Art Principles Part 20

NOTE 14. PAGE 37

Cezanne and Van Gogh are not usually put forward as representative impressionists, but it is impossible to differentiate logically between the various "isms" of which impressionism is the mother, and to attempt a serious argument upon them would be apt to reflect upon the common sense of the reader. The sincere impressionist certainly produces a thing of beauty, however ephemeral and lacking in high character the beauty may be, but most of the productions of the other "isms" only serve the purpose of degrading the artist and the art.

NOTE 15. PAGE 40

This form of picture is by no means new, though except among the inventors of sprezzatura, and the modern impressionists, it has always been executed as a rough sketch for the purpose of settling harmonies for serious work. Lomazzo relates that Aurelio, son of Bernadino Luini, while visiting t.i.tian, asked him how he managed to make his landscape tones harmonize so well. For reply the great master showed Aurelio a large sketch, the character of which could not be distinguished when it was closely inspected, but on the observer stepping back, a landscape appeared "as if it had suddenly been lit up by a ray of the sun."[a]

From Luini's surprise, and inasmuch as we have no record of similar work before his time, it is reasonable to suppose that t.i.tian was the first great artist to use this form of sketch for experimental purposes.

[a] _Trattato dell' Arte de la Pittura._

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 25 (See page 269) The Pleiads, by M. Schwind]

NOTE 16. PAGE 40

The example of this picture at the Pitti Palace is specially noted because it seems impossible that the duplicate in the Uffizi Gallery can be by Raphael, for it has obvious defects, some of which have many times been pointed out. The expression is vastly inferior to that in the Pitti portrait, for instead of a calm, n.o.ble, benign countenance, we have a half-worried senile face which is anything but pleasant. Raphael was the last man to execute a portrait of a Pope without generalizing high character in the features. It will be observed also that in the Uffizi portrait, the left hand is stiff and cramped, and the drapery ungracefully flowing, while both uprights of the chair are actually out of drawing. There are other examples of the same picture in different museums, but the Pitti work is far above these in every respect, and seems the only one which can be properly attributed to the master.

Pa.s.savant affirms that some of the repet.i.tions of the work were certainly made in the studio of Raphael under his orders, and thinks that the duplicates pa.s.sed for originals even in his time.[a]

[a] _Raphael d'Urbin_, vol. ii.

NOTE 17. PAGE 41

To the knowledge of the writer, the only logical connection between the work of Rembrandt and impressionism that has been suggested, is from the pen of Professor Baldwin Brown, who remarks[a]:

Rembrandt in his later work attended to the pictorial effect alone, and practically annulled the objects by reducing them to pure tone and colour. Things are not there at all, but only the semblance, or effect, or impression of things. Breadth is in this way combined with the most delicate variety, and a new form of painting, now called "impressionism" has come into being.

The professor is mistaken here. During the last fifteen years of his life, apart from portraits, a few studies of heads, and some colour experiments with carcases of meat, Rembrandt executed, so far as is known, about three dozen pictures, and in all of these he effectually prevents us from forming a general impression of the designs before considering the more important details, by concentrating nearly all the available light upon the countenances of the princ.i.p.al personages represented; while in the management of the features, the whole purpose of the chiaroscuro is for the purpose of obtaining relief. Moreover the pictures are nearly all groups of personages in set subjects, and there would be no meaning in the designs if the objects were "practically annulled," for particular action and expression are necessary for their comprehension.

As to Velasquez there is no evidence tending to support the statement that he was an impressionist. The first authority on the artist has definitely pointed out that he never took up his brushes except for an important and definite work: "he neither painted impressions nor daubs."[b]

[a] Article on "Painting," _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th edition.

[b] _Velasquez_, by De Beruete, 1902.

NOTE 18. PAGE 49

It will always be a matter of surprise that so much popularity was secured by the light sketches of the Barbizon School, considering their general insignificance from the point of view of art, and the conspicuously artificial means adopted for their exploitation. Some of the artists of this school, having accomplished many studio works of merit, acquired the habit of painting in the open air. By this method it is impossible to execute a comprehensive natural scene, and the painters did not attempt the task, but they produced numberless sketchy works of local scenes under particular atmospheric conditions. They laboured honestly and conscientiously, and their sketches were put out for what they were and nothing more. The paintings would probably have retained their place as simple studies had not some commercial genius conceived the idea of putting them into heavy, gorgeous, gilt frames.

With this embellishment they were successfully scattered round the world, mostly in the newer portions, much to the general astonishment.

The _raison d'etre_ of the frames puzzled many persons, though it was frequently observed that the pictures do not look well unless surrounded by ample gold leaf. Thus, C. J. Holmes, Director of the London National Gallery, and an authority on impressionism, notes[a]:

Barbizon pictures are almost invariably set in frames with an undeniably vulgar look. Yet in such a rectangle of gilded contortion a Corot or a Daubigny shows to perfection: place it in a frame of more reticent design, and it becomes in a moment flat, empty, and tame.

The purpose of this frame is obvious. The eye is caught by the dazzling glitter, and feels immediate relief when it rests upon the quiet grey tone of the painting, the pleasurable sensation resulting therefrom being mistaken for involuntary appreciation of the beauty of the work.

As finished paintings these Barbizon sketches are novel, but as studies they are not, for similar work has been executed for two or three centuries, and particularly by the Dutch artists of the seventeenth century. In every considerable collection of drawings such sketches may be found, and there is scarcely a Barbizon painter whose work was not antic.i.p.ated by a Dutch master. One has only to examine the drawings in the public art inst.i.tutions of Europe by De Molyn, Blyhooft, Jan de Bischop, Lambert Doomer, Berghem, Avercamp, and others, to find examples which, if executed now, might easily be taken for works by the Barbizon masters.

[a] _Notes on the Science of Picture-Making._

NOTE 19. PAGE 52

In recent times attempts have been made to upset the dictum of Aristotle as to the imitative character of the arts generally, exception being taken in respect of music and architecture. The first objection as to music arose with Schopenhauer, though he does not appear to have been quite certain of his position. He stated that while the other arts represent ideas, music does not, but being an art it must represent something, and he suggested that this something is the "Will," the term being used in the Schopenhauer philosophical sense, that is to say, implying the active principle of the universe, not being G.o.d. This means nothing at all from the point of view of art, and cannot even be seriously considered. The most notable essay on the subject since Schopenhauer is from the pen of Sidney Colvin who places music and architecture in a non-imitative group by themselves, the former on the princ.i.p.al ground that "it is like nothing else; it is no representation or similitude of anything whatever"; while architecture, he says, "appeals to our faculties for taking pleasure in non-imitative combinations of stationary ma.s.ses."[a] But what Aristotle meant is that the arts are imitative in character, and not that they necessarily attempt to produce works of similitude with nature, this being evident from the fact that he pointed out that the higher works of art surpa.s.s nature, and he divided poetry and painting into three sections, of which the first is better than life, and the third inferior to it.

The musician in producing his art proceeds in precisely the same way as the poet or painter. He takes natural signs and rearranges them in a new order, producing a combination which is not to be found complete in nature, but every sign therein is natural and must necessarily be so.

The higher the flight of the poet, or musician, or painter, or sculptor, the farther is the result from nature, but nevertheless the whole aim of the musician, as of the poet, is to represent emotional effects or natural phenomena beyond experience in life, as the great sculptor represents form and expression, and the great poet besides these things, every abstract quality, pa.s.sion, and emotional effect, above this experience; but he cannot do more; he cannot represent something outside of nature, and so must imitate, that is, in the sense of representation.

Darwin notes that even a perfect musical scale can be found in nature.

He says[b]:

It is a remarkable fact that an ape, a species of the gibbon family, produces an exact octave of musical sounds, ascending and descending the scale by half tones. From this fact, and from the a.n.a.logy of other animals, I have been led to infer that the progenitors of man probably uttered musical tones, and that consequently, when the voice is used under any strong emotion, it tends to a.s.sume, through the principle of a.s.sociation, a musical character.

It has been further demonstrated that the strength of the sensory impressions from certain sounds is due to the structure of the ear, and that generally a particular kind of sound produces a similar kind of emotional effect in animals as in man. Obviously the musician is powerless to do more than widen or deepen this effect. Colvin admits that the musician sometimes directly imitates, as when he produces the notes of birds or the sounds of natural forces, or when he represents particular emotions; but he regards the former instances as hazardous and exceptional, and indicates that a particular emotional harmony may affect the hearers differently. True, but the hazard of the first condition is the result of the limitations of the artist, and the second condition is the consequence of the limitations of the art. The effect of music being purely sensorial must vary with the emotional conditions surrounding the hearer. The musician does what he can, but he is unable to go so far as the poet and produce an emotional effect which will with certainty be recognized by every person affected, at all times, as having the same particular bearing.

Taine separates music ("properly so called" as distinguished from dramatic music) and architecture from the imitative arts, as they "combine mathematical relations.h.i.+ps so as to create works that do not correspond with real objects."[c] Obviously the whole purpose of dramatic music is to imitate the effects of the pa.s.sions, but its necessary inclusion amongst the imitative arts upsets the dictum of Taine, for the emotional effects of one kind of music only differ from those of another kind when they differ at all, in the character of the natural emotional effects represented.

In the case of the architect, seeing that his art is subordinated to utility, his scheme, his measurements, and the character of his materials, are largely or almost entirely governed by conditions outside of his art, and consequently it is only possible for him to represent nature to a limited extent. Rarely can he vaguely suggest a natural aisle beneath the celestial dome, a rock-walled cave whose roof soars into obscurity, or a fairy grotto backed by a beetling cliff. Sometimes he may cause us to experience similar effects in kind to those we feel when we recognize grandeur in nature, but usually he is compelled to confine his beauty to harmonies produced by symmetrical designs of straight lines and curves. But in his simplest as in his most complex designs, he must follow nature as closely as possible. Purely ornamental forms always appear more beautiful when the parts have a direct mathematical relations.h.i.+p with each other than when they have not; that is to say, when the parts appear to be naturally related. Thus, that a cross appears to be less agreeable to the sight when the horizontal bar is below the centre of the perpendicular than when it is above this point, is due to what appears to be a want of balance because the form is un.o.bservable in nature. In trees the horizontal parts are usually above the middle of the height of the observable trunk, and in the exceptions nature gives the whole tree a conical or other shape, the relative position of the horizontal parts being obscured in the general form.

As with parts of forms, so with the forms as wholes. Other things being equal, that design is the best where the forms are directly proportioned one with the other and with the whole, and this is because we are accustomed to the order of design in nature where everything is balanced by means of direct proportions and corresponding relations. The architect therefore, like the musician or poet, must represent nature so far as he can within the limits of his art, though his representation is comparatively weak owing to the artificial restrictions imposed upon him.

[a] Article on "Fine Arts," _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th Edition.

[b] _The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals._

[c] _On the Ideal in Art._

NOTE 20. PAGE 54

The dictum of Aristotle in reference to metre in poetry related only to epic and dramatic verse, for what we understand as lyric poetry was separated by the Greeks as song in which of course metre is compulsory.

It is doubtful whether a single definition can cover both epic poetry, whose beauty lies almost wholly in the substance, and lyric verse where the beauty rests chiefly in qualities of expression and musical form, and in which indeed the substance may be altogether negligible. A cursory examination of Watts-Dunton's definition of "Poetry," which is admittedly the best put forward in recent times, shows its entire inadequacy. "Absolute poetry," he says, "is the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language."[a]

This would exclude from the art some of the finest sacred verse, which, though in the form of prose, has been recognized as poetry from time immemorial. Metre is only one of the devices of the poet for accomplis.h.i.+ng his end---the presentation of beautiful pictures upon the mind, but in high poetry there is a still more compulsory artifice which is not included in Watts-Dunton's definition, and that is metaphor. In the form of words the details of a picture can only be dealt with successively, and not simultaneously, and without metaphor the poet would sometimes be in the position of the painter who should present a dozen different pictures each containing only one part of a composition, and call upon the observer to put the pieces together in his mind.

Further the term "absolute" in the definition quoted has no comprehensible meaning if it does not exclude a good deal of verse which is commonly recognized as poetry, while, as is admitted by Watts-Dunton, there is much accepted lyric verse without concrete expression.

In high poetry as in high painting, the beauty appeals both to the senses and the mind, and in each art the quality descends as the sensorial overbalances the intellectual appeal, and the effect becomes more ephemeral. In the very highest of the plastic arts, colour has little value except in a.s.sisting definition; and in the very highest poetry musical form has only an emphasizing value, for the sensorial beauty arising from form in the one case, and form and action in the other, entirely overpowers the harmonies of colour and tone respectively. But colour without design is meaningless, so that it cannot be applied in the fine arts apart from design: hence in painting, colour presents no complication in respect of definition. On the other hand music, with or without a.s.sociation with poetry, is equally an art since in either case it imitates the effects of human emotions in a beautiful way. Thus, where metre is present poetry is a combined art, and seeing that metre may not be present, a definition of "Poetry" must cover what may be in one case a pure, and in another, a compound art.

[a] Article on "Poetry," _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th edition.