We visited the picture galleries and the other regulation “sights” of
Milan—not because I wanted to write about them again, but to see if I
had learned anything in twelve years. I afterwards visited the great
galleries of Rome and Florence for the same purpose. I found I had
learned one thing. When I wrote about the Old Masters before, I said the
copies were better than the originals. That was a mistake of large
dimensions. The Old Masters were still unpleasing to me, but they were
truly divine contrasted with the copies. The copy is to the original as
the pallid, smart, inane new waxwork group is to the vigorous, earnest,
dignified group of living men and women whom it professes to duplicate.
There is a mellow richness, a subdued color, in the old pictures, which
is to the eye what muffled and mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the
merit which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and is the one
which the copy most conspicuously lacks, and which the copyist must not
hope to compass. It was generally conceded by the artists with whom I
talked, that that subdued splendor, that mellow richness, is imparted to
the picture by _age_. Then why should we worship the Old Master for it,
who didn’t impart it, instead of worshiping Old Time, who did? Perhaps
the picture was a clanging bell, until time muffled it and sweetened it.
In conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked,
“What is it that people see in Old Masters? I have been in the Doge’s
palace and I saw several acres of very bad drawing, very bad
perspective, and very incorrect proportions. Paul Veronese’s dogs do not
resemble dogs; all the horses look like bladders on legs; one man had a
_right_ leg on the left side of his body; in the large picture where the
Emperor (Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope, there are three men
in the foreground who are over thirty feet high, if one may judge by the
size of a kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground; and
according to the same scale, the Pope is 7 feet high and the Doge is a
shriveled dwarf of 4 feet.”
The artist said:
“Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly; they did not care much for truth
and exactness in minor details; but after all, in spite of bad drawing,
bad perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of subjects which no
longer appeal to people as strongly as they did three hundred years ago,
there is a _something_ about their pictures which is divine—a something
which is above and beyond the art of any epoch since—a something which
would be the despair of artists but that they never hope or expect to
attain it, and therefore do not worry about it.”
That is what he said—and he said what he believed; and not only
believed, but felt.
Reasoning—especially reasoning without technical knowledge—must be put
aside, in cases of this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. It will
lead him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes of the
artists, would be a most illogical conclusion. Thus: bad drawing, bad
proportions, bad perspective, indifference to truthful detail, color
which gets its merit from time, and not from the artist—these things
constitute the Old Master; conclusion, the Old Master was a bad painter,
the Old Master was not an Old Master at all, but an Old Apprentice. Your
friend the artist will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion; he
will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable list of confessed
defects, there is still a something that is divine and unapproachable
about the Old Master, and that there is no arguing the fact away by any
system of reasoning whatever.
I can believe that. There are women who have an indefinable charm in
their faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates; but a cold
stranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty would
fail. He would say of one of these women: This chin is too short, this
nose is too long, this forehead is too high, this hair is too red, this
complexion is too pallid, the perspective of the entire composition is
incorrect; conclusion, the woman is not beautiful. But her nearest
friend might say, and say truly, “Your premises are right, your logic is
faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless; she is an Old
Master—she is beautiful, but only to such as know her; it is a beauty
which cannot be formulated, but it is there just the same.”
I found more pleasure in contemplating the Old Masters this time than I
did when I was in Europe in former years, but still it was a calm
pleasure; there was nothing overheated about it.
_FROM_ “LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI” (1874–5)