In the outset of this inquiry, the reader must thoroughly understand
that we are not now considering _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 and monkeys to join the company of kings: but whether,
supposing the 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 imaginary angels with soundless
violins, ideal cats, and unsubstantial kings.
Now, from the first moment when painting began 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 may be, indeed,
that we shall find the writers, through many pages, explaining
principles of ideal beauty, and professing great delight in the
evidences of imagination. 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 you
might not witness the agonies of the expiring martyr."
In a large number of instances, language 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 remind him of friends whom he
loved, or scenes in which he delighted. 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 so much a child as to be fond of bright colours and
amusing incidents; 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 number of cases, such language
will be found to be that of simple ignorance--the ignorance of persons
whose position in life compels them to speak of art, without having
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 amusement. This is the case with a large number
of the collectors of Dutch pictures. They enjoy seeing what is flat
made to look round, exactly as a child enjoys a trick of legerdemain:
they rejoice in flies which the spectator vainly attempts to brush
away,[46] and in dew which 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 mistaken for windows; and think the
parting of Abraham and Hagar adequately represented if Hagar seems to
be really crying.[47]
It is against 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 examining, 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 men from these have held precisely the
same language; and, one amongst the rest, whose authority is
absolutely, and in all points, overwhelming.
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, imperfect chiaroscuro, and
unrestrained flights of fantastic imagination, separated the artist's
work from nature by an interval which there was no attempt to
disguise, and little to diminish. And yet, at this very period, the
greatest poet of that, or perhaps of any other age, and the attached
friend of its greatest painter,[49] who must over and over again have
held full and free conversation with him respecting the objects of his
art, speaks in the following terms of painting, supposed to be carried
to its highest perfection:
Qual di pennel fu maestro, e di stile
Che ritraesse l'ombre, e i tratti, chi' ivi
Mirar farieno uno ingegno sottile?
Morti li morti, e i vivi parean vivi:
Non vide me' di me, chi vide il vero,
Quant' io calcai, fin che chinato givi.
DANTE, _Purgatorio_, canto xii. 1. 64.
What master of the pencil, or the style,
Had traced the shades and lines that might have made
The subtlest workman wonder? _Dead, the dead,_
_The living seemed alive; with clearer view_
_His eye beheld not, who beheld the truth_,
Than mine what I did tread on, while I went
Low bending.
--CARY.
Dante has here clearly no other idea of the highest art than that it
should bring back, as in a mirror or vision, the aspect of things passed
or absent. The scenes of which he speaks are, on the pavement, for ever
represented by angelic 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 compel us to admit that such art as this _might_, indeed, be the
highest possible. Whatever delight we may have been in the habit of
taking in pictures, if it were but truly offered to us, to remove at
our will the canvas from the frame, and in lieu of it to behold, fixed
for ever, the image of some of those mighty scenes which it has been
our way to make mere themes for the artist's fancy; if, for instance,
we could again 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 some silver mirror that had
leaned against 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 might 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
much evidence in its favour. For among persons of native good sense,
and courage enough to speak their minds, we shall often find a
considerable degree 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 me, of the painted effigy of hero or beauty? I can see a
stamp of higher heroism, and light of purer beauty, on the faces round
me, utterly inexpressible by the highest human skill." Now, it is
evident that to persons of this temper the only valuable picture
would, indeed, be _mirrors_, reflecting permanently the images of the
things 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 more beautiful things 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 matter right 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 imagining 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 embracing a high range of subject. But let
the reader make the effort, and consider seriously what he would give
at any moment to have the power of arresting the fairest scenes, those
which so often rise before him only to vanish; to stay the cloud in
its fading, the leaf in its trembling, and the shadows in their
changing; to bid the fitful foam be fixed upon the river, and the
ripples be everlasting upon the lake; and then to bear away with him
no darkened or feeble sun-stain (though even that is beautiful), but a
counterfeit which should seem no counterfeit-the true and perfect
image of life indeed. Or rather (for the full majesty of such a power
is not thus sufficiently expressed) let him consider that it would be
in effect nothing else than a capacity of transporting himself at any
moment into any scene--a gift as great as can be possessed by a
disembodied spirit: and suppose, also, this necromancy embracing not
only the present but the past, and enabling us seemingly to enter into
the very bodily presence of men long since gathered to the dust; to
behold them in act as they lived, but--with greater privilege than
ever was granted to the companions of those transient acts of life--to
see them fastened at our will in the gesture and expression of an
instant, and stayed, on the eve of some great deed, in immortality of
burning 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 any means an
easy thing, as Reynolds supposes it. Far from being easy, it is so
utterly beyond all human power that we have difficulty even in
conceiving its nature or results--the best art we as yet possess comes
so far short of it.
But we must not rashly come to the conclusion that such art would,
indeed, be the highest possible. There is much to be considered
hereafter on the other side; the only conclusion we are as yet
warranted in forming is, that Reynolds had no right to speak lightly
or contemptuously of imitative art; that in fact, when he did so, he
had not conceived its entire nature, but was thinking of some vulgar
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 mind of the difference between
high 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 minute details. It is _not_ true that high art seeks only
the Invariable. It is _not_ true that imitative art is an easy thing.
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 him,--that which was incidentally stated in the preceding
chapter,--namely, that the difference between great and mean art lies,
not in definable methods of handling, 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 solemn purpose that he has filled his heart with
patience, or urged his hand to haste. And it does not matter whether
he seek for his subjects among peasants or nobles, among the heroic or
the simple, in courts or in fields, so only that he behold all things
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 minds, and certain characters of subject
usually delighted in by the noblest hearts; but it is quite possible,
quite easy, to adopt the manner of painting without sharing the
activity of mind, and to imitate the choice of subject without
possessing the nobility of spirit; while, on the other hand, it is
altogether impossible to foretell on what strange objects the strength
of a great man will sometimes be concentrated, or by what strange
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 sympathy with the innumerable
instincts and changeful efforts of human nature, chastened and guided
by unchanging love of all things that God has created to be beautiful,
and pronounced to be good.
[45] Claude Gelée [1600-82], usually called Claude Lorrain, a French
landscape painter and etcher.
[46] Vasari, in his _Lives of the Painters_, tells how Giotto,
when a student under Cimabue, once painted a fly on the nose of a
figure on which the master was working, the fly being so realistic
that Cimabue on returning to the painting attempted to brush it
away.
[47] Guercino's Hagar in the Brera gallery in Milan.
[48] Gerard Dow [1613-75], a Dutch genre painter; Hobbima [1638-1709],
a Dutch landscape painter; Walpole [1717-97], a famous English
litterateur; Vasari [1511-74], an Italian painter, now considered
full of mannerisms and without originality, mainly famous as author
of _The Lives of the Painters_.
[49] Giotto.
[50] _Purgatorio_, 12. 31.