Part 5 (1/2)

[44] 1625-1713 Known also as Carlo delle Madonne

OF REALIZATION

VOLUME III, CHAPTER 2

In the outset of this inquiry, the reader_what_ is to be painted, but _how far_ it is to be painted Not whether Raphael does right in representing angels playing upon violins, or whether Veronese does right in allowing cats andthe subjects rightly chosen, they ought on the canvas to look like real angels with real violins, and substantial cats looking at veritable kings; or only like iels with soundless violins, ideal cats, and unsubstantial kings

Now, froan to be a subject of literary inquiry and general criticism, I cannot remember any writer, not professedly artistical, who has not, more or less, in one part of his book or another, countenanced the idea that the great end of art is to produce a deceptive resemblance of reality It hprinciples of ideal beauty, and professing great delight in the evidences of iination But whenever a picture is to be definitely described,--whenever the writer desires to convey to others some impression of an extraordinary excellence, all praise is wound up with some such statements as these: ”It was so exquisitely painted that you expected the figures to move and speak; you approached the flowers to enjoy their smell, and stretched your hand towards the fruit which had fallen from the branches You shrunk back lest the sword of the warrior should indeed descend, and turned away your head that youe such as this will be found to be merely a clumsy effort to convey to others a sense of the admiration, of which the writer does not understand the real cause in himself A person is attracted to a picture by the beauty of its colour, interested by the liveliness of its story, and touched by certain countenances or details which rehted He naturally supposes that what gives him so much pleasure must be a notable example of the painter's skill; but he is ashamed to confess, or perhaps does not know, that he is soincidents; and he is quite unconscious of the associations which have so secret and inevitable a power over his heart He casts about for the cause of his delight, and can discover no other than that he thought the picture like reality

In another, perhaps, a still larger nue will be found to be that of sinorance of persons whose position in life co any real enjoyment of it It is inexcusably required from people of the world, that they should see merit in Claudes[45] and titians; and the only merit which many persons can either see or conceive in them is, that they must be ”like nature”

In other cases, the deceptive power of the art is really felt to be a source of interest and ae nu what is flat erdemain: they rejoice in flies which the spectator vainly attempts to brush away,[46] and in dehich he endeavours to dry by putting the picture in the sun They take it for the greatest compliment to their treasures that they should be ar adequately represented if Hagar seeainst critics and connoisseurs of this latter stamp (of whom, in the year 1759, the juries of art were for the most part composed) that the essay of Reynolds, which we have been exa, was justly directed But Reynolds had not sufficiently considered that neither the men of this class, nor of the two other classes above described, constitute the entire body of those who praise Art for its realization; and that the holding of this apparently shallow and vulgar opinion cannot, in all cases, be attributed to the want either of penetration, sincerity, or sense The collectors of Gerard Dows and Hobbimas may be passed by with a smile; and the affectations of Walpole and simplicities of Vasari[48] dismissed with contempt or with compassion But very different e; and, one ast the rest, whose authority is absolutely, and in all points, overwhel

There was probably never a period in which the influence of art over the minds of men seemed to depend less on its merely _imitative_ power, than the close of the thirteenth century No painting or sculpture at that time reached more than a rude resemblance of reality Its despised perspective, ihts of fantastic iination, separated the artist's work frouise, and little to direatest poet of that, or perhaps of any other age, and the attached friend of its greatest painter,[49] who ain have held full and free conversation with hi terhest perfection:

Qual di pennel fu maestro, e di stile Che ritraesse l'ono sottile?

Morti li morti, e i vivi parean vivi: Non vide me' di ivi

DANTE, _Purgatorio_, canto xii 1 64

What master of the pencil, or the style, Had traced the shades and lines that ht have made The subtlest work seemed alive; with clearer view_ _His eye beheld not, who beheld the truth_, Than

--CARY

Dante has here clearly no other idea of the highest art than that it should bring back, as in a s passed or absent The scenes of which he speaks are, on the paveelic power, so that the souls which traverse this circle of the rock may see them, as if the years of the world had been rolled back, and they again stood beside the actors in the moment of action Nor do I think that Dante's authority is absolutely necessary to coht_, indeed, be the highest possible Whatever delight wein pictures, if it were but truly offered to us, to remove at our will the canvas from the frae of sohty scenes which it has been our way to make mere theain behold the Magdalene receiving her pardon at Christ's feet, or the disciples sitting with Him at the table of Emmaus; and this not feebly nor fancifully, but as if soainst the wall of the chamber, had been miraculously commanded to retain for ever the colours that had flashed upon it for an instant,--would we not part with our picture--titian's or Veronese's though it ht be?

Yes, the reader answers, in the instance of such scenes as these, but not if the scene represented were uninteresting Not, indeed, if it were utterly vulgar or painful; but we are not yet certain that the art which represents what is vulgar or painful is itself of much value; and with respect to the art whose aim is beauty, even of an inferior order, it seems that Dante's idea of its perfection has still ood sense, and courage enough to speak their ree of doubt as to the use of art, in consequence of their habitual comparison of it with reality ”What is the use, to me, of the painted landscape?” they will ask: ”I see more beautiful and perfect landscapes every day of my life in my forenoon walk” ”What is the use, to y of hero or beauty? I can see a staht of purer beauty, on the faces round hest human skill” Now, it is evident that to persons of this temper the only valuable picture would, indeed, be _s in which they took delight, and of the faces that they loved

”Nay,” but the reader interrupts (if he is of the Idealist school), ”I deny that s are to be seen in nature than in art; on the contrary, everything in nature is faulty, and art represents nature as perfected” Be it so Must, therefore, this perfected nature be imperfectly represented? Is it absolutely required of the painter, who has conceived perfection, that he should so paint it as to look only like a picture? Or is not Dante's view of the ht even here, and would it not be well that the perfect conception of Pallas should be so given as to look like Pallas herself, rather than merely like the picture of Pallas?[50]

It is not easy for us to answer this question rightly, owing to the difficulty of i any art which should reach the perfection supposed Our actual powers of imitation are so feeble that wherever deception is attempted, a subject of a comparatively low or confined order must be chosen I do not enter at present into the inquiry how far the powers of imitation extend; but assuredly up to the present period they have been so limited that it is hardly possible for us to conceive a deceptive art ee of subject But let the reader ive at anythe fairest scenes, those which so often rise before hi, the leaf in its tre; to bid the fitful foa upon the lake; and then to bear aith hih even that is beautiful), but a counterfeit which should seee of life indeed Or rather (for the full majesty of such a power is not thus sufficiently expressed) let hi else than a capacity of transporting hireat as can be possessed by a dise not only the present but the past, and enabling us see since gathered to the dust; to behold thee than ever was granted to the companions of those transient acts of life--to see theesture and expression of an instant, and stayed, on the eve of so purpose Conceive, so far as it is possible, such power as this, and then say whether the art which conferred it is to be spoken lightly of, or whether we should not rather reverence, as half divine, a gift which would go so far as to raise us into the rank, and invest us with the felicities, of angels?

Yet such would imitative art be in its perfection Not by anyeasy, it is so utterly beyond all hu its nature or results--the best art we as yet possess comes so far short of it

But we must not rashly cohest possible There is much to be considered hereafter on the other side; the only conclusion we are as yet warranted in forhtly or contemptuously of imitative art; that in fact, when he did so, he had not conceived its entire nature, but was thinking of soar conditions of it, which were the only ones known to him, and that, therefore, his whole endeavour to explain the difference between great and mean art has been disappointed; that he has involved himself in a crowd of theories, whose issue he had not foreseen, and committed himself to conclusions which, he never intended There is an instinctive consciousness in his own h and low art; but he is utterly incapable of explaining it, and every effort which he makes to do so involves him in unexpected fallacy and absurdity It is _not_ true that Poetry does not concern herself with h art seeks only the Invariable It is _not_ true that i

It is _not_ true that the faithful rendering of nature is an employment in which ”the slowest intellect is likely to succeed best”

All these successive assertions are utterly false and untenable, while the plain truth, a truth lying at the very door, has all the while escaped hi chapter,--nareat and , or styles of representation, or choices of subjects, but wholly in the nobleness of the end to which the effort of the painter is addressed We cannot say that a painter is great because he paints boldly, or paints delicately; because he generalizes or particularizes; because he loves detail, or because he disdains it He is great if, by any of these means, he has laid open noble truths, or aroused noble emotions It does not matter whether he paint the petal of a rose, or the chasms of a precipice, so that Love and Admiration attend him as he labours, and wait for ever upon his work It does not matter whether he toil for months upon a few inches of his canvas, or cover a palace front with colour in a day, so only that it be with a soleed his hand to haste And it does notpeasants or nobles, a the heroic or the sis with a thirst for beauty, and a hatred of meanness and vice There are, indeed, certain methods of representation which are usually adopted by the most active hted in by the noblest hearts; but it is quite possible, quite easy, to adopt thethe activity ofthe nobility of spirit; while, on the other hand, it is altogether ith of a great e means he will sometimes express himself So that true criticism of art never can consist in the mere application of rules; it can be just only when it is founded on quick syeful efforts of hu love of all things that God has created to be beautiful, and pronounced to be good