OF REPOSE, OR THE TYPE OF DIVINE PERMANENCE.
Sec. 1. Universal feeling respecting the necessity of repose in art. Its
sources.
There is probably no necessity more imperatively felt by the artist, no
test more unfailing of the greatness of artistical treatment, than that
of the appearance of repose, and yet there is no quality whose semblance
in mere matter is more difficult to define or illustrate. Nevertheless,
I believe that our instinctive love of it, as well as the cause to which
I attribute that love, (although here also, as in the former cases, I
contend not for the interpretation, but for the fact,) will be readily
allowed by the reader. As opposed to passion, changefulness, or
laborious exertion, repose is the especial and separating characteristic
of the eternal mind and power; it is the "I am" of the Creator opposed
to the "I become" of all creatures; it is the sign alike of the supreme
knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power which is
incapable of labor, the supreme volition which is incapable of change;
it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the
variable waters of ministering creatures; and as we saw before that the
infinity which was a type of the Divine nature on the one hand, became
yet more desirable on the other from its peculiar address to our prison
hopes, and to the expectations of an unsatisfied and unaccomplished
existence, so the types of this third attribute of the Deity might seem
to have been rendered farther attractive to mortal instinct, through the
infliction upon the fallen creature of a curse necessitating a labor
once unnatural and still most painful, so that the desire of rest
planted in the heart is no sensual nor unworthy one, but a longing for
renovation and for escape from a state whose every phase is mere
preparation for another equally transitory, to one in which permanence
shall have become possible through perfection. Hence the great call of
Christ to men, that call on which St. Augustine fixed essential
expression of Christian hope, is accompanied by the promise of rest;[22]
and the death bequest of Christ to men is peace.
Sec. 2. Repose how expressed in matter.
Repose, as it is expressed in material things, is either a simple
appearance of permanence and quietness, as in the massy forms of a
mountain or rock, accompanied by the lulling effect of all mighty sight
and sound, which all feel and none define, (it would be less sacred if
more explicable,) [Greek: heudousin dioreon koruphai te kai pharanges],
or else it is repose proper, the rest of things in which there is
vitality or capability of motion actual or imagined; and with respect to
these the expression of repose is greater in proportion to the amount
and sublimity of the action which is not taking place, as well as to the
intensity of the negation of it. Thus we speak not of repose in a stone,
because the motion of a stone has nothing in it of energy nor vitality,
neither its repose of stability. But having once seen a great rock come
down a mountain side, we have a noble sensation of its rest, now bedded
immovably among the under fern, because the power and fearfulness of its
motion were great, and its stability and negation of motion are now
great in proportion. Hence the imagination, which delights in nothing
more than the enhancing of the characters of repose, effects this
usually by either attributing to things visibly energetic an ideal
stability, or to things visibly stable an ideal activity or vitality.
Hence Wordsworth, of the cloud, which in itself having too much of
changefulness for his purpose, is spoken of as one "that heareth not the
loud winds when they call, and moveth altogether, if it move at all."
And again of children, which, that it may remove from them the child
restlessness, the imagination conceives as rooted flowers "Beneath an
old gray oak, as violets, lie." On the other hand, the scattered rocks,
which have not, as such, vitality enough for rest, are gifted with it by
the living image: they "lie couched around us like a flock of sheep."
Sec. 3. The necessity to repose of an implied energy.
Thus, as we saw that unity demanded for its expression what at first
might have seemed its contrary (variety) so repose demands for its
expression the implied capability of its opposite, energy, and this even
in its lower manifestations, in rocks and stones and trees. By comparing
the modes in which the mind is disposed to regard the boughs of a fair
and vigorous tree, motionless in the summer air, with the effect
produced by one of these same boughs hewn square and used for threshold
or lintel, the reader will at once perceive the connection of vitality
with repose, and the part they both bear in beauty.
Sec. 4. Mental repose, how noble.
But that which in lifeless things ennobles them by seeming to indicate
life, ennobles higher creatures by indicating the exaltation of their
earthly vitality into a Divine vitality; and raising the life of sense
into the life of faith--faith, whether we receive it in the sense of
adherence to resolution, obedience to law, regardfulness of promise, in
which from all time it has been the test as the shield of the true being
and life of man, or in the still higher sense of trustfulness in the
presence, kindness, and word of God; in which form it has been exhibited
under the Christian dispensation. For whether in one or other form,
whether the faithfulness of men whose path is chosen and portion fixed,
in the following and receiving of that path and portion, as in the
Thermopylae camp; or the happier faithfulness of children in the good
giving of their Father, and of subjects in the conduct of their king, as
in the "Stand still and see the salvation of God" of the Red Sea shore,
there is rest and peacefulness, the "standing still" in both, the
quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation
unimpatient: beautiful, even when based only as of old, on the
self-command and self-possession, the persistent dignity or the
uncalculating love of the creature,[23] but more beautiful yet when the
rest is one of humility instead of pride, and the trust no more in the
resolution we have taken, but in the hand we hold.
Sec. 5. Its universal value as a test of art.
Hence I think that there is no desire more intense or more exalted than
that which exists in all rightly disciplined minds for the evidences of
repose in external signs, and what I cautiously said respecting
infinity, I say fearlessly respecting repose, that no work of art can be
great without it, and that all art is great in proportion to the
appearance of it. It is the most unfailing test of beauty, whether of
matter or of motion, nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing
right that has it not, and in strict proportion to its appearance in the
work is the majesty of mind to be inferred in the artificer. Without
regard to other qualities, we may look to this for our evidence, and by
the search for this alone we may be led to the rejection of all that is
base, and the accepting of all that is good and great, for the paths of
wisdom are all peace. We shall see by this light three colossal images
standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality
above the whole world horizon, Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante; and
then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness
and earnestness of Faith, Homer, and Shakspeare; and from these we may
go down step by step among the mighty men of every age, securely and
certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of
restlessness and effort, until the last trace of true inspiration
vanishes in the tottering affectations or the tortured insanities of
modern times. There is no art, no pursuit, whatsoever, but its results
may be classed by this test alone; everything of evil is betrayed and
winnowed away by it, glitter and confusion and glare of color,
inconsistency or absence of thought, forced expression, evil choice of
subject, over accumulation of materials, whether in painting or
literature, the shallow and unreflecting nothingness of the English
schools of art, the strained and disgusting horrors of the French, the
distorted feverishness of the German:--pretence, over decoration, over
division of parts in architecture, and again in music, in acting, in
dancing, in whatsoever art, great or mean, there are yet degrees of
greatness or meanness entirely dependent on this single quality of
repose.
Sec. 6. Instances in the Laocoon and Theseus.
Particular instances are at present both needless and cannot but be
inadequate; needless, because I suppose that every reader, however
limited his experience of art, can supply many for himself, and
inadequate, because no number of them could illustrate the full extent
of the influence of the expression. I believe, however, that by
comparing the disgusting convulsions of the Laocoon, with the Elgin
Theseus, we may obtain a general idea of the effect of the influence, as
shown by its absence in one, and presence in the other, of two works
which, as far as artistical merit is concerned, are in some measure
parallel, not that I believe, even in this respect, the Laocoon
justifiably comparable with the Theseus. I suppose that no group has
exercised so pernicious an influence on art as this, a subject ill
chosen, meanly conceived and unnaturally treated, recommended to
imitation by subtleties of execution and accumulation of technical
knowledge.[24]
Sec. 7. And in altar tombs.
In Christian art, it would be well to compare the feeling of the finer
among the altar tombs of the middle ages, with any monumental works
after Michael Angelo, perhaps more especially with works of Roubilliac
or Canova.
In the Cathedral of Lucca, near the entrance door of the north transept,
there is a monument of Jacopo della Quercia's to Ilaria di Caretto, the
wife of Paolo Guinigi. I name it not as more beautiful or perfect than
other examples of the same period, but as furnishing an instance of the
exact and right mean between the rigidity and rudeness of the earlier
monumental effigies, and the morbid imitation of life, sleep, or death,
of which the fashion has taken place in modern times.[25] She is lying
on a simple couch, with a hound at her feet, not on the side, but with
the head laid straight and simply on the hard pillow, in which, let it
be observed, there is no effort at deceptive imitation of pressure. It
is understood as a pillow, but not mistaken for one. The hair is bound
in a flat braid over the fair brow, the sweet and arched eyes are
closed, the tenderness of the loving lips is set and quiet, there is
that about them which forbids breath, something which is not death nor
sleep, but the pure image of both. The hands are not lifted in prayer,
neither folded, but the arms are laid at length upon the body, and the
hands cross as they fall. The feet are hidden by the drapery, and the
forms of the limbs concealed, but not their tenderness.
If any of us, after staying for a time beside this tomb, could see
through his tears, one of the vain and unkind encumbrances of the grave,
which, in these hollow and heartless days, feigned sorrow builds to
foolish pride, he would, I believe, receive such a lesson of love as no
coldness could refuse, no fatuity forget, and no insolence disobey.
FOOTNOTES
[22] Matt. xi. 28.
[23] "The universal instinct of repose,
The longing for confirmed tranquillity
Inward and outward, humble, yet sublime.
The life where hope and memory are as one.
Earth quiet and unchanged; the human soul
Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed
To meditation, in that quietness."
WORDSWORTH. Excursion, Book iii.
But compare carefully (for this is put into the mouth of one
diseased in thought and erring in seeking) the opening of the ninth
book; and observe the difference between the mildew of
inaction,--the slumber of Death; and the Patience of the Saints--the
Rest of the Sabbath Eternal. (Rev. xiv. 13.)
Compare also, Chap. I. Sec. 6.
[24] I would also have the reader compare with the meagre lines and
contemptible tortures of the Laocoon, the awfulness and quietness of
M. Angelo's treatment of a subject in most respects similar, (the
plague of the Fiery Serpents,) but of which the choice was justified
both by the place which the event holds in the typical system he had
to arrange, and by the grandeur of the plague itself, in its
multitudinous grasp, and its mystical salvation; sources of
sublimity entirely wanting to the slaughter of the Dardan priest. It
is good to see how his gigantic intellect reaches after repose, and
truthfully finds it, in the falling hand of the near figure, and in
the deathful decline of that whose hands are held up even in their
venom coldness to the cross; and though irrelevant to our present
purpose, it is well also to note how the grandeur of this treatment
results, not merely from choice, but from a greater knowledge and
more faithful rendering of truth. For whatever knowledge of the
human frame there may be in the Laocoon, there is certainly none of
the habits of serpents. The fixing of the snake's head in the side
of the principal figure is as false to nature, as it is poor in
composition of line. A large serpent never wants to bite, it wants
to hold, it seizes therefore always where it can hold best, by the
extremities, or throat, it seizes once and forever, and that before
it coils, following up the seizure with the twist of its body round
the victim, as invisibly swift as the twist of a whip lash round any
hard object it may strike, and then it holds fast, never moving the
jaws or the body, if its prey has any power of struggling left, it
throws round another coil, without quitting the hold with the jaws;
if Laocoon had had to do with real serpents, instead of pieces of
tape with heads to them, he would have been held still, and not
allowed to throw his arms or legs about. It is most instructive to
observe the accuracy of Michael Angelo in the rendering of these
circumstances; the binding of the arms to the body, and the knotting
of the whole mass of agony together, until we hear the crashing of
the bones beneath the grisly sliding of the engine folds. Note also
the expression in all the figures of another circumstance, the
torpor and cold numbness of the limbs induced by the serpent venom,
which, though justifiably overlooked by the sculptor of the Laocoon,
as well as by Virgil--in consideration of the rapidity of the death
by crushing, adds infinitely to the power of the Florentine's
conception, and would have been better hinted by Virgil, than that
sickening distribution of venom on the garlands. In fact, Virgil has
missed both of truth and impressiveness every way--the "morsu
depascitur" is unnatural butchery--the "perfusus veneno" gratuitous
foulness--the "clamores horrendos," impossible degradation; compare
carefully the remarks on this statue in Sir Charles Bell's Essay on
Expression, (third edition, p. 192) where he has most wisely and
uncontrovertibly deprived the statue of all claim to expression of
energy and fortitude of mind, and shown its common and coarse intent
of mere bodily exertion and agony, while he has confirmed Payne
Knight's just condemnation of the passage in Virgil.
If the reader wishes to see the opposite or imaginative view of the
subject, let him compare Winkelmann; and Schiller, Letters on
Aesthetic Culture.
[25] Whenever, in monumental work, the sculptor reaches a deceptive
appearance of life or death, or of concomitant details, he has gone
too far. The statue should be felt for such, not look like a dead or
sleeping body; it should not convey the impression of a corpse, nor
of sick and outwearied flesh, but it should be the marble _image_ of
death or weariness. So the concomitants should be distinctly marble,
severe and monumental in their lines, not shroud, not bedclothes,
not actual armor nor brocade, not a real soft pillow, not a
downright hard stuffed mattress, but the mere type and suggestion of
these: a certain rudeness and incompletion of finish is very noble
in all. Not that they are to be unnatural, such lines as are given
should be pure and true, and clear of the hardness and mannered
rigidity of the strictly Gothic types, but lines so few and grand as
to appeal to the imagination only, and always to stop short of
realization. There is a monument put up lately by a modern Italian
sculptor in one of the side chapels of Santa Croce, the face fine
and the execution dexterous. But it looks as if the person had been
restless all night, and the artist admitted to a faithful study of
the disturbed bedclothes in the morning.