of Titian regretted that the Venetian painters did not pay more attention to drawing in their studies.[a] In quoting this, Reynolds observed[b]: But if general censure was given to that school from the sight of a picture by Titian, how much more heavily and more justly would the censure fall on Paolo Veronese, and more especially on Tintoretto. Reynolds himself rightly excluded Titian when he condemned the later Venetian painters of the Renaissance for their exaggeration of colour, and no doubt Titian was also exempted by J. A. Symonds in his trenchant criticism of the work of this school. When dealing with the decline of Lesbian poetry after the brilliant period of Sappho, he wrote[c]: In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the ProvenÇal troubadours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art on the beauty of colour, the voluptuous charms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued. Sir George Beaumont relates of Reynolds[a]: On his return from his second tour over Flanders and Holland, he observed to me that the pictures of Rubens appeared much less brilliant than they had done on his former inspection. He could not for some time account for this little circumstance; but when he recollected that when he first saw them he had his notebook in his hand for the purpose of writing down short remarks, he perceived what had occasioned their now making a less impression than they had done formerly. By the eye passing immediately from the white paper to the picture, the colours derived uncommon richness and warmth; but for want of this foil they afterwards appeared comparatively cold. Rodin[a] observes that in giving movement to his personages, the artist represents the transition from one pose to another—he indicates how insensibly the first glides into the second. In his work we still see a part of what was, and we discover a part of what is to be. Rodin points to Rude's fine statue of Marshal Ney, and practically says that here the illusion is created by a series of progressive actions indicated in the attitude: the legs remaining as they were when the sword was about to be drawn, and the hand still holding the scabbard away from the body, while the chest is being thrown out and the sword held aloft. Thus the sculptor compels, so to speak, the spectator to follow the development of an act in an individual. The eyes are forced to travel upwards from the lower limbs to the raised arm, and as in so doing they find the different parts of the figure represented at successive instants, they have the illusion of beholding the movement performed. Rodin himself has followed a similar course with much success. The ancient Greek sculptors, when representing a figure in action, invariably chose a moment of rest between two progressive steps in the action. The Discobolus and Marsyas of Myron, and particularly the Atalanta in the Louvre, are fine examples. Mengs, in referring to the arrangement of the drapery in Raphael's figures, says[a]: With him every fold has its proper cause; either in its own weight or in the motion of the limbs. Sometimes the folds enable us to tell what has preceded; herein too Raphael has endeavoured to find significance. It can be seen by the position of the folds, whether an arm or a leg has been moved forwards or backwards into the attitude which it actually occupies; whether a limb has been, or is being, moved from a contracted position into a straightened one, or whether it was extended at first and is being contracted. Besides assisting in providing an illusion, the title of a picture may lend great additional interest to it. Thus in Millet's The Angelus the associations called up by the title act most powerfully on the mind, and one almost listens for the sound of the bell.[a] A work of a similar character is Bonvin's Ave Maria, where the nuns of a convent are answering the call[b]; and Horace Walker has a picture with the same title, in which a boy who is driving cattle, stops in front of a Crucifix by the wayside[c]. An excellent example of this added interest is the title of Turner's great picture of the Temeraire,[d] as to which R. Phillimore writes[e]: It is not difficult to imagine the picture of an old man-of-war towed by a steam tug up a river. The execution of such a subject may deserve great praise and give great satisfaction to the beholder. But add to the representation the statement that it is "The fighting Temeraire towed to her last berth, " and a series of the most stirring events of our national history fills our imagination. There is an antique sculptured group in the Vatican in which a precisely similar figure of the son of Niobe has his left hand on the shoulder of his sister who has fallen to her knees from the effect of a wound, and it is very reasonably suggested that the Florence figure originally formed part of a like group. But the explanation of the act given by Perry[a] and others, that the drapery was raised by the brother to shield the girl, will scarcely hold good, as the folds are spread out at the back, forming a concavity, whereas they would fall loosely if the youth were resting. Apart from this, his legs are widely separated, and in a running position. It may therefore be surmised that in the Vatican group the artist intended to represent the precise moment when the fleeing youth reached his sister.
It is curious that among the countless pictures of the Annunciation, in very few indeed has surprise been expressed in the countenance and attitude of the Virgin, though it is impossible to imagine an incident more properly calling for profound astonishment on the part of the principal personage in a composition, even in the absence of startling miraculous accessories such as that introduced by Rossetti. Probably the reason for this is connected with the difficulty of expressing great surprise unaccompanied with some other feeling, as pleasure, or sorrow, or fear, but there does not seem to be any cause why an exalted joyful excitement should not be exhibited. Mrs. Jameson thinks that the Virgin should not appear startled, as She was "accustomed to the perpetual ministry of Angels who daily and hourly attended on Her,"[a] but it is questionable whether this can be properly assumed by the artist, and in any case from the point of view of art, the action should correspond with the nature of the event as it is generally understood. Of the few masters who have indicated surprise in an Annunciation picture, Tintoretto has gone the farthest. He shows the Virgin with Her lips parted, and both hands held up, evidently with astonishment,[b] an example followed by Paris Bordone.[c] Raphael in an early picture represents Her holding up one hand, but the attitude might signify the reception of an announcement of importance.[d] Perugino shows Her with both hands raised, but otherwise She appears unconcerned.[e] A few other artists, including Venusti and Foppa, and among modern men, Girodet, adopt Raphael's method of composition. Rubens goes a step farther, and represents the Virgin apparently standing back with surprise, though this is only faintly suggested by the facial expression.[f]
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