85. In recommencing this series of papers, I may perhaps take permission
briefly to remind the reader of the special purpose which my desultory
way of writing, (of so vast a subject I find it impossible to write
otherwise than desultorily), may cause him sometimes to lose sight of;
the ascertainment, namely, of some laws for present practice of Art in
our schools, which may be admitted, if not with absolute, at least with
a sufficient consent, by leading artists.
There are indeed many principles on which different men must ever be at
variance; others, respecting which it may be impossible to obtain any
practical consent in certain phases of particular schools. But there are
a few, which, I think, in all times of meritorious Art, the leading
painters would admit; and others which, by discussion, might be arrived
at, as, at all events, the best discoverable for the time.
86. One of those which I suppose great workmen would always admit, is,
that, whatever material we use, the virtues of that material are to be
exhibited, and its defects frankly admitted; no effort being made to
conquer those defects by such skill as may make the material resemble
another. For instance, in the dispute so frequently revived by the
public, touching the relative merits of oil color and water color; I do
not think a great painter would ever consider it a merit in a water
color to have the "force of oil." He would like it to have the peculiar
delicacy, paleness, and transparency belonging specially to its own
material. On the other hand, I think he would not like an oil painting
to have the deadness or paleness of a water color. He would like it to
have the deep shadows, and the rich glow, and crumbling and bossy
touches which are alone attainable in oil color. And if he painted in
fresco, he would neither aim at the transparency of water color, nor the
richness of oil; but at luminous bloom of surface, and dignity of
clearly visible form. I do not think that this principle would be
disputed by artists of great power at any time, or in any country;
though, if by mischance they had been compelled to work in one material,
while desiring the qualities only attainable in another, they might
strive, and meritoriously strive, for those better results, with what
they had under their hand. The change of manner in William Hunt's work,
in the later part of his life, was an example of this. As his art became
more developed, he perceived in his subjects qualities which it was
impossible to express in a transparent medium; and employed opaque white
to draw with, when the finer forms of relieved light could not be
otherwise followed. It was out of his power to do more than this, since
in later life any attempt to learn the manipulation of oil color would
have been unadvisable; and he obtained results of singular beauty;
though their preciousness and completion would never, in a well-founded
school of Art, have been trusted to the frail substance of water color.
87. But although I do not suppose that the abstract principle of doing
with each material what it is best fitted to do, would be, in terms,
anywhere denied; the practical question is always, not what should be
done with this, or that, if everything were in our power; but what can
be, or ought to be, accomplished with the means at our disposal, and in
the circumstances under which we must necessarily work. Thus, in the
question immediately before us, of the proper use of the black line--it
is easy to establish the proper virtue of Line work, as essentially
"De-Lineation," the expressing by outline the true limits of forms,
which distinguish and part them from other forms; just as the virtue of
brush work is essentially breadth, softness, and blending of forms. And,
in the abstract, the point ought not to be used where the aim is not
that of definition, nor the brush to be used where the aim is not that
of breadth. Every painting in which the aim is primarily that of
drawing, and every drawing in which the aim is primarily that of
painting, must alike be in a measure erroneous. But it is one thing to
determine what should be done with the black line, in a period of highly
disciplined and widely practiced art, and quite another thing to say
what should be done with it, at this present time, in England.
Especially, the increasing interest and usefulness of our illustrated
books render this an inquiry of very great social and educational
importance. On the one side, the skill and felicity of the work spent
upon them, and the advantage which young readers, if not those of all
ages, _might_ derive from having examples of good drawing put familiarly
before their eyes, cannot be overrated; yet, on the other side, neither
the admirable skill nor free felicity of the work can ultimately be held
a counterpoise for the want--if there be a want--of sterling excellence:
while, farther, this increased power of obtaining examples of art for
private possession, at an almost nominal price, has two accompanying
evils: it prevents the proper use of what we have, by dividing the
attention, and continually leading us restlessly to demand new subjects
of interest, while the old are as yet not half exhausted; and it
prevents us--satisfied with the multiplication of minor art in our own
possession--from looking for a better satisfaction in great public
works.
88. Observe, first, it prevents the proper use of what we have. I often
endeavor, though with little success, to conceive what would have been
the effect on my mind, when I was a boy, of having such a book given me
as Watson's "Illustrated Robinson Crusoe."[78] The edition I had was a
small octavo one, in two volumes, printed at the _Chiswick Press_ in
1812. It has, in each volume, eight or ten very rude vignettes, about a
couple of inches wide; cut in the simple, but legitimate, manner of
Bewick, and, though wholly commonplace and devoid of beauty, yet, as far
as they go, rightly done; and here and there sufficiently suggestive of
plain facts. I am quite unable to say how far I wasted,--how far I spent
to advantage,--the unaccountable hours during which I pored over these
wood-cuts; receiving more real sensation of sympathetic terror from the
drifting hair and fear-stricken face of Crusoe dashed against the rock,
in the rude attempt at the representation of his escape from the wreck,
than I can now from the highest art; though the rocks and water are
alike cut only with a few twisted or curved lines, and there is not the
slightest attempt at light and shade, or imitative resemblance. For one
thing, I am quite sure that being forced to make all I could out of very
little things, and to remain long contented with them, not only in great
part formed the power of close analysis in my mind, and the habit of
steady contemplation; but rendered the power of greater art over me,
when I first saw it, as intense as that of magic; so that it appealed to
me like a vision out of another world.
89. On the other hand this long contentment with inferior work, and the
consequent acute enjoyment of whatever was the least suggestive of truth
in a higher degree, rendered me long careless of the highest virtues of
execution, and retarded by many years the maturing and balancing of the
general power of judgment. And I am now, as I said, quite unable to
imagine what would have been the result upon me, of being enabled to
study, instead of these coarse vignettes, such lovely and expressive
work as that of Watson; suppose, for instance, the vignette at p. 87,
which would have been sure to have caught my fancy, because of the dog,
with its head on Crusoe's knee, looking up and trying to understand what
is the matter with his master. It remains to be seen, and can only be
known by experience, what will actually be the effect of these treasures
on the minds of children that possess them. The result must be in some
sort different from anything yet known; no such art was ever yet
attainable by the youth of any nation. Yet of this there can, as I have
just said, be no reasonable doubt;--that it is not well to make the
imagination indolent, or take its work out of its hands by supplying
continual pictures of what might be sufficiently conceived without
pictures.
90. Take, for instance, the preceding vignette, in the same book,
"Crusoe looking at the first shoots of barley." Nothing can be more
natural or successful as a representation; but, after all, whatever the
importance of the moment in Crusoe's history, the picture can show us
nothing more than a man in a white shirt and dark pantaloons, in an
attitude of surprise; and the imagination ought to be able to compass so
much as this without help. And if so laborious aid be given, much more
ought to be given. The virtue of Art, as of life, is that no line shall
be in vain. Now the number of lines in this vignette, applied with full
intention of thought in every touch, as they would have been by Holbein
or Duerer, are quite enough to have produced,--not a merely deceptive
dash of local color, with evanescent background,--but an entirely
perfect piece of chiaroscuro, with its lights all truly limited and
gradated, and with every form of leaf and rock in the background
entirely right, complete,--and full not of mere suggestion, but of
accurate information, exactly such as the fancy by itself cannot
furnish. A work so treated by any man of power and sentiment such as the
designer of this vignette possesses, would be an eternal thing; ten in
the volume, for real enduring and educational power, were worth two
hundred in imperfect development, and would have been a perpetual
possession to the reader; whereas one certain result of the
multiplication of these lovely but imperfect drawings, is to increase
the feverish thirst for excitement, and to weaken the power of attention
by endless diversion and division. This volume, beautiful as it is, will
be forgotten; the strength in it is, in final outcome, spent for naught;
and others, and still others, following it, will "come like shadows, so
depart."
91. There is, however, a quite different disadvantage, but no less
grave, to be apprehended from this rich multiplication of private
possession. The more we have of books, and cabinet pictures, and cabinet
ornaments, and other such domestic objects of art, the less capable we
shall become of understanding or enjoying the lofty character of work
noble in scale, and intended for public service. The most practical and
immediate distinction between the orders of "mean" and "high" Art, is
that the first is private,--the second public; the first for the
individual, the second for all. It may be that domestic Art is the only
kind which is likely to flourish in a country of cold climate, and in
the hands of a nation tempered as the English are; but it is necessary
that we should at least understand the disadvantage under which we thus
labor; and the duty of not allowing the untowardness of our
circumstances, or the selfishness of our dispositions, to have
unresisted and unchecked influence over the adopted style of our art.
But this part of the subject requires to be examined at length, and I
must therefore reserve it for the following paper.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] _Art Journal_, vol. v., pp. 9, 10. January 1866.--ED.
[78] Routledge, 1864. The engraving is all by Dalziel. I do not ask the
reader's pardon for speaking of myself, with reference to the point at
issue. It is perhaps quite as modest to relate personal experience as to
offer personal opinion; and the accurate statement of such experience
is, in questions of this sort, the only contribution at present possible
towards their solution.