others than in one's own, and often, while censuring the small faults
of others, you do not recognise your own great faults. In order to
escape such ignorance, have a care that you be, above all, sure of your
perspective; then acquire full knowledge of the proportions of man and
other animals. And, moreover, be a good architect; that is, in so far
as it is necessary for the form of the buildings and other things that
are upon the earth, and that are infinitely varied in form.
The more knowledge you have of these, the more worthy of praise will be
your work. And for those things in which you have no practice, do not
disdain to copy from nature. When you are painting, you should take a
flat mirror and often look at your work within it. It will be seen in
reverse, and will appear to be by some other master, and you will be
better able to judge of its faults than in any other way. It is also a
good plan every now and then to go away and have a little relaxation,
for then, when you come back to the work, your judgment will be surer,
since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of
judgment.
Surely, while one paints one should not reject any man's judgment; for
we know very well that a man, even if he be no painter, has knowledge
of the forms of another man, and will judge aright whether he is
hump-backed, or has one shoulder too high or too low, or whether he has
too large a mouth or nose, or other faults; and if we are able rightly
to judge the work of nature in men, how much more is it fit to admit
that they are able to judge our mistakes.
You know how much man may be deceived about his own works, and if you
do not know it of yourself, observe it in others, and you will derive
benefit from other people's mistakes. Therefore, you should be eager
to listen patiently to the views of other men and consider and reflect
carefully whether he who finds fault is right or not in blaming you. If
you find that he is right, correct your work; but if not, pretend not
to have understood him; or show him, if he be a man whom you respect,
by sound argument, why it is that he is mistaken in finding fault.
_Do Not Disdain to Work from Nature_
A master who let it be understood that his mind could retain all the
forms and effects of nature, I should certainly hold to be endowed with
great ignorance, since the said effects are infinite, and our memory is
not of such capacity as to suffice thereto. Therefore, O painter, see
that the greed for gain do not outweigh within you the honour of art,
for to gain in honour is a far greater thing than to be honoured for
wealth.
For these and other reasons that might be adduced, you should endeavour
first to demonstrate to the eye, by means of drawing, a suggestion
of the intention and of the invention originated first by your
imagination. Then proceed, taking from it or adding to it, until you
are satisfied with it. Then have men arranged as models, draped or
nude, in the manner in which they are disposed in your work, and make
the proportions and size in accordance with perspective, so that no
part of the work remains that is not counselled by reason as well as by
nature.
And this will be the way to make you honoured through your art. First
of all, copy drawings by a good master made by his art from nature, and
not as exercises; then from a relief, keeping by you a drawing done
from the same relief; then from a good model, and of this you ought to
make a general practice.
_Of the Painter's Life in His Study_
The painter or draughtsman should be solitary, so that physical comfort
may not injure the thriving of the mind, especially when he is occupied
with the observations and considerations which ever offer themselves to
his eye and provide material to be treasured up by the memory. If you
are alone, you belong wholly to yourself; and if you are accompanied
even by one companion, you belong only half to yourself; and if you
are with several of them, you will be even more subject to such
inconveniences.
And if you should say, "I shall take my own course, I shall keep apart,
so that I may be the better able to contemplate the forms of natural
objects," then I reply, this cannot well be, because you cannot help
frequently lending your ear to their gossip; and since nobody can serve
two masters at once, you will badly fulfil your duties as companion,
and you will have worse success in artistic contemplation. And if you
should say, "I shall keep so far apart that their words cannot reach me
or disturb me," then I reply in this case that you will be looked upon
as mad. And do you not perceive that, in acting thus, you would really
be solitary?
_Of Ways to Represent Various Scenes_
A man in despair you should make turning his knife against himself. He
should have rent his garments, and he should be in the act of tearing
open his wound with one hand. And you should make him with his feet
apart and his legs somewhat bent, and the whole figure likewise bending
to the ground, with dishevelled and untidy hair.
As a rule, he whom you wish to represent talking to many people will
consider the subject of which he has to treat, and will fit his
gestures to this subject--that is to say, if the subject is persuasion,
the gestures should serve this intention; if the subject is explanation
by various reasons, he who speaks should take a finger of his left hand
between two fingers of his right, keeping the two smaller ones pressed
together; his face should be animated and turned towards the people,
his mouth slightly opened, so that he seems to be talking. And if he
is seated, let him seem to be in the act of slightly raising himself,
with his head forward; and if he is standing, make him lean forward
a little, with his head towards the people, whom you should represent
silent and attentive, all watching, with gestures of admiration, the
orator's face. Some old men should have their mouths drawn down at the
corners in astonishment at what they hear, drawing back the cheeks in
many furrows, and raising their eyebrows where they meet, so as to
produce many wrinkles on their foreheads. Some who are seated should
hold their tired knees between the interlaced fingers of their hands,
and others should cross one knee over the other, and place upon it one
hand, so that its hollow supports the other elbow, whose hand again
supports the bearded chin.
Whatever is wholly deprived of light is complete darkness. Night being
in this condition, if you wish to represent a scene therein, you must
contrive to have a great fire in this night, and everything that is in
closer proximity to this fire will assume more of its colour, because
the nearer a thing is to another object, the more it partakes of its
nature. And since you will make the fire incline towards a red colour,
you will have to give a reddish tinge to all things lighted by it, and
those which are farther away from the fire will have to hold more of
the black colour of night. The figures which are between you and the
fire appear dark against the brightness of the flame, for that part of
the object which you perceive is coloured by the darkness of night,
and not by the brightness of the fire; and those which flank the fire
will be half dark and half reddish. Those which are behind the flames
will be altogether illuminated by a reddish light against the black
background.
If you wish to represent a tempest properly, observe and set down the
effects of the wind blowing over the face of the sea and of the land,
raising and carrying away everything that is not firmly rooted in the
general mass. And in order properly to represent this tempest, you
should first of all show the riven and torn clouds swept along by the
wind, together with the sandy dust blown up from the seashore, and with
branches and leaves caught up and scattered through the air, together
with many other light objects, by the power of the furious wind. The
trees and shrubs, bent to the ground, seem to desire to follow the
direction of the wind, with branches twisted out of their natural
growth, and their foliage tossed and inverted.
Of the men who are present, some who are thrown down and entangled with
their garments and covered with dust should be almost unrecognisable;
and those who are left standing may be behind some tree which they
embrace, so that the storm should not carry them off. Others, bent
down, their garments and hair streaming in the wind, should hold their
hands before their eyes because of the dust.
Let the turbulent and tempestuous sea be covered with eddying foam
between the rising waves, and let the wind carry fine spray into the
stormy air to resemble a thick and all-enveloping mist. Of the ships
that are there, show some with rent sails, whose shreds should flap in
the air, together with some broken halyards; masts splintered, tumbled,
with the ship itself broken by the fury of the waves; some human
beings, shrieking, and clinging to the wreckage of the vessel. You
should show the clouds, chased by the impetuous wind, hurled against
the high tops of the mountains, wreathing and eddying like waves that
beat against the cliffs. The air should strike terror through the murky
darkness caused by the dust, the mist, and the heavy clouds.
_To Learn to Work from Memory_
If you want properly to commit to your memory something that you
have learnt, proceed in this manner--namely, when you have drawn one
object so often that you believe you can remember it, try to draw it
without the model, after having traced your model on a thin sheet of
glass. This glass you will then lay upon the drawing which you have
made without model. Observe well where the tracing does not tally with
your drawing, and wherever you find that you have gone wrong, you must
remember not to go wrong again. You should even return to the model,
in order again to draw the wrong passage until it shall be fixed in
your memory. And if you have no level sheet of glass for tracing, take
a very thin sheet of goat-parchment, well oiled, and then dried. And
after the tracing has done service for your drawing, you can efface it
with a sponge and use it again for another tracing.
_On Studying in Bed_
I have experienced upon myself that it is of no small benefit if, when
you are in bed, you apply your imagination to repeating the superficial
lines of the forms which you have been studying, or to other remarkable
things which are comprehensible to a fine intellect. This is a
praiseworthy and useful action which will help you to fix things in
your memory.
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING
Laocoon
In 1766, while acting as secretary to the governor of Breslau,
Lessing wrote his celebrated "Laocoon," a critical treatise
defining the limits of poetry and the plastic arts. The epitome
given here has been prepared from the German text. A short
biographical sketch of Lessing appears in the introduction to his
play, "Nathan the Wise," appearing in Volume XVII of THE WORLD'S
GREATEST BOOKS.
_I.--On the Limits of Painting and Poetry_
Winkelman has pronounced a noble simplicity and quiet grandeur,
displayed in the posture no less than in the expression, to be the
characteristic feature common to all the Greek masterpieces of painting
and sculpture. "As," says he, "the depths of the sea always remain
calm, however violently the surface may rage, so the expression in the
figures of the Greeks, under every form of passion, shows a great and
self-collected soul.
"This spirit is portrayed in the countenance of Laocoon, but not in
the countenance alone. Even under the most violent suffering the
pain discovers itself in every muscle and sinew of his body, and the
beholder, while looking at the agonised conditions of the stomach,
without viewing the face and other parts, believes that he almost feels
the pain himself. The pain expresses itself without any violence, both
in the features and in the whole posture. Laocoon suffers, but he
suffers as the Philoctetes of Sophocles. His misery pierces us to the
very soul, but inspires us with a wish that we could endure misery like
that great man.
"The expressing of so great a soul is far higher than the painting of
beautiful nature. The artist must feel within himself that strength of
spirit which he would imprint on his marble. Greece had philosophers
and artists in one person. Philosophy gave her hand to art, and
inspired its figures with no ordinary souls."
The above remarks are founded on the argument that "the pain in
the face of Laocoon does not show itself with that force which its
intensity would have led us to expect." This is correct. But I confess
I differ from Winkelman as to what, in his opinion, is the basis of
this wisdom, and as to the universality of the rule which he deduces
from it. I acknowledge I was startled, first by the glances of
disapproval which he casts on Virgil, and, secondly, by the comparison
with Philoctetes. From this point I shall begin, writing down my
thoughts as they were developed in me.
"Laocoon suffers as does the Philoctetes of Sophocles." But how does
this last suffer? It is curious that his sufferings should leave such a
different impression behind them. The cries and mild imprecations with
which he filled the camp and interrupted the sacrifices echoed through
the desolate island. The same sounds of despair fill the theatre in the
poet's imitation.
A cry is the natural expression of bodily pain. Homer's wounded heroes
frequently fall to the ground with cries. They are in their actions
beings of higher order; in their feelings, true men.
We more civilised and refined Europeans of a wiser and later age are
forbidden to cry and weep, and even our ancestors were taught to
suppress lamentation at loss, and to die laughing under the bites of
adders. Not so the Greeks. They felt and feared, and gave utterance to
pain and sorrow, only nothing must hold them back from duty.
Now for my inference. If it be true that, a cry at the sensation of
bodily pain, according to the old Greek way of thinking, is quite
compatible with greatness of soul, it cannot have been for the sake of
expressing such greatness that the artist avoided imitating his shriek
in marble. Another reason must be found for his deviation from his
rival, the poet, who has expressed it with the happiest results.
Be it fable or history, it is love that made the first essay in the
plastic arts, and never wearied of guiding the hands of the masters
of old. Painting now may be defined generally as "the imitation of
bodies of matter on a level surface"; but the wise Greek allotted for
it narrower limits, and confined it to imitations of the beautiful
only; his artists painted nothing else. It was the perfection of their
work that absorbed them. Among the ancients beauty was the highest
law of the plastic arts. To beauty everything was subordinated. There
are passions by which all beautiful physical lines are lost through
the distortion of the body, but from all such emotions the ancient
masters abstained entirely. Rage and despair disgrace none of their
productions, and I dare maintain that they never painted a fury.
Indignation was softened down to seriousness. Grief was lessened into
mournfulness. All know how Timanthes in his painting of the sacrifice
of Iphigenia shows the sorrow of the bystanders, but has concealed
the face of the father, who should show it more than all. He left to
conjecture what he might not paint. This concealment is a sacrifice to
beauty by the artist, and it shows how art's first law is the law of
beauty.
Now apply this to Laocoon. The master aimed at the highest beauty
compatible with the adopted circumstances of bodily pain. He must
soften shrieks into sighs. For only imagine the mouth of Laocoon to be
forced open, and then judge.
But art in modern times has been allowed a far wider sphere. It has
been affirmed that its limitations extend over the whole of visible
nature, of which the beautiful is but a small part. And as nature is
ever ready to sacrifice beauty to higher aims, so should the artist
render it subordinate to his general design. But are there not
other considerations which compel the artist to put certain limits
to expression, and prevent him from ever drawing it at its highest
intensity?
I believe that the fact that it is to a single moment that the material
limits of art confine all its limitations, will lead us to similar
views.
If the artist out of ever-varying nature can only make use of a single
moment, while his works are meant to stand the test not only of a
passing glance, but of a long and repeated contemplation, it is clear
that this moment cannot be chosen too happily. Now that only is a
happy choice which allows the imagination free scope. In the whole
course of a feeling there is no moment which possesses this advantage
so little as its highest stage. There is nothing beyond this, and the
presentation of extremes to the eye clips the wings of fancy, prevents
her from soaring beyond the impression of the senses, and compels
her to occupy herself with weaker images. Thus if Laocoon sighs, the
imagination can hear him shriek; but if he shrieks, it can neither
rise above nor descend below this representation without seeing him
in a condition which, as it will be more endurable, becomes less
interesting. It either hears him merely moaning, or sees him already
dead.
Of the frenzied Ajax of Timomachus we can form some judgment from the
account of Philoctetes. Ajax does not appear raging among herds and
slaughtering cattle instead of men; but the master exhibits him sitting
wearied with these deeds of insanity, and that is really the raging
Ajax. We can form the most lively idea of the extremity of his frenzy
from the shame and despair which he himself feels at the thought of it.
We see the storm in the wrecks and corpses which it had strewn on the
beach.
_II.--The Poet_
Perhaps hardly any of the above remarks concerning the necessary limits
of the artist would be found equally applicable to poetry. It is
undeniable that the whole realm of the perfectly excellent lies open
to the imitation of the poet, that excellence of outward form which we
call beauty being only one of the least of the means by which he can
interest us in his characters.
Moreover, the poet is not compelled to concentrate his picture into
a single moment. He can take up every action of his hero at its
source, and pursue it to its issue through all possible variations.
Each of these, which would cost the artist a separate work, costs the
poet but a single trait. What wonderful skill has Sophocles shown in
strengthening and enlarging, in his tragedy of Philoctetes, the idea
of bodily pain! He chose a wound, and not an internal malady, because
the former admits of a more lively representation than the latter.
This wound was, moreover, a punishment divinely decreed. But to the
Greeks a wound from a poisoned arrow was but an ordinary incident. Why,
then, in the case of Philoctetes only was it followed by such dreadful
consequences?
Sophocles felt full well that, however great he made the bodily pain to
his hero, it would not have sufficed of itself to excite any remarkable
degree of sympathy. He therefore combined it with other evils--the
complete lack of society, hunger, and all the hardships to which such a
man under terrible privations is exposed when cast on a wild, deserted
isle of the Cyclades.
Imagine, now, a man in these conditions, but give him health and
strength and industry, and he becomes a Crusoe, whose lot, though not
indifferent to us, has no great claim on our sympathy. On the other
hand, imagine a man afflicted by a painful and incurable disease, but
at the same time surrounded by kind friends. For him we should feel
sympathy, yet this would not endure throughout. Only when both cases
are combined do we see nothing but despair, which excites our amazement
and horror. Typical beauty arises from the harmonious effect of
numerous parts, all of which the sight is capable of comprehending at
the same time. It requires, therefore, that these parts should lie near
each other; and since things whose parts lie near each other are the
peculiar objects of plastic beauty, these it is, and these only, which
can imitate typical beauty. The poet, since he can only exhibit in
succession its component parts, entirely abstains from the description
of typical beauty. He feels that these parts, ranged one after the
other, cannot possibly have the effect they produce when closely
arranged together.
In this respect Homer is a pattern of patterns. He says Nireus was
beautiful, Achilles still more so, Helen was endowed with divine
beauty. But nowhere does he enter on a detailed sketch of these
beauties, and yet the whole Iliad is based on the loveliness of Helen.
In this point, in which he can imitate Homer by merely doing nothing,
Virgil is also tolerably happy. His heroine Dido, too, is never
anything more than _pulcherrima_ Dido (loveliest Dido). When he wishes
to be more circumstantial, he is so in the description of her rich
dress and apparel.
Lucian, also, was too acute to convey any idea of the body of Panthea
otherwise than by reference to the most lovely female statues of the
old artists.
Yet what is this but the acknowledgment that language by itself is
here without power; that poetry falters and eloquence grows speechless
unless art in some measure serve them as an interpreter?
But, it will be said, does not poetry lose too much if we deprive
her of all objects of typical beauty? Who would deprive her of them?
Because we would debar her from wandering among the footsteps of her
sister art, without ever reaching the same goal as she, do we exclude
her from every other, where art in her turn must gaze after her steps
with fruitless longings?
Even Homer, who so pointedly abstains from all detailed descriptions
of typical beauties, from whom we but just learn that Helen had white
arms and lovely hair, even he, with all this, knew how to convey to us
an idea of her beauty which far exceeds anything that art is able to
accomplish.
_III.--Beauty and Charm_
Again, another means which poetry possesses of rivalling art in the
description of typical beauty is the change of beauty into charm.
Charm is beauty in motion, and is for this very reason less suitable
to the painter than to the poet. The painter can only leave motion to
conjecture, while in fact his figures are motionless. Consequently,
with him charm becomes grimace.
But in poetry it remains what it is, a transitory beauty which we would
gladly see repeated. It comes and goes, and since we can generally
recall to our minds a movement more easily and vividly than forms
or colours, charm necessarily in the same circumstances produces a
stronger effect than beauty.
Zeuxis painted a Helen, and had the courage to write below the picture
those renowned lines of Homer in which the enraptured elders confess
their sensations. Never had painting and poetry been engaged in such
contest. The contest remained undecided, and both deserved the crown.
For just as a wise poet showed us the beauty which he felt he could not
paint according to its constituent parts, but merely in its effect, so
the no less wise painter showed us that beauty by nothing but those
parts, deeming it unbecoming for his art to resort to any other means
for aid. His picture consisted of a single figure, undraped, of Helen,
probably the one painted for the people of Crotona.
In beauty a single unbecoming part may disturb the harmonious effect
of many, without the object necessarily becoming ugly. For ugliness,
too, requires several unbecoming parts, all of which we must be able
to comprehend at the same view before we experience sensations the
opposite of those which beauty produces.
According to this, therefore, ugliness in its essence could be no
subject of poetry; yet Homer has painted extreme ugliness in Thersites,
and this ugliness is described according to its parts near each other.
Why in the case of ugliness did he allow himself the license from which
he had abstained in that of beauty? A successive enumeration of the
elements of beauty will annihilate its effects. Will not a similar
cause produce a similar effect in the case of ugliness?