OF THE FALSE IDEAL:--FIRST, RELIGIOUS.
Sec. 1. Having now gained some general notion of the meaning of "great
art," we may, without risk of confusing ourselves, take up the
questions suggested incidentally in the preceding chapter, and pursue
them at leisure. Of these, two principal ones are closely connected
with each other, to wit, that put in the 12th paragraph--How may beauty
be sought in defiance of truth? and that in the 23rd paragraph--How
does the imagination show itself in dealing with truth? These two,
therefore, which are, besides, the most important of all, and, if well
answered, will answer many others inclusively, we shall find it most
convenient to deal with at once.
Sec. 2. The pursuit, by the imagination, of beautiful and strange
thoughts or subjects, to the exclusion of painful or common ones, is
called among us, in these modern days, the pursuit of "_the ideal_;"
nor does any subject deserve more attentive examination than the
manner in which this pursuit is entered upon by the modern mind. The
reader must pardon me for making in the outset one or two statements
which may appear to him somewhat wide of the matter, but which, (if
he admits their truth,) he will, I think, presently perceive to
reach to the root of it. Namely,
That men's proper business in this world falls mainly into three
divisions:
First, to know themselves, and the existing state of the things they
have to do with.
Secondly, to be happy in themselves, and in the existing state of
things.
Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of things, as
far as either are marred or mendable.
These, I say, are the three plain divisions of proper human
business on this earth. For these three, the following are usually
substituted and adopted by human creatures:
First, to be totally ignorant of themselves, and the existing state
of things.
Secondly, to be miserable in themselves, and in the existing state
of things.
Thirdly, to let themselves, and the existing state of things, alone
(at least in the way of correction).
Sec. 3. The dispositions which induce us to manage, thus wisely, the
affairs of this life seem to be:
First, a fear of disagreeable facts, and conscious shrinking from
clearness of light, which keep us from examining ourselves, and
increase gradually into a species of instinctive terror at all truth,
and love of glosses, veils, and decorative lies of every sort.
Secondly, a general readiness to take delight in anything past, future,
far off, or somewhere else, rather than in things now, near, and here;
leading us gradually to place our pleasure principally in the exercise
of the imagination, and to build all our satisfaction on things as they
are _not_. Which power being one not accorded to the lower animals, and
having indeed, when disciplined, a very noble use, we pride ourselves
upon it, whether disciplined or not, and pass our lives complacently,
in substantial discontent, and visionary satisfaction.
Sec. 4. Now _nearly_ all artistical and poetical seeking after the
ideal is only one branch of this base habit--the abuse of the
imagination, in allowing it to find its whole delight in the
impossible and untrue; while the faithful pursuit of the ideal is an
honest use of the imagination, giving full power and presence to the
possible and true.
It is the difference between these two uses of it which we have to
examine.
Sec. 5. And, first, consider what are the legitimate uses of the
imagination, that is to say, of the power of perceiving, or
conceiving with the mind, things which cannot be perceived by the
senses.
Its first and noblest use is, to enable us to bring sensibly to our
sight the things which are recorded as belonging to our future
state, or as invisibly surrounding us in this. It is given us, that
we may imagine the cloud of witnesses in heaven and earth, and see,
as if they were now present, the souls of the righteous waiting for
us; that we may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of
heaven, and discover among them those whom we most desire to be with
for ever; that we may be able to vision forth the ministry of angels
beside us, and see the chariots of fire on the mountains that gird
us round; but above all, to call up the scenes and facts in which we
are commanded to believe, and be present, as if in the body, at
every recorded event of the history of the Redeemer. Its second and
ordinary use is to empower us to traverse the scenes of all other
history, and force the facts to become again visible, so as to make
upon us the same impression which they would have made if we had
witnessed them; and in the minor necessities of life, to enable us,
out of any present good, to gather the utmost measure of enjoyment
by investing it with happy associations, and, in any present evil,
to lighten it, by summoning back the images of other hours; and,
also, to give to all mental truths some visible type in allegory,
simile, or personification, which shall more deeply enforce them;
and, finally, when the mind is utterly outwearied, to refresh it
with such innocent play as shall be most in harmony with the
suggestive voices of natural things, permitting it to possess living
companionship instead of silent beauty, and create for itself
fairies in the grass and naiads in the wave.
Sec. 6. These being the uses of imagination, its abuses are either in
creating, for mere pleasure, false images, where it is its _duty_ to
create true ones; or in turning what was intended for the mere
refreshment of the heart into its daily food, and changing the innocent
pastimes of an hour into the guilty occupation of a life.
Let us examine the principal forms of this misuse, one by one.
Sec. 7. First, then, the imagination is chiefly warped and dishonored
by being allowed to create false images, where it is its duty to
create true ones. And this most dangerously in matters of religion.
For a long time, when art was in its infancy, it remained unexposed
to this danger, because it could not, with any power, realize or
create _any_ thing. It consisted merely in simple outlines and
pleasant colors; which were understood to be nothing more than
signs of the thing thought of, a sort of pictorial letter for it, no
more pretending to represent it than the written characters of its
name. Such art excited the imagination, while it pleased the eye.
But it _asserted_ nothing, for it could realize nothing. The reader
glanced at it as a glittering symbol, and went on to form truer
images for himself. This act of the mind may be still seen in daily
operation in children, as they look at brightly colored pictures in
their story-books. Such pictures neither deceive them nor satisfy
them; they only set their own inventive powers to work in the
directions required.
Sec. 8. But as soon as art obtained the power of realization, it
obtained also that of _assertion_. As fast as the painter advanced
in skill he gained also in credibility, and that which he perfectly
represented was perfectly believed, or could be disbelieved only by
an actual effort of the beholder to escape from the fascinating
deception. What had been faintly declared, might be painlessly
denied; but it was difficult to discredit things forcibly alleged;
and representations, which had been innocent in discrepancy, became
guilty in consistency.
Sec. 9. For instance, when in the thirteenth century, the nativity was
habitually represented by such a symbol as that on the next page,
fig. 1, there was not the smallest possibility that such a picture
could disturb, in the mind of the reader of the New Testament, the
simple meaning of the words "wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid
him in a manger." That this manger was typified by a trefoiled arch[10]
would no more prevent his distinct understanding of the narrative, than
the grotesque heads introduced above it would interfere with his firm
comprehension of the words "ox" or "ass;" while if there were anything
in the action of the principal figures suggestive of real feeling, that
suggestion he would accept, together with the general pleasantness of
the lines and colors in the decorative letter; but without having his
faith in the unrepresented and actual scene obscured for a moment. But
it was far otherwise, when Francia or Perugino, with exquisite power of
representing the human form, and high knowledge of the mysteries of
art, devoted all their skill to the delineation of an impossible scene;
and painted, for their subjects of the Nativity, a beautiful and
queenly lady, her dress embroidered with gold, and with a crown of
jewels upon her hair, kneeling, on a floor of inlaid and precious
marble, before a crowned child, laid under a portico of Lombardic[11]
architecture; with a sweet, verdurous, and vivid landscape in the
distance, full of winding rivers, village spires, and baronial
towers.[12] It is quite true that the frank absurdity of the thought
prevented its being received as a deliberate contradiction of the
truths of Scripture; but it is no less certain, that the continual
presentment to the mind of this beautiful and fully realized imagery
more and more chilled its power of apprehending the real truth; and
that when pictures of this description met the eye in every corner of
every chapel, it was physically impossible to dwell distinctly upon
facts the direct reverse of those represented. The word "Virgin" or
"Madonna," instead of calling up the vision of a simple Jewish girl,
bearing the calamities of poverty, and the dishonors of inferior
station, summoned instantly the idea of a graceful princess, crowned
with gems, and surrounded by obsequious ministry of kings and saints.
The fallacy which was presented to the imagination was indeed
discredited, but also the fact which was _not_ presented to the
imagination was forgotten; all true grounds of faith were gradually
undermined, and the beholder was either enticed into mere luxury of
fanciful enjoyment, believing nothing; or left, in his confusion of
mind, the prey of vain tales and traditions; while in his best feelings
he was unconsciously subject to the power of the fallacious picture,
and with no sense of the real cause of his error, bowed himself, in
prayer or adoration, to the lovely lady on her golden throne, when he
would never have dreamed of doing so to the Jewish girl in her outcast
poverty, or, in her simple household, to the carpenter's wife.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
Sec. 10. But a shadow of increasing darkness fell upon the human mind as
art proceeded to still more perfect realization. These fantasies of
the earlier painters, though they darkened faith, never hardened
_feeling_; on the contrary, the frankness of their unlikelihood
proceeded mainly from the endeavor on the part of the painter to
express, not the actual fact, but the enthusiastic state of his own
feelings about the fact; he covers the Virgin's dress with gold, not
with any idea of representing the Virgin as she ever was, or ever will
be seen, but with a burning desire to show what his love and reverence
would think fittest for her. He erects for the stable a Lombardic
portico, not because he supposes the Lombardi to have built stables in
Palestine in the days of Tiberius, but to show that the manger in
which Christ was laid is, in his eyes, nobler than the greatest
architecture in the world. He fills his landscape with church spires
and silver streams, not because he supposes that either were in sight
of Bethlehem, but to remind the beholder of the peaceful course and
succeeding power of Christianity. And, regarded with due sympathy and
clear understanding of these thoughts of the artist, such pictures
remain most impressive and touching, even to this day. I shall refer
to them in future, in general terms, as the pictures of the "Angelican
Ideal"--Angelico being the central master of the school.
Sec. 11. It was far otherwise in the next step of the Realistic progress.
The greater his powers became, the more the mind of the painter was
absorbed in their attainment, and complacent in their display. The
early arts of laying on bright colors smoothly, of burnishing golden
ornaments, or tracing, leaf by leaf, the outlines of flowers, were not
so difficult as that they should materially occupy the thoughts of the
artist, or furnish foundation for his conceit; he learned these
rudiments of his work without pain, and employed them without pride,
his spirit being left free to express, so far as it was capable of
them, the reaches of higher thought. But when accurate shade, and
subtle color, and perfect anatomy, and complicated perspective, became
necessary to the work, the artist's whole energy was employed in
learning the laws of these, and his whole pleasure consisted in
exhibiting them. His life was devoted, not to the objects of art, but
to the cunning of it; and the sciences of composition and light and
shade were pursued as if there were abstract good in them;--as if,
like astronomy or mathematics, they were ends in themselves,
irrespective of anything to be effected by them. And without
perception, on the part of any one, of the abyss to which all were
hastening, a fatal change of aim took place throughout the whole world
of art. In early times _art was employed for the display of religious
facts_; now, _religious facts were employed for the display of art_.
The transition, though imperceptible, was consummate; it involved the
entire destiny of painting. It was passing from the paths of life to
the paths of death.
Sec. 12. And this change was all the more fatal, because at first veiled
by an appearance of greater dignity and sincerity than were possessed
by the older art. One of the earliest results of the new knowledge was
the putting away the greater part of the _unlikelihoods_ and fineries
of the ancient pictures, and an apparently closer following of nature
and probability. All the fantasy which I have just been blaming as
disturbant of the simplicity of faith, was first subdued,--then
despised and cast aside. The appearances of nature were more closely
followed in everything; and the crowned Queen-Virgin of Perugino sank
into a simple Italian mother in Raphael's Madonna of the Chair.
Sec. 13. Was not this, then, a healthy change? No. It _would_ have been
healthy if it had been effected with a pure motive, and the new
truths would have been precious if they had been sought for truth's
sake. But they were not sought for truth's sake, but for pride's;
and truth which is sought for display may be just as harmful as
truth which is spoken in malice. The glittering childishness of the
old art was rejected, not because it was false, but because it was
easy; and, still more, because the painter had no longer any
religious passion to express. He could think of the Madonna now very
calmly, with no desire to pour out the treasures of earth at her
feet, or crown her brows with the golden shafts of heaven. He could
think of her as an available subject for the display of transparent
shadows, skilful tints, and scientific foreshortenings,--as a fair
woman, forming, if well painted, a pleasant piece of furniture for
the corner of a boudoir, and best imagined by combination of the
beauties of the prettiest contadinas. He could think of her, in her
last maternal agony, with academical discrimination; sketch in first
her skeleton, invest her, in serene science, with the muscles of
misery and the fibres of sorrow; then cast the grace of antique
drapery over the nakedness of her desolation, and fulfil, with
studious lustre of tears and delicately painted pallor, the perfect
type of the "Mater Dolorosa."
Sec. 14. It was thus that Raphael thought of the Madonna.[13]
Now observe, when the subject was thus scientifically completed, it
became necessary, as we have just said, to the full display of all the
power of the artist, that it should in many respects be more faithfully
imagined than it had been hitherto, "Keeping," "Expression,"
"Historical Unity," and such other requirements, were enforced on the
painter, in the same tone, and with the same purpose, as the purity of
his oil and the accuracy of his perspective. He was told that the
figure of Christ should be "dignified," those of the Apostles
"expressive," that of the Virgin "modest," and those of children
"innocent." All this was perfectly true; and in obedience to such
directions, the painter proceeded to manufacture certain arrangements
of apostolic sublimity, virginal mildness, and infantine innocence,
which, being free from the quaint imperfection and contradictoriness of
the early art, were looked upon by the European public as true things,
and trustworthy representations of the events of religious history. The
pictures of Francia and Bellini had been received as pleasant visions.
But the cartoons of Raphael were received as representations of
historical fact.
Sec. 15. Now, neither they, nor any other work of the period, were
representations either of historical or possible fact. They were, in
the strictest sense of the word, "compositions"--cold arrangements
of propriety and agreeableness, according to academical formulas;
the painter never in any case making the slightest effort to
conceive the thing as it must have happened, but only to gather
together graceful lines and beautiful faces, in such compliance with
commonplace ideas of the subject as might obtain for the whole an
"epic unity," or some such other form of scholastic perfectness.
Sec. 16. Take a very important instance.
I suppose there is no event in the whole life of Christ to which, in
hours of doubt or fear, men turn with more anxious thirst to knew the
close facts of it, or with more earnest and passionate dwelling upon
every syllable of its recorded narrative, than Christ's showing Himself
to his disciples at the lake of Galilee. There is something
preeminently open, natural, full fronting our disbelief in this
manifestation. The others, recorded after the resurrection, were
sudden, phantom-like, occurring to men in profound sorrow and wearied
agitation of heart; not, it might seem, safe judges of what they saw.
But the agitation was now over. They had gone back to their daily work,
thinking still their business lay net-wards, unmeshed from the literal
rope and drag. "Simon Peter saith unto them, 'I go a fishing,' They say
unto him, 'We also go with thee,'" True words enough, and having far
echo beyond those Galilean hills. That night they caught nothing; but
when the morning came, in the clear light of it, behold a figure stood
on the shore. They were not thinking of anything but their fruitless
hauls. They had no guess who it was. It asked them simply if they had
caught anything. They said no. And it tells them to cast yet again. And
John shades his eyes from the morning sun with his hand, to look who it
is; and though the glinting of the sea, too, dazzles him, he makes out
who it is, at last; and poor Simon, not to be outrun this time,
tightens, his fisher's coat about him, and dashes in, over the nets.
One would have liked to see him swim those hundred yards, and stagger
to his knees on the beach.
Well, the others get to the beach, too, in time, in such slow way as
men in general do get, in this world, to its true shore, much
impeded by that wonderful "dragging the net with fishes;" but they
get there--seven of them in all;--first the Denier, and then the
slowest believer, and then the quickest believer, and then the two
throne-seekers, and two more, we know not who.
They sit down on the shore face to face with Him, and eat their
broiled fish as He bids. And then, to Peter, all dripping still,
shivering, and amazed, staring at Christ in the sun, on the other
side of the coal fire,--thinking a little, perhaps, of what happened
by another coal fire, when it was colder, and having had no word
once changed with him by his Master since that look of His,--to him,
so amazed, comes the question, "Simon, lovest thou me?" Try to feel
that a little, and think of it till it is true to you; and then,
take up that infinite monstrosity and hypocrisy--Raphael's cartoon
of the Charge to Peter. Note, first, the bold fallacy--the putting
_all_ the Apostles there, a mere lie to serve the Papal heresy of
the Petric supremacy, by putting them all in the background while
Peter receives the charge, and making them all witnesses to it. Note
the handsomely curled hair and neatly tied sandals of the men who
had been out all night in the sea-mists and on the slimy decks. Note
their convenient dresses for going a-fishing, with trains that lie a
yard along the ground, and goodly fringes,--all made to match, an
apostolic fishing costume.[14] Note how Peter especially (whose
chief glory was in his wet coat _girt_ about him and naked limbs)
is enveloped in folds and fringes, so as to kneel and hold his keys
with grace. No fire of coals at all, nor lonely mountain shore, but
a pleasant Italian landscape, full of villas and churches, and a
flock of sheep to be pointed at; and the whole group of Apostles,
not round Christ, as they would have been naturally, but straggling
away in a line, that they may all be shown.
The simple truth is, that the moment we look at the picture we feel
our belief of the whole thing taken away. There is, visibly, no
possibility of that group ever having existed, in any place, or on any
occasion. It is all a mere mythic absurdity, and faded concoction of
fringes, muscular arms, and curly heads of Greek philosophers.
Sec. 17. Now, the evil consequences of the acceptance of this kind of
religious idealism for true, were instant and manifold. So far as it
was received and trusted in by thoughtful persons, it only served to
chill all the conceptions of sacred history which they might otherwise
have obtained. Whatever they could have fancied for themselves about
the wild, strange, infinitely stern, infinitely tender, infinitely
varied veracities of the life of Christ, was blotted out by the vapid
fineries of Raphael; the rough Galilean pilot, the orderly custom
receiver, and all the questioning wonder and fire of uneducated
apostleship, were obscured under an antique mask of philosophical
faces and long robes. The feeble, subtle, suffering, ceaseless energy
and humiliation of St. Paul were confused with an idea of a meditative
Hercules leaning on a sweeping sword;[15] and the mighty presences of
Moses and Elias were softened by introductions of delicate grace,
adopted from dancing nymphs and rising Auroras,[16]
Now, no vigorously minded religious person could possibly receive
pleasure or help from such art as this; and the necessary result was
the instant rejection of it by the healthy religion of the world.
Raphael ministered, with applause, to the impious luxury of the
Vatican, but was trampled under foot at once by every believing and
advancing Christian of his own and subsequent times; and
thenceforward pure Christianity and "high art" took separate roads,
and fared on, as best they might, independently of each other.
Sec. 18. But although Calvin, and Knox, and Luther, and their flocks,
with all the hardest-headed and truest-hearted faithful left in
Christendom, thus spurned away the spurious art, and all art with it,
(not without harm to themselves, such as a man must needs sustain in
cutting off a decayed limb[17]) certain conditions of weaker
Christianity suffered the false system to retain influence over them;
and to this day, the clear and tasteless poison of the art of Raphael
infects with sleep of infidelity the hearts of millions of Christians.
It is the first cause of all that pre-eminent _dulness_ which
characterizes what Protestants call sacred art; a dulness not merely
baneful in making religion distasteful to the young, but in sickening,
as we have seen, all vital belief of religion in the old. A dim sense
of impossibility attaches itself always to the graceful emptiness of
the representation; we feel instinctively that the painted Christ and
painted apostle are not beings that ever did or could exist; and this
fatal sense of fair fabulousness, and well-composed impossibility,
steals gradually from the picture into the history, until we find
ourselves reading St. Mark or St. Luke with the same admiring, but
uninterested, incredulity, with which we contemplate Raphael.
Sec. 19. On a certain class of minds, however, these Raphaelesque and
other sacred paintings of high order, have had, of late years,
another kind of influence, much resembling that which they had at
first on the most pious Romanists. They are used to excite certain
conditions of religious dream or reverie; being again, as in
earliest times, regarded not as representations of fact, but as
expressions of sentiment respecting the fact. In this way the best
of them have unquestionably much purifying and enchanting power; and
they are helpful opponents to sinful passion and weakness of every
kind. A fit of unjust anger, petty malice, unreasonable vexation, or
dark passion, cannot certainly, in a mind of ordinary sensibility,
hold its own in the presence of a good engraving from any work of
Angelico, Memling, or Perugino. But I nevertheless believe, that he
who trusts much to such helps will find them fail him at his need;
and that the dependence, in any great degree, on the presence or
power of a picture, indicates a wonderfully feeble sense of the
presence and power of God. I do not think that any man, who is
thoroughly certain that Christ is in the room, will care what sort
of pictures of Christ he has on its walls; and, in the plurality of
cases, the delight taken in art of this kind is, in reality, nothing
more than a form of graceful indulgence of those sensibilities which
the habits of a disciplined life restrain in other directions. Such
art is, in a word, the opera and drama of the monk. Sometimes it is
worse than this, and the love of it is the mask under which a
general thirst for morbid excitement will pass itself for religion.
The young lady who rises in the middle of the day, jaded by her last
night's ball, and utterly incapable of any simple or wholesome
religious exercise, can still gaze into the dark eyes of the Madonna
di San Sisto, or dream over the whiteness of an ivory crucifix, and
returns to the course of her daily life in full persuasion that her
morning's feverishness has atoned for her evening's folly. And all
the while, the art which possesses these very doubtful advantages is
acting for undoubtful detriment, in the various ways above examined,
on the inmost fastnesses of faith; it is throwing subtle endearments
round foolish traditions, confusing sweet fancies with sound
doctrines, obscuring real events with unlikely semblances, and
enforcing false assertions with pleasant circumstantiality, until,
to the usual, and assuredly sufficient, difficulties standing in the
way of belief, its votaries have added a habit of sentimentally
changing what they know to be true, and of dearly loving what they
confess to be false.
Sec. 20. Has there, then (the reader asks emphatically), been _no_ true
religious ideal? Has religious art never been of any service to
mankind? I fear, on the whole, not. Of true religious ideal,
representing events historically recorded, with solemn effort at a
sincere and unartificial conception, there exist, as yet, hardly any
examples. Nearly all good religious pictures fall into one or other
branch of the false ideal already examined, either into the Angelican
(passionate ideal) or the Raphaelesque (philosophical ideal). But there
is one true form of religious art, nevertheless, in the pictures of the
passionate ideal which represent imaginary beings of another world.
Since it is evidently right that we should try to imagine the glories
of the next world, and as this imagination must be, in each separate
mind, more or less different, and unconfined by any laws of material
fact, the passionate ideal has not only full scope here, but it becomes
our duty to urge its powers to its utmost, so that every condition of
beautiful form and color may be employed to invest these scenes with
greater delightfulness (the whole being, of course, received as an
assertion of possibility, not of absolute fact). All the paradises
imagined by the religious painters--the choirs of glorified saints,
angels, and spiritual powers, when painted with full belief in this
possibility of their existence, are true ideals; and so far from our
having dwelt on these too much, I believe, rather, we have not trusted
them enough, nor accepted them enough, as possible statements of most
precious truth. Nothing but unmixed good can accrue to any mind from
the contemplation of Orcagna's Last Judgment or his triumph of death,
of Angelico's Last Judgment and Paradise, or any of the scenes laid in
heaven by the other faithful religious masters; and the more they are
considered, not as works of art, but as real visions of real things,
more or less imperfectly set down, the more good will be got by
dwelling upon them. The same is true of all representations of Christ
as a living presence among us now, as in Hunt's Light of the World.
Sec. 21. For the rest, there is a reality of conception in some of the
works of Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghirlandajo, and Giotto, which approaches
to a true ideal, even of recorded facts. But the examination of the
various degrees in which sacred art has reached its proper power is
not to our present purpose; still less, to investigate the
infinitely difficult question of its past operation on the Christian
mind. I hope to prosecute my inquiry into this subject in another
work; it being enough here to mark the forms of ideal error,
without historically tracing their extent, and to state generally
that my impression is, up to the present moment, that the best
religious art has been _hitherto_ rather a fruit, and attendant
sign, of sincere Christianity than a promoter of or help to it.
More, I think, has always been done for God by few words than many
pictures, and more by few acts than many words.
Sec. 22. I must not, however, quit the subject without insisting on the
chief practical consequence of what we have observed, namely, that
sacred art, so far from being exhausted, has yet to attain the
development of its highest branches; and the task, or privilege, yet
remains for mankind, to produce an art which shall be at once entirely
skilful and entirely _sincere_. All the histories of the Bible are, in
my judgment, yet waiting to be painted. Moses has never been painted;
Elijah never; David never (except as a mere ruddy stripling); Deborah
never; Gideon never; Isaiah never. What single example does the reader
remember of painting which suggested so much as the faintest shadow of
these people, or of their deeds? Strong men in armor, or aged men with
flowing beards, he _may_ remember, who, when he looked at his Louvre
or Uffizii catalogue, he found were intended to stand for David or for
Moses. But does he suppose that, if these pictures had suggested to
him the feeblest image of the presence of such men, he would have
passed on, as he assuredly did, to the next picture,--representing,
doubtless, Diana and Actaeon, or Cupid and the Graces, or a gambling
quarrel in a pothouse,--with no sense of pain, or surprise? Let him
meditate over the matter, and he will find ultimately that what I say
is true, and that religious art, at once complete and sincere, never
yet has existed.
Sec. 23. It will exist: nay, I believe the era of its birth has come,
and that those bright Turnerian imageries, which the European public
declared to be "dotage," and those calm Pre-Raphaelite studies
which, in like manner, it pronounced "puerility," form the first
foundation that has been ever laid for true sacred art. Of this we
shall presently reason farther. But, be it as it may, if we would
cherish the hope that sacred art may, indeed, arise for _us_, two
separate cautions are to be addressed to the two opposed classes of
religionists whose influence will chiefly retard that hope's
accomplishment. The group calling themselves Evangelical ought no
longer to render their religion an offence to men of the world by
associating it only with the most vulgar forms of art. It is not
necessary that they should admit either music or painting into
religious service; but, if they admit either the one or the other,
let it not be bad music nor bad painting: it is certainly in nowise
more for Christ's honor that His praise should be sung discordantly,
or His miracles painted discreditably, than that His word should be
preached ungrammatically. Some Evangelicals, however, seem to take a
morbid pride in the triple degradation.[18]
Sec. 24. The opposite class of men, whose natural instincts lead them to
mingle the refinements of art with all the offices and practices of
religion, are to be warned, on the contrary, how they mistake their
enjoyments for their duties, or confound poetry with faith. I admit
that it is impossible for one man to judge another in this matter, and
that it can never be said with certainty how far what seems frivolity
may be force, and what seems the indulgence of the heart may be,
indeed, its dedication. I am ready to believe that Metastasio, expiring
in a canzonet, may have died better than if his prayer had been in
unmeasured syllables.[19] But, for the most part, it is assuredly much
to be feared lest we mistake a surrender to the charms of art for one
to the service of God; and, in the art which we permit, lest we
substitute sentiment for sense, grace for utility. And for us all there
is in this matter even a deeper danger than that of indulgence. There
is the danger of Artistical Pharisaism. Of all the forms of pride and
vanity, as there are none more subtle, so I believe there are none more
sinful, than those which are manifested by the Pharisees of art. To be
proud of birth, of place, of wit, of bodily beauty, is comparatively
innocent, just because such pride is more natural, and more easily
detected. But to be proud of our sanctities; to pour contempt upon our
fellows, because, forsooth, we like to look at Madonnas in bowers of
roses, better than at plain pictures of plain things; and to make this
religious art of ours the expression of our own perpetual
self-complacency,--congratulating ourselves, day by day, on our
purities, proprieties, elevations, and inspirations, as above the reach
of common mortals,--this I believe to be one of the wickedest and
foolishest forms of human egotism; and, truly, I had rather, with
great, thoughtless, humble Paul Veronese, make the Supper at Emmaus a
background for two children playing with a dog (as, God knows, men do
usually put it in the background to everything, if not out of sight
altogether), than join that school of modern Germanism which wears its
pieties for decoration as women wear their diamonds, and flaunts the
dry fleeces of its phylacteries between its dust and the dew of heaven.
[10] The curious inequality of this little trefoil is not a
mistake; it is faithfully copied by the draughtsman from the
MS. Perhaps the actual date of the illumination may be a year
or two past the thirteenth century, i.e., 1300--1310: but it
is quite characteristic of the thirteenth century treatment in
the figures.
[11] Lombardic, i.e. in the style of Pietro and Tullio Lombardo,
in the fifteenth century (not _Lombard_).
[12] All this, it will be observed, is that seeking for beauty at
the cost of truth which we have generally noted in the last
chapter.
[13] This is one form of the sacrifice of expression to technical
merit, generally noted at the end of the 10th paragraph of the
last chapter.
[14] I suppose Raphael intended a reference to Numbers xv. 38; but
if he did, the _blue_ riband, or "vitta," as it is in the
Vulgate, should have been on the borders too.
[15] In the St. Cecilia of Bologna.
[16] In the Transfiguration. Do but try to believe that Moses and
Elias are really there talking with Christ. Moses in the
loveliest heart and midst of the land which once it had been
denied him to behold,--Elijah treading the earth again, from
which he had been swept to heaven in fire; both now with a
mightier message than ever they had given in life,--mightier,
in closing their own mission,--mightier, in speaking to
Christ "of His decease, which He should accomplish at
Jerusalem." They, men of like passions once with us,
appointed to speak to the Redeemer of His death.
And, then, look at Raphael's kicking gracefulnesses.
[17] Luther had no dislike of religious art on principle. Even the
stove in his chamber was wrought with sacred subjects. See
Mrs. Stowe's Sunny Memories.
[18] I do not know anything more humiliating to a man of common
sense, than to open what is called an "illustrated Bible" of
modern days. See, for instance, the plates in Brown's Bible
(octavo: Edinburgh, 1840), a standard evangelical edition.
Our habit of reducing the psalms to doggerel before we will
condescend to sing them, is a parallel abuse. It is
marvellous to think that human creatures with tongues and
souls should refuse to chant the verse: "Before Ephraim,
Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up thy strength, and come and
help us;" preferring this:--
"Behold, how Benjamin expects,
With Ephraim and Manasseh joined,
In their deliverance, the effects
Of thy resistless strength to find!"
[19] "En 1780, age de quatre-vingt-deux ans, au moment de recevoir
le viatique, il rassembla ses forces, et chanta, a son Createur:
'Eterno Genitor
Io t' offro il proprio figlio
Che in pegno del tuo amor
Si vuole a me donar.
A lui rivolgi il ciglio,
Mira chi t' offro; e poi,
Niega, Signor, se puoi,
Niega di perdonar.'"--
--DE STENDHAL, _Via de Metastasio_.