SECONDARY ART
Paintings of record--Scenes from the novel and written drama--From
the acted drama--Humorous subjects--Allegorical works.
When the invention of the painter is circumscribed by the requirements
of another art, whether a fine art or not, then his art ceases to be a
pure art and becomes an art of record, subordinate to the art by which
his work is circumscribed. This may be termed the Secondary Art of
painting. The art may be of importance outside the purposes of the fine
arts, and in certain cases may be productive of good pictures, but only
by way of accident: hence a work of secondary art never engages the
attention of a great artist unless he be specially called upon to
execute it. Hard and fast lines dividing the pure from the secondary art
cannot be laid down, as one often verges on the other, but there is a
general distinction between them which is easily comprehensible in the
separate branches of painting.
[Illustration: PLATE 19 (See page 204)
Landscape, by Jacob Ruysdael (_National Gallery, London_)]
Secondary art is not produced from incidents or characters taken from
sacred or mythological history, because here the general invention of
the painter is never circumscribed, for he is able to produce form and
expression above experience. In profane history the art is secondary
when the painter confines his invention to recorded details. Thus in a
picture of the Coronation of Charlemagne, the composition is entirely
invented by the artist, and so the work becomes one of pure art; but the
representation of the Coronation of Queen Victoria, where the artist
reproduces the scene as it actually occurred, is secondary art, for he
is precluded from the exercise of his imagination in the design, the end
of art being subordinated to that of record or history. Such a picture
is necessarily stiff and formal. Where the scene represents a number of
actions, as in a battle design, the artist is unable to record the
actual occurrence, though he may represent particular actions;
consequently he has large scope for his imagination, and may limit his
representation to those actions which together make a fine example of
pure art. But a battle scene where a particular event, as a meeting of
generals, has to be painted, immediately becomes secondary art, for then
the surrounding battle events would be accessory in their nature. It is
possible for simple historical works painted to order centuries ago to
appear now as of high art value, because we commonly connect a strict
formality with old pictures of the kind, whether executed from records
or invention. Thus Holbein's Henry VIII. presenting a Charter to the
Barber-Surgeons no doubt closely depicts the actual event, yet the
stiffness of the design does not seem out of place.[a] Nevertheless
it is a refreshing change from this picture to Richard III. offered
the Crown by London Merchants, which is a magnificent modern work of
pure invention.[b]
[a] Barbers' Hall, London.
[b] Royal Exchange, London.
A scene from a story of actual life is necessarily secondary art,
because here the painter imitates what is already an imitation, and
cannot ascend above experience. He is confined to the invention of the
novelist, and is therefore subordinate to him.
The written drama is available for the painter as a source for designs
only in cases of high tragedy, or mixed plays containing strong dramatic
events of tragic import. Seeing that the drama is itself an imitative
art, only such actions or characters can be used by the painter which
are above life experience, and it is only in tragedy that the dramatist
can exalt human attributes, and ennoble the passions above this
experience. Tragedy deals directly with the two great contrasting human
mysteries--life and death. From one to the other is the most awful and
sublime action within human knowledge, and consequently the motives and
sentiments relating to it may be carried to the loftiest reach of the
understanding. An exaggeration of ordinary life, where the combination
of perfected parts in form and expression is not possible, means only
the abnormal; while comedy, which imitates conditions inferior to
ordinary life, cannot be exaggerated except into distortion. High
tragedy therefore is the only section of the written drama that concerns
the painter. If he draw from any other work of the dramatist he only
produces secondary art, as when he draws from the novelist. The picture
may be interesting, but both interest and beauty will be fleeting.
While the painter may use the written drama in certain cases, he can by
no means be concerned with the acted drama. It is useless to attempt to
produce a good picture by imitating an imitation accomplished by a
combined art, as the opera or drama. A painted scene from a play as it
is acted, is merely the execution of another man's design which in
itself is entirely circumscribed by conditions of action and speech
wholly foreign to the art of the painter. A picture of a particular
moment of action in a written play, as it is thrown upon the brain in
the course of reading, is interesting, firstly because our imagination
has wide limits of invention, and we naturally and instinctively adopt a
harmonious rendering of the scene so far as the writing will allow; and
secondly for the reason that we pass rapidly from impression to
impression, and so the whole significance of each picture, separately
and relatively, is conveyed to us. But a painting of an acted scene is
meaningless, for it can represent only one in a series of a thousand
moments of action which are all connected, and of which the
comprehension of any one is dependent upon our knowledge of the whole.
The painter has no scope. He simply copies a number of figures in a
fixed setting, and the result is necessarily inferior art to a copy of
the poorest original picture, since in this case the artist at least
copies the direct product of the imagination, while in the other he has
only before him a series of dummies who are imitating the product. The
sense of unreality arising from such a picture must instantly overpower
any harmony of colour or form that may be present.
Where the portrait of an actor is painted in a stage role, the same
principle is involved, though the result is not so disastrous. We still
have the unreal, but it is painted and put forward as a living person.
The artist moreover has a little imaginative scope. He can choose a
moment of action best suited to his art, and may even vary the character
of the action, which is not possible where an acted scene is depicted.
But notwithstanding all the relative advantages, a Raphael could not
make a fine picture out of a man in character. He may largely overcome
the disabilities arising from the limitation to his invention; he may
introduce great effects of light and shade; may ennoble expression and
give grandeur to form; but he will never hide the sham--never conceal
the fact that he is representing an imitation of life. The actor on the
stage is one of a number of signs used by the dramatist. His identity
apart from the sign is lost, or presumed to be lost for the time being,
and so he is not a sham; but outside of the stage his use or meaning as
a sign does not exist. Hence the representation of this sign as a
subject of a painting is only a degree less incongruous than would be
the introduction of a painted figure as one of the characters of a stage
scene.
It is an indication of the sure public instinct in matters of art
principles, that general opinion has always tacitly condemned paintings
of stage scenes and characters. They have not infrequently been
produced, and sometimes artists of high rank, as Reynolds and Lawrence,
have painted portraits of actors in stage roles, but never has one met
with public appreciation as a work of art. Probably in most cases these
works were executed as mementoes rather than as works of art, for it is
scarcely possible to conceive a painter of the stamp of Reynolds, who
was so well acquainted with first principles, putting forward even a
portrait of Garrick in a stage role, as a serious work, notwithstanding
that he might well know that it was a masterpiece in respect of
execution.
Humour is not a subject for the painter to deal with, for a humorous
picture cannot be comprehended without the assistance of another art.
Further, comedy is founded upon a sense of the ridiculous, which means
distortion of form or idea. Distortion of form would tend to destroy the
art if reproduced, and distortion of idea implies events in time which
are beyond the scope of the painter. If any humour were exhibited in the
representation of a single moment of action in a story, it would quickly
disappear, for a permanent joke is beyond the range of human
understanding. In poetry and fiction, humour may be appropriately
introduced, because here it is of a fugitive character, and may serve as
a possible relief of the mind, as a discordant note in music; but in a
painting, the moment of humour is fixed, and a fixed laugh suggests
mental disorder.
Nor is there place in the art of the painter for works intending to
convey satire or irony, for such pictures also mean distortion. Moreover
they are merely substitutes for, or adjuncts to, the art of writing.
The object of caricature is to present an idea in a more direct and
rapid way than it can be expressed in writing, and not specially to
exhibit beauty, which is the purpose of the painter. Hogarth's many
caricatures are composed of superlative signs of writing, and not of any
fine art. Cartoons (as the word is commonly understood) are of the
nature of allegory, and may afford scope for the painter, but as they
necessarily refer to more or less fleeting conditions of a political or
social character, they cannot retain permanent interest.
Allegorical paintings are secondary art when they endeavour to cover
more than a moment of time in a single design, or when the allegory is
merely a metaphor applying to action. The first variety is rarely seen
in modern works, but it was not very uncommon from the fifteenth to the
seventeenth century, though it was never produced by first-class
artists, and seldom indeed by those of the second rank. Quite a number
of works of this period, formerly supposed to have an allegorical
signification, are now properly identified as rarely represented
mythological legends, or historical incidents which have only lately
been unearthed,[a] and we may rest assured from internal evidence that
many others of the same kind will yet be newly interpreted. A good
design cannot be produced from an event in time because the figures in a
presumed action must be shown in repose,[b] or else the action appears
incongruous and opposed to experience, as when a goddess is overpowered
by a personage with the appearance of a human being.[c] In both cases
the figures must seem to be falsities. Designs of the first kind can
only be properly represented in a sequence of pictures, each indicating
a particular action, as in the Marie de' Medici series of Rubens; and
those of the second by commonly accepted figures of sacred or
mythological history or legend, as where St. Michael and the Dragon
typify Good overcoming Evil.
[a] Examples are Lorenzo Costa's Cupid Crowning Isabella d'Este,
Giorgione's Adrastus and Hypsipyle, and Piero di Cosimo's
Marsyas picture.
[b] Religion Succoured by Spain, the Prado, Madrid.
[c] Lotto's Triumph of Chastity, Rospigliosi Gallery, Rome.
It is scarcely necessary to do more than barely refer to the use of
metaphor by the painter when the representation of action is involved,
as for instance if he should produce a picture of a heaving ship in a
storm, to meet the metaphor "As a ship is tossed on a rough sea, so has
been the course of my life," though this kind of picture has been
occasionally executed, the artist forgetting that it is not the object
depicted that is compared, but the action--in the example quoted, the
tossing of the ship--which cannot be represented on canvas. Another form
of metaphor sometimes used by the painter is that where a comparison of
ideas is represented by physical proportions, as in Wiertz's Things of
the Present as seen by the Future, in which the things of the present
are indicated by liliputian figures on the hand of a woman of life size
who represents the future. Needless to say that such designs, of which
there are about a dozen in existence, can only suggest distortion, for
the smaller figures must appear too small, and the larger ones too
great; or if our experience with miniature imitations of the human
figure warrants us in regarding the smaller figures as reasonable, then
the larger ones must appear as giants of the Brobdingnagian order.
The only form of metaphor which may be used by the painter is that
wherein a beautiful symbol typifies a high abstract quality. Metaphor
belongs properly to the arts of the poet and novelist who can indicate
the symbol and things symbolized in immediate succession, so that the
whole meaning is apparent. The painter can only represent the symbol,
and unless this is beautiful and its purport readily comprehended, his
sign is merely a hieroglyph--a sign of writing. Secondary art includes
symbolic painting when the symbol may represent either the symbol itself
or the thing symbolized, for such a condition involves a confusion of
ideas which tends to destroy the aesthetic effect of the work. The most
notable painting of this kind is Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat, where the
design shows only a goat in desert country. The scapegoat has ceased to
be an actuality for centuries, and the only meaning of the term as it is
now used applies to a man: hence, with the title the goat appears to be
a symbol of both a man and an animal, while without the title it is
merely the image of a goat without symbolism. But the conception of an
animal of any kind as a symbol is foreign to the art of the painter
whose symbol should always be beautiful, whatever the nature of the
representation.