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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:11:29 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:11:29 -0700 |
| commit | 7b03f833a82d0deef78560af26c68f66191d7fdc (patch) | |
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diff --git a/38923-h/38923-h.htm b/38923-h/38923-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a7edf8 --- /dev/null +++ b/38923-h/38923-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,16092 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Complete Works of John Ruskin: + Modern Painters. Vol. III., Containing Part IV., Of Many Things. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%} +hr.full {width: 95%;} +hr.fn {width: 33%; margin-left: 2em;} + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + + .tdl {text-align: left;} + .tdr {text-align: right;} + .tdc {text-align: center;} + + .pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 5%; + font-size: 90%; + font-weight: bold; + font-style: normal; + text-indent: 0em; + text-align: center; + width: 1.6em; + color: silver; + border-right: solid silver 1px; + border-bottom: solid silver 1px; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; + line-height: 1.5em; +} + + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} +.right {text-align: right;} +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + +/* Images */ + .caption { + font-weight: bold; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: center; + margin-top: 0em; +} + + .illo { + margin: auto; + clear: left; + text-align: center; + +} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 6%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 86%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left: 6em; + margin-right: 10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i1 { + display: block; + margin-left: 1em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i3 { + display: block; + margin-left: 3em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i5 { + display: block; + margin-left: 5em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i6 { + display: block; + margin-left: 6em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Painters Vol. III., by John Ruskin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Modern Painters Vol. III. + Containing Part IV., of many things + +Author: John Ruskin + +Release Date: February 19, 2012 [EBook #38923] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN PAINTERS VOL. III. *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, RSPIII and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<pre> + +</pre> + + +<div class="center" style="margin: auto; max-width: 80em;"> + + +<div class="transnote" style="margin: auto; max-width: 35em;"> +<p class="center">Transcriber's Notes:</p> + +<p>The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and +formatting have been retained. Unusual and alternative spellings have +been retained as they appear on the original publication. Hyphenated +words have been standardized.</p> + +<p>Minor typographical changes are listed at the bottom of this text.</p> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<!-- Start Main body of work --> + +<!-- ****************************************************************************************** --> +<!-- ****************************************************************************************** --> +<!-- *************************** ***************************** --> +<!-- *************************** MAIN BODY OF WORK ***************************** --> +<!-- *************************** ***************************** --> +<!-- ****************************************************************************************** --> +<!-- ****************************************************************************************** --> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<div style="font-size: 130%;">Library Edition</div> +<br /> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 140%">THE COMPLETE WORKS</div> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 100%">OF</div> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 200%">J O H N R U S K I N</div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 110%">MODERN PAINTERS</div> +<div style="font-size: 110%"><span class="smcap">Volume II</span>—OF TRUTH AND THEORETIC FACULTIES</div> +<div style="font-size: 110%"><span class="smcap">Volume III</span>—OF MANY THINGS</div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 120%">NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION</div> +<div style="font-size: 120%">NEW YORK + +CHICAGO</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<!-- comment out pagenum +<span class="pagenum"> + <a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">i</a> + <a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">ii</a> +</span> +--> + +<div style="font-size: 150%">MODERN PAINTERS.</div> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 120%">VOL. III.,</div> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 60%">CONTAINING</div> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 110%">PART IV.,</div> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 130%">OF MANY THINGS.</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<!-- +<span class="pagenum"> + <a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">iii]</a> + <a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">iv]</a> +</span> +--> + + +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2> +<br /> +<div style="font-size: 130%">PART IV.</div> +<div style="font-size: 130%">OF MANY THINGS.</div> +<br /> + +<table summary="Table of Contents" cellpadding="0"> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td> </td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap" style="font-size:70%;">PAGE</span></td> + + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc"><span class="smcap">Chapter</span></td> + <td class="tdr"> I.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Of the received Opinions touching the "Grand Style"</a> </td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">II.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Of Realization</a></td> + <td class="tdr">16</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">III.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Of the Real Nature of Greatness of Style</a></td> + <td class="tdr">23</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">IV.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Of the False Ideal:—First, Religious</a></td> + <td class="tdr">44</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">V.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Of the False Ideal:—Secondly, Profane</a></td> + <td class="tdr">61</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">VI.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Of the True Ideal:—First, Purist</a></td> + <td class="tdr">70</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">VII.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Of the True Ideal:—Secondly, Naturalist</a></td> + <td class="tdr">77</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">VIII.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Of the True Ideal:—Thirdly, Grotesque</a></td> + <td class="tdr">92</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">IX.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Of Finish</a></td> + <td class="tdr">108</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">X.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Of the Use of Pictures</a></td> + <td class="tdr">124</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XI.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">Of the Novelty of Landscape</a></td> + <td class="tdr">144</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XII.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Of the Pathetic Fallacy</a></td> + <td class="tdr">152</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XIII.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Of Classical Landscape</a></td> + <td class="tdr">168</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XIV.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Of Mediæval Landscape:—First, the Fields</a></td> + <td class="tdr">191</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XV.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Of Mediæval Landscape:—Secondly, the Rocks</a></td> + <td class="tdr">229</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XVI.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Of Modern Landscape</a></td> + <td class="tdr">248</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XVII.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Moral of Landscape</a></td> + <td class="tdr">280</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc">"</td> + <td class="tdr">XVIII.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">Of the Teachers of Turner</a></td> + <td class="tdr">308</td> + + </tr><tr> + <td colspan="4"><br /><h2>APPENDIX.</h2></td> + + </tr><tr> + + <td class="tdc"></td> + <td class="tdr">I.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#A_I">Claude's Tree-drawing</a></td> + <td class="tdr">333</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc"></td> + <td class="tdr">II.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#A_II">German Philosophy</a></td> + <td class="tdr">336</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc"></td> + <td class="tdr">III.—</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#A_III">Plagiarism</a></td> + <td class="tdr">338</td> + </tr> +</table> + + +<!-- +<span class="pagenum"> + <a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a> + <a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">vi</a> + +</span> +--> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>LIST OF PLATES TO VOL. III.</h2> + +<table summary="List of Plates to Volume III" cellpadding="0"> + <!--table header --> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl"><span style="font-size:70%"> Drawn by</span></td> + <td class="tdl"><span style="font-size:70%"> Engraved by</span></td> + <td> </td> + </tr><tr> + + <!--table front piece --> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><a href="#PLATE_FRONT">Frontispiece. Lake, Land, and Cloud.</a> </td> + <td class="tdl"><i>The Author </i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. C. Armytage.</span> </td> + <td> </td> + + <!--list header --> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span style="font-size:70%"><br />Plate</span></td> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdr" colspan="2"><span style="font-size:70%"><br /> Facing page</span></td> + + <!-- begin illu list --> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">1. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_1">True and False Griffins</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>The Author</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">R. P. Cuff</span></td> + <td class="tdr">106</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">2. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_2">Drawing of Tree-bark</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Various</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. H. Le Keux</span></td> + <td class="tdr">114</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">3. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_3">Strength of old Pine</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>The Author</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. H. Le Keux</span></td> + <td class="tdr">116</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">4. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_4">Ramification according to Claude</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Claude</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. H. Le Keux</span></td> + <td class="tdr">117</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">5. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_5">Good and Bad Tree-drawing</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Turner and Constable</i> </td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. Cousen</span></td> + <td class="tdr">118</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">6. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_6">Foreground Leafage</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>The Author</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. C. Armytage</span></td> + <td class="tdr">121</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">7. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_7">Botany of the Thirteenth Century</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Missal-Painters</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Henry Shaw</span></td> + <td class="tdr">203</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">8. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_8">The Growth of Leaves</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>The Author</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">R. P. Cuff</span></td> + <td class="tdr">204</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">9. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_9">Botany of the Fourteenth Century</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Missal-Painters</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Cuff; H. Swan</span></td> + <td class="tdr">207</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">10. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_10">Geology of the Middle Ages</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Leonardo, etc.</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">R. P. Cuff</span></td> + <td class="tdr">238</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">11. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_11">Latest Purism</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Raphael</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. C. Armytage</span></td> + <td class="tdr">313</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">12. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_12">The Shores of Wharfe</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>J. W. M. Turner</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Author</span></td> + <td class="tdr">314</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">13. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_13">First Mountain-Naturalism</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Masaccio</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. H. Le Keux</span></td> + <td class="tdr">315</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">14. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_14">The Lombard Apennine</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>The Author</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Thos. Lupton</span></td> + <td class="tdr">315</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">15. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_15">St. George of the Seaweed</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>The Author</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Thos. Lupton</span></td> + <td class="tdr">315</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">16. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_16">Early Naturalism</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Titian</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. C. Armytage</span></td> + <td class="tdr">316</td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdr">17. </td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#PLATE_17">Advanced Naturalism</a></td> + <td class="tdl"><i>Tintoret</i></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">J. C. Armytage</span></td> + <td class="tdr">316</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap" /> + + +<!-- +<span class="pagenum"> + <a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a> + <a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a> +</span> +--> + + +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>As this preface is nearly all about myself, no one need take +the trouble of reading it, unless he happens to be desirous of +knowing—what I, at least, am bound to state,—the circumstances +which have caused the long delay of the work, as well as +the alterations which will be noticed in its form.</p> + +<p>The first and second volumes were written to check, as far +as I could, the attacks upon Turner which prevented the public +from honoring his genius, at the time when his power was +greatest. The check was partially given, but too late; Turner +was seized by painful illness not long after the second volume +appeared; his works, towards the close of the year 1845, showed +a conclusive failure of power; and I saw that nothing remained +for me to write, but his epitaph.</p> + +<p>The critics had done their proper and appointed work; they +had embittered, more than those who did not know Turner intimately +could have believed possible, the closing years of his life; +and had blinded the world in general (as it appears ordained by +Fate that the world always <i>shall</i> be blinded) to the presence of +a great spirit among them, till the hour of its departure. With +them, and their successful work, I had nothing more to do; the +account of gain and loss, of gifts and gratitude, between Turner +and his countrymen, was for ever closed. <i>He</i> could only be left +to his quiet death at Chelsea,—the sun upon his face; <i>they</i> to +dispose a length of funeral through Ludgate, and bury, with +threefold honor, his body in St. Paul's, his pictures at Charing +Cross, and his purposes in Chancery. But with respect to the +illustration and preservation of those of his works which remained +unburied, I felt that much might yet be done, if I could +at all succeed in proving that these works had some nobleness in +them, and were worth preservation. I pursued my task, therefore, +as I had at first proposed, with this only difference in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">vi</a></span> +method,—that instead of writing in continued haste, such as I +had been forced into at first by the urgency of the occasion, I +set myself to do the work as well as I could, and to collect materials +for the complete examination of the canons of art received +among us.</p> + +<p>I have now given ten years of my life to the single purpose +of enabling myself to judge rightly of art, and spent them in +labor as earnest and continuous as men usually undertake to +gain position, or accumulate fortune. It is true, that the public +still call me an "amateur;" nor have I ever been able to persuade +them that it was possible to work steadily and hard with +any other motive than that of gaining bread, or to give up a +fixed number of hours every day to the furtherance of an object +unconnected with personal interests. I have, however, given up +so much of life to this object; earnestly desiring to ascertain, +and be able to teach, the truth respecting art; and also knowing +that this truth was, by time and labor, definitely ascertainable.</p> + +<p>It is an idea too frequently entertained, by persons who are +not much interested in art, that there are no laws of right or +wrong concerning it; and that the best art is that which pleases +most widely. Hence the constant allegation of "dogmatism" +against any one who states unhesitatingly either preference or +principle, respecting pictures. There are, however, laws of truth +and right in painting, just as fixed as those of harmony in +music, or of affinity in chemistry. Those laws are perfectly +ascertainable by labor, and ascertainable no other way. It is as +ridiculous for any one to speak positively about painting who +has not given a great part of his life to its study, as it would be +for a person who had never studied chemistry to give a lecture +on affinities of elements; but it is also as ridiculous for a person +to speak hesitatingly about laws of painting who has conscientiously +given his time to their ascertainment, as it would be for +Mr. Faraday to announce in a dubious manner that iron had an +affinity for oxygen, and to put the question to the vote of his +audience whether it had or not. Of course there are many +things, in all stages of knowledge, which cannot be dogmatically +stated; and it will be found, by any candid reader, either +of what I have before written, or of this book, that in many +cases, I am <i>not</i> dogmatic. The phrase, "I think so," or, "it +seems so to me," will be met with continually; and I pray the +reader to believe that I use such expression always in seriousness, +never as matter of form.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span> + +<p>It may perhaps be thought that, considering the not very +elaborate structure of the following volumes, they might have +been finished sooner. But it will be found, on reflection, that +the ranges of inquiry engaged in demanded, even for their slight +investigation, time and pains which are quite unrepresented in +the result. It often required a week or two's hard walking to +determine some geological problem, now dismissed in an unnoticed +sentence; and it constantly needed examination and +thought, prolonged during many days in the picture gallery, to +form opinions which the reader may suppose to be dictated by +caprice, and will hear only to dispute.</p> + +<p>A more serious disadvantage, resulting from the necessary +breadth of subject, was the chance of making mistakes in minor +and accessory points. For the labor of a critic who sincerely +desires to be just, extends into more fields than it is possible +for any single hand to furrow straightly. He has to take <i>some</i> +note of many physical sciences; of optics, geometry, geology, +botany, and anatomy; he must acquaint himself with the works +of all great artists, and with the temper and history of the times +in which they lived; he must be a fair metaphysician, and a +careful observer of the phenomena of natural scenery. It is not +possible to extend the range of work thus widely, without running +the chance of occasionally making mistakes; and if I carefully +guarded against that chance, I should be compelled both to +shorten my powers of usefulness in many directions, and to lose +much time over what work I undertook. All that I can secure, +therefore, is rightness in main points and main tendencies; for +it is perfectly possible to protect oneself against small errors, +and yet to make great and final error in the sum of work: +on the other hand, it is equally possible to fall into many small +errors, and yet be right in tendency all the while, and entirely +right in the end. In this respect, some men may be compared +to careful travellers, who neither stumble at stones, nor slip in +sloughs, but have, from the beginning of their journey to its +close, chosen the wrong road; and others to those who, however +slipping or stumbling at the wayside, have yet their eyes +fixed on the true gate and goal (stumbling, perhaps, even the +more because they have), and will not fail of reaching them. +Such are assuredly the safer guides: he who follows them may +avoid their slips, and be their companion in attainment.</p> + +<p>Although, therefore, it is not possible but that, in the discussion +of so many subjects as are necessarily introduced in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span> +following pages, here and there a chance should arise of minor +mistake or misconception, the reader need not be disturbed by +the detection of any such. He will find always that they do not +affect the matter mainly in hand.</p> + +<p>I refer especially in these remarks to the chapters on Classical +and Mediæval Landscape. It is certain, that in many respects, +the views there stated must be inaccurate or incomplete; +for how should it be otherwise when the subject is one whose +proper discussion would require knowledge of the entire history +of two great ages of the world? But I am well assured that the +suggestions in those chapters are useful; and that even if, after +farther study of the subject, the reader should find cause to +differ with me in this or the other speciality, he will yet thank +me for helping him to a certain length in the investigation, and +confess, perhaps, that he could not at last have been right, if I +had not first ventured to be wrong.</p> + +<p>And of one thing he may be certified, that any error I fall +into will not be in an illogical deduction: I may mistake the +meaning of a symbol, or the angle of a rock-cleavage, but not +draw an inconsequent conclusion. I state this, because it has +often been said that I am not logical, by persons who do not so +much as know what logic means. Next to imagination, the +power of perceiving logical relation is one of the rarest among +men; certainly, of those with whom I have conversed, I have +found always ten who had deep feeling, quick wit, or extended +knowledge, for one who could set down a syllogism without a +flaw; and for ten who could set down a syllogism, only one who +could <i>entirely</i> understand that a square has four sides. Even as +I am sending these sheets to press, a work is put into my hand, +written to prove (I would, from the depth of my heart, it could +prove) that there was no ground for what I said in the Stones +of Venice respecting the logical probability of the continuity of +evil. It seems learned, temperate, thoughtful, everything in +feeling and aim that a book should be, and yet it begins with +this sentence:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>"The question cited in our preface, 'Why not infinite good out of infinite +evil?' must be taken to imply—for it else can have no weight,—that in +order to the production of infinite good, the existence of infinite evil is +indispensable."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>So, if I had said that there was no reason why honey should not +be sucked out of a rock, and oil out of a flinty rock, the writer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span> +would have told me this sentence must be taken to imply—for it +else could have no weight,—that in order to the production of +honey, the existence of rocks is indispensable. No less intense +and marvellous are the logical errors into which our best writers +are continually falling, owing to the notion that laws of logic +will help them better than common sense. Whereas any man +who can reason at all, does it instinctively, and takes leaps over +intermediate syllogisms by the score, yet never misses his footing +at the end of the leap; but he who cannot instinctively +argue, might as well, with the gout in both feet, try to follow a +chamois hunter by the help of crutches, as to follow, by the +help of syllogism, a person who has the right use of his reason. +I should not, however, have thought it necessary to allude to +this common charge against my writings, but that it happens to +confirm some views I have long entertained, and which the +reader will find glanced at in their proper place, respecting the +necessity of a more <i>practically</i> logical education for our youth. +Of other various charges I need take no note, because they are +always answered the one by the other. The complaint made +against me to-day for being narrow and exclusive, is met to-morrow +by indignation that I should admire schools whose +characters cannot be reconciled; and the assertion of one critic, +that I am always contradicting myself, is balanced by the vexation +of another, at my ten years' obstinacies in error.</p> + +<p>I once intended the illustrations to these volumes to be more +numerous and elaborate, but the art of photography now enables +any reader to obtain as many memoranda of the facts of nature +as he needs; and, in the course of my ten years' pause, I have +formed plans for the representation of some of the works of +Turner on their own scale; so that it would have been quite +useless to spend time in reducing drawings to the size of this +page, which were afterwards to be engraved of their own size.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +I have therefore here only given illustrations enough to enable +the reader, who has not access to the works of Turner, to understand +the principles laid down in the text, and apply them to +such art as may be within his reach. And I owe sincere thanks +to the various engravers who have worked with me, for the zeal +and care with which they have carried out the requirements in +each case, and overcome difficulties of a nature often widely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span> +differing from those involved by their habitual practice. I +would not make invidious distinction, where all have done well; +but may perhaps be permitted to point, as examples of what I +mean, to the 3rd and 6th Plates in this volume (the 6th being +left unlettered in order not to injure the effect of its ground), +in which Mr. Le Keux and Mr. Armytage have exactly facsimiled, +in line engraving, drawings of mine made on a grey +ground touched with white, and have given even the <i>loaded</i> look +of the body color. The power of thus imitating actual touches +of color with pure lines will be, I believe, of great future importance +in rendering Turner's work on a large scale. As for the +merit or demerit of these or other drawings of my own, which +I am obliged now for the sake of illustration often to engrave, +I believe I could speak of it impartially, and should unreluctantly +do so; but I leave, as most readers will think I ought, +such judgment to them, merely begging them to remember that +there are two general principles to be kept in mind in examining +the drawings of any writer on art: the first, that they ought +at least to show such ordinary skill in draughtsmanship, as to +prove that the writer knows <i>what</i> the good qualities of drawing +<i>are</i>; the second, that they are never to be expected to equal, in +either execution or conception, the work of accomplished artists,—for +the simple reason, that in order to do <i>any</i>thing thoroughly +well, the whole mind, and the whole available time, +must be given to that single art. It is probable, for reasons +which will be noted in the following pages, that the critical and +executive faculties are in great part independent of each other; +so that it is nearly as great an absurdity to require of any critic +that he should equal in execution even the work which he condemns, +as to require of the audience which hisses a piece of +vocal music that they should instantly chant it in truer harmony +themselves. But whether this be true or not (it is at least +untrue to this extent, that a certain power of drawing is <i>indispensable</i> +to the critic of art), and supposing that the executive +and critical powers always exist in some correspondent degree in +the same person, still they cannot be cultivated to the same +extent. The attention required for the development of a theory +is necessarily withdrawn from the design of a drawing, and the +time devoted to the realization of a form is lost to the solution +of a problem. Choice <i>must</i> at last be made between one and the +other power, as the principal aim of life; and if the painter +should find it necessary sometimes to explain one of his pictures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span> +in words, or the writer to illustrate his meaning with a drawing, +the skill of the one need not be doubted because his logic is +feeble, nor the sense of the other because his pencil is listless.</p> + +<p>As, however, it is sometimes alleged by the opponents of my +principles, that I have never <i>done</i> <i>any</i>thing, it is proper that +the reader should know exactly the amount of work for which +I am answerable in these illustrations. When an example is +given from any of the works of Turner, it is either etched by +myself from the original drawing, or engraved from a drawing +of mine, translating Turner's work out of color into black and +white, as for instance, the frontispiece to the fourth volume. +When a plate is inscribed as "<i>after</i>" such and such a master, I +have always myself made the drawing, in black and white, from +the original picture; as, for instance, Plate 11, in this volume. +If it has been made from a previously existing engraving, it is +inscribed with the name of the first engraver at the left-hand +lowest corner; as, for instance, Plate 18, in Vol. IV. Outline +etchings are either by my own hand on the steel, as Plate 12, +here, and 20, 21, in Vol. IV.; or copies from my pen drawings, +etched by Mr. Boys, with a fidelity for which I sincerely thank +him; one, Plate 22, Vol. IV., is both drawn and etched by +Mr. Boys from an old engraving. Most of the other illustrations +are engraved from my own studies from nature. The +colored Plate (7, in this volume) is from a drawing executed +with great skill by my assistant, Mr. J. J. Laing, from MSS. in +the British Museum; and the lithography of it has been kindly +superintended by Mr. Henry Shaw, whose renderings of mediæval +ornaments stand, as far as I know, quite unrivalled in +modern art. The two woodcuts of mediæval design, Figs. 1 +and 3, are also from drawings by Mr. Laing, admirably cut by +Miss Byfield. I use this word "admirably," not with reference +to mere delicacy of execution, which can usually be had for +money, but to the perfect fidelity of facsimile, which is in general +<i>not</i> to be had for money, and by which Miss Byfield has +saved me all trouble with respect to the numerous woodcuts in +the fourth volume; first, by her excellent renderings of various +portions of Albert Durer's woodcuts; and, secondly, by reproducing, +to their last dot or scratch, my own pen diagrams, +drawn in general so roughly that few wood-engravers would +have condescended to cut them with care, and yet always involving +some points in which care was indispensable. One or two +changes have been permitted in the arrangement of the book,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">xii</a></span> +which make the text in these volumes not altogether a symmetrical +continuation of that in former ones. Thus, I thought it +better to put the numbers of paragraphs always at the left-hand +side of the page; and as the summaries, in small type, appeared +to me for the most part cumbrous and useless, I have banished +them, except where there were complicated divisions of subject +which it seemed convenient to indicate at the margin. I am +not sorry thus to carry out my own principle of the sacrifice of +architectural or constructive symmetry to practical service. The +plates are, in a somewhat unusual way, numbered consecutively +through the two volumes, as I intend them to be also through +the fifth. This plan saves much trouble in references.</p> + +<p>I have only to express, in conclusion, my regret that it has +been impossible to finish the work within the limits first proposed. +Having, of late, found my designs always requiring enlargement +in process of execution, I will take care, in future, to +set no limits whatsoever to any good intentions. In the present +instance I trust the reader will pardon me, as the later efforts of +our schools of art have necessarily introduced many new topics +of discussion.</p> + +<p>And so I wish him heartily a happy New Year.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 1em; font-size: 80%;">Denmark Hill, Jan. 1856.</span></p> + + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"> + <span class="label">[1]</span> + </a> I should be very grateful to the proprietors of pictures or drawings by +Turner, if they would send me lists of the works in their possession; as I +am desirous of forming a systematic catalogue of all his works.</p> +</div> + +<!-- +<span class="pagenum"> + <a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">xiii</a> + <a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">xiv</a> +</span> +--> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_FRONT" id="PLATE_FRONT"></a> + <a href="images/illus018b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus018w.jpg" height="500" alt="Frontispiece" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + Lake, Land, and Cloud. (near Como.) + </span> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap" /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span> +<h1>MODERN PAINTERS.</h1> + +<div style="font-size: 140%"><b>PART IV. +<br /> +OF MANY THINGS.</b></div> + +<br /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE RECEIVED OPINIONS TOUCHING THE "GRAND STYLE."</h3> + +<p>§ 1. In taking up the clue of an inquiry, now intermitted +for nearly ten years, it may be well to do as a traveller would, +who had to recommence an interrupted journey in a guideless +country; and, ascending, as it were, some little hill beside our +road, note how far we have already advanced, and what pleasantest +ways we may choose for farther progress.</p> + +<p>I endeavored, in the beginning of the first volume, to divide +the sources of pleasure open to us in Art into certain groups, +which might conveniently be studied in succession. After some +preliminary discussion, it was concluded (Part I. Chap. III. +§ 86), that these groups were, in the main, three; consisting, +first, of the pleasures taken in perceiving simple resemblance to +Nature (Ideas of Truth); secondly, of the pleasures taken in +the beauty of the things chosen to be painted (Ideas of Beauty); +and, lastly, of pleasures taken in the meanings and relations of +these things (Ideas of Relation).</p> + +<p>The first volume, treating of the ideas of Truth, was chiefly +occupied with an inquiry into the various success with which +different artists had represented the facts of Nature,—an inquiry +necessarily conducted very imperfectly, owing to the want of +pictorial illustration.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> + +<p>The second volume nearly opened the inquiry into the nature +of ideas of Beauty and Relation, by analysing (as far as I was +able to do so) the two faculties of the human mind which mainly +seized such ideas; namely, the contemplative and imaginative +faculties.</p> + +<p>It remains for us to examine the various success of artists, +especially of the great landscape-painter whose works have been +throughout our principal subject, in addressing these faculties +of the human mind, and to consider who among them has conveyed +the noblest ideas of beauty, and touched the deepest +sources of thought.</p> + +<p>§ 2. I do not intend, however, now to pursue the inquiry in +a method so laboriously systematic; for the subject may, it +seems to me, be more usefully treated by pursuing the different +questions which rise out of it just as they occur to us, without +too great scrupulousness in marking connections, or insisting +on sequences. Much time is wasted by human beings, in general, +on establishment of systems; and it often takes more labor +to master the intricacies of an artificial connection, than to remember +the separate facts which are so carefully connected. I +suspect that system-makers, in general, are not of much more +use, each in his own domain, than, in that of Pomona, the old +women who tie cherries upon sticks, for the more convenient +portableness of the same. To cultivate well, and choose well, +your cherries, is of some importance; but if they can be had in +their own wild way of clustering about their crabbed stalk, it is +a better connection for them than any other; and, if they cannot, +then, so that they be not bruised, it makes to a boy of a +practical disposition, not much difference whether he gets them +by handfuls, or in beaded symmetry on the exalting stick. I +purpose, therefore, henceforward to trouble myself little with +sticks or twine, but to arrange my chapters with a view to convenient +reference, rather than to any careful division of subjects, +and to follow out, in any by-ways that may open, on right +hand or left, whatever question it seems useful at any moment +to settle.</p> + +<p>§ 3. And, in the outset, I find myself met by one which I +ought to have touched upon before—one of especial interest in +the present state of the Arts. I have said that the art is great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span>est +which includes the greatest ideas; but I have not endeavored +to define the nature of this greatness in the ideas themselves. +We speak of great truths, of great beauties, great thoughts. +What is it which makes one truth greater than another, one +thought greater than another? This question is, I repeat, of +peculiar importance at the present time; for, during a period +now of some hundred and fifty years, all writers on Art who +have pretended to eminence, have insisted much on a supposed +distinction between what they call the Great and the Low +Schools; using the terms "High Art," "Great or Ideal Style," +and other such, as descriptive of a certain noble manner of +painting, which it was desirable that all students of Art should +be early led to reverence and adopt; and characterising as +"vulgar," or "low," or "realist," another manner of painting +and conceiving, which it was equally necessary that all students +should be taught to avoid.</p> + +<p>But lately this established teaching, never very intelligible, +has been gravely called in question. The advocates and self-supposed +practisers of "High Art" are beginning to be looked +upon with doubt, and their peculiar phraseology to be treated +with even a certain degree of ridicule. And other forms of Art +are partly developed among us, which do not pretend to be high, +but rather to be strong, healthy, and humble. This matter of +"highness" in Art, therefore deserves our most careful consideration. +Has it been, or is it, a true highness, a true princeliness, +or only a show of it, consisting in courtly manners and +robes of state? Is it rocky height or cloudy height, adamant or +vapor, on which the sun of praise so long has risen and set? It +will be well at once to consider this.</p> + +<p>§4. And first, let us get, as quickly as may be, at the exact +meaning with which the advocates of "High Art" use that +somewhat obscure and figurative term.</p> + +<p>I do not know that the principles in question are anywhere +more distinctly expressed than in two papers in the Idler, written +by Sir Joshua Reynolds, of course under the immediate +sanction of Johnson; and which may thus be considered as the +utterance of the views then held upon the subject by the artists +of chief skill, and critics of most sense, arranged in a form so +brief and clear, as to admit of their being brought before the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> +public for a morning's entertainment. I cannot, therefore, it +seems to me, do better than quote these two letters, or at least +the important parts of them, examining the exact meaning of +each passage as it occurs. There are, in all, in the Idler three +letters on painting, Nos. 76, 79, and 82; of these, the first is +directed only against the impertinences of pretended connoisseurs, +and is as notable for its faithfulness, as for its wit, in the +description of the several modes of criticism in an artificial and +ignorant state of society; it is only, therefore, in the two last +papers that we find the expression of the doctrines which it is +our business to examine.</p> + +<p>No. 79 (Saturday, Oct. 20th, 1759) begins, after a short preamble, +with the following passage:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>"Amongst the painters, and the writers on painting, there is one +maxim universally admitted and continually inculcated. Imitate nature is +the invariable rule; but I know none who have explained in what manner +this rule is to be understood; the sequence of which is, that every one takes +it in the most obvious sense, that objects are represented naturally when they +have such relief that they seem real. It may appear strange, perhaps, to +hear this sense of the rule disputed; but it must be considered, that, if the +excellency of a painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, Painting +must lose its rank, and be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to +Poetry, this imitation being nearly mechanical, in which the slowest intellect +is always sure to succeed best; for the painter of genius cannot stoop +to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence +has the art to claim kindred with poetry but by its power over the imagination? +To this power the painter of genius directs him; in this sense he +studies nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being unnatural in the +confined sense of the word."</p> + +<p>"The grand style of painting requires this minute attention to be carefully +avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style of poetry +from that of history. (Poetical ornaments destroy that air of truth and +plainness which ought to characterise history; but the very being of poetry +consists in departing from this plain narrative, and adopting every ornament +that will warm the imagination.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +) To desire to see the excellencies of each +style united—to mingle the Dutch with the Italian school, is to join contrarieties, +which cannot subsist together, and which destroy the efficacy of each +other."</p></blockquote> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span> +<p>§ 5. We find, first, from this interesting passage, that the +writer considers the Dutch and Italian masters as severally representative +of the low and high schools; next, that he considers +the Dutch painters as excelling in a mechanical imitation, "in +which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best;" and, +thirdly, that he considers the Italian painters as excelling in a +style which corresponds to that of imaginative poetry in literature, +and which has an exclusive right to be called the grand +style.</p> + +<p>I wish that it were in my power entirely to concur with the +writer, and to enforce this opinion thus distinctly stated. I +have never been a zealous partisan of the Dutch School, and +should rejoice in claiming Reynolds's authority for the assertion, +that their manner was one "in which the slowest intellect was +always sure to succeed best." But before his authority can be +so claimed, we must observe exactly the meaning of the assertion +itself, and separate it from the company of some others not perhaps +so admissible. First, I say, we must observe Reynolds's +exact meaning, for (though the assertion may at first appear +singular) a man who uses accurate language is always more +liable to misinterpretation than one who is careless in his expressions. +We may assume that the latter means very nearly +what we at first suppose him to mean, for words which have +been uttered without thought may be received without examination. +But when a writer or speaker may be fairly supposed +to have considered his expressions carefully, and, after having +revolved a number of terms in his mind, to have chosen the one +which <i>exactly</i> means the thing he intends to say, we may be +assured that what costs him time to select, will require from us +time to understand, and that we shall do him wrong, unless we +pause to reflect how the word which he has actually employed +differs from other words which it seems he <i>might</i> have employed. +It thus constantly happens that persons themselves unaccustomed +to think clearly, or speak correctly, misunderstand a +logical and careful writer, and are actually in more danger of +being misled by language which is measured and precise, than +by that which is loose and inaccurate.</p> + +<p>§ 6. Now, in the instance before us, a person not accustomed +to good writing might very rashly conclude, that when Reynolds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> +spoke of the Dutch School as one "in which the slowest intellect +was sure to succeed best," he meant to say that every successful +Dutch painter was a fool. We have no right to take his +assertion in that sense. He says, the <i>slowest</i> intellect. We have +no right to assume that he meant the <i>weakest</i>. For it is true, +that in order to succeed in the Dutch style, a man has need of +qualities of mind eminently deliberate and sustained. He must +be possessed of patience rather than of power; and must feel no +weariness in contemplating the expression of a single thought +for several months together. As opposed to the changeful energies +of the imagination, these mental characters may be properly +spoken of as under the general term—slowness of intellect. But +it by no means follows that they are necessarily those of weak +or foolish men.</p> + +<p>We observe however, farther, that the imitation which Reynolds +supposes to be characteristic of the Dutch School is that +which gives to objects such relief that they seem real, and that +he then speaks of this art of realistic imitation as corresponding +to <i>history</i> in literature.</p> + +<p>§ 7. Reynolds, therefore, seems to class these dull works of +the Dutch School under a general head, to which they are not +commonly referred—that of <i>Historical</i> painting; while he +speaks of the works of the Italian School not as historical, but +as <i>poetical</i> painting. His next sentence will farther manifest +his meaning.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great and general ideas +which are fixed and inherent in universal nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, +to literal truth and minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of nature +modified by accident. The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very +cause of this naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, +if we suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly of a lower order, which ought +to give place to a beauty of a superior kind, since one cannot be obtained +but by departing from the other.</p> + +<p>"If my opinion was asked concerning the works of Michael Angelo, +whether they would receive any advantage from possessing this mechanical +merit, I should not scruple to say, they would not only receive no advantage, +but would lose, in a great measure, the effect which they now have on +every mind susceptible of great and noble ideas. His works may be said to be +all genius and soul; and why should they be loaded with heavy matter, +which can only counteract his purpose by retarding the progress of the +imagination?"</p></blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> + +<p>Examining carefully this and the preceding passage, we find +the author's unmistakable meaning to be, that Dutch painting +is <i>history</i>; attending to literal truth and "minute exactness in +the details of nature modified by accident." That Italian painting +is <i>poetry</i>, attending only to the invariable; and that works +which attend only to the invariable are full of genius and soul; +but that literal truth and exact detail are "heavy matter which +retards the progress of the imagination."</p> + +<p>§ 8. This being then indisputably what Reynolds means to +tell us, let us think a little whether he is in all respects right. +And first, as he compares his two kinds of painting to history +and poetry, let us see how poetry and history themselves differ, +in their use of <i>variable</i> and <i>invariable</i> details. I am writing at +a window which commands a view of the head of the Lake of +Geneva; and as I look up from my paper, to consider this point, +I see, beyond it, a blue breadth of softly moving water, and +the outline of the mountains above Chillon, bathed in morning +mist. The first verses which naturally come into my mind +are—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"A thousand feet in depth below</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The massy waters meet and flow;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">So far the fathom line was sent</span><br /> +<span class="i0">From Chillon's snow-white battlement."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Let us see in what manner this poetical statement is distinguished +from a historical one.</p> + +<p>It is distinguished from a truly historical statement, first, in +being simply false. The water under the castle of Chillon is +not a thousand feet deep, nor anything like it.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +Herein, certainly, +these lines fulfil Reynolds's first requirement in poetry, +"that it should be inattentive to literal truth and minute exactness +in detail." In order, however, to make our comparison +more closely in other points, let us assume that what is stated is +indeed a fact, and that it was to be recorded, first historically, +and then poetically.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> + +<p>Historically stating it, then, we should say: "The lake was +sounded from the walls of the castle of Chillon, and found to be +a thousand feet deep."</p> + +<p>Now, if Reynolds be right in his idea of the difference between +history and poetry, we shall find that Byron leaves out of +this statement certain <i>un</i>necessary details, and retains only the +invariable,—that is to say, the points which the Lake of Geneva +and castle of Chillon have in common with all other lakes and +castles.</p> + +<p>Let us hear, therefore.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"A thousand feet in depth below."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>"Below?" Here is, at all events, a word added (instead of +anything being taken away); invariable, certainly in the case of +lakes, but not absolutely necessary.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The massy waters meet and flow."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>"Massy!" why massy? Because deep water is heavy. The +word is a good word, but it is assuredly an added detail, and +expresses a character, not which the Lake of Geneva has in +common with all other lakes, but which it has in distinction +from those which are narrow or shallow.</p> + +<p>§ 9. "Meet and flow." Why meet and flow? Partly to +make up a rhyme; partly to tell us that the waters are forceful +as well as massy, and changeful as well as deep. Observe, a +farther addition of details, and of details more or less peculiar +to the spot, or, according to Reynolds's definition, of "heavy +matter, retarding the progress of the imagination."</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"So far the fathom line was sent."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Why fathom line? All lines for sounding are not fathom +lines. If the lake was ever sounded from Chillon, it was probably +sounded in metres, not fathoms. This is an addition of +another particular detail, in which the only compliance with +Reynolds's requirement is, that there is some chance of its being +an inaccurate one.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"From Chillon's snow-white battlement."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Why snow-white? Because castle battlements are not usually +snow-white. This is another added detail, and a detail<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> +quite peculiar to Chillon, and therefore exactly the most striking +word in the whole passage.</p> + +<p>"Battlement!" why battlement? Because all walls have +not battlements, and the addition of the term marks the castle +to be not merely a prison, but a fortress.</p> + +<p>This is a curious result. Instead of finding, as we expected, +the poetry distinguished from the history by the omission of +details, we find it consist entirely in the <i>addition</i> of details; +and instead of being characterized by regard only of the invariable, +we find its whole power to consist in the clear expression +of what is singular and particular!</p> + +<p>§ 10. The reader may pursue the investigation for himself in +other instances. He will find in every case that a poetical is +distinguished from a merely historical statement, not by being +more vague, but more specific, and it might, therefore, at first +appear that our author's comparison should be simply reversed, +and that the Dutch School should be called poetical, and the +Italian historical. But the term poetical does not appear very +applicable to the generality of Dutch painting; and a little +reflection will show us, that if the Italians represent only the +invariable, they cannot be properly compared even to historians. +For that which is incapable of change has no history, and +records which state only the invariable need not be written, and +could not be read.</p> + +<p>§ 11. It is evident, therefore, that our author has entangled +himself in some grave fallacy, by introducing this idea of invariableness +as forming a distinction between poetical and historical +art. What the fallacy is, we shall discover as we proceed; +but as an invading army should not leave an untaken +fortress in its rear, we must not go on with our inquiry into the +views of Reynolds until we have settled satisfactorily the question +already suggested to us, in what the essence of poetical +treatment really consists. For though, as we have seen, it certainly +involves the addition of specific details, it cannot be simply +that addition which turns the history into poetry. For it is +perfectly possible to add any number of details to a historical +statement, and to make it more prosaic with every added word. +As, for instance, "The lake was sounded out of a flat-bottomed +boat, near the crab tree at the corner of the kitchen-garden,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> +and was found to be a thousand feet nine inches deep, with a +muddy bottom." It thus appears that it is not the multiplication +of details which constitutes poetry; nor their subtraction +which constitutes history; but that there must be something +either in the nature of the details themselves, or the method of +using them, which invests them with poetical power or historical +propriety.</p> + +<p>§ 12. It seems to me, and may seem to the reader, strange +that we should need to ask the question, "What is poetry?" +Here is a word we have been using all our lives, and, I suppose, +with a very distinct idea attached to it; and when I am now +called upon to give a definition of this idea, I find myself at a +pause. What is more singular, I do not at present recollect +hearing the question often asked, though surely it is a very +natural one; and I never recollect hearing it answered, or even +attempted to be answered. In general, people shelter themselves +under metaphors, and while we hear poetry described as +an utterance of the soul, an effusion of Divinity, or voice of +nature, or in other terms equally elevated and obscure, we never +attain anything like a definite explanation of the character +which actually distinguishes it from prose.</p> + +<p>§ 13. I come, after some embarrassment, to the conclusion, +that poetry is "the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble +grounds for the noble emotions." I mean, by the noble emotions, +those four principal sacred passions—Love, Veneration, +Admiration, and Joy (this latter especially, if unselfish); and +their opposites—Hatred, Indignation (or Scorn), Horror, and +Grief,—this last, when unselfish, becoming Compassion. These +passions in their various combinations constitute what is called +"poetical feeling," when they are felt on noble grounds, that +is, on great and true grounds. Indignation, for instance, is a +poetical feeling, if excited by serious injury; but it is not a +poetical feeling if entertained on being cheated out of a small +sum of money. It is very possible the manner of the cheat may +have been such as to justify considerable indignation; but the +feeling is nevertheless not poetical unless the grounds of it be +large as well as just. In like manner, energetic admiration +may be excited in certain minds by a display of fireworks, or a +street of handsome shops; but the feeling is not poetical, be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>cause +the grounds of it are false, and therefore ignoble. There +is in reality nothing to deserve admiration either in the firing of +packets of gunpowder, or in the display of the stocks of ware-houses. +But admiration excited by the budding of a flower is a +poetical feeling, because it is impossible that this manifestation +of spiritual power and vital beauty can ever be enough admired.</p> + +<p>§ 14. Farther, it is necessary to the existence of poetry that +the grounds of these feelings should be <i>furnished by the imagination</i>. +Poetical feeling, that is to say, mere noble emotion, is +not poetry. It is happily inherent in all human nature deserving +the name, and is found often to be purest in the least sophisticated. +But the power of assembling, by the <i>help of the imagination</i>, +such images as will excite these feelings, is the power of +the poet or literally of the "Maker."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> +<p>Now this power of exciting the emotions depends of course +on the richness of the imagination, and on its choice of those +images which, in combination, will be most effective, or, for the +particular work to be done, most fit. And it is altogether impossible +for a writer not endowed with invention to conceive +what tools a true poet will make use of, or in what way he will +apply them, or what unexpected results he will bring out by +them; so that it is vain to say that the details of poetry ought +to possess, or ever do possess, any <i>definite</i> character. Generally +speaking, poetry runs into finer and more delicate details than +prose; but the details are not poetical because they are more +delicate, but because they are employed so as to bring out an +affecting result. For instance, no one but a true poet would +have thought of exciting our pity for a bereaved father by describing +his way of locking the door of his house:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Perhaps to himself, at that moment he said,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But of this in my ears not a word did he speak,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>In like manner, in painting, it is altogether impossible to say +beforehand what details a great painter may make poetical by +his use of them to excite noble emotions: and we shall, therefore, +find presently that a painting is to be classed in the great +or inferior schools, not according to the kind of details which it +represents, but according to the uses for which it employs them.</p> + +<p>§ 15. It is only farther to be noticed, that infinite confusion +has been introduced into this subject by the careless and illogical +custom of opposing painting to poetry, instead of regarding +poetry as consisting in a noble use, whether of colors or words. +Painting is properly to be opposed to <i>speaking</i> or <i>writing</i>, but +not to <i>poetry</i>. Both painting and speaking are methods of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span> +expression. Poetry is the employment of either for the noblest +purposes.</p> + +<p>§ 16. This question being thus far determined, we may proceed +with our paper in the Idler.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"It is very difficult to determine the exact degree of enthusiasm that the +arts of painting and poetry may admit. There may, perhaps, be too great +indulgence as well as too great a restraint of imagination; if the one produces +incoherent monsters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless +insipidity. An intimate knowledge of the passions, and good sense, but not +common sense, must at last determine its limits. It has been thought, +and I believe with reason, that Michael Angelo sometimes transgressed +those limits; and, I think, I have seen figures of him of which it was very +difficult to determine whether they were in the highest degree sublime or +extremely ridiculous. Such faults may be said to be the ebullitions of +genius; but at least he had this merit, that he never was insipid, and +whatever passion his works may excite, they will always escape contempt.</p> + +<p>"What I have had under consideration is the sublimest style, particularly +that of Michael Angelo, the Homer of painting. Other kinds may admit +of this naturalness, which of the lowest kind is the chief merit; but in +painting, as in poetry, the highest style has the least of common nature."</p></blockquote> + +<p>From this passage we gather three important indications of +the supposed nature of the Great Style. That it is the work of +men in a state of enthusiasm. That it is like the writing of +Homer; and that it has as little as possible of "common +nature" in it.</p> + +<p>§ 17. First, it is produced by men in a state of enthusiasm. +That is, by men who feel <i>strongly</i> and <i>nobly</i>; for we do not call +a strong feeling of envy, jealousy, or ambition, enthusiasm. +That is, therefore, by men who feel poetically. This much we +may admit, I think, with perfect safety. Great art is produced +by men who feel acutely and nobly; and it is in some sort an +expression of this personal feeling. We can easily conceive that +there may be a sufficiently marked distinction between such art, +and that which is produced by men who do not feel at all, but +who reproduce, though ever so accurately, yet coldly, like human +mirrors, the scenes which pass before their eyes.</p> + +<p>§ 18. Secondly, Great Art is like the writing of Homer, and +this chiefly because it has little of "common nature" in it. We +are not clearly informed what is meant by common nature in +this passage. Homer seems to describe a great deal of what is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> +common;—cookery, for instance, very carefully in all its processes. +I suppose the passage in the Iliad which, on the whole, +has excited most admiration, is that which describes a wife's +sorrow at parting from her husband, and a child's fright at its +father's helmet; and I hope, at least, the former feeling may +be considered "common nature." But the true greatness of +Homer's style is, doubtless, held by our author to consist in his +imaginations of things not only uncommon but impossible (such +as spirits in brazen armor, or monsters with heads of men and +bodies of beasts), and in his occasional delineations of the human +character and form in their utmost, or heroic, strength and beauty. +We gather then on the whole, that a painter in the Great Style +must be enthusiastic, or full of emotion, and must paint the +human form in its utmost strength and beauty, and perhaps +certain impossible forms besides, liable by persons not in an +equally enthusiastic state of mind to be looked upon as in some +degree absurd. This I presume to be Reynolds's meaning, and +to be all that he intends us to gather from his comparison of +the Great Style with the writings of Homer. But if that comparison +be a just one in all respects, surely two other corollaries +ought to be drawn from it, namely,—first, that these Heroic or +Impossible images are to be mingled with others very unheroic +and very possible; and, secondly, that in the representation of +the Heroic or Impossible forms, the greatest care must be taken +in <i>finishing the details</i>, so that a painter must not be satisfied +with painting well the countenance and the body of his hero, +but ought to spend the greatest part of his time (as Homer the +greatest number of verses) in elaborating the sculptured pattern +on his shield.</p> + +<p>§ 19. Let us, however, proceed with our paper.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"One may very safely recommend a little more enthusiasm to the modern +painters; too much is certainly not the vice of the present age. The Italians +seem to have been continually declining in this respect, from the time +of Michael Angelo to that of Carlo Maratti, and from thence to the very +bathos of insipidity to which they are now sunk, so that there is no need of +remarking, that where I mentioned the Italian painters in opposition to the +Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the heads of the old Roman and Bolognian +schools; nor did I mean to include, in my idea of an Italian painter, +the Venetian school, <i>which may be said to be the Dutch part of the Italian +genius</i>. I have only to add a word of advice to the painters, that, however<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> +excellent they may be in painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves +very much upon it; and to the connoisseurs, that when they see a +cat or a fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, it looks as if you could +take it up, they would not for that reason immediately compare the painter +to Raffaelle and Michael Angelo."</p></blockquote> + +<p>In this passage there are four points chiefly to be remarked. +The first, that in the year 1759, the Italian painters were, in +our author's opinion, sunk in the very bathos of insipidity. The +second, that the Venetian painters, i.e. Titian, Tintoret, and +Veronese, are, in our author's opinion, to be classed with the +Dutch; that is to say, are painters in a style "in which the +slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best." Thirdly, that +painting naturally is not a difficult thing, nor one on which a +painter should pride himself. And, finally, that connoisseurs, +seeing a cat or a fiddle successfully painted, ought not therefore +immediately to compare the painter to Raphael or Michael +Angelo.</p> + +<p>Yet Raphael painted fiddles very carefully in the foreground +of his St. Cecilia,—so carefully, that they quite look as if they +might be taken up. So carefully, that I never yet looked at the +picture without wishing that somebody <i>would</i> take them up, and +out of the way. And I am under a very strong persuasion that +Raphael did not think painting "naturally" an easy thing. It +will be well to examine into this point a little; and for the +present, with the reader's permission, we will pass over the first +two statements in this passage (touching the character of Italian +art in 1759, and of Venetian art in general), and immediately +examine some of the evidence existing as to the real dignity of +"natural" painting—that is to say, of painting carried to the +point at which it reaches a deceptive appearance of reality.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> I have put this sentence in a parenthesis, because it is inconsistent with +the rest of the statement, and with the general teaching of the paper; since +that which "attends only to the invariable" cannot certainly adopt "every +ornament that will warm the imagination."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "MM. Mallet et Pictet, se trouvant sur le lac auprès du château de Chillon, +le 6 Août, 1774, plongèrent à la profondeur de 312 pieds de un thermomètre," +&c.—<span class="smcap">Saussure</span>, <i>Voyages dans les Alpes</i>, chap. ii. § 33. It appears +from the next paragraph, that the thermometer was "au fond du lac."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Take, for instance, the beautiful stanza in the "Affliction of Margaret:"</p> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"I look for ghosts, but none will force</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Their way to me. 'Tis falsely said</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That ever there was intercourse</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Between the living and the dead;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For, surely then, I should have sight</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of him I wait for, day and night,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With love and longing infinite."</span><br /> +</div> + + +<p>This we call Poetry, because it is invented <i>or made</i> by the writer, entering +into the mind of a supposed person. Next, take an instance of the +actual feeling truly experienced and simply expressed by a real person. +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing surprised me more than a woman of Argentière, whose cottage +I went into to ask for milk, as I came down from the glacier of Argentière, +in the month of March, 1764. An epidemic dysentery had prevailed in the +village, and, a few months before, had taken away from her, her father, her +husband, and her brothers, so that she was left alone, with three children in +the cradle. Her face had something noble in it, and its expression bore the +seal of a calm and profound sorrow. After having given me milk, she asked +me whence I came, and what I came there to do, so early in the year. +When she knew that I was of Geneva, she said to me, 'she could not +believe that all Protestants were lost souls; that there were many honest +people among us, and that God was too good and too great to condemn all +without distinction.' Then, after a moment of reflection, she added, in +shaking her head, 'But, that which is very strange, is that of so many who +have gone away, none have ever returned. I,' she added, with an expression +of grief, 'who have so mourned my husband and my brothers, who +have never ceased to think of them, who every night conjure them with +beseechings to tell me where they are, and in what state they are! Ah, +surely, if they lived anywhere, they would not leave me thus! But, perhaps,' +she added, 'I am not worthy of this kindness, perhaps the pure and +innocent spirits of these children,' and she looked at the cradle, 'may have +their presence, and the joy which is denied to <i>me</i>.'"—<span class="smcap">Saussure</span>, <i>Voyages +dans les Alpes</i>, chap. xxiv.</p> + + +<p>This we do not call Poetry, merely because it is not invented, but the +true utterance of a real person.</p></div> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>OF REALIZATION.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. In the outset of this inquiry, the reader must thoroughly +understand that we are not now considering <i>what</i> is to be +painted, but <i>how far</i> it is to be painted. Not whether Raphael +does right in representing angels playing upon violins, or +whether Veronese does right in allowing cats and monkeys to +join the company of kings: but whether, supposing the subjects +rightly chosen, they ought on the canvas to look like real +angels with real violins, and substantial cats looking at veritable +kings; or only like imaginary angels with soundless violins, +ideal cats, and unsubstantial kings.</p> + +<p>Now, from the first moment when painting began to be a +subject of literary inquiry and general criticism, I cannot remember +any writer, not professedly artistical, who has not, +more or less, in one part of his book or another, countenanced +the idea that the great end of art is to produce a deceptive +resemblance of reality. It may be, indeed, that we shall find +the writers, through many pages, explaining principles of ideal +beauty, and professing great delight in the evidences of imagination. +But whenever a picture is to be definitely described,—whenever +the writer desires to convey to others some impression +of an extraordinary excellence, all praise is wound up with some +such statements as these: "It was so exquisitely painted that +you expected the figures to move and speak; you approached the +flowers to enjoy their smell, and stretched your hand towards +the fruit which had fallen from the branches. You shrunk +back lest the sword of the warrior should indeed descend, and +turned away your head that you might not witness the agonies +of the expiring martyr!"</p> + +<p>§ 2. In a large number of instances, language such as this +will be found to be merely a clumsy effort to convey to others a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> +sense of the admiration, of which the writer does not understand +the real cause in himself. A person is attracted to a +picture by the beauty of its color, interested by the liveliness +of its story, and touched by certain countenances or details +which remind him of friends whom he loved, for scenes in +which he delighted. He naturally supposes that what gives him +so much pleasure must be a notable example of the painter's +skill; but he is ashamed to confess, or perhaps does not know, +that he is so much a child as to be fond of bright colors and +amusing incidents; and he is quite unconscious of the associations +which have so secret and inevitable a power over his heart. +He casts about for the cause of his delight, and can discover no +other than that he thought the picture like reality.</p> + +<p>§ 3. In another, perhaps a still larger number of cases, such +language will be found to be that of simple ignorance—the +ignorance of persons whose position in life compels them to +speak of art, without having any real enjoyment of it. It is +inexcusably required from people of the world, that they should +see merit in Claudes and Titians; and the only merit which +many persons can either see or conceive in them is, that they +must be "like nature."</p> + +<p>§ 4. In other cases, the deceptive power of the art is really +felt to be a source of interest and amusement. This is the case +with a large number of the collectors of Dutch pictures. They +enjoy seeing what is flat made to look round, exactly as a child +enjoys a trick of legerdemain; they rejoice in flies which the +spectator vainly attempts to brush away, and in dew which he +endeavors to dry by putting the picture in the sun. They take +it for the greatest compliment to their treasures that they +should be mistaken for windows; and think the parting of +Abraham and Hagar adequately represented, if Hagar seems to +be really crying.</p> + +<p>It is against critics and connoisseurs of this latter stamp +(of whom, in the year 1759, the juries of art were for the most +part composed) that the essay of Reynolds, which we have been +examining, was justly directed. But Reynolds had not sufficiently +considered that neither the men of this class, nor of the +two other classes above described, constitute the entire body of +those who praise Art for its realization; and that the holding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> +of this apparently shallow and vulgar opinion cannot, in all +cases, be attributed to the want either of penetration, sincerity, +or sense. The collectors of Gerard Dows and Hobbimas may be +passed by with a smile; and the affectations of Walpole and +simplicities of Vasari dismissed with contempt or with compassion. +But very different men from these have held precisely +the same language; and, one amongst the rest, whose authority +is absolutely, and in all points, overwhelming.</p> + +<p>§ 5. There was probably never a period in which the influence +of art over the minds of men seemed to depend less on +its merely <i>imitative</i> power, than the close of the thirteenth century. +No painting or sculpture at that time reached more than +a rude resemblance of reality. Its despised perspective, imperfect +chiaroscuro, and unrestrained flights of fantastic imagination, +separated the artist's work from nature by an interval +which there was no attempt to disguise, and little to diminish. +And yet, at this very period, the greatest poet of that, or perhaps +of any other age, and the attached friend of its greatest +painter, who must over and over again have held full and free +conversation with him respecting the objects of his art, speaks +in the following terms of painting, supposed to be carried to +its highest perfection:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Qual di pennel fu maestro, e di stile</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Che ritraesse l' ombre, e i tratti, ch' ivi</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Mirar farieno uno ingegno sottile.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Morti li morti, e i vivi parean vivi:</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Non vide me' di me, chi vide il vero,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Quant' io calcai, fin che chinato givi."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Dante</span>, <i>Purgatorio</i>, canto xii. 1. 64</span><br /> +</div> +<br /> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'What master of the pencil, or the style,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Had traced the shades and lines that might have made</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The subtlest workman wonder? <i>Dead, the dead,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>The living seemed alive; with clearer view</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>His eye beheld not, who beheld the truth.</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Than mine what I did tread on, while I went,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Low bending.'</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Carey.</span></span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Dante has here clearly no other idea of the highest art than +that it should bring back, as in a mirror or vision, the aspect of +things passed or absent. The scenes of which he speaks are, on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> +the pavement, for ever represented by angelic power, so that the +souls which traverse this circle of the rock may see them, as if +the years of the world had been rolled back, and they again stood +beside the actors in the moment of action. Nor do I think that +Dante's authority is absolutely necessary to compel us to admit +that such art as this <i>might</i> indeed be the highest possible. +Whatever delight we may have been in the habit of taking in +pictures, if it were but truly offered to us, to remove at our will +the canvas from the frame, and in lieu of it to behold, fixed for +ever, the image of some of those mighty scenes which it has +been our way to make mere themes for the artist's fancy; if, +for instance, we could again behold the Magdalene receiving +her pardon at Christ's feet, or the disciples sitting with Him at +the table of Emmaus; and this not feebly nor fancifully, but as +if some silver mirror, that had leaned against the wall of the +chamber, had been miraculously commanded to retain for ever +the colors that had flashed upon it for an instant,—would we +not part with our picture—Titian's or Veronese's though it +might be?</p> + +<p>§ 6. Yes, the reader answers, in the instance of such scenes +as these, but not if the scene represented were uninteresting. +Not, indeed, if it were utterly vulgar or painful; but we are not +yet certain that the art which represents what is vulgar or painful +is itself of much value; and with respect to the art whose +aim is beauty, even of an inferior order, it seems that Dante's +idea of its perfection has still much evidence in its favor. For +among persons of native good sense, and courage enough to +speak their minds, we shall often find a considerable degree of +doubt as to the use of art, in consequence of their habitual comparison +of it with reality. "What is the use, to me, of the +painted landscape?" they will ask: "I see more beautiful and +perfect landscapes every day of my life in my forenoon walk." +"What is the use, to me, of the painted effigy of hero or beauty? +I can see a stamp of higher heroism, and light of purer beauty, +on the faces around me, utterly inexpressible by the highest +human skill." Now, it is evident that to persons of this temper +the only valuable pictures would indeed be <i>mirrors</i>, reflecting +permanently the images of the things in which they took delight, +and of the faces that they loved. "Nay," but the reader<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> +interrupts, (if he is of the Idealist school) "I deny that more +beautiful things are to be seen in nature than in art; on the +contrary, everything in nature is faulty, and art represents +nature as perfected." Be it so. Must, therefore, this perfected +nature be imperfectly represented? Is it absolutely required +of the painter, who has conceived perfection, that he +should so paint it as to look only like a picture? Or is not +Dante's view of the matter right even here, and would it not be +well that the perfect conception of Pallas should be so given as +to look like Pallas herself, rather than merely like the picture +of Pallas?</p> + +<p>§ 7. It is not easy for us to answer this question rightly, +owing to the difficulty of imagining any art which should reach +the perfection supposed. Our actual powers of imitation are so +feeble that wherever deception is attempted, a subject of a comparatively +low or confined order must be chosen. I do not enter +at present into the inquiry how far the powers of imitation extend; +but assuredly up to the present period they have been so +limited that it is hardly possible for us to conceive a deceptive +art embracing a high range of subject. But let the reader make +the effort, and consider seriously what he would give at any +moment to have the power of arresting the fairest scenes, those +which so often rise before him only to vanish; to stay the cloud +in its fading, the leaf in its trembling, and the shadows in their +changing; to bid the fitful foam be fixed upon the river, and +the ripples be everlasting upon the lake; and then to bear away +with him no darkened or feeble sun-stain (though even that is +beautiful), but a counterfeit which should seem no counterfeit +—the true and perfect image of life indeed. Or rather (for the +full majesty of such a power is not thus sufficiently expressed) +let him consider that it would be in effect nothing else than a +capacity of transporting himself at any moment into any scene +—a gift as great as can be possessed by a disembodied spirit': +and suppose, also, this necromancy embracing not only the +present but the past, and enabling us seemingly to enter into +the very bodily presence of men long since gathered to the dust; +to behold them in act as they lived, but—with greater privilege +than ever was granted to the companions of those transient acts +of life,—to see them fastened at our will in the gesture and ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>pression +of an instant, and stayed, on the eve of some great +deed, in immortality of burning purpose. Conceive, so far as +it is possible, such power as this, and then say whether the art +which conferred it is to be spoken lightly of, or whether we +should not rather reverence, as half divine, a gift which would +go so far as to raise us into the rank, and invest us with the +felicities, of angels?</p> + +<p>Yet such would imitative art be in its perfection. Not by +any means an easy thing, as Reynolds supposes it. Far from +being easy, it is so utterly beyond all human power that we have +difficulty even in conceiving its nature or results—the best art +we as yet possess comes so far short of it.</p> + +<p>§ 8. But we must not rashly come to the conclusion that +such art would, indeed, be the highest possible. There is much +to be considered hereafter on the other side; the only conclusion +we are as yet warranted in forming is, that Reynolds had +no right to speak lightly or contemptuously of imitative art; +that in fact, when he did so, he had not conceived its entire +nature, but was thinking of some vulgar conditions of it, which +were the only ones known to him, and that, therefore, his whole +endeavor to explain the difference between great and mean +art has been disappointed; that he has involved himself in a +crowd of theories, whose issue he had not foreseen, and committed +himself to conclusions which he never intended. There +is an instinctive consciousness in his own mind of the difference +between high and low art; but he is utterly incapable of explaining +it, and every effort which he makes to do so involves +him in unexpected fallacy and absurdity. It is <i>not</i> true that +Poetry does not concern herself with minute details. It is <i>not</i> +true that high art seeks only the Invariable. It is <i>not</i> true that +imitative art is an easy thing. It is <i>not</i> true that the faithful +rendering of nature is an employment in which "the slowest +intellect is likely to succeed best." All these successive assertions +are utterly false and untenable, while the plain truth, a +truth lying at the very door, has all the while escaped him,—that +which was incidentally stated in the preceding chapter,—namely, +that the difference between great and mean art lies, not +in definable methods of handling, or styles of representation, or +choices of subjects, but wholly in the nobleness of the end to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> +which the effort of the painter is addressed. We cannot say +that a painter is great because he paints boldly, or paints delicately; +because he generalizes or particularizes; because he +loves detail, or because he disdains it. He is great if, by any of +these means, he has laid open noble truths, or aroused noble +emotions. It does not matter whether he paint the petal of a +rose, or the chasms of a precipice, so that Love and Admiration +attend him as he labors, and wait for ever upon his work. It +does not matter whether he toil for months upon a few inches +of his canvas, or cover a palace front with color in a day, so +only that it be with a solemn purpose that he has filled his heart +with patience, or urged his hand to haste. And it does not +matter whether he seek for his subjects among peasants or +nobles, among the heroic or the simple, in courts or in fields, +so only that he behold all things with a thirst for beauty, and +a hatred of meanness and vice. There are, indeed, certain +methods of representation which are usually adopted by the +most active minds, and certain characters of subject usually +delighted in by the noblest hearts; but it is quite possible, quite +easy, to adopt the manner of painting without sharing the +activity of mind, and to imitate the choice of subject without +possessing the nobility of spirit; while, on the other hand, it is +altogether impossible to foretell on what strange objects the +strength of a great man will sometimes be concentrated, or by +what strange means he will sometimes express himself. So that +true criticism of art never can consist in the mere application of +rules; it can be just only when it is founded on quick sympathy +with the innumerable instincts and changeful efforts of human +nature, chastened and guided by unchanging love of all things +that God has created to be beautiful, and pronounced to be +good.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE REAL NATURE OF GREATNESS OF STYLE.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. I doubt not that the reader was ill-satisfied with the +conclusion arrived at in the last chapter. That "great art" is +art which represents what is beautiful and good, may not seem +a very profound discovery; and the main question may be +thought to have been all the time lost sight of, namely, "What +is beautiful, and what is good?" No; those are not the main, +at least not the first questions; on the contrary, our subject +becomes at once opened and simplified as soon as we have left +those the <i>only</i> questions. For observe, our present task, according +to our old plan, is merely to investigate the relative degrees +of the <i>beautiful</i> in the art of different masters; and it is an +encouragement to be convinced, first of all, that what is lovely +will also be great, and what is pleasing, noble. Nor is the conclusion +so much a matter of course as it at first appears, for, +surprising as the statement may seem, all the confusion into +which Reynolds has plunged both himself and his readers, in +the essay we have been examining, results primarily from a +doubt in his own mind <i>as to the existence of beauty at all</i>. In +the next paper I alluded to, No. 82 (which needs not, however, +to be examined at so great length), he calmly attributes the +whole influence of beauty to custom, saying, that "he has no +doubt, if we were more used to deformity than to beauty, deformity +would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take +that of beauty; as if the whole world shall agree that Yes and +No should change their meanings. Yes would then deny, and +No would affirm!"</p> + +<p>§ 2. The world does, indeed, succeed—oftener than is, perhaps, +altogether well for the world—in making Yes mean No, +and No mean Yes.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> +But the world has never succeeded, nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> +ever will, in making itself delight in black clouds more than in +blue sky, or love the dark earth better than the rose that grows +from it. Happily for mankind, beauty and ugliness are as positive +in their nature as physical pain and pleasure, as light and +darkness, or as life and death; and, though they may be denied +or misunderstood in many fantastic ways, the most subtle reasoner +will at last find that color and sweetness are still attractive +to him, and that no logic will enable him to think the rainbow +sombre, or the violet scentless. But the theory that beauty +was merely a result of custom was very common in Johnson's +time. Goldsmith has, I think, expressed it with more force and +wit than any other writer, in various passages of the Citizen of +the World. And it was, indeed, a curious retribution of the +folly of the world of art, which for some three centuries had +given itself recklessly to the pursuit of beauty, that at last it +should be led to deny the very existence of what it had so morbidly +and passionately sought. It was as if a child should leave +its home to pursue the rainbow, and then, breathless and hopeless, +declare that it did not exist. Nor is the lesson less useful +which may be gained in observing the adoption of such a theory +by Reynolds himself. It shows how completely an artist may +be unconscious of the principles of his own work, and how he +may be led by instinct to <i>do</i> all that is right, while he is misled +by false logic to <i>say</i> all that is wrong. For nearly every word +that Reynolds wrote was contrary to his own practice; he seems +to have been born to teach all error by his precept, and all excellence +by his example; he enforced with his lips generalization +and idealism, while with his pencil he was tracing the patterns +of the dresses of the belles of his day; he exhorted his +pupils to attend only to the invariable, while he himself was +occupied in distinguishing every variation of womanly temper; +and he denied the existence of the beautiful, at the same instant +that he arrested it as it passed, and perpetuated it for ever.</p> + +<p>§ 3. But we must not quit the subject here. However inconsistently +or dimly expressed, there is, indeed, some truth in +that commonly accepted distinction between high and low art. +That a thing should be beautiful is not enough; there is, as we +said in the outset, a higher and lower range of beauty, and some +ground for separating into various and unequal ranks painters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> +who have, nevertheless, each in his several way, represented +something that was beautiful or good.</p> + +<p>Nor, if we would, can we get rid of this conviction. We +have at all times some instinctive sense that the function of one +painter is greater than that of another, even supposing each +equally successful in his own way; and we feel that, if it were +possible to conquer prejudice, and do away with the iniquities +of personal feeling, and the insufficiencies of limited knowledge, +we should all agree in this estimate, and be able to place each +painter in his right rank, measuring them by a true scale of +nobleness. We feel that the men in the higher classes of the +scale would be, in the full sense of the word, Great—men whom +one would give much to see the faces of but for an instant; and +that those in the lower classes of the scale (though none were +admitted but who had true merit of some kind) would be very +small men, not greatly exciting either reverence or curiosity. +And with this fixed instinct in our minds, we permit our teachers +daily to exhort their pupils to the cultivation of "great art"—neither +they nor we having any very clear notion as to what +the greatness consists in: but sometimes inclining to think it +must depend on the space of the canvas, and that art on a scale +of 6 feet by 10 is something spiritually separated from that on a +scale of 3 feet by 5;—sometimes holding it to consist in painting +the nude body, rather than the body decently clothed;—sometimes +being convinced that it is connected with the study +of past history, and that the art is only great which represents +what the painter never saw, and about which he knows nothing;-and +sometimes being firmly persuaded that it consists in +generally finding fault with, and endeavoring to mend, whatsoever +the Divine Wisdom has made. All which various errors, +having yet some motes and atoms of truth in the make of each +of them, deserve some attentive analysis, for they come under +that general law,—that "the corruption of the best is the +worst." There are not <i>worse</i> errors going than these four; and +yet the truth they contain, and the instinct which urges many +to preach them, are at the root of all healthy growth in art. +We ruin one young painter after another by telling him to follow +great art, without knowing, ourselves, what greatness is; +and yet the feeling that it verily <i>is</i> something, and that there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> +are depths and breadths, shallows and narrows, in the matter, +is all that we have to look to, if we would ever make our art +serviceable to ourselves or others. To follow art for the sake of +being a great man, and therefore to cast about continually for +some means of achieving position or attracting admiration, is +the surest way of ending in total extinction. And yet it is only +by honest reverence for art itself, and by great self-respect in +the practice of it, that it can be rescued from dilettantism, +raised to approved honorableness, and brought to the proper +work it has to accomplish in the service of man.</p> + +<p>§ 4. Let us therefore look into the facts of the thing, not +with any metaphysical, or otherwise vain and troublesome effort +at acuteness, but in a plain way; for the facts themselves are +plain enough, and may be plainly stated, only the difficulty is +that out of these facts, right and left, the different forms of +misapprehension branch into grievous complexity, and branch +so far and wide, that if once we try to follow them, they will +lead us quite from our mark into other separate, though not +less interesting discussions. The best way will be, therefore, I +think, to sketch out at once in this chapter, the different characters +which really constitute "greatness" of style, and to indicate +the principal directions of the outbranching misapprehensions +of them; then, in the succeeding chapters, to take up in +succession those which need more talk about them, and follow +out at leisure whatever inquiries they may suggest.</p> + +<p>§ 5. I. <span class="smcap">Choice of Noble Subject</span>.—Greatness of style +consists, then: first, in the habitual choice of subjects of +thought which involve wide interests and profound passions, as +opposed to those which involve narrow interests and slight passions. +The style is greater or less in exact proportion to the +nobleness of the interests and passions involved in the subject. +The habitual choice of sacred subjects, such as the Nativity, +Transfiguration, Crucifixion (if the choice be sincere), implies +that the painter has a natural disposition to dwell on the highest +thoughts of which humanity is capable; it constitutes him +so far forth a painter of the highest order, as, for instance, +Leonardo, in his painting of the Last Supper: he who delights +in representing the acts or meditations of great men, as, for +instance, Raphael painting the School of Athens, is, so far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> +forth, a painter of the second order: he who represents the +passions and events of ordinary life, of the third. And in this +ordinary life, he who represents deep thoughts and sorrows, as, +for instance, Hunt, in his Claudio and Isabella, and such other +works, is of the highest rank in his sphere; and he who represents +the slight malignities and passions of the drawingroom, +as, for instance, Leslie, of the second rank: he who represents +the sports of boys or simplicities of clowns, as Webster or +Teniers, of the third rank; and he who represents brutalities +and vices (for delight in them, and not for rebuke of them), of +no rank at all, or rather of a negative rank, holding a certain +order in the abyss.</p> + +<p>§ 6. The reader will, I hope, understand how much importance +is to be attached to the sentence in the first parenthesis, +"if the choice be sincere;" for choice of subject is, of course, +only available as a criterion of the rank of the painter, when it +is made from the heart. Indeed, in the lower orders of painting, +the choice is always made from such heart as the painter +has; for his selection of the brawls of peasants or sports of +children can, of course, proceed only from the fact that he has +more sympathy with such brawls or pastimes than with nobler +subjects. But the choice of the higher kind of subjects is often +insincere; and may, therefore, afford no real criterion of the +painter's rank. The greater number of men who have lately +painted religious or heroic subjects have done so in mere ambition, +because they had been taught that it was a good thing +to be a "high art" painter; and the fact is that, in nine cases +out of ten, the so-called historical or "high-art" painter is a +person infinitely inferior to the painter of flowers or still life. +He is, in modern times, nearly always a man who has great +vanity without pictorial capacity, and differs from the landscape +or fruit painter merely in misunderstanding and over-estimating +his own powers. He mistakes his vanity for inspiration, his +ambition for greatness of soul, and takes pleasure in what he +calls "the ideal," merely because he has neither humility nor +capacity enough to comprehend the real.</p> + +<p>§ 7. But also observe, it is not enough even that the choice +be sincere. It must also be wise. It happens very often that a +man of weak intellect, sincerely desiring to do what is good and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> +useful, will devote himself to high art subjects because he thinks +them the only ones on which time and toil can be usefully +spent, or, sometimes, because they are really the only ones he +has pleasure in contemplating. But not having intellect enough +to enter into the minds of truly great men, or to imagine great +events as they really happened, he cannot become a great painter; +he degrades the subjects he intended to honor, and his +work is more utterly thrown away, and his rank as an artist in +reality lower, than if he had devoted himself to the imitation of +the simplest objects of natural history. The works of Overbeck +are a most notable instance of this form of error.</p> + +<p>§ 8. It must also be remembered, that in nearly all the great +periods of art the choice of subject has not been left to the +painter. His employer,—abbot, baron, or monarch,—determined +for him whether he should earn his bread by making +cloisters bright with choirs of saints, painting coats of arms on +leaves of romances, or decorating presence-chambers with complimentary +mythology; and his own personal feelings are ascertainable +only by watching, in the themes assigned to him, what +are the points in which he seems to take most pleasure. Thus, +in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects with which Benozzo +Gozzoli decorated the cloisters of Pisa, it is easy to see that love +of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape, and glittering +ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements of religious +feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age instilled into +him in such measure as to form a very lovely and noble mind, +though still one of the second order. In the work of Orcagna, +an intense solemnity and energy in the sublimest groups of his +figures, fading away as he touches inferior subjects, indicates +that his home was among the archangels, and his rank among +the first of the sons of men: while Correggio, in the sidelong +grace, artificial smiles, and purple languors of his saints, indicates +the inferior instinct which would have guided his choice +in quite other directions, had it not been for the fashion of the +age, and the need of the day.</p> + +<p>§ 9. It will follow, of course, from the above considerations, +that the choice which characterises the school of high art is seen +as much in the treatment of a subject as in its selection, and +that the expression of the thoughts of the persons represented<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> +will always be the first thing considered by the painter who +worthily enters that highest school. For the artist who sincerely +chooses the noblest subject will also choose chiefly to +represent what makes that subject noble, namely, the various +heroism or other noble emotions of the persons represented. If, +instead of this, the artist seeks only to make his picture agreeable +by the composition of its masses and colors, or by any other +merely pictorial merit, as fine drawing of limbs, it is evident, +not only that any other subject would have answered his purpose +as well, but that he is unfit to approach the subject he has +chosen, because he cannot enter into its deepest meaning, and +therefore cannot in reality have chosen it for that meaning. +Nevertheless, while the expression is always to be the first thing +considered, all other merits must be added to the utmost of the +painter's power: for until he can both color and draw beautifully +he has no business to consider himself a painter at all, far +less to attempt the noblest subjects of painting; and, when he +has once possessed himself of these powers, he will naturally and +fitly employ them to deepen and perfect the impression made by +the sentiment of his subject.</p> + +<p>The perfect unison of expression, as the painter's main purpose, +with the full and natural exertion of his pictorial power in +the details of the work, is found only in the old Pre-Raphaelite +periods, and in the modern Pre-Raphaelite school. In the +works of Giotto, Angelico, Orcagna, John Bellini, and one or +two more, these two conditions of high art are entirely fulfilled, +so far as the knowledge of those days enabled them to be fulfilled; +and in the modern Pre-Raphaelite school they are fulfilled +nearly to the uttermost. Hunt's Light of the World is, I believe, +the most perfect instance of expressional purpose with +technical power, which the world has yet produced.</p> + +<p>§ 10. Now in the Post Raphaelite period of ancient art, and in +the spurious high art of modern times, two broad forms of error +divide the schools; the one consisting in (A) the superseding of +expression by technical excellence, and the other in (B) the +superseding of technical excellence by expression.</p> + +<p>(A). Superseding expression by technical excellence.—This +takes place most frankly, and therefore most innocently, in the +work of the Venetians. They very nearly ignore expression al<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>together, +directing their aim exclusively to the rendering of +external truths of color and form. Paul Veronese will make +the Magdalene wash the feet of Christ with a countenance as +absolutely unmoved as that of any ordinary servant bringing a +ewer to her master, and will introduce the supper at Emmaus as +a background to the portraits of two children playing with a +dog. Of the wrongness or rightness of such a proceeding we +shall reason in another place; at present we have to note it +merely as displacing the Venetian work from the highest or +expressional rank of art. But the error is generally made in a +more subtle and dangerous way. The artist deceives himself +into the idea that he is doing all he can to elevate his subject by +treating it under rules of art, introducing into it accurate science, +and collecting for it the beauties of (so-called) ideal form; +whereas he may, in reality, be all the while sacrificing his subject +to his own vanity or pleasure, and losing truth, nobleness, +and impressiveness for the sake of delightful lines or creditable +pedantries.</p> + +<p>§ 11. (B). Superseding technical excellence by expression.—This +is usually done under the influence of another kind of +vanity. The artist desires that men should think he has an +elevated soul, affects to despise the ordinary excellence of art, +contemplates with separated egotism the course of his own +imaginations or sensations, and refuses to look at the real facts +round about him, in order that he may adore at leisure the +shadow of himself. He lives in an element of what he calls +tender emotions and lofty aspirations; which are, in fact, nothing +more than very ordinary weaknesses or instincts, contemplated +through a mist of pride. A large range of modern German +art comes under this head.</p> + +<p>A more interesting and respectable form of this error is +fallen into by some truly earnest men, who, finding their powers +not adequate to the attainment of great artistical excellence, but +adequate to rendering, up to a certain point, the expression of +the human countenance, devote themselves to that object alone, +abandoning effort in other directions, and executing the accessaries +of their pictures feebly or carelessly. With these are associated +another group of philosophical painters, who suppose the +artistical merits of other parts <i>adverse</i> to the expression, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> +drawing the spectator's attention away from it, and who paint +in grey color, and imperfect light and shade, by way of enforcing +the purity of their conceptions. Both these classes of conscientious +but narrow-minded artists labor under the same +grievous mistake of imagining that wilful fallacy can ever be +either pardonable or helpful. They forget that color, if used at +all, must be either true or false, and that what <i>they</i> call chastity, +dignity, and reserve, is, to the eye of any person accustomed to +nature, pure, bold, and impertinent falsehood. It does not, in +the eyes of any soundly minded man, exalt the expression of a +female face that the cheeks should be painted of the color of +clay, nor does it in the least enhance his reverence for a saint to +find the scenery around him deprived, by his presence, of sunshine. +It is an important consolation, however, to reflect that +no artist ever fell into any of these last three errors (under head +B.) who had really the capacity of becoming a great painter. +No man ever despised color who could produce it; and the error +of these sentimentalists and philosophers is not so much in the +choice of their manner of painting, as in supposing themselves +capable of painting at all. Some of them might have made +efficient sculptors, but the greater number had their mission in +some other sphere than that of art, and would have found, in +works of practical charity, better employment for their gentleness +and sentimentalism, than in denying to human beauty its +color, and to natural scenery its light; in depriving heaven of +its blue, and earth of its bloom, valor of its glow, and modesty +of its blush.</p> + +<p>§ 12. II. <span class="smcap">Love of Beauty</span>.—The second characteristic of +the great school of art is, that it introduces in the conception +of its subject as much beauty as is possible, consistently with +truth.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> +<p>For instance, in any subject consisting of a number of figures, +it will make as many of those figures beautiful as the faithful +representation of humanity will admit. It will not deny the +facts of ugliness or decrepitude, or relative inferiority and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> +superiority of feature as necessarily manifested in a crowd, but +it will, so far as it is in its power, seek for and dwell upon the +fairest forms, and in all things insist on the beauty that is in +them, not on the ugliness. In this respect, schools of art become +higher in exact proportion to the degree in which they +apprehend and love the beautiful. Thus, Angelico, intensely +loving all spiritual beauty, will be of the highest rank; and +Paul Veronese and Correggio, intensely loving physical and corporeal +beauty, of the second rank; and Albert Durer, Rubens, +and in general the Northern artists, apparently insensible to +beauty, and caring only for truth, whether shapely or not, of +the third rank; and Teniers and Salvator, Caravaggio, and +other such worshippers of the depraved, of no rank, or, as we +said before, of a certain order in the abyss.</p> + +<p>§ 13. The corruption of the schools of high art, so far as this +particular quality is concerned, consists in the sacrifice of truth +to beauty. Great art dwells on all that is beautiful; but false +art omits or changes all that is ugly. Great art accepts Nature +as she is, but directs the eyes and thoughts to what is most +perfect in her; false art saves itself the trouble of direction by +removing or altering whatever it thinks objectionable. The +evil results of which proceeding are twofold.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 14. Evil first,—that we lose the true <i>force</i> of beauty.</div> + +<p>First. That beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts +ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all +shadow ceases to be enjoyed as light. A white canvas cannot +produce an effect of sunshine; the painter must +darken it in some places before he can make it +look luminous in others; nor can an uninterrupted +succession of beauty produce the true effect of beauty; it +must be foiled by inferiority before its own power can be developed. +Nature has for the most part mingled her inferior and +nobler elements as she mingles sunshine with shade, giving due +use and influence to both, and the painter who chooses to +remove the shadow, perishes in the burning desert he has created. +The truly high and beautiful art of Angelico is continually +refreshed and strengthened by his frank portraiture of +the most ordinary features of his brother monks, and of the +recorded peculiarities of ungainly sanctity; but the modern +German and Raphaelesque schools lose all honor and nobleness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> +in barber-like admiration of handsome faces, and have, in fact, +no real faith except in straight noses and curled hair. Paul +Veronese opposes the dwarf to the soldier, and the negress to +the queen; Shakspere places Caliban beside Miranda, and Autolycus +beside Perdita; but the vulgar idealist withdraws his +beauty to the safety of the saloon, and his innocence to the +seclusion of the cloister; he pretends that he does this in delicacy +of choice and purity of sentiment, while in truth he has +neither courage to front the monster, nor wit enough to furnish +the knave.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 15. Evil second,—we lose the true <i>quantity</i> of beauty.</div> + +<p>It is only by the habit of representing faithfully all things, +that we can truly learn what is beautiful and what is not. The +ugliest objects contain some element of beauty; and in all, it is +an element peculiar to themselves, which cannot +be separated from their ugliness, but must either +be enjoyed together with it, or not at all. The +more a painter accepts nature as he finds it, the more unexpected +beauty he discovers in what he at first despised; but +once let him arrogate the right of rejection, and he will gradually +contract his circle of enjoyment, until what he supposed +to be nobleness of selection ends in narrowness of perception. +Dwelling perpetually upon one class of ideas, his art becomes at +once monstrous and morbid; until at last he cannot faithfully +represent even what he chooses to retain; his discrimination +contracts into darkness, and his fastidiousness fades into fatuity.</p> + +<p>High art, therefore, consists neither in altering, nor in improving +nature; but in seeking throughout nature for "whatsoever +things are lovely, and whatsoever things are pure;" in +loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power +such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of +others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis. Of the +degree in which this can be done, and in which it may be permitted +to gather together, without falsifying, the finest forms or +thoughts, so as to create a sort of perfect vision, we shall have +to speak hereafter: at present, it is enough to remember that +art (<i>cæteris paribus</i>) is great in exact proportion to the love of +beauty shown by the painter, provided that love of beauty forfeit +no atom of truth.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> + +<p>§ 16. III. <span class="smcap">Sincerity</span>.—The next<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +characteristic of great art +is that it includes the largest possible quantity of Truth in the +most perfect possible harmony. If it were possible for art to +give all the truths of nature, it ought to do it. But this is not +possible. Choice must always be made of some facts which <i>can</i> +be represented, from among others which must be passed by in +silence, or even, in some respects, misrepresented. The inferior +artist chooses unimportant and scattered truths; the great +artist chooses the most necessary first, and afterwards the most +consistent with these, so as to obtain the greatest possible and +most harmonious <i>sum</i>. For instance, Rembrandt always +chooses to represent the exact force with which the light on the +most illumined part of an object is opposed to its obscurer portions. +In order to obtain this, in most cases, not very important +truth, he sacrifices the light and color of five sixths of his +picture; and the expression of every character of objects which +depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But he obtains his +single truth, and what picturesque and forcible expression is +dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety. Veronese, +on the contrary, chooses to represent the great relations of +visible things to each other, to the heaven above, and to the +earth beneath them. He holds it more important to show how +a figure stands relieved from delicate air, or marble wall; how +as a red, or purple, or white figure, it separates itself, in clear +discernibility, from things not red, nor purple, nor white; how +infinite daylight shines round it; how innumerable veils of faint +shadow invest it; how its blackness and darkness are, in the +excess of their nature, just as limited and local as its intensity +of light: all this, I say, he feels to be more important than +showing merely the exact <i>measure</i> of the spark of sunshine that +gleams on a dagger-hilt, or glows on a jewel. All this, moreover, +he feels to be harmonious,—capable of being joined in one +great system of spacious truth. And with inevitable watchfulness, +inestimable subtlety, he unites all this in tenderest balance, +noting in each hair's-breadth of color, not merely what its rightness +or wrongness is in itself, but what its relation is to every +other on his canvas; restraining, for truth's sake, his exhaustless +energy, reining back, for truth's sake, his fiery strength;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span>veiling, + before truth, the vanity of brightness; penetrating, for +truth, the discouragement of gloom; ruling his restless invention +with a rod of iron; pardoning no error, no thoughtlessness, +no forgetfulness; and subduing all his powers, impulses, and +imaginations, to the arbitrament of a merciless justice, and the +obedience of an incorruptible verity.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 17. Corollary 1st: great art is generally distinct.</div> + +<p>I give this instance with respect to color and shade; but, in +the whole field of art, the difference between the great and +inferior artists is of the same kind, and may be determined at +once by the question, which of them conveys the largest sum of +truth? It follows from this principle, that in +general all <i>great</i> drawing is <i>distinct</i> drawing; for +truths which are rendered indistinctly might, for +the most part, as well not be rendered at all. There are, indeed, +certain facts of mystery, and facts of indistinctness, in all +objects, which must have their proper place in the general harmony, +and the reader will presently find me, when we come to +that part of our investigation, telling him that all good drawing +must in some sort be <i>in</i>distinct. We may, however, understand +this apparent contradiction, by reflecting that the highest +knowledge always involves a more advanced perception of the +fields of the unknown; and, therefore, it may most truly be +said, that to know anything well involves a profound sensation +of ignorance, while yet it is equally true that good and noble +knowledge is distinguished from vain and useless knowledge +chiefly by its clearness and distinctness, and by the vigorous +consciousness of what is known and what is not.</p> + +<p>So in art. The best drawing involves a wonderful perception +and expression of indistinctness; and yet all noble drawing is +separated from the ignoble by its distinctness, by its fine expression +and firm assertion of <i>Something</i>; whereas the bad drawing, +without either firmness or fineness, expresses and asserts <i>Nothing</i>. +The first thing, therefore, to be looked for as a sign of +noble art, is a clear consciousness of what is drawn and what is +not; the bold statement, and frank confession—"<i>This</i> I +know," "<i>that</i> I know not;" and, generally speaking, all +haste, slurring, obscurity, indecision, are signs of low art, and +all calmness, distinctness, luminousness, and positiveness, of +high art.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 18. Corollary 2d: Great art is generally large in masses and in +scale.</div> + +<p>It follows, secondly, from this principle, that as the great +painter is always attending to the sum and harmony of his +truths rather than to one or the other of any group, a quality of +Grasp is visible in his work, like the power of a +great reasoner over his subject, or a great poet over +his conception, manifesting itself very often in +missing out certain details or less truths (which, +though good in themselves, he finds are in the way of others), +and in a sweeping manner of getting the beginnings and +ends of things shown at once, and the squares and depths +rather than the surfaces: hence, on the whole, a habit of looking +at large masses rather than small ones; and even a physical +largeness of handling, and love of working, if possible, on a +large scale; and various other qualities, more or less imperfectly +expressed by such technical terms as breadth, massing, unity, +boldness, &c., all of which are, indeed, great qualities when they +mean breadth of truth, weight of truth, unity of truth, and +courageous assertion of truth; but which have all their correlative +errors and mockeries, almost universally mistaken for them,—the +breadth which has no contents, the weight which has no +value, the unity which plots deception, and the boldness which +faces out fallacy.</p> + +<p>§ 19. And it is to be noted especially respecting largeness of +scale, that though for the most part it is characteristic of the +more powerful masters, they having both more invention wherewith +to fill space (as Ghirlandajo wished that he might paint all +the walls of Florence), and, often, an impetuosity of mind +which makes them like free play for hand and arm (besides that +they usually desire to paint everything in the foreground of +their picture of the natural size), yet, as this largeness of scale +involves the placing of the picture at a considerable distance +from the eye, and this distance involves the loss of many delicate +details, and especially of the subtle lines of expression in +features, it follows that the masters of refined detail and human +expression are apt to prefer a small scale to work upon; so that +the chief masterpieces of expression which the world possesses +are small pictures by Angelico, in which the figures are rarely +more than six or seven inches high; in the best works of +Raphael and Leonardo the figures are almost always less than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span> +life, and the best works of Turner do not exceed the size of 18 +inches by 12.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 20. Corollary 3d: Great art is always delicate.</div> + +<p>As its greatness depends on the sum of truth, and this sum +of truth can always be increased by delicacy of handling, it +follows that all great art must have this delicacy to the utmost +possible degree. This rule is infallible and inflexible. +All coarse work is the sign of low art. Only, +it is to be remembered, that coarseness must be +estimated by the distance from the eye; it being necessary to +consult this distance, when great, by laying on touches which appear +coarse when seen near; but which, so far from being coarse, +are, in reality, more delicate in a master's work than the finest +close handling, for they involve a calculation of result, and are +laid on with a subtlety of sense precisely correspondent to that +with which a good archer draws his bow; the spectator seeing +in the action nothing but the strain of the strong arm, while +there is, in reality, in the finger and eye, an ineffably delicate +estimate of distance, and touch on the arrow plume. And, +indeed, this delicacy is generally quite perceptible to those who +know what the truth is, for strokes by Tintoret or Paul Veronese, +which were done in an instant, and look to an ignorant +spectator merely like a violent dash of loaded color, (and are, as +such, imitated by blundering artists,) are, in fact, modulated by +the brush and finger to that degree of delicacy that no single +grain of the color could be taken from the touch without injury; +and little golden particles of it, not the size of a gnat's +head, have important share and function in the balances of light +in a picture perhaps fifty feet long. Nearly <i>every</i> other rule +applicable to art has some exception but this. This has absolutely +none. All great art is delicate art, and all coarse art is +bad art. Nay, even to a certain extent, all <i>bold</i> art is bad art; +for boldness is not the proper word to apply to the courage and +swiftness of a great master, based on knowledge, and coupled +with fear and love. There is as much difference between the +boldness of the true and the false masters, as there is between +the courage of a pure woman and the shamelessness of a lost +one.</p> + +<p>§ 21. IV. <span class="smcap">Invention</span>.—The last characteristic of great art +is that it must be inventive, that is, be produced by the imagi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>nation. +In this respect, it must precisely fulfil the definition +already given of poetry; and not only present grounds for noble +emotion, but furnish these grounds by <i>imaginative power</i>. +Hence there is at once a great bar fixed between the two schools +of Lower and Higher Art. The lower merely copies what is set +before it, whether in portrait, landscape, or still-life; the higher +either entirely imagines its subject, or arranges the materials +presented to it, so as to manifest the imaginative power in all +the three phases which have been already explained in the +second volume.</p> + +<p>And this was the truth which was confusedly present in +Reynolds's mind when he spoke, as above quoted, of the difference +between Historical and Poetical Painting. <i>Every relation +of the plain facts which the painter saw</i> is proper <i>historical</i> +painting.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +If those facts are unimportant (as that he saw a +gambler quarrel with another gambler, or a sot enjoying himself +with another sot), then the history is trivial; if the facts are +important (as that he saw such and such a great man look thus, +or act thus, at such a time), then the history is noble: in each +case perfect truth of narrative being supposed, otherwise the +whole thing is worthless, being neither history nor poetry, but +plain falsehood. And farther, as greater or less elegance and +precision are manifested in the relation or painting of the incidents, +the merit of the work varies; so that, what with difference +of subject, and what with difference of treatment, historical +painting falls or rises in changeful eminence, from +Dutch trivialities to a Velasquez portrait, just as historical talking +or writing varies in eminence, from an old woman's story-telling +up to Herodotus. Besides which, certain operations of +the imagination come into play inevitably, here and there, so as +to touch the history with some light of poetry, that is, with +some light shot forth of the narrator's mind, or brought out by +the way he has put the accidents together; and wherever the +imagination has thus had anything to do with the matter at all +(and it must be somewhat cold work where it has not), then, the +confines of the lower and higher schools touching each other, the +work is colored by both; but there is no reason why, therefore,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> +we should in the least confuse the historical and poetical characters, +any more than that we should confuse blue with crimson, +because they may overlap each other, and produce purple.</p> + +<p>§ 22. Now, historical or simply narrative art is very precious +in its proper place and way, but it is never <i>great</i> art until the +poetical or imaginative power touches it; and in proportion to +the stronger manifestation of this power, it becomes greater and +greater, while the highest art is purely imaginative, all its materials +being wrought into their form by invention; and it differs, +therefore, from the simple historical painting, exactly as Wordsworth's +stanza, above quoted, differs from Saussure's plain narrative +of the parallel fact; and the imaginative painter differs +from the historical painter in the manner that Wordsworth +differs from Saussure.</p> + +<p>§ 23. Farther, imaginative art always <i>includes</i> historical art; +so that, strictly speaking, according to the analogy above used, +we meet with the pure blue, and with the crimson ruling the +blue and changing it into kingly purple, but not with the pure +crimson: for all imagination must deal with the knowledge it +has before accumulated; it never produces anything but by +combination or contemplation. Creation, in the full sense, is +impossible to it. And the mode in which the historical faculties +are included by it is often quite simple, and easily seen. Thus, +in Hunt's great poetical picture of the Light of the World, the +whole thought and arrangement of the picture being imaginative, +the several details of it are wrought out with simple portraiture; +the ivy, the jewels, the creeping plants, and the moonlight +being calmly studied or remembered from the things themselves. +But of all these special ways in which the invention +works with plain facts, we shall have to treat farther afterwards.</p> + +<p>§ 24. And now, finally, since this poetical power includes the +historical, if we glance back to the other qualities required in +great art, and put all together, we find that the sum of them is +simply the sum of all the powers of man. For as (1) the choice +of the high subject involves all conditions of right moral choice, +and as (2) the love of beauty involves all conditions of right +admiration, and as (3) the grasp of truth involves all strength +of sense, evenness of judgment, and honesty of purpose, and as +(4) the poetical power involves all swiftness of invention, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> +accuracy of historical memory, the sum of all these powers is +the sum of the human soul. Hence we see why the word +"Great" is used of this art. It is literally great. It compasses +and calls forth the entire human spirit, whereas any other kind +of art, being more or less small or narrow, compasses and calls +forth only <i>part</i> of the human spirit. Hence the idea of its +magnitude is a literal and just one, the art being simply less or +greater in proportion to the number of faculties it exercises and +addresses.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +And this is the ultimate meaning of the definition +I gave of it long ago, as containing the "greatest number of the +greatest ideas."</p> + +<p>§ 25. Such, then, being the characters required in order to +constitute high art, if the reader will think over them a little, +and over the various ways in which they may be falsely assumed, +he will easily perceive how spacious and dangerous a +field of discussion they open to the ambitious critic, and of error +to the ambitious artist; he will see how difficult it must be, +either to distinguish what is truly great art from the mockeries +of it, or to rank the real artists in any thing like a progressive +system of greater and less. For it will have been observed that +the various qualities which form greatness are partly inconsistent +with each other (as some virtues are, docility and firmness +for instance), and partly independent of each other; and the +fact is, that artists differ not more by mere capacity, than by +the component <i>elements</i> of their capacity, each possessing in +very different proportions the several attributes of greatness; so +that, classed by one kind of merit, as, for instance, purity of +expression, Angelico will stand highest; classed by another, +sincerity of manner, Veronese will stand highest; classed by +another, love of beauty, Leonardo will stand highest; and so +on; hence arise continual disputes and misunderstandings +among those who think that high art must always be one and +the same, and that great artists ought to unite all great attributes +in an equal degree.</p> + +<p>§ 26. In one of the exquisitely finished tales of Marmontel, +a company of critics are received at dinner by the hero of the +story, an old gentleman, somewhat vain of his <i>acquired</i> taste,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> +and his niece, by whose incorrigible <i>natural</i> taste, he is seriously +disturbed and tormented. During the entertainment, "On +parcourut tous les genres de littérature, et pour donner plus +d'essor a l'érudition et à la critique, on mit sur le tapis cette +question toute neuve, sçavoir, lequel méritoit le préference de +Corneille ou de Racine. L'on disoit même là-dessus les plus +belles choses du monde, lorsque la petite nièce, qui n'avoit pas +dit un mot, s'avisa de demander naïvement lequel des deux +fruits, de l'orange ou de la pêche, avoit le gout les plus exquis +et méritoit le plus d'éloges. Son oncle rougit de sa simplicité, +et les convives baissèrent tous les yeux sans daigner répondre à +cette bêtise. Ma nièce, dit Fintac, a votre âge, il faut sçavoir +écouter, et se taire."</p> + +<p>I cannot close this chapter with shorter or better advice to +the reader, than merely, whenever he hears discussions about +the relative merits of great masters, to remember the young +lady's question. It is, indeed, true that there <i>is</i> a relative +merit, that a peach is nobler than a hawthorn berry, and still +more a hawthorn berry than a bead of the nightshade; but in +each rank of fruits, as in each rank of masters, one is endowed +with one virtue, and another with another; their glory is their +dissimilarity, and they who propose to themselves in the training +of an artist that he should unite the coloring of Tintoret, +the finish of Albert Durer, and the tenderness of Correggio, are +no wiser than a horticulturist would be, who made it the object +of his labor to produce a fruit which should unite in itself the +lusciousness of the grape, the crispness of the nut, and the +fragrance of the pine.</p> + +<p>§ 27. And from these considerations one most important +practical corollary is to be deduced, with the good help of Mademoiselle's +Agathe's simile, namely, that the greatness or smallness +of a man is, in the most conclusive sense, determined for +him at his birth, as strictly as it is determined for a fruit +whether it is to be a currant or an apricot. Education, favorable +circumstances, resolution, and industry can do much; in a +certain sense they do <i>everything</i>; that is to say, they determine +whether the poor apricot shall fall in the form of a green bead, +blighted by an east wind, shall be trodden under foot, or +whether it shall expand into tender pride, and sweet brightness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> +of golden velvet. But apricot out of currant,—great man out +of small,—did never yet art or effort make; and, in a general +way, men have their excellence nearly fixed for them when they +are born; a little cramped and frost-bitten on one side, a little +sun-burnt and fortune-spotted on the other, they reach, between +good and evil chances, such size and taste as generally belong to +the men of their calibre, and the small in their serviceable +bunches, the great in their golden isolation, have, these no +cause for regret, nor those for disdain.</p> + +<p>§ 28. Therefore it is, that every system of teaching is false +which holds forth "great art" as in any wise to be taught to +students, or even to be aimed at by them. Great art is precisely +that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently +and finally the expression of the spirits of great men; so that +the only wholesome teaching is that which simply endeavors to +fix those characters of nobleness in the pupil's mind, of which +it seems easily susceptible; and without holding out to him, as +a possible or even probable result, that he should ever paint +like Titian, or carve like Michael Angelo, enforces upon him +the manifest possibility, and assured duty, of endeavoring to +draw in a manner at least honest and intelligible; and cultivates +in him those general charities of heart, sincerities of +thought, and graces of habit which are likely to lead him, +throughout life, to prefer openness to affectation, realities to +shadows, and beauty to corruption.</p> +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Del "nò," per lì danar, vi "sì" far ita.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> As here, for the first time, I am obliged to use the terms Truth and +Beauty in a kind of opposition, I must therefore stop for a moment to state +clearly the relation of these two qualities of art; and to protest against the +vulgar and foolish habit of confusing truth and beauty with each other. +People with shallow powers of thought, desiring to flatter themselves with +the sensation of having attained profundity, are continually doing the most +serious mischief by introducing confusion into plain matters, and then valuing +themselves on being confounded. Nothing is more common than to hear +people who desire to be thought philosophical, declare that "beauty is +truth," and "truth is beauty." I would most earnestly beg every sensible +person who hears such an assertion made, to nip the germinating philosopher +in his ambiguous bud; and beg him, if he really believes his own +assertion, never thenceforward to use two words for the same thing. The +fact is, truth and beauty are entirely distinct, though often related, things. +One is a property of statements, the other of objects. The statement that +"two and two make four" is true, but it is neither beautiful nor ugly, for +it is invisible; a rose is lovely, but it is neither true nor false, for it is +silent. That which shows nothing cannot be fair, and that which asserts +nothing cannot be false. Even the ordinary use of the words false and true +as applied to artificial and real things, is inaccurate. An artificial rose is +not a "false" rose, it is not a rose at all. The falseness is in the person who +states, or induces the belief, that it is a rose. +</p><p> +Now, therefore, in things concerning art, the words true and false are +only to be rightly used while the picture is considered as a statement of +facts. The painter asserts that this which he has painted is the form of a +dog, a man, or a tree. If it be <i>not</i> the form of a dog, a man, or a tree, the +painter's statement is false; and therefore we justly speak of a false line, +or false color; not that any line or color can in themselves be false, but they +become so when they convey a statement that they resemble something +which they do <i>not</i> resemble. But the beauty of the lines or colors is wholly +independent of any such statement. They may be beautiful lines, though +quite inaccurate, and ugly lines though quite faithful. A picture may be +frightfully ugly, which represents with fidelity some base circumstance of +daily life; and a painted window may be exquisitely beautiful, which +represents men with eagles' faces, and dogs with blue heads and crimson +tails (though, by the way, this is not in the strict sense <i>false</i> art, as we shall +see hereafter, inasmuch as it means no assertion that men ever <i>had</i> eagles' +faces). If this were not so, it would be impossible to sacrifice truth to +beauty; for to attain the one would always be to attain the other. But, +unfortunately, this sacrifice is exceedingly possible, and it is chiefly this +which characterizes the false schools of high art, so far as high art consists +in the pursuit of beauty. For although truth and beauty are independent +of each other, it does not follow that we are at liberty to pursue whichever +we please. They are indeed separable, but it is wrong to separate them; +they are to be sought together in the order of their worthiness; that is to +say, truth first, and beauty afterwards. High art differs from low art in +possessing an excess of beauty in addition to its truth, not in possessing an +excess of beauty inconsistent with truth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> I name them in order of <i>in</i>creasing not decreasing importance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Compare my Edinburgh Lectures, lecture iv. p. 218, et seq. (2nd edition).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Compare Stones of Venice, vol. iii. chap. iv. § 7, and § 21.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE FALSE IDEAL:—FIRST, RELIGIOUS.</h3> + + +<p>§ 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.</p> + +<p>§ 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 "<i>the ideal</i>;" 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,</p> + +<p>That men's proper business in this world falls mainly into +three divisions:</p> + +<p>First, to know themselves, and the existing state of the things +they have to do with.</p> + +<p>Secondly, to be happy in themselves, and in the existing +state of things.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of +things, as far as either are marred or mendable.</p> + +<p>These, I say, are the three plain divisions of proper human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> +business on this earth. For these three, the following are usually +substituted and adopted by human creatures:</p> + +<p>First, to be totally ignorant of themselves, and the existing +state of things.</p> + +<p>"Secondly, to be miserable in themselves, and in the existing +state of things.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, to let themselves, and the existing state of things, +alone (at least in the way of correction).</p> + +<p>§ 3. The dispositions which induce us to manage, thus +wisely, the affairs of this life seem to be:</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>§ 4. Now <i>nearly</i> 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.</p> + +<p>It is the difference between these two uses of it which we +have to examine.</p> + +<p>§ 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>§ 6. These being the uses of imagination, its abuses are +either in creating, for mere pleasure, false images, where it is +its <i>duty</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Let us examine the principal forms of this misuse, one by +one.</p> + +<p>§ 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 <i>any</i> thing. It consisted merely in +simple outlines and pleasant colors; which were understood to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> +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 <i>asserted</i> 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.</p> + +<p>§ 8. But as soon as art obtained the power of realization, it +obtained also that of <i>assertion</i>. 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.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <a name="FIG_1" id="FIG_1"></a> + <a href="images/illus066b.png" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus066w.jpg" style="margin-bottom: -2em;" width="250" alt="Fig 1" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption" style="margin-top: -3em;"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 1. + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 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<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> +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<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> +architecture; +with a sweet, +verdurous, +and vivid +landscape in +the distance, +full of winding +rivers, +village spires, +and baronial towers.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> +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 <i>not</i> 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.</p> + + + +<p>§ 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 <i>feeling</i>; 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>§ 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 <i>art was employed for the display of religious facts</i>; now, +<i>religious facts were employed for the display of art</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>§ 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 <i>unlikelihoods</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> +everything; and the crowned Queen-Virgin of Perugino sank +into a simple Italian mother in Raphael's Madonna of the +Chair.</p> + +<p>§ 13. Was not this, then, a healthy change? No. It +<i>would</i> 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."</p> + +<p>§ 14. It was thus that Raphael thought of the Madonna.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>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 "in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>nocent." +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.</p> + +<p>§ 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.</p> + +<p>§ 16. Take a very important instance.</p> + +<p>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 fruit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>less +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>all</i> 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.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +Note how Peter +especially (whose chief glory was in his wet coat <i>girt</i> about him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>§ 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;<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> +and the mighty presences +of Moses and Elias were softened by introductions of delicate +grace, adopted from dancing nymphs and rising Auroras,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>§ 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<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>) +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 preeminent <i>dulness</i> 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.</p> + +<p>§ 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>§ 20. Has there, then (the reader asks emphatically), been +<i>no</i> true religious ideal? Has religious art never been of any +service to mankind? I fear, on the whole, not. Of true relig<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>ious +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.</p> + +<p>§ 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> +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 <i>hitherto</i> +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.</p> + +<p>§ 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 <i>sincere</i>. +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 <i>may</i> 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.</p> + +<p>§ 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 <i>us</i>, two separate cautions are to be addressed to +the two opposed classes of religionists whose influence will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> +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.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<p>§ 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.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> +But, for the most part, it is assuredly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Lombardic, i.e. in the style of Pietro and Tullio Lombardo, in the +fifteenth century (not <i>Lombard</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> I suppose Raphael intended a reference to Numbers xv. 38; but if he +did, the <i>blue</i> riband, or "vitta," as it is in the Vulgate, should have been on +the borders too.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> In the St. Cecilia of Bologna.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 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. +</p><p> +And, then, look at Raphael's kicking gracefulnesses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> + 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:—</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <span class="i0">"Behold, how Benjamin expects,</span><br /> + <span class="i1">With Ephraim and Manasseh joined,</span><br /> + <span class="i0">In their deliverance, the effects</span><br /> + <span class="i1">Of thy resistless strength to find!"</span><br /> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> +"En 1780, âgé de quatre-vingt-deux ans, au moment de recevoir le +viatique, il rassembla ses forces, et chanta, à son Créateur:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <span class="i0">'Eterno Genitor</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Io t' offro il proprio figlio</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Che in pegno del tuo amor</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Si vuole a me donar.</span><br /> + <span class="i0">A lui rivolgi il ciglio,</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Mira chi t' offro; e poi,</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Niega, Signor, se puoi,</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Niega di perdonar'".—</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left:6em;">—<span class="smcap">De Stendhal</span>, <i>Via de Metastasio</i>.</span> + </div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE FALSE IDEAL:—SECONDLY, PROFANE.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. Such having been the effects of the pursuit of ideal +beauty on the religious mind of Europe, we might be tempted +next to consider in what way the same movement affected the +art which concerned itself with profane subject, and, through +that art, the whole temper of modern civilization.</p> + +<p>I shall, however, merely glance at this question. It is a +very painful and a very wide one. Its discussion cannot come +properly within the limits, or even within the aim, of a work +like this; it ought to be made the subject of a separate essay, +and that essay should be written by some one who had passed +less of his life than I have among the mountains, and more of +it among men. But one or two points may be suggested for the +reader to reflect upon at his leisure.</p> + +<p>§ 2. I said just now that we might be tempted to consider +how this pursuit of the ideal <i>affected</i> profane art. Strictly +speaking, it brought that art into existence. As long as men +sought for truth first, and beauty secondarily, they cared chiefly, +of course, for the <i>chief</i> truth, and all art was instinctively +religious. But as soon as they sought for beauty first, and +truth secondarily, they were punished by losing sight of spiritual +truth altogether, and the profane (properly so called) +schools of art were instantly developed.</p> + +<p>The perfect human beauty, which, to a large part of the community, +was by far the most interesting feature in the work of +the rising school, might indeed be in some degree consistent +with the agony of Madonnas, and the repentance of Magdalenes; +but could not be exhibited in fulness, when the subjects, +however irreverently treated, nevertheless demanded some +decency in the artist, and some gravity in the spectator. The +newly acquired powers of rounding limbs, and tinting lips, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> +too little scope in the sanctities even of the softest womanhood; +and the newly acquired conceptions of the nobility of +nakedness could in no wise be expressed beneath the robes of +the prelate or the sackcloth of the recluse. But the source +from which these ideas had been received afforded also full field +for their expression; the heathen mythology, which had furnished +the examples of these heights of art, might again become +the subject of the inspirations it had kindled;—with the additional +advantage that it could now be delighted in, without being +believed; that its errors might be indulged, unrepressed by +its awe; and those of its deities whose function was temptation +might be worshipped, in scorn of those whose hands were +charged with chastisement.</p> + +<p>So, at least, men dreamed in their foolishness,—to find, as +the ages wore on, that the returning Apollo bore not only his +lyre, but his arrows; and that at the instant of Cytherea's +resurrection to the sunshine, Persephone had reascended her +throne in the deep.</p> + +<p>§ 3. Little thinking this, they gave themselves up fearlessly +to the chase of the new delight, and exhausted themselves in +the pursuit of an ideal now doubly false. Formerly, though +they attempted to reach an unnatural beauty, it was yet in representing +historical facts and real persons; <i>now</i> they sought for +the same unnatural beauty in representing tales which they +knew to be fictitious, and personages who they knew had never +existed. Such a state of things had never before been found in +any nation. Every people till then had painted the acts of +their kings, the triumphs of their armies, the beauty of their +race, or the glory of their gods. They showed the things they +had seen or done; the beings they truly loved or faithfully +adored. But the ideal art of modern Europe was the shadow of +a shadow; and with mechanism substituted for perception, and +bodily beauty for spiritual life, it set itself to represent men it +had never seen, customs it had never practised, and gods in +whom it had never believed.</p> + +<p>§ 4. Such art could of course have no help from the virtues, +nor claim on the energies of men. It necessarily rooted itself +in their vices and their idleness; and of their vices principally +in two, pride and sensuality. To the pride, was attached emi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>nently +the art of architecture; to the sensuality, those of painting +and sculpture. Of the fall of architecture, as resultant from +the formalist pride of its patrons and designers, I have spoken +elsewhere. The sensualist ideal, as seen in painting and sculpture, +remains to be examined here. But one interesting circumstance +is to be observed with respect to the manner of the +separation of these arts. Pride, being wholly a vice, and in +every phase inexcusable, wholly betrayed and destroyed the art +which was founded on it. But passion, having some root and +use in healthy nature, and only becoming guilty in excess, did +not altogether destroy the art founded upon it. The architecture +of Palladio is wholly virtueless and despicable. Not so the +Venus of Titian, nor the Antiope of Correggio.</p> + +<p>§ 5. We find, then, at the close of the sixteenth century, the +arts of painting and sculpture wholly devoted to entertain the +indolent and satiate the luxurious. To effect these noble ends, +they took a thousand different forms; painting, however, of +course being the most complying, aiming sometimes at mere +amusement by deception in landscapes, or minute imitation of +natural objects; sometimes giving more piquant excitement in +battle-pieces full of slaughter, or revels deep in drunkenness; +sometimes entering upon serious subjects, for the sake of grotesque +fiends and picturesque infernos, or that it might introduce +pretty children as cherubs, and handsome women as Magdalenes +and Maries of Egypt, or portraits of patrons in the +character of the more decorous saints: but more frequently, for +direct flatteries of this kind, recurring to Pagan mythology, and +painting frail ladies as goddesses or graces, and foolish kings in +radiant apotheosis; while, for the earthly delight of the persons +whom it honored as divine, it ransacked the records of luscious +fable, and brought back, in fullest depth of dye and flame of +fancy, the impurest dreams of the un-Christian ages.</p> + +<p>§ 6. Meanwhile, the art of sculpture, less capable of ministering +to mere amusement, was more or less reserved for the +affectations of taste; and the study of the classical statues introduced +various ideas on the subjects of "purity," "chastity," +and "dignity," such as it was possible for people to +entertain who were themselves impure, luxurious, and ridiculous. +It is a matter of extreme difficulty to explain the exact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> +character of this modern sculpturesque ideal; but its relation to +the true ideal may be best understood by considering it as in +exact parallelism with the relation of the word "taste" to the +word "love." Wherever the word "taste" is used with respect +to matters of art, it indicates either that the thing spoken of +belongs to some inferior class of objects, or that the person +speaking has a false conception of its nature. For, consider +the exact sense in which a work of art is said to be "in good or +bad taste." It does not mean that it is true, or false; that it +is beautiful, or ugly; but that it does or does not comply either +with the laws of choice, which are enforced by certain modes of +life; or the habits of mind produced by a particular sort of +education. It does not mean merely fashionable, that is, complying +with a momentary caprice of the upper classes; but it +means agreeing with the habitual sense which the most refined +education, common to those upper classes at the period, gives to +their whole mind. Now, therefore, so far as that education +does indeed tend to make the senses delicate, and the perceptions +accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased with quiet +instead of gaudy color, and with graceful instead of coarse +form; and, by long acquaintance with the best things, to discern +quickly what is fine from what is common;—so far, +acquired taste is an honorable faculty, and it is true praise of +anything to say it is "in good taste." But so far as this +higher education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and +harden the heart, diminishing the interest of all beautiful +things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly please, +and what is brightest hardly entertain;—so far as it fosters +pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in anything, +not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in +which it indicates some greatness of their own (as people build +marble porticos, and inlay marble floors, not so much because +they like the colors of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as +because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all +human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber);—so far +as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and +aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a well said thing +better than a true thing, and a well trained manner better than +a sincere one, and a delicately formed face better than a good-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>natured +one, and in all other ways and things setting custom +and semblance above everlasting truth;—so far, finally, as it induces +a sense of inherent distinction between class and class, +and causes everything to be more or less despised which has no +social rank, so that the affection, pleasure, or grief of a clown +are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection +and grief of a well-bred man;—just so far, in all these several +ways, the feeling induced by what is called a "liberal education" +is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art; and +the name which is given to the feeling,—Taste, Goût, Gusto,—in +all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it implies that +art gives only a kind of pleasure analogous to that derived from +eating by the palate.</p> + +<p>§ 7. Modern education, not in art only, but in all other +things referable to the same standard, has invariably given taste +in this bad sense; it has given fastidiousness of choice without +judgment, superciliousness of manner without dignity, refinement +of habit without purity, grace of expression without sincerity, +and desire of loveliness without love; and the modern +"Ideal" of high art is a curious mingling of the gracefulness +and reserve of the drawingroom with a certain measure of +classical sensuality. Of this last element, and the singular artifices +by which vice succeeds in combining it with what appears +to be pure and severe, it would take us long to reason fully; I +would rather leave the reader to follow out for himself the consideration +of the influence, in this direction, of statues, +bronzes, and paintings, as at present employed by the upper +circles of London, and (especially) Paris; and this not so +much in the works which are really fine, as in the multiplied +coarse copies of them; taking the widest range, from Dannaeker's +Ariadne down to the amorous shepherd and shepherdess +in china on the drawingroom time-piece, rigidly questioning, +in each case, how far the charm of the art does indeed depend +on some appeal to the inferior passions. Let it be considered, +for instance, exactly how far the value of a picture of a girl's +head by Greuze would be lowered in the market, if the dress, +which now leaves the bosom bare, were raised to the neck; and +how far, in the commonest lithograph of some utterly popular +subject,—for instance, the teaching of Uncle Tom by Eva,—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> +sentiment which is supposed to be excited by the exhibition of +Christianity in youth is complicated with that which depends +upon Eva's having a dainty foot and a well-made satin slipper;—and +then, having completely determined for himself how far +the element exists, consider farther, whether, when art is thus +frequent (for frequent he will assuredly find it to be) in its appeal +to the lower passions, it is likely to attain the highest +order of merit, or be judged by the truest standards of judgment. +For, of all the causes which have combined, in modern +times, to lower the rank of art, I believe this to be one of the +most fatal; while, reciprocally, it may be questioned how far +society suffers, in its turn, from the influences possessed over it +by the arts it has degraded. It seems to me a subject of the +very deepest interest to determine what has been the effect upon +the European nations of the great change by which art became +again capable of ministering delicately to the lower passions, as +it had in the worst days of Rome; how far, indeed, in all ages, +the fall of nations may be attributed to art's arriving at this +particular stage among them. I do not mean that, in any of +its stages, it is incapable of being employed for evil, but that +assuredly an Egyptian, Spartan, or Norman was unexposed to +the kind of temptation which is continually offered by the delicate +painting and sculpture of modern days; and, although the +diseased imagination might complete the imperfect image of +beauty from the colored image on the wall,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +or the most revolting +thoughts be suggested by the mocking barbarism of the +Gothic sculpture, their hard outline and rude execution were +free from all the subtle treachery which now fills the flushed +canvas and the rounded marble.</p> + +<p>§ 8. I cannot, however, pursue this inquiry here. For our +present purpose it is enough to note that the feeling, in itself so +debased, branches upwards into that of which, while no one has +cause to be ashamed, no one, on the other hand, has cause to be +proud, namely, the admiration of physical beauty in the human +form, as distinguished from expression of character. Every +one can easily appreciate the merit of regular features and well-formed +limbs, but it requires some attention, sympathy, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> +sense, to detect the charm of passing expression, or life-disciplined +character. The beauty of the Apollo Belvidere, or +Venus de Medicis, is perfectly palpable to any shallow fine lady +or fine gentleman, though they would have perceived none in +the face of an old weather-beaten St. Peter, or a grey-haired +"Grandmother Lois." The knowledge that long study is +necessary to produce these regular types of the human form +renders the facile admiration matter of eager self-complacency; +the shallow spectator, delighted that he can really, and without +hypocrisy, admire what required much thought to produce, supposes +himself endowed with the highest critical faculties, and +easily lets himself be carried into rhapsodies about the "ideal," +which, when all is said, if they be accurately examined, will be +found literally to mean nothing more than that the figure has +got handsome calves to its legs, and a straight nose.</p> + +<p>§ 9. That they do mean, in reality, nothing more than this +may be easily ascertained by watching the taste of the same persons +in other things. The fashionable lady who will write five +or six pages in her diary respecting the effect upon her mind of +such and such an "ideal" in marble, will have her drawing +room table covered with Books of Beauty, in which the engravings +represent the human form in every possible aspect of distortion +and affectation; and the connoisseur who, in the morning, +pretends to the most exquisite taste in the antique, will be +seen, in the evening, in his opera-stall, applauding the least +graceful gestures of the least modest figurante.</p> + +<p>§ 10. But even this vulgar pursuit of physical beauty (vulgar +in the profoundest sense, for there is no vulgarity like the +vulgarity of education) would be less contemptible if it really +succeeded in its object; but, like all pursuits carried to inordinate +length, it defeats itself. Physical beauty <i>is</i> a noble thing +when it is seen in perfectness; but the manner in which the +moderns pursue their ideal prevents their ever really seeing what +they are always seeking; for, requiring that all forms should be +regular and faultless, they permit, or even compel, their painters +and sculptors to work chiefly by rule, altering their models +to fit their preconceived notions of what is right. When such +artists look at a face, they do not give it the attention necessary +to discern what beauty is already in its peculiar features; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> +only to see how best it may be altered into something for which +they have themselves laid down the laws. Nature never unveils +her beauty to such a gaze. She keeps whatever she has done +best, close sealed, until it is regarded with reverence. To the +painter who honors her, she will open a revelation in the face of +a street mendicant; but in the work of the painter who alters +her, she will make Portia become ignoble and Perdita graceless.</p> + +<p>§ 11. Nor is the effect less for evil on the mind of the general +observer. The lover of ideal beauty, with all his conceptions +narrowed by rule, never looks carefully enough upon the +features which do not come under his law (or any others), to +discern the inner beauty in them. The strange intricacies +about the lines of the lips, and marvellous shadows and watch-fires +of the eye, and wavering traceries of the eyelash, and infinite +modulations of the brow, wherein high humanity is embodied, +are all invisible to him. He finds himself driven back at +last, with all his idealism, to the lionne of the ball-room, whom +youth and passion can as easily distinguish as his utmost critical +science; whereas, the observer who has accustomed himself +to take human faces as God made them, will often find as much +beauty on a village green as in the proudest room of state, and as +much in the free seats of a church aisle, as in all the sacred +paintings of the Vatican or the Pitti.</p> + +<p>§ 12. Then, farther, the habit of disdaining ordinary truth, +and seeking to alter it so as to fit the fancy of the beholder, +gradually infects the mind in all its other operation; so that it +begins to propose to itself an ideal in history, an ideal in general +narration, an ideal in portraiture and description, and in +every thing else where truth may be painful or uninteresting; +with the necessary result of more or less weakness, wickedness, +and uselessness in all that is done or said, with the desire of +concealing this painful truth. And, finally, even when truth is +not intentionally concealed, the pursuer of idealism will pass his +days in false and useless trains of thought, pluming himself, all +the while, upon his superiority therein to the rest of mankind. +A modern German, without either invention or sense, seeing a +rapid in a river, will immediately devote the remainder of the +day to the composition of dialogues between amorous water +nymphs and unhappy mariners; while the man of true inven<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>tion, +power, and sense will, instead, set himself to consider +whether the rocks in the river could have their points knocked +off, or the boats upon it be made with stronger bottoms.</p> + +<p>§ 13. Of this final baseness of the false ideal, its miserable +waste of time, strength, and available intellect of man, by turning, +as I have said above, innocence of pastime into seriousness +of occupation, it is, of course, hardly possible to sketch out +even so much as the leading manifestations. The vain and +haughty projects of youth for future life; the giddy reveries +of insatiable self exaltation; the discontented dreams of what +might have been or should be, instead of the thankful understanding +of what is; the casting about for sources of interest in +senseless fiction, instead of the real human histories of the people +round us; the prolongation from age to age of romantic +historical deceptions instead of sifted truth; the pleasures +taken in fanciful portraits of rural or romantic life in poetry +and on the stage, without the smallest effort to rescue the living +rural population of the world from its ignorance or misery; +the excitement of the feelings by labored imagination of +spirits, fairies, monsters, and demons, issuing in total blindness +of heart and sight to the true presences of beneficent or +destructive spiritual powers around us; in fine, the constant +abandonment of all the straightforward paths of sense and +duty, for fear of losing some of the enticement of ghostly +joys, or trampling somewhat "sopra lor vanità, che par persona;" +all these various forms of false idealism have so entangled +the modern mind, often called, I suppose ironically, +practical, that truly I believe there never yet was idolatry of +stock or staff so utterly unholy as this our idolatry of shadows; +nor can I think that, of those who burnt incense under oaks, +and poplars, and elms, because "the shadow thereof was good," +it could in any wise be more justly or sternly declared than of +us—"The wind hath bound them up in her wings, and they +shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<hr class="fn" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Ezek. xxiii. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Hosea, chap. iv. 12, 13, and 19.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE TRUE IDEAL:—FIRST, PURIST.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. Having thus glanced at the principal modes in which +the imagination works for evil, we must rapidly note also the +principal directions in which its operation is admissible, even in +changing or strangely combining what is brought within its +sphere.</p> + +<p>For hitherto we have spoken as if every change wilfully +wrought by the imagination was an error; apparently implying +that its only proper work was to summon up the memories of +past events, and the anticipations of future ones, under aspects +which would bear the sternest tests of historical investigation, +or abstract reasoning. And in general this is, indeed, its +noblest work. Nevertheless, it has also permissible functions +peculiarly its own, and certain rights of feigning, and adorning, +and fancifully arranging, inalienable from its nature. Everything +that is natural is, within certain limits, right; and we +must take care not, in over-severity, to deprive ourselves of any +refreshing or animating power ordained to be in us for our +help.</p> + +<p>§ 2. (A). It was noted in speaking above of the Angelican +or passionate ideal, that there was a certain virtue in it dependent +on the expression of its loving enthusiasm. (Chap. <span class="smcap">IV.</span> +§ 10.)</p> + +<p>(B). In speaking of the pursuit of beauty as one of the characteristics +of the highest art, it was also said that there were +certain ways of showing this beauty by gathering together, +without altering, the finest forms, and marking them by gentle +emphasis. (Chap. <span class="smcap">III.</span> § 15.)</p> + +<p>(C). And in speaking of the true uses of imagination it was +said, that we might be allowed to create for ourselves, in innocent +play, fairies and naiads, and other such fictitious creatures. +(Chap. <span class="smcap">IV.</span> § 5.)</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> + +<p>Now this loving enthusiasm, which seeks for a beauty fit to +be the object of eternal love; this inventive skill, which kindly +displays what exists around us in the world; and this playful +energy of thought which delights in various conditions of the +impossible, are three forms of idealism more or less connected +with the three tendencies of the artistical mind which I had +occasion to explain in the chapter on the Nature of Gothic, in +the Stones of Venice. It was there pointed out, that, the +things around us containing mixed good and evil, certain men +chose the good and left the evil (thence properly called Purists); +others received both good and evil together (thence properly +called Naturalists); and others had a tendency to choose +the evil and leave the good, whom, for convenience' sake, I +termed Sensualists. I do not mean to say that painters of +fairies and naiads must belong to this last and lowest class, or +habitually choose the evil and leave the good; but there is, +nevertheless, a strange connection between the reinless play of +the imagination, and a sense of the presence of evil, which is +usually more or less developed in those creations of the imagination +to which we properly attach the word <i>Grotesque</i>.</p> + +<p>For this reason, we shall find it convenient to arrange what +we have to note respecting true idealism under the three +heads—</p> + +<blockquote><p> +A. Purist Idealism.<br /> +B. Naturalist Idealism.<br /> +C. Grotesque Idealism.<br /> +</p></blockquote> + +<p>§ 3. A. Purist Idealism.—It results from the unwillingness +of men whose dispositions are more than ordinarily tender and +holy, to contemplate the various forms of definite evil which +necessarily occur in the daily aspects of the world around them. +They shrink from them as from pollution, and endeavor to +create for themselves an imaginary state, in which pain and imperfection +either do not exist, or exist in some edgeless and +enfeebled condition.</p> + +<p>As, however, pain and imperfection are, by eternal laws, +bound up with existence, so far as it is visible to us, the +endeavor to cast them away invariably indicates a comparative +childishness of mind, and produces a childish form of art. In +general, the effort is most successful when it is most naïve, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> +when the ignorance of the draughtsman is in some frank proportion +to his innocence. For instance, one of the modes of treatment, +the most conducive to this ideal expression, is simply +drawing everything without shadows, as if the sun were everywhere +at once. This, in the present state of our knowledge, we +could not do with grace, because we could not do it without +fear or shame. But an artist of the thirteenth century did it +with no disturbance of conscience,—knowing no better, or +rather, in some sense, we might say, knowing no worse. It is, +however, evident, at first thought, that all representations of +nature without evil must either be ideals of a future world, or +be false ideals, if they are understood to be representations of +facts. They can only be classed among the branches of the +true ideal, in so far as they are understood to be nothing more +than expressions of the painter's personal affections or hopes.</p> + +<p>§ 4. Let us take one or two instances in order clearly to explain +our meaning.</p> + +<p>The life of Angelico was almost entirely spent in the endeavor +to imagine the beings belonging to another world. By +purity of life, habitual elevation of thought, and natural sweetness +of disposition, he was enabled to express the sacred affections +upon the human countenance as no one ever did before or +since. In order to effect clearer distinction between heavenly +beings and those of this world, he represents the former as +clothed in draperies of the purest color, crowned with glories of +burnished gold, and entirely shadowless. With exquisite choice +of gesture, and disposition of folds of drapery, this mode of +treatment gives perhaps the best idea of spiritual beings which +the human mind is capable of forming. It is, therefore, a true +ideal;<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> +but the mode in which it is arrived at (being so far mechanical +and contradictory of the appearances of nature) necessarily +precludes those who practise it from being complete masters +of their art. It is always childish, but beautiful in its +childishness.</p> + +<p>§ 5. The works of our own Stothard are examples of the +operation of another mind, singular in gentleness and purity, +upon mere worldly subject. It seems as if Stothard could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> +conceive wickedness, coarseness, or baseness; every one of his +figures looks as if it had been copied from some creature who +had never harbored an unkind thought, or permitted itself in +an ignoble action. With this immense love of mental purity +is joined, in Stothard, a love of mere physical smoothness and +softness, so that he lived in a universe of soft grass and stainless +fountains, tender trees, and stones at which no foot could +stumble.</p> + +<p>All this is very beautiful, and may sometimes urge us to an +endeavor to make the world itself more like the conception of +the painter. At least, in the midst of its malice, misery, and +baseness, it is often a relief to glance at the graceful shadows, +and take, for momentary companionship, creatures full only of +love, gladness, and honor. But the perfect truth will at last +vindicate itself against the partial truth; the help which we +can gain from the unsubstantial vision will be only like that +which we may sometimes receive, in weariness, from the scent +of a flower or the passing of a breeze. For all firm aid and +steady use, we must look to harder realities; and, as far as the +painter himself is regarded, we can only receive such work as +the sign of an amiable imbecility. It is indeed ideal; but ideal +as a fair dream is in the dawn of morning, before the faculties +are astir. The apparent completeness of grace can never be +attained without much definite falsification as well as omission; +stones, over which we cannot stumble, must be ill-drawn +stones; trees, which are all gentleness and softness, cannot be +trees of wood; nor companies without evil in them, companies +of flesh and blood. The habit of falsification (with whatever +aim) begins always in dulness and ends always in incapacity; +nothing can be more pitiable than any endeavor by Stothard to +express facts beyond his own sphere of soft pathos or graceful +mirth, and nothing more unwise than the aim at a similar +ideality by any painter who has power to render a sincerer +truth.</p> + +<p>§ 6. I remember another interesting example of ideality on +this same root, but belonging to another branch of it, in the +works of a young German painter, which I saw some time ago +in a London drawingroom. He had been travelling in Italy, +and had brought home a portfolio of sketches remarkable alike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> +for their fidelity and purity. Every one was a laborious and +accurate study of some particular spot. Every cottage, every +cliff, every tree, at the site chosen, had been drawn; and drawn +with palpable sincerity of portraiture, and yet in such a spirit +that it was impossible to conceive that any sin or misery had +ever entered into one of the scenes he had represented; and +the volcanic horrors of Radicofani, the pestilent gloom of the +Pontines, and the boundless despondency of the Campagna became +under his hand, only various appearances of Paradise.</p> + +<p>It was very interesting to observe the minute emendations or +omissions by which this was effected. To set the tiles the +slightest degree more in order upon a cottage roof; to insist +upon the vine-leaves at the window, and let the shadow which +fell from them naturally conceal the rent in the wall; to draw +all the flowers in the foreground, and miss the weeds; to draw +all the folds of the white clouds, and miss those of the black +ones; to mark the graceful branches of the trees, and, in one +way or another, beguile the eye from those which were ungainly; +to give every peasant-girl whose face was visible the expression +of an angel, and every one whose back was turned the +bearing of a princess; finally, to give a general look of light, +clear organization, and serene vitality to every feature in the +landscape;—such were his artifices, and such his delights. It +was impossible not to sympathize deeply with the spirit of such +a painter; and it was just cause for gratitude to be permitted +to travel, as it were, through Italy with such a friend. But his +work had, nevertheless, its stern limitations and marks of everlasting +inferiority. Always soothing and pathetic, it could +never be sublime, never perfectly nor entrancingly beautiful; +for the narrow spirit of correction could not cast itself fully +into any scene; the calm cheerfulness which shrank from the +shadow of the cypress, and the distortion of the olive, could not +enter into the brightness of the sky that they pierced, nor the +softness of the bloom that they bore: for every sorrow that his +heart turned from, he lost a consolation; for every fear which +he dared not confront, he lost a portion of his hardiness; the +unsceptred sweep of the storm-clouds, the fair freedom of glancing +shower and flickering sunbeam, sank into sweet rectitudes +and decent formalisms; and, before eyes that refused to be dazzled +or darkened, the hours of sunset wreathed their rays un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>heeded, +and the mists of the Apennines spread their blue veils +in vain.</p> + +<p>§ 7. To this inherent shortcoming and narrowness of reach +the farther defect was added, that this work gave no useful +representation of the state of facts in the country which it pretended +to contemplate. It was not only wanting in all the +higher elements of beauty, but wholly unavailable for instruction +of any kind beyond that which exists in pleasurableness of +pure emotion. And considering what cost of labor was devoted +to the series of drawings, it could not but be matter for grave +blame, as well as for partial contempt, that a man of amiable +feeling and considerable intellectual power should thus expend +his life in the declaration of his own petty pieties and pleasant +reveries, leaving the burden of human sorrow unwitnessed; and +the power of God's judgments unconfessed; and, while poor +Italy lay wounded and moaning at his feet, pass by, in priestly +calm, lest the whiteness of his decent vesture should be spotted +with unhallowed blood.</p> + +<p>§ 8. Of several other forms of Purism I shall have to speak +hereafter, more especially of that exhibited in the landscapes of +the early religious painters; but these examples are enough, for +the present, to show the general principle that the purest ideal, +though in some measure true, in so far as it springs from the +true longings of an earnest mind, is yet necessarily in many +things deficient or blamable, and <i>always</i> an indication of some +degree of weakness in the mind pursuing it. But, on the other +hand, it is to be noted that entire scorn of this purist ideal is +the sign of a far greater weakness. Multitudes of petty artists, +incapable of any noble sensation whatever, but acquainted, +in a dim way, with the technicalities of the schools, mock at the +art whose depths they cannot fathom, and whose motives they +cannot comprehend, but of which they can easily detect the imperfections, +and deride the simplicities. Thus poor fumigatory +Fuseli, with an art composed of the tinsel of the stage and the +panics of the nursery, speaks contemptuously of the name of +Angelico as "dearer to sanctity than to art." And a large +portion of the resistance to the noble Pre-Raphaelite movement +of our own days has been offered by men who suppose the +entire function of the artist in this world to consist in laying +on color with a large brush, and surrounding dashes of flake<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> +white with bituminous brown; men whose entire capacities of +brain, soul, and sympathy, applied industriously to the end of +their lives, would not enable them, at last, to paint so much as +one of the leaves of the nettles at the bottom of Hunt's picture +of the Light of the World.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>§ 9. It is finally to be remembered, therefore, that Purism +is always noble when it is <i>instinctive</i>. It is not the greatest +thing that can be done, but it is probably the greatest thing +that the man who does it can do, provided it comes from his +heart. True, it is a sign of weakness, but it is not in our +choice whether we will be weak or strong; and there is a certain +strength which can only be made perfect in weakness. If +he is working in humility, fear of evil, desire of beauty, and +sincere purity of purpose and thought, he will produce good +and helpful things; but he must be much on his guard against +supposing himself to be greater than his fellows, because he has +shut himself into this calm and cloistered sphere. His only +safety lies in knowing himself to be, on the contrary, <i>less</i> than +his fellows, and in always striving, so far as he can find it in his +heart, to extend his delicate narrowness towards the great naturalist +ideal. The whole group of modern German purists have +lost themselves, because they founded their work not on humility, +nor on religion, but on small self-conceit. Incapable of +understanding the great Venetians, or any other masters of true +imaginative power, and having fed what mind they had with +weak poetry and false philosophy, they thought themselves the +best and greatest of artistic mankind, and expected to found a +new school of painting in pious plagiarism and delicate pride. +It is difficult at first to decide which is the more worthless, the +spiritual affectation of the petty German, or the composition +and chiaroscuro of the petty Englishman; on the whole, however, +the latter have lightest weight, for the pseudo-religious +painter must, at all events, pass much of his time in meditation +upon solemn subjects, and in examining venerable models; and +may sometimes even cast a little useful reflected light, or touch +the heart with a pleasant echo.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> + As noted above in Chap. IV § 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> +Not that the Pre-Raphaelite is a purist movement, it is stern naturalist; +but its unfortunate opposers, who neither know what nature is, nor +what purism is, have mistaken the simple nature for morbid purism, and +therefore cried out against it.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE TRUE IDEAL:—SECONDLY, NATURALIST.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. We now enter on the consideration of that central and +highest branch of ideal art which concerns itself simply with +things as they ARE, and accepts, in all of them, alike the evil +and the good. The question is, therefore, how the art which +represents things simply as they are, can be called ideal at all. +How does it meet that requirement stated in Chap. III. § 4, as +imperative on all great art, that it shall be inventive, and a +product of the imagination? It meets it preeminently by that +power of arrangement which I have endeavored, at great length +and with great pains, to define accurately in the chapter on Imagination +associative in the second volume. That is to say, +accepting the weaknesses, faults, and wrongnesses in all things +that it sees, it so places and harmonizes them that they form a +noble whole, in which the imperfection of each several part is +not only harmless, but absolutely essential, and yet in which +whatever is good in each several part shall be completely displayed.</p> + +<p>§ 2. This operation of true idealism holds, from the least +things to the greatest. For instance, in the arrangement of the +smallest masses of color, the false idealist, or even the purist, +depends upon perfecting each separate hue, and raises them all, +as far as he can, into costly brilliancy; but the naturalist takes +the coarsest and feeblest colors of the things around him, and +so interweaves and opposes them that they become more lovely +than if they had all been bright. So in the treatment of the +human form. The naturalist will take it as he finds it; but, +with such examples as his picture may rationally admit of more +or less exalted beauty, he will associate inferior forms, so as not +only to set off those which are most beautiful, but to bring out +clearly what good there is in the inferior forms themselves;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> +finally using such measure of absolute evil as there is commonly +in nature, both for teaching and for contrast.</p> + +<p>In Tintoret's Adoration of the Magi, the Madonna is not an +enthroned queen, but a fair girl, full of simplicity and almost +childish sweetness. To her are opposed (as Magi) two of the +noblest and most thoughtful of the Venetian senators in extreme +old age,—the utmost manly dignity, in its decline, being +set beside the utmost feminine simplicity, in its dawn. The +steep foreheads and refined features of the nobles are, again, +opposed to the head of a negro servant, and of an Indian, both, +however, noble of their kind. On the other side of the picture, +the delicacy of the Madonna is farther enhanced by contrast +with a largely made farm-servant, leaning on a basket. All +these figures are in repose: outside, the troop of the attendants +of the Magi is seen coming up at the gallop.</p> + +<p>§ 3. I bring forward this picture, observe, not as an example +of the ideal in conception of religious subject, but of the +general ideal treatment of the human form; in which the peculiarity +is, that the beauty of each figure is displayed to the +utmost, while yet, taken separately the Madonna is an unaltered +portrait of a Venetian girl, the Magi are unaltered Venetian Senators, +and the figure with the basket, an unaltered market-woman +of Mestre.</p> + +<p>And the greater the master of the ideal, the more perfectly +true in <i>portraiture</i> will his individual figures be always found, +the more subtle and bold his arts of harmony and contrast. +This is a universal principle, common to all great art. Consider, +in Shakspere, how Prince Henry is opposed to Falstaff, +Falstaff to Shallow, Titania to Bottom, Cordelia to Regan, Imogen +to Cloten, and so on; while all the meaner idealists disdain +the naturalism, and are shocked at the contrasts. The +fact is, a man who can see truth at all, sees it wholly, and +neither desires nor dares to mutilate it.</p> + +<p>§ 4. It is evident that <i>within</i> this faithful idealism, and as +one branch of it only, will arrange itself the representation of +the human form and mind in perfection, when this perfection +is rationally to be supposed or introduced,—that is to say, in +the highest personages of the story. The careless habit of confining +the term "ideal" to such representations, and not under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span>standing +the imperfect ones to be <i>equally</i> ideal in their place, +has greatly added to the embarrassment and multiplied the +errors of artists.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> +Thersites is just as ideal as Achilles, and +Alecto as Helen; and, what is more, all the nobleness of the +beautiful ideal depends upon its being just as probable and natural +as the ugly one, and having in itself, occasionally or partially, +both faults and familiarities. If the next painter who +desires to illustrate the character of Homer's Achilles, would +represent him cutting pork chops for Ulysses,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +he would enable +the public to understand the Homeric ideal better than they +have done for several centuries. For it is to be kept in mind +that the <i>naturalist ideal</i> has always in it, to the full, the power +expressed by those two words. It is naturalist, because studied +from nature, and ideal, because it is mentally arranged in a certain +manner. Achilles must be represented cutting pork chops, +because that was one of the things which the nature of Achilles +involved his doing: he could not be shown wholly as Achilles, +if he were not shown doing that. But he shall do it at such +time and place as Homer chooses.</p> + +<p>§ 5. Now, therefore, observe the main conclusions which +follow from these two conditions, attached always to art of this +kind. First, it is to be taken straight from nature; it is to be +the plain narration of something the painter or writer saw. +Herein is the chief practical difference between the higher and +lower artists; a difference which I feel more and more every +day that I give to the study of art. All the great men see what +they paint before they paint it,—see it in a perfectly passive +manner,—cannot help seeing it if they would; whether in their +mind's eye, or in bodily fact, does not matter; very often the +mental vision is, I believe, in men of imagination, clearer than +the bodily one; but vision it is, of one kind or another,—the +whole scene, character, or incident passing before them as in +second sight, whether they will or no, and requiring them to +paint it as they see it; they not daring, under the might of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> +presence, to alter<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> +one jot or tittle of it as they write it down or +paint it down; it being to them in its own kind and degree +always a true vision or Apocalypse, and invariably accompanied +in their hearts by a feeling correspondent to the words,—"Write +the things <i>which thou hast seen</i>, and the things which +<i>are</i>."</p> + +<p>And the whole power, whether of painter or poet, to describe +rightly what we call an ideal thing, depends upon its being +thus, to him, not an ideal, but a <i>real</i> thing. No man ever did +or ever will work well, but either from actual sight or sight of +faith; and all that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because +to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, +true and existent. The heroes of Phidias are simply representations +of such noble human persons as he every day saw, and +the gods of Phidias simply representations of such noble divine +persons as he thoroughly believed to exist, and did in mental +vision truly behold. Hence I said in the second preface to the +Seven Lamps of Architecture: "All great art represents something +that it sees or believes in; nothing unseen or uncredited."</p> + +<p>§ 6. And just because it is always something that it sees or +believes in, there is the peculiar character above noted, almost +unmistakable, in all high and true ideals, of having been as it +were studied from the life, and involving pieces of sudden +familiarity, and close <i>specific</i> painting which never would have +been admitted or even thought of, had not the painter drawn +either from the bodily life or from the life of faith. For +instance, Dante's centaur, Chiron, dividing his beard with his +arrow before he can speak, is a thing that no mortal would ever +have thought of, if he had not actually seen the centaur do it. +They might have composed handsome bodies of men and horses +in all possible ways, through a whole life of pseudo-idealism, +and yet never dreamed of any such thing. But the real living +centaur actually trotted across Dante's brain, and he saw him +do it.</p> + +<p>§ 7. And on account of this reality it is, that the great idealists +venture into all kinds of what, to the pseudo-idealists, are +"vulgarities." Nay, <i>venturing</i> is the wrong word; the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> +men have no choice in the matter; they do not know or care +whether the things they describe are vulgarities or not. They +<i>saw</i> them: they are the facts of the case. If they had merely +composed what they describe, they would have had it at their +will to refuse this circumstance or add that. But they did not +compose it. It came to them ready fashioned; they were too +much impressed by it to think what was vulgar or not vulgar in +it. It might be a very wrong thing in a centaur to have so +much beard; but so it was. And, therefore, among the various +ready tests of true greatness there is not any more certain +than this daring reference to, or use of, mean and little things—mean +and little, that is, to mean and little minds; but, when +used by the great men, evidently part of the noble whole which +is authoritatively present before them. Thus, in the highest +poetry, as partly above noted in the first chapter, there is no +word so familiar but a great man will bring good out of it, or +rather, it will bring good to him, and answer some end for +which no other word would have done equally well.</p> + +<p>§ 8. A common person, for instance, would be mightily +puzzled to apply the word "whelp" to any one with a view of +flattering him. There is a certain freshness and energy in the +term, which gives it agreeableness; but it seems difficult, at first +hearing, to use it complimentarily. If the person spoken of be +a prince, the difficulty seems increased; and when, farther, he +is at one and the same moment to be called a "whelp" and +contemplated as a hero, it seems that a common idealist might +well be brought to a pause. But hear Shakspere do it:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i6">"Invoke his warlike spirit,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And your great uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Making defeat on the full power of France,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">While his most mighty father on a hill</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Forage in blood of French nobility."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>So a common idealist would have been rather alarmed at the +thought of introducing the name of a street in Paris—Straw +Street—Rue de Fouarre—into the midst of a description of the +highest heavens. Not so Dante,—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Beyond, thou mayst the flaming lustre scan</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Of Isidore, of Bede, and that Richart</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Who was in contemplation more than man.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And he, from whom thy looks returning are</span><br /> +<span class="i1">To me, a spirit was, that in austere</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Deep musings often thought death kept too far.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That is the light eternal of Sigier,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Who while in Rue de Fouarre his days he wore,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Has argued hateful truths in haughtiest ear."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 16em;"><span class="smcap">Cayley.</span></span> +</div> + +<p>What did it matter to Dante, up in heaven there, whether the +mob below thought him vulgar or not! Sigier <i>had</i> read in +Straw Street; that was the fact, and he had to say so, and there +an end.</p> + +<p>§ 9. There is, indeed, perhaps, no greater sign of innate +and <i>real</i> vulgarity of mind or defective education than the want +of power to understand the universality of the ideal truth; the +absence of sympathy with the colossal grasp of those intellects, +which have in them so much of divine, that nothing is small to +them, and nothing large; but with equal and unoffended vision +they take in the sum of the world,—Straw Street and the seventh +heavens,—in the same instant. A certain portion of this +divine spirit is visible even in the lower examples of all the true +men; it is, indeed, perhaps, the clearest test of their belonging +to the true and great group, that they are continually touching +what to the multitude appear vulgarities. The higher a man +stands, the more the word "vulgar" becomes unintelligible to +him. Vulgar? what, that poor farmer's girl of William +Hunt's, bred in the stable, putting on her Sunday gown, and +pinning her best cap out of the green and red pin-cushion! +Not so; she may be straight on the road to those high heavens, +and may shine hereafter as one of the stars in the firmament for +ever. Nay, even that lady in the satin bodice with her arm laid +over a balustrade to show it, and her eyes turned up to heaven +to show them; and the sportsman waving his rifle for the terror +of beasts, and displaying his perfect dress for the delight of +men, are kept, by the very misery and vanity of them, in the +thoughts of a great painter, at a sorrowful level, somewhat +above vulgarity. It is only when the minor painter takes them +on his easel, that they become things for the universe to be +ashamed of.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> + +<p>We may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in plain and few +words, at least as far as regards art. There is never vulgarity +in a <i>whole</i> truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant +or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment +of truth, or in affectation.</p> + +<p>§ 10. "Well, but," (at this point the reader asks doubtfully,) +"if then your great central idealist is to show all truth, +low as well as lovely, receiving it in this passive way, what becomes +of all your principles of selection, and of setting in the +right place, which you were talking about up to the end of your +fourth paragraph? How is Homer to enforce upon Achilles the +cutting of the pork chops 'only at such time as Homer +chooses,' if Homer is to have <i>no</i> choice, but merely to see the +thing done, and sing it as he sees it?" Why, the choice, as +well as the vision, is <i>manifested</i> to Homer. The vision comes +to him in its chosen order. Chosen <i>for</i> him, not <i>by</i> him, but +yet full of visible and exquisite choice, just as a sweet and perfect +dream will come to a sweet and perfect person, so that, in +some sense, they may be said to have chosen their dream, or +composed it; and yet they could not help dreaming it so, and +in no other wise. Thus, exactly thus, in all results of true inventive +power, the whole harmony of the thing done seems as if +it had been wrought by the most exquisite rules. But to him +who did it, it presented itself so, and his will, and knowledge, +and personality, for the moment went for nothing; he became +simply a scribe, and wrote what he heard and saw.</p> + +<p>And all efforts to do things of a similar kind by rule or by +thought, and all efforts to mend or rearrange the first order of +the vision, are not inventive; on the contrary, they ignore and +deny invention. If any man, seeing certain forms laid on the +canvas, does by his reasoning power determine that certain +changes wrought in them would mend or enforce them, that is +not only uninventive, but contrary to invention, which must be +the involuntary occurrence of certain forms or fancies to the +mind in the order they are to be portrayed. Thus the knowing +of rules and the exertion of judgment have a tendency to check +and confuse the fancy in its flow; so that it will follow, that, in +exact proportion as a master knows anything about rules of +right and wrong, he is likely to be uninventive; and in exact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> +proportion as he holds higher rank and has nobler inventive +power, he will know less of rules; not despising them, but simply +feeling that between him and them there is nothing in common,—that +dreams cannot be ruled—that as they come, so they +must be caught, and they cannot be caught in any other shape +than that they come in; and that he might as well attempt to +rule a rainbow into rectitude, or cut notches in a moth's wings +to hold it by, as in any wise attempt to modify, by rule, the +forms of the involuntary vision.</p> + +<p>§ 11. And this, which by reason we have thus anticipated, +is in reality universally so. There is no exception. The great +men never know how or why they do things. They have no +rules; cannot comprehend the nature of rules;—do not, usually, +even know, in what they do, what is best or what is worst: to +them it is all the same; something they cannot help saying or +doing,—one piece of it as good as another, and none of it (it +seems to <i>them</i>) worth much. The moment any man begins to +talk about rules, in whatsoever art, you may know him for a +second-rate man; and, if he talks about them <i>much</i>, he is a third-rate, +or not an artist at all. To <i>this</i> rule there is no exception +in any art; but it is perhaps better to be illustrated in the art +of music than in that of painting. I fell by chance the other +day upon a work of De Stendhal's, "Vies de Haydn, de Mozart, +et de Metastase," fuller of common sense than any book I ever +read on the arts; though I see, by the slight references made +occasionally to painting, that the author's knowledge therein is +warped and limited by the elements of general teaching in the +schools around him; and I have not yet, therefore, looked at +what he has separately written on painting. But one or two +passages out of this book on music are closely to our present +purpose.</p> + +<p>"Counterpoint is related to mathematics: a fool, with +patience, becomes a respectable savant in that; but for the part +of genius, melody, it has no rules. No art is so utterly deprived +of precepts for the production of the beautiful. So +much the better for it and for us. Cimarosa, when first at +Prague his air was executed, Pria che spunti in ciel l'Aurora, +never heard the pedants say to him, 'Your air is fine, because +you have followed such and such a rule established by Pergolese<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> +in such an one of his airs; but it would be finer still if you had +conformed yourself to such another rule from which Galluppi +never deviated.'"</p> + +<p>Yes: "so much the better for it, and for us;" but I trust +the time will soon come when melody in painting will be understood, +no less than in music, and when people will find that, +there also, the great melodists have no rules, and cannot have +any, and that there are in this, as in sound, "no precepts for +the production of the beautiful."</p> + +<p>§ 12. Again. "Behold, my friend, an example of that +simple way of answering which embarrasses much. One asked +him (Haydn) the <i>reason</i> for a harmony—for a passage's being +assigned to one instrument rather than another; but all he ever +answered was, 'I have done it, because it does well.'" Farther +on, De Stendhal relates an anecdote of Haydn; I believe one +well known, but so much to our purpose that I repeat it. +Haydn had agreed to give some lessons in counterpoint to an +English nobleman. "'For our first lesson,' said the pupil, +already learned in the art—drawing at the same time a quatuor +of Haydn's from his pocket, 'for our first lesson may we examine +this quatuor; and will you tell me the reasons of certain +modulations, which I cannot entirely approve because they are +contrary to the principles?' Haydn, a little surprised, declared +himself ready to answer. The nobleman began; and at the +very first measures found matter for objection. Haydn, <i>who +invented habitually</i>, and who was the contrary of a pedant, +found himself much embarrassed, and answered always, 'I have +done that because it has a good effect. I have put that passage +there because it does well.' The Englishman, who judged that +these answers proved nothing, recommenced his proofs, and +demonstrated to him, by very good reasons, that his quatuor +was good for nothing. 'But, my lord, arrange this quatuor +then to your fancy,—play it so, and you will see which of the +two ways is the best.' 'But why is yours the best which is +contrary to the rules?' 'Because it is the pleasantest.' The +nobleman replied. Haydn at last lost patience, and said, 'I +see, my lord, it is you who have the goodness to give lessons to +me, and truly I am forced to confess to you that I do not +deserve the honor.' The partizan of the rules departed, still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> +astonished that in following the rules to the letter one cannot +infallibly produce a 'Matrimonio Segreto.'"</p> + +<p>This anecdote, whether in all points true or not, is in its +tendency most instructive, except only in that it makes <i>one</i> false +inference or admission, namely, that a good composition can be +<i>contrary</i> to the rules. It may be contrary to certain principles, +supposed in ignorance to be general; but every great composition +is in perfect harmony with all true rules, and involves +thousands too delicate for ear, or eye, or thought, to trace; still +it is possible to reason, with infinite pleasure and profit, about +these principles, when the thing is once done; only, all our +reasoning will not enable any one to do another thing like it, +because all reasoning falls infinitely short of the divine instinct. +Thus we may reason wisely over the way a bee builds its comb, +and be profited by finding out certain things about the angles of +it. But the bee knows nothing about those matters. It builds +its comb in a far more inevitable way. And, from a bee to +Paul Veronese, all master-workers work with this awful, this +inspired unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>§ 13. I said just now that there was no exception to <i>this</i> +law, that the great men never knew how or why they did +things. It is, of course, only with caution that such a broad +statement should be made; but I have seen much of different +kinds of artists, and I have always found the knowledge of, and +attention to, rules so <i>accurately</i> in the inverse ratio to the +power of the painter, that I have myself no doubt that the law +is constant, and that men's smallness may be trigonometrically +estimated by the attention which, in their work, they pay to +principles, especially principles of composition. The general +way in which the great men speak is of "<i>trying</i> to do" this or +that, just as a child would tell of something he had seen and +could not utter. Thus, in speaking of the drawing of which I +have given an etching farther on (a scene on the St. Gothard<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>), +Turner asked if I had been to see "that litter of stones which I +<i>endeavored</i> to represent;" and William Hunt, when I asked +him one day as he was painting, why he put on such and such a +color, answered, "I don't know; I am just <i>aiming</i> at it;" and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> +Turner, and he, and all the other men I have known who could +paint, always spoke and speak in the same way; not in any selfish +restraint of their knowledge, but in pure simplicity. While +all the men whom I know, who <i>cannot</i> paint, are ready with +admirable reasons for everything they have done; and can +show, in the most conclusive way, that Turner is wrong, and +how he might be improved.</p> + +<p>§ 14. And this is the reason for the somewhat singular, but +very palpable truth that the Chinese, and Indians, and other +semi-civilized nations, can color better than we do, and that an +Indian shawl or Chinese vase are still, in invention of color, inimitable +by us. It is their glorious ignorance of all rules that +does it; the pure and true instincts have play, and do their +work,—instincts so subtle, that the least warping or compression +breaks or blunts them; and the moment we begin teaching +people any rules about color, and make them do this or that, we +crush the instinct generally for ever. Hence, hitherto, it has +been an actual necessity, in order to obtain power of coloring, +that a nation should be half-savage: everybody could color in +the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but we were ruled and +legalized into grey in the fifteenth;—only a little salt simplicity +of their sea natures at Venice still keeping their precious, shellfishy +purpleness and power; and now that is gone; and nobody +can color anywhere, except the Hindoos and Chinese; but that +need not be so, and will not be so long; for, in a little while, +people will find out their mistake, and give up talking about +rules of color, and then everybody will color again, as easily as +they now talk.</p> + +<p>§ 15. Such, then, being the generally passive or instinctive +character of right invention, it may be asked how these unmanageable +instincts are to be rendered practically serviceable in +historical or poetical painting,—especially historical, in which +given facts are to be represented. Simply by the sense and self-control +of the whole man; not by control of the particular +fancy or vision. He who habituates himself, in his daily life, +to seek for the stern facts in whatever he hears or sees, will +have these facts again brought before him by the involuntary +imaginative power in their noblest associations; and he who +seeks for frivolities and fallacies, will have frivolities and falla<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>cies +again presented to him in his dreams. Thus if, in reading +history for the purpose of painting from it, the painter severely +seeks for the accurate circumstances of every event; as, for instance, +determining the exact spot of ground on which his hero +fell, the way he must have been looking at the moment, the +height the sun was at (by the hour of the day), and the way in +which the light must have fallen upon his face, the actual number +and individuality of the persons by him at the moment, and +such other veritable details, ascertaining and dwelling upon +them without the slightest care for any desirableness or poetic +propriety in them, but for their own truth's sake; then +these truths will afterwards rise up and form the body of +his imaginative vision, perfected and united as his inspiration +may teach. But if, in reading the history, he does not regard +these facts, but thinks only how it might all most prettily, and +properly, and impressively have happened, then there is nothing +but prettiness and propriety to form the body of his future +imagination, and his whole ideal becomes false. So, in the +higher or expressive part of the work, the whole virtue of it +depends on his being able to quit his own personality, and enter +successively into the hearts and thoughts of each person; and +in all this he is still passive: in gathering the truth he is passive, +not determining what the truth to be gathered shall be; +and in the after vision he is passive, not determining, but as his +dreams will have it, what the truth to be represented shall be; +only according to his own nobleness is his power of entering +into the hearts of noble persons, and the general character of +his dream of them.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>§ 16. It follows from all this, evidently, that a great idealist +never can be egotistic. The whole of his power depends upon +his losing sight and feeling of his own existence, and becoming +a mere witness and mirror of truth, and a scribe of visions,—always +passive in sight, passive in utterance,—lamenting continually +that he cannot completely reflect nor clearly utter all he +has seen. Not by any means a proud state for a man to be in. +But the man who has no invention is always setting things in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> +order, and putting the world to rights, and mending, and beautifying, +and pluming himself on his doings as supreme in all +ways.</p> + +<p>§ 17. There is still the question open, What are the principal +directions in which this ideal faculty is to exercise itself +most usefully for mankind?</p> + +<p>This question, however, is not to the purpose of our present +work, which respects landscape-painting only; it must be one +of those left open to the reader's thoughts, and for future inquiry +in another place. One or two essential points I briefly +notice.</p> + +<p>In Chap. <span class="smcap">IV</span>. § 5. it was said, that one of the first functions +of imagination was traversing the scenes of history, and forcing +the facts to become again visible. But there is so little of such +force in written history, that it is no marvel there should be none +hitherto in painting. There does not exist, as far as I know, in +the world a single example of a good historical picture (that is to +say, of one which, allowing for necessary dimness in art as compared +with nature, yet answers nearly the same ends in our +minds as the sight of the real event would have answered); the +reason being, the universal endeavor to get <i>effects</i> instead of +facts, already shown as the root of false idealism. True historical +ideal, founded on sense, correctness of knowledge, and purpose +of usefulness, does not yet exist; the production of it is a +task which the closing nineteenth century may propose to itself.</p> + +<p>§ 18. Another point is to be observed. I do not, as the +reader may have lately perceived, insist on the distinction between +historical and poetical painting, because, as noted in the +22nd paragraph of the third chapter, all great painting must be +both.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, a certain distinction must generally exist between +men who, like Horace Vernet, David, or Domenico Tintoret, +would employ themselves in painting, more or less graphically, +the outward verities of passing events—battles, councils, +&c.—of their day (who, supposing them to work worthily of +their mission, would become, properly so called, historical or +narrative painters); and men who sought, in scenes of perhaps +less outward importance, "noble grounds for noble emotion;"—who +would be, in a certain separate sense, <i>poetical</i> painters,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> +some of them taking for subjects events which had actually happened, +and others themes from the poets; or, better still, becoming +poets themselves in the entire sense, and inventing the +story as they painted it. Painting seems to me only just to be +beginning, in this sense also, to take its proper position beside +literature, and the pictures of the "Awakening Conscience," +"Huguenot," and such others, to be the first fruits of its new +effort.</p> + +<p>§ 19. Finally, as far as I can observe, it is a constant law +that the greatest men, whether poets or historians, live entirely +in their own age, and that the greatest fruits of their work are +gathered out of their own age. Dante paints Italy in the thirteenth +century; Chaucer, England in the fourteenth; Masaccio, +Florence in the fifteenth; Tintoret, Venice in the sixteenth;—all +of them utterly regardless of anachronism and minor +error of every kind, but getting always vital truth out of the +vital present.</p> + +<p>§ 20. If it be said that Shakspere wrote perfect historical +plays on subjects belonging to the preceding centuries, I answer, +that they <i>are</i> perfect plays just because there is no care +about centuries in them, but a life which all men recognise for +the human life of all time; and this it is, not because Shakspere +sought to give universal truth, but because, painting honestly +and completely from the men about him, he painted that +human nature which is, indeed, constant enough,—a rogue in +the fifteenth century being, <i>at heart</i>, what a rogue is in the +nineteenth and was in the twelfth; and an honest or a knightly +man being, in like manner, very similar to other such at any +other time. And the work of these great idealists is, therefore, +always universal; not because it is <i>not portrait</i>, but because it +is <i>complete</i> portrait down to the heart, which is the same in all +ages: and the work of the mean idealists is <i>not</i> universal, not +because it is portrait, but because it is <i>half</i> portrait,—of the +outside, the manners and the dress, not of the heart. Thus +Tintoret and Shakspere paint, both of them, simply Venetian +and English nature as they saw it in their time, down to the +root; and it does for <i>all</i> time; but as for any care to cast themselves +into the particular ways and tones of thought, or custom, +of past time in their historical work, you will find it in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> +neither of them, nor in any other perfectly great man that I +know of.</p> + +<p>§ 21. If there had been no vital truth in their present, it is +hard to say what these men could have done. I suppose, primarily, +they would not have existed; that they, and the matter +they have to treat of, are given together, and that the strength +of the nation and its historians correlatively rise and fall—Herodotus +springing out of the dust of Marathon. It is also +hard to say how far our better general acquaintance with minor +details of past history may make us able to turn the shadow on +the imaginative dial backwards, and naturally to live, and even +live strongly if we choose, in past periods; but this main truth +will always be unshaken, that the only historical painting deserving +the name is portraiture of our own living men and our +own passing times,<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +and that all efforts to summon up the +events of bygone periods, though often useful and touching, +must come under an inferior class of poetical painting; nor will +it, I believe, ever be much followed as their main work by the +strongest men, but only by the weaker and comparatively sentimental +(rather than imaginative) groups. This marvellous first +half of the nineteenth century has in this matter, as in nearly +all others, been making a double blunder. It has, under the +name of improvement, done all it could to <span class="smcap">EFFACE THE RECORDS</span> +which departed ages have left of themselves, while it has declared +the <span class="smcap">FORGERY OF FALSE RECORDS</span> of these same ages to be +the great work of its historical painters! I trust that in a few +years more we shall come somewhat to our senses in the matter, +and begin to perceive that our duty is to preserve what the past +has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves also what shall +be true for the future. Let us strive, with just veneration for +that future, first to do what is worthy to be spoken, and then to +speak it faithfully; and, with veneration for the past, recognize +that it is indeed in the power of love to preserve the monument, +but not of incantation to raise the dead.</p> +<hr class="fn" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> +The word "ideal" is used in this limited sense in the chapter on Generic +Beauty in the second volume, but under protest. See § 4 in that +chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> +II. ix. 209.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> +"And yet you have just said it shall be at such time and place as +Homer chooses. Is not this <i>altering</i>?" No; wait a little, and read on.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> +See Plate XXI. in Chap. III. Vol. IV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> +The reader should, of course, refer for further details on this subject +to the chapters on Imagination in Vol. II., of which I am only glancing +now at the practical results.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> +See Edinburgh Lectures, p. 217.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE TRUE IDEAL: THIRDLY, GROTESQUE.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. I have already, in the Stones of Venice, had occasion +to analyze, as far as I was able, the noble nature and power of +grotesque conception; I am not sorry occasionally to refer the +reader to that work, the fact being that it and this are parts of +one whole, divided merely as I had occasion to follow out one +or other of its branches; for I have always considered architecture +as an essential part of landscape; and I think the study of +its best styles and real meaning one of the necessary functions +of the landscape-painter; as, in like manner, the architect cannot +be a master-workman until all his designs are guided by understanding +of the wilder beauty of pure nature. But, be this +as it may, the discussion of the grotesque element belonged +most properly to the essay on architecture, in which that element +must always find its fullest development.</p> + +<p>§ 2. The Grotesque is in that chapter<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> +divided principally +into three kinds:</p> + +<p>(A). Art arising from healthful but irrational play of the +imagination in times of rest.</p> + +<p>(B). Art arising from irregular and accidental contemplation +of terrible things; or evil in general.</p> + +<p>(C). Art arising from the confusion of the imagination by +the presence of truths which it cannot wholly grasp.</p> + +<p>It is the central form of this art, arising from contemplation +of evil, which forms the link of connection between it and the +sensualist ideals, as pointed out above in the second paragraph +of the sixth chapter, the fact being that the imagination, when +at play, is curiously like bad children, and likes to play with +fire; in its entirely serious moods it dwells by preference on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> +beautiful and sacred images, but in its mocking or playful +moods it is apt to jest, sometimes bitterly, with undercurrent +of sternest pathos, sometimes waywardly, sometimes slightly +and wickedly, with death and sin; hence an enormous mass of +grotesque art, some most noble and useful, as Holbein's Dance +of Death, and Albert Durer's Knight and Death,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> +going down +gradually through various conditions of less and less seriousness +into an art whose only end is that of mere excitement, or +amusement by terror, like a child making mouths at another, +more or less redeemed by the degree of wit or fancy in the +grimace it makes, as in the demons of Teniers and such others; +and, lower still, in the demonology of the stage.</p> + +<p>§ 3. The form arising from an entirely healthful and open +play of the imagination, as in Shakspere's Ariel and Titania, +and in Scott's White Lady, is comparatively rare. It hardly +ever is free from some slight taint of the inclination to evil; +still more rarely is it, when so free, natural to the mind; for +the moment we begin to contemplate sinless beauty we are apt +to get serious; and moral fairy tales, and such other innocent +work, are hardly ever truly, that is to say, naturally imaginative; +but for the most part laborious inductions and compositions. +The moment any real vitality enters them, they are +nearly sure to become satirical, or slightly gloomy, and so connect +themselves with the evil-enjoying branch.</p> + +<p>§ 4. The third form of the Grotesque is a thoroughly noble +one. It is that which arises out of the use or fancy of tangible +signs to set forth an otherwise less expressible truth; including +nearly the whole range of symbolical and allegorical art and +poetry. Its nobleness has been sufficiently insisted upon in the +place before referred to. (Chapter on Grotesque Renaissance, +§§ <span class="smcap">LXIII. LXIV.</span> &c.) Of its +practical use, especially in painting, +deeply despised among us, because grossly misunderstood, a few +words must be added here.</p> + +<p>A fine grotesque is the expression, in a moment, by a series +of symbols thrown together in bold and fearless connection, of +truths which it would have taken a long time to express in any +verbal way, and of which the connection is left for the beholder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> +to work out for himself; the gaps, left or overleaped by the +haste of the imagination, forming the grotesque character.</p> + +<p>§ 5. For instance, Spenser desires to tell us, (1.) that envy +is the most untamable and unappeasable of the passions, not to +be soothed by any kindness; (2.) that with continual labor it +invents evil thoughts out of its own heart; (3.) that even in +this, its power of doing harm is partly hindered by the decaying +and corrupting nature of the evil it lives in; (4.) that it looks +every way, and that whatever it sees is altered and discolored by +its own nature; (5.) which discoloring, however, is to it a veil, +or disgraceful dress, in the sight of others; (6.) and that it +never is free from the most bitter suffering, (7.) which cramps all +its acts and movements, enfolding and crushing it while it torments. +All this it has required a somewhat long and languid +sentence for me to say in unsymbolical terms,—not, by the way, +that they <i>are</i> unsymbolical altogether, for I have been forced, +whether I would or not, to use <i>some</i> figurative words; but even +with this help the sentence is long and tiresome, and does not +with any vigor represent the truth. It would take some prolonged +enforcement of each sentence to make it felt, in ordinary +ways of talking. But Spenser puts it all into a grotesque, and +it is done shortly and at once, so that we feel it fully, and see +it, and never forget it. I have numbered above the statements +which had to be made. I now number them with the same +numbers, as they occur in the several pieces of the grotesque:—</p> + +<p> + <span style="margin-left: 6em;">"And next to him malicious Envy rode</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 3.9em;">(1.) Upon a ravenous wolfe, and (2. 3.) still did chaw</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 6em;">Between his cankred<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> teeth a venemous tode</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 6em;">That all the poison ran about his jaw.</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 2.9em;">(4. 5.) All in a kirtle of discolourd say</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 6em;">He clothed was, y-paynted full of eies;</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 3.9em">(6.) And in his bosome secretly there lay</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 6em;">An hatefull snake, the which his tail uptyes</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 3.9em">(7.) In many folds, and mortall sting implyes."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There is the whole thing in nine lines; or, rather, in one +image, which will hardly occupy any room at all on the mind's +shelves, but can be lifted out, whole, whenever we want it. All +noble grotesques are concentrations of this kind, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>noblest + convey truths which nothing else could convey; and +not only so, but convey them, in minor cases with a delightfulness,—in +the higher instances with an awfulness,—which no +mere utterance of the symbolised truth would have possessed, +but which belongs to the effort of the mind to unweave the riddle, +or to the sense it has of there being an infinite power and +meaning in the thing seen, beyond all that is apparent therein, +giving the highest sublimity even to the most trivial object so +presented and so contemplated.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"'Jeremiah, what seest thou?'</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'I see a seething pot, and the face thereof is toward the north,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And thus in all ages and among all nations, grotesque idealism +has been the element through which the most appalling and +eventful truth has been wisely conveyed, from the most sublime +words of true Revelation, to the "ἀλλ᾿ ὅτ᾿ ἂν ἡμίονος βασιλεὐς," &c., +of the oracles, and the more or less doubtful teaching +of dreams; and so down to ordinary poetry. No element +of imagination has a wider range, a more magnificent use, or so +colossal a grasp of sacred truth.</p> + +<p>§ 6. How, then, is this noble power best to be employed in +the art of painting?</p> + +<p>We hear it not unfrequently asserted that symbolism or personification +should not be introduced in painting at all. Such +assertions are in their grounds unintelligible, and in their substance +absurd. Whatever is in words described as visible, may +with all logical fitness<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> +be rendered so by colors, and not only +is this a legitimate branch of ideal art, but I believe there is +hardly any other so widely useful and instructive; and I heartily +wish that every great allegory which the poets ever invented +were powerfully put on canvas, and easily accessible by all men, +and that our artists were perpetually exciting themselves to invent +more. And as far as authority bears on the question, the +simple fact is that allegorical painting has been the delight of +the greatest men and of the wisest multitudes, from the beginning +of art, and will be till art expires. Orcagua's Triumph of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> +Death; Simon Memmi's frescoes in the Spanish Chapel; Giotto's +principal works at Assisi, and partly at the Arena; Michael +Angelo's two best statues, the Night and Day; Albert Durer's +noble Melancholy, and hundreds more of his best works; a full +third, I should think, of the works of Tintoret and Veronese, +and nearly as large a portion of those of Raphael and Rubens, +are entirely symbolical or personifiant; and, except in the case +of the last-named painter, are always among the most interesting +works the painters executed. The greater and more +thoughtful the artists, the more they delight in symbolism, and +the more fearlessly they employ it. Dead symbolism, second-hand +symbolism, pointless symbolism, are indeed objectionable +enough; but so are most other things that are dead, second-hand, +and pointless. It is also true that both symbolism and +personification are somewhat more apt than most things to have +their edges taken off by too much handling; and what with our +modern Fames, Justices, and various metaphorical ideals, +largely used for signs and other such purposes, there is some +excuse for our not well knowing what the real power of personification +is. But that power is gigantic and inexhaustible, and +ever to be grasped with peculiar joy by the painter, because it +permits him to introduce picturesque elements and flights of +fancy into his work, which otherwise would be utterly inadmissible; +to bring the wild beasts of the desert into the room of +state, fill the air with inhabitants as well as the earth, and render +the least (visibly) interesting incidents themes for the most +thrilling drama. Even Tintoret might sometimes have been +hard put to it, when he had to fill a large panel in the Ducal +Palace with the portrait of a nowise interesting Doge, unless he +had been able to lay a winged lion beside him, ten feet long +from the nose to the tail, asleep upon the Turkey carpet; and +Rubens could certainly have made his flatteries of Mary of +Medicis palatable to no one but herself, without the help of +rosy-cheeked goddesses of abundance, and seven-headed hydras +of rebellion.</p> + +<p>§ 7. For observe, not only does the introduction of these imaginary +beings permit greater fantasticism of <i>incident</i>, but also +infinite fantasticism of <i>treatment</i>; and, I believe, so far from the +pursuit of the false ideal having in any wise exhausted the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> +realms of fantastic imagination, those realms have hardly yet +been entered, and that a universe of noble dream-land lies before +us, yet to be conquered. For, hitherto, when fantastic +creatures have been introduced, either the masters have been so +realistic in temper that they made the spirits as substantial as +their figures of flesh and blood,—as Rubens, and, for the most +part, Tintoret; or else they have been weak and unpractised in +realization, and have painted transparent or cloudy spirits because +they had no power of painting grand ones. But if a +really great painter, thoroughly capable of giving substantial +truth, and master of the elements of pictorial effect which have +been developed by modern art, would solemnly, and yet fearlessly, +cast his fancy free in the spiritual world, and faithfully +follow out such masters of that world as Dante and Spenser, +there seems no limit to the splendor of thought which painting +might express. Consider, for instance, how the ordinary personifications +of Charity oscillate between the mere nurse of +many children, of Reynolds, and the somewhat painfully conceived +figure with flames issuing from the heart, of Giotto; and +how much more significance might be given to the representation +of Love, by amplifying with tenderness the thought of +Dante, "Tanta rossa, che a pena fora dentro al foco nota,"<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> +that is to say, by representing the loveliness of her face and +form as all flushed with glow of crimson light, and, as she descended +through heaven, all its clouds colored by her presence +as they are by sunset. In the hands of a feeble painter, such an +attempt would end in mere caricature; but suppose it taken up +by Correggio, adding to his power of flesh-painting the (not inconsistent) +feeling of Angelico in design, and a portion of Turner's +knowledge of the clouds. There is nothing impossible in +such a conjunction as this. Correggio, trained in another +school, might have even himself shown some such extent of +grasp; and in Turner's picture of the dragon of the Hesperides, +Jason, vignette to Voyage of Columbus ("Slowly along +the evening sky they went"), and such others, as well as in +many of the works of Watts and Rosetti, is already visible, as I +trust, the dawn of a new era of art, in a true unison of the grotesque +with the realistic power.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> + +<p>§ 8. There is, however, unquestionably, a severe limit, in the +case of all inferior masters, to the degree in which they may +venture to realize grotesque conception, and partly, also, a limit +in the nature of the thing itself, there being many grotesque +ideas which may be with safety suggested dimly by words or +slight lines, but which will hardly bear being painted into perfect +definiteness. It is very difficult, in reasoning on this matter, +to divest ourselves of the prejudices which have been forced +upon us by the base grotesque of men like Bronzino, who, having +no true imagination, are apt, more than others, to try by +startling realism to enforce the monstrosity that has no terror +in itself. But it is nevertheless true, that, unless in the hands +of the very greatest men, the grotesque seems better to be +expressed merely in line, or light and shade, or mere abstract +color, so as to mark it for a thought rather than a substantial +fact. Even if Albert Durer had perfectly painted his Knight +and Death, I question if we should feel it so great a thought as +we do in the dark engraving. Blake, perfectly powerful in the +etched grotesque of the book of Job, fails always more or less as +soon as he adds color; not merely for want of power (his eye for +color being naturally good), but because his subjects seem, in a +sort, insusceptible of completion; and the two inexpressibly +noble and pathetic woodcut grotesques of Alfred Rethel's, +Death the Avenger, and Death the Friend, could not, I think, +but with disadvantage, be advanced into pictorial color.</p> + +<p>And what is thus doubtfully true of the pathetic grotesque, +is assuredly and always true of the jesting grotesque. So far as +it expresses any transient flash of wit or satire, the less labor of +line, or color, given to its expression the better; elaborate jesting +being always intensely painful.</p> + +<p>§ 9. For these several reasons, it seems not only permissible, +but even desirable, that the art by which the grotesque is +expressed should be more or less imperfect, and this seems a +most beneficial ordinance as respects the human race in general. +For the grotesque being not only a most forceful instrument of +teaching, but a most natural manner of expression, springing as +it does at once from any tendency to playfulness in minds +highly comprehensive of truth; and being also one of the readiest +ways in which such satire or wit as may be possessed by men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> +of any inferior rank of mind can be for perpetuity expressed, it +becomes on all grounds desirable that what is suggested in +times of play should be rightly sayable without toil; and what +occurs to men of inferior power or knowledge, sayable without +any high degree of skill. Hence it is an infinite good to mankind +when there is full acceptance of the grotesque, slightly +sketched or expressed; and, if field for such expression be +frankly granted, an enormous mass of intellectual power is +turned to everlasting use, which, in this present century of +ours, evaporates in street gibing or vain revelling; all the good +wit and satire expiring in daily talk, (like foam on wine,) which +in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had a permitted and +useful expression in the arts of sculpture and illumination, like +foam fixed into chalcedony. It is with a view (not the least important +among many others bearing upon art) to the reopening +of this great field of human intelligence, long entirely closed, +that I am striving to introduce Gothic architecture into daily +domestic use; and to revive the art of illumination, properly so +called; not the art of miniature-painting in books, or on vellum, +which has ridiculously been confused with it; but of making +<i>writing</i>, simple writing, beautiful to the eye, by investing it +with the great chord of perfect color, blue, purple, scarlet, +white, and gold, and in that chord of color, permitting the continual +play of the fancy of the writer in every species of grotesque +imagination, carefully excluding shadow; the distinctive +difference between illumination and painting proper, being, +that illumination admits <i>no</i> shadows, but only gradations of +pure color. And it is in this respect that illumination is specially +fitted for grotesque expression; for, when I used the +term "<i>pictorial</i> color," just now, in speaking of the completion +of the grotesque of Death the Avenger, I meant to distinguish +such color from the abstract, shadeless hues which are eminently +fitted for grotesque thought. The requirement, respecting +the slighter grotesque, is only that it shall be <i>incompletely</i> +expressed. It may have light and shade without color (as in +etching and sculpture), or color without light and shade (illumination), +but must not, except in the hands of the greatest +masters, have both. And for some conditions of the playful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> +grotesque, the abstract color is a much more delightful element +of expression than the abstract light and shade.</p> + +<p>§ 10. Such being the manifold and precious uses of the true +grotesque, it only remains for us to note carefully how it is to +be distinguished from the false and vicious grotesque which +results from idleness, instead of noble rest; from malice, instead +of the solemn contemplation of necessary evil; and from +general degradation of the human spirit, instead of its subjection, +or confusion, by thoughts too high for it. It is easy for +the reader to conceive how different the fruits of two such different +states of mind <i>must</i> be; and yet how like in many +respects, and apt to be mistaken, one for the other;—how the +jest which springs from mere fatuity, and vacant want of penetration +or purpose, is everlastingly, infinitely, separated from, +and yet may sometimes be mistaken for, the bright, playful, +fond, far-sighted jest of Plato, or the bitter, purposeful, sorrowing +jest of Aristophanes; how, again, the horror which springs +from guilty love of foulness and sin, may be often mistaken for +the inevitable horror which a great mind must sometimes feel +in the full and penetrative sense of their presence;—how, +finally, the vague and foolish inconsistencies of undisciplined +dream or reverie may be mistaken for the compelled inconsistencies +of thoughts too great to be well sustained, or clearly +uttered. It is easy, I say, to understand what a difference there +must indeed be between these; and yet how difficult it may be +always to define it, or lay down laws for the discovery of it, except +by the just instinct of minds set habitually in all things to +discern right from wrong.</p> + +<p>§ 11. Nevertheless, one good and characteristic instance +may be of service in marking the leading directions in which +the contrast is discernible. On the opposite page, Plate I., I +have put, beside each other, a piece of true grotesque, from the +Lombard-Gothic, and of false grotesque from classical (Roman) +architecture. They are both griffins; the one on the left +carries on his back one of the main pillars of the porch of the +cathedral of Verona; the one on the right is on the frieze of +the temple of Antoninus and Faustina at Rome, much celebrated +by Renaissance and bad modern architects.</p> + +<p>In some respects, however, this classical griffin deserves its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> +reputation. It is exceedingly fine in lines of composition, and, +I believe (I have not examined the original closely), very exquisite +in execution. For these reasons, it is all the better for our +purpose. I do not want to compare the worst false grotesque +with the best true, but rather, on the contrary, the best false +with the simplest true, in order to see how the delicately +wrought lie fails in the presence of the rough truth; for rough +truth in the present case it is, the Lombard sculpture being +altogether untoward and imperfect in execution.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>§ 12. "Well, but," the reader says, "what do you mean by +calling <i>either</i> of them true? There never were such beasts in +the world as either of these?"</p> + +<p>No, never: but the difference is, that the Lombard workman +did really see a griffin in his imagination, and carved it +from the life, meaning to declare to all ages that he had verily +seen with his immortal eyes such a griffin as that; but the classical +workman never saw a griffin at all, nor anything else; but +put the whole thing together by line and rule.</p> + +<p>§ 13. "How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>Very easily. Look at the two, and think over them. You +know a griffin is a beast composed of lion and eagle. The +classical workman set himself to fit these together in the most +ornamental way possible. He accordingly carves a sufficiently +satisfactory lion's body, then attaches very gracefully cut +wings to the sides: then, because he cannot get the eagle's +head on the broad lion's shoulders, fits the two together by +something like a horse's neck (some griffins being wholly composed +of a horse and eagle), then, finding the horse's neck look +weak and unformidable, he strengthens it by a series of bosses, +like vertebrae, in front, and by a series of spiny cusps, instead +of a mane, on the ridge; next, not to lose the whole leonine +character about the neck, he gives a remnant of the lion's +beard, turned into a sort of griffin's whisker, and nicely curled +and pointed; then an eye, probably meant to look grand and +abstracted, and therefore neither lion's nor eagle's; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> +finally, an eagle's beak, very sufficiently studied from a real +one. The whole head being, it seems to him, still somewhat +wanting in weight and power, he brings forward the right wing +behind it, so as to enclose it with a broad line. This is the finest +thing in the composition, and very masterly, both in +thought, and in choice of the exactly right point where the +lines of wing and beak should intersect (and it may be noticed +in passing, that all men, who can compose at all, have this +habit of encompassing or governing broken lines with broad +ones, wherever it is possible, of which we shall see many +instances hereafter). The whole griffin, thus gracefully composed, +being, nevertheless, when all is done, a very composed +griffin, is set to very quiet work, and raising his left foot, to +balance his right wing, sets it on the tendril of a flower so +lightly as not even to bend it down, though, in order to reach it, +his left leg is made half as long again as his right.</p> + +<p>§ 14. We may be pretty sure, if the carver had ever seen a +griffin, he would have reported of him as doing something else +than <i>that</i> with his feet. Let us see what the Lombardic workman +saw him doing.</p> + +<p>Remember, first, the griffin, though part lion and part +eagle, has the united <i>power of both</i>. He is not merely a bit of +lion and a bit of eagle, but whole lion, incorporate with whole +eagle. So when we really see one, we may be quite sure we +shall not find him wanting in anything necessary to the might +either of beast or bird.</p> + +<p>Well, among things essential to the might of a lion, perhaps, +on the whole, the most essential are his <i>teeth</i>. He could get on +pretty well even without his claws, usually striking his prey +down with a blow, woundless; but he could by no means get on +without his teeth. Accordingly, we see that the real or Lombardic +griffin has the carnivorous teeth bare to the root, and the +peculiar hanging of the jaw at the back, which marks the flexible +and gaping mouth of the devouring tribes.</p> + +<p>Again; among things essential to the might of an eagle, +next to his wings (which are of course prominent in both examples), +are his <i>claws</i>. It is no use his being able to tear anything +with his beak, if he cannot first hold it in his claws; he has +comparatively no leonine power of striking with his feet, but a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> +magnificent power of grip with them. Accordingly, we see +that the real griffin, while his feet are heavy enough to strike +like a lion's, has them also extended far enough to give them +the eagle's grip with the back claw; and has, moreover, some of +the bird-like wrinkled skin over the whole foot, marking this +binding power the more; and that he has besides verily got +something to hold with his feet, other than a flower, of which +more presently.</p> + +<p>§ 15. Now observe, the Lombardic workman did not do all +this because he had thought it out, as you and I are doing +together; he never thought a bit about it. He simply saw the +beast; saw it as plainly as you see the writing on this page, and +of course could not be wrong in anything he told us of it.</p> + +<p>Well, what more does he tell us? Another thing, remember, +essential to an eagle is that it should fly <i>fast</i>. It is no use +its having wings at all if it is to be impeded in the use of them. +Now it would be difficult to impede him more thoroughly than +by giving him two cocked ears to catch the wind.</p> + +<p>Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false griffin <i>has</i> +them so set, and, consequently, as he flew, there would be a +continual humming of the wind on each side of his head, and +he would have an infallible earache when he got home. But +the real griffin has his ears flat to his head, and all the hair of +them blown back, even to a point, by his fast flying, and the +aperture is downwards, that he may hear anything going on +upon the earth, where his prey is. In the false griffin the aperture +is upwards.</p> + +<p>§ 16. Well, what more? As he is made up of the natures +of lion and eagle, we may be very certain that a real griffin is, +on the whole, fond of eating, and that his throat will look as if +he occasionally took rather large pieces, besides being flexible +enough to let him bend and stretch his head in every direction +as he flies.</p> + +<p>Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false one has +got those bosses upon his neck like vertebrae, which must be infinitely +in his way when he is swallowing, and which are evidently +inseparable, so that he cannot <i>stretch</i> his neck any more +than a horse. But the real griffin is all loose about the neck, +evidently being able to make it almost as much longer as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> +likes; to stretch and bend it anywhere, and swallow anything, +besides having some of the grand strength of the bull's dewlap +in it when at rest.</p> + +<p>§ 17. What more? Having both lion and eagle in him, it is +probable that the real griffin will have an infinite look of repose +as well as power of activity. One of the notablest things about +a lion is his magnificent <i>indolence</i>, his look of utter disdain of +trouble when there is no occasion for it; as, also, one of the +notablest things about an eagle is his look of inevitable vigilance, +even when quietest. Look, again, at the two beasts. +You see the false griffin is quite sleepy and dead in the eye, +thus contradicting his eagle's nature, but is putting himself to +a great deal of unnecessary trouble with his paws, holding one in +a most painful position merely to touch a flower, and bearing +the whole weight of his body on the other, thus contradicting +his lion's nature.</p> + +<p>But the real griffin is primarily, with his eagle's nature, +wide awake; evidently quite ready for whatever may happen; +and with his lion's nature, laid all his length on his belly, prone +and ponderous; his two paws as simply put out before him as a +drowsy puppy's on a drawingroom hearth-rug; not but that he +has got something to do with them, worthy of such paws; but +he takes not one whit more trouble about it than is absolutely +necessary. He has merely got a poisonous winged dragon to +hold, and for such a little matter as that, he may as well do it +lying down and at his ease, looking out at the same time for +any other piece of work in his way. He takes the dragon by +the middle, one paw under the wing, another above, gathers +him up into a knot, puts two or three of his claws well into his +back, crashing through the scales of it and wrinkling all the +flesh up from the wound, flattens him down against the ground, +and so lets him do what he likes. The dragon tries to bite +him, but can only bring his head round far enough to get hold +of his own wing, which he bites in agony instead; flapping the +griffin's dewlap with it, and wriggling his tail up against the +griffin's throat; the griffin being, as to these minor proceedings, +entirely indifferent, sure that the dragon's body cannot +drag itself one hair's breadth off those ghastly claws, and that +its head can do no harm but to itself.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> + +<p>§ 18. Now observe how in all this, through every separate +part and action of the creature, the imagination is <i>always</i> right. +It evidently <i>cannot</i> err; it meets every one of our requirements +respecting the griffin as simply as if it were gathering up the +bones of the real creature out of some ancient rock. It does +not itself know or care, any more than the peasant laboring +with his spade and axe, what is wanted to meet our theories or +fancies. It knows simply what is there, and brings out the +positive creature, errorless, unquestionable. So it is throughout +art, and in all that the imagination does; if anything be +wrong it is not the imagination's fault, but some inferior +faculty's, which would have its foolish say in the matter, and +meddled with the imagination, and said, the bones ought to be +put together tail first, or upside down.</p> + +<p>§ 19. This, however, we need not be amazed at, because the +very essence of the imagination is already defined to be the seeing +to the heart; and it is not therefore wonderful that it +should never err; but it is wonderful, on the other hand, how +the composing legalism does <i>nothing else</i> than err. One would +have thought that, by mere chance, in this or the other element +of griffin, the griffin-composer might have struck out a truth; +that he might have had the luck to set the ears back, or to give +some grasp to the claw. But, no; from beginning to end it is +evidently impossible for him to be anything but wrong; his +whole soul is instinct with lies; no veracity can come within +hail of him; to him, all regions of right and life are for ever +closed.</p> + +<p>§ 20. And another notable point is, that while the imagination +receives truth in this simple way, it is all the while receiving +statutes of composition also, far more noble than those for +the sake of which the truth was lost by the legalist. The ornamental +lines in the classical griffin appear at first finer than in +the other; but they only appear so because they are more commonplace +and more palpable. The subtlety of the sweeping +and rolling curves in the real griffin, the way they waver and +change and fold, down the neck, and along the wing, and in +and out among the serpent coils, is incomparably grander, +merely as grouping of ornamental line, than anything in the +other; nor is it fine as ornamental only, but as massively use<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span>ful, +giving weight of stone enough to answer the entire purpose +of pedestal sculpture. Note, especially, the insertion of +the three plumes of the dragon's broken wing in the outer +angle, just under the large coil of his body; this filling of the +gap being one of the necessities, not of the pedestal block +merely, but a means of getting mass and breadth, which all +composers desire more or less, but which they seldom so perfectly +accomplish.</p> + +<p>So that taking the truth first, the honest imagination gains +everything; it has its griffinism, and grace, and usefulness, all +at once: but the false composer, caring for nothing but himself +and his rules, loses everything,—griffinism, grace, and all.</p> + + +<a name="PLATE_1" id="PLATE_1"></a> +<table summary="PLATE 1 with captions"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2"> + <a href="images/illus125b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img style="margin-bottom: -.6em;" src="images/illus125leftw.jpg" height="350" alt="PLATE 1" /> + </a> + </td> + <td> </td> + <td class="tdl" colspan="2"> + <a href="images/illus125b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img style="margin-bottom: -.6em;" src="images/illus125rightw.jpg" height="350" alt="PLATE 1" /> + </a> + </td> + </tr><tr> + + <td class="tdl"><span style="font-size: 60%">J. Ruskin.</span></td> <td class="tdr"><span style="font-size: 60%">R. P. Cuff.</span></td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdl"><span style="font-size: 60%">From Lithograph.</span></td><td class="tdr"><span style="font-size: 60%">R. P. Cuff.</span></td> + </tr><tr> + + <td class="tdc" colspan="5"><span class="caption">1. True and False Griffins.</span></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class="caption">Mediæval.</span></td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdc" colspan="2"><span class="caption">Classical.</span></td> + </tr> +</table> + + + +<p>§ 21. I believe the reader will now sufficiently see how the +terms "true" and "false" are in the most accurate sense attachable +to the opposite branches of what might appear at first, +in both cases, the merest wildness of inconsistent reverie. But +they are even to be attached, in a deeper sense than that in +which we have hitherto used them, to these two compositions. +For the imagination hardly ever works in this intense way, unencumbered +by the inferior faculties, unless it be under the +influence of some solemn purpose or sentiment. And to all the +falseness and all the verity of these two ideal creatures this farther +falsehood and verity have yet to be added, that the classical +griffin has, at least in this place, no other intent than that of +covering a level surface with entertaining form; but the Lombardic +griffin is a profound expression of the most passionate +symbolism. Under its eagle's wings are two wheels,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> +which mark it as connected, in the mind of him who wrought it, with +the living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel: "When they +went, the wheels went by them, and whithersoever the spirit +was to go, they went, and the wheels were lifted up over against +them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels." +Thus signed, the winged shape becomes at once one of the +acknowledged symbols of the Divine power; and, in its unity +of lion and eagle, the workman of the middle ages always means +to set forth the unity of the human and divine natures,<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> +In +this unity it bears up the pillars of the Church, set for ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> +as the corner stone. And the faithful and true imagination +beholds it, in this unity, with everlasting vigilance and calm +omnipotence, restrain the seed of the serpent crushed upon the +earth; leaving the head of it free, only for a time, that it may +inflict in its fury profounder destruction upon itself,—in this +also full of deep meaning. The Divine power does not slay the +evil creature. It wounds and restrains it only. Its final and +<i>deadly</i> wound is inflicted by itself.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> +On the Grotesque Renaissance, vol. iii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> +See Appendix I. Vol. IV. "Modern Grotesque."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> +Cankred—because he cannot then bite hard.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> +Though, perhaps, only in a subordinate degree. See farther on, § 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> +"So red, that in the midst of the fire she could hardly have been seen."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> +If there be any inaccuracy in the right-hand griffin, I am sorry, but +am not answerable for it, as the plate has been faithfully reduced from a +large French lithograph, the best I could find. The other is from a sketch +of my own.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> +At the extremities of the wings,—not seen in the plate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> +Compare the Purgatorio, canto xxix. &c.</p></div> + + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>OF FINISH.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. I am afraid the reader must be, by this time, almost +tired of hearing about truth. But I cannot help this; the +more I have examined the various forms of art, and exercised +myself in receiving their differently intended impressions, the +more I have found this truthfulness a final test, the only test of +lasting power; and, although our concern in this part of our +inquiry is, professedly, with the beauty which blossoms out of +truth, still I find myself compelled always to gather it by the +stalk, not by the petals. I cannot hold the beauty, nor be sure +of it for a moment, but by feeling for that strong stem.</p> + +<p>We have, in the preceding chapters, glanced through the +various operations of the imaginative power of man; with this +almost painfully monotonous result, that its greatness and +honor were always simply in proportion to the quantity of truth +it grasped. And now the question, left undetermined some +hundred pages back (Chap. <span class="smcap">II.</span> § 6), recurs to us in a simpler +form than it could before. How far is this true imagination to +be truly represented? How far should the perfect conception +of Pallas be so given as to look like Pallas herself, rather than +like the picture of Pallas?</p> + +<p>§ 2. A question, this, at present of notable interest, and +demanding instant attention. For it seemed to us, in reasoning +about Dante's views of art, that he was, or might be, right +in desiring realistic completeness; and yet, in what we have +just seen of the grotesque ideal, it seemed there was a certain +desirableness in incompleteness. And the schools of art in +Europe are, at this moment, set in two hostile ranks,—not +nobly hostile, but spitefully and scornfully, having for one of +the main grounds of their dispute the apparently simple question, +how far a picture may be carried forward in detail, or how +soon it may be considered as finished.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> + +<p>I propose, therefore, in the present chapter, to examine, as +thoroughly as I can, the real signification of this word, Finish, +as applied to art, and to see if in this, as in other matters, our +almost tiresome test is not the only right one; whether there be +not a <i>fallacious</i> finish and a <i>faithful</i> finish, and whether the +dispute, which seems to be only about completion and incompletion, +has not therefore, at the bottom of it, the old and deep +grounds of fallacy and fidelity.</p> + +<p>§ 3. Observe, first, there are two great and separate senses +in which we call a thing finished, or well finished. One, which +refers to the mere neatness and completeness of the actual +work, as we speak of a well-finished knife-handle or ivory toy +(as opposed to ill-cut ones); and, secondly, a sense which refers +to the effect produced by the thing done, as we call a picture +well-finished if it is so full in its details, as to produce the effect +of reality on the spectator. And, in England, we seem at present +to value highly the first sort of finish which belongs to +work<i>manship</i>, in our manufactures and general doings of any +kind, but to despise totally the impressive finish which belongs +to the <i>work</i>; and therefore we like smooth ivories better than +rough ones,—but careless scrawls or daubs better than the most +complete paintings. Now, I believe that we exactly reverse the +fitness of judgment in this matter, and that we ought, on the +contrary, to despise the finish of work<i>manship</i>, which is done +for vanity's sake, and to love the finish of <i>work</i>, which is done +for truth's sake,—that we ought, in a word, to finish our ivory +toys more roughly, and our pictures more delicately.</p> + +<p>Let us think over this matter.</p> + +<p>§ 4. Perhaps one of the most remarkable points of difference +between the English and Continental nations is in the +degree of finish given to their ordinary work. It is enough to +cross from Dover to Calais to feel this difference; and to travel +farther only increases the sense of it. English windows for the +most part fit their sashes, and their woodwork is neatly planed +and smoothed; French windows are larger, heavier, and framed +with wood that looks as if it had been cut to its shape with a +hatchet; they have curious and cumbrous fastenings, and can +only be forced asunder or together by some ingenuity and +effort, and even then not properly. So with everything else<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span>—French, +Italian, and German, and, as far as I know, Continental. +Foreign drawers do not slide as well as ours: foreign +knives do not cut so well; foreign wheels do not turn so well, +and we commonly plume ourselves much upon this, believing +that generally the English people do their work better and more +thoroughly, or as they say, "turn it out of their hands in better +style," than foreigners. I do not know how far this is really +the case. There may be a flimsy neatness, as well as a substantial +roughness; it does not necessarily follow that the window +which shuts easiest will last the longest, or that the harness +which glitters the most is assuredly made of the toughest +leather. I am afraid, that if this peculiar character of finish in +our workmanship ever arose from a greater heartiness and thoroughness +in our ways of doing things, it does so only now in +the case of our best manufacturers; and that a great deal of +the work done in England, however good in appearance, is but +treacherous and rotten in substance. Still, I think that there +is really in the English mind, for the most part, a stronger +desire to do things as well as they can be done, and less inclination +to put up with inferiorities or insufficiencies, than in +general characterise the temper of foreigners. There is in +this conclusion no ground for national vanity; for though the +desire to do things as well as they can be done at first appears +like a virtue, it is certainly not so in all its forms. On the contrary, +it proceeds in nine cases out of ten more from vanity +than conscientiousness; and that, moreover, often a weak +vanity. I suppose that as much finish is displayed in the +fittings of the private carriages of our young rich men as in any +other department of English manufacture; and that our St. +James's Street cabs, dogcarts, and liveries are singularly perfect +in their way. But the feeling with which this perfection is insisted +upon (however desirable as a sign of energy of purpose) is +not in itself a peculiarly amiable or noble feeling; neither is it +an ignoble disposition which would induce a country gentleman +to put up with certain deficiencies in the appearance of his +country-made carriage. It is true that such philosophy may +degenerate into negligence, and that much thought and long +discussion would be needed before we could determine satisfactorily +the limiting lines between virtuous contentment and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> +faultful carelessness; but at all events we have no right at once +to pronounce ourselves the wisest people because we like to do +all things in the best way. There are many little things which +to do admirably is to waste both time and cost; and the real +question is not so much whether we have done a given thing as +well as possible, as whether we have turned a given quantity of +labor to the best account.</p> + +<p>§ 5. Now, so far from the labor's being turned to good +account which is given to our English "finishing," I believe it +to be usually destructive of the best powers of our workmen's +minds. For it is evident, in the first place, that there is almost +always a useful and a useless finish; the hammering and welding +which are necessary to produce a sword plate of the best +quality, are useful finishing; the polishing of its surface, +useless.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> +In nearly all work this distinction will, more or less, +take place between substantial finish and apparent finish, or +what may be briefly characterized as "Make" and "Polish." +And so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of "make," I +have nothing to say against it. Even the vanity which displays +itself in giving strength to our work is rather a virtue than a +vice. But so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of "polish," +there is much to be said against it; this first, and very strongly, +that the qualities aimed at in common finishing, namely, +smoothness, delicacy, or fineness, <i>cannot</i> in reality <i>exist</i>, in a +degree worth admiring, in anything done by human hands. +Our best finishing is but coarse and blundering work after all +We may smooth, and soften, and sharpen till we are sick at +heart; but take a good magnifying glass to our miracle of skill, +and the invisible edge is a jagged saw, and the silky thread a +rugged cable, and the soft surface a granite desert. Let all the +ingenuity and all the art of the human race be brought to bear +upon the attainment of the utmost possible finish, and they +could not do what is done in the foot of a fly, or the film of a +bubble. God alone can finish; and the more intelligent the +human mind becomes, the more the infiniteness of interval is +felt between human and divine work in this respect. So then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> +it is not a little absurd to weary ourselves in struggling towards +a point which we never can reach, and to exhaust our strength +in vain endeavors to produce qualities which exist inimitably +and inexhaustibly in the commonest things around us.</p> + +<p>§ 6. But more than this: the fact is that in multitudes of +instances, instead of gaining greater fineness of finish by our +work, we are only destroying the fine finish of nature, and substituting +coarseness and imperfection. For instance, when a +rock of any kind has lain for some time exposed to the weather, +Nature finishes it in her own way; first, she takes wonderful +pains about its forms, sculpturing it into exquisite variety of +dint and dimple, and rounding or hollowing it into contours, +which for fineness no human hand can follow; then she colors +it; and every one of her touches of color, instead of being a +powder mixed with oil, is a minute forest of living trees, glorious +in strength and beauty, and concealing wonders of structure, +which in all probability are mysteries even to the eyes of +angels. Man comes and digs up this finished and marvellous +piece of work, which in his ignorance he calls a "rough stone." +He proceeds to finish it in <i>his</i> fashion, that is, to split it in two, +rend it into ragged blocks, and, finally, to chisel its surface into +a large number of lumps and knobs, all equally shapeless, colorless, +deathful, and frightful.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> +And the block, thus disfigured, +he calls "finished," and proceeds to build therewith, and +thinks himself great, forsooth, and an intelligent animal. +Whereas, all that he has really done is, to destroy with utter +ravage a piece of divine art, which, under the laws appointed by +the Deity to regulate his work in this world, it must take good +twenty years to produce the like of again. This he has destroyed, +and has himself given in its place a piece of work +which needs no more intelligence to do than a pholas has, or a +worm, or the spirit which throughout the world has authority +over rending, rottenness, and decay. I do not say that stone +must not be cut; it needs to be cut for certain uses; only I say +that the cutting it is not "finishing," but <i>un</i>finishing it; and +that so far as the mere fact of chiselling goes, the stone is +ruined by the human touch. It is with it as with the stones of +the Jewish altar: "If thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> +polluted it." In like manner a tree is a finished thing. But a +plank, though ever so polished, is not. We need stones and +planks, as we need food; but we no more bestow an additional +admirableness upon stone in hewing it, or upon a tree in sawing +it, than upon an animal in killing it.</p> + +<p>§ 7. Well, but it will be said, there is certainly a kind of +finish in stone-cutting, and in every other art, which is meritorious, +and which consists in smoothing and refining as much as +possible. Yes, assuredly there is a meritorious finish. First, +as it has just been said, that which fits a thing for its uses,—as +a stone to lie well in its place, or the cog of an engine wheel to +play well on another; and, secondly, a finish belonging properly +to the arts; but <i>that</i> finish does not consist in smoothing +or polishing, but in the <i>completeness of the expression of ideas</i>. +For in painting, there is precisely the same difference between +the ends proposed in finishing that there is in manufacture. +Some artists finish for the finish' sake; dot their pictures all +over, as in some kinds of miniature-painting (when a wash of +color would have produced as good an effect); or polish their +pictures all over, making the execution so delicate that the +touch of the brush cannot be seen, for the sake of the smoothness +merely, and of the credit they may thus get for great +labor; which kind of execution, seen in great perfection in +many works of the Dutch school, and in those of Carlo Dolce, +is that polished "language" against which I have spoken at +length in various portions of the first volume; nor is it possible +to speak of it with too great severity or contempt, where it has +been made an ultimate end.</p> + +<p>But other artists finish for the impression's sake, not to +show their skill, nor to produce a smooth piece of work, but +that they may, with each stroke, render clearer the expression +of knowledge. And this sort of finish is not, properly speaking, +so much <i>completing</i> the picture as <i>adding</i> to it. It is not that +what is painted is more delicately done, but that infinitely <i>more</i> +is painted. This finish is always noble, and, like all other +noblest things, hardly ever understood or appreciated. I must +here endeavor, more especially with respect to the state of quarrel +between the schools of living painters, to illustrate it thoroughly.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> + +<p>§ 8. In sketching the outline, suppose of the trunk of a +tree, as in Plate 2. (opposite) fig. 1., it matters comparatively +little whether the outline be given with a bold, or delicate line, +so long as it is <i>outline only</i>. The work is not more "finished" +in one case than in the other; it is only prepared for being seen +at a greater or less distance. The real refinement or finish of +the line depends, not on its thinness, but on its truly following +the contours of the tree, which it conventionally represents; +conventionally, I say, because there is no such line round the +tree, in reality; and it is set down not as an <i>imit</i>ation, but a +<i>limit</i>ation of the form. But if we are to add shade to it as in +fig. 2., the outline must instantly be made proportionally delicate, +not for the sake of delicacy as such, but because the outline +will now, in many parts, stand not for limitation of form +merely, but for a portion of the <i>shadow</i> within that form. +Now, as a limitation it was true, but as a shadow it would be +false, for there is no line of black shadow at the edge of the +stem. It must, therefore, be made so delicate as not to detach +itself from the rest of the shadow where shadow exists, and +only to be seen in the light where limitation is still necessary.</p> + +<p>Observe, then, the "finish" of fig. 2. as compared with fig. +1. consists, not in its greater delicacy, but in the addition of a +truth (shadow), a removal, in a great degree, of a conventionalism +(outline). All true finish consists in one or other of these +things. Now, therefore, if we are to "finish" farther we must +<i>know</i> more or <i>see</i> more about the tree. And as the plurality of +persons who draw trees know nothing of them, and will not +look at them, it results necessarily that the effort to finish is +not only vain, but unfinishes—does mischief. In the lower part +of the plate, figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6. are facsimiles of pieces of line +engraving, meant to represent trunks of trees; 3. and 4. are +the commonly accredited types of tree-drawing among engravers +in the eighteenth century; 5. and 6. are quite modern; 3. is +from a large and important plate by Boydell, from Claude's +Molten Calf, dated 1781; 4. by Boydell in 1776, from Rubens's +Waggoner; 5. from a bombastic engraving, published about +twenty years ago by Meulemeester of Brussels, from Raphael's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> +Moses at the Burning Bush; and 6. from the foreground of +Miller's Modern Italy, after Turner.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_2" id="PLATE_2"></a> + <a href="images/illus135b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus135w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 2" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 2. Drawing of Tree-Stems. + </span> +</div> + +<p>All these represent, as far as the engraving goes, simply +<i>nothing</i>. They are not "finished" in any sense but this,—that +the paper has been covered with lines. 4. is the best, because, +in the original work of Rubens, the lines of the boughs, and +their manner of insertion in the trunk, have been so strongly +marked, that no engraving could quite efface them; and, inasmuch +as it represents these facts in the boughs, that piece of +engraving is more finished than the other examples, while its +own networked texture is still false and absurd; for there is no +texture of this knitted-stocking-like description on boughs; +and if there were, it would not be seen in the shadow, but in +the light. Miller's is spirited, and looks lustrous, but has no +resemblance to the original bough of Turner's, which is pale, +and does not glitter. The Netherlands work is, on the whole, +the worst; because, in its ridiculous double lines, it adds affectation +and conceit to its incapacity. But in all these cases the +engravers have worked in total ignorance both of what is meant +by "drawing," and of the form of a tree, covering their paper +with certain lines, which they have been taught to plough in +copper, as a husbandman ploughs in clay.</p> + +<p>§ 9. In the next three examples we have instances of +endeavors at finish by the hands of artists themselves, marking +three stages of knowledge or insight, and three relative stages +of finish. Fig. 7. is Claude's (Liber Veritatis, No. 140., facsimile +by Boydell). It still displays an appalling ignorance of +the forms of trees, but yet is, in mode of execution, better—that +is, more finished—than the engravings, because not <i>altogether</i> +mechanical, and showing some dim, far-away, blundering +memory of a few facts in stems, such as their variations of +texture and roundness, and bits of young shoots of leaves. 8. is +Salvator's, facsimiled from part of his original etching of the +Finding of Œdipus. It displays considerable power of handling—not +mechanical, but free and firm, and is just so much more +finished than any of the others as it displays more intelligence +about the way in which boughs gather themselves out of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> +stem, and about the varying character of their curves. Finally, +fig. 9. is good work. It is the root of the apple-tree in Albert +Durer's Adam and Eve, and fairly represents the wrinkles of +the bark, the smooth portions emergent beneath, and the general +anatomy of growth. All the lines used conduce to the representation +of these facts; and the work is therefore highly finished. +It still, however, leaves out, as not to be represented by +such kind of lines, the more delicate gradations of light and +shade. I shall now "finish" a little farther, in the next plate +(3.), the mere <i>insertion of the two boughs</i> outlined in fig. 1. I +do this simply by adding assertions of more facts. First, I say +that the whole trunk is dark, as compared with the distant sky. +Secondly, I say that it is rounded by gradations of shadow, in +the various forms shown. And, lastly, I say that (this being +a bit of old pine stripped by storm of its bark) the wood is +fissured in certain directions, showing its grain, or <i>muscle</i>, seen +in complicated contortions at the insertion of the arm and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>§ 10. Now this piece of work, though yet far from complete +(we will better it presently), is yet more finished than any +of the others, not because it is more delicate or more skilful, +but simply because it tells more truth, and admits fewer fallacies. +That which conveys most information, with least inaccuracy, +is always the highest finish; and the question whether we +prefer art so finished, to art unfinished, is not one of taste at all. +It is simply a question whether we like to know much or little; +to see accurately or see falsely; and those whose <i>taste</i> in art (if +they choose so to call it) leads them to like blindness better +than sight, and fallacy better than fact, would do well to set +themselves to some other pursuit than that of art.</p> + +<p>§ 11. In the above plate we have examined chiefly the grain +and surface of the boughs; we have not yet noticed the finish +of their curvature. If the reader will look back to the No. +7. (Plate 2.), which, in this respect, is the worst of all the set, +he will immediately observe the exemplification it gives of +Claude's principal theory about trees; namely, that the boughs +always parted from each other, two at a time, in the manner of +the prongs of an ill-made table-fork. It may, perhaps, not be +at once believed that this is indeed Claude's theory respecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> +tree-structure, without some farther examples of his practice. I +have, therefore, assembled on the next page, Plate 4., some of +the most characteristic passages of ramification in the Liber +Veritatis; the plates themselves are sufficiently cheap (as they +should be) and accessible to nearly every one, so that the accuracy +of the facsimiles may be easily tested. I have given in +Appendix I. the numbers of the plates from which the examples +are taken, and it will be found that they have been rather +improved than libelled, only omitting, of course, the surrounding +leafage, in order to show accurately the branch-outlines, +with which alone we are at present concerned. And it would +be difficult to bring together a series more totally futile and +foolish, more singularly wrong (as the false griffin was), every +way at once; they are stiff, and yet have no strength; curved, +and yet have no flexibility; monotonous, and yet disorderly; +unnatural, and yet uninventive. They are, in fact, of that commonest +kind of tree bough which a child or beginner first draws +experimentally; nay, I am well assured, that if this set of +branches had been drawn by a schoolboy, "out of his own +head," his master would hardly have cared to show them as +signs of any promise in him.</p> + + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_3" id="PLATE_3"></a> + <a href="images/illus139b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus139w.jpg" width="500" alt="PLATE 3" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 3. Strength of Old Pine. + </span> +</div> +<br /> + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_4" id="PLATE_4"></a> + <a href="images/illus142b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus142w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 4" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 4. Ramification, according to Claude. + </span> +</div> + + +<p>§ 12. "Well, but do not the trunks of trees fork, and fork +mostly into two arms at a time?"</p> + +<div class="figright"> + <a name="FIG_2" id="FIG_2"></a> + <img style="margin-bottom:-1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em;" src="images/illus143.png" width="200" alt="FIG 2" /> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 2. + </span> +</div> + + +<p>Yes; but under as stern anatomical law as the limbs of an +animal; and those hooked junctions in +Plate 4. are just as accurately representative +of the branching of wood as this +(fig. 2.) is of a neck and shoulders. We +should object to such a representation of +shoulders, because we have some interest +in, and knowledge of, human form; we +do not object to Claude's trees, because we have no interest in, +nor knowledge of, trees. And if it be still alleged that such +work is nevertheless enough to give any one an "idea" of a tree, +I answer that it never gave, nor ever will give, an idea of a tree +to any one who loves trees; and that, moreover, no idea, whatever +its pleasantness, is of the smallest value, which is not +founded on simple facts. What pleasantness may be in <i>wrong</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> +ideas we do not here inquire; the only question for us has always +been, and must always be, What are the facts?</p> + +<p>§ 13. And assuredly those boughs of Claude's are not facts: +and every one of their contours is, in the worst sense, unfinished, +without even the expectation or faint hope of possible +refinement ever coming into them. I do not mean to enter +here into the discussion of the characters of ramification; that +must be in our separate inquiry into tree-structure generally; +but I will merely give one piece of Turner's tree-drawing as an +example of what finished work really is, even in outline. In +plate 5. opposite, fig. 1. is the contour (stripped, like Claude's, +of its foliage) of one of the distant tree-stems in the drawing of +Bolton Abbey. In order to show its perfectness better by contrast +with bad work (as we have had, I imagine, enough of +Claude), I will take a bit of Constable; fig. 2. is the principal +tree out of the engraving of the Lock on the Stour (Leslie's +Life of Constable). It differs from the Claude outlines merely +in being the kind of work which is produced by an uninventive +person dashing about idly, with a brush, instead of drawing determinately +wrong, with a pen: on the one hand worse than +Claude's, in being lazier; on the other a little better in being +more free, but, as representative of tree-form, of course still +wholly barbarous. It is worth while to turn back to the description +of the uninventive painter at work on a tree (Vol. II. +chapter on Imaginative Association, § 11), for this trunk of +Constable's is curiously illustrative of it. One can almost see +him, first bending it to the right; then, having gone long +enough to the right, turning to the left; then, having gone long +enough to the left, away to the right again; then dividing it; +and "because there is another tree in the picture with two long +branches (in this case there really is), he knows that this ought +to have three or four, which must undulate or go backwards and +forwards," &c., &c.</p> + +<p>§ 14. Then study the bit of Turner work: note first its +quietness, unattractiveness, apparent carelessness whether you +look at it or not; next note the subtle curvatures within the +narrowest limits, and, when it branches, the unexpected, out of +the way things it does, just what nobody could have thought +of its doing; shooting out like a letter Y, with a nearly straight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> +branch, and then correcting its stiffness with a zigzag behind, +so that the boughs, ugly individually, are beautiful in unison. +(In what I have hereafter to say about trees, I shall need to +dwell much on this character of <i>unexpectedness</i>. A bough is +never drawn rightly if it is not wayward, so that although, as +just now said, quiet at first, not caring to be looked at, the moment +it is looked at, it seems bent on astonishing you, and +doing the last things you expect it to do.) But our present +purpose is only to note the <i>finish</i> of the Turner <i>curves</i>, which, +though they seem straight and stiff at first, are, when you look +long, seen to be all tremulous, perpetually wavering along every +edge into endless melody of change. This is finish in line, in +exactly the same sense that a fine melody is finished in the association +of its notes.</p> + + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_5" id="PLATE_5"></a> + <a href="images/illus145b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus145w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 5" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 5. Good and Bad Tree-Drawing. + </span> +</div> + + +<p>§ 15. And now, farther, let us take a little bit of the Turnerian +tree in light and shade. I said above I would better the +drawing of that pine trunk, which, though it has incipient +shade, and muscular action, has no texture, nor local color. +Now, I take about an inch and a half of Turner's ash trunks +(one of the nearer ones) in this same drawing of Bolton Abbey +(fig. 3. Plate 5.), and <i>this</i> I cannot better; this is perfectly finished; +it is not possible to add more truth to it on that scale. +Texture of bark, anatomy of muscle beneath, reflected lights in +recessed hollows, stains of dark moss, and flickering shadows +from the foliage above, all are there, as clearly as the human +hand can mark them. I place a bit of trunk by Constable (fig. +5.),<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> +from another plate in Leslie's Life of him (a dell in +Helmingham Park, Suffolk), for the sake of the same comparison +in shade that we have above in contour. You see Constable +does not know whether he is drawing moss or shadow: +those dark touches in the middle are confused in his mind between +the dark stains on the trunk and its dark side; there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> +no anatomy, no cast shadow, nothing but idle sweeps of the +brush, vaguely circular. The thing is much darker than Turner's, +but it is not, therefore, finished; it is only blackened. +And "to blacken" is indeed the proper word for all attempts at +finish without knowledge. All true finish is <i>added fact</i>; and +Turner's word for finishing a picture was always this significant +one, "carry forward." But labor without added knowledge can +only blacken or stain a picture, it cannot finish it.</p> + +<p>§ 16. And this is especially to be remembered as we pass +from comparatively large and distant objects, such as this single +trunk, to the more divided and nearer features of foreground. +Some degree of ignorance may be hidden, in completing what is +far away; but there is no concealment possible in close work, +and darkening instead of finishing becomes then the engraver's +only possible resource. It has always been a wonderful thing to +me to hear people talk of making foregrounds "vigorous," +"marked," "forcible," and so on. If you will lie down on +your breast on the next bank you come to (which is bringing it +<i>close</i> enough, I should think, to give it all the force it is capable +of), you will see, in the cluster of leaves and grass close to +your face, something as delicate as this, which I have actually +so drawn, on the opposite page, a mystery of soft shadow in the +depths of the grass, with indefinite forms of leaves, which you +cannot trace or count, within it, and out of that, the nearer +leaves coming in every subtle gradation of tender light and flickering +form, quite beyond all delicacy of pencilling to follow; +and yet you will rise up from that bank (certainly not making it +appear coarser by drawing a little back from it), and profess to +represent it by a few blots of "forcible" foreground color. +"Well, but I cannot draw every leaf that I see on the bank." +No, for as we saw, at the beginning of this chapter, that no +human work could be finished so as to express the <i>delicacy</i> of +nature, so neither can it be finished so as to express the <i>redundance</i> +of nature. Accept that necessity; but do not deny it; +do not call your work finished, when you have, in engraving, +substituted a confusion of coarse black scratches, or in water-color +a few edgy blots, for ineffable organic beauty. Follow +that beauty as far as you can, remembering that just as far as +you see, know, and represent it, just so far your work is finished; +as far as you fall short of it, your work is <i>un</i>fini<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>shed; +and as far as you substitute any other thing for it, your work +is spoiled.</p> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_6" id="PLATE_6"></a> + <a href="images/illus149b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus149w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 6" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 6. Foreground Leafage. + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 17. How far Turner followed it, is not easily shown; for +his finish is so delicate as to be nearly uncopiable. I have just +said it was not possible to finish that ash trunk of his, farther, +on such a scale.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> +By using a magnifying-glass, and giving the +same help to the spectator, it might perhaps be possible to add +and exhibit a few more details; but even as it is, I cannot by +line engraving express all that there is in that piece of tree-trunk, +on the same scale. I <i>have</i> therefore magnified the upper +part of it in fig 4. (Plate 5.), so that the reader may better see +the beautiful lines of curvature into which even its slightest +shades and spots are cast. Every quarter of an inch in Turner's +drawings will bear magnifying in the same way; much of the +finer work in them can hardly be traced, except by the keenest +sight, until it is magnified. In his painting of Ivy Bridge,<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> +the veins are drawn on the wings of a butterfly, not above three +lines in diameter; and in one of his smaller drawings of Scarborough, +in my own possession, the muscle-shells on the beach +are rounded, and some shown as shut, some as open, though +none are as large as one of the letters of this type; and yet this +is the man who was thought to belong to the "dashing" school, +literally because most people had not patience or delicacy of +sight enough to trace his endless detail.</p> + +<p>§ 18. "Suppose it was so," perhaps the reader replies; +"still I do not like detail so delicate that it can hardly be +seen." Then you like nothing in Nature (for you will find she +always carries her detail too far to be traced). This point, +however, we shall examine hereafter; it is not the question now +whether we <i>like</i> finish or not; our only inquiry here is, what +finish <i>means</i>; and I trust the reader is beginning to be satisfied +that it does indeed mean nothing but consummate and accumulated +truth, and that our old monotonous test must still serve +us here as elsewhere. And it will become us to consider seri<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>ously +why (if indeed it be so) we dislike this kind of finish—dislike +an accumulation of truth. For assuredly all authority is +against us, and <i>no truly great man can be named in the arts—but +it is that of one who finished to his utmost</i>. Take Leonardo, +Michael Angelo, and Raphael for a triad, to begin with. <i>They</i> +all completed their detail with such subtlety of touch and gradation, +that, in a careful drawing by any of the three, you cannot +see where the pencil ceased to touch the paper; the stroke +of it is so tender, that, when you look close to the drawing you +can see nothing; you only see the effect of it a little way back! +Thus tender in execution,—and so complete in detail, that Leonardo +must needs draw <i>every several vein in the little agates</i> and +pebbles of the gravel under the feet of the St. Anne in the +Louvre. Take a quartett after the triad—Titian, Tintoret, Bellini, +and Veronese. Examine the vine-leaves of the Bacchus and +Ariadne, (Titian's) in the National Gallery; examine the borage +blossoms, painted petal by petal, though lying loose on the +table, in Titian's Supper at Emmaus, in the Louvre, or the +snail-shells on the ground in his Entombment;<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> +examine the +separately designed patterns on every drapery of Veronese, in +his Marriage in Cana; go to Venice and see how Tintoret +paints the strips of black bark on the birch trunk that sustains +the platform in his Adoration of the Magi: how Bellini fills the +rents of his ruined walls with the most exquisite clusters of the +erba della Madonna.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> +You will find them all in a tale. Take a +quintett after the quartett—Francia, Angelico, Durer, Hemling, +Perugino,—and still the witness is one, still the same striving +in all to such utmost perfection as their knowledge and +hand could reach.</p> + +<p>Who shall gainsay these men? Above all, who shall gainsay +them when they and Nature say precisely the same thing? +For where does Nature pause in <i>her</i> finishing—that finishing +which consists not in the smoothing of surface, but the filling +of space, and the multiplication of life and thought?</p> + +<p>Who shall gainsay them? I, for one, dare not; but accept +their teaching, with Nature's, in all humbleness.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> +<p>"But is there, then, no good in any work which does not +pretend to perfectness? Is there no saving clause from this terrible +requirement of completion? And if there be none, what +is the meaning of all you have said elsewhere about rudeness as +the glory of Gothic work, and, even a few pages back, about the +danger of finishing, for our modern workmen?"</p> + +<p>Indeed there are many saving clauses, and there is much +good in imperfect work. But we had better cast the consideration +of these drawbacks and exceptions into another chapter, +and close this one, without obscuring, in any wise, our +broad conclusion that "finishing" means in art simply "telling +more truth;" and that whatever we have in any sort begun +wisely, it is good to finish thoroughly.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"With his Yemen sword for aid;</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Ornament it carried none,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But the notches on the blade."</span><br /> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> +See the base of the new Army and Navy Clubhouse.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> +I take this example from Miller, because, on the whole, he is the best +engraver of Turner whom we have.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> +Fig. 5. is not, however, so <i>lustrous</i> as Constable's; I cannot help this, +having given the original plate to my good friend Mr. Cousen, with strict +charge to facsimile it faithfully: but the figure is all the fairer, as a representation +of Constable's art, for those mezzotints in Leslie's life of him have +many qualities of drawing which are quite wanting in Constable's blots of +color. The comparison shall be made elaborately, between picture and picture, +in the section on Vegetation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> +It is of the exact size of the original, the whole drawing being about +15 <span style="font-size: 80%;"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></span> inches by 11 in.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> +An oil painting (about 3 ft. by 4 ft. 6 in.), and very broad in its masses. +In the possession of E. Bicknell, Esq.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> +These snail-shells are very notable, occurring as they do in, perhaps, +the very grandest and broadest of all Titian's compositions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> +Linaria Cymbalaria, the ivy-leaved toadflax of English gardens.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE USE OF PICTURES.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. I am afraid this will be a difficult chapter; one of +drawbacks, qualifications, and exceptions. But the more I see +of useful truths, the more I find that, like human beings, they +are eminently biped; and, although, as far as apprehended by +human intelligence, they are usually seen in a crane-like posture, +standing on one leg, whenever they are to be stated so as to +maintain themselves against all attack it is quite necessary they +should stand on two, and have their complete balance on opposite +fulcra.</p> + +<p>§ 2. I doubt not that one objection, with which as well as +with another we may begin, has struck the reader very forcibly, +after comparing the illustrations above given from Turner, +Constable, and Claude. He will wonder how it was that Turner, +finishing in this exquisite way, and giving truths by the +thousand, where other painters gave only one or two, yet, of all +painters, seemed to obtain least acknowledgeable resemblance to +nature, so that the world cried out upon him for a madman, at +the moment when he was giving exactly the highest and most +consummate truth that had ever been seen in landscape.</p> + +<p>And he will wonder why still there seems reason for this +outcry. Still, after what analysis and proof of his being right +have as yet been given, the reader may perhaps be saying to +himself: "All this reasoning is of no use to me. Turner does +<i>not</i> give me the idea of nature; I do not feel before one of his +pictures as I should in the real scene. Constable takes me out +into the shower, and Claude into the sun; and De Wint makes +me feel as if I were walking in the fields; but Turner keeps me +in the house, and I know always that I am looking at a picture."</p> + +<p>I might answer to this; Well, what else <i>should</i> he do? If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> +you want to feel as if you were in a shower, cannot you go and +get wet without help from Constable? If you want to feel as if +you were walking in the fields, cannot you go and walk in them +without help from De Wint? But if you want to sit in your +room and look at a beautiful picture, why should you blame the +artist for giving you one? This <i>was</i> the answer actually made +to me by various journalists, when first I showed that Turner +was truer than other painters: "Nay," said they, "we do not +want truth, we want something else than truth; we would not +have nature, but something better than nature."</p> + +<p>§ 3. I do not mean to accept that answer, although it seems +at this moment to make for me: I have never accepted it. As +I raise my eyes from the paper, to think over the curious mingling +in it, of direct error, and far away truth, I see upon the +room-walls, first, Turner's drawing of the chain of the Alps +from the Superga above Turin; then a study of a block of +gneiss at Chamouni, with the purple Aiguilles-Rouges behind it; +another, of the towers of the Swiss Fribourg, with a cluster of +pine forest behind them; then another Turner, Isola Bella, with +the blue opening of the St. Gothard in the distance; and then +a fair bit of thirteenth century illumination, depicting, at the +top of the page, the Salutation; and beneath, the painter who +painted it, sitting in his little convent cell, with a legend above +him to this effect—</p> + + + +<blockquote><p> + +<span style="font-size:120%;"> + <b>"ego ja<span style="text-decoration:overline;">he</span>s s<span style="text-decoration:overline;">cp</span>si hunc librum." </b> +</span> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I, John, wrote this book.</span><br /> + +</p></blockquote> + + +<p>None of these things are bad pieces of art; and yet,—if it +were offered to me to have, instead of them, so many windows, +out of which I should see, first, the real chain of the Alps from +the Superga; then the real block of gneiss, and Aiguilles-Rouges; +then the real towers of Fribourg, and pine forest; the +real Isola Bella; and, finally, the true Mary and Elizabeth; +and beneath them, the actual old monk at work in his cell,—I +would very unhesitatingly change my five pictures for the five +windows; and so, I apprehend, would most people, not, it +seems to me, unwisely.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," the reader goes on to question me, "the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> +more closely the picture resembles such a window the better it +must be?"</p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p>"Then if Turner does not give me the impression of such a +window, that is of Nature, there must be something wrong in +Turner?"</p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p>"And if Constable and De Wint give me the impression of +such a window, there must be something right in Constable and +De Wint?"</p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p>"And something more right than in Turner?"</p> + +<p>No.</p> + +<p>"Will you explain yourself?"</p> + +<p>I <i>have</i> explained myself, long ago, and that fully; perhaps +too fully for the simple sum of the explanation to be remembered. +If the reader will glance back to, and in the present +state of our inquiry, reconsider in the first volume, Part I. +Sec. <span class="smcap">I</span>. Chap. <span class="smcap">V.</span>, and Part II. Sec. <i>I. +</i> Chap. <span class="smcap">VII.</span>, +he will find our +present difficulties anticipated. There are some truths, easily +obtained, which give a deceptive resemblance to Nature; others +only to be obtained with difficulty, which cause no deception, +but give inner and deep resemblance. These two classes of +truths cannot be obtained together; choice must be made between +them. The bad painter gives the cheap deceptive resemblance. +The good painter gives the precious non-deceptive +resemblance. Constable perceives in a landscape that the grass +is wet, the meadows flat, and the boughs shady; that is to say, +about as much as, I suppose, might in general be apprehended, +between them, by an intelligent fawn and a skylark. Turner +perceives at a glance the whole sum of visible truth open to +human intelligence. So Berghem perceives nothing in a figure, +beyond the flashes of light on the folds of its dress; but +Michael Angelo perceives every flash of thought that is passing +through its spirit; and Constable and Berghem may imitate +windows; Turner and Michael Angelo can by no means imitate +windows. But Turner and Michael Angelo are nevertheless +the best.</p> + +<p>§ 4. "Well but," the reader persists, "you admitted just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> +now that because Turner did not get his work to look like a +window there was something wrong in him."</p> + +<p>I did so; if he were quite right he would have <i>all</i> truth, low +as well as high; that is, he would be Nature and not Turner; +but that is impossible to man. There is much that is wrong in +him; much that is infinitely wrong in all human effort. But, +nevertheless, in some an infinity of Betterness above other +human effort.</p> + +<p>"Well, but you said you would change your Turners for windows, +why not, therefore, for Constables?"</p> + +<p>Nay, I did not say that I would change them for windows +<i>merely</i>, but for windows which commanded the chain of the +Alps and Isola Bella. That is to say, for all the truth that +there is in Turner, and all the truth besides which is not in +him; but I would not change them for Constables, to have a +small piece of truth which is not in Turner, and none of the +mighty truth which there is.</p> + +<p>§ 5. Thus far, then, though the subject is one requiring +somewhat lengthy explanation, it involves no real difficulty. +There is not the slightest inconsistency in the mode in which +throughout this work I have desired the relative merits of +painters to be judged. I have always said, he who is closest to +Nature is best. All rules are useless, all genius is useless, all +labor is useless, if you do not give facts; the more facts you +give the greater you are; and there is no fact so unimportant as +to be prudently despised, if it be possible to represent it. Nor, +but that I have long known the truth of Herbert's lines,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left:10em;">"Some men are</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Full of themselves, and answer their own notion,"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>would it have been without intense surprise that I heard querulous +readers asking, "how it was possible" that I could praise +Pre-Raphaelitism and Turner also. For, from the beginning of +this book to this page of it, I have never praised Turner highly +for any other cause than that he <i>gave facts</i> more <i>delicately</i>, +more Pre-Raphaelitically, than other men. Careless readers, +who dashed at the descriptions and missed the arguments, took +up their own conceptions of the cause of my liking Turner, and +said to themselves: "Turner cannot draw, Turner is generaliz<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>ing, +vague, visionary; and the Pre-Raphaelites are hard and +distinct. How can any one like both?"<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> +But <i>I</i> never said +that Turner could not draw. <i>I</i> never said that he was vague or +visionary. What <i>I</i> said was, that nobody had ever drawn so +well: that nobody was so certain, so <i>un</i>-visionary; that nobody +had ever given so many hard and downright facts. Glance +back to the first volume, and note the expressions now. "He +is the only painter who ever drew a mountain or a stone;<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> +the only painter who can draw the stem of a tree; the only painter +who has ever drawn the sky, previous artists having only drawn +it typically or partially, but he absolutely and universally." +Note how he is praised in his rock drawing for "not selecting a +pretty or interesting morsel here or there, but giving the whole +truth, with all the relations of its parts."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> +Observe how the +<i>great virtue</i> of the landscape of Cima da Conegliano and the +early sacred painters is said to be giving "entire, exquisite, +humble, realization—a strawberry-plant in the foreground with +a blossom, <i>and a berry just set</i>, <i>and one half ripe, and one ripe</i>, +all patiently and innocently painted from the <i>real thing, and</i> +<i>therefore most divine</i>." Then re-read the following paragraph +(§ 10.), carefully, and note its conclusion, that the thoroughly +great men are those who have done everything thoroughly, and +who have never despised anything, however small, of God's +making; with the instance given of Wordsworth's daisy casting +its shadow on a stone; and the following sentence, "Our painters +must come to this before they have done their duty." And +yet, when our painters <i>did</i> come to this, did do their duty, and +did paint the daisy with its shadow (this passage having been +written years before Pre-Raphaelitism was thought of), people +wondered how I could possibly like what was neither more nor +less than the precise fulfilment of my own most earnest exhortations +and highest hopes.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> + +<p>§ 6. Thus far, then, all I have been saying is absolutely consistent, +and tending to one simple end. Turner is praised for +his truth and finish; that truth of which I am beginning to +give examples. Pre-Raphaelitism is praised for its truth and +finish; and the whole duty inculcated upon the artist is that of +being in all respects as like Nature as possible.</p> + +<p>And yet this is not all I have to do. There is more than +this to be inculcated upon the student, more than this to be +admitted or established before the foundations of just judgment +can be laid.</p> + +<p>For, observe, although I believe any sensible person would +exchange his pictures, however good, for windows, he would +not feel, and ought not to feel, that the arrangement was +<i>entirely</i> gainful to him. He would feel it was an exchange of a +less good of one kind, for a greater of another kind, but that it +was definitely <i>exchange</i>, not pure gain, not merely getting more +truth instead of less. The picture would be a serious loss; +something gone which the actual landscape could never restore, +though it might give something better in its place, as age may +give to the heart something better than its youthful delusion, +but cannot give again the sweetness of that delusion.</p> + +<p>§ 7. What is this in the picture which is precious to us, and +yet is not natural? Hitherto our arguments have tended, on +the whole, somewhat to the depreciation of art; and the reader +may every now and then, so far as he has been convinced by +them, have been inclined to say, "Why not give up this whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> +science of Mockery at once, since its only virtue is in representing +facts, and it cannot, at best, represent them completely, besides +being liable to all manner of shortcomings and dishonesties,—why +not keep to the facts, to real fields, and hills, and +men, and let this dangerous painting alone?"</p> + +<p>No, it would not be well to do this. Painting has its peculiar +virtues, not only consistent with but even resulting from, +its shortcomings and weaknesses. Let us see what these virtues +are.</p> + +<p>§ 8. I must ask permission, as I have sometimes done before, +to begin apparently a long way from the point.</p> + +<p>Not long ago, as I was leaving one of the towns of Switzerland +early in the morning, I saw in the clouds behind the +houses an Alp which I did not know, a grander Alp than any I +knew, nobler than the Schreckhorn or the Mönch; terminated, +as it seemed, on one side by a precipice of almost unimaginable +height; on the other, sloping away for leagues in one field of +lustrous ice, clear and fair and blue, flashing here and there +into silver under the morning sun. For a moment I received a +sensation of as much sublimity as any natural object could possibly +excite; the next moment, I saw that my unknown Alp +was the glass roof of one of the workshops of the town, rising +above its nearer houses, and rendered aerial and indistinct by +some pure blue wood smoke which rose from intervening chimneys.</p> + +<p>It is evident, that so far as the mere delight of the eye was +concerned, the glass roof was here equal, or at least equal for a +moment, to the Alp. Whether the power of the object over the +heart was to be small or great, depended altogether upon what +it was understood for, upon its being taken possession of and +apprehended in its full nature, either as a granite mountain or +a group of panes of glass; and thus, always, the real majesty of +the appearance of the thing to us, depends upon the degree in +which we ourselves possess the power of understanding it,—that +penetrating, possession taking power of the imagination, which +has been long ago defined<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +as the very life of the man, considered +as a <i>seeing</i> creature. For though the casement had indeed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> +been an Alp, there are many persons on whose minds it would +have produced no more effect than the glass roof. It would +have been to them a glittering object of a certain apparent +length and breadth, and whether of glass or ice, whether twenty +feet in length, or twenty leagues, would have made no difference +to them; or, rather, would not have been in any wise conceived +or considered by them. Examine the nature of your +own emotion (if you feel it) at the sight of the Alp, and you +find all the brightness of that emotion hanging, like dew on +gossamer, on a curious web of subtle fancy and imperfect +knowledge. First, you have a vague idea of its size, coupled +with wonder at the work of the great Builder of its walls and +foundations, then an apprehension of its eternity, a pathetic +sense of its perpetualness, and your own transientness, as of the +grass upon its sides; then, and in this very sadness, a sense of +strange companionship with past generations in seeing what +they saw. They did not see the clouds that are floating over +your head; nor the cottage wall on the other side of the field; +nor the road by which you are travelling. But they saw <i>that</i>. +The wall of granite in the heavens was the same to them as to +you. They have ceased to look upon it; you will soon cease to +look also, and the granite wall will be for others. Then, mingled +with these more solemn imaginations, come the understandings +of the gifts and glories of the Alps, the fancying +forth of all the fountains that well from its rocky walls, and +strong rivers that are born out of its ice, and of all the pleasant +valleys that wind between its cliffs, and all the châlets that +gleam among its clouds, and happy farmsteads couched upon +its pastures; while together with the thoughts of these, rise +strange sympathies with all the unknown of human life, and +happiness, and death, signified by that narrow white flame of +the everlasting snow, seen so far in the morning sky.</p> + +<p>These images, and far more than these, lie at the root of the +emotion which you feel at the sight of the Alp. You may not +trace them in your heart, for there is a great deal more in your +heart, of evil and good, than you ever can trace; but they stir +you and quicken you for all that. Assuredly, so far as you feel +more at beholding the snowy mountain than any other object of +the same sweet silvery grey, these are the kind of images which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> +cause you to do so; and, observe, these are nothing more than +a greater apprehension of the <i>facts</i> of the thing. We call the +power "Imagination," because it imagines or conceives; but it +is only noble imagination if it imagines or conceives <i>the truth</i>. +And, according to the degree of knowledge possessed, and of +sensibility to the pathetic or impressive character of the things +known, will be the degree of this imaginative delight.</p> + +<p>§ 9. But the main point to be noted at present is, that if +the imagination can be excited to this its peculiar work, it matters +comparatively little what it is excited by. If the smoke had +not cleared partially away, the glass roof might have pleased me +as well as an alp, until I had quite lost sight of it; and if, in a +picture, the imagination can be once caught, and, without absolute +affront from some glaring fallacy, set to work in its own +field, the imperfection of the historical details themselves is, to +the spectator's enjoyment, of small consequence.</p> + +<p>Hence it is, that poets and men of strong feeling in general, +are apt to be among the very worst judges of painting. The +slightest hint is enough for them. Tell them that a white stroke +means a ship, and a black stain, a thunderstorm, and they will +be perfectly satisfied with both, and immediately proceed to +remember all that they ever felt about ships and thunderstorms, +attributing the whole current and fulness of their own feelings +to the painter's work; while probably, if the picture be really +good, and full of stern fact, the poet, or man of feeling, will +find some of its fact <i>in his way</i>, out of the particular course +of his own thoughts,—be offended at it, take to criticising and +wondering at it, detect, at last, some imperfection in it,—such +as must be inherent in all human work,—and so finally quarrel +with, and reject the whole thing. Thus, Wordsworth writes +many sonnets to Sir George Beaumont and Haydon, none to Sir +Joshua or to Turner.</p> + +<p>§ 10. Hence also the error into which many superficial +artists fall, in speaking of "addressing the imagination" as the +only end of art. It is quite true that the imagination must be +addressed; but it may be very sufficiently addressed by the stain +left by an ink-bottle thrown at the wall. The thrower has little +credit, though an imaginative observer may find, perhaps, more +to amuse him in the erratic nigrescence than in many a labored<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> +picture. And thus, in a slovenly or ill-finished picture, it is no +credit to the artist that he has "addressed the imagination;" +nor is the success of such an appeal any criterion whatever of the +merit of the work. The duty of an artist is not only to address +and awaken, but to <i>guide</i> the imagination; and there is no safe +guidance but that of simple concurrence with fact. It is no +matter that the picture takes the fancy of A. or B., that C. +writes sonnets to it, and D. feels it to be divine. This is still +the only question for the artist, or for us:—"Is it a fact? Are +things really so? Is the picture an Alp among pictures, full, +firm, eternal; or only a glass house, frail, hollow, contemptible, +demolishable; calling, at all honest hands, for detection and +demolition?"</p> + +<p>§ 11. Hence it is also that so much grievous difficulty +stands in the way of obtaining <i>real opinion</i> about pictures at +all. Tell any man, of the slightest imaginative power, that +such and such a picture is good, and means this or that: tell +him, for instance, that a Claude is good, and that it means +trees, and grass, and water; and forthwith, whatever faith, +virtue, humility, and imagination there are in the man, rise up +to help Claude, and to declare that indeed it is all "excellent +good, i'faith;" and whatever in the course of his life he has +felt of pleasure in trees and grass, he will begin to reflect upon +and enjoy anew, supposing all the while it is the picture he is +enjoying. Hence, when once a painter's reputation is accredited, +it must be a stubborn kind of person indeed whom he will +not please, or seem to please; for all the vain and weak +people pretend to be pleased with him, for their own credit's +sake, and all the humble and imaginative people seriously and +honestly fancy they <i>are</i> pleased with him, deriving indeed, very +certainly, delight from his work, but a delight which, if they +were kept in the same temper, they would equally derive (and, +indeed, constantly do derive) from the grossest daub that can +be manufactured in imitation by the pawnbroker. Is, therefore, +the pawnbroker's imitation as good as the original? +Not so. There is the certain test of goodness and badness, +which I am always striving to get people to use. As long as +they are satisfied if they find their feelings pleasantly stirred +and their fancy gaily occupied, so long there is for them no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> +good, no bad. Anything may please, or anything displease, +them; and their entire manner of thought and talking about +art is mockery, and all their judgments are laborious injustices. +But let them, in the teeth of their pleasure or displeasure, +simply put the calm question,—Is it so? Is that the way a +stone is shaped, the way a cloud is wreathed, the way a leaf is +veined? and they are safe. They will do no more injustice to +themselves nor to other men; they will learn to whose guidance +they may trust their imagination, and from whom they must for +ever withhold its reins.</p> + +<p>§ 12. "Well, but why have you dragged in this poor spectator's +imagination at all, if you have nothing more to say for +it than this; if you are merely going to abuse it, and go back +to your tiresome facts?"</p> + +<p>Nay; I am not going to abuse it. On the contrary, I have +to assert, in a temper profoundly venerant of it, that though +we must not suppose everything is right when this is aroused, +we may be sure that something is wrong when this is <i>not</i> +aroused. The something wrong may be in the spectator or in +the picture; and if the picture be demonstrably in accordance +with truth, the odds are, that it is in the spectator; but there is +wrong somewhere; for the work of the picture is indeed eminently +to get at this imaginative power in the beholder, and all +its facts are of no use whatever if it does not. No matter how +much truth it tells if the hearer be asleep. Its first work is to +wake him, then to teach him.</p> + +<p>§ 13. Now, observe, while, as it penetrates into the nature +of things, the imagination is preeminently a beholder of things +<i>as</i> they <i>are</i>, it is, in its creative function, an eminent beholder +of things <i>when</i> and <i>where</i> they are <span class="smcap">NOT</span>; a seer, that is, in the +prophetic sense, calling "the things that are not as though +they were," and for ever delighting to dwell on that which is +not tangibly present. And its great function being the calling +forth, or back, that which is not visible to bodily sense, it has of +course been made to take delight in the fulfilment of its proper +function, and preeminently to enjoy, and spend its energy, +on things past and future, or out of sight, rather than things +present, or in sight. So that if the imagination is to be called +to take delight in any object, it will not be always well, if we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> +can help it, to put the <i>real</i> object there, before it. The imagination +would on the whole rather have it <i>not</i> there;—the reality +and substance are rather in the imagination's way; it would +think a good deal more of the thing if it could not see it. +Hence, that strange and sometimes fatal charm, which there is in +all things as long as we wait for them, and the moment we have +lost them; but which fades while we possess them;—that sweet +bloom of all that is far away, which perishes under our touch. +Yet the feeling of this is not a weakness; it is one of the most +glorious gifts of the human mind, making the whole infinite +future, and imperishable past, a richer inheritance, if faithfully +inherited, than the changeful, frail, fleeting present; it is also +one of the many witnesses in us to the truth that these present +and tangible things are not meant to satisfy us. The instinct +becomes a weakness only when it is weakly indulged, and when +the faculty which was intended by God to give back to us what +we have lost, and gild for us what is to come, is so perverted as +only to darken what we possess. But, perverted or pure, the instinct +itself is everlasting, and the substantial presence even of +the things which we love the best, will inevitably and for ever be +found wanting in <i>one</i> strange and tender charm, which belonged +to the dreams of them.</p> + +<p>§ 14. Another character of the imagination is equally constant, +and, to our present inquiry, of yet greater importance. It +is eminently a <i>weariable</i> faculty, eminently delicate, and incapable +of bearing fatigue; so that if we give it too many objects +at a time to employ itself upon, or very grand ones for a long +time together, it fails under the effort, becomes jaded, exactly +as the limbs do by bodily fatigue, and incapable of answering +any farther appeal till it has had rest. And this is the real +nature of the weariness which is so often felt in travelling, from +seeing too much. It is not that the monotony and number of +the beautiful things seen have made them valueless, but that the +imaginative power has been overtaxed; and, instead of letting +it rest, the traveller, wondering to find himself dull, and incapable +of admiration, seeks for something more admirable, excites, +and torments, and drags the poor fainting imagination up by +the shoulders: "Look at this, and look at that, and this more +wonderful still!"—until the imaginative faculty faints utterly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> +away, beyond all farther torment or pleasure, dead for many a +day to come; and the despairing prodigal takes to horse-racing +in the Campagna, good now for nothing else than that; +whereas, if the imagination had only been laid down on the +grass, among simple things, and left quiet for a little while, it +would have come to itself gradually, recovered its strength and +color, and soon been fit for work again. So that, whenever +the imagination is tired, it is necessary to find for it something, +not <i>more</i> admirable but <i>less</i> admirable; such as in that weak +state it can deal with; then give it peace, and it will recover.</p> + +<p>§ 15. I well recollect the walk on which I first found out +this; it was on the winding road from Sallenche, sloping up +the hills towards St. Gervais, one cloudless Sunday afternoon. +The road circles softly between bits of rocky bank and mounded +pasture; little cottages and chapels gleaming out from among +the trees at every turn. Behind me, some leagues in length, rose +the jagged range of the mountains of the Réposoir; on the other +side of the valley, the mass of the Aiguille de Varens, heaving +its seven thousand feet of cliff into the air at a single effort, its +gentle gift of waterfall, the Nant d'Arpenaz, like a pillar of +cloud at its feet; Mont Blanc and all its aiguilles, one silver +flame, in front of me; marvellous blocks of mossy granite and +dark glades of pine around me; but I could enjoy nothing, and +could not for a long while make out what was the matter with +me, until at last I discovered that if I confined myself to one +thing,—and that a little thing,—a tuft of moss, or a single crag +at the top of the Varens, or a wreath or two of foam at the +bottom of the Nant d'Arpenaz, I began to enjoy it directly, +because then I had mind enough to put into the thing, and the +enjoyment arose from the quantity of the imaginative energy I +could bring to bear upon it; but when I looked at or thought +of all together, moss, stones, Varens, Nant d'Arpenaz, and +Mont Blanc, I had not mind enough to give to all, and none +were of any value. The conclusion which would have been +formed, upon this, by a German philosopher, would have been +that the Mont Blanc <i>was</i> of no value; that he and his imagination +only were of value; that the Mont Blanc, in fact, except +so far as he was able to look at it, could not be considered +as having any existence. But the only conclusion which oc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>curred +to me as reasonable under the circumstances (I have seen +no ground for altering it since) was, that I was an exceedingly +small creature, much tired, and, at the moment, not a little +stupid, for whom a blade of grass, or a wreath of foam, was +quite food enough and to spare, and that if I tried to take +any more, I should make myself ill. Whereupon, associating +myself fraternally with some ants, who were deeply interested +in the conveyance of some small sticks over the road, and +rather, as I think they generally are, in too great a hurry about +it, I returned home in a little while with great contentment, +thinking how well it was ordered that, as Mont Blanc and his +pine forests could not be everywhere, nor all the world come to +see them, the human mind, on the whole, should enjoy itself +most surely in an ant-like manner, and be happy and busy with +the bits of stick and grains of crystal that fall in its way to be +handled, in daily duty.</p> + +<p>§ 16. It follows evidently from the first of these characters +of the imagination, its dislike of substance and presence, that a +picture has in some measure even an advantage with us in not +being real. The imagination rejoices in having something to +do, springs up with all its willing power, flattered and happy; +and ready with its fairest colors and most tender pencilling, to +prove itself worthy of the trust, and exalt into sweet supremacy +the shadow that has been confided to its fondness. And thus, +so far from its being at all an object to the painter to make his +work look real, he ought to dread such a consummation as the +loss of one of its most precious claims upon the heart. So far +from striving to convince the beholder that what he sees is substance, +his mind should be to what he paints as the fire to the +body on the pile, burning away the ashes, leaving the unconquerable +shade—an immortal dream. So certain is this, that +the slightest local success in giving the deceptive appearance of +reality—the imitation, for instance, of the texture of a bit of +wood, with its grain in relief—will instantly destroy the charm +of a whole picture; the imagination feels itself insulted and injured, +and passes by with cold contempt; nay, however beautiful +the whole scene may be, as of late in much of our highly +wrought painting for the stage, the mere fact of its being +deceptively real is enough to make us tire of it; we may be sur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>prised +and pleased for a moment, but the imagination will not +on those terms be persuaded to give any of its help, and, in a +quarter of an hour, we wish the scene would change.</p> + +<p>§ 17. "Well, but then, what becomes of all these long dogmatic +chapters of yours about giving nothing but the truth, and +as much truth as possible?"</p> + +<p>The chapters are all quite right. "Nothing but the +Truth," I say still. "As much Truth as possible," I say still. +But truth so presented, that it will need the help of the imagination +to make it real. Between the painter and the beholder, +each doing his proper part, the reality should be sustained; and +after the beholding imagination has come forward and done its +best, then, with its help, and in the full action of it, the beholder +should be able to say, I feel as if I were at the real place, +or seeing the real incident. But not without that help.</p> + +<p>§ 18. Farther, in consequence of that other character of the +imagination, fatiguableness, it is a great advantage to the picture +that it need not present too much at once, and that what +it does present may be so chosen and ordered as not only to be +more easily seized, but to give the imagination rest, and, as it +were, places to lie down and stretch its limbs in; kindly vacancies, +beguiling it back into action, with pleasant and cautious +sequence of incident; all jarring thoughts being excluded, all +vain redundance denied, and all just and sweet transition permitted.</p> + +<p>And thus it is that, for the most part, imperfect sketches, +engravings, outlines, rude sculptures, and other forms of abstraction, +possess a charm which the most finished picture frequently +wants. For not only does the finished picture excite the +imagination less, but, like nature itself, it <i>taxes</i> it more. None +of it can be enjoyed till the imagination is brought to bear upon +it; and the details of the completed picture are so numerous, +that it needs greater strength and willingness in the beholder to +follow them all out; the redundance, perhaps, being not too +great for the mind of a careful observer, but too great for a +casual or careless observer. So that although the perfection of +art will always consist in the utmost <i>acceptable</i> completion, yet, +as every added idea will increase the difficulty of apprehension, +and every added touch advance the dangerous realism which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> +makes the imagination languid, the difference between a noble +and ignoble painter is in nothing more sharply defined than in +this,—that the first wishes to put into his work as much truth as +possible, and yet to keep it looking <i>un</i>-real; the second wishes +to get through his work lazily, with as little truth as possible, +and yet to make it look real; and, so far as they add color to +their abstract sketch, the first realizes for the sake of the color, +and the second colors for the sake of the realization.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>§ 19. And then, lastly, it is another infinite advantage possessed +by the picture, that in these various differences from reality +it becomes the expression of the power and intelligence of +a companionable human soul. In all this choice, arrangement, +penetrative sight, and kindly guidance, we recognize a supernatural +operation, and perceive, not merely the landscape or incident +as in a mirror, but, besides, the presence of what, after all, +may perhaps be the most wonderful piece of divine work in the +whole matter—the great human spirit through which it is +manifested to us. So that, although with respect to many +important scenes, it might, as we saw above, be one of the most +precious gifts that could be given us to see them with <i>our own +eyes</i>, yet also in many things it is more desirable to be permitted +to see them with the eyes of others; and although, to the small, +conceited, and affected painter displaying his narrow knowledge +and tiny dexterities, our only word may be, "Stand aside from +between that nature and me," yet to the great imaginative painter—greater +a million times in every faculty of soul than we—our +word may wisely be, "Come between this nature and me—this +nature which is too great and too wonderful for me; temper it +for me, interpret it to me; let me see with your eyes, and hear +with your ears, and have help and strength from your great +spirit."</p> + +<p>All the noblest pictures have this character. They are true or +inspired ideals, seen in a moment to <i>be</i> ideal; that is to say, the +result of all the highest powers of the imagination, engaged in the +discovery and apprehension of the purest truths, and having so +arranged them as best to show their preciousness and exalt their +clearness. They are always orderly, always one, ruled by one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> +great purpose throughout, in the fulfilment of which every atom +of the detail is called to help, and would be missed if removed; +this peculiar oneness being the result, not of obedience to any +teachable law, but of the magnificence of tone in the perfect +mind, which accepts only what is good for its great purposes, +rejects whatever is foreign or redundant, and instinctively and +instantaneously ranges whatever it accepts, in sublime subordination +and helpful brotherhood.</p> + +<p>§ 20. Then, this being the greatest art, the lowest art is the +mimicry of it,—the subordination of nothing to nothing; the +elaborate arrangement of sightlessness and emptiness; the +order which has no object; the unity which has no life, and the +law which has no love; the light which has nothing to illumine, +and shadow which has nothing to relieve.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>§ 21. And then, between these two, comes the wholesome, +happy, and noble—though not noblest—art of simple transcript +from nature; into which, so far as our modern Pre-Raphaelitism +falls, it will indeed do sacred service in ridding us of the +old fallacies and componencies, but cannot itself rise above the +level of simple and happy usefulness. So far as it is to be +great, it must add,—and so far as it <i>is</i> great, has already added,—the +great imaginative element to all its faithfulness in transcript. +And for this reason, I said in the close of my Edinburgh +Lectures, that Pre-Raphaelitism, as long as it confined +itself to the simple copying of nature, could not take the character +of the highest class of art. But it has already, almost +unconsciously, supplied the defect, and taken that character, in +all its best results; and, so far as it ought, hereafter, it will +assuredly do so, as soon as it is permitted to maintain itself in +any other position than that of stern antagonism to the composition +teachers around it. I say "so far as it ought," because, as +already noticed in that same place, we have enough, and to spare, +of noble <i>inventful</i> pictures; so many have we, that we let them +moulder away on the walls and roofs of Italy without one regretful +thought about them. But of simple transcripts from +nature, till now we have had none; even Van Eyck and Albert +Durer having been strongly filled with the spirit of grotesque +idealism; so that the Pre-Raphaelites have, to the letter, fulfilled +Steele's description of the author, who "determined to write +in an entirely new manner, and describe things exactly as they +took place."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> +<p>§ 22. We have now, I believe, in some sort answered most of +the questions which were suggested to us during our statement +of the nature of great art. I could recapitulate the answers; +but perhaps the reader is already sufficiently wearied of the +recurrence of the terms "Ideal," "Nature," "Imagination," +"Invention," and will hardly care to see them again interchanged +among each other, in the formalities of a summary. +What difficulties may yet occur to him will, I think, disappear +as he either re-reads the passages which suggested them, or follows +out the consideration of the subject for himself:—this +very simple, but very precious, conclusion being continually +remembered by him as the sum of all; that greatness in art (as +assuredly in all other things, but more distinctly in this than in +most of them,) is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but <i>the +expression of the mind of a God-made great man</i>; that teach, or +preach, or labor as you will, everlasting difference is set between +one man's capacity and another's; and that this God-given +supremacy is the priceless thing, always just as rare in +the world at one time as another. What you can manufacture, +or communicate, you can lower the price of, but this mental +supremacy is incommunicable; you will never multiply its +quantity, nor lower its price; and nearly the best thing that +men can generally do is to set themselves, not to the attainment, +but the discovery of this; learning to know gold, when +we see it, from iron-glance, and diamonds from flint-sand, being +for most of us a more profitable employment than trying to +make diamonds out of our own charcoal. And for this God-made +supremacy, I generally have used, and shall continue to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> +use, the word Inspiration, not carelessly nor lightly, but in all +logical calmness and perfect reverence. We English have many +false ideas about reverence: we should be shocked, for instance, +to see a market-woman come into church with a basket of eggs +on her arm: we think it more reverent to lock her out till Sunday; +and to surround the church with respectability of iron +railings, and defend it with pacing inhabitation of beadles. I +believe this to be <i>ir</i>reverence; and that it is more truly reverent, +when the market-woman, hot and hurried, at six in the +morning, her head much confused with calculations of the +probable price of eggs, can nevertheless get within church +porch, and church aisle, and church chancel, lay the basket +down on the very steps of the altar, and receive thereat so much +of help and hope as may serve her for the day's work. In like +manner we are solemnly, but I think not wisely, shocked at any +one who comes hurriedly into church, in any figurative way, +with his basket on his arm; and perhaps, so long as we feel it +so, it is better to keep the basket out. But, as for this one +commodity of high mental supremacy, it cannot be kept out, +for the very fountain of it is in the church wall, and there +is no other right word for it but this of Inspiration; a word, +indeed, often ridiculously perverted, and irreverently used of +fledgling poets and pompous orators—no one being offended +then, and yet cavilled at when quietly used of the spirit that it +is in a truly great man; cavilled at, chiefly, it seems to me, because +we expect to know inspiration by the look of it. Let a +man have shaggy hair, dark eyes, a rolling voice, plenty of animal +energy, and a facility of rhyming or sentencing, and—improvisatore +or sentimentalist—we call him "inspired" willingly +enough; but let him be a rough, quiet worker, not proclaiming +himself melodiously in any wise, but familiar with us, unpretending, +and letting all his littlenesses and feeblenesses be seen, unhindered,—wearing +an ill-cut coat withal, and, though he be +such a man as is only sent upon the earth once in five hundred +years, for some special human teaching, it is irreverent to call +him "inspired." But, be it irreverent or not, this word I must +always use; and the rest of what work I have here before me, +is simply to prove the truth of it, with respect to the one among<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> +these mighty spirits whom we have just lost; who divided his +hearers, as many an inspired speaker has done before now, into +two great sects—a large and a narrow; these searching the +Nature-scripture calmly, "whether those things were so," and +those standing haughtily on their Mars hill, asking, "what will +this babbler say?"</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> +People of any sense, however, confined themselves to wonder. I think +it was only in the Art Journal of September 1st, 1854, that any writer had +the meanness to charge me with insincerity. "The pictures of Turner and +the works of the Pre-Raphaelites are the very antipodes of each other; it is, +therefore, impossible that one and the same individual can with any <i>show of +sincerity</i> [Note, by the way, the Art-Union has no idea that <i>real</i> sincerity is +a thing existent or possible at all. All that it expects or hopes of human +nature is, that it should have <i>show</i> of sincerity,] stand forth as the thick +and thin [I perceive the writer intends to teach me English, as well as honesty,] +eulogist of both. With a certain knowledge of art, such as may be +possessed by the author of English Painters, [Note, farther, that the eminent +critic does not so much as know the title of the book he is criticising,] +it is not difficult to praise any bad or mediocre picture that may be qualified +with extravagance or mysticism. This author owes the public a heavy debt +of explanation, which a lifetime spent in ingenious reconciliations would +not suffice to discharge. A fervent admiration of certain pictures by +Turner, and, at the same time, of some of the severest productions of the +Pre-Raphaelites, presents an insuperable problem to persons whose taste in +art is regulated by definite principles."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> +Part II. Sec. I. Chap. VII. § 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> +Part II. Sec. IV. Chap. IV. § 23., and Part II. Sec. I. Chap. VII. § 9. +The whole of the Preface to the Second Edition is written to maintain this +one point of specific detail against the advocates of generalization.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> +Vol. II. Chapter on Penetrative Imagination.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> +Several other points connected with this subject have already been +noticed in the last chapter of the Stones of Venice, § 21. &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> +"Though my pictures should have nothing else, they shall have Chiaroscuro."—<span class="smcap">Constable</span> +(in Leslie's Life of him). It is singular to reflect +what that fatal Chiaroscuro has done in art, in the full extent of its influence. +It has been not only shadow, but shadow of Death: passing over the +face of the ancient art, as death itself might over a fair human countenance; +whispering, as it reduced it to the white projections and lightless +orbits of the skull, "Thy face shall have nothing else, but it shall have +Chiaroscuro."</p></div> + + + + + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE NOVELTY OF LANDSCAPE.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. Having now obtained, I trust, clear ideas, up to a +certain point, of what is generally right and wrong in all art, +both in conception and in workmanship, we have to apply these +laws of right to the particular branch of art which is the subject +of our present inquiry, namely, landscape-painting. Respecting +which, after the various meditations into which we +have been led on the high duties and ideals of art, it may not +improbably occur to us first to ask,—whether it be worth inquiring +about at all.</p> + +<p>That question, perhaps the reader thinks, should have been +asked and answered before I had written, or he read, two volumes +and a half about it. So I <i>had</i> answered it, in my own +mind; but it seems time now to give the grounds for this +answer. If, indeed, the reader has never suspected that +landscape-painting was anything but good, right, and healthy work, +I should be sorry to put any doubt of its being so into his +mind; but if, as seems to me more likely, he, living in this +busy and perhaps somewhat calamitous age, has some suspicion +that landscape-painting is but an idle and empty business, not +worth all our long talk about it, then, perhaps, he will be +pleased to have such suspicion done away, before troubling himself +farther with these disquisitions.</p> + +<p>§ 2. I should rather be glad, than otherwise, that he <i>had</i> +formed some suspicion on this matter. If he has at all admitted +the truth of anything hitherto said respecting great art, and +its choices of subject, it seems to me he ought, by this time, to +be questioning with himself whether road-side weeds, old cottages, +broken stones, and such other materials, be worthy matters +for grave men to busy themselves in the imitation of. And +I should like him to probe this doubt to the deep of it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> +bring all his misgivings out to the broad light, that we may see +how we are to deal with them, or ascertain if indeed they are +too well founded to be dealt with.</p> + +<p>§ 3. And to this end I would ask him now to imagine himself +entering, for the first time in his life, the room of the Old +Water-Color Society; and to suppose that he has entered it, not +for the sake of a quiet examination of the paintings one by one, +but in order to seize such ideas as it may generally suggest +respecting the state and meaning of modern as compared with +elder, art. I suppose him, of course, that he may be capable of +such a comparison, to be in some degree familiar with the +different forms in which art has developed itself within the +periods historically known to us; but never, till that moment, +to have seen any completely modern work. So prepared, and +so unprepared, he would, as his ideas began to arrange themselves, +be first struck by the number of paintings representing +blue mountains, clear lakes, and ruined castles or cathedrals, +and he would say to himself: "There is something strange in +the mind of these modern people! Nobody ever cared about +blue mountains before, or tried to paint the broken stones of +old walls." And the more he considered the subject, the more +he would feel the peculiarity; and, as he thought over the art +of Greeks and Romans, he would still repeat, with increasing +certainty of conviction: "Mountains! I remember none. +The Greeks did not seem, as artists, to know that such things +were in the world. They carved, or variously represented, +men, and horses, and beasts, and birds, and all kinds of living +creatures,—yes, even down to cuttle-fish; and trees, in a sort +of way; but not so much as the outline of a mountain; and as +for lakes, they merely showed they knew the difference between +salt and fresh water by the fish they put into each." Then he +would pass on to mediæval art: and still he would be obliged +to repeat: "Mountains! I remember none. Some careless and +jagged arrangements of blue spires or spikes on the horizon, +and, here and there, an attempt at representing an overhanging +rock with a hole through it; but merely in order to divide the +light behind some human figure. Lakes! No, nothing of the +kind,—only blue bays of sea put in to fill up the background +when the painter could not think of anything else. Broken-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>down +buildings! No; for the most part very complete and +well-appointed buildings, if any; and never buildings at all, +but to give place or explanation to some circumstance of human +conduct." And then he would look up again to the modern +pictures, observing, with an increasing astonishment, that here +the human interest had, in many cases, altogether disappeared. +That mountains, instead of being used only as a blue ground +for the relief of the heads of saints, were themselves the exclusive +subjects of reverent contemplation; that their ravines, and +peaks, and forests, were all painted with an appearance of as +much enthusiasm as had formerly been devoted to the dimple +of beauty, or the frowns of asceticism; and that all the living +interest which was still supposed necessary to the scene, might +be supplied by a traveller in a slouched hat, a beggar in a +scarlet cloak, or, in default of these, even by a heron or a wild +duck.</p> + +<p>And if he could entirely divest himself of his own modern +habits of thought, and regard the subjects in question with the +feelings of a knight or monk of the middle ages, it might be a +question whether those feelings would not rapidly verge towards +contempt. "What!" he might perhaps mutter to himself, +"here are human beings spending the whole of their lives in +making pictures of bits of stone and runlets of water, withered +sticks and flying frogs, and actually not a picture of the gods +or the heroes! none of the saints or the martyrs! none of the +angels and demons! none of councils or battles, or any other +single thing worth the thought of a man! Trees and clouds +indeed! as if I should not see as many trees as I cared to see, +and more, in the first half of my day's journey to-morrow, or +as if it mattered to any man whether the sky were clear or +cloudy, so long as his armor did not get too hot in the sun!"</p> + +<p>§ 5. There can be no question that this would have been +somewhat the tone of thought with which either a Lacedæmonian, +a soldier of Rome in her strength, or a knight of the +thirteenth century, would have been apt to regard these particular +forms of our present art. Nor can there be any question +that, in many respects, their judgment would have been just. +It is true that the indignation of the Spartan or Roman would +have been equally excited against any appearance of luxurious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> +industry; but the mediæval knight would, to the full, have +admitted the nobleness of art; only he would have had it employed +in decorating his church or his prayer-book, nor in +imitating moors and clouds. And the feelings of all the three +would have agreed in this,—that their main ground of offence +must have been the want of <i>seriousness</i> and <i>purpose</i> in what +they saw. They would all have admitted the nobleness of whatever +conduced to the honor of the gods, or the power of the +nation; but they would not have understood how the skill of +human life could be wisely spent in that which did no honor +either to Jupiter or to the Virgin; and which in no wise +tended, apparently, either to the accumulation of wealth, the +excitement of patriotism, or the advancement of morality.</p> + +<p>§ 6. And exactly so far forth their judgment would be just, +as the landscape-painting could indeed be shown, for others as +well as for them, to be art of this nugatory kind; and so far +forth unjust, as that painting could be shown to depend upon, +or cultivate, certain sensibilities which neither the Greek nor +mediæval knight possessed, and which have resulted from some +extraordinary change in human nature since their time. We +have no right to assume, without very accurate examination of +it, that this change has been an ennobling one. The simple +fact, that we are, in some strange way, different from all the great +races that have existed before us, cannot at once be received as +the proof of our own greatness; nor can it be granted, without +any question, that we have a legitimate subject of complacency +in being under the influence of feelings, with which neither +Miltiades nor the Black Prince, neither Homer nor Dante, +neither Socrates nor St. Francis, could for an instant have +sympathized.</p> + +<p>§ 7. Whether, however, this fact be one to excite our pride +or not, it is assuredly one to excite our deepest interest. The +fact itself is certain. For nearly six thousand years the energies +of man have pursued certain beaten paths, manifesting some +constancy of feeling throughout all that period, and involving +some fellowship at heart, among the various nations who by +turns succeeded or surpassed each other in the several aims of +art or policy. So that, for these thousands of years, the whole +human race might be to some extent described in general terms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> +Man was a creature separated from all others by his instinctive +sense of an Existence superior to his own, invariably manifesting +this sense of the being of a God more strongly in proportion +to his own perfectness of mind and body; and making enormous +and self-denying efforts, in order to obtain some persuasion +of the immediate presence or approval of the Divinity. So +that, on the whole, the best things he did were done as in the +presence, or for the honor, of his gods; and, whether in statues, +to help him to imagine them, or temples raised to their honor, +or acts of self-sacrifice done in the hope of their love, he brought +whatever was best and skilfullest in him into their service, and +lived in a perpetual subjection to their unseen power. Also, +he was always anxious to know something definite about them; +and his chief books, songs, and pictures were filled with legends +about them, or especially devoted to illustration of their lives +and nature.</p> + +<p>§ 8. Next to these gods he was always anxious to know +something about his human ancestors; fond of exalting the +memory, and telling or painting the history of old rulers and +benefactors; yet full of an enthusiastic confidence in himself, +as having in many ways advanced beyond the best efforts of past +time; and eager to record his own doings for future fame. He +was a creature eminently warlike, placing his principal pride in +dominion; eminently beautiful, and having great delight in his +own beauty: setting forth this beauty by every species of invention +in dress, and rendering his arms and accoutrements superbly +decorative of his form. He took, however, very little +interest in anything but what belonged to humanity; caring in +no wise for the external world, except as it influenced his own +destiny; honoring the lightning because it could strike him, +the sea because it could drown him, the fountains because they +gave him drink, and the grass because it yielded him seed; but +utterly incapable of feeling any special happiness in the love of +such things, or any earnest emotion about them, considered as +separate from man; therefore giving no time to the study of +them;—knowing little of herbs, except only which were hurtful, +and which healing; of stones, only which would glitter +brightest in a crown, or last the longest in a wall; of the wild +beasts, which were best for food, and which the stoutest quarry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> +for the hunter;—thus spending only on the lower creatures and +inanimate things his waste energy, his dullest thoughts, his +most languid emotions, and reserving all his acuter intellect for +researches into his own nature and that of the gods; all his +strength of will for the acquirement of political or moral +power; all his sense of beauty for things immediately connected +with his own person and life; and all his deep affections for +domestic or divine companionship.</p> + +<p>Such, in broad light and brief terms, was man for five thousand +years. Such he is no longer. Let us consider what he is +now, comparing the descriptions clause by clause.</p> + +<p>§ 9. I. He <i>was</i> invariably sensible of the existence of gods, +and went about all his speculations or works holding this as an +acknowledged fact, making his best efforts in their service. +<i>Now</i> he is capable of going through life with hardly any positive +idea on this subject,—doubting, fearing, suspecting, +analyzing,—doing everything, in fact, <i>but</i> believing; hardly ever +getting quite up to that point which hitherto was wont to be +the starting point for all generations. And human work has +accordingly hardly any reference to spiritual beings, but is done +either from a patriotic or personal interest,—either to benefit +mankind, or reach some selfish end, not (I speak of human +work in the broad sense) to please the gods.</p> + +<p>II. He <i>was</i> a beautiful creature, setting forth this beauty by +all means in his power, and depending upon it for much of his +authority over his fellows. So that the ruddy cheek of David, +and the ivory skin of Atrides, and the towering presence of +Saul, and the blue eyes of Cœur de Lion, were among the chief +reasons why they should be kings; and it was one of the aims +of all education, and of all dress, to make the presence of the +human form stately and lovely. <i>Now</i> it has become the task +of grave philosophy partly to depreciate or conceal this bodily +beauty; and even by those who esteem it in their hearts, it is +not made one of the great ends of education: man has become, +upon the whole, an ugly animal, and is not ashamed of his ugliness.</p> + +<p>III. He <i>was</i> eminently warlike. He is <i>now</i> gradually becoming +more and more ashamed of all the arts and aims of +battle. So that the desire of dominion, which was once frankly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> +confessed or boasted of as a heroic passion, is now sternly reprobated +or cunningly disclaimed.</p> + +<p>IV. He <i>used</i> to take no interest in anything but what immediately +concerned himself. <i>Now</i>, he has deep interest in the +abstract natures of things, inquires as eagerly into the laws +which regulate the economy of the material world, as into those +of his own being, and manifests a passionate admiration of +inanimate objects, closely resembling, in its elevation and tenderness, +the affection which he bears to those living souls with +which he is brought into the nearest fellowship.</p> + +<p>§ 10. It is this last change only which is to be the subject of +our present inquiry; but it cannot be doubted that it is closely +connected with all the others, and that we can only thoroughly +understand its nature by considering it in this connection. +For, regarded by itself, we might, perhaps, too rashly assume it +to be a natural consequence of the progress of the race. There +appears to be a diminution of selfishness in it, and a more +extended and heartfelt desire of understanding the manner of +God's working; and this the more, because one of the permanent +characters of this change is a greater accuracy in the statement +of external facts. When the eyes of men were fixed first +upon themselves, and upon nature solely and secondarily as +bearing upon their interests, it was of less consequence to them +what the ultimate laws of nature were, than what their immediate +effects were upon human beings. Hence they could rest +satisfied with phenomena instead of principles, and accepted +without scrutiny every fable which seemed sufficiently or gracefully +to account for those phenomena. But so far as the eyes +of men are now withdrawn from themselves, and turned upon +the inanimate things about them, the results cease to be of +importance, and the laws become essential.</p> + +<p>§ 11. In these respects, it might easily appear to us that this +change was assuredly one of steady and natural advance. But +when we contemplate the others above noted, of which it is +clearly one of the branches or consequences, we may suspect +ourselves of over-rashness in our self-congratulation, and admit +the necessity of a scrupulous analysis both of the feeling itself +and of its tendencies.</p> + +<p>Of course a complete analysis, or anything like it, would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> +involve a treatise on the whole history of the world. I shall +merely endeavor to note some of the leading and more interesting +circumstances bearing on the subject, and to show sufficient +practical ground for the conclusion, that landscape painting is +indeed a noble and useful art, though one not long known by +man. I shall therefore examine, as best I can, the effect of +landscape, 1st, on the Classical mind; 2ndly, on the Mediæval +mind; and lastly, on the Modern mind. But there is one point +of some interest respecting the effect of it on <i>any</i> mind, which +must be settled first, and this I will endeavor to do in the next +chapter.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE PATHETIC FALLACY.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. German dulness and English affectation, have of late +much multiplied among us the use of two of the most objectionable +words that were ever coined by the troublesomeness of +metaphysicians,—namely, "Objective" and "Subjective."</p> + +<p>No words can be more exquisitely, and in all points, useless; +and I merely speak of them that I may, at once and for ever, +get them out of my way and out of my reader's. But to get +that done, they must be explained.</p> + +<p>The word "Blue," say certain philosophers, means the sensation +of color which the human eye receives in looking at the +open sky, or at a bell gentian.</p> + +<p>Now, say they farther, as this sensation can only be felt +when the eye is turned to the object, and as, therefore, no such +sensation is produced by the object when nobody looks at it, +therefore the thing, when it is not looked at, is not blue; and +thus (say they) there are many qualities of things which depend +as much on something else as on themselves. To be sweet, a +thing must have a taster; it is only sweet while it is being +tasted, and if the tongue had not the capacity of taste, then the +sugar would not have the quality of sweetness.</p> + +<p>And then they agree that the qualities of things which thus +depend upon our perception of them, and upon our human +nature as affected by them, shall be called Subjective; and the +qualities of things which they always have, irrespective of any +other nature, as roundness or squareness, shall be called Objective.</p> + +<p>From these ingenious views the step is very easy to a farther +opinion, that it does not much matter what things are in themselves, +but only what they are to us; and that the only real +truth of them is their appearance to, or effect upon, us. From +which position, with a hearty desire for mystification, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> +much egotism, selfishness, shallowness, and impertinence, a +philosopher may easily go so far as to believe, and say, that +everything in the world depends upon his seeing or thinking of +it, and that nothing, therefore, exists, but what he sees or +thinks of.</p> + +<p>§ 2. Now, to get rid of all these ambiguities and troublesome +words at once, be it observed that the word "Blue" does <i>not</i> +mean the <i>sensation</i> caused by a gentian on the human eye; but +it means the <i>power</i> of producing that sensation; and this power +is always there, in the thing, whether we are there to experience +it or not, and would remain there though there were not left a +man on the face of the earth. Precisely in the same way gunpowder +has a power of exploding. It will not explode if you +put no match to it. But it has always the power of so exploding, +and is therefore called an explosive compound, which it +very positively and assuredly is, whatever philosophy may say +to the contrary.</p> + +<p>In like manner, a gentian does not produce the sensation of +blueness if you don't look at it. But it has always the power of +doing so; its particles being everlastingly so arranged by its +Maker. And, therefore, the gentian and the sky are always +verily blue, whatever philosophy may say to the contrary; and +if you do not see them blue when you look at them, it is not +their fault but yours.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + +<p>§ 3. Hence I would say to these philosophers: If, instead of +using the sonorous phrase, "It is objectively so," you will use +the plain old phrase, "It <i>is</i> so;" and if instead of the sonorous +phrase, "It is subjectively so," you will say, in plain old English, +"It does so," or "It seems so to me;" you will, on the +whole, be more intelligible to your fellow-creatures: and be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>sides, +if you find that a thing which generally "does so" to +other people (as a gentian looks blue to most men) does <i>not</i> so +to you, on any particular occasion, you will not fall into the +impertinence of saying that the thing is not so, or did not so, +but you will say simply (what you will be all the better for +speedily finding out) that something is the matter with you. +If you find that you cannot explode the gunpowder, you will not +declare that all gunpowder is subjective, and all explosion imaginary, +but you will simply suspect and declare yourself to be +an ill-made match. Which, on the whole, though there may +be a distant chance of a mistake about it, is, nevertheless, the +wisest conclusion you can come to until farther experiment.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>§ 4. Now, therefore, putting these tiresome and absurd +words quite out of our way, we may go on at our ease to examine +the point in question,—namely, the difference between +the ordinary, proper, and true appearances of things to us; and +the extraordinary, or false appearances, when we are under the +influence of emotion, or contemplative fancy;<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> +false appearances, +I say, as being entirely unconnected with any real power +or character in the object, and only imputed to it by us.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> + +<p>For instance—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold."<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a> +<a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></span><br /> +</div> + +<p>This is very beautiful and yet very untrue. The crocus is +not a spendthrift, but a hardy plant; its yellow is not gold, +but saffron. How is it that we enjoy so much the having it put +into our heads that it is anything else than a plain crocus?</p> + +<p>It is an important question. For, throughout our past +reasonings about art, we have always found that nothing could +be good or useful, or ultimately pleasurable, which was untrue. +But here is something pleasurable in written poetry which is +nevertheless <i>un</i>true. And what is more, if we think over our +favorite poetry, we shall find it full of this kind of fallacy, and +that we like it all the more for being so.</p> + +<p>§ 5. It will appear also, on consideration of the matter, that +this fallacy is of two principal kinds. Either, as in this case of +the crocus, it is the fallacy of wilful fancy, which involves no +real expectation that it will be believed; or else it is a fallacy +caused by an excited state of the feelings, making us, for the +time, more or less irrational. Of the cheating of the fancy we +shall have to speak presently; but, in this chapter, I want to +examine the nature of the other error, that which the mind +admits, when affected strongly by emotion. Thus, for instance, +in Alton Locke,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"They rowed her in across the rolling foam—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The cruel, crawling foam."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of +mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature +is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent +feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness +in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally +characterize as the "Pathetic fallacy."</p> + +<p>§ 6. Now we are in the habit of considering this fallacy as +eminently a character of poetical description, and the temper of +mind in which we allow it, as one eminently poetical, because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> +passionate. But, I believe, if we look well into the matter, that +we shall find the greatest poets do not often admit this kind of +falseness,—that it is only the second order of poets who much +delight in it.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p>Thus, when Dante describes the spirits falling from the bank +of Acheron "as dead leaves flutter from a bough," he gives the +most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feebleness, +passiveness, and scattering agony of despair, without, however, +for an instant losing his own clear perception that <i>these</i> are +souls, and <i>those</i> are leaves: he makes no confusion of one with +the other. But when Coleridge speaks of</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The one red leaf, the last of its clan,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That dances as often as dance it can,"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>he has a morbid, that is to say, a so far false, idea about the +leaf: he fancies a life in it, and will, which there are not; con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>fuses +its powerlessness with choice, its fading death with merriment, +and the wind that shakes it with music. Here, however, +there is some beauty, even in the morbid passage; but take +an instance in Homer and Pope. Without the knowledge of +Ulysses, Elpenor, his youngest follower, has fallen from an +upper chamber in the Circean palace, and has been left dead, +unmissed by his leader, or companions, in the haste of their +departure. They cross the sea to the Cimmerian land; and +Ulysses summons the shades from Tartarus. The first which +appears is that of the lost Elpenor. Ulysses, amazed, and in +exactly the spirit of bitter and terrified lightness which is seen +in Hamlet,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> +addresses the spirit with the simple, startled words:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Elpenor? How camest thou under the Shadowy darkness? Hast +thou come faster on foot than I in my black ship?"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Which Pope renders thus:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"O, say, what angry power Elpenor led</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To glide in shades, and wander with the dead?</span><br /> +<span class="i0">How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoined,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Outfly the nimble sail, and leave the lagging wind?"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>I sincerely hope the reader finds no pleasure here, either in +the nimbleness of the sail, or the laziness of the wind! And +yet how is it that these conceits are so painful now, when they +have been pleasant to us in the other instances?</p> + +<p>§ 7. For a very simple reason. They are not a <i>pathetic</i> fallacy +at all, for they are put into the mouth of the wrong passion—a +passion which never could possibly have spoken them—agonized +curiosity. Ulysses wants to know the facts of the matter; +and the very last thing his mind could do at the moment +would be to pause, or suggest in any wise what was <i>not</i> a fact. +The delay in the first three lines, and conceit in the last, jar +upon us instantly, like the most frightful discord in music. No +poet of true imaginative power could possibly have written the +passage. It is worth while comparing the way a similar question +is put by the exquisite sincerity of Keats:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i3">"He wept, and his bright tears</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Went trickling down the golden bow he held.</span><br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> +<span class="i0">Thus, with half-shut, suffused eyes, he stood;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">While from beneath some cumb'rous boughs hard by,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With solemn step, an awful goddess came.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And there was purport in her looks for him,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Which he with eager guess began to read:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Perplexed the while, melodiously he said,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'<i>How cam'st thou over the unfooted sea?</i>'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Therefore, we see that the spirit of truth must guide us in +some sort, even in our enjoyment of fallacy. Coleridge's fallacy +has no discord in it, but Pope's has set our teeth on edge. +Without farther questioning, I will endeavor to state the main +bearings of this matter.</p> + +<p>§ 8. The temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy, is, +as I said above, that of a mind and body in some sort too weak +to deal fully with what is before them or upon them; borne +away, or over-clouded, or over-dazzled by emotion; and it is a +more or less noble state, according to the force of the emotion +which has induced it. For it is no credit to a man that he is +not morbid or inaccurate in his perceptions, when he has no +strength of feeling to warp them; and it is in general a sign of +higher capacity and stand in the ranks of being, that the emotions +should be strong enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect, +and make it believe what they choose. But it is still a grander +condition when the intellect also rises, till it is strong enough +to assert its rule against, or together with, the utmost efforts of +the passions; and the whole man stands in an iron glow, white +hot, perhaps, but still strong, and in no wise evaporating; +even if he melts, losing none of his weight.</p> + +<p>So, then, we have the three ranks: the man who perceives +rightly, because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is +very accurately the primrose, because he does not love it. Then, +secondly, the man who perceives wrongly, because he feels, +and to whom the primrose is anything else than a primrose: a +star, or a sun, or a fairy's shield, or a forsaken maiden. And +then, lastly, there is the man who perceives rightly in spite +of his feelings, and to whom the primrose is for ever nothing +else than itself—a little flower, apprehended in the very plain +and leafy fact of it, whatever and how many soever the associations +and passions may be, that crowd around it. And, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> +general, these three classes may be rated in comparative order, +as the men who are not poets at all, and the poets of the second +order, and the poets of the first; only however great a man may +be, there are always some subjects which <i>ought</i> to throw him +off his balance; some, by which his poor human capacity of +thought should be conquered, and brought into the inaccurate +and vague state of perception, so that the language of the highest +inspiration becomes broken, obscure, and wild in metaphor, +resembling that of the weaker man, overborne by weaker things.</p> + +<p>§ 9. And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who +feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, +think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the +men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first +order of poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures +can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and +see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably +above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.</p> + +<p>§ 10. I separate these classes, in order that their character +may be clearly understood; but of course they are united each +to the other by imperceptible transitions, and the same mind, +according to the influences to which it is subjected, passes at +different times into the various states. Still, the difference between +the great and less man is, on the whole, chiefly in this +point of <i>alterability</i>. That is to say, the one knows too much, +and perceives and feels too much of the past and future, and of +all things beside and around that which immediately affects +him, to be in any wise shaken by it. His mind is made up; +his thoughts have an accustomed current; his ways are steadfast; +it is not this or that new sight which will at once unbalance +him. He is tender to impression at the surface, like a +rock with deep moss upon it; but there is too much mass of +him to be moved. The smaller man, with the same degree of +sensibility, is at once carried off his feet; he wants to do something +he did not want to do before; he views all the universe +in a new light through his tears; he is gay or enthusiastic, melancholy +or passionate, as things come and go to him. Therefore +the high creative poet might even be thought, to a great +extent, impassive (as shallow people think Dante stern), receiving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> +indeed all feelings to the full, but having a great centre of +reflection and knowledge in which he stands serene, and watches +the feeling, as it were, from far off.</p> + +<p>Dante, in his most intense moods, has entire command of +himself, and can look around calmly, at all moments, for the +image or the word that will best tell what he sees to the upper +or lower world. But Keats and Tennyson, and the poets of the +second order, are generally themselves subdued by the feelings +under which they write, or, at least, write as choosing to be so, +and therefore admit certain expressions and modes of thought +which are in some sort diseased or false.</p> + +<p>§ 11. Now so long as we see that the <i>feeling</i> is true, we pardon, +or are even pleased by, the confessed fallacy of sight which +it induces: we are pleased, for instance, with those lines of +Kingsley's, above quoted, not because they fallaciously describe +foam, but because they faithfully describe sorrow. But the +moment the mind of the speaker becomes cold, that moment +every such expression becomes untrue, as being for ever untrue +in the external facts. And there is no greater baseness in literature +than the habit of using these metaphorical expressions in +cool blood. An inspired writer, in full impetuosity of passion, +may speak wisely and truly of "raging waves of the sea, foaming +out their own shame;" but it is only the basest writer who +cannot speak of the sea without talking of "raging waves," +"remorseless floods," "ravenous billows," &c.; and it is one +of the signs of the highest power in a writer to check all such +habits of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the <i>pure +fact</i>, out of which if any feeling comes to him or his reader, he +knows it must be a true one.</p> + +<p>To keep to the waves, I forget who it is who represents a +man in despair, desiring that his body may be cast into the sea,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Whose changing mound, and foam that passed away</i>,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Might mock the eye that questioned where I lay."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Observe, there is not a single false, or even overcharged, expression. +"Mound" of the sea wave is perfectly simple and +true; "changing" is as familiar as may be; "foam that passed +away," strictly literal; and the whole line descriptive of the +reality with a degree of accuracy which I know not any other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> +verse, in the range of poetry, that altogether equals. For most +people have not a distinct idea of the clumsiness and massiveness +of a large wave. The word "wave" is used too generally +of ripples and breakers, and bendings in light drapery or grass: +it does not by itself convey a perfect image. But the word +"mound" is heavy, large, dark, definite; there is no mistaking +the kind of wave meant, nor missing the sight of it. Then the +term "changing" has a peculiar force also. Most people think +of waves as rising and falling. But if they look at the sea carefully, +they will perceive that the waves do not rise and fall. +They change. Change both place and form, but they do not +fall; one wave goes on, and on, and still on; now lower, now +higher, now tossing its mane like a horse, now building itself +together like a wall, now shaking, now steady, but still the same +wave, till at last it seems struck by something, and changes, one +knows not how,—becomes another wave.</p> + +<p>The close of the line insists on this image, and paints it still +more perfectly,—"foam that passed away." Not merely melting, +disappearing, but passing on, out of sight, on the career of +the wave. Then, having put the absolute ocean fact as far as +he may before our eyes, the poet leaves us to feel about it as we +may, and to trace for ourselves the opposite fact,—the image of +the green mounds that do not change, and the white and written +stones that do not pass away; and thence to follow out +also the associated images of the calm life with the quiet grave, +and the despairing life with the fading foam:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i6">"Let no man move his bones."</span><br /> +<span class="i0">"As for Samaria, her king is cut off like the foam upon the water."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>But nothing of this is actually told or pointed out, and the +expressions, as they stand, are perfectly severe and accurate, +utterly uninfluenced by the firmly governed emotion of the +writer. Even the word "mock" is hardly an exception, as it +may stand merely for "deceive" or "defeat," without implying +any impersonation of the waves.</p> + +<p>§ 12. It may be well, perhaps, to give one or two more instances +to show the peculiar dignity possessed by all passages +which thus limit their expression to the pure fact, and leave the +hearer to gather what he can from it. Here is a notable one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> +from the Iliad. Helen, looking from the Scæan gate of Troy +over the Grecian host, and telling Priam the names of its captains, +says at last:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I see all the other dark-eyed Greeks; but two I cannot see,—Castor +and Pollux,—whom one mother bore with me. Have they not followed +from fair Lacedæmon, or have they indeed come in their sea-wandering +ships, but now will not enter into the battle of men, fearing the shame and +the scorn that is in me?"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Then Homer:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"So she spoke. But them, already, the life-giving earth possessed, +there in Lacedæmon, in the dear fatherland."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Note, here, the high poetical truth carried to the extreme. +The poet has to speak of the earth in sadness, but he will not +let that sadness affect or change his thoughts of it. No; +though Castor and Pollux be dead, yet the earth is our mother +still, fruitful, life-giving. These are the facts of the thing. I +see nothing else than these. Make what you will of them.</p> + +<p>§ 13. Take another very notable instance from Casimir de la +Vigne's terrible ballad, "La Toilette de Constance." I must +quote a few lines out of it here and there, to enable the reader +who has not the book by him, to understand its close.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"Vite, Anna, vite; au miroir</span><br /> +<span class="i3">Plus vite, Anna. L'heure s'avance,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Et je vais au bal ce soir</span><br /> +<span class="i3">Chez l'ambassadeur de France.</span><br /> +<span class="i0"> </span><br /> +<span class="i0">Y pensez vous, ils sont fanés, ces nœuds,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Ils sont d'hier, mon Dieu, comme tout passe!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Que du réseau qui retient mes cheveux</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Les glands d'azur retombent avec grâce.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Plus haut! Plus bas! Vous ne comprenez rien!</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Que sur mon front ce saphir étincelle:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Vous me piquez, mal-adroite. Ah, c'est bien,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Bien,—chère Anna! Je t'aime, je suis belle.</span><br /> +<span class="i0"> </span><br /> +<span class="i0">Celui qu'en vain je voudrais oublier</span><br /> +<span class="i1">(Anna, ma robe) il y sera, j'espère.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">(Ah, fi, profane, est-ce là mon collier?</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Quoi! ces grains d'or bénits par le Saint Père!)</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Il y sera; Dieu, s'il pressait ma main</span><br /> +<span class="i1">En y pensant, à peine je respire;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Père Anselmo doit m'entendre demain,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Comment ferai-je, Anna, pour tout lui dire?</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> +<span class="i0"> </span><br /> +<span class="i2">Vite un coup d'œil au miroir,</span><br /> +<span class="i3">Le dernier.——J'ai l'assurance</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Qu'on va m'adorer ce soir</span><br /> +<span class="i3">Chez l'ambassadeur de France.</span><br /> +<span class="i0"> </span><br /> +<span class="i0">Près du foyer, Constance s'admirait.</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Dieu! sur sa robe il vole une étincelle!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Au feu. Courez; Quand l'espoir l'enivrait</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Tout perdre ainsi! Quoi! Mourir,—et si belle!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">L'horrible feu ronge avec volupté</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Ses bras, son sein, et l'entoure, et s'élève,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Et sans pitie dévore sa beauté,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Ses dixhuit ans, hélas, et son doux rêve!</span><br /> +<span class="i0"> </span><br /> +<span class="i2">Adieu, bal, plaisir, amour!</span><br /> +<span class="i3">On disait, Pauvre Constance!</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Et on dansait, jusqu'au jour,</span><br /> +<span class="i3">Chez l'ambassadeur de France."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Yes, that is the fact of it. Right or wrong, the poet does +not say. What you may think about it, he does not know. He +has nothing to do with that. There lie the ashes of the dead +girl in her chamber. There they danced, till the morning, at +the Ambassador's of France. Make what you will of it.</p> + +<p>If the reader will look through the ballad, of which I have +quoted only about the third part, he will find that there is not, +from beginning to end of it, a single poetical (so called) expression, +except in one stanza. The girl speaks as simple prose as +may be; there is not a word she would not have actually used +as she was dressing. The poet stands by, impassive as a statue, +recording her words just as they come. At last the doom seizes +her, and in the very presence of death, for an instant, his own +emotions conquer him. He records no longer the facts only, +but the facts as they seem to him. The fire gnaws with <i>voluptuousness—without +pity</i>. It is soon past. The fate is fixed for ever; +and he retires into his pale and crystalline atmosphere +of truth. He closes all with the calm veracity,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"They said, 'Poor Constance!'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 14. Now in this there is the exact type of the consummate +poetical temperament. For, be it clearly and constantly remembered, +that the greatness of a poet depends upon the two +faculties, acuteness of feeling, and command of it. A poet is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> +great, first in proportion to the strength of his passion, and +then, that strength being granted, in proportion to his government +of it; there being, however, always a point beyond which +it would be inhuman and monstrous if he pushed this government, +and, therefore, a point at which all feverish and wild +fancy becomes just and true. Thus the destruction of the kingdom +of Assyria cannot be contemplated firmly by a prophet of +Israel. The fact is too great, too wonderful. It overthrows +him, dashes him into a confused element of dreams. All the +world is, to his stunned thought, full of strange voices. "Yea, +the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, +'Since thou art gone down to the grave, no feller is come up +against us.'" So, still more, the thought of the presence of +Deity cannot be borne without this great astonishment. "The +mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, +and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands."</p> + +<p>§ 15. But by how much this feeling is noble when it is justified +by the strength of its cause, by so much it is ignoble when +there is not cause enough for it; and beyond all other ignobleness +is the mere affectation of it, in hardness of heart. Simply +bad writing may almost always, as above noticed, be known by +its adoption of these fanciful metaphorical expressions, as a sort +of current coin; yet there is even a worse, at least a more harmful, +condition of writing than this, in which such expressions +are not ignorantly and feelinglessly caught up, but, by some +master, skilful in handling, yet insincere, deliberately wrought +out with chill and studied fancy; as if we should try to make +an old lava stream look red-hot again, by covering it with dead +leaves, or white-hot, with hoar-frost.</p> + +<p>When Young is lost in veneration, as he dwells on the character +of a truly good and holy man, he permits himself for a +moment to be overborne by the feeling so far as to exclaim—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Where shall I find him? angels, tell me where.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">You know him; he is near you; point him out.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Shall I see glories beaming from his brow,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers?"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>This emotion has a worthy cause, and is thus true and right. +But now hear the cold-hearted Pope say to a shepherd girl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Your praise the birds shall chant in every grove,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And winds shall waft it to the powers above.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The wondering forests soon should dance again;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The moving mountains hear the powerful call,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And headlong streams hang, listening, in their fall."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>This is not, nor could it for a moment be mistaken for, the +language of passion. It is simple falsehood, uttered by hypocrisy; +definite absurdity, rooted in affectation, and coldly asserted +in the teeth of nature and fact. Passion will indeed go +far in deceiving itself; but it must be a strong passion, not the +simple wish of a lover to tempt his mistress to sing. Compare a +very closely parallel passage in Wordsworth, in which the lover +has lost his mistress:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">When thus his moan he made:—</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="i0">'Oh, move, thou cottage, from behind yon oak,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Or let the ancient tree uprooted lie,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That in some other way yon smoke</span><br /> +<span class="i1">May mount into the sky.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="i0">If still behind yon pine-tree's ragged bough,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Headlong, the waterfall must come,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Oh, let it, then, be dumb—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Be anything, sweet stream, but that which thou art now.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Here is a cottage to be moved, if not a mountain, and a +waterfall to be silent, if it is not to hang listening; but with +what different relation to the mind that contemplates them! +Here, in the extremity of its agony, the soul cries out wildly for +relief, which at the same moment it partly knows to be impossible, +but partly believes possible, in a vague impression that a +miracle <i>might</i> be wrought to give relief even to a less sore distress,—that +nature is kind, and God is kind, and that grief is +strong; it knows not well what <i>is</i> possible to such grief. To +silence a stream, to move a cottage wall,—one might think it +could do as much as that!</p> + +<p>§ 16. I believe these instances are enough to illustrate the +main point I insist upon respecting the pathetic fallacy,—that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> +so far as it <i>is</i> a fallacy, it is always the sign of a morbid state of +mind, and comparatively of a weak one. Even in the most inspired +prophet it is a sign of the incapacity of his human sight +or thought to bear what has been revealed to it. In ordinary +poetry, if it is found in the thoughts of the poet himself, it is at +once a sign of his belonging to the inferior school; if in the +thoughts of the characters imagined by him, it is right or wrong +according to the genuineness of the emotion from which it +springs; always, however, implying necessarily <i>some</i> degree of +weakness in the character.</p> + +<p>Take two most exquisite instances from master hands. The +Jessy of Shenstone, and the Ellen of Wordsworth, have both +been betrayed and deserted. Jessy, in the course of her most +touching complaint, says:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Hope not to find delight in us,' they say,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">'For we are spotless, Jessy; we are pure.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Compare with this some of the words of Ellen:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"'Ah, why,' said Ellen, sighing to herself,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And nature, that is kind in woman's breast,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And reason, that in man is wise and good,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge,—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Why do not these prevail for human life,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To keep two hearts together, that began</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Their springtime with one love, and that have need</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of mutual pity and forgiveness, sweet</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To grant, or be received; while that poor bird—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">O, come and hear him! Thou who hast to me</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Been faithless, hear him;—though a lowly creature,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">One of God's simple children, that yet know not</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The Universal Parent, <i>how</i> he sings!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As if he wished the firmament of heaven</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Should listen, and give back to him the voice</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of his triumphant constancy and love.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The proclamation that he makes, how far</span><br /> +<span class="i0">His darkness doth transcend our fickle light.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>The perfection of both these passages, as far as regards truth +and tenderness of imagination in the two poets, is quite insu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>perable. +But, of the two characters imagined, Jessy is weaker +than Ellen, exactly in so far as something appears to her to be +in nature which is not. The flowers do not really reproach her. +God meant them to comfort her, not to taunt her; they would +do so if she saw them rightly.</p> + +<p>Ellen, on the other hand, is quite above the slightest erring +emotion. There is not the barest film of fallacy in all her +thoughts. She reasons as calmly as if she did not feel. And, +although the singing of the bird suggests to her the idea of its +desiring to be heard in heaven, she does not for an instant +admit any veracity in the thought. "As if," she says,—"I +know he means nothing of the kind; but it does verily seem +as if." The reader will find, by examining the rest of the +poem, that Ellen's character is throughout consistent in this +clear though passionate strength.</p> + +<p>It then being, I hope, now made clear to the reader in all +respects that the pathetic fallacy is powerful only so far as it is +pathetic, feeble so far as it is fallacious, and, therefore, that the +dominion of Truth is entire, over this, as over every other +natural and just state of the human mind, we may go on to the +subject for the dealing with which this prefatory inquiry became +necessary; and why necessary, we shall see forthwith.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<hr class="fn" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> +It is quite true, that in all qualities involving sensation, there may be +a doubt whether different people receive the same sensation from the same +thing (compare Part II. Sec. I. Chap. V. § 6.); but, though this makes +such facts not distinctly explicable, it does not alter the facts themselves. +I derive a certain sensation, which I call sweetness, from sugar. That is a +fact. Another person feels a sensation, which <i>he</i> also calls sweetness, from +sugar. That is also a fact. The sugar's power to produce these two sensations, +which we suppose to be, and which are, in all probability, very nearly +the same in both of us, and, on the whole, in the human race, is its sweetness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> +In fact (for I may as well, for once, meet our German friends in their +own style), all that has been subjected to us on this subject seems object to +this great objection; that the subjection of all things (subject to no exceptions) +to senses which are, in us, both subject and abject, and objects of perpetual +contempt, cannot but make it our ultimate object to subject ourselves +to the senses, and to remove whatever objections existed to such +subjection. So that, finally, that which is the subject of examination or +object of attention, uniting thus in itself the characters of subness and +obness (so that, that which has no obness in it should be called sub-subjective, +or a sub-subject, and that which has no subness in it should be called upper +or ober-objective, or an ob-object); and we also, who suppose ourselves the +objects of every arrangement, and are certainly the subjects of every sensual +impression, thus uniting in ourselves, in an obverse or adverse manner, the +characters of obness and subness, must both become metaphysically dejected +or rejected, nothing remaining in <i>us</i> objective, but subjectivity, and the very +objectivity of the object being lost in the abyss of this subjectivity of the +Human. +</p><p> +There is, however, some meaning in the above sentence, if the reader +cares to make it out; but in a pure German sentence of the highest style +there is often none whatever. See Appendix II. "German Philosophy."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> +Contemplative, in the sense explained in Part III. Sec. II. Chap. IV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> +Holmes (Oliver Wendell), quoted by Miss Mitford in her Recollections +of a Literary Life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> +I admit two orders of poets, but no third; and by these two orders I +mean the Creative (Shakspere, Homer, Dante), and Reflective or Perceptive +(Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson). But both of these must be <i>first</i>-rate +in their range, though their range is different; and with poetry second-rate +in <i>quality</i> no one ought to be allowed to trouble mankind. There is quite +enough of the best,—much more than we can ever read or enjoy in the +length of a life; and it is a literal wrong or sin in any person to encumber +us with inferior work. I have no patience with apologies made by young +pseudo-poets, "that they believe there is <i>some</i> good in what they have +written: that they hope to do better in time," etc. <i>Some</i> good! If there is +not <i>all</i> good, there is no good. If they ever hope to do better, why do they +trouble us now? Let them rather courageously burn all they have done, +and wait for the better days. There are few men, ordinarily educated, who +in moments of strong feeling could not strike out a poetical thought, and +afterwards polish it so as to be presentable. But men of sense know better +than so to waste their time; and those who sincerely love poetry, know the +touch of the master's hand on the chords too well to fumble among them +after him. Nay, more than this; all inferior poetry is an injury to the +good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon +and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, in general, +adds to the weight of human weariness in a most woful and culpable manner. +There are few thoughts likely to come across ordinary men, which +have not already been expressed by greater men in the best possible way; +and it is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to remember and point +out the perfect words, than to invent poorer ones, wherewith to encumber +temporarily the world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> +"Well said, Old mole! can'st work i' the ground so fast?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> +I cannot quit this subject without giving two more instances, both +exquisite, of the pathetic fallacy, which I have just come upon, in Maude:</p> + + <div class="poem" style="margin-left: 1em;"> + <span class="i6">"For a great speculation had fail'd;</span><br /> + <span class="i1">And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair;</span><br /> + <span class="i0">And out he walk'd, when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd,</span><br /> + <span class="i1">And the <i>flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air</i>."<br /></span> + <span class="i0"> </span><br /> + <span class="i3">"There has fallen a splendid tear</span><br /> + <span class="i4">From the passion-flower at the gate.</span><br /> + <span class="i3"><i>The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near!'</i></span><br /> + <span class="i4"><i>And the white rose weeps, 'She is late.'</i></span><br /> + <span class="i3"><i>The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear!'</i></span><br /> + <span class="i4"><i>And the lily whispers, 'I wait.'</i>"</span><br /> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>OF CLASSICAL LANDSCAPE.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. My reason for asking the reader to give so much of his +time to the examination of the pathetic fallacy was, that, +whether in literature or in art, he will find it eminently characteristic +of the modern mind; and in the landscape, whether of +literature or art, he will also find the modern painter endeavoring +to express something which he, as a living creature, imagines in +the lifeless object, while the classical and mediæval painters were +content with expressing the unimaginary and actual qualities of +the object itself. It will be observed that, according to the +principle stated long ago, I use the words painter and poet quite +indifferently, including in our inquiry the landscape of literature, +as well as that of painting; and this the more because the +spirit of classical landscape has hardly been expressed in any +other way than by words.</p> + +<p>§ 2. Taking, therefore, this wide field, it is surely a very +notable circumstance, to begin with, that this pathetic fallacy is +eminently characteristic of modern painting. For instance, +Keats, describing a wave, breaking, out at sea, says of it—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Down whose green back the short-lived foam, all hoar,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>That is quite perfect, as an example of the modern manner. +The idea of the peculiar action with which foam rolls down a +long, large wave could not have been given by any other words +so well as by this "wayward indolence." But Homer would +never have written, never thought of, such words. He could +not by any possibility have lost sight of the great fact that the +wave, from the beginning to the end of it, do what it might, +was still nothing else than salt water; and that salt water could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> +not be either wayward or indolent. He will call the waves +"over-roofed," "full-charged," "monstrous," "compact-black," +"dark-clear," "violet-colored," "wine-colored," and +so on. But every one of these epithets is descriptive of pure +physical nature. "Over-roofed" is the term he invariably uses +of anything—rock, house, or wave—that nods over at the brow; +the other terms need no explanation; they are as accurate and +intense in truth as words can be, but they never show the +slightest feeling of anything animated in the ocean. Black or +clear, monstrous or violet-colored, cold salt water it is always, +and nothing but that.</p> + +<p>§ 3. "Well, but the modern writer, by his admission of the +tinge of fallacy, has given an idea of something in the action of +the wave which Homer could not, and surely, therefore, has +made a step in advance? Also there appears to be a degree of +sympathy and feeling in the one writer, which there is not in +the other; and as it has been received for a first principle that +writers are great in proportion to the intensity of their feelings, +and Homer seems to have no feelings about the sea but that it +is black and deep, surely in this respect also the modern writer +is the greater?"</p> + +<p>Stay a moment. Homer <i>had</i> some feeling about the sea; a +faith in the animation of it much stronger than Keats's. But +all this sense of something living in it, he separates in his +mind into a great abstract image of a Sea Power. He never +says the waves rage, or the waves are idle. But he says there is +somewhat in, and greater than, the waves, which rages, and is +idle, and <i>that</i> he calls a god.</p> + +<p>§ 4. I do not think we ever enough endeavor to enter into +what a Greek's real notion of a god was. We are so accustomed +to the modern mockeries of the classical religion, so accustomed +to hear and see the Greek gods introduced as living personages, +or invoked for help, by men who believe neither in them nor in +any other gods, that we seem to have infected the Greek ages +themselves with the breath, and dimmed them with the shade, +of our hypocrisy; and are apt to think that Homer, as we know +that Pope, was merely an ingenious fabulist; nay, more than +this, that all the nations of past time were ingenious fabulists +also, to whom the universe was a lyrical drama, and by whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> +whatsoever was said about it was merely a witty allegory, or a +graceful lie, of which the entire upshot and consummation was +a pretty statue in the middle of the court, or at the end of the +garden.</p> + +<p>This, at least, is one of our forms of opinion about Greek +faith; not, indeed, possible altogether to any man of honesty or +ordinary powers of thought; but still so venomously inherent +in the modern philosophy that all the pure lightning of Carlyle +cannot as yet quite burn it out of any of us. And then, side by +side with this mere infidel folly, stands the bitter short-sightedness +of Puritanism, holding the classical god to be either simply +an idol,—a block of stone ignorantly, though sincerely, worshipped,—or +else an actual diabolic or betraying power, usurping +the place of god.</p> + +<p>§ 5. Both these Puritanical estimates of Greek deity are of +course to some extent true. The corruption of classical worship +is barren idolatry; and that corruption was deepened, and variously +directed to their own purposes, by the evil angels. But +this was neither the whole, nor the principal part, of Pagan +worship. Pallas was not, in the pure Greek mind, merely a +powerful piece of ivory in a temple at Athens; neither was the +choice of Leonidas between the alternatives granted him by the +oracle, of personal death, or ruin to his country, altogether a +work of the Devil's prompting.</p> + +<p>§ 6. What, then, was actually the Greek god? In what way +were these two ideas of human form, and divine power, credibly +associated in the ancient heart, so as to become a subject of true +faith, irrespective equally of fable, allegory, superstitious trust +in stone, and demoniacal influence?</p> + +<p>It seems to me that the Greek had exactly the same instinctive +feeling about the elements that we have ourselves; that to +Homer, as much as to Casimir de la Vigne, fire seemed ravenous +and pitiless; to Homer, as much as to Keats, the sea-wave appeared +wayward or idle, or whatever else it may be to the poetical +passion. But then the Greek reasoned upon this sensation, +saying to himself: "I can light the fire, and put it out; I +can dry this water up, or drink it. It cannot be the fire or the +water that rages, or that is wayward. But it must be something +<i>in</i> this fire and <i>in</i> the water, which I cannot destroy by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> +extinguishing the one, or evaporating the other, any more than +I destroy myself by cutting off my finger; <i>I</i> was <i>in</i> my finger,—something +of me at least was; I had a power over it, and felt +pain in it, though I am still as much myself when it is gone. +So there may be a power in the water which is not water, but +to which the water is as a body;—which can strike with it, +move in it, suffer in it, yet not be destroyed in it. This something, +this great Water Spirit, I must not confuse with the +waves, which are only its body. <i>They</i> may flow hither and +thither, increase or diminish. <i>That</i> must be indivisible—imperishable—a +god. So of fire also; those rays which I can stop, +and in the midst of which I cast a shadow, cannot be divine, +nor greater than I. They cannot feel, but there may be something +in them that feels,—a glorious intelligence, as much +nobler and more swift than mine, as these rays, which are its +body, are nobler and swifter than my flesh;—the spirit of all +light, and truth, and melody, and revolving hours."</p> + +<p>§ 7. It was easy to conceive, farther, that such spirits should +be able to assume at will a human form, in order to hold intercourse +with men, or to perform any act for which their proper +body, whether fire, earth, or air, was unfitted. And it would +have been to place them beneath, instead of above, humanity, +if, assuming the form of man, they could not also have tasted +his pleasures. Hence the easy step to the more or less material +ideas of deities, which are apt at first to shock us, but which +are indeed only dishonorable so far as they represent the gods +as false and unholy. It is not the materialism, but the vice, +which degrades the conception; for the materialism itself is +never positive or complete. There is always some sense of exaltation +in the spiritual and immortal body; and of a power proceeding +from the visible form through all the infinity of the +element ruled by the particular god. The precise nature of the +idea is well seen in the passage of the Iliad which describes the +river Scamander defending the Trojans against Achilles. In +order to remonstrate with the hero, the god assumes a human +form, which nevertheless is in some way or other instantly +recognized by Achilles as that of the river-god: it is addressed +at once as a river, not as a man; and its voice is the voice of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> +river, "out of the deep whirlpools."<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> +Achilles refuses to obey +its commands; and from the human form it returns instantly +into its natural or divine one, and endeavors to overwhelm him +with waves. Vulcan defends Achilles, and sends fire against +the river, which suffers in its water-body, till it is able to bear +no more. At last even the "nerve of the river," or "strength +of the river" (note the expression), feels the fire, and this +"strength of the river" addresses Vulcan in supplications for +respite. There is in this precisely the idea of a vital part of the +river-body, which acted and felt, and which, if the fire reached +it, was death, just as would be the case if it touched a vital part +of the human body. Throughout the passage the manner of +conception is perfectly clear and consistent; and if, in other +places, the exact connection between the ruling spirit and the +thing ruled is not so manifest, it is only because it is almost +impossible for the human mind to dwell long upon such subjects +without falling into inconsistencies, and gradually slackening +its effort to grasp the entire truth; until the more spiritual part +of it slips from its hold, and only the human form of the god is +left, to be conceived and described as subject to all the errors of +humanity. But I do not believe that the idea ever weakens +itself down to mere allegory. When Pallas is said to attack and +strike down Mars, it does not mean merely that Wisdom at that +moment prevailed against Wrath. It means that there are indeed +two great spirits, one entrusted to guide the human soul +to wisdom and chastity, the other to kindle wrath and prompt +to battle. It means that these two spirits, on the spot where, +and at the moment when, a great contest was to be decided +between all that they each governed in man, then and there +assumed human form, and human weapons, and did verily and +materially strike at each other, until the Spirit of Wrath was +crushed. And when Diana is said to hunt with her nymphs in +the woods, it does not mean merely as Wordsworth puts it, that +the poet or shepherd saw the moon and stars glancing between +the branches of the trees, and wished to say so figuratively. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> +means that there is a living spirit, to which the light of the +moon is a body; which takes delight in glancing between the +clouds and following the wild beasts as they wander through the +night; and that this spirit sometimes assumes a perfect human +form, and in this form, with real arrows, pursues and slays the +wild beasts, which with its mere arrows of moonlight it could +not slay; retaining, nevertheless, all the while, its power, and +being in the moonlight, and in all else that it rules.</p> + +<p>§ 8. There is not the smallest inconsistency or unspirituality +in this conception. If there were, it would attach equally to +the appearance of the angels to Jacob, Abraham, Joshua, or +Manoah. In all those instances the highest authority which +governs our own faith requires us to conceive divine power +clothed with a human form (a form so real that it is recognized +for superhuman only by its "doing wondrously"), and retaining, +nevertheless, sovereignty and omnipresence in all the world. +This is precisely, as I understand it, the heathen idea of a God; +and it is impossible to comprehend any single part of the Greek +mind until we grasp this faithfully, not endeavoring to explain +it away in any wise, but accepting, with frank decision and definition, +the tangible existence of its deities;—blue-eyed—white-fleshed—human-hearted,—capable +at their choice of meeting +man absolutely in his own nature—feasting with him—talking +with him—fighting with him, eye to eye, or breast to breast, as +Mars with Diomed; or else, dealing with him in a more retired +spirituality, as Apollo sending the plague upon the Greeks, +when his quiver rattles at his shoulders as he moves, and yet the +darts sent forth of it strike not as arrows, but as plague; or, +finally, retiring completely into the material universe which +they properly inhabit, and dealing with man through that, as +Scamander with Achilles through his waves.</p> + +<p>§ 9. Nor is there anything whatever in the various actions +recorded of the gods, however apparently ignoble, to indicate +weakness of belief in them. Very frequently things which +appear to us ignoble are merely the simplicities of a pure and +truthful age. When Juno beats Diana about the ears with her +own quiver, for instance, we start at first, as if Homer could not +have believed that they were both real goddesses. But what +should Juno have done? Killed Diana with a look? Nay, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> +neither wished to do so, nor could she have done so, by the very +faith of Diana's goddess-ship. Diana is as immortal as herself. +Frowned Diana into submission? But Diana has come +expressly to try conclusions with her, and will by no means +be frowned into submission. Wounded her with a celestial +lance? That sounds more poetical, but it is in reality partly +more savage, and partly more absurd, than Homer. More savage, +for it makes Juno more cruel, therefore less divine; and +more absurd, for it only seems elevated in tone, because we use +the word "celestial," which means nothing. What sort of a +thing is a "celestial" lance? Not a wooden one. Of what +then? Of moonbeams, or clouds, or mist. Well, therefore, +Diana's arrows were of mist too; and her quiver, and herself, +and Juno, with her lance, and all, vanish into mist. Why not +have said at once, if that is all you mean, that two mists met, +and one drove the other back? That would have been rational +and intelligible, but not to talk of celestial lances. Homer had +no such misty fancy; he believed the two goddesses were there +in true bodies, with true weapons, on the true earth; and still +I ask, what should Juno have done? Not beaten Diana? No; +for it is un-lady-like. Un-English-lady-like, yes; but by no +means un-Greek-lady-like, nor even un-natural-lady-like. If a +modern lady does <i>not</i> beat her servant or her rival about the +ears, it is oftener because she is too weak, or too proud, than +because she is of purer mind than Homer's Juno. She will not +strike them; but she will overwork the one or slander the other +without pity; and Homer would not have thought that one +whit more goddess-like than striking them with her open hand.</p> + +<p>§ 10. If, however, the reader likes to suppose that while the +two goddesses in personal presence thus fought with arrow and +quiver, there was also a broader and vaster contest supposed by +Homer between the elements they ruled; and that the goddess +of the heavens, as she struck the goddess of the moon on the +flushing cheek, was at the same instant exercising omnipresent +power in the heavens themselves, and gathering clouds, with +which, filled with the moon's own arrows or beams, she was +encumbering and concealing the moon; he is welcome to this +out-carrying of the idea, provided that he does not pretend to +make it an interpretation instead of a mere extension, nor think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> +to explain away my real, running, beautiful beaten Diana, into +a moon behind clouds.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p>§ 11. It is only farther to be noted, that the Greek conception +of Godhead, as it was much more real than we usually +suppose, so it was much more bold and familiar than to a +modern mind would be possible. I shall have something more +to observe, in a little while, of the danger of our modern habit +of endeavoring to raise ourselves to something like comprehension +of the truth of divinity, instead of simply believing the +words in which the Deity reveals Himself to us. The Greek +erred rather on the other side, making hardly any effort to +conceive divine mind as above the human; and no more shrinking +from frank intercourse with a divine being, or dreading its +immediate presence, than that of the simplest of mortals. Thus +Atrides, enraged at his sword's breaking in his hand upon the +helmet of Paris, after he had expressly invoked the assistance of +Jupiter, exclaims aloud, as he would to a king who had betrayed +him, "Jove, Father, there is not another god more evil-minded +than thou!" and Helen, provoked at Paris's defeat, and oppressed +with pouting shame both for him and for herself, when +Venus appears at her side, and would lead her back to the +delivered Paris, impatiently tells the goddess to "go and take +care of Paris herself."</p> + +<p>§ 12. The modern mind is naturally, but vulgarly and unjustly, +shocked by this kind of familiarity. Rightly understood, +it is not so much a sign of misunderstanding of the +divine nature as of good understanding of the human. The +Greek lived, in all things, a healthy, and, in a certain degree, a +perfect life. He had no morbid or sickly feeling of any kind. +He was accustomed to face death without the slightest shrinking, +to undergo all kinds of bodily hardship without complaint, +and to do what he supposed right and honorable, in most cases, +as a matter of course. Confident of his own immortality, and +of the power of abstract justice, he expected to be dealt with in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> +the next world as was right, and left the matter much in his +gods' hands; but being thus immortal, and finding in his own +soul something which it seemed quite as difficult to master, as +to rule the elements, he did not feel that it was an appalling +superiority in those gods to have bodies of water, or fire, instead +of flesh, and to have various work to do among the clouds and +waves, out of his human way; or sometimes, even, in a sort of +service to himself. Was not the nourishment of herbs and +flowers a kind of ministering to his wants? were not the gods +in some sort his husbandmen, and spirit-servants? Their mere +strength or omnipresence did not seem to him a distinction +absolutely terrific. It might be the nature of one being to be +in two places at once, and of another to be only in one; but +that did not seem of itself to infer any absolute lordliness of +one nature above the other, any more than an insect must be a +nobler creature than a man, because it can see on four sides of +its head, and the man only in front. They could kill him or +torture him, it was true; but even that not unjustly, or not for +ever. There was a fate, and a Divine Justice, greater than +they; so that if they did wrong, and he right, he might fight it +out with them, and have the better of them at last. In a general +way, they were wiser, stronger, and better than he; and to +ask counsel of them, to obey them, to sacrifice to them, to thank +them for all good, this was well; but to be utterly downcast +before them, or not to tell them his mind in plain Greek if they +seemed to him to be conducting themselves in an ungodly manner,—this +would not be well.</p> + +<p>§ 13. Such being their general idea of the gods, we can now +easily understand the habitual tone of their feelings towards +what was beautiful in nature. With us, observe, the idea of +the Divinity is apt to get separated from the life of nature; and +imagining our God upon a cloudy throne, far above the earth, and +not in the flowers or waters, we approach those visible things +with a theory that they are dead, governed by physical laws, +and so forth. But coming to them, we find the theory fail; +that they are not dead; that, say what we choose about them, +the instinctive sense of their being alive is too strong for us; +and in scorn of all physical law, the wilful fountain sings, and +the kindly flowers rejoice. And then, puzzled, and yet happy;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span> +pleased, and yet ashamed of being so; accepting sympathy from +nature, which we do not believe it gives, and giving sympathy +to nature, which we do not believe it receives,—mixing, besides, +all manner of purposeful play and conceit with these involuntary +fellowships,—we fall necessarily into the curious web of +hesitating sentiment, pathetic fallacy, and wandering fancy, +which form a great part of our modern view of nature. But +the Greek never removed his god out of nature at all; never +attempted for a moment to contradict his instinctive sense that +God was everywhere. "The tree <i>is</i> glad," said he, "I know it +is; I can cut it down; no matter, there was a nymph in it. +The water <i>does</i> sing," said he; "I can dry it up; but no +matter, there was a naiad in it." But in thus clearly defining +his belief, observe, he threw it entirely into a human form, and +gave his faith to nothing but the image of his own humanity. +What sympathy and fellowship he had, were always for the +spirit <i>in</i> the stream, not for the stream; always for the dryad <i>in</i> +the wood, not for the wood. Content with this human sympathy, +he approached the actual waves and woody fibres with no +sympathy at all. The spirit that ruled them, he received as a +plain fact. Them, also, ruled and material, he received as plain +facts; they, without their spirit, were dead enough. A rose was +good for scent, and a stream for sound and coolness; for the +rest, one was no more than leaves, the other no more than +water; he could not make anything else of them; and the +divine power, which was involved in their existence, having +been all distilled away by him into an independent Flora or +Thetis, the poor leaves or waves were left, in mere cold corporealness, +to make the most of their being discernibly red and +soft, clear and wet, and unacknowledged in any other power +whatsoever.</p> + +<p>§ 14. Then, observe farther, the Greeks lived in the midst of +the most beautiful nature, and were as familiar with blue sea, +clear air, and sweet outlines of mountain, as we are with brick +walls, black smoke, and level fields. This perfect familiarity +rendered all such scenes of natural beauty unexciting, if not +indifferent, to them, by lulling and overwearying the imagination +as far as it was concerned with such things; but there was +another kind of beauty which they found it required effort to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> +obtain, and which, when thoroughly obtained, seemed more +glorious than any of this wild loveliness—the beauty of the +human countenance and form. This, they perceived, could +only be reached by continual exercise of virtue; and it was in +Heaven's sight, and theirs, all the more beautiful because it +needed this self-denial to obtain it. So they set themselves +to reach this, and having gained it, gave it their principal +thoughts, and set it off with beautiful dress as best they might. +But making this their object, they were obliged to pass their +lives in simple exercise and disciplined employments. Living +wholesomely, giving themselves no fever fits, either by fasting +or over-eating, constantly in the open air, and full of animal +spirit and physical power, they became incapable of every morbid +condition of mental emotion. Unhappy love, disappointed +ambition, spiritual despondency, or any other disturbing sensation, +had little power over the well-braced nerves, and healthy +flow of the blood; and what bitterness might yet fasten on +them was soon boxed or raced out of a boy, and spun or woven +out of a girl, or danced out of both. They had indeed their +sorrows, true and deep, but still, more like children's sorrows +than ours, whether bursting into open cry of pain, or hid with +shuddering under the veil, still passing over the soul as clouds +do over heaven, not sullying it, not mingling with it;—darkening +it perhaps long or utterly, but still not becoming one with +it, and for the most part passing away in dashing rain of tears, +and leaving the man unchanged; in nowise affecting, as our +sorrow does, the whole tone of his thought and imagination +thenceforward.</p> + +<p>How far our melancholy may be deeper and wider than +theirs, in its roots and view, and therefore nobler, we shall +consider presently; but at all events, they had the advantage +of us in being entirety free from all those dim and feverish +sensations which result from unhealthy state of the body. I +believe that a large amount of the dreamy and sentimental sadness, +tendency to reverie, and general patheticalness of modern +life results merely from derangement of stomach; holding to +the Greek life the same relation that the feverish night of an +adult does to a child's sleep.</p> + +<p>§ 15. Farther. The human beauty, which, whether in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> +bodily being or in imagined divinity, had become, for the +reasons we have seen, the principal object of culture and sympathy +to these Greeks, was, in its perfection, eminently orderly, +symmetrical, and tender. Hence, contemplating it constantly +in this state, they could not but feel a proportionate fear of all +that was disorderly, unbalanced, and rugged. Having trained +their stoutest soldiers into a strength so delicate and lovely, +that their white flesh, with their blood upon it, should look +like ivory stained with purple;<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> +and having always around +them, in the motion and majesty of this beauty, enough for the +full employment of their imagination, they shrank with dread +or hatred from all the ruggedness of lower nature,—from the +wrinkled forest bark, the jagged hill-crest, and irregular, inorganic +storm of sky; looking to these for the most part as +adverse powers, and taking pleasure only in such portions of +the lower world as were at once conducive to the rest and +health of the human frame, and in harmony with the laws of +its gentler beauty.</p> + +<p>§ 16. Thus, as far as I recollect, without a single exception, +every Homeric landscape, intended to be beautiful, is composed +of a fountain, a meadow, and a shady grove. This ideal is very +interestingly marked, as intended for a perfect one, in the fifth +book of the Odyssey; when Mercury himself stops for a moment, +though on a message, to look at a landscape "which even +an immortal might be gladdened to behold." This landscape +consists of a cave covered with a running vine, all blooming +into grapes, and surrounded by a grove of alder, poplar, and +sweet-smelling cypress. Four fountains of white (foaming) +water, springing <i>in succession</i> (mark the orderliness), and close +to one another, flow away in different directions, through a +meadow full of violets and parsley (parsley, to mark its moisture, +being elsewhere called "marsh-nourished," and associated +with the lotus);<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> +the air is perfumed not only by these violets +and by the sweet cypress, but by Calypso's fire of finely chopped +cedar wood, which sends a smoke as of incense, through the +island; Calypso herself is singing; and finally, upon the trees +are resting, or roosting, owls, hawks, and "long-tongued sea-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span>crows." +Whether these last are considered as a part of the +ideal landscape, as marine singing-birds, I know not; but the +approval of Mercury appears to be elicited chiefly by the fountains +and violet meadow.</p> + +<p>§ 17. Now the notable things in this description are, first, +the evident subservience of the whole landscape to human comfort, +to the foot, the taste, or the smell; and, secondly, that +throughout the passage there is not a single figurative word +expressive of the things being in any wise other than plain +grass, fruit or flower. I have used the term "spring" of the +fountains, because, without doubt, Homer means that they +sprang forth brightly, having their source at the foot of the +rocks (as copious fountains nearly always have); but Homer +does not say "spring," he says simply flow, and uses only one +word for "growing softly," or "richly," of the tall trees, the +vine, and the violets. There is, however, some expression of +sympathy with the sea-birds; he speaks of them in precisely the +same terms, as in other places of naval nations, saying they +"have care of the works of the sea."</p> + +<p>§ 18. If we glance through the references to pleasant landscape +which occur in other parts of the Odyssey, we shall always +be struck by this quiet subjection of their every feature to human +service, and by the excessive similarity in the scenes. Perhaps +the spot intended, after this, to be most perfect, may be the +garden of Alcinous, where the principal ideas are, still more +definitely, order, symmetry, and fruitfulness; the beds being +duly ranged between rows of vines, which, as well as the pear, +apple, and fig-trees, bear fruit continually, some grapes being +yet sour, while others are getting black; there are plenty of +"<i>orderly</i> square beds of herbs," chiefly leeks, and two fountains, +one running through the garden, and one under the +pavement of the palace to a reservoir for the citizens. Ulysses, +pausing to contemplate this scene, is described nearly in the +same terms as Mercury pausing to contemplate the wilder +meadow; and it is interesting to observe, that, in spite of all +Homer's love of symmetry, the god's admiration is excited by +the free fountains, wild violets, and wandering vine; but the +mortal's, by the vines in rows, the leeks in beds, and the fountains +in pipes.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> + +<p>Ulysses has, however, one touching reason for loving vines +in rows. His father had given him fifty rows for himself, when +he was a boy, with corn between them (just as it now grows in +Italy). Proving his identity afterwards to his father, whom he +finds at work in his garden, "with thick gloves on, to keep his +hands from the thorns," he reminds him of these fifty rows of +vines, and of the "thirteen pear-trees and ten apple-trees" +which he had given him; and Laertes faints upon his neck.</p> + +<p>§ 19. If Ulysses had not been so much of a gardener, it +might have been received as a sign of considerable feeling for +landscape beauty, that, intending to pay the very highest possible +compliment to the Princess Nausicaa (and having indeed, +the moment before, gravely asked her whether she was a goddess +or not), he says that he feels, at seeing her, exactly as he +did when he saw the young palm-tree growing at Apollo's +shrine at Delos. But I think the taste for trim hedges and +upright trunks has its usual influence over him here also, and +that he merely means to tell the princess that she is delightfully +tall and straight.</p> + +<p>§ 20. The princess is, however, pleased by his address, and +tells him to wait outside the town, till she can speak to her +father about him. The spot to which she directs him is another +ideal piece of landscape, composed of a "beautiful grove of +aspen poplars, a fountain, and a meadow," near the road-side; +in fact, as nearly as possible such a scene as meets the eye of +the traveller every instant on the much-despised lines of road +through lowland France; for instance, on the railway between +Arras and Amiens;—scenes, to my mind, quite exquisite in +the various grouping and grace of their innumerable poplar +avenues, casting sweet, tremulous shadows over their level +meadows and labyrinthine streams. We know that the princess +means aspen poplars, because soon afterwards we find her fifty +maid-servants at the palace, all spinning, and in perpetual +motion, compared to the "leaves of the tall poplar;" and it is +with exquisite feeling that it is made afterwards<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> +the chief tree in +the groves of Proserpine; its light and quivering leafage having +exactly the melancholy expression of fragility, faintness, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> +inconstancy which the ancients attributed to the disembodied +spirit.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> +The likeness to the poplars by the streams of Amiens +is more marked still in the Iliad, where the young Simois, +struck by Ajax, falls to the earth "like an aspen that has grown +in an irrigated meadow, smooth-trunked, the soft shoots springing +from its top, which some coach-making man has cut down +with his keen iron, that he may fit a wheel of it to a fair +chariot, and it lies parching by the side of the stream." It is +sufficiently notable that Homer, living in mountainous and +rocky countries, dwells thus delightedly on all the <i>flat</i> bits; and +so I think invariably the inhabitants of mountain countries do, +but the inhabitants of the plains do not, in any similar way, +dwell delightedly on mountains. The Dutch painters are perfectly +contented with their flat fields and pollards: Rubens, +though he had seen the Alps, usually composes his landscapes of +a hayfield or two, plenty of pollards and willows, a distant spire, +a Dutch house with a moat about it, a windmill, and a ditch. +The Flemish sacred painters are the only ones who introduce +mountains in the distance, as we shall see presently; but rather +in a formal way than with any appearance of enjoyment. So +Shakspere never speaks of mountains with the slightest joy, but +only of lowland flowers, flat fields, and Warwickshire streams. +And if we talk to the mountaineer, he will usually characterize +his own country to us as a "pays affreux," or in some equivalent, +perhaps even more violent, German term: but the lowland +peasant does not think his country frightful; he either will +have no ideas beyond it, or about it; or will think it a very +perfect country, and be apt to regard any deviation from its +general principle of flatness with extreme disfavor; as the Lincolnshire +farmer in Alton Locke: "I'll shaw 'ee some'at like a +field o' beans, I wool—none o' this here darned ups and downs +o' hills, to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards—all so +vlat as a barn door, for vorty mile on end—there's the country +to live in!"</p> + +<p>I do not say whether this be altogether right (though certainly +not wholly wrong), but it seems to me that there must be +in the simple freshness and fruitfulness of level land, in its pale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> +upright trees, and gentle lapse of silent streams, enough for the +satisfaction of the human mind in general; and I so far agree +with Homer, that if I had to educate an artist to the full perception +of the meaning of the word "gracefulness" in landscape, +I should send him neither to Italy nor to Greece, but +simply to those poplar groves between Arras and Amiens.</p> + +<p>§ 21. But to return more definitely to our Homeric landscape. +When it is perfect, we have, as in the above instances, +the foliage and meadows together; when imperfect, it is always +either the foliage or the meadow; preëminently the meadow, +or arable field. Thus, meadows of asphodel are prepared for the +happier dead; and even Orion, a hunter among the mountains +in his lifetime, pursues the ghosts of beasts in these asphodel +meadows after death.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> +So the sirens sing in a meadow; and +throughout the Odyssey there is a general tendency to the +depreciation of poor Ithaca, because it is rocky, and only fit +for goats, and has "no meadows;" for which reason Telemachus +refuses Atrides's present of horses, congratulating the +Spartan king at the same time on ruling over a plain which has +"plenty of lotus in it, and rushes," with corn and barley. +Note this constant dwelling on the marsh plants, or, at least, +those which grow in flat and well-irrigated land, or beside +streams: when Scamander, for instance, is restrained by Vulcan, +Homer says, very sorrowfully, that "all his lotus, and +reeds, and rushes were burnt;" and thus Ulysses, after being +shipwrecked and nearly drowned, and beaten about the sea for +many days and nights, on raft and mast, at last getting ashore +at the mouth of a large river, casts himself down first upon its +<i>rushes</i>, and then, in thankfulness, kisses the "corn-giving +land," as most opposed, in his heart, to the fruitless and devouring +sea.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<p>§ 22. In this same passage, also, we find some peculiar expressions +of the delight which the Greeks had in trees, for, +when Ulysses first comes in sight of land, which gladdens him, +"as the reviving of a father from his sickness gladdens his +children," it is not merely the sight of the land itself which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> +gives him such pleasure, but of the "land and <i>wood</i>." Homer +never throws away any words, at least in such a place as this; +and what in another poet would have been merely the filling up +of the deficient line with an otherwise useless word, is in him +the expression of the general Greek sense, that land of any kind +was in nowise grateful or acceptable till there was <i>wood</i> upon it +(or corn; but the corn, in the flats, could not be seen so far as +the black masses of forest on the hill sides), and that, as in +being rushy and corn-giving, the low land, so in being woody, +the high land, was most grateful to the mind of the man who +for days and nights had been wearied on the engulphing sea. +And this general idea of wood and corn, as the types of the +fatness of the whole earth, is beautifully marked in another +place of the Odyssey,<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> +where the sailors in a desert island, having +no flour or corn to offer as a meat offering with their sacrifices, +take the leaves of the trees, and scatter them over the +burnt offering instead.</p> + +<p>§ 23. But still, every expression of the pleasure which +Ulysses has in this landing and resting, contains uninterruptedly +the reference to the utility and sensible pleasantness of all +things, not to their beauty. After his first grateful kiss given +to the corn-growing land, he considers immediately how he is +to pass the night: for some minutes hesitating whether it will +be best to expose himself to the misty chill from the river, or +run the risk of wild beasts in the wood. He decides for the +wood, and finds in it a bower formed by a sweet and a wild olive +tree, interlacing their branches, or—perhaps more accurately +translating Homer's intensely graphic expression—"changing +their branches with each other" (it is very curious how often, in +an entanglement of wood, one supposes the branches to belong to +the wrong trees), and forming a roof penetrated by neither rain, +sun, nor wind. Under this bower Ulysses collects the "<i>vain</i> +(or <i>frustrate</i>) outpouring of the dead leaves"—another exquisite +expression, used elsewhere of useless grief or shedding of +tears;—and, having got enough together, makes his bed of +them, and goes to sleep, having covered himself up with them, +"as embers are covered up with ashes."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> + +<p>Nothing can possibly be more intensely possessive of the +<i>facts</i> than this whole passage; the sense of utter deadness and +emptiness, and frustrate fall in the leaves; of dormant life in +the human body,—the fire, and heroism, and strength of it, +lulled under the dead brown heap, as embers under ashes, and +the knitting of interchanged and close strength of living boughs +above. But there is not the smallest apparent sense of there +being <i>beauty</i> elsewhere than in the human being. The wreathed +wood is admired simply as being a perfect roof for it; the fallen +leaves only as being a perfect bed for it; and there is literally +no more excitement of emotion in Homer, as he describes them, +nor does he expect us to be more excited or touched by hearing +about them, than if he had been telling us how the chamber-maid +at the Bull aired the four-poster, and put on two extra +blankets.</p> + +<p>§ 24. Now, exactly this same contemplation of subservience +to human use makes the Greek take some pleasure in <i>rocks</i>, +when they assume one particular form, but one only—that of a +<i>cave</i>. They are evidently quite frightful things to him under +any other condition, and most of all if they are rough and jagged; +but if smooth, looking "sculptured," like the sides of a +ship, and forming a cave or shelter for him, he begins to think +them endurable. Hence, associating the ideas of rich and sheltering +wood, sea, becalmed and made useful as a port by projecting +promontories of rock, and smoothed caves or grottoes +in the rocks themselves, we get the pleasantest idea which the +Greek could form of a landscape, next to a marsh with poplars +in it; not, indeed, if possible, ever to be without these last: +thus, in commending the Cyclops' country as one possessed of +every perfection, Homer first says: "They have soft <i>marshy</i> +meadows near the sea, and good, rich, crumbling, ploughing-land, +giving fine deep crops, and vines always giving fruit;" +then, "a port so quiet, that they have no need of cables in it; +and at the head of the port, a beautiful clear spring just <i>under +a cave</i>, and <i>aspen poplars all round it</i>."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p> + + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> +<p>§ 25. This, it will be seen, is very nearly Homer's usual +"ideal;" but, going into the middle of the island, Ulysses +comes on a rougher and less agreeable bit, though still fulfilling +certain required conditions of endurableness; a "cave shaded +with laurels," which, having no poplars about it, is, however, +meant to be somewhat frightful, and only fit to be inhabited by +a Cyclops. So in the country of the Læstrygons, Homer, preparing +his reader gradually for something very disagreeable, +represents the rocks as bare and "exposed to the sun;" only +with some smooth and slippery roads over them, by which the +trucks bring down wood from the higher hills. Any one familiar +with Swiss slopes of hills must remember how often he +has descended, sometimes faster than was altogether intentional, +by these same slippery woodman's track roads.</p> + +<p>And thus, in general, whenever the landscape is intended to +be lovely, it verges towards the ploughed land and poplars; or, +at worst, to <i>woody</i> rocks; but, if intended to be painful, the +rocks are bare and "sharp." This last epithet, constantly used +by Homer for mountains, does not altogether correspond, in +Greek, to the English term, nor is it intended merely to characterize +the sharp mountain summits; for it never would be applied +simply to the edge or point of a sword, but signifies rather +"harsh," "bitter," or "painful," being applied habitually to +fate, death, and in Od. ii. 333. to a halter; and, as expressive of +general objectionableness and unpleasantness, to all high, dangerous, +or peaked mountains, as the Maleian promontory (a much +dreaded one), the crest of Parnassus, the Tereian mountain, and +a grim or untoward, though, by keeping off the force of the +sea, protective, rock at the mouth of the Jardanus; as well as +habitually to inaccessible or impregnable fortresses built on +heights.</p> + +<p>§ 26. In all this I cannot too strongly mark the utter absence +of any trace of the feeling for what we call the picturesque, +and the constant dwelling of the writer's mind on what +was available, pleasant, or useful; his ideas respecting all landscape +being not uncharacteristically summed, finally, by Pallas +herself; when, meeting Ulysses, who after his long wandering +does not recognize his own country, and meaning to describe it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> +as politely and soothingly as possible, she says:<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> +—"This Ithaca +of ours is, indeed, a rough country enough, and not good for +driving in; but, still, things might be worse: it has plenty of +corn, and good wine, and <i>always rain</i>, and soft nourishing +dew; and it has good feeding for goats and oxen, and all manner +of wood, and springs fit to drink at all the year round."</p> + +<p>We shall see presently how the blundering, pseudo-picturesque, +pseudo-classical minds of Claude and the Renaissance +landscape painters, wholly missing Homer's practical common +sense, and equally incapable of feeling the quiet natural grace +and sweetness of his asphodel meadows, tender aspen poplars, +or running vines,—fastened on his <i>ports</i> and <i>caves</i>, as the only +available features of his scenery; and appointed the type of +"classical landscape" thenceforward to consist in a bay of insipid +sea, and a rock with a hole through it.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> + +<p>§ 27. It may indeed be thought that I am assuming too +hastily that this was the general view of the Greeks respecting +landscape, because it was Homer's. But I believe the true +mind of a nation, at any period, is always best ascertainable by +examining that of its greatest men; and that simpler and truer +results will be attainable for us by simply comparing Homer, +Dante, and Walter Scott, than by attempting (what my limits +must have rendered absurdly inadequate, and in which, also, +both my time and knowledge must have failed me) an analysis +of the landscape in the range of contemporary literature. All +that I can do, is to state the general impression which has been +made upon me by my desultory reading, and to mark accurately +the grounds for this impression, in the works of the greatest +men. Now it is quite true that in others of the Greeks, +especially in Æschylus and Aristophanes, there is infinitely +more of modern feeling, of pathetic fallacy, love of picturesque +or beautiful form, and other such elements, than there is in +Homer; but then these appear to me just the parts of them +which were not Greek, the elements of their minds by which (as +one division of the human race always must be with subsequent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span> +ones) they are connected with the mediævals and moderns. +And without doubt, in his influence over future mankind, +Homer is eminently the Greek of Greeks; if I were to associate +any one with him it would be Herodotus, and I believe all I +have said of the Homeric landscape will be found equally true +of the Herodotean, as assuredly it will be of the Platonic; the +contempt, which Plato sometimes expresses by the mouth of +Socrates, for the country in general, except so far as it is shady, +and has cicadas and running streams to make pleasant noises in +it, being almost ludicrous. But Homer is the great type, and +the more notable one because of his influence on Virgil, and, +through him, on Dante, and all the after ages: and in like +manner, if we can get the abstract of mediæval landscape out of +Dante, it will serve us as well as if we had read all the songs of +the troubadours, and help us to the farther changes in derivative +temper, down to all modern time.</p> + +<p>§ 28. I think, therefore, the reader may safely accept the +conclusions about Greek landscape which I have got for him out +of Homer; and in these he will certainly perceive something +very different from the usual imaginations we form of Greek +feelings. We think of the Greeks as poetical, ideal, imaginative, +in the way that a modern poet or novelist is; supposing +that their thoughts about their mythology and world were as +visionary and artificial as ours are: but I think the passages +I have quoted show that it was not so, although it may be +difficult for us to apprehend the strange minglings in them of +the elements of faith, which, in our days, have been blended +with other parts of human nature in a totally different guise. +Perhaps the Greek mind may be best imagined by taking, as +its groundwork, that of a good, conscientious, but illiterate, +Scotch Presbyterian Border farmer of a century or two back, +having perfect faith in the bodily appearances of Satan and his +imps; and in all kelpies, brownies, and fairies. Substitute for +the indignant terrors in this man's mind, a general persuasion +of the <i>Divinity</i>, more or less beneficent, yet faultful, of all +these beings; that is to say, take away his belief in the demoniacal +malignity of the fallen spiritual world, and lower, in the +same degree, his conceptions of the angelical, retaining for him +the same firm faith in both; keep his ideas about flowers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> +beautiful scenery much as they are,—his delight in regular +ploughed land and meadows, and a neat garden (only with rows +of gooseberry bushes instead of vines,) being, in all probability, +about accurately representative of the feelings of Ulysses; then, +let the military spirit that is in him, glowing against the Border +forager, or the foe of old Flodden and Chevy-Chase, be made +more principal, with a higher sense of nobleness in soldiership, +not as a careless excitement, but a knightly duty; and increased +by high cultivation of every personal quality, not of +mere shaggy strength, but graceful strength, aided by a softer +climate, and educated in all proper harmony of sight and +sound: finally, instead of an informed Christian, suppose him +to have only the patriarchal Jewish knowledge of the Deity, +and even this obscured by tradition, but still thoroughly solemn +and faithful, requiring his continual service as a priest of burnt +sacrifice and meat offering; and I think we shall get a pretty +close approximation to the vital being of a true old Greek; +some slight difference still existing in a feeling which the +Scotch farmer would have of a pleasantness in blue hills and +running streams, wholly wanting in the Greek mind; and +perhaps also some difference of views on the subjects of truth +and honesty. But the main points, the easy, athletic, strongly +logical and argumentative, yet fanciful and credulous, characters +of mind, would be very similar in both; and the most +serious change in the substance of the stuff among the modifications +above suggested as necessary to turn the Scot into the +Greek, is that effect of softer climate and surrounding luxury, +inducing the practice of various forms of polished art,—the +more polished, because the practical and realistic tendency of +the Hellenic mind (if my interpretation of it be right) would +quite prevent it from taking pleasure in any irregularities of +form, or imitations of the weeds and wildnesses of that mountain +nature with which it thought itself born to contend. In +its utmost refinement of work, it sought eminently for orderliness; +carried the principle of the leeks in squares, and fountains +in pipes, perfectly out in its streets and temples; formalized +whatever decoration it put into its minor architectural +mouldings, and reserved its whole heart and power to represent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> +the action of living men, or gods, though not unconscious +meanwhile, of</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The simple, the sincere delight;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The habitual scene of hill and dale</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The rural herds, the vernal gale;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The tangled vetches' purple bloom;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The fragrance of the bean's perfume,—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Theirs, theirs alone, who cultivate the soil,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And drink the cup of thirst, and eat the bread of toil."</span><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> +Compare Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i. stanza 15., and canto v. +stanza 2. In the first instance, the river-spirit is accurately the Homeric +god, only Homer would have believed in it,—Scott did not; at least not +altogether.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> +Compare the exquisite lines of Longfellow on the sunset in the Golden +Legend:—</p> + <div class="poem"> + <span class="i0">"The day is done, and slowly from the scene</span><br /> + <span class="i0">The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,</span><br /> + <span class="i0">And puts them back into his golden quiver."</span><br /> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> +Iliad iv. 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> +Iliad ii. 776.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> +Odyssey, x. 510.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> +Compare the passage in Dante referred to above, Chap. XII. § 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> +Odyssey, xi. 571. xxiv. 13. The couch of Ceres, with Homer's usual +faithfulness, is made of a <i>ploughed</i> field, v. 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> +Odyssey, v. 398.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> +Odyssey, xii. 357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> +Odyssey, ix. 132. &c. Hence Milton's</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <span class="i0">"From haunted spring, and dale,</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Edged with poplar pale."</span><br /> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> +Odyssey, xiii. 236. &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> +Educated, as we shall see hereafter, first in this school, Turner gave +the hackneyed composition a strange power and freshness, in his Glaucus +and Scylla.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3>OF MEDIÆVAL LANDSCAPE:—FIRST, THE FIELDS.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. IN our examination of the spirit of classical landscape, +we were obliged to confine ourselves to what is left to us in +written description. Some interesting results might indeed +have been obtained by examining the Egyptian and Ninevite +landscape sculpture, but in nowise conclusive enough to be +worth the pains of the inquiry; for the landscape of sculpture +is necessarily confined in range, and usually inexpressive of the +complete feelings of the workman, being introduced rather to +explain the place and circumstances of events, than for its own +sake. In the Middle Ages, however, the case is widely different. +We have written landscape, sculptured landscape, and painted +landscape, all bearing united testimony to the tone of the national +mind in almost every remarkable locality of Europe.</p> + +<p>§ 2. That testimony, taken in its breadth, is very curiously +conclusive. It marks the mediæval mind as agreeing altogether +with the ancients, in holding that flat land, brooks, and groves +of aspens, compose the pleasant places of the earth, and that +rocks and mountains are, for inhabitation, altogether to be +reprobated and detested; but as disagreeing with the classical +mind totally in this other most important respect, that the +pleasant flat land is never a ploughed field, nor a rich lotus +meadow good for pasture, but <i>garden</i> ground covered with +flowers, and divided by fragrant hedges, with a castle in the +middle of it. The aspens are delighted in, not because they are +good for "coach-making men" to make cart-wheels of, but +because they are shady and graceful; and the fruit-trees, covered +with delicious fruit, especially apple and orange, occupy +still more important positions in the scenery. Singing-birds—not +"sea-crows," but nightingales<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> +—perch on every bough;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> +and the ideal occupation of mankind is not to cultivate either +the garden or the meadow, but to gather roses and eat oranges +in the one, and ride out hawking over the other.</p> + +<p>Finally, mountain scenery, though considered as disagreeable +for general inhabitation, is always introduced as being proper +to meditate in, or to encourage communion with higher beings; +and in the ideal landscape of daily life, mountains are considered +agreeable things enough, so that they be far enough away.</p> + +<p>In this great change there are three vital points to be noticed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 3. Three essential characters: 1. Pride in idleness.</div> + +<p>The first, the disdain of agricultural pursuits by the nobility; +a fatal change, and one gradually bringing about the ruin of that +nobility. It is expressed in the mediæval landscape by the eminently +pleasurable and horticultural character of +everything; by the fences, hedges, castle walls, and +masses of useless, but lovely flowers, especially roses. +The knights and ladies are represented always as singing, or +making love, in these pleasant places. The idea of setting an +old knight, like Laertes (whatever his state of fallen fortune), +"with thick gloves on to keep his hands from the thorns," to +prune a row of vines, would have been regarded as the most +monstrous violation of the decencies of life; and a senator, +once detected in the home employments of Cincinnatus, could, +I suppose, thenceforward hardly have appeared in society.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 4. 2. Poetical observance of nature.</div> + +<p>The second vital point is the evidence of a more sentimental +enjoyment of external nature. A Greek, wishing really to enjoy +himself, shut himself into a beautiful atrium, with an excellent +dinner, and a society of philosophical or musical +friends. But a mediæval knight went into his +pleasance, to gather roses and hear the birds sing; +or rode out hunting or hawking. His evening feast, though +riotous enough sometimes, was not the height of his day's enjoyment; +and if the attractions of the world are to be shown +typically to him, as opposed to the horrors of death, they are +never represented by a full feast in a chamber, but by a delicate +dessert in an orange grove, with musicians under the trees; or a +ride on a May morning, hawk on fist.</p> + +<p>This change is evidently a healthy, and a very interesting +one.</p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 5. 3. Disturbed conscience.</div> + +<p>The third vital point is the marked sense that this hawking +and apple-eating are not altogether right; that there is something +else to be done in the world than that; and that the +mountains, as opposed to the pleasant garden-ground, +are places where that other something may +best be learned;—which is evidently a piece of infinite and new +respect for the mountains, and another healthy change in the +tone of the human heart.</p> + +<p>Let us glance at the signs and various results of these +changes, one by one.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 6. Derivative characters: 1. Love of flowers.</div> + +<p>The two first named, evil and good as they are, are very +closely connected. The more poetical delight in external nature +proceeds just from the fact that it is no longer looked upon +with the eye of the farmer; and in proportion as +the herbs and flowers cease to be regarded as useful, +they are felt to be charming. Leeks are not +now the most important objects in the garden, but lilies and +roses; the herbage which a Greek would have looked at only +with a view to the number of horses it would feed, is regarded +by the mediæval knight as a green carpet for fair feet to +dance upon, and the beauty of its softness and color is proportionally +felt by him; while the brook, which the Greek rejoiced +to dismiss into a reservoir under the palace threshold, +would be, by the mediæval, distributed into pleasant pools, or +forced into fountains; and regarded alternately as a mirror for +fair faces, and a witchery to ensnare the sunbeams and the rainbow.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 7. 2. Less definite gratitude to God.</div> + +<p>And this change of feeling involves two others, very important. +When the flowers and grass were regarded as means of +life, and therefore (as the thoughtful laborer of the soil must +always regard them) with the reverence due to +those gifts of God which were most necessary to +his existence; although their own beauty was less +felt, their proceeding from the Divine hand was more seriously +acknowledged, and the herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree yielding +fruit, though in themselves less admired, were yet solemnly +connected in the heart with the reverence of Ceres, Pomona, or +Pan. But when the sense of these necessary uses was more or +less lost, among the upper classes, by the delegation of the art +of husbandry to the hands of the peasant, the flower and fruit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> +whose bloom or richness thus became a mere source of pleasure, +were regarded with less solemn sense of the Divine gift in them; +and were converted rather into toys than treasures, chance gifts +for gaiety, rather than promised rewards of labor; so that while +the Greek could hardly have trodden the formal furrow, or +plucked the clusters from the trellised vine, without reverent +thoughts of the deities of field and leaf, who gave the seed to +fructify, and the bloom to darken, the mediæval knight plucked +the violet to wreathe in his lady's hair, or strewed the idle rose +on the turf at her feet, with little sense of anything in the +nature that gave them, but a frail, accidental, involuntary exuberance; +while also the Jewish sacrificial system being now +done away, as well as the Pagan mythology, and, with it, the +whole conception of meat offering or firstfruits offering, the +chiefest seriousness of all the thoughts connected with the gifts +of nature faded from the minds of the classes of men concerned +with art and literature; while the peasant, reduced to serf level, +was incapable of imaginative thought, owing to his want of +general cultivation. But on the other hand, exactly in proportion +as the idea of definite spiritual presence in material nature +was lost, the mysterious sense of <i>unaccountable</i> life in the things +themselves would be increased, and the mind would instantly +be laid open to all those currents of fallacious, but pensive and +pathetic sympathy, which we have seen to be characteristic of +modern times.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">S 8. 3. Gloom, caused by enforced solitude.</div> + +<p>Farther: a singular difference would necessarily result from +the far greater loneliness of baronial life, deprived as it was of +all interest in agricultural pursuits. The palace of a Greek +leader in early times might have gardens, fields, +and farms around it, but was sure to be near some +busy city or sea-port: in later times, the city +itself became the principal dwelling-place, and the country was +visited only to see how the farm went on, or traversed in a line +of march. Far other was the life of the mediæval baron, +nested on his solitary jut of crag; entering into cities only +occasionally for some grave political or warrior's purpose, and, +for the most part, passing the years of his life in lion-like isolation; +the village inhabited by his retainers straggling indeed +about the slopes of the rocks at his feet, but his own dwelling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> +standing gloomily apart, between them and the uncompanionable +clouds, commanding, from sunset to sunrise, the flowing +flame of some calm unvoyaged river, and the endless undulation +of the untraversable hills. How different must the thoughts +about nature have been, of the noble who lived among the bright +marble porticos of the Greek groups of temple or palace,—in the +midst of a plain covered with corn and olives, and by the shore +of a sparkling and freighted sea,—from those of the master of +some mountain promontory in the green recesses of Northern +Europe, watching night by night, from amongst his heaps of +storm-broken stone, rounded into towers, the lightning of the +lonely sea flash round the sands of Harlech, or the mists changing +their shapes forever, among the changeless pines, that fringe +the crests of Jura.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§9. And frequent pilgrimage.</div> + +<p>Nor was it without similar effect on the minds of men that +their journeyings and pilgrimages became more frequent than +those of the Greek, the extent of ground traversed in the +course of them larger, and the mode of travel +more companionless. To the Greek, a voyage +to Egypt, or the Hellespont, was the subject of lasting fame +and fable, and the forests of the Danube and the rocks of Sicily +closed for him the gates of the intelligible world. What parts +of that narrow world he crossed were crossed with fleets or +armies; the camp always populous on the plain, and the ships +drawn in cautious symmetry around the shore. But to the mediæval +knight, from Scottish moor to Syrian sand, the world was +one great exercise ground, or field of adventure; the staunch +pacing of his charger penetrated the pathlessness of outmost +forest, and sustained the sultriness of the most secret desert. +Frequently alone,—or, if accompanied, for the most part only +by retainers of lower rank, incapable of entering into complete +sympathy with any of his thoughts,—he must have been compelled +often to enter into dim companionship with the silent +nature around him, and must assuredly sometimes have talked +to the wayside flowers of his love, and to the fading clouds of his +ambition.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">4. Dread of mountains.</div> + +<p>§ 10. But, on the other hand, the idea of retirement from +the world for the sake of self-mortification, of combat with +demons, or communion with angels, and with their King,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> +—authoritatively commended as it was to all men by the continual +practice of Christ Himself,—gave to all mountain +solitude at once a sanctity and a terror, in the +mediæval mind, which were altogether different from anything +that it had possessed in the un-Christian periods. On the one +side, there was an idea of sanctity attached to rocky wilderness, +because it had always been among hills that the Deity had +manifested himself most intimately to men, and to the hills +that His saints had nearly always retired for meditation, for +especial communion with Him, and to prepare for death. Men +acquainted with the history of Moses, alone at Horeb, or with +Israel at Sinai,—of Elijah by the brook Cherith, and in the +Horeb cave; of the deaths of Moses and Aaron on Hor and +Nebo; of the preparation of Jephthah's daughter for her death +among the Judea Mountains; of the continual retirement of +Christ Himself to the mountains for prayer, His temptation in +the desert of the Dead Sea, His sermon on the hills of Capernaum, +His transfiguration on the crest of Tabor, and his evening +and morning walks over Olivet for the four or five days +preceding His crucifixion,—were not likely to look with irreverent +or unloving eyes upon the blue hills that girded their +golden horizon, or drew upon them the mysterious clouds out of +the height of the darker heaven. But with this impression of +their greater sanctity was involved also that of a peculiar terror. +In all this,—their haunting by the memories of prophets, the +presences of angels, and the everlasting thoughts and words of +the Redeemer,—the mountain ranges seemed separated from the +active world, and only to be fitly approached by hearts which +were condemnatory of it. Just in so much as it appeared necessary +for the noblest men to retire to the hill-recesses before their +missions could be accomplished or their spirits perfected, in so +far did the daily world seem by comparison to be pronounced +profane and dangerous; and to those who loved that world, +and its work, the mountains were thus voiceful with perpetual +rebuke, and necessarily contemplated with a kind of pain and +fear, such as a man engrossed by vanity feels at being by some +accident forced to hear a startling sermon, or to assist at a +funeral service. Every association of this kind was deepened +by the practice and the precept of the time; and thousands of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> +hearts, which might otherwise have felt that there was loveliness +in the wild landscape, shrank from it in dread, because they +knew that the monk retired to it for penance, and the hermit +for contemplation. The horror which the Greek had felt for +hills only when they were uninhabitable and barren, attached +itself now to many of the sweetest spots of earth; the feeling +was conquered by political interests, but never by admiration; +military ambition seized the frontier rock, or maintained itself +in the unassailable pass; but it was only for their punishment, +or in their despair, that men consented to tread the crocused +slopes of the Chartreuse, or the soft glades and dewy pastures +of Vallombrosa.</p> + +<p>§ 11. In all these modifications of temper and principle there +appears much which tends to passionate, affectionate, or awe-struck +observance of the features of natural scenery, closely +resembling, in all but this superstitious dread of mountains, +our feelings at the present day. But <i>one</i> character which the +mediævals had in common with the ancients, and that exactly +the most eminent character in both, opposed itself steadily to +all the feelings we have hitherto been examining,—the admiration, +namely, and constant watchfulness, of human beauty. +Exercised in nearly the same manner as the Greeks, from their +youth upwards, their countenances were cast even in a higher +mould; for, although somewhat less regular in feature, and +affected by minglings of Northern bluntness and stolidity of +general expression, together with greater thinness of lip and +shaggy formlessness of brow, these less sculpturesque features +were, nevertheless, touched with a seriousness and refinement +proceeding first from the modes of thought inculcated by the +Christian religion, and secondly from their more romantic and +various life. Hence a degree of personal beauty, both male and +female, was attained in the Middle Ages, with which classical +periods could show nothing for a moment comparable; and this +beauty was set forth by the most perfect splendor, united with +grace, in dress, which the human race have hitherto invented. +The strength of their art-genius was directed in great part to +this object; and their best workmen and most brilliant fanciers +were employed in wreathing the mail or embroidering the robe. +The exquisite arts of enamelling and chasing metal enabled them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> +to make the armor as radiant and delicate as the plumage of a +tropical bird; and the most various and vivid imaginations were +displayed in the alternations of color, and fiery freaks of form, +on shield and crest; so that of all the beautiful things which +the eyes of men could fall upon, in the world about them, the +most beautiful must have been a young knight riding out in +morning sunshine, and in faithful hope.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"His broad, clear brow in sunlight glowed;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">On burnished hooves his war-horse trode;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">From underneath his helmet flowed</span><br /> +<span class="i0">His coal-black curls, as on he rode.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">All in the blue, unclouded weather,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Thick jewelled shone the saddle leather;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The helmet and the helmet feather</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Burned like one burning flame together;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the gemmy bridle glittered free,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like to some branch of stars we see</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Hung in the golden galaxy."</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 12. 5. care for human beauty.</div> + +<p>Now, the effect of this superb presence of human beauty on +men in general was, exactly as it had been in Greek times, first, +to turn their thoughts and glances in great part away from +all other beauty but that, and to make the grass of +the field take to them always more or less the aspect +of a carpet to dance upon, a lawn to tilt upon, or a serviceable +crop of hay; and, secondly, in what attention they paid to this +lower nature, to make them dwell exclusively on what was +graceful, symmetrical, and bright in color. All that was rugged, +rough, dark, wild, unterminated, they rejected at once, as +the domain of "salvage men" and monstrous giants: all that +they admired was tender, bright, balanced, enclosed, symmetrical—only +symmetrical in the noble and free sense: for +what we moderns call "symmetry," or "balance," differs as +much from mediæval symmetry as the poise of a grocer's scales, +or the balance of an Egyptian mummy with its hands tied to +its sides, does from the balance of a knight on his horse, striking +with the battle-axe, at the gallop; the mummy's balance +looking wonderfully perfect, and yet sure to be one-sided if you +weigh the dust of it,—the knight's balance swaying and changing +like the wind, and yet as true and accurate as the laws of life.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 13. 6. Symmetrical government of design.</div> +<p>And this love of symmetry was still farther enhanced by the +peculiar duties required of art at the time; for, in order to fit +a flower or leaf for inlaying in armor, or showing clearly in +glass, it was absolutely necessary to take away its +complexity, and reduce it to the condition of a +disciplined and orderly pattern; and this the +more, because, for all military purposes, the device, whatever it +was, had to be distinctly intelligible at extreme distance. That +it should be a good imitation of nature, when seen near, was of +no moment; but it was of highest moment that when first the +knight's banner flashed in the sun at the turn of the mountain +road, or rose, torn and bloody, through the drift of the battle +dust, it should still be discernible what the bearing was.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"At length, the freshening western blast</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Aside the shroud of battle cast;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And first the ridge of mingled spears</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Above the brightening cloud appears;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And in the smoke the pennons flew,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As in the storm the white sea-mew;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then marked they, dashing broad and far</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The broken billows of the war.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Wide raged the battle on the plain;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Wild and disorderly.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Amidst the scene of tumult, high,</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>They saw Lord Marmion's falcon fly,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>And stainless Tunstall's banner white,</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>And Edmund Howard's lion bright.</i>"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>It was needed, not merely that they should see it was a +falcon, but Lord Marmion's falcon; not only a lion, but the +Howard's lion. Hence, to the one imperative end of <i>intelligibility</i>, +every minor resemblance to nature was sacrificed, and +above all, the <i>curved</i>, which are chiefly the confusing lines; so +that the straight, elongated back, doubly elongated tail, projected +and separate claws, and other rectilinear unnaturalnesses +of form, became the means by which the leopard was, in midst +of the mist and storm of battle, distinguished from the dog, or +the lion from the wolf; the most admirable fierceness and vital<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>ity +being, in spite of these necessary changes (so often shallowly +sneered at by the modern workman), obtained by the old +designer.</p> + +<p>Farther, it was necessary to the brilliant harmony of color, +and clear setting forth of everything, that all confusing +shadows, all dim and doubtful lines should be rejected: hence +at once an utter denial of natural appearances by the great body +of workmen; and a calm rest in a practice of representation +which would make either boar or lion blue, scarlet, or golden, +according to the device of the knight, or the need of such and +such a color in that place of the pattern; and which wholly +denied that any substance ever cast a shadow, or was affected by +any kind of obscurity.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 14. 7. Therefore, inaccurate rendering of nature.</div> + +<p>All this was in its way, and for its end, absolutely right, +admirable, and delightful; and those who despise it, laugh at +it, or derive no pleasure from it, are utterly ignorant of the +highest principles of art, and are mere tyros and +beginners in the practice of color. But, admirable +though it might be, one necessary result of it was +a farther withdrawal of the observation of men from the refined +and subtle beauty of nature; so that the workman who first was +led to think <i>lightly</i> of natural beauty, as being subservient to +human, was next led to think <i>inaccurately</i> of natural beauty, +because he had continually to alter and simplify it for his practical +purposes.</p> + +<p>§ 15. Now, assembling all these different sources of the +peculiar mediæval feeling towards nature in one view, we have:</p> + + +<blockquote><p>1st. Love of the garden instead of love of the farm, leading to +a sentimental contemplation of nature, instead of a practical +and agricultural one. (§§ 3. 4. 6.)</p> + +<p>2nd. Loss of sense of actual Divine presence, leading to fancies +of fallacious animation, in herbs, flowers, clouds, &c. +(§ 7.)</p> + +<p>3rd. Perpetual, and more or less undisturbed, companionship +with wild nature. (§§ 8. 9.)</p> + +<p>4th. Apprehension of demoniacal and angelic presence among +mountains, leading to a reverent dread of them. (§ 10.)</p> + +<p>5th. Principalness of delight in human beauty, leading to comparative +contempt of natural objects. (§ 11.)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span></p> + +<p>6th. Consequent love of order, light, intelligibility, and symmetry, +leading to dislike of the wildness, darkness, and +mystery of nature. (§ 12.)</p> + +<p>7th. Inaccuracy of observance of nature, induced by the habitual +practice of change on its forms. (§ 13.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>From these mingled elements, we should necessarily expect +to find resulting, as the characteristic of mediæval landscape +art, compared with Greek, a far higher sentiment about it, and +affection for it, more or less subdued by still greater respect for +the loveliness of man, and therefore subordinated entirely to +human interests; mingled with curious traces of terror, piety, +or superstition, and cramped by various formalisms,—some wise +and necessary, some feeble, and some exhibiting needless ignorance +and inaccuracy.</p> + +<p>Under these lights, let us examine the facts.</p> + +<p>§ 16. The landscape of the Middle Ages is represented in a +central manner by the illuminations of the MSS. of Romances, +executed about the middle of the fifteenth century. On one +side of these stands the earlier landscape work, more or less +treated as simple decoration; on the other, the later landscape +work, becoming more or less affected with modern ideas and +modes of imitation.</p> + +<p>These central fifteenth century landscapes are almost invariably +composed of a grove or two of tall trees, a winding river, +and a castle, or a garden: the peculiar feature of both these last +being <i>trimness</i>; the artist always dwelling especially on the +fences; wreathing the espaliers indeed prettily with sweet-briar, +and putting pots of orange-trees on the tops of the walls, but +taking great care that there shall be no loose bricks in the one, +nor broken stakes in the other,—the trouble and ceaseless warfare +of the times having rendered security one of the first elements +of pleasantness, and making it impossible for any artist +to conceive Paradise but as surrounded by a moat, or to distinguish +the road to it better than by its narrow wicket gate, +and watchful porter.</p> + +<p>§ 17. One of these landscapes is thus described by Macaulay: +"We have an exact square, enclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, +Hiddekel, and Euphrates, each with a convenient bridge in the +centre; rectangular beds of flowers; a long canal neatly bricked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> +and railed in; the tree of knowledge, clipped like one of the +limes behind the Tuileries, standing in the centre of the grand +alley; the snake turned round it, the man on the right hand, +the woman on the left, and the beasts drawn up in an exact +circle round them."</p> + +<p>All this is perfectly true; and seems in the description very +curiously foolish. The only curious folly, however, in the +matter is the exquisite <i>naïveté</i> of the historian, in supposing +that the quaint landscape indicates in the understanding of the +painter so marvellous an inferiority to his own; whereas, it is +altogether his own wit that is at fault, in not comprehending +that nations, whose youth had been decimated among the sands +and serpents of Syria, knew probably nearly as much about +Eastern scenery as youths trained in the schools of the modern +Royal Academy; and that this curious symmetry was entirely +symbolic, only more or less modified by the various instincts +which I have traced above. Mr. Macaulay is evidently quite +unaware that the serpent with the human head, and body +twisted round the tree, was the universally accepted symbol of +the evil angel, from the dawn of art up to Michael Angelo; that +the greatest sacred artists invariably place the man on the one +side of the tree, the woman on the other, in order to denote the +enthroned and balanced dominion about to fall by temptation; +that the beasts are ranged (when they <i>are</i> so, though this is much +more seldom the case,) in a circle round them, expressly to mark +that they were then not wild, but obedient, intelligent, and +orderly beasts; and that the four rivers are trenched and enclosed +on the four sides, to mark that the waters which now +wander in waste, and destroy in fury, had then for their principal +office to "water the garden" of God. The description is, +however, sufficiently apposite and interesting, as bearing upon +what I have noted respecting the eminent <i>fence</i>-loving spirit of +the mediævals.</p> + +<p>§18. Together with this peculiar formality, we find an infinite +delight in drawing pleasant flowers, always articulating +and outlining them completely; the sky is always blue, having +only a few delicate white clouds in it, and in the distance are +blue mountains, very far away, if the landscape is to be simply +delightful; but brought near, and divided into quaint over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>hanging +rocks, if it is intended to be meditative, or a place of +saintly seclusion. But the whole of it always,—flowers, castles, +brooks, clouds, and rocks,—subordinate to the human figures in +the foreground, and painted for no other end than that of +explaining their adventures and occupations.</p> + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_7" id="PLATE_7"></a> + <a href="images/illus234topb.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus234topw.jpg" alt="PLATE 7 Top" /> + </a> + <br /> + <a href="images/illus234botb.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus234botw.jpg" alt="PLATE 7 Bot" /> + </a> + <span class="caption"><br /> + 7. Botany of 13<sup>th</sup> Century.<br />(Apple-tree and Cyclamen) + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 19. Before the idea of landscape had been thus far developed, +the representations of it had been purely typical; the +objects which had to be shown in order to explain the scene of +the event, being firmly outlined, usually on a pure golden or +chequered color background, not on sky. The change from the +golden background, (characteristic of the finest thirteenth century +work) and the colored chequer (which in like manner belongs +to the finest fourteenth) to the blue sky, gradated to the +horizon, takes place early in the fifteenth century, and is the +<i>crisis</i> of change in the spirit of mediæval art. Strictly speaking, +we might divide the art of Christian times into two great +masses—Symbolic and Imitative;—the symbolic, reaching from +the earliest periods down to the close of the fourteenth century, +and the imitative from that close to the present time; and, +then, the most important circumstance indicative of the culminating +point, or turn of tide, would be this of the change +from chequered background to sky background. The uppermost +figure in Plate 7. opposite, representing the tree of knowledge, +taken from a somewhat late thirteenth century Hebrew +manuscript (Additional 11,639) in the British Museum, will at +once illustrate Mr. Macaulay's "serpent turned round the tree," +and the mode of introducing the chequer background, will +enable the reader better to understand the peculiar feeling of +the period, which no more intended the formal walls or streams +for an imitative representation of the Garden of Eden, than +these chequers for an imitation of sky.</p> + +<p>§ 20. The moment the sky is introduced (and it is curious +how perfectly it is done <i>at once</i>, many manuscripts presenting, +in alternate pages, chequered backgrounds, and deep blue skies +exquisitely gradated to the horizon)—the moment, I say, the +sky is introduced, the spirit of art becomes for evermore +changed, and thenceforward it gradually proposes imitation +more and more as an end, until it reaches the Turnerian landscape. +This broad division into two schools would therefore be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> +the most true and accurate we could employ, but not the most +convenient. For the great mediæval art lies in a cluster about +the culminating point, including symbolism on one side, and +imitation on the other, and extending like a radiant cloud upon +the mountain peak of ages, partly down both sides of it, from +the year 1200 to 1500; the brightest part of the cloud leaning a +little backwards, and poising itself between 1250 and 1350. +And therefore the most convenient arrangement is into Romanesque +and barbaric art, up to 1200,—mediæval art, 1200 to +1500,—and modern art, from 1500 downwards. But it is only +in the earlier or symbolic mediæval art, reaching up to the close +of the fourteenth century, that the peculiar modification of +natural forms for decorative purposes is seen in its perfection, +with all its beauty, and all its necessary shortcomings; the +minds of men being accurately balanced between that honor for +the superior human form which they shared with the Greek +ages, and the sentimental love of nature which was peculiar to +their own. The expression of the two feelings will be found to +vary according to the material and place of the art; in painting, +the conventional forms are more adopted, in order to obtain +definition, and brilliancy of color, while in sculpture the life of +nature is often rendered with a love and faithfulness which put +modern art to shame. And in this earnest contemplation of +the natural facts, united with an endeavor to simplify, for clear +expression, the results of that contemplation, the ornamental +artists arrived at two abstract conclusions about form, which +are highly curious and interesting.</p> + +<p>§ 21. They saw, first, that a leaf might always be considered +as a sudden expansion of the stem that bore it; an uncontrollable +expression of delight, on the part of the twig, that spring +had come, shown in a fountain-like expatiation of its tender +green heart into the air. They saw that in this violent proclamation +of its delight and liberty, whereas the twig had, until +that moment, a disposition only to grow quietly forwards, it +expressed its satisfaction and extreme pleasure in sunshine by +springing out to right and left. Let <i>a b</i>, Fig. 1. Plate 8., be +the twig growing forward in the direction from <i>a</i> to <i>b</i>. It +reaches the point <i>b</i>, and then—spring coming,—not being able +to contain itself, it bursts out in every direction, even springing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> +backwards at first for joy; but as this backward direction is +contrary to its own proper fate and nature, it cannot go on so +long, and the length of each rib into which it separates is proportioned +accurately to the degree in which the proceedings of +that rib are in harmony with the natural destiny of the plant. +Thus the rib <i>c</i>, entirely contradictory, by the direction of his +life and energy, of the general intentions to the tree, is but a +short-lived rib; <i>d</i>, not quite so opposite to his fate, lives longer; +<i>e</i>, accommodating himself still more to the spirit of progress, +attains a greater length still; and the largest rib of all is the +one who has not yielded at all to the erratic disposition of the +others when spring came, but, feeling quite as happy about the +spring as they did, nevertheless took no holiday, minded his +business, and grew straightforward.</p> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_8" id="PLATE_8"></a> + <a href="images/illus237b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus237w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 8" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 8. The Growth of Leaves. + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 22. Fig. 6. in the same plate, which shows the disposition +of the ribs in the leaf of an American Plane, exemplifies the +principle very accurately; it is indeed more notably seen in this +than in most leaves, because the ribs at the base have evidently +had a little fraternal quarrel about their spring holiday; and +the more gaily-minded ones, getting together into trios on each +side, have rather pooh-poohed and laughed at the seventh +brother in the middle, who wanted to go on regularly, and +attend to his work. Nevertheless, though thus starting quite +by himself in life, this seventh brother, quietly pushing on in +the right direction, lives longest, and makes the largest fortune, +and the triple partnerships on the right and left meet with a +very minor prosperity.</p> + +<p>§ 23. Now if we inclose Fig. 1. in Plate 8. with two curves +passing through the extremities of the ribs, we get Fig. 2., the +central type of all leaves. Only this type is modified of course +in a thousand ways by the life of the plant. If it be marsh or +aquatic, instead of springing out in twigs, it is almost certain to +expand in soft currents, as the liberated stream does at its +mouth into the ocean, Fig. 3. (Alisma Plantago); if it be meant +for one of the crowned and lovely trees of the earth, it will +separate into stars, and each ray of the leaf will form a ray of +light in the crown, Fig. 5. (Horsechestnut); and if it be a commonplace +tree, rather prudent and practical than imaginative, +it will not expand all at once, but throw out the ribs every now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> +and then along the central rib, like a merchant taking his occasional +and restricted holiday, Fig. 4. (Elm).</p> + +<p>§ 24. Now in the bud, where all these proceedings on the +leaf's part are first imagined, the young leaf is generally +(always?) doubled up in embryo, so as to present the profile of +the half-leaves, as Fig. 7., only in exquisite complexity of arrangement; +Fig. 9., for instance, is the profile of the leaf-bud +of a rose. Hence the general arrangement of line represented +by Fig. 8. (in which the lower line is slightly curved to express +the bending life in the spine) is everlastingly typical of the +expanding powers of joyful vegetative youth; and it is of all +simple forms the most exquisitely delightful to the human +mind. It presents itself in a thousand different proportions and +variations in the buds and profiles of leaves; those being always +the loveliest in which, either by accidental perspective of position, +or inherent character in the tree, it is most frequently +presented to the eye. The branch of bramble, for instance, +Fig. 10. at the bottom of Plate 8., owes its chief beauty to the +perpetual recurrence of this typical form; and we shall find +presently the enormous importance of it, even in mountain +ranges, though, in these, <i>falling</i> force takes the place of <i>vital</i> +force.</p> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="FIG_3" id="FIG_3"></a> + <a href="images/illus240b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus240w.jpg" width="500" alt="FIG 3" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 3. + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 25. This abstract conclusion the great thirteenth century +artists were the first to arrive at; and whereas, before their +time, ornament had been constantly refined into intricate and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> +subdivided symmetries, they were content with this simple form +as the termination of its most important features. Fig. 3., +which is a scroll out of a Psalter executed in the latter half of +the thirteenth century, is a sufficient example of a practice at +that time absolutely universal.</p> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_9" id="PLATE_9"></a> + <a href="images/illus242b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus242w.jpg" style="margin-bottom: -2em;" height="500" alt="PLATE 9" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 9.<br />Botany of the 14<sup>th</sup> Century.<br /> + <span style="font-size: 90%;">From the Prayer-book of Yolande of Navarre.</span> + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 26. The second great discovery of the Middle Ages in floral +ornament, was that, in order completely to express the law +of subordination among the leaf-ribs, two ribs were necessary, +<i>and no more</i>, on each side of the leaf, forming a series of three +with the central one, because proportion is between three terms +at least.</p> + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="FIG_4" id="FIG_4"></a> + <a href="images/illus243.png" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus243.png" width="300" alt="FIG 4" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 4. + </span> +</div> + +<p>That is to say, when they had only three ribs altogether, as +<i>a</i>, Fig. 4., no <i>law</i> of relation was discernible between the ribs, +or the leaflets they bore; but by the addition of a third on each +side as at <i>b</i>, proportion instantly was expressible, whether +arithmetical or geometrical, or of any other kind. Hence the +adoption of forms more or less approximating to that at <i>c</i> +(young ivy), or <i>d</i> (wild geranium), as the favorite elements of +their floral ornament, those leaves being in their disposition of +masses, the simplest which can express a perfect law of proportion, +just as the outline Fig. 7. Plate 8. is the simplest which +can express a perfect law of growth.</p> + +<p>Plate 9. opposite gives, in rude outline, the arrangement of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> +the border of one of the pages of a missal in my own possession, +executed for the Countess Yolande of Flanders,<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> +in the latter +half of the fourteenth century, and furnishing, in exhaustless +variety, the most graceful examples I have ever seen of the +favorite decoration at the period, commonly now known as the +"Ivy leaf" pattern.</p> + +<p>§ 27. In thus reducing these two everlasting laws of beauty +to their simplest possible exponents, the mediæval workmen +were the first to discern and establish the principles of decorative +art to the end of time, nor of decorative art merely, but of +mass arrangement in general. For the members of any great +composition, arranged about a centre, are always reducible to +the law of the ivy leaf, the best cathedral entrances having five +porches corresponding in proportional purpose to its five lobes +(three being an imperfect, and seven a superfluous number); +while the loveliest groups of lines attainable in any pictorial +composition are always based on the section of the leaf-bud, Fig. +7. Plate 8., or on the relation of its ribs to the convex curve +enclosing them.</p> + +<p>§ 28. These discoveries of ultimate truth are, I believe, +never made philosophically, but instinctively; so that wherever +we find a high abstract result of the kind, we may be almost +sure it has been the work of the penetrative imagination, acting +under the influence of strong affection. Accordingly, when we +enter on our botanical inquiries, I shall have occasion to show +with what tender and loving fidelity to nature the masters of +the thirteenth century always traced the leading lines of their +decorations, either in missal-painting or sculpture, and how totally +in this respect their methods of subduing, for the sake of +distinctness, the natural forms they loved so dearly, differ from +the iron formalisms to which the Greeks, careless of all that was +not completely divine or completely human, reduced the thorn +of the acanthus, and softness of the lily. Nevertheless, in all +this perfect and loving decorative art, we have hardly any careful +references to other landscape features than herbs and flowers; +mountains, water, and clouds are introduced so rudely, +that the representations of them can never be received for any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>thing +else than letters or signs. Thus the <i>sign</i> of clouds, in the +thirteenth century, is an undulating band, usually in painting, +of blue edged with white, in sculpture, wrought so as to resemble +very nearly the folds of a curtain closely tied, and understood +for clouds only by its position, as surrounding angels or +saints in heaven, opening to souls ascending at the Last Judgment, +or forming canopies over the Saviour or the Virgin. +Water is represented by zigzag lines, nearly resembling those +employed for clouds, but distinguished, in sculpture, by having +fish in it; in painting, both by fish and a more continuous blue +or green color. And when these unvaried symbols are associated +under the influence of that love of firm fence, moat, and +every other means of definition which we have seen to be one of +the prevailing characteristics of the mediæval mind, it is not +possible for us to conceive, through the rigidity of the signs employed, +what were the real feelings of the workman or spectator +about the natural landscape. We see that the thing carved or +painted is not intended in any wise to imitate the truth, or convey +to us the feelings which the workman had in contemplating +the truth. He has got a way of talking about it so definite and +cold, and tells us with his chisel so calmly that the knight had +a castle to attack, or the saint a river to cross dryshod, without +making the smallest effort to describe pictorially either castle or +river, that we are left wholly at fault as to the nature of the +emotion with which he contemplated the real objects. But that +emotion, as the intermediate step between the feelings of the +Grecian and the Modern, it must be our aim to ascertain as clearly +as possible; and, therefore, finding it not at this period completely +expressed in visible art, we must, as we did with the +Greeks, take up the written landscape instead, and examine this +mediæval sentiment as we find it embodied in the poem of +Dante.</p> + +<p>§ 29. The thing that must first strike us in this respect, as +we turn our thoughts to the poem, is, unquestionably, the <i>formality</i> +of its landscape.</p> + +<p>Milton's effort, in all that he tells us of his Inferno, is to +make it indefinite; Dante's, to make it <i>definite</i>. Both, indeed, +describe it as entered through gates; but, within the gate, all +is wild and fenceless with Milton, having indeed its four rivers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>—the +last vestige of the mediæval tradition,—but rivers which +flow through a waste of mountain and moorland, and by "many +a frozen, many a fiery Alp." But Dante's Inferno is accurately +separated into circles drawn with well-pointed compasses; mapped +and properly surveyed in every direction, trenched in a +thoroughly good style of engineering from depth to depth, and +divided in the "<i>accurate</i> middle" (dritto mezzo) of its deepest +abyss, into a concentric series of ten moats and embankments, +like those about a castle, with bridges from each embankment +to the next; precisely in the manner of those bridges over Hiddekel +and Euphrates, which Mr. Macaulay thinks so innocently +designed, apparently not aware that he is also laughing at +Dante. These larger fosses are of rock, and the bridges also; +but as he goes further into detail, Dante tells us of various +minor fosses and embankments, in which he anxiously points +out to us not only the formality, but the neatness and perfectness, +of the stonework. For instance, in describing the river +Phlegethon, he tells us that it was "paved with stone at the bottom, +and at the sides, and <i>over the edges of the sides</i>," just as +the water is at the baths of Bulicame; and for fear we should +think this embankment at all <i>larger</i> than it really was, Dante +adds, carefully, that it was made just like the embankments of +Ghent or Bruges against the sea, or those in Lombardy which +bank the Brenta, only "not so high, nor so wide," as any of +these. And besides the trenches, we have two well-built castles; +one like Ecbatana, with seven circuits of wall (and surrounded +by a fair stream), wherein the great poets and sages of +antiquity live; and another, a great fortified city with walls of +iron, red-hot, and a deep fosse round it, and full of "grave citizens,"—the +city of Dis.</p> + +<p>§ 30. Now, whether this be in what we moderns call "good +taste," or not, I do not mean just now to inquire—Dante having +nothing to do with taste, but with the facts of what he had +seen; only, so far as the imaginative faculty of the two poets is +concerned, note that Milton's vagueness is not the sign of imagination, +but of its absence, so far as it is significative in the matter. +For it does not follow, because Milton did not map out his +Inferno as Dante did, that he <i>could</i> not have done so if he had +chosen; only, it was the easier and less imaginative process to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> +leave it vague than to define it. Imagination is always the seeing +and asserting faculty; that which obscures or conceals may +be judgment, or feeling, but not invention. The invention, +whether good or bad, is in the accurate engineering, not in the +fog and uncertainty.</p> + +<p>§ 31. When we pass with Dante from the Inferno to Purgatory, +we have indeed more light and air, but no more liberty; +being now confined on various ledges cut into a mountain side, +with a precipice on one hand and a vertical wall on the other; +and, lest here also we should make any mistake about magnitudes, +we are told that the ledges were eighteen feet wide,<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> +and that the ascent from one to the other was by steps, made like +those which go up from Florence to the church of San Minieto.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> + +<p>Lastly, though in the Paradise there is perfect freedom and +infinity of space, though for trenches we have planets, and for +cornices constellations, yet there is more cadence, procession, +and order among the redeemed souls than any others; they fly, +so as to describe letters and sentences in the air, and rest in circles, +like rainbows, or determinate figures, as of a cross and an +eagle; in which certain of the more glorified natures are so arranged +as to form the eye of the bird, while those most highly +blessed are arranged with their white crowds in leaflets, so as to +form the image of a white rose in the midst of heaven.</p> + +<p>§ 32. Thus, throughout the poem, I conceive that the first +striking character of its scenery is intense definition; precisely +the reflection of that definiteness which we have already traced +in pictorial art. But the second point which seems noteworthy +is, that the flat ground and embanked trenches are reserved for +the Inferno; and that the entire territory of the Purgatory is a +mountain, thus marking the sense of that purifying and perfecting +influence in mountains which we saw the mediæval mind +was so ready to suggest. The same general idea is indicated at +the very commencement of the poem, in which Dante is overwhelmed +by fear and sorrow in passing through a dark forest, +but revives on seeing the sun touch the top of a hill, afterwards +called by Virgil "the pleasant mount—the cause and source of +all delight."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> +<p>§ 33. While, however, we find this greater honor paid to mountains, +I think we may perceive a much greater dread and dislike +of woods. We saw that Homer seemed to attach a pleasant +idea, for the most part, to forests; regarding them as sources +of wealth and places of shelter; and we find constantly an +idea of sacredness attached to them, as being haunted especially +by the gods; so that even the wood which surrounds the house +of Circe is spoken of as a sacred thicket, or rather, as a sacred +glade, or labyrinth of glades (of the particular word used I shall +have more to say presently); and so the wood is sought as a +kindly shelter by Ulysses, in spite of its wild beasts; and evidently +regarded with great affection by Sophocles, for, in a passage +which is always regarded by readers of Greek tragedy with +peculiar pleasure, the aged and blind Œdipus, brought to rest in +"the sweetest resting-place" in all the neighborhood of Athens, +has the spot described to him as haunted perpetually by nightingales, +which sing "in the green glades and in the dark ivy, +and in the thousand-fruited, sunless, and windless thickets of +the god" (Bacchus); the idea of the complete shelter from wind +and sun being here, as with Ulysses, the uppermost one. After +this come the usual staples of landscape,—narcissus, crocus, +plenty of rain, olive trees; and last, and the greatest boast of +all,—"it is a good country for horses, and conveniently by the +sea;" but the prominence and pleasantness of the thick wood +in the thoughts of the writer are very notable; whereas to Dante +the idea of a forest is exceedingly repulsive, so that, as just +noticed, in the opening of his poem, he cannot express a general +despair about life more strongly than by saying he was lost in a +wood so savage and terrible, that "even to think or speak of it +is distress,—it was so bitter,—it was something next door to +death;" and one of the saddest scenes in all the Inferno is in a +forest, of which the trees are haunted by lost souls; while (with +only one exception,) whenever the country is to be beautiful, we +find ourselves coming out into open air and open meadows.</p> + +<p>It is quite true that this is partly a characteristic, not merely +of Dante, or of mediæval writers, but of <i>southern</i> writers; +for the simple reason that the forest, being with them higher +upon the hills, and more out of the way than in the north was +generally a type of lonely and savage places; while in England,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span> +the "greenwood," coming up to the very walls of the towns, it +was possible to be "merry in the good greenwood," in a sense +which an Italian could not have understood. Hence Chaucer, +Spenser, and Shakspere send their favorites perpetually to the +woods for pleasure or meditation; and trust their tender +Canace, or Rosalind, or Helena, or Silvia, or Belphoebe, where +Dante would have sent no one but a condemned spirit. Nevertheless, +there is always traceable in the mediæval mind a dread +of thick foliage, which was not present to that of a Greek; so +that, even in the north, we have our sorrowful "children in the +wood," and black huntsmen of the Hartz forests, and such other +wood terrors; the principal reason for the difference being that +a Greek, being by no means given to travelling, regarded his +woods as so much valuable property; and if he ever went into +them for pleasure expected to meet one or two gods in the course +of his walk, but no banditti; while a mediæval, much more of +a solitary traveller, and expecting to meet with no gods in the +thickets, but only with thieves, or a hostile ambush, or a bear, +besides a great deal of troublesome ground for his horse, and a +very serious chance, next to a certainty, of losing his way, naturally +kept in the open ground as long as he could, and regarded +the forests, in general, with anything but an eye of favor.</p> + +<p>§ 34. These, I think, are the principal points which must +strike us, when we first broadly think of the poem as compared +with classical work. Let us now go a little more into detail.</p> + +<p>As Homer gave us an ideal landscape, which even a god +might have been pleased to behold, so Dante gives us, fortunately, +an ideal landscape, which is specially intended for the +terrestrial paradise. And it will doubtless be with some surprise, +after our reflections above on the general tone of Dante's +feelings, that we find ourselves here first entering a <i>forest</i>, and +that even a <i>thick</i> forest. But there is a peculiar meaning in +this. With any other poet than Dante, it might have been regarded +as a wanton inconsistency. Not so with him: by glancing +back to the two lines which explain the nature of Paradise, +we shall see what he means by it. Virgil tells him, as he enters +it, "Henceforward, take thine own pleasure for guide; thou art +beyond the steep ways, and beyond all Art;"—meaning, that +the perfectly purified and noble human creature, having no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> +pleasure but in right, is past all effort, and past all <i>rule</i>. Art +has no existence for such a being. Hence, the first aim of +Dante, in his landscape imagery, is to show evidence of this +perfect liberty, and of the purity and sinlessness of the new +nature, converting pathless ways into happy ones. So that all +those fences and formalisms which had been needed for him in +imperfection, are removed in this paradise; and even the pathlessness +of the wood, the most dreadful thing possible to him in +his days of sin and shortcoming, is now a joy to him in his days +of purity. And as the fencelessness and thicket of sin led to the +fettered and fearful order of eternal punishment, so the fencelessness +and thicket of the free virtue lead to the loving and +constellated order of eternal happiness.</p> + +<p>§ 35. This forest, then, is very like that of Colonos in several +respects—in its peace and sweetness, and number of birds; +it differs from it only in letting a light breeze through it, being +therefore somewhat thinner than the Greek wood; the tender +lines which tell of the voices of the birds mingling with the +wind, and of the leaves all turning one way before it, have been +more or less copied by every poet since Dante's time. They are, +so far as I know, the sweetest passage of wood description which +exists in literature.</p> + +<p>Before, however, Dante has gone far in this wood,—that is +to say, only so far as to have lost sight of the place where he +entered it, or rather, I suppose, of the light under the boughs of +the outside trees, and it must have been a very thin wood indeed +if he did not do this in some quarter of a mile's walk,—he comes +to a little river, three paces over, which bends the blades of grass +to the left, with a meadow on the other side of it; and in this +meadow</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"A lady, graced with solitude, who went</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Singing, and setting flower by flower apart,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">By which the path she walked on was besprent.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Ah, lady beautiful, that basking art</span><br /> +<span class="i1">In beams of love, if I may trust thy face,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Which useth to bear witness of the heart,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Let liking come on thee,' said I, 'to trace</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Thy path a little closer to the shore,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where I may reap the hearing of thy lays.</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> +<span class="i0">Thou mindest me, how Proserpine of yore</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Appeared in such a place, what time her mother</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Lost her, and she the spring, for evermore.'</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As, pointing downwards and to one another</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Her feet, a lady bendeth in the dance,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And barely setteth one before the other,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Thus, on the scarlet and the saffron glance</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Of flowers, with motion maidenlike she bent</span><br /> +<span class="i0">(Her modest eyelids drooping and askance);</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And there she gave my wishes their content,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Approaching, so that her sweet melodies</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Arrived upon mine ear with what they meant.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">When first she came amongst the blades, that rise,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Already wetted, from the goodly river,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">She graced me by the lifting of her eyes."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 14em;"><span class="smcap">Cayley.</span></span> +</div> + + +<p>§ 36. I have given this passage at length, because, for our +purposes, it is by much the most important, not only in Dante, +but in the whole circle of poetry. This lady, observe, stands on +the opposite side of the little stream, which, presently, she explains +to Dante is Lethe, having power to cause forgetfulness of +all evil, and she stands just among the bent blades of grass at its +edge. She is first seen gathering flower from flower, then "passing +continually the multitudinous flowers through her hands," +smiling at the same time so brightly, that her first address to +Dante is to prevent him from wondering at her, saying, "if he +will remember the verse of the ninety-second Psalm, beginning. +'Delectasti,' he will know why she is so happy."</p> + +<p>And turning to the verse of the Psalm, we find it written, +"Thou, Lord, hast made me glad <i>through Thy works</i>. I will +triumph <i>in the works of Thy hands</i>;" or, in the very words in +which Dante would read it,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Quia delectasti me, Domine, in factura tua,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Et in operibus manuum Tuarum exultabo."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 37. Now we could not for an instant have had any difficulty +in understanding this, but that, some way farther on in the poem, +this lady is called Matilda, and it is with reason supposed by the +commentators to be the great Countess Matilda of the eleventh +century; notable equally for her ceaseless activity, her brilliant +political genius, her perfect piety, and her deep reverence for the +see of Rome. This Countess Matilda is therefore Dante's guide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> +in the terrestrial paradise, as Beatrice is afterwards in the celestial; +each of them having a spiritual and symbolic character in +their glorified state, yet retaining their definite personality.</p> + +<p>The question is, then, what is the symbolic character of the +Countess Matilda, as the guiding spirit of the terrestrial paradise? +Before Dante had entered this paradise he had rested on +a step of shelving rock, and as he watched the stars he slept, and +dreamed, and thus tells us what he saw:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"A lady, young and beautiful, I dreamed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Was passing o'er a lea; and, as she came,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Methought I saw her ever and anon</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Bending to cull the flowers; and thus she sang:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Know ye, whoever of my name would ask,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That I am Leah; for my brow to weave</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A garland, these fair hands unwearied ply;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To please me at the crystal mirror, here</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I deck me. But my sister Rachel, she</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Before her glass abides the livelong day,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Her radiant eyes beholding, charmed no less</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Than I with this delightful task. Her joy</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In contemplation, as in labor mine.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>This vision of Rachel and Leah has been always, and with +unquestionable truth, received as a type of the Active and Contemplative +life, and as an introduction to the two divisions of +the paradise which Dante is about to enter. Therefore the unwearied +spirit of the Countess Matilda is understood to represent +the Active life, which forms the felicity of Earth; and the spirit +of Beatrice the Contemplative life, which forms the felicity of +Heaven. This interpretation appears at first straightforward +and certain; but it has missed count of exactly the most important +fact in the two passages which we have to explain. Observe: +Leah gathers the flowers to decorate <i>herself</i>, and delights +in <i>Her Own</i> Labor. Rachel sits silent, contemplating herself, +and delights in <i>Her Own</i> Image. These are the types of the +Unglorified Active and Contemplative powers of Man. But +Beatrice and Matilda are the same powers, Glorified. And how +are they Glorified? Leah took delight in her own labor; but +Matilda—"in operibus <i>manuum Tuarum</i>"—<i>in God's labor</i>: +Rachel in the sight of her own face; Beatrice in the sight of +<i>God's face</i>.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> + +<p>§ 38. And thus, when afterwards Dante sees Beatrice on her +throne, and prays her that, when he himself shall die, she would +receive him with kindness, Beatrice merely looks down for an +instant, and answers with a single smile, then "towards the +eternal fountain turns."</p> + +<p>Therefore it is evident that Dante distinguishes in both +cases, not between earth and heaven, but between perfect and +imperfect happiness, whether in earth or heaven. The active +life which has only the service of man for its end, and therefore +gathers flowers, with Leah, for its own decoration, is indeed +happy, but not perfectly so; it has only the happiness of the +dream, belonging essentially to the dream of human life, and +passing away with it. But the active life which labors for the +more and more discovery of God's work, is perfectly happy, and +is the life of the terrestrial paradise, being a true foretaste of +heaven, and beginning in earth, as heaven's vestibule. So also +the contemplative life which is concerned with human feeling +and thought and beauty—the life which is in earthly poetry and +imagery of noble earthly emotion—is happy, but it is the happiness +of the dream; the contemplative life which has God's +person and love in Christ for its object, has the happiness of +eternity. But because this higher happiness is also begun here +on earth, Beatrice descends to earth; and when revealed to +Dante first, he sees the image of the twofold personality of +Christ reflected in her <i>eyes</i>; as the flowers, which are, to the +mediæval heart, the chief work of God, are for ever passing +through Matilda's <i>hands</i>.</p> + +<p>§ 39. Now, therefore, we see that Dante, as the great prophetic +exponent of the heart of the Middle Ages, has, by the +lips of the spirit of Matilda, declared the mediæval faith,—that +all perfect active life was "the expression of man's delight <i>in +God's work</i>;" and that all their political and warlike energy, as +fully shown in the mortal life of Matilda, was yet inferior and +impure,—the energy of the dream,—compared with that which +on the opposite bank of Lethe stood "choosing flower from +flower." And what joy and peace there were in this work is +marked by Matilda's being the person who draws Dante through +the stream of Lethe, so as to make him forget all sin, and all +sorrow: throwing her arms round him, she plunges his head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span> +under the waves of it; then draws him through, crying to him, +"<i>hold me, hold me</i>" (tiemmi, tiemmi), and so presents him, +thus bathed, free from all painful memory, at the feet of the +spirit of the more heavenly contemplation.</p> + +<p>§ 40. The reader will, I think, now see, with sufficient distinctness, +why I called this passage the most important, for our +present purposes, in the whole circle of poetry. For it contains +the first great confession of the discovery by the human race (I +mean as a matter of experience, not of revelation), that their +happiness was not in themselves, and that their labor was not to +have their own service as its chief end. It embodies in a few +syllables the <i>sealing</i> difference between the Greek and the mediæval, +in that the former sought the flower and herb for his own +uses, the latter for God's honor; the former, primarily and on +principle, contemplated his own beauty and the workings of his +own mind, and the latter, primarily and on principle, contemplated +Christ's beauty and the workings of the mind of Christ.</p> + +<p>§ 41. I will not at present follow up this subject any farther; +it being enough that we have thus got to the root of it, +and have a great declaration of the central mediæval purpose, +whereto we may return for solution of all future questions. I +would only, therefore, desire the reader now to compare the +Stones of Venice, vol. i. chap. xx. §§ 15. 16.; the Seven Lamps +of Architecture, chap. iv. § 3.; and the second volume of this +work, Chap. II. §§ 9. 10., and Chap. III. § 10.; that he may, in +these several places, observe how gradually our conclusions are +knitting themselves together as we are able to determine more +and more of the successive questions that come before us: and, +finally, to compare the two interesting passages in Wordsworth, +which, without any memory of Dante, nevertheless, as if by +some special ordaining, describe in matters of modern life exactly +the soothing or felicitous powers of the two active spirits of +Dante—Leah and Matilda, Excursion, book v. line 608. to 625., +and book vi. line 102. to 214.</p> + +<p>§ 42. Having thus received from Dante this great lesson, as +to the spirit in which mediæval landscape is to be understood, +what else we have to note respecting it, as seen in his poem, will +be comparatively straightforward and easy. And first, we have +to observe the place occupied in his mind by <i>color</i>. It has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> +already been shown, in the Stones of Venice, vol. ii. chap. v. +§§ 30—34, that color is the most <i>sacred</i> element of all visible +things. Hence, as the mediæval mind contemplated them first +for their sacredness, we should, beforehand, expect that the first +thing it would seize would be the color; and that we should find +its expressions and renderings of color infinitely more loving and +accurate than among the Greeks.</p> + +<p>§ 43. Accordingly, the Greek sense of color seems to have +been so comparatively dim and uncertain, that it is almost impossible +to ascertain what the real idea was which they attached +to any word alluding to hue: and above all, color, though pleasant +to their eyes, as to those of all human beings, seems never to +have been impressive to their feelings. They liked purple, on +the whole, the best; but there was no sense of cheerfulness or +pleasantness in one color, and gloom in another, such as the +mediævals had.</p> + +<p>For instance, when Achilles goes, in great anger and sorrow, +to complain to Thetis of the scorn done him by Agamemnon, +the sea appears to him "wine-colored." One might think this +meant that the sea looked dark and reddish-purple to him, in a +kind of sympathy with his anger. But we turn to the passage +of Sophocles, which has been above quoted—a passage peculiarly +intended to express peace and rest—and we find that the birds +sing among "wine-colored" ivy. The uncertainty of conception +of the hue itself, and entire absence of expressive character +in the word, could hardly be more clearly manifested.</p> + +<p>§ 44. Again: I said the Greek liked purple, as a general +source of enjoyment, better than any other color. So he did, +and so all healthy persons who have eye for color, and are unprejudiced +about it, do; and will to the end of time, for a +reason presently to be noted. But so far was this instinctive +preference for purple from giving, in the Greek mind, any consistently +cheerful or sacred association to the color, that Homer +constantly calls death "purple death."</p> + +<p>§ 45. Again: in the passage of Sophocles, so often spoken +of, I said there was some difficulty respecting a word often +translated "thickets." I believe, myself, it means glades; +literally, "going places" in the woods,—that is to say, places +where, either naturally or by force, the trees separate, so as to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> +give some accessible avenue. Now, Sophocles tells us the birds +sang in these "<i>green</i> going places;" and we take up the expression +gratefully, thinking the old Greek perceived and enjoyed, +as we do, the sweet fall of the eminently <i>green</i> light through the +leaves when they are a little thinner than in the heart of the +wood. But we turn to the tragedy of Ajax, and are much +shaken in our conclusion about the meaning of the word, when +we are told that the body of Ajax is to lie unburied, and be eaten +by sea-birds on the "<i>green</i> sand." The formation, geologically +distinguished by that title, was certainly not known to Sophocles; +and the only conclusion which, it seems to me, we can +come to under the circumstances,—assuming Ariel's<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> +authority +as to the color of pretty sand, and the ancient mariner's (or, +rather, his hearer's<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a>) +as to the color of ugly sand, to be conclusive,—is +that Sophocles really did not know green from yellow +or brown.</p> + +<p>§ 46. Now, without going out of the terrestrial paradise, in +which Dante last left us, we shall be able at once to compare +with this Greek incertitude the precision of the mediæval eye +for color. Some three arrowflights further up into the wood we +come to a tall tree, which is at first barren, but, after some little +time, visibly opens into flowers, of a color "less than that of +roses, but more than that of violets."</p> + +<p>It certainly would not be possible, in words, to come nearer +to the <i>definition</i> of the exact hue which Dante meant—that of +the apple-blossom. Had he employed any simple color-phrase, +as a "pale pink," or "violet-pink," or any other such combined +expression, he still could not have completely got at the +delicacy of the hue; he might perhaps have indicated its kind, +but not its tenderness; but by taking the rose-leaf as the type +of the delicate red, and then enfeebling this with the violet +grey, he gets, as closely as language can carry him, to the complete +rendering of the vision, though it is evidently felt by him +to be in its perfect beauty ineffable; and rightly so felt, for of all +lovely things which grace the spring time in our fair temperate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> +zone, I am not sure but this blossoming of the apple-tree is the +fairest. At all events, I find it associated in my mind with four +other kinds of color, certainly principal among the gifts of the +northern earth, namely:</p> + +<blockquote><p>1st. Bell gentians growing close together, mixed with lilies of +the valley, on the Jura pastures.</p> + +<p>2nd. Alpine roses with dew upon them, under low rays of morning +sunshine, touching the tops of the flowers.</p> + +<p>3rd. Bell heather in mass, in full light, at sunset.</p> + +<p>4th. White narcissus (red-centred) in mass, on the Vevay pastures, +in sunshine, after rain.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And I know not where in the group to place the wreaths of +apple-blossoms, in the Vevay orchards, with the far-off blue of +the lake of Geneva seen between the flowers.</p> + +<p>A Greek, however, would have regarded this blossom simply +with the eyes of a Devonshire farmer, as bearing on the probable +price of cider, and would have called it red, cerulean, purple, +white, hyacinthine, or generally "aglaos," agreeable, as happened +to suit his verse.</p> + +<p>§ 47. Again: we have seen how fond the Greek was of composing +his paradises of rather damp grass; but that in this +fondness for grass there was always an undercurrent of consideration +for his horses; and the characters in it which pleased +him most were its depth and freshness; not its color. Now, if +we remember carefully the general expressions, respecting grass, +used in modern literature, I think nearly the commonest that +occurs to us will be that of "enamelled" turf or sward. This +phrase is usually employed by our pseudo-poets, like all their +other phrases, without knowing what it means, because it has +been used by other writers before them, and because they do +not know what else to say of grass. If we were to ask them +what enamel was, they could not tell us; and if we asked why +grass was like enamel, they could not tell us. The expression +<i>has</i> a meaning, however, and one peculiarly characteristic of +mediæval and modern temper.</p> + +<p>§ 48. The first instance I know of its right use, though very +probably it had been so employed before, is in Dante. The righteous +spirits of the pre-Christian ages are seen by him, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> +in the Inferno, yet in a place open, luminous, and high, walking +upon the "green enamel."</p> + +<p>I am very sure that Dante did not use this phrase as we use +it. He knew well what enamel was; and his readers, in order +to understand him thoroughly, must remember what it is,—a +vitreous paste, dissolved in water, mixed with metallic oxides, to +give it the opacity and the color required, spread in a moist +state on metal, and afterwards hardened by fire, so as never to +change. And Dante means, in using this metaphor of the +grass of the Inferno, to mark that it is laid as a tempering and +cooling substance over the dark, metallic, gloomy ground; but +yet so hardened by the fire, that it is not any more fresh or +living grass, but a smooth, silent, lifeless bed of eternal green. +And we know how <i>hard</i> Dante's idea of it was; because afterwards, +in what is perhaps the most awful passage of the whole +Inferno, when the three furies rise at the top of the burning +tower, and catching sight of Dante, and not being able to get +at him, shriek wildly for the Gorgon to come up too, that they +may turn him into stone,—the word <i>stone</i> is not hard enough +for them. Stone might crumble away after it was made, or +something with life might grow upon it; no, it shall not be +stone; they will make enamel of him; nothing can grow out of +that; it is dead for ever.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>"Venga Medusa, si lo farem di <i>Smalto</i>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>§ 49. Now, almost in the opening of the Purgatory, as there +at the entrance of the Inferno, we find a company of great ones +resting in a grassy place. But the idea of the grass now is very +different. The word now used is not "enamel," but "herb," +and instead of being merely green, it is covered with flowers of +many colors. With the usual mediæval accuracy, Dante insists +on telling us precisely what these colors were, and how bright; +which he does by naming the actual pigments used in illumination,—"Gold, +and fine silver, and cochineal, and white lead, +and Indian wood, serene and lucid, and fresh emerald, just +broken, would have been excelled, as less is by greater, by the +flowers and grass of the place." It is evident that the "emerald" +here means the emerald green of the illuminators; for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> +a fresh emerald is no brighter than one which is not fresh, and +Dante was not one to throw away his words thus. Observe, +then, we have here the idea of the growth, life, and variegation +of the "green herb," as opposed to the smalto of the Inferno; +but the colors of the variegation are illustrated and defined by +the reference to actual pigments; and, observe, because the +other colors are rather bright, the blue ground (Indian wood, +indigo?) is sober; lucid, but serene; and presently two angels +enter, who are dressed in green drapery, but of a paler green +than the grass, which Dante marks, by telling us that it was +"the green of leaves just budded."</p> + +<p>§ 50. In all this, I wish the reader to observe two things: +first, the general carefulness of the poet in defining color, distinguishing +it precisely as a painter would (opposed to the +Greek carelessness about it); and, secondly, his regarding the +grass for its greenness and variegation, rather than, as a Greek +would have done, for its depth and freshness. This greenness or +brightness, and variegation, are taken up by later and modern +poets, as the things intended to be chiefly expressed by the word +"enamelled;" and, gradually, the term is taken to indicate any +kind of bright and interchangeable coloring; there being always +this much of propriety about it, when used of greensward, that +such sward is indeed, like enamel, a coat of bright color on a +comparatively dark ground; and is thus a sort of natural jewelry +and painter's work, different from loose and large vegetation. +The word is often awkwardly and falsely used, by the +later poets, of all kinds of growth and color; as by Milton of +the flowers of Paradise showing themselves over its wall; but it +retains, nevertheless, through all its jaded inanity, some half-unconscious +vestige of the old sense, even to the present day.</p> + +<p>§ 51. There are, it seems to me, several important deductions +to be made from these facts. The Greek, we have seen, delighted +in the grass for its usefulness; the mediæval, as also we +moderns, for its color and beauty. But both dwell on it as the +<i>first</i> element of the lovely landscape; we saw its use in Homer, +we see also that Dante thinks the righteous spirits of the heathen +enough comforted in Hades by having even the <i>image</i> of green +grass put beneath their feet; the happy resting-place in Purgatory +has no other delight than its grass and flowers; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> +finally, in the terrestrial paradise, the feet of Matilda pause +where the Lethe stream first bends the blades of grass. Consider +a little what a depth there is in this great instinct of the +human race. Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a +minute, quietly, its narrow sword-shaped strip of fluted green. +Nothing, as it seems there, of notable goodness or beauty. A +very little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate +long lines meeting in a point,—not a perfect point neither, but +blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable or apparently +much cared for example of Nature's workmanship; made, as it +seems, only to be trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast +into the oven; and a little pale and hollow stalk, feeble and +flaccid, leading down to the dull brown fibres of roots. And +yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous +flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly +trees, pleasant to the eyes and good for food,—stately palm and +pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron, burdened vine,—there +be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced, +as that narrow point of feeble green. It seems to me not to have +been without a peculiar significance, that our Lord, when about +to work the miracle which, of all that He showed, appears to +have been felt by the multitude as the most impressive,—the +miracle of the loaves,—commanded the people to sit down by +companies "upon the green grass." He was about to feed them +with the principal produce of earth and the sea, the simplest representations +of the food of mankind. He gave them the seed of +the herb; He bade them sit down upon the herb itself, which was +as great a gift, in its fitness for their joy and rest, as its perfect +fruit, for their sustenance; thus, in this single order and act, +when rightly understood, indicating for evermore how the +Creator had entrusted the comfort, consolation, and sustenance +of man, to the simplest and most despised of all the leafy +families of the earth. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider +what we owe merely to the meadow grass, to the covering +of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies +of those soft, and countless, and peaceful spears. The fields! +Follow but forth for a little time the thoughts of all that we +ought to recognise in those words. All spring and summer is +in them,—the walks by silent, scented paths,—the rests in noon-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>day +heat,—the joy of herds and flocks,—the power of all shepherd +life and meditation,—the life of sunlight upon the world, +falling in emerald streaks, and falling in soft blue shadows, +where else it would have struck upon the dark mould, or scorching +dust,—pastures beside the pacing brooks,—soft banks and +knolls of lowly hills,—thymy slopes of down overlooked by the +blue line of lifted sea,—crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or +smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy +feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices: all +these are summed in those simple words; and these are not all. +We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift, +in our own land; though still, as we think of it longer, the infinite +of that meadow sweetness, Shakspere's peculiar joy, would open +on us more and more, yet we have it but in part. Go out, in +the spring time, among the meadows that slope from the shores +of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, +mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the +grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain +paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with +blossom,—paths that for ever droop and rise over the green +banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation, steep +to the blue water, studded here and there with new mown +heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness,—look up towards +the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll +silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines; +and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet +words of the 147th Psalm, "He maketh grass to grow upon the +mountains."</p> + +<p>§ 52. There are also several lessons symbolically connected +with this subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Observe, +the peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it especially +for the service of man, are its apparent <i>humility</i>, and +<i>cheerfulness</i>. Its humility, in that it seems created only for +lowest service,—appointed to be trodden on, and fed upon. Its +cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult under all kinds of violence +and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger the next day; +you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful; +you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer perfume. Spring +comes, and it rejoices with all the earth,—glowing with varie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>gated +flame of flowers,—waving in soft depth of fruitful strength. +Winter comes, and though it will not mock its fellow plants by +growing then, it will not pine and mourn, and turn colorless +or leafless as they. It is always green; and is only the brighter +and gayer for the hoar-frost.</p> + +<p>§ 53. Now, these two characters—of humility, and joy under +trial—are exactly those which most definitely distinguish the +Christian from the Pagan spirit. Whatever virtue the pagan +possessed was rooted in pride, and fruited with sorrow. It +began in the elevation of his own nature; it ended but in the +"verde smalto"—the hopeless green—of the Elysian fields. But +the Christian virtue is rooted in self-debasement, and strengthened +under suffering by gladness of hope. And remembering +this, it is curious to observe how utterly without gladness the +Greek heart appears to be in watching the flowering grass, and +what strange discords of expression arise sometimes in consequence. +There is one, recurring once or twice in Homer, which +has always pained me. He says, "the Greek army was on the +fields, as thick as flowers in the spring." It might be so; but +flowers in spring time are not the image by which Dante would +have numbered soldiers on their path of battle. Dante could +not have thought of the flowering of the grass but as associated +with happiness. There is a still deeper significance in the passage +quoted, a little while ago, from Homer, describing Ulysses +casting himself down on the <i>rushes</i> and the corn-giving land at +the river shore,—the rushes and corn being to him only good +for rest and sustenance,—when we compare it with that in which +Dante tells us he was ordered to descend to the shore of the +lake as he entered Purgatory, to gather a <i>rush</i>, and gird himself +with it, it being to him the emblem not only of rest, but of humility +under chastisement, the rush (or reed) being the only +plant which can grow there;—"no plant which bears leaves, or +hardens its bark, can live on that shore, because it does not yield +to the chastisement of its waves." It cannot but strike the reader +singularly how deep and harmonious a significance runs through +all these words of Dante—how every syllable of them, the more +we penetrate it, becomes a seed of farther thought! For, follow +up this image of the girding with the reed, under trial, and see to +whose feet it will lead us. As the grass of the earth, thought of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> +as the herb yielding seed, leads us to the place where our Lord +commanded the multitude to sit down by companies upon the +green grass; so the grass of the waters, thought of as sustaining +itself among the waters of affliction, leads us to the place where +a stem of it was put into our Lord's hand for his sceptre; and +in the crown of thorns, and the rod of reed, was foreshown the +everlasting truth of the Christian ages—that all glory was to +be begun in suffering, and all power in humility.</p> + +<p>Assembling the images we have traced, and adding the simplest +of all, from Isaiah xl. 6., we find, the grass and flowers are +types, in their passing, of the passing of human life, and, in +their excellence, of the excellence of human life; and this in a +twofold way; first, by their Beneficence, and then, by their +endurance:—the grass of the earth, in giving the seed of corn, +and in its beauty under tread of foot and stroke of scythe; and +the grass of the waters, in giving its freshness for our rest, +and in its bending before the wave.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> +But understood in the +broad human and Divine sense, the "<i>herb</i> yielding seed" (as +opposed to the fruit-tree yielding fruit) includes a third family +of plants, and fulfils a third office to the human race. It includes +the great family of the lints and flaxes, and fulfils thus +the <i>three</i> offices of giving food, raiment, and rest. Follow out +this fulfilment; consider the association of the linen garment +and the linen embroidery, with the priestly office, and the furniture +of the tabernacle: and consider how the rush has been, +in all time, the first natural carpet thrown under the human +foot. Then next observe the three virtues definitely set forth +by the three families of plants; not arbitrarily or fancifully associated +with them, but in all the three cases marked for us by +Scriptural words:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>1st. Cheerfulness, or joyful serenity; in the grass for food +and beauty.—"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; +they toil not, neither do they spin."</p> + +<p>2nd. Humility; in the grass for rest.—"A bruised reed shall +He not break."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span></p> + +<p>3rd. Love; in the grass for clothing (because of its swift +kindling),—"The smoking flax shall He not quench."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And then, finally, observe the confirmation of these last two +images in, I suppose, the most important prophecy, relating to +the future state of the Christian Church, which occurs in the +Old Testament, namely, that contained in the closing chapters +of Ezekiel. The measures of the Temple of God are to be taken; +and because it is only by charity and humility that those measures +ever can be taken, the angel has "a line of <i>flax</i> in his +hand, and a measuring <i>reed</i>." The use of the line was to measure +the land, and of the reed to take the dimensions of the +buildings; so the buildings of the church, or its labors, are to +be measured by <i>humility</i>, and its territory or land, by <i>love</i>.</p> + +<p>The limits of the Church have, indeed, in later days, been +measured, to the world's sorrow, by another kind of flaxen line, +burning with the fire of unholy zeal, not with that of Christian +charity; and perhaps the best lesson which we can finally take +to ourselves, in leaving these sweet fields of the mediæval landscape, +is the memory that, in spite of all the fettered habits of +thought of his age, this great Dante, this inspired exponent of +what lay deepest at the heart of the early Church, placed his terrestrial +paradise where there had ceased to be fence or division, +and where the grass of the earth was bowed down, in unity of +direction, only by the soft waves that bore with them the forgetfulness +of evil.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> +The peculiar dislike felt by the mediævals for the <i>sea</i>, is so interesting +a subject of inquiry, that I have reserved it for separate discussion in +another work, in present preparation, "Harbors of England."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> +Married to Philip, younger son of the King of Navarre, in 1352. She +died in 1394.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> +"Three times the length of a human body."—Purg. x. 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> +Purg. xii. 102.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> +"Come unto these <i>yellow</i> sands."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a></p> + + <div class="poem"> + <span class="i0">"And thou art long, and lank, and <i>brown</i>,</span><br /> + <span class="i1">As is the ribbed sea sand."</span><br /> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> +Compare parallel passage, making Dante hard or changeless in good +Purg. viii. 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> +So also in Isa. xxxv. 7., the prevalence of righteousness and peace +over all evil is thus foretold:</p> +<p> +"In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be <i>grass</i>, with <i>reeds</i> +and <i>rushes</i>."</p> + +</div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3>OF MEDIÆVAL LANDSCAPE:—SECONDLY, THE ROCKS.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. I closed the last chapter, not because our subject was +exhausted, but to give the reader breathing time, and because I +supposed he would hardly care to turn back suddenly from the +subjects of thought last suggested, to the less pregnant matters +of inquiry connected with mediæval landscape. Nor was the +pause mistimed even as respects the order of our subjects; for +hitherto we have been arrested chiefly by the beauty of the pastures +and fields, and have followed the mediæval mind in its +fond regard of leaf and flower. But now we have some hard +hill-climbing to do; and the remainder of our investigation +must be carried on, for the most part, on hands and knees, so +that it is not ill done of us first to take breath.</p> + +<p>§ 2. It will be remembered that in the last chapter, § 14., we +supposed it probable that there would be considerable inaccuracies +in the mediæval mode of regarding nature. Hitherto, +however, we have found none; but, on the contrary, intense +accuracy, precision, and affection. The reason of this is, that +all floral and foliaged beauty might be perfectly represented, as +far as its form went, in the sculpture and ornamental painting +of the period; hence the attention of men was thoroughly +awakened to that beauty. But as mountains and clouds and +large features of natural scenery could not be accurately represented, +we must be prepared to find them not so carefully contemplated,— +more carefully, indeed, than by the Greeks, but +still in no wise as the things themselves deserve.</p> + +<p>§ 3. It was besides noticed that mountains, though regarded +with reverence by the mediæval, were also the subjects of a certain +dislike and dread. And we have seen already that in fact +the place of the soul's purification, though a mountain, is yet +by Dante subdued, whenever there is any pleasantness to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> +found upon it, from all mountainous character into grassy recesses, +or slopes to rushy shore; and, in his general conception of +it, resembles much more a castle mound, surrounded by terraced +walks,—in the manner, for instance, of one of Turner's favorite +scenes, the bank under Richmond Castle (Yorkshire); or, still +more, one of the hill slopes divided by terraces, above the Rhine, +in which the picturesqueness of the ground has been reduced to +the form best calculated for the growing of costly wine, than +any scene to which we moderns should naturally attach the term +"Mountainous." On the other hand, although the Inferno is +just as accurately measured and divided as the Purgatory, it is +nevertheless cleft into rocky chasms which possess something +of true mountain nature—nature which we moderns of the +north should most of us seek with delight, but which, to the +great Florentine, appeared adapted only for the punishment of +lost spirits, and which, on the mind of nearly all his countrymen, +would to this day produce a very closely correspondent +effect; so that their graceful language, dying away on the +north side of the Alps, gives its departing accents to proclaim +its detestation of hardness and ruggedness; and is heard for the +last time, as it bestows on the noblest defile in all the Grisons, +if not in all the Alpine chain, the name of the "<i>evil</i> way"—"la +Via Mala."</p> + +<p>§ 4. This "evil way," though much deeper and more sublime, +corresponds closely in general character to Dante's "Evil-pits," +just as the banks of Richmond do to his mountain of +Purgatory; and it is notable that Turner has been led to illustrate, +with his whole strength, the character of both; having +founded, as it seems to me, his early dreams of mountain form +altogether on the sweet banks of the Yorkshire streams, and +rooted his hardier thoughts of it in the rugged clefts of the Via +Mala.</p> + +<p>§ 5. Nor of the Via Mala only: a correspondent defile on the +St. Gothard,—so terrible in one part of it, that it can, indeed, +suggest no ideas but those of horror to minds either of northern +or southern temper, and whose wild bridge, cast from rock to +rock over a chasm as utterly hopeless and escapeless as any into +which Dante gazed from the arches of Malebolge, has been, +therefore, ascribed both by northern and southern lips to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> +master-building of the great spirit of evil—supplied to Turner +the element of his most terrible thoughts in mountain vision, +even to the close of his life. The noblest plate in the series of +the Liber Studiorum,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> +one engraved by his own hand, is of that +bridge; the last mountain journey he ever took was up the +defile; and a rocky bank and arch, in the last mountain drawing +which he ever executed with his perfect power, are remembrances +of the path by which he had traversed in his youth this +Malebolge of the St. Gothard.</p> + +<p>§ 6. It is therefore with peculiar interest, as bearing on our +own proper subject, that we must examine Dante's conception +of the rocks of the eighth circle. And first, as to general tone +of color: from what we have seen of the love of the mediæval for +bright and variegated color, we might guess that his chief cause +of dislike to rocks would be, in Italy, their comparative colorlessness. +With hardly an exception, the range of the Apennines is +composed of a stone of which some special account is given hereafter +in the chapters on Materials of Mountains, and of which +one peculiarity, there noticed, is its monotony of hue. Our +slates and granites are often of very lovely colors; but the +Apennine limestone is so grey and toneless, that I know not any +mountain district so utterly melancholy as those which are composed +of this rock, when unwooded. Now, as far as I can discover +from the internal evidence in his poem, nearly all Dante's +mountain wanderings had been upon this ground. He had +journeyed once or twice among the Alps, indeed, but seems to +have been impressed chiefly by the road from Garda to Trent, +and that along the Corniche, both of which are either upon +those limestones, or a dark serpentine, which shows hardly any +color till it is polished. It is not ascertainable that he had ever +seen rocky scenery of the finely colored kind, aided by the Alpine +mosses: I do not know the fall at Forli (Inferno, xvi. 99.), but +every other scene to which he alludes is among these Apennine +limestones; and when he wishes to give the idea of enormous +mountain size, he names Tabernicch and Pietra-pana,—the one +clearly chosen only for the sake of the last syllable of its name, +in order to make a sound as of cracking ice, with the two se<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span>quent +rhymes of the stanza,—and the other is an Apennine +near Lucca.</p> + +<p>§ 7. His idea, therefore, of rock color, founded on these experiences, +is that of a dull or ashen grey, more or less stained +by the brown of iron ochre, precisely as the Apennine limestones +nearly always are; the grey being peculiarly cold and +disagreeable. As we go down the very hill which stretches out +from Pietra-pana towards Lucca, the stones laid by the road-side +to mend it are of this ashen grey, with efflorescences of +manganese and iron in the fissures. The whole of Malebolge is +made of this rock, "All wrought in stone of iron-colored +grain."<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<p>Perhaps the iron color may be meant to predominate in +Evil-pits; but the definite grey limestone color is stated higher +up, the river Styx flowing at the base of "malignant <i>grey</i> +cliffs"<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> +(the word malignant being given to the iron-colored +Malebolge also); and the same whitish-grey idea is given again +definitely in describing the robe of the purgatorial or penance +angel, which is "of the color of ashes, or earth dug dry." +Ashes necessarily mean <i>wood</i>-ashes in an Italian mind, so that +we get the tone very pale; and there can be no doubt whatever +about the hue meant, because it is constantly seen on the sunny +sides of the Italian hills, produced by the scorching of the +ground, a dusty and lifeless whitish grey, utterly painful and +oppressive; and I have no doubt that this color, assumed eminently +also by limestone crags in the sun, is the quality which +Homer means to express by a term he applies often to bare +rocks, and which is usually translated "craggy," or "rocky." +Now Homer is indeed quite capable of talking of "rocky +rocks," just as he talks sometimes of "wet water;" but I +think he means more by this word: it sounds as if it were derived +from another, meaning "meal," or "flour," and I have +little doubt it means "mealy white;" the Greek limestones being +for the most part brighter in effect than the Apennine +ones.</p> + +<p>§ 8. And the fact is, that the great and preeminent fault +of southern, as compared with northern scenery, is this rock-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>whiteness, +which gives to distant mountain ranges, lighted by +the sun, sometimes a faint and monotonous glow, hardly detaching +itself from the whiter parts of the sky, and sometimes a +speckled confusion of white light with blue shadow, breaking +up the whole mass of the hills, and making them look near and +small; the whiteness being still distinct at the distance of +twenty or twenty-five miles. The inferiority and meagreness +of such effects of hill, compared with the massive purple and +blue of our own heaps of crags and morass, or the solemn grass-green +and pine-purples of the Alps, have always struck me most +painfully; and they have rendered it impossible for any poet or +painter studying in the south, to enter with joy into hill scenery. +Imagine the difference to Walter Scott, if instead of the +single lovely color which, named by itself alone, was enough to +describe his hills,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Their southern rapine to renew,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Far in the distant Cheviot's <i>blue</i>,"—</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>a dusty whiteness had been the image that first associated itself +with a hill range, and he had been obliged, instead of "blue" +Cheviots, to say, "barley-meal-colored" Cheviots.</p> + +<p>§ 9. But although this would cause a somewhat painful +shock even to a modern mind, it would be as nothing when +compared with the pain occasioned by absence of color to a mediæval +one. We have been trained, by our ingenious principles +of Renaissance architecture, to think that meal-color and ash-color +are the properest colors of all; and that the most aristocratic +harmonies are to be deduced out of grey mortar and +creamy stucco. Any of our modern classical architects would +delightedly "face" a heathery hill with Roman cement; and +any Italian sacristan would, but for the cost of it, at once +whitewash the Cheviots. But the mediævals had not arrived at +these abstract principles of taste. They liked fresco better +than whitewash; and, on the whole, thought that Nature was +in the right in painting her flowers yellow, pink, and blue;—not +grey. Accordingly, this absence of color from rocks, as +compared with meadows and trees, was in their eyes an unredeemable +defect; nor did it matter to them whether its place +was supplied by the grey neutral tint, or the iron-colored stain;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> +for both colors, grey and brown, were, to them, hues of distress, +despair, and mortification, hence adopted always for the +dresses of monks; only the word "brown" bore, in their color +vocabulary, a still gloomier sense than with us. I was for some +time embarrassed by Dante's use of it with respect to dark skies +and water. Thus, in describing a simple twilight—not a Hades +twilight, but an ordinarily fair evening—(Inf. ii. 1.) he says, +the "brown" air took the animals of earth away from their +fatigues;—the waves under Charon's boat are "brown" (Inf. +iii. 117.); and Lethe, which is perfectly clear and yet dark, as +with oblivion, is "bruna-bruna," "brown, <i>exceeding</i> brown." +Now, clearly in all these cases no <i>warmth</i> is meant to be mingled +in the color. Dante had never seen one of our bog-streams, +with its porter-colored foam; and there can be no +doubt that, in calling Lethe brown, he means that it was dark +slate grey, inclining to black; as, for instance, our clear Cumberland +lakes, which, looked straight down upon where they are +deep, seem to be lakes of ink. I am sure this is the color he +means; because no clear stream or lake on the Continent ever +looks brown, but blue or green; and Dante, by merely taking +away the pleasant color, would get at once to this idea of grave +clear grey. So, when he was talking of twilight, his eye for +color was far too good to let him call it <i>brown</i> in our sense. +Twilight is not brown, but purple, golden, or dark grey; and +this last was what Dante meant. Farther, I find that this negation +of color is always the means by which Dante subdues his +tones. Thus the fatal inscription on the Hades gate is written +in "obscure color," and the air which torments the passionate +spirits is "aer nero" <i>black</i> air (Inf. v. 51.), called presently +afterwards (line 81.) malignant air, just as the grey cliffs are +called malignant cliffs.</p> + +<p>§ 10. I was not, therefore, at a loss to find out what Dante +meant by the word; but I was at a loss to account for his not, +as it seemed, acknowledging the existence of the color of <i>brown</i> +at all; for if he called dark neutral tint "brown," it remained +a question what term he would use for things of the color of +burnt umber. But, one day, just when I was puzzling myself +about this, I happened to be sitting by one of our best living +modern colorists, watching him at his work, when he said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> +suddenly, and by mere accident, after we had been talking of +other things, "Do you know I have found that there is no +<i>brown</i> in Nature? What we call brown is always a variety +either of orange or purple. It never can be represented by +umber, unless altered by contrast."</p> + +<p>§ 11. It is curious how far the significance of this remark +extends, how exquisitely it illustrates and confirms the mediæval +sense of hue;—how far, on the other hand, it cuts into the +heart of the old umber idolatries of Sir George Beaumont and +his colleagues, the "where do you put your <i>brown</i> tree" system; +the code of Cremona-violin-colored foregrounds, of brown +varnish and asphaltum; and all the old night-owl science, +which, like Young's pencil of sorrow,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"In melancholy dipped, <i>embrowns</i> the whole."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Nay, I do Young an injustice by associating his words with the +asphalt schools; for his eye for color was true, and like Dante's; +and I doubt not that he means dark grey, as Byron purple-grey +in that night piece in the Siege of Corinth, beginning</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"'Tis midnight; on the mountains <i>brown</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0">The cold, round moon looks deeply down;"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>and, by the way, Byron's best piece of evening color farther +certifies the hues of Dante's twilight,—it</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Dies like the dolphin, when it gasps away—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The last still loveliest; till 'tis gone, and all is <i>grey</i>."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 12. Let not, however, the reader confuse the use of brown, +as an expression of a natural tint, with its use as a means of +<i>getting other tints</i>. Brown is often an admirable ground, just +because it is the only tint which is <i>not</i> to be in the finished picture, +and because it is the best basis of many silver greys and +purples, utterly opposite to it in their nature. But there is infinite +difference between laying a brown ground as a representation +of shadow,—and as a base for light; and also an infinite +difference between using brown shadows, associated with colored +lights—always the characteristic of false schools of color—and +using brown as a warm neutral tint for general study. I shall +have to pursue this subject farther hereafter, in noticing how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> +brown is used by great colorists in their studies, not as color, +but as the pleasantest negation of color, possessing more transparency +than black, and having more pleasant and sunlike +warmth. Hence Turner, in his early studies, used blue for distant +neutral tint, and brown for foreground neutral tint; while, +as he advanced in color science, he gradually introduced, in the +place of brown, strange purples, altogether peculiar to himself, +founded, apparently, on Indian red and vermilion, and passing +into various tones of russet and orange.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> +But, in the meantime, +we must go back to Dante and his mountains.</p> + +<p>§ 13. We find, then, that his general type of rock color was +meant, whether pale or dark, to be a colorless grey—the most +melancholy hue which he supposed to exist in Nature (hence the +synonym for it, subsisting even till late times, in mediæval appellatives +of dress, "<i>sad</i>-colored")—with some rusty stain from +iron; or perhaps the "color ferrigno" of the Inferno does not +involve even so much of orange, but ought to be translated +"iron grey."</p> + +<p>This being his idea of the color of rocks, we have next to observe +his conception of their substance. And I believe it will +be found that the character on which he fixes first in them is +<i>frangibility</i>—breakableness to bits, as opposed to wood, which +can be sawn or rent, but not shattered with a hammer, and to +metal, which is tough and malleable.</p> + +<p>Thus, at the top of the abyss of the seventh circle, appointed +for the "violent," or souls who had done evil by force, we are +told, first, that the edge of it was composed of "great broken +stones in a circle;" then, that the place was "Alpine;" and, +becoming hereupon attentive, in order to hear what an Alpine +place is like, we find that it was "like the place beyond Trent, +where the rock, either by earthquake, or failure of support, has +broken down to the plain, so that it gives any one at the top +some means of getting down to the bottom." This is not a +very elevated or enthusiastic description of an Alpine scene;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> +and it is far from mended by the following verses, in which we +are told that Dante "began to go down by this great <i>unloading</i> +of stones," and that they moved often under his feet by reason +of the new weight. The fact is that Dante, by many expressions +throughout the poem, shows himself to have been a notably +bad climber; and being fond of sitting in the sun, looking +at his fair Baptistery, or walking in a dignified manner on flat +pavement in a long robe, it puts him seriously out of his way +when he has to take to his hands and knees, or look to his feet; +so that the first strong impression made upon him by any Alpine +scene whatever, is, clearly, that it is bad walking. When +he is in a fright and hurry, and has a very steep place to go +down, Virgil has to carry him altogether, and is obliged to encourage +him, again and again, when they have a steep slope to +go up,—the first ascent of the purgatorial mountain. The +similes by which he illustrates the steepness of that ascent are +all taken from the Riviera of Genoa, now traversed by a good +carriage road under the name of the Corniche; but as this road +did not exist in Dante's time, and the steep precipices and promontories +were then probably traversed by footpaths, which, as +they necessarily passed in many places over crumbling and slippery +limestone, were doubtless not a little dangerous, and as in +the manner they commanded the bays of sea below, and lay exposed +to the full blaze of the south-eastern sun, they corresponded +precisely to the situation of the path by which he ascends +above the purgatorial sea, the image could not possibly have been +taken from a better source for the fully conveying his idea to the +reader: nor, by the way, is there reason to discredit, in <i>this</i> +place, his powers of climbing; for, with his usual accuracy, he +has taken the angle of the path for us, saying it was considerably +more than forty-five. Now a continuous mountain slope of +forty-five degrees is already quite unsafe either for ascent or descent, +except by zigzag paths; and a greater slope than this +could not be climbed, straightforward, but by help of crevices +or jags in the rock, and great physical exertion besides.</p> + +<p>§ 14. Throughout these passages, however, Dante's thoughts +are clearly fixed altogether on the question of mere accessibility +or inaccessibility. He does not show the smallest interest in the +rocks, except as things to be conquered; and his description of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span> +their appearance is utterly meagre, involving no other epithets +than "erto" (steep or upright), Inf. xix. 131., Purg. iii. 48. +&c.; "sconcio" (monstrous), Inf. xix. 131.; "stagliata" +(cut), Inf. xvii. 134.; "maligno" (malignant), Inf. vii. 108; +"duro" (hard), xx. 25.; with "large" and "broken" (rotto) in +various places. No idea of roundness, massiveness, or pleasant +form of any kind appears for a moment to enter his mind; +and the different names which are given to the rocks in various +places seem merely to refer to variations in size: thus a +"rocco" is a part of a "scoglio," Inf. xx. 25. and xxvi. 27.; a +"scheggio" (xxi. 69. and xxvi. 17.) is a less fragment yet; a +"petrone," or "sasso," is a large stone or boulder (Purg. iv. +101. 104.), and "pietra," a less stone,—both of these last +terms, especially "sasso," being used for any large mountainous +mass, as in Purg. xxi. 106.; and the vagueness of the word +"monte" itself, like that of the French "montagne," applicable +either to a hill on a post-road requiring the drag to be put +on,—or to the Mont Blanc, marks a peculiar carelessness in both +nations, at the time of the formation of their languages, as to +the sublimity of the higher hills; so that the effect produced on +an English ear by the word "mountain," signifying always a +mass of a certain large size, cannot be conveyed either in +French or Italian.</p> + +<p>§ 15. In all these modes of regarding rocks we find (rocks +being in themselves, as we shall see presently, by no means monstrous +or frightful things) exactly that inaccuracy in the mediæval +mind which we had been led to expect, in its bearings on +things contrary to the spirit of that symmetrical and perfect +humanity which had formed its ideal; and it is very curious to +observe how closely in the terms he uses, and the feelings they +indicate, Dante here agrees with Homer. For the word stagliata +(cut) corresponds very nearly to a favorite term of Homer's +respecting rocks "sculptured," used by him also of ships' sides; +and the frescoes and illuminations of the Middle Ages enable us +to ascertain exactly what this idea of "cut" rock was.</p> + +<p>§ 16. In Plate 10. I have assembled some examples, which +will give the reader a sufficient knowledge of mediæval rock-drawing, +by men whose names are known. They are chiefly +taken from engravings, with which the reader has it in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> +power to compare them,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> +and if, therefore, any injustice is +done to the original paintings the fault is not mine; but the +general impression conveyed is quite accurate, and it would not +have been worth while, where work is so deficient in first conception, +to lose time in insuring accuracy of facsimile. Some of +the crags may be taller here, or broader there, than in the original +paintings; but the character of the work is perfectly preserved, +and that is all with which we are at present concerned.</p> +<!--** figure numbers are almost invisible --> + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_10" id="PLATE_10"></a> + <a href="images/illus275b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus275w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 10" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 10. Geology of the Middle Ages. + </span> +</div> + +<p>Figs. 1. and 5. are by Ghirlandajo; 2. by Filippo Pesellino; +4. by Leonardo da Vinci; and 6. by Andrea del Castagno. All +these are indeed workmen of a much later period than Dante, +but the system of rock-drawing remains entirely unchanged +from Giotto's time to Ghirlandajo's;—is then altered only by +an introduction of stratification indicative of a little closer observance +of nature, and so remains until Titian's time. Fig 1. +is exactly representative of one of Giotto's rocks, though actually +by Ghirlandajo; and Fig. 2. is rather less skilful than Giotto's +ordinary work. Both these figures indicate precisely what +Homer and Dante meant by "cut" rocks. They had observed +the concave smoothness of certain rock fractures as eminently +distinctive of rock from earth, and use the term "cut" or +"sculptured" to distinguish the smooth surface from the +knotty or sandy one, having observed nothing more respecting +its real contours than is represented in Figs. 1. and 2., which +look as if they had been hewn out with an adze. Lorenzo Ghiberti +preserves the same type, even in his finest work.</p> + +<p>Fig. 3., from an interesting sixteenth century MS. in the +British Museum (Cotton, Augustus, <span class="smcap">A.</span> 5.), is characteristic of +the best later illuminators' work; and Fig. 5., from Ghirlandajo, +is pretty illustrative of Dante's idea of terraces on the purgatorial +mountain. It is the road by which the Magi descend +in his picture of their Adoration, in the Academy of Florence. +Of the other examples I shall have more to say in the chapter on +Precipices; meanwhile we have to return to the landscape of +the poem.</p> + +<p>§ 17. Inaccurate as this conception of rock was, it seems to +have been the only one which, in mediæval art had place as re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>presentative +of mountain scenery. To Dante, mountains are inconceivable +except as great broken stones or crags; all their +broad contours and undulations seem to have escaped his eye. +It is, indeed, with his usual undertone of symbolic meaning that +he describes the great broken stones, and the fall of the shattered +mountain, as the entrance to the circle appointed for the +punishment of the violent; meaning that the violent and cruel, +notwithstanding all their iron hardness of heart, have no true +strength, but, either by earthquake, or want of support, fall at +last into desolate ruin, naked, loose, and shaking under the +tread. But in no part of the poem do we find allusion to mountains +in any other than a stern light; nor the slightest evidence +that Dante cared to look at them. From that hill of San Miniato, +whose steps he knew so well, the eye commands, at the farther +extremity of the Val d'Arno, the whole purple range of the +mountains of Carrara, peaked and mighty, seen always against +the sunset light in silent outline, the chief forms that rule the +scene as twilight fades away. By this vision Dante seems to +have been wholly unmoved, and, but for Lucan's mention of +Aruns at Luna, would seemingly not have spoken of the Carrara +hills in the whole course of his poem: when he does allude to +them, he speaks of their white marble, and their command of +stars and sea, but has evidently no regard for the hills themselves. +There is not a single phrase or syllable throughout the +poem which indicates such a regard. Ugolino, in his dream, +seemed to himself to be in the mountains, "by cause of which +the Pisan cannot see Lucca;" and it is impossible to look up +from Pisa to that hoary slope without remembering the awe that +there is in the passage; nevertheless, it was as a hunting-ground +only that he remembered those hills. Adam of Brescia, +tormented with eternal thirst, remembers the hills of Romena, +but only for the sake of their sweet waters:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The rills that glitter down the grassy slopes</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of Casentino, making fresh and soft</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The banks whereby they glide to Arno's stream,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Stand ever in my view."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And, whenever hills are spoken of as having any influence on +character, the repugnance to them is still manifest; they are +always causes of rudeness or cruelty:</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"But that ungrateful and malignant race,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Who in old times came down from Fesole,</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>Ay, and still smack of their rough mountain flint</i>,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Will, for thy good deeds, show thee enmity.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Take heed thou cleanse thee of their ways."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>So again—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i3">"As one <i>mountain-bred</i>,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Rugged, and clownish, if some city's walls</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He chance to enter, round him stares agape."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 18. Finally, although the Carrara mountains are named as +having command of the stars and sea, the <i>Alps</i> are never specially +mentioned but in bad weather, or snow. On the sand of +the circle of the blasphemers—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i3">"Fell slowly wafting down</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow</span><br /> +<span class="i0">On Alpine summit, when the wind is hushed."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>So the Paduans have to defend their town and castles against inundation,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i3">"Ere the genial warmth be felt,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">On Chiarentana's top."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>The clouds of anger, in Purgatory, can only be figured to the +reader who has</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"On an Alpine height been ta'en by cloud,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Through which thou sawest no better than the mole</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Doth through opacous membrane."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And in approaching the second branch of Lethe, the seven +ladies pause,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i4">"Arriving at the verge</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of a dim umbrage hoar, such as is seen</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches oft</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To overbrow a bleak and Alpine cliff."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 19. Truly, it is unfair of Dante, that when he is going to +use snow for a lovely image, and speak of it as melting away +under heavenly sunshine, he must needs put it on the Apennines, +not on the Alps:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"As snow that lies</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> +<span class="i0">Amidst the living rafters, on the back</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of Italy, congealed, when drifted high</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And closely piled by rough Sclavonian blasts,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Breathe but the land whereon no shadow falls,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And straightway melting, it distils away,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like a fire-washed taper; thus was I,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Without a sigh, or tear, consumed in heart."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>The reader will thank me for reminding him, though out of +its proper order, of the exquisite passage of Scott which we have +to compare with this:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"As snow upon the mountain's breast</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Slides from the rock that gave it rest,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Sweet Ellen glided from her stay,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And at the monarch's feet she lay."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Examine the context of this last passage, and its beauty is +quite beyond praise; but note the northern love of rocks in the +very first words I have to quote from Scott, "The rocks that +gave it rest." Dante could not have thought of his "cut +rocks" as giving rest even to snow. He must put it on the +pine branches, if it is to be at peace.</p> + +<p>§ 20. There is only one more point to be noticed in the Dantesque +landscape; namely, the feeling entertained by the poet +towards the sky. And the love of mountains is so closely connected +with the love of clouds, the sublimity of both depending +much on their association, that having found Dante regardless +of the Carrara mountains as seen from San Miniato, we may +well expect to find him equally regardless of the clouds in which +the sun sank behind them. Accordingly, we find that his only +pleasure in the sky depends on its "white clearness,"—that +turning into "bianca aspette di celestro" which is so peculiarly +characteristic of fine days in Italy. His pieces of pure pale +light are always exquisite. In the dawn on the purgatorial +mountain, first, in its pale white, he sees the "tremola della +marina"—trembling of the sea; then it becomes vermilion; +and at last, near sunrise, orange. These are precisely the +changes of a calm and perfect dawn. The scenery of Paradise +begins with "Day added to day," the light of the sun so flooding +the heavens, that "never rain nor river made lake so wide;" +and throughout the Paradise all the beauty depends on spheres +of light, or stars, never on clouds. But the pit of the Inferno<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> +is at first sight obscure, deep, and so <i>cloudy</i> that at its bottom +nothing could be seen. When Dante and Virgil reach the +marsh in which the souls of those who have been angry and sad +in their lives are for ever plunged, they find it covered with +thick fog; and the condemned souls say to them,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i5">"We once were sad,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In the <i>sweet air, made gladsome by the sun</i>.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Now in these murky settlings are we sad."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Even the angel crossing the marsh to help them is annoyed by +this bitter marsh smoke, "fummo acerbo," and continually +sweeps it with his hand from before his face.</p> + +<p>Anger, on the purgatorial mountain, is in like manner +imaged, because of its blindness and wildness, by the Alpine +clouds. As they emerge from its mist they see the white light +radiated through the fading folds of it; and, except this appointed +cloud, no other can touch the mountain of purification.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"Tempest none, shower, hail, or snow,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Hoar-frost, or dewy moistness, higher falls,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Than that brief scale of threefold steps. Thick clouds,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Nor scudding rack, are ever seen, swift glance</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Ne'er lightens, nor Thaumantian iris gleams."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Dwell for a little while on this intense love of Dante for +light,—taught, as he is at last by Beatrice, to gaze on the sun +itself like an eagle,—and endeavor to enter into his equally intense +detestation of all mist, rack of cloud, or dimness of rain; +and then consider with what kind of temper he would have regarded +a landscape of Copley Fielding's or passed a day in the +Highlands. He has, in fact, assigned to the souls of the gluttonous +no other punishment in the Inferno than perpetuity of +Highland weather:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">"Showers</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Ceaseless, accursed, heavy and cold, unchanged</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For ever, both in kind and in degree,—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Large hail, discolored water, sleety flaw,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Through the dim midnight air streamed down amain."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 21. However, in this immitigable dislike of clouds, Dante +goes somewhat beyond the general temper of his age. For +although the calm sky was alone loved, and storm and rain were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> +dreaded by all men, yet the white horizontal clouds of serene +summer were regarded with great affection by all early painters, +and considered as one of the accompaniments of the manifestation +of spiritual power; sometimes, for theological reasons +which we shall soon have to examine, being received, even without +any other sign, as the types of blessing or Divine acceptance: +and in almost every representation of the heavenly paradise, +these level clouds are set by the early painters for its floor, +or for thrones of its angels; whereas Dante retains steadily, +through circle after circle, his cloudless thought, and concludes +his painting of heaven, as he began it upon the purgatorial +mountain, with the image of shadowless morning:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"I raised my eyes, and as at morn is seen</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The horizon's eastern quarter to excel,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">So likewise, that pacific Oriflamb</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Glowed in the midmost, and toward every part,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With like gradation paled away its flame."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>But the best way of regarding this feeling of Dante's is as +the ultimate and most intense expression of the love of light, +color, and clearness, which, as we saw above, distinguished the +mediæval from the Greek on one side, and, as we shall presently +see, distinguished him from the modern on the other. For +it is evident that precisely in the degree in which the Greek was +agriculturally inclined, in that degree the sight of clouds would +become to him more acceptable than to the mediæval knight, +who only looked for the fine afternoons in which he might +gather the flowers in his garden, and in no wise shared or imagined +the previous anxieties of his gardener. Thus, when we +find Ulysses comforted about Ithaca, by being told it had +"plenty of rain," and the maids of Colonos boasting of their +country for the same reason, we may be sure that they had some +regard for clouds; and accordingly, except Aristophanes, of +whom more presently, all the Greek poets speak fondly of the +clouds, and consider them the fitting resting-places of the gods; +including in their idea of clouds not merely the thin clear cirrus, +but the rolling and changing volume of the thunder-cloud; +nor even these only, but also the dusty whirlwind cloud of the +earth, as in that noble chapter of Herodotus which tells us of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> +the cloud, full of mystic voices, that rose out of the dust of +Eleusis, and went down to Salamis. Clouds and rain were of +course regarded with a like gratitude by the eastern and southern +nations—Jews and Egyptians; and it is only among the +northern mediævals, with whom fine weather was rarely so prolonged +as to occasion painful drought, or dangerous famine, and +over whom the clouds broke coldly and fiercely when they came, +that the love of serene light assumes its intense character, and +the fear of tempest is gloomiest; so that the powers of the +clouds which to the Greek foretold his conquest at Salamis, and +with whom he fought in alliance, side by side with their lightnings, +under the crest of Parnassus, seemed, in the heart of the +Middle Ages, to be only under the dominion of the spirit of +evil. I have reserved, for our last example of the landscape of +Dante, the passage in which this conviction is expressed; a passage +not less notable for its close description of what the writer +feared and disliked, than for the ineffable tenderness, in which +Dante is always raised as much above all other poets, as in softness +the rose above all other flowers. It is the spirit of Buonconte +da Montefeltro who speaks:</p> +<!-- ** may need attention on the ellip. --> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Then said another: 'Ah, so may thy wish,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That takes thee o'er the mountain, be fulfilled,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As thou shalt graciously give aid to mine!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of Montefeltro I; Buonconte I:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Giovanna, nor none else, have care for me;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Sorrowing with these I therefore go.' I thus:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">From Campaldino's field what force or chance</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Drew thee, that ne'er thy sepulchre was known?'</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Oh!' answered he, 'at Casentino's foot</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A stream there courseth, named Archiano, sprung</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In Apennine, above the hermit's seat.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">E'en where its name is cancelled, there came I,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Pierced in the throat, fleeing away on foot,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And bloodying the plain. Here sight and speech</span><br /> +<span class="i0">failed me; and finishing with Mary's name,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">...</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>That evil will, which in his intellect</i></span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>Still follows evil, came;</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">... the valley, soon</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As day was spent, <i>he covered o'er with cloud</i>.</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> +<span class="i0">From Pratomagno to the mountain range,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And stretched the sky above; so that the air,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Impregnate, changed to water. Fell the rain;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And to the fosses came all that the land</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Contained not; and as mightiest streams are wont.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To the great river, with such headlong sweep,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Rushed, that nought stayed its course. My stiffened frame,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Laid at his mouth, the fell Archiano found,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And dashed it into Arno; from my breast</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Loosening the cross, that of myself I made</span><br /> +<span class="i0">When overcome with pain. He hurled me on,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Along the banks and bottom of his course;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then in his muddy spoils encircling wrapt.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Observe, Buonconte, as he dies, crosses his arms over his +breast, pressing them together, partly in his pain, partly in +prayer. His body thus lies by the river shore, as on a sepulchral +monument, the arms folded into a cross. The rage of the river, +under the influence of the evil demon, <i>unlooses this cross</i>, dashing +the body supinely away, and rolling it over and over by bank +and bottom. Nothing can be truer to the action of a stream in +fury than these lines. And how desolate is it all! The lonely +flight,—the grisly wound, "pierced in the throat,"—the death, +without help or pity,—only the name of Mary on the lips,-and +the cross folded over the heart. Then the rage of the demon +and the river,—the noteless grave,—and, at last, even she who +had been most trusted forgetting him,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Giovanna, none else have care for me."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>There is, I feel assured, nothing else like it in all the range of +poetry; a faint and harsh echo of it, only, exists in one Scottish +ballad, "The Twa Corbies."</p> + +<p>Here, then, I think, we may close our inquiry into the +nature of the mediæval landscape; not but that many details +yet require to be worked out; but these will be best observed by +recurrence to them, for comparison with similar details in modern +landscape,—our principal purpose, the getting at the governing +tones and temper of conception, being, I believe, now sufficiently +accomplished. And I think that our subject may be +best pursued by immediately turning from the mediæval to the +perfectly modern landscape; for although I have much to say +respecting the transitional state of mind exhibited in the six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>teenth +and seventeenth centuries, I believe the transitions may +be more easily explained after we have got clear sight of the extremes; +and that by getting perfect and separate hold of the +three great phases of art,—Greek, mediæval, and modern,—we +shall be enabled to trace, with least chance of error, those curious +vacillations which brought us to the modern temper while +vainly endeavoring to resuscitate the Greek. I propose, therefore, +in the next chapter, to examine the spirit of modern landscape, +as seen generally in modern painting, and especially in +the poetry of Scott.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> +It is an unpublished plate. I know only two impressions of it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> +(Cayley.) "Tutto di pietra, e di color ferrigno"—Inf. xviii. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> +"Maligne piagge grige."—Inf. vii. 108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> +It is in these subtle purples that even the more elaborate passages of +the earlier drawings are worked; as, for instance, the Highland streams, +spoken of in Pre-Raphaelitism. Also, Turner could, by opposition, get +what color he liked out of a brown. I have seen cases in which he had +made it stand for the purest <i>rose</i> light.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> +The references are in Appendix I.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<h3>OF MODERN LANDSCAPE.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. We turn our eyes, therefore, as boldly and as quickly as +may be, from these serene fields and skies of mediæval art, to +the most characteristic examples of modern landscape. And, I +believe, the first thing that will strike us, or that ought to strike +us, is their <i>cloudiness</i>.</p> + +<p>Out of perfect light and motionless air, we find ourselves on +a sudden brought under sombre skies, and into drifting wind; +and, with fickle sunbeams flashing in our face, or utterly +drenched with sweep of rain, we are reduced to track the +changes of the shadows on the grass, or watch the rents of twilight +through angry cloud. And we find that whereas all the +pleasure of the mediæval was in <i>stability</i>, <i>definiteness</i>, and <i>luminousness</i>, +we are expected to rejoice in darkness, and triumph in +mutability; to lay the foundation of happiness in things which +momentarily change or fade; and to expect the utmost satisfaction +and instruction from what is impossible to arrest, and difficult +to comprehend.</p> + +<p>§ 2. We find, however, together with this general delight in +breeze and darkness, much attention to the real form of clouds, +and careful drawing of effects of mist: so that the appearance +of objects, as seen through it, becomes a subject of science with +us: and the faithful representation of that appearance is made +of primal importance, under the name of aerial perspective. +The aspects of sunset and sunrise, with all their attendant phenomena +of cloud and mist, are watchfully delineated; and in +ordinary daylight landscape, the sky is considered of so much +importance, that a principal mass of foliage, or a whole foreground, +is unhesitatingly thrown into shade merely to bring out +the form of a white cloud. So that, if a general and characteristic +name were needed for modern landscape art, none better +could be invented than "the service of clouds."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> + +<p>§ 3. And this name would, unfortunately, be characteristic +of our art in more ways than one. In the last chapter, I said +that all the Greeks spoke kindly about the clouds, except Aristophanes; +and he, I am sorry to say (since his report is so +unfavorable), is the only Greek who had studied them attentively. +He tells us, first, that they are "great goddesses to idle +men;" then, that they are "mistresses of disputings, and logic, +and monstrosities, and noisy chattering;" declares that whoso +believes in their divinity must first disbelieve in Jupiter, and +place supreme power in the hands of an unknown god "Whirlwind;" +and, finally, he displays their influence over the mind +of one of their disciples, in his sudden desire "to speak ingeniously +concerning smoke."</p> + +<p>There is, I fear, an infinite truth in this Aristophanic judgment +applied to our modern cloud-worship. Assuredly, much +of the love of mystery in our romances, our poetry, our art, and, +above all, in our metaphysics, must come under that definition +so long ago given by the great Greek, "speaking ingeniously +concerning smoke." And much of the instinct, which, partially +developed in painting, may be now seen throughout every +mode of exertion of mind,—the easily encouraged doubt, easily +excited curiosity, habitual agitation, and delight in the changing +and the marvellous, as opposed to the old quiet serenity of social +custom and religious faith,—is again deeply defined in those +few words, the "dethroning of Jupiter," the "coronation of +the whirlwind."</p> + +<p>§ 4. Nor of whirlwind merely, but also of darkness or ignorance +respecting all stable facts. That darkening of the foreground +to bring out the white cloud, is, in one aspect of it, a +type of the subjection of all plain and positive fact, to what is +uncertain and unintelligible. And as we examine farther into +the matter, we shall be struck by another great difference +between the old and modern landscape, namely, that in the old +no one ever thought of drawing anything but as well <i>as he +could</i>. That might not be <i>well</i>, as we have seen in the case of +rocks; but it was as well as he <i>could</i>, and always distinctly. +Leaf, or stone, or animal, or man, it was equally drawn with +care and clearness, and its essential characters shown. If it +was an oak tree, the acorns were drawn; if a flint pebble, its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> +veins were drawn; if an arm of the sea, its fish were drawn; if +a group of figures, their faces and dresses were drawn—to the +very last subtlety of expression and end of thread that could be +got into the space, far off or near. But now our ingenuity is +all "concerning smoke." Nothing is truly drawn but that; all +else is vague, slight, imperfect; got with as little pains as possible. +You examine your closest foreground, and find no +leaves; your largest oak, and find no acorns; your human +figure, and find a spot of red paint instead of a face; and in all +this, again and again, the Aristophanic words come true, and +the clouds seem to be "great goddesses to idle men."</p> + +<p>§ 5. The next thing that will strike us, after this love of +clouds, is the love of liberty. Whereas the mediæval was +always shutting himself into castles, and behind fosses, and +drawing brickwork neatly, and beds of flowers primly, our +painters delight in getting to the open fields and moors; abhor +all hedges and moats; never paint anything but free-growing +trees, and rivers gliding "at their own sweet will;" eschew formality +down to the smallest detail; break and displace the +brickwork which the mediæval would have carefully cemented; +leave unpruned the thickets he would have delicately trimmed; +and, carrying the love of liberty even to license, and the love of +wildness even to ruin, take pleasure at last in every aspect of +age and desolation which emancipates the objects of nature from +the government of men;—on the castle wall displacing its tapestry +with ivy, and spreading, through the garden, the bramble +for the rose.</p> + +<p>§ 6. Connected with this love of liberty we find a singular +manifestation of love of mountains, and see our painters traversing +the wildest places of the globe in order to obtain subjects +with craggy foregrounds and purple distances. Some few of +them remain content with pollards and flat land; but these are +always men of third-rate order; and the leading masters, while +they do not reject the beauty of the low grounds, reserve their +highest powers to paint Alpine peaks or Italian promontories. +And it is eminently noticeable, also, that this pleasure in the +mountains is never mingled with fear, or tempered by a spirit of +meditation, as with the mediæval; but it is always free and +fearless, brightly exhilarating, and wholly unreflective; so that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> +the painter feels that his mountain foreground may be more +consistently animated by a sportsman than a hermit; and our +modern society in general goes to the mountains, not to fast, +but to feast, and leaves their glaciers covered with chicken-bones +and egg-shells.</p> + +<p>§ 7. Connected with this want of any sense of solemnity in +mountain scenery, is a general profanity of temper in regarding +all the rest of nature; that is to say, a total absence of faith in +the presence of any deity therein. Whereas the mediæval never +painted a cloud, but with the purpose of placing an angel in it; +and a Greek never entered a wood without expecting to meet a +god in it; <i>we</i> should think the appearance of an angel in the +cloud wholly unnatural, and should be seriously surprised by +meeting a god anywhere. Our chief ideas about the wood are +connected with poaching. We have no belief that the clouds +contain more than so many inches of rain or hail, and from our +ponds and ditches expect nothing more divine than ducks and +watercresses.</p> + +<p>§ 8. Finally: connected with this profanity of temper is a +strong tendency to deny the sacred element of color, and make +our boast in blackness. For though occasionally glaring, or +violent, modern color is on the whole eminently sombre, tending +continually to grey or brown, and by many of our best +painters consistently falsified, with a confessed pride in what +they call chaste or subdued tints; so that, whereas a mediæval +paints his sky bright blue, and his foreground bright green, +gilds the towers of his castles, and clothes his figures with purple +and white, we paint our sky grey, our foreground black, and +our foliage brown, and think that enough is sacrificed to the +sun in admitting the dangerous brightness of a scarlet cloak or +a blue jacket.</p> + +<p>§ 9. These, I believe, are the principal points which would +strike us instantly, if we were to be brought suddenly into an +exhibition of modern landscapes out of a room filled with mediæval +work. It is evident that there are both evil and good in +this change; but how much evil, or how much good, we can +only estimate by considering, as in the former divisions of our +inquiry, what are the real roots of the habits of mind which +have caused them.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> + +<div class="sidenote">Distinctive characters of the modern mind:</div> + +<p>And first, it is evident that the title "Dark Ages," given to +the mediæval centuries, is, respecting art, wholly inapplicable. +They were, on the contrary, the bright ages; +ours are the dark ones. I do not mean metaphysically, +but literally. They were the ages of gold: +ours are the ages of umber.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">1. Despondency arising from faithlessness.</div> + +<p>This is partly mere mistake in us; we build brown brick +walls, and wear brown coats, because we have been blunderingly +taught to do so, and go on doing so mechanically. There is, +however, also some cause for the change in our +own tempers. On the whole, these are much <i>sadder</i> +ages than the early ones; not sadder in a +noble and deep way, but in a dim, wearied way,—the way of +ennui, and jaded intellect, and uncomfortableness of soul and +body. The Middle Ages had their wars and agonies, but also +intense delights. Their gold was dashed with blood; but ours +is sprinkled with dust. Their life was interwoven with white +and purple; ours is one seamless stuff of brown. Not that +we are without apparent festivity, but festivity more or less +forced, mistaken, embittered, incomplete—not of the heart. +How wonderfully, since Shakspere's time, have we lost the +power of laughing at bad jests! The very finish of our wit +belies our gaiety.</p> + +<p>§ 10. The profoundest reason of this darkness of heart is, I +believe, our want of faith. There never yet was a generation +of men (savage or civilized) who, taken as a body, so wofully +fulfilled the words, "having no hope, and without God in the +world," as the present civilized European race. A Red Indian +or Otaheitan savage has more sense of a Divine existence round +him, or government over him, than the plurality of refined Londoners +and Parisians; and those among us who may in some +sense be said to believe, are divided almost without exception +into two broad classes, Romanist and Puritan; who, but for the +interference of the unbelieving portions of society, would, +either of them, reduce the other sect as speedily as possible to +ashes; the Romanist having always done so whenever he could, +from the beginning of their separation, and the Puritan at this +time holding himself in complacent expectation of the destruction +of Rome by volcanic fire. Such division as this between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> +persons nominally of one religion, that is to say, believing in the +same God, and the same Revelation, cannot but become a stumbling-block +of the gravest kind to all thoughtful and far-sighted +men,—a stumbling-block which they can only surmount under +the most favorable circumstances of early education. Hence, +nearly all our powerful men in this age of the world are unbelievers; +the best of them in doubt and misery; the worst in +reckless defiance; the plurality in plodding hesitation, doing, as +well as they can, what practical work lies ready to their hands. +Most of our scientific men are in this last class; our popular +authors either set themselves definitely against all religious +form, pleading for simple truth and benevolence (Thackeray, +Dickens), or give themselves up to bitter and fruitless statement +of facts (De Balzac), or surface-painting (Scott), or careless +blasphemy, sad or smiling (Byron, Beranger). Our earnest +poets, and deepest thinkers, are doubtful and indignant (Tennyson, +Carlyle); one or two, anchored, indeed, but anxious, or +weeping (Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning); and of these two, the +first is not so sure of his anchor, but that now and then it +drags with him, even to make him cry out,—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i6">"Great God, I had rather be</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A Pagan suckled in some creed outworn:</span><br /> +<span class="i1">So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>In politics, religion is now a name; in art, a hypocrisy or +affectation. Over German religious pictures the inscription, +"See how Pious I am," can be read at a glance by any clear-sighted +person. Over French and English religious pictures, +the inscription, "See how Impious I am," is equally legible. +All sincere and modest art is, among us, profane.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 11. 2. Levity from the same cause.</div> + +<p>This faithlessness operates among us according to our tempers, +producing either sadness or levity, and being the ultimate +root alike of our discontents and of our wantonnesses. It is +marvellous how full of contradiction it makes us; +we are first dull, and seek for wild and lonely +places because we have no heart for the garden;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span> +presently we recover our spirits, and build an assembly room +among the mountains, because we have no reverence for the +desert. I do not know if there be game on Sinai, but I am +always expecting to hear of some one's shooting over it.</p> + +<p>§ 12. There is, however, another, and a more innocent root +of our delight in wild scenery.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">3. Reactionary love of inanimate beauty.</div> + +<p>All the Renaissance principles of art tended, as I have before +often explained, to the setting Beauty above Truth, and +seeking for it always at the expense of truth. And the proper +punishment of such pursuit—the punishment +which all the laws of the universe rendered inevitable—was, +that those who thus pursued beauty +should wholly lose sight of beauty. All the thinkers of the age, +as we saw previously, declared that it did not exist. The age +seconded their efforts, and banished beauty, so far as human +effort could succeed in doing so, from the face of the earth, and +the form of man. To powder the hair, to patch the cheek, to +hoop the body, to buckle the foot, were all part and parcel of the +same system which reduced streets to brick walls, and pictures +to brown stains. One desert of Ugliness was extended before the +eyes of mankind; and their pursuit of the beautiful, so recklessly +continued, received unexpected consummation in high-heeled +shoes and periwigs,—Gower Street, and Gaspar Poussin.</p> + +<p>§ 13. Reaction from this state was inevitable, if any true +life was left in the races of mankind; and, accordingly, though +still forced, by rule and fashion, to the producing and wearing +all that is ugly, men steal out, half-ashamed of themselves for +doing so, to the fields and mountains; and, finding among +these the color, and liberty, and variety, and power, which are +for ever grateful to them, delight in these to an extent never before +known; rejoice in all the wildest shattering of the mountain +side, as an opposition to Gower Street; gaze in a rapt manner +at sunsets and sunrises, to see there the blue, and gold, and +purple, which glow for them no longer on knight's armor or +temple porch; and gather with care out of the fields, into their +blotted herbaria, the flowers which the five orders of architecture +have banished from their doors and casements.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 14. 4. Disdain of beauty in man.</div> + +<p>The absence of care for personal beauty, which is another +great characteristic of the age, adds to this feeling in a twofold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> +way: first, by turning all reverent thoughts away from human +nature; and making us think of men as ridiculous +or ugly creatures, getting through the world as +well as they can, and spoiling it in doing so; not ruling it in +a kingly way and crowning all its loveliness. In the Middle +Ages hardly anything but vice could be caricatured, because +virtue was always visibly and personally noble; now virtue itself +is apt to inhabit such poor human bodies, that no aspect of it is +invulnerable to jest; and for all fairness we have to seek to the +flowers, for all sublimity, to the hills.</p> + +<p>The same want of care operates, in another way, by lowering +the standard of health, increasing the susceptibility to nervous +or sentimental impressions, and thus adding to the other +powers of nature over us whatever charm may be felt in her fostering +the melancholy fancies of brooding idleness.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 15. 5. Romantic imagination of the past.</div> + +<p>It is not, however, only to existing inanimate nature that +our want of beauty in person and dress has driven us. The imagination +of it, as it was seen in our ancestors, haunts us continually; +and while we yield to the present fashions, +or act in accordance with the dullest modern principles +of economy and utility, we look fondly back +to the manners of the ages of chivalry, and delight in painting, +to the fancy, the fashions we pretend to despise, and the splendors +we think it wise to abandon. The furniture and personages +of our romance are sought, when the writer desires to please most +easily, in the centuries which we profess to have surpassed in +everything; the art which takes us into the present times is +considered as both daring and degraded; and while the +weakest words please us, and are regarded as poetry, which +recall the manners of our forefathers, or of strangers, it is only +as familiar and vulgar that we accept the description of our +own.</p> + +<p>In this we are wholly different from all the races that preceded +us. All other nations have regarded their ancestors with +reverence as saints or heroes; but have nevertheless thought +their own deeds and ways of life the fitting subjects for their +arts of painting or of verse. We, on the contrary, regard our +ancestors as foolish and wicked, but yet find our chief artistic +pleasures in descriptions of their ways of life.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> + +<p>The Greeks and mediævals honored, but did not imitate, +their forefathers; we imitate, but do not honor.</p> + +<div class="sidenote">§ 16. 6. Interest in science.</div> + +<div class="sidenote">7. Fear of war.</div> + +<p>With this romantic love of beauty, forced to seek in history, +and in external nature, the satisfaction it cannot find in ordinary +life, we mingle a more rational passion, the due and just +result of newly awakened powers of attention. +Whatever may first lead us to the scrutiny of +natural objects, that scrutiny never fails of its reward. Unquestionably +they are intended to be regarded by us with both reverence +and delight; and every hour we give to them renders their +beauty more apparent, and their interest more engrossing. Natural +science—which can hardly be considered to have existed +before modern times—rendering our knowledge fruitful in accumulation +and exquisite in accuracy, has acted for good or +evil, according to the temper of the mind which received it; +and though it has hardened the faithlessness of the dull and +proud, has shown new grounds for reverence to +hearts which were thoughtful and humble. The +neglect of the art of war, while it has somewhat weakened and +deformed the body,<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> +has given us leisure and opportunity for +studies to which, before, time and space were equally wanting; +lives which once were early wasted on the battle field are now +passed usefully in the study; nations which exhausted themselves +in annual warfare now dispute with each other the discovery +of new planets; and the serene philosopher dissects the +plants, and analyzes the dust, of lands which were of old only +traversed by the knight in hasty march, or by the borderer in +heedless rapine.</p> + +<p>§ 17. The elements of progress and decline being thus +strangely mingled in the modern mind, we might beforehand +anticipate that one of the notable characters of our art would be +its inconsistency; that efforts would be made in every direction, +and arrested by every conceivable cause and manner of failure; +that in all we did, it would become next to impossible to distin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span>guish +accurately the grounds for praise or for regret; that all +previous canons of practice and methods of thought would be +gradually overthrown, and criticism continually defied by successes +which no one had expected, and sentiments which no one +could define.</p> + +<p>§ 18. Accordingly, while, in our inquiries into Greek and +mediæval art, I was able to describe, in general terms, what all +men did or felt, I find now many characters in many men; +some, it seems to me, founded on the inferior and evanescent +principles of modernism, on its recklessness, impatience, or +faithlessness; others founded on its science, its new affection +for nature, its love of openness and liberty. And among all +these characters, good or evil, I see that some, remaining to us +from old or transitional periods, do not properly belong to us, +and will soon fade away; and others, though not yet distinctly +developed, are yet properly our own, and likely to grow forward +into greater strength.</p> + +<p>For instance: our reprobation of bright color is, I think, +for the most part, mere affectation, and must soon be done away +with. Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety, will indeed always express +themselves through art in brown and grey, as in Rembrandt, +Caravaggio, and Salvator; but we are not wholly vulgar, +dull, or impious; nor, as moderns, are we necessarily +obliged to continue so in any wise. Our greatest men, whether +sad or gay, still delight, like the great men of all ages, in brilliant +hues. The coloring of Scott and Byron is full and pure; +that of Keats and Tennyson rich even to excess. Our practical +failures in coloring are merely the necessary consequences of +our prolonged want of practice during the periods of Renaissance +affectation and ignorance; and the only durable difference +between old and modern coloring, is the acceptance of certain +hues, by the modern, which please him by expressing that +melancholy peculiar to his more reflective or sentimental character, +and the greater variety of them necessary to express his +greater science.</p> + +<p>§ 19. Again: if we ever become wise enough to dress consistently +and gracefully, to make health a principal object in education, +and to render our streets beautiful with art, the external +charm of past history will in great measure disappear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> +There is no essential reason, because we live after the fatal seventeenth +century, that we should never again be able to confess +interest in sculpture, or see brightness in embroidery; nor, because +now we choose to make the night deadly with our pleasures, +and the day with our labors, prolonging the dance till +dawn, and the toil to twilight, that we should never again learn +how rightly to employ the sacred trusts of strength, beauty, and +time. Whatever external charm attaches itself to the past, +would then be seen in proper subordination to the brightness of +present life; and the elements of romance would exist, in the +earlier ages, only in the attraction which must generally belong +to whatever is unfamiliar; in the reverence which a noble nation +always pays to its ancestors; and in the enchanted light +which races, like individuals, must perceive in looking back to +the days of their childhood.</p> + +<p>§ 20. Again: the peculiar levity with which natural scenery +is regarded by a large number of modern minds cannot be considered +as entirely characteristic of the age, inasmuch as it +never can belong to its greatest intellects. Men of any high +mental power must be serious, whether in ancient or modern +days: a certain degree of reverence for fair scenery is found in +all our great writers without exception,—even the one who has +made us laugh oftenest, taking us to the valley of Chamouni, +and to the sea beach, there to give peace after suffering, and +change revenge into pity.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> +It is only the dull, the uneducated, +or the worldly, whom it is painful to meet on the hill sides; +and levity, as a ruling character, cannot be ascribed to the whole +nation, but only to its holiday-making apprentices, and its +House of Commons.</p> + +<p>§ 21. We need not, therefore, expect to find any single poet +or painter representing the entire group of powers, weaknesses, +and inconsistent instincts which govern or confuse our modern +life. But we may expect that in the man who seems to be +given by Providence as the type of the age (as Homer and Dante +were given, as the types of classical and mediæval mind), we +shall find whatever is fruitful and substantial to be completely +present, together with those of our weaknesses, which are in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>deed +nationally characteristic, and compatible with general +greatness of mind; just as the weak love of fences, and dislike +of mountains, were found compatible with Dante's greatness in +other respects.</p> + +<p>§ 22. Farther: as the admiration of mankind is found, in +our times, to have in great part passed from men to mountains, +and from human emotion to natural phenomena, we may anticipate +that the great strength of art will also be warped in this +direction; with this notable result for us, that whereas the +greatest painters or painter of classical and mediæval periods, +being wholly devoted to the representation of humanity, furnished +us with but little to examine in landscape, the greatest +painters or painter of modern times will in all probability be devoted +to landscape principally; and farther, because in representing +human emotion words surpass painting, but in representing +natural scenery painting surpasses words, we may anticipate +also that the painter and poet (for convenience' sake I +here use the words in opposition) will somewhat change their relations +of rank in illustrating the mind of the age; that the +painter will become of more importance, the poet of less; and +that the relations between the men who are the types and firstfruits +of the age in word and work,—namely, Scott and Turner,—will +be, in many curious respects, different from those between +Homer and Phidias, or Dante and Giotto.</p> + +<p>It is this relation which we have now to examine.</p> + +<p>§ 23. And, first, I think it probable that many readers may +be surprised at my calling Scott the great representative of the +mind of the age in literature. Those who can perceive the intense +penetrative depth of Wordsworth, and the exquisite finish +and melodious power of Tennyson, may be offended at my placing +in higher rank that poetry of careless glance, and reckless +rhyme, in which Scott poured out the fancies of his youth; and +those who are familiar with the subtle analysis of the French +novelists, or who have in any wise submitted themselves to the +influence of German philosophy, may be equally indignant at +my ascribing a principality to Scott among the literary men of +Europe, in an age which has produced De Balzac and Goethe.</p> + +<p>So also in painting, those who are acquainted with the sentimental +efforts made at present by the German religious and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>torical +schools, and with the disciplined power and learning of +the French, will think it beyond all explanation absurd to call +a painter of light water-color landscapes, eighteen inches by +twelve, the first representative of the arts of the age. I can +only crave the reader's patience, and his due consideration of +the following reasons for my doing so, together with those advanced +in the farther course of the work.</p> + +<p>§ 24. I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. +I do not mean, by humility, doubt of his own power, +or hesitation in speaking of his opinions; but a right understanding +of the relation between what <i>he</i> can do and say, and +the rest of the world's sayings and doings. All great men not +only know their business, but usually know that they know it; +and are not only right in their main opinions, but they usually +know that they are right in them; only, they do not think +much of themselves on that account. Arnolfo knows he can +build a good dome at Florence; Albert Durer writes calmly +to one who had found fault with his work, "It cannot be better +done;" Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out a problem +or two that would have puzzled anybody else;—only they +do not expect their fellow-men therefore to fall down and worship +them; they have a curious under-sense of powerlessness, +feeling that the greatness is not <i>in</i> them, but <i>through</i> them; +that they could not do or be anything else than God-made +them. And they see something divine and God-made in every +other man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly +merciful.</p> + +<p>§ 25. Now, I find among the men of the present age, as far as +I know them, this character in Scott and Turner preeminently; +I am not sure if it is not in them alone. I do not find Scott +talking about the dignity of literature, nor Turner about the +dignity of painting. They do their work, feeling that they +cannot well help it; the story must be told, and the effect put +down; and if people like it, well and good; and if not, the +world will not be much the worse.</p> + +<p>I believe a very different impression of their estimate of +themselves and their doings will be received by any one who +reads the conversations of Wordsworth or Goethe. The <i>slightest</i> +manifestation of jealousy or self-complacency is enough to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span> +mark a second-rate character of the intellect; and I fear that +especially in Goethe, such manifestations are neither few nor +slight.</p> + +<p>§ 26. Connected with this general humility is the total absence +of affectation in these men,—that is to say, of any assumption +of manner or behavior in their work, in order to attract +attention. Not but that they are mannerists both. Scott's +verse is strongly mannered, and Turner's oil painting; but the +manner of it is necessitated by the feelings of the men, entirely +natural to both, never exaggerated for the sake of show. I +hardly know any other literary or pictorial work of the day +which is not in some degree affected. I am afraid Wordsworth +was often affected in his simplicity, and De Balzac in his finish. +Many fine French writers are affected in their reserve, and full +of stage tricks in placing of sentences. It is lucky if in German +writers we ever find so much as a sentence without affectation. +I know no painters without it, except one or two Pre-Raphaelites +(chiefly Holman Hunt), and some simple water-color +painters, as William Hunt, William Turner of Oxford, +and the late George Robson; but these last have no invention, +and therefore by our fourth canon, Chap. III. sec. 21., are excluded +from the first rank of artists; and of the Pre-Raphaelites +there is here no question, as they in no wise represent the +modern school.</p> + +<p>§ 27. Again: another very important, though not infallible, +test of greatness is, as we have often said, the appearance of +Ease with which the thing is done. It may be that, as with +Dante and Leonardo, the finish given to the work effaces the +evidence of ease; but where the ease is manifest, as in Scott, +Turner, and Tintoret; and the thing done is very noble, it is a +strong reason for placing the men above those who confessedly +work with great pains. Scott writing his chapter or two before +breakfast—not retouching, Turner finishing a whole drawing in +a forenoon before he goes out to shoot (providing always the +chapter and drawing be good), are instantly to be set above men +who confessedly have spent the day over the work, and think +the hours well spent if it has been a little mended between +sunrise and sunset. Indeed, it is no use for men to think to appear +great by working fast, dashing, and scrawling; the thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> +they do must be good and great, cost what time it may; but if +it <i>be</i> so, and they have honestly and unaffectedly done it with +<i>no effort</i>, it is probably a greater and better thing than the result +of the hardest efforts of others.</p> + +<p>§ 28. Then, as touching the kind of work done by these +two men, the more I think of it I find this conclusion more +impressed upon me,—that the greatest thing a human soul ever +does in this world is to <i>see</i> something, and tell what it <i>saw</i> in a +plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, +but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is +poetry, prophecy, and religion,—all in one.</p> + +<p>Therefore, finding the world of Literature more or less +divided into Thinkers and Seers, I believe we shall find also that +the Seers are wholly the greater race of the two. A true Thinker, +who has practical purpose in his thinking, and is sincere, as +Plato, or Carlyle, or Helps, becomes in some sort a seer, and +must be always of infinite use in his generation; but an affected +Thinker, who supposes his thinking of any other importance +than as it tends to work, is about the vainest kind of person +that can be found in the occupied classes. Nay, I believe that +metaphysicians and philosophers are, on the whole, the greatest +troubles the world has got to deal with; and that while a tyrant +or bad man is of some use in teaching people submission or +indignation, and a thoroughly idle man is only harmful in setting +an idle example, and communicating to other lazy people +his own lazy misunderstandings, busy metaphysicians are always +entangling <i>good</i> and <i>active</i> people, and weaving cobwebs among +the finest wheels of the world's business; and are as much as +possible, by all prudent persons, to be brushed out of their way, +like spiders, and the meshed weed that has got into the Cambridgeshire +canals, and other such impediments to barges and +business. And if we thus clear the metaphysical element out of +modern literature, we shall find its bulk amazingly diminished, +and the claims of the remaining writers, or of those whom we +have thinned by this abstraction of their straw stuffing, much +more easily adjusted.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> +<p>§ 29. Again: the mass of sentimental literature, concerned +with the analysis and description of emotion, headed by the +poetry of Byron, is altogether of lower rank than the literature +which merely describes what it saw. The true Seer always feels +as intensely as any one else; but he does not much describe +his feelings. He tells you whom he met, and what they said; +leaves you to make out, from that, what they feel, and what +he feels, but goes into little detail. And, generally speaking, +pathetic writing and careful explanation of passion are quite +easy, compared with this plain recording of what people said or +did, or with the right invention of what they are likely to say +and do; for this reason, that to invent a story, or admirably +and thoroughly tell any part of a story, it is necessary to grasp +the entire mind of every personage concerned in it, and know +precisely how they would be affected by what happens; which +to do requires a colossal intellect; but to describe a separate +emotion delicately, it is only needed that one should feel it +oneself; and thousands of people are capable of feeling this or +that noble emotion, for one who is able to enter into all the +feelings of somebody sitting on the other side of the table. +Even, therefore, when this sentimental literature is first rate, as +in passages of Byron, Tennyson, and Keats, it ought not to be +ranked so high as the Creative; and though perfection, even in +narrow fields, is perhaps as rare as in the wider, and it may be +as long before we have another In Memoriam as another Guy +Mannering, I unhesitatingly receive as a greater manifestation +of power the right invention of a few sentences spoken by Pleydell +and Mannering across their supper-table, than the most +tender and passionate melodies of the self-examining verse.</p> + +<p>§ 30. Having, therefore, cast metaphysical writers out of our +way, and sentimental writers into the second rank, I do not +think Scott's supremacy among those who remain will any more +be doubtful; nor would it, perhaps, have been doubtful before, +had it not been encumbered by innumerable faults and weaknesses. +But it is preeminently in these faults and weaknesses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> +that Scott is representative of the mind of his age: and because +he is the greatest man born amongst us, and intended for the +enduring type of us, all our principal faults must be laid on his +shoulders, and he must bear down the dark marks to the latest +ages; while the smaller men, who have some special work to +do, perhaps not so much belonging to this age as leading out of +it to the next, are often kept providentially quit of the encumbrances +which they had not strength to sustain, and are much +smoother and pleasanter to look at, in their way; only that is a +smaller way.</p> + +<p>§ 31. Thus, the most startling fault of the age being its +faithlessness, it is necessary that its greatest man should be +faithless. Nothing is more notable or sorrowful in Scott's +mind than its incapacity of steady belief in anything. He cannot +even resolve hardily to believe in a ghost, or a water-spirit; +always explains them away in an apologetic manner, not believing, +all the while, even his own explanation. He never +can clearly ascertain whether there is anything behind the arras +but rats; never draws sword, and thrusts at it for life or death; +but goes on looking at it timidly, and saying, "it must be the +wind." He is educated a Presbyterian, and remains one, +because it is the most sensible thing he can do if he is to live in +Edinburgh; but he thinks Romanism more picturesque, and +profaneness more gentlemanly: does not see that anything +affects human life but love, courage, and destiny; which are, +indeed, not matters of faith at all, but of sight. Any gods but +those are very misty in outline to him; and when the love is +laid ghastly in poor Charlotte's coffin; and the courage is no +more of use,—the pen having fallen from between the fingers; +and destiny is sealing the scroll,—the God-light is dim in the +tears that fall on it.</p> + +<p>He is in all this the epitome of his epoch.</p> + +<p>§ 32. Again: as another notable weakness of the age is its +habit of looking back, in a romantic and passionate idleness, to +the past ages, not understanding them all the while, nor really +desiring to understand them, so Scott gives up nearly the half +of his intellectual power to a fond, yet purposeless, dreaming +over the past, and spends half his literary labors in endeavors +to revive it, not in reality, but on the stage of fiction; endeav<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span>ors +which were the best of the kind that modernism made, but +still successful only so far as Scott put, under the old armor, the +everlasting human nature which he knew; and totally unsuccessful, +so far as concerned the painting of the armor itself, +which he knew <i>not</i>. The excellence of Scott's work is precisely +in proportion to the degree in which it is sketched from present +nature. His familiar life is inimitable; his quiet scenes of +introductory conversation, as the beginning of Rob Roy and +Redgauntlet, and all his living Scotch characters, mean or +noble, from Andrew Fairservice to Jeanie Deans, are simply +right, and can never be bettered. But his romance and antiquarianism, +his knighthood and monkery, are all false, and he +knows them to be false; does not care to make them earnest; +enjoys them for their strangeness, but laughs at his own antiquarianism, +all through his own third novel,—with exquisite +modesty indeed, but with total misunderstanding of the function +of an Antiquary. He does not see how anything is to be +got out of the past but confusion, old iron on drawingroom +chairs, and serious inconvenience to Dr. Heavysterne.</p> + +<p>§ 33. Again: more than any age that had preceded it, ours +had been ignorant of the meaning of the word "Art." It had +not a single fixed principle, and what unfixed principles it +worked upon were all wrong. It was necessary that Scott +should know nothing of art. He neither cared for painting nor +sculpture, and was totally incapable of forming a judgment +about them. He had some confused love of Gothic architecture, +because it was dark, picturesque, old, and like nature; +but could not tell the worst from the best, and built for himself +perhaps the most incongruous and ugly pile that gentlemanly +modernism ever designed; marking, in the most curious and +subtle way, that mingling of reverence with irreverence which +is so striking in the age; he reverences Melrose, yet casts one of +its piscinas, puts a modern steel grate into it, and makes it his +fireplace. Like all pure moderns, he supposes the Gothic barbarous, +notwithstanding his love of it; admires, in an equally +ignorant way, totally opposite styles; is delighted with the new +town of Edinburgh; mistakes its dulness for purity of taste, +and actually compares it, in its deathful formality of street, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> +contrasted with the rudeness of the old town, to Britomart taking +off her armor.</p> + +<p>§ 34. Again: as in reverence and irreverence, so in levity +and melancholy, we saw that the spirit of the age was strangely +interwoven. Therefore, also, it is necessary that Scott should +be light, careless, unearnest, and yet eminently sorrowful. +Throughout all his work there is no evidence of any purpose but +to while away the hour. His life had no other object than the +pleasure of the instant, and the establishing of a family name. +All his thoughts were, in their outcome and end, less than +nothing, and vanity. And yet, of all poetry that I know, none +is so sorrowful as Scott's. Other great masters are pathetic in +a resolute and predetermined way, when they choose; but, in +their own minds, are evidently stern, or hopeful, or serene; +never really melancholy. Even Byron is rather sulky and desperate +than melancholy; Keats is sad because he is sickly; +Shelley because he is impious; but Scott is inherently and consistently +sad. Around all his power, and brightness, and enjoyment +of eye and heart, the far-away Æolian knell is for ever +sounding; there is not one of those loving or laughing glances +of his but it is brighter for the film of tears; his mind is like +one of his own hill rivers,—it is white, and flashes in the sun +fairly, careless, as it seems, and hasty in its going, but</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Far beneath, where slow they creep</span><br /> +<span class="i0">From pool to eddy, dark and deep,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where alders moist, and willows weep,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">You hear her streams repine."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Life begins to pass from him very early; and while Homer +sings cheerfully in his blindness, and Dante retains his courage, +and rejoices in hope of Paradise, through all his exile, Scott, +yet hardly past his youth, lies pensive in the sweet sunshine and +among the harvest of his native hills.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Blackford, on whose uncultured breast,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Among the broom, and thorn, and whin,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A truant boy, I sought the nest,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Or listed as I lay at rest,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">While rose on breezes thin</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The murmur of the city crowd,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And, from his steeple jangling loud,</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span> +<span class="i1">St. Giles's mingling din!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Now, from the summit to the plain,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Waves all the hill with yellow grain;</span><br /> +<span class="i1">And on the landscape as I look,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Nought do I see unchanged remain,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Save the rude cliffs and chiming brook;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To me they make a heavy moan</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of early friendships past and gone."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 35. Such, then, being the weaknesses which it was necessary +that Scott should share with his age, in order that he might +sufficiently represent it, and such the grounds for supposing +him, in spite of all these weaknesses, the greatest literary man +whom that age produced, let us glance at the principal points in +which his view of landscape differs from that of the mediævals.</p> + +<p>I shall not endeavor now, as I did with Homer and Dante, +to give a complete analysis of all the feelings which appear to be +traceable in Scott's allusions to landscape scenery,—for this +would require a volume,—but only to indicate the main points +of differing character between his temper and Dante's. Then +we will examine in detail, not the landscape of literature, but +that of painting, which must, of course, be equally, or even in a +higher degree, characteristic of the age.</p> + +<p>§ 36. And, first, observe Scott's habit of looking at nature +neither as dead, or merely material, in the way that Homer +regards it, nor as altered by his own feelings, in the way that +Keats and Tennyson regard it, but as having an animation and +pathos of <i>its own</i>, wholly irrespective of human presence or passion,—an +animation which Scott loves and sympathizes with, as +he would with a fellow creature, forgetting himself altogether, +and subduing his own humanity before what seems to him the +power of the landscape.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Yon lonely thorn,—would he could tell</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The changes of his parent dell,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Since he, so grey and stubborn now,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Waved in each breeze a sapling bough!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Would he could tell, how deep the shade</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A thousand mingled branches made,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">How broad the shadows of the oak,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">How clung the rowan to the rock,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And through the foliage showed his head,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With narrow leaves and berries red!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> + +<p>Scott does not dwell on the grey stubbornness of the thorn, +because he himself is at that moment disposed to be dull, or +stubborn; neither on the cheerful peeping forth of the rowan, +because he himself is that moment cheerful or curious: but he +perceives them both with the kind of interest that he would take +in an old man, or a climbing boy; forgetting himself, in sympathy +with either age or youth.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"And from the grassy slope he sees</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The Greta flow to meet the Tees,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where issuing from her darksome bed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">She caught the morning's eastern red,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And through the softening vale below</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Rolled her bright waves in rosy glow,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">All blushing to her bridal bed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like some shy maid, in convent bred;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">While linnet, lark, and blackbird gay</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Sing forth her nuptial roundelay."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Is Scott, or are the persons of his story, gay at this moment? +Far from it. Neither Scott nor Risingham are happy, but the +Greta is; and all Scott's sympathy is ready for the Greta, on +the instant.</p> + +<p>§ 37. Observe, therefore, this is not <i>pathetic</i> fallacy; for +there is no passion in <i>Scott</i> which alters nature. It is not the +lover's passion, making him think the larkspurs are listening +for his lady's foot; it is not the miser's passion, making him +think that dead leaves are falling coins; but it is an inherent +and continual habit of thought, which Scott shares with the +moderns in general, being, in fact, nothing else than the +instinctive sense which men must have of the Divine presence, +not formed into distinct belief. In the Greek it created, as we +saw, the faithfully believed gods of the elements: in Dante and +the mediævals, it formed the faithfully believed angelic presence; +in the modern, it creates no perfect form, does not +apprehend distinctly any Divine being or operation; but only a +dim, slightly credited animation in the natural object, accompanied +with great interest and affection for it. This feeling is +quite universal with us, only varying in depth according to the +greatness of the heart that holds it; and in Scott, being more +than usually intense, and accompanied with infinite affection<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> +and quickness of sympathy, it enables him to conquer all tendencies +to the pathetic fallacy, and, instead of making Nature +anywise subordinate to himself, he makes himself subordinate to +<i>her</i>—follows her lead simply—does not venture to bring his own +cares and thoughts into her pure and quiet presence—paints her +in her simple and universal truth, adding no result of momentary +passion or fancy, and appears, therefore, at first shallower than +other poets, being in reality wider and healthier. "What am +I?" he says continually, "that I should trouble this sincere +nature with my thoughts. I happen to be feverish and depressed, +and I could see a great many sad and strange things in +those waves and flowers; but I have no business to see such +things. Gay Greta! sweet harebells! <i>you</i> are not sad nor +strange to most people; you are but bright water and blue blossoms; +you shall not be anything else to me, except that I cannot +help thinking you are a little alive,—no one can help thinking +that." And thus, as Nature is bright, serene, or gloomy, Scott +takes her temper, and paints her as she is; nothing of himself +being ever intruded, except that far-away Eolian tone, of which +he is unconscious; and sometimes a stray syllable or two, like +that about Blackford Hill, distinctly stating personal feeling, +but all the more modestly for that distinctness and for the clear +consciousness that it is not the chiming brook, nor the cornfields, +that are sad, but only the boy that rests by them; so returning +on the instant to reflect, in all honesty, the image of +Nature as she is meant by all to be received; nor that in fine +words, but in the first that come; nor with comment of far-fetched +thoughts, but with easy thoughts, such as all sensible +men ought to have in such places, only spoken sweetly; and +evidently also with an undercurrent of more profound reflection, +which here and there murmurs for a moment, and which I +think, if we choose, we may continually pierce down to, and +drink deeply from, but which Scott leaves us to seek, or shun, +at our pleasure.</p> + +<p>§ 38. And in consequence of this unselfishness and humility, +Scott's enjoyment of Nature is incomparably greater than +that of any other poet I know. All the rest carry their cares +to her, and begin maundering in her ears about their own +affairs. Tennyson goes out on a furzy common, and sees it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span> +calm autumn sunshine, but it gives him no pleasure. He only +remembers that it is</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"Dead calm in that noble breast</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Which heaves but with the heaving deep."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>He sees a thunder-cloud in the evening, and <i>would</i> have +"doted and pored" on it, but cannot, for fear it should bring +the ship bad weather. Keats drinks the beauty of Nature violently; +but has no more real sympathy with her than he has +with a bottle of claret. His palate is fine; but he "bursts joy's +grape against it," gets nothing but misery, and a bitter taste of +dregs out of his desperate draught.</p> + +<p>Byron and Shelley are nearly the same, only with less truth +of perception, and even more troublesome selfishness. Wordsworth +is more like Scott, and understands how to be happy, but +yet cannot altogether rid himself of the sense that he is a philosopher, +and ought always to be saying something wise. He +has also a vague notion that Nature would not be able to get on +well without Wordsworth; and finds a considerable part of his +pleasure in looking at himself as well as at her. But with Scott +the love is entirely humble and unselfish. "I, Scott, am nothing, +and less than nothing; but these crags, and heaths, and +clouds, how great they are, how lovely, how for ever to be beloved, +only for their own silent, thoughtless sake!"</p> + +<p>§ 39. This pure passion for nature in its abstract being, is +still increased in its intensity by the two elements above taken +notice of,—the love of antiquity, and the love of color and +beautiful form, mortified in our streets, and seeking for food in +the wilderness and the ruin: both feelings, observe, instinctive +in Scott from his childhood, as everything that makes a man +great is always.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"And well the lonely infant knew</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Recesses where the wallflower grew,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And honeysuckle loved to crawl</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Up the long crag and ruined wall.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The sun in all its round surveyed."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Not that these could have been instinctive in a child in the +Middle Ages. The sentiments of a people increase or diminish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> +in intensity from generation to generation,—every disposition +of the parents affecting the frame of the mind in their offspring: +the soldier's child is born to be yet more a soldier, and +the politician's to be still more a politician; even the slightest +colors of sentiment and affection are transmitted to the heirs of +life; and the crowning expression of the mind of a people is +given when some infant of highest capacity, and sealed with the +impress of this national character, is born where providential +circumstances permit the full development of the powers it has +received straight from Heaven, and the passions which it has inherited +from its fathers.</p> + +<p>§ 40. This love of ancientness, and that of natural beauty, +associate themselves also in Scott with the love of liberty, which +was indeed at the root even of all his Jacobite tendencies in +politics. For, putting aside certain predilections about landed +property, and family name, and "gentlemanliness" in the club +sense of the word,—respecting which I do not now inquire +whether they were weak or wise,—the main element which +makes Scott like Cavaliers better than Puritans is, that he +thinks the former <i>free</i> and <i>masterful</i> as well as loyal; and the +latter <i>formal</i> and <i>slavish</i>. He is loyal, not so much in respect +for law, as in unselfish love for the king; and his sympathy is +quite as ready for any active borderer who breaks the law, or +fights the king, in what Scott thinks a generous way, as for the +king himself. Rebellion of a rough, free, and bold kind he is always +delighted by; he only objects to rebellion on principle and in +form: bare-headed and open-throated treason he will abet to any +extent, but shrinks from it in a peaked hat and starched collar: +nay, politically, he only delights in kingship itself, because he +looks upon it as the head and centre of liberty; and thinks +that, keeping hold of a king's hand, one may get rid of the +cramps and fences of law; and that the people may be governed +by the whistle, as a Highland clan on the open hill-side, instead +of being shut up into hurdled folds or hedged fields, as sheep or +cattle left masterless.</p> + +<p>§ 41. And thus nature becomes dear to Scott in a threefold +way: dear to him, first, as containing those remains or memories +of the past, which he cannot find in cities, and giving hope of +Prætorian mound or knight's grave, in every green slope and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> +shade of its desolate places;—dear, secondly, in its moorland +liberty, which has for him just as high a charm as the fenced +garden had for the mediæval:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"For I was wayward, bold, and wild,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A self-willed imp—a grandame's child;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But, half a plague, and half a jest,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Was still endured, beloved, caressed.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The classic poet's well-conned task?</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Nay, Erskine, nay. On the wild hill</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Let the wild heathbell flourish still;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Cherish the tulip, prune the vine;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But freely let the woodbine twine,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And leave untrimmed the eglantine;"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>—and dear to him, finally, in that perfect beauty, denied alike +in cities and in men, for which every modern heart had begun +at last to thirst, and Scott's, in its freshness and power, of all +men's, most earnestly.</p> + +<p>§ 42. And in this love of beauty, observe, that (as I said we +might except) the love of <i>color</i> is a leading element, his healthy +mind being incapable of losing, under any modern false teaching, +its joy in brilliancy of hue. Though not so subtle a colorist +as Dante, which, under the circumstances of the age, he +could not be, he depends quite as much upon color for his power +or pleasure. And, in general, if he does not mean to say much +about things, the <i>one</i> character which he will give is color, using +it with the most perfect mastery and faithfulness, up to the point +of possible modern perception. For instance, if he has a sea-storm +to paint in a single line, he does not, as a feebler poet +would probably have done, use any expression about the temper +or form of the waves; does not call them angry or mountainous. +He is content to strike them out with two dashes of Tintoret's +favorite colors:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"<i>The blackening wave edged with white</i>;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To inch and rock the seamews fly."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>There is no form in this. Nay, the main virtue of it is, that it +gets rid of all form. The dark raging of the sea—what form +has that? But out of the cloud of its darkness those lightning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> +flashes of the foam, coming at their terrible intervals—you need +no more.</p> + +<p>Again: where he has to describe tents mingled among oaks, +he says nothing about the form of either tent or tree, but only +gives the two strokes of color:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Thousand pavilions, <i>white as snow</i>,</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>Chequered</i> the borough moor below,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Oft giving way, where still there stood</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Some relics of the old oak wood,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That darkly huge did intervene,</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>And tamed the glaring white with green</i>."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Again: of tents at Flodden:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Next morn the Baron climbed the tower,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To view, afar, the Scottish power,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Encamped on Flodden edge.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The white pavilions made a show,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like remnants of the winter snow,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Along the dusky ridge."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Again: of trees mingled with dark rocks:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Until, where Teith's young waters roll</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Betwixt him and a wooded knoll,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That graced the <i>sable</i> strath with <i>green</i>,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The chapel of St. Bride was seen."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Again: there is hardly any form, only smoke and color, in +his celebrated description of Edinburgh:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The wandering eye could o'er it go,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And mark the distant city glow</span><br /> +<span class="i1">With gloomy splendor red;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That round her sable turrets flow,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">The morning beams were shed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And tinged them with a lustre proud,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Such dusky grandeur clothed the height,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where the huge castle holds its state,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">And all the steep slope down,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Piled deep and massy, close and high,</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> +<span class="i1">Mine own romantic town!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But northward far with purer blaze,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">On Ochil mountains fell the rays,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And as each heathy top they kissed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">It gleamed a purple amethyst.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Yonder the shores of Fife you saw;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Here Preston Bay and Berwick Law:</span><br /> +<span class="i1">And, broad between them rolled,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The gallant Frith the eye might note,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Whose islands on its bosom float,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">Like emeralds chased in gold."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>I do not like to spoil a fine passage by italicizing it; but +observe, the only hints at form, given throughout, are in the +somewhat vague words, "ridgy," "massy," "close," and +"high;" the whole being still more obscured by modern mystery, +in its most tangible form of smoke. But the <i>colors</i> are all +definite; note the rainbow band of them—gloomy or dusky red, +sable (pure black), amethyst (pure purple), green, and gold—a +noble chord throughout; and then, moved doubtless less by the +smoky than the amethystine part of the group,</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Fitz Eustace' heart felt closely pent,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The spur he to his charger lent,</span><br /> +<span class="i1">And raised his bridle hand.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And making demivolte in air,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Cried, 'Where's the coward would not dare</span><br /> +<span class="i1">To fight for such a laud?'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>I need not multiply examples: the reader can easily trace for +himself, through verse familiar to us all, the force of these color +instincts. I will therefore add only two passages, not so completely +known by heart as most of the poems in which they occur.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"'Twas silence all. He laid him down</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where purple heath profusely strown,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And throatwort, with its azure bell,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And moss and thyme his cushion swell.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">There, spent with toil, he listless eyed</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The course of Greta's playful tide;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Beneath her banks, now eddying dun,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Now brightly gleaming to the sun,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As, dancing over rock and stone,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In yellow light her currents shone,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Matching in hue the favorite gem</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> +<span class="i0">Of Albin's mountain diadem.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then tired to watch the current play,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He turned his weary eyes away</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To where the bank opposing showed</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Its huge square cliffs through shaggy wood.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">One, prominent above the rest,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Reared to the sun its pale grey breast;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Around its broken summit grew</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The hazel rude, and sable yew;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">A thousand varied lichens dyed</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Its waste and weather-beaten side;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And round its rugged basis lay,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">By time or thunder rent away,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Fragments, that, from its frontlet torn,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Were mantled now by verdant thorn."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 43. Note, first, what an exquisite chord of color is given in +the succession of this passage. It begins with purple and blue; +then passes to gold, or cairngorm color (topaz color); then to +<i>pale grey</i>, through which the yellow passes into black; and the +black, through broken dyes of lichen, into green. Note, +secondly,—what is indeed so manifest throughout Scott's landscape +as hardly to need pointing out,—the love of rocks, and +true understanding of their colors and characters, opposed as it +is in every conceivable way to Dante's hatred and misunderstanding +of them.</p> + +<p>I have already traced, in various places, most of the causes of +this great difference: namely, first, the ruggedness of northern +temper (compare § 8. of the chapter on the Nature of Gothic +in the Stones of Venice); then the really greater beauty of the +northern rocks, as noted when we were speaking of the Apennine +limestone; then the need of finding beauty among them, +if it were to be found anywhere,—no well-arranged colors being +any more to be seen in dress, but only in rock lichens; and, +finally, the love of irregularity, liberty, and power, springing +up in glorious opposition to laws of prosody, fashion, and the +five orders.</p> + +<p>§ 44. The other passage I have to quote is still more interesting; +because it has <i>no form</i> in it <i>at all</i> except in one word +(chalice), but wholly composes its imagery either of color, or of +that delicate half-believed life which we have seen to be so important +an element in modern landscape.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The summer dawn's reflected hue</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>To purple changed Loch Katrine blue</i>;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Mildly and soft the western breeze</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Just kissed the lake; just stirred the trees;</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>And the pleased lake, like maiden coy</i>,</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>Trembled, but dimpled not, for joy</i>;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The mountain-shadows on her breast</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Were neither broken nor at rest;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In bright uncertainty they lie,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like future joys to Fancy's eye.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The water-lily to the light</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Her chalice reared of silver bright:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The doe awoke, and to the lawn,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The grey mist left the mountain side;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The torrent showed its glistening pride;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Invisible in fleckëd sky,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The lark sent down her revelry;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The blackbird and the speckled thrush</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In answer cooed the cushat dove</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Her notes of peace, and rest, and love."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>Two more considerations are, however, suggested by the +above passage. The first, that the love of natural history, +excited by the continual attention now given to all wild landscape, +heightens reciprocally the interest of that landscape, and +becomes an important element in Scott's description, leading +him to finish, down to the minutest speckling of breast, and +slightest shade of attributed emotion, the portraiture of birds +and animals; in strange opposition to Homer's slightly named +"sea-crows, who have care of the works of the sea," and Dante's +singing-birds, of undefined species. Compare carefully a passage, +too long to be quoted,—the 2nd and 3rd stanzas of canto +VI. of Rokeby.</p> + +<p>§ 45. The second, and the last point I have to note, is Scott's +habit of drawing a slight <i>moral</i> from every scene, just enough +to excuse to his conscience his want of definite religious feeling; +and that this slight moral is almost always melancholy. Here +he has stopped short without entirely expressing it—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The mountain shadows ...</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">... lie</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like future joys to Fancy's eye."</span><br /> +</div> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span> + +<p>His completed thought would be, that those future joys, like +the mountain shadows, were never to be attained. It occurs +fully uttered in many other places. He seems to have been +constantly rebuking his own worldly pride and vanity, but never +purposefully:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The foam-globes on her eddies ride,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Thick as the schemes of human pride</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That down life's current drive amain,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As frail, as frothy, and as vain."</span><br /> +<span class="i0"> </span><br /> +<span class="i0">"Foxglove, and nightshade, side by side,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Emblems of punishment and pride."</span><br /> +<span class="i0"> </span><br /> +<span class="i0">"Her dark eye flashed; she paused and sighed;—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Ah, what have I to do with pride!'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And hear the thought he gathers from the sunset (noting +first the Turnerian color,—as usual, its principal element):</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"The sultry summer day is done.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The western hills have hid the sun,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But mountain peak and village spire</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Retain reflection of his fire.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Old Barnard's towers are purple still,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To those that gaze from Toller Hill;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Distant and high the tower of Bowes</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Like steel upon the anvil glows;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And Stanmore's ridge, behind that lay,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Rich with the spoils of parting day,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">In crimson and in gold arrayed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Streaks yet awhile the closing shade;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then slow resigns to darkening heaven</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The tints which brighter hours had given</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Thus, aged men, full loth and slow,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The vanities of life forego,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And count their youthful follies o'er</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Till Memory lends her light no more."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>That is, as far as I remember, one of the most finished pieces of +sunset he has given; and it has a woful moral; yet one which, +with Scott, is inseparable from the scene.</p> + +<p>Hark, again:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"'Twere sweet to mark the setting day</span><br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> +<span class="i0">On Bourhope's lonely top decay;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And, as it faint and feeble died</span><br /> +<span class="i0">On the broad lake and mountain's side,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To say, 'Thus pleasures fade away;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey.'"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And again, hear Bertram:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Mine be the eve of tropic sun:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With disk like battle target red,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He rushes to his burning bed,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Dyes the wide wave with bloody light,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Then sinks at once; and all is night."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>In all places of this kind, where a passing thought is suggested +by some external scene, that thought is at once a slight +and sad one. Scott's deeper moral sense is marked in the <i>conduct</i> +of his stories, and in casual reflections or exclamations +arising out of their plot, and therefore sincerely uttered; as +that of Marmion:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, what a tangled web we weave,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">When first we practise to deceive!"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>But the reflections which are founded, not on events, but on +scenes, are, for the most part, shallow, partly insincere, and, as +far as sincere, sorrowful. This habit of ineffective dreaming +and moralizing over passing scenes, of which the earliest type I +know is given in Jaques, is, as aforesaid, usually the satisfaction +made to our modern consciences for the want of a sincere +acknowledgment of God in nature: and Shakspere has +marked it as the characteristic of a mind "compact of jars" +(Act II. Sc. VII., As You Like It). That description attaches +but too accurately to all the moods which we have traced in the +moderns generally, and in Scott as the first representative of +them; and the question now is, what this love of landscape, so +composed, is likely to lead us to, and what use can be made of it.</p> + +<p>We began our investigation, it will be remembered, in order +to determine whether landscape-painting was worth studying or +not. We have now reviewed the three principal phases of temper +in the civilized human race, and we find that landscape has +been mostly disregarded by great men, or cast into a second +place, until now; and that now it seems dear to us, partly in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> +consequence of our faults, and partly owing to accidental circumstances, +soon, in all likelihood, to pass away: and there +seems great room for question still, whether our love of it is a +permanent and healthy feeling, or only a healthy crisis in a generally +diseased state of mind. If the former, society will for +ever hereafter be affected by its results; and Turner, the first +great landscape painter, must take a place in the history of nations +corresponding in art accurately to that of Bacon in philosophy;—Bacon +having first opened the study of the laws of +material nature, when, formerly, men had thought only of the +laws of human mind; and Turner having first opened the +study of the aspect of material nature, when, before, men had +thought only of the aspect of the human form. Whether, +therefore, the love of landscape be trivial and transient, or important +and permanent, it now becomes necessary to consider. +We have, I think, data enough before us for the solution of the +question, and we will enter upon it, accordingly, in the following +chapter.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> +Pre-Raphaelitism, of course, excepted, which is a new phase of art, in +no wise considered in this chapter. Blake was sincere, but full of wild +creeds, and somewhat diseased in brain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> +Of course this is only meant of the modern citizen or country gentleman, +as compared with a citizen of Sparta or old Florence. I leave it to +others to say whether the "neglect of the <i>art</i> of war" may or may not, in a +yet more fatal sense, be predicated of the English nation. War, <i>without</i> art, +we seem, with God's help, able still to wage nobly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> +See David Copperfield, chap. lv. and lviii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> +Observe, I do not speak thus of metaphysics because I have no pleasure +in them. When I speak contemptuously of philology, it may be +answered me, that I am a bad scholar; but I cannot be so answered touching +metaphysics, for every one conversant with such subjects may see that +I have strong inclination that way, which would, indeed, have led me far +astray long ago, if I had not learned also some use of my hands, eyes, and +feet.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<h3>THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. SUPPOSING then the preceding conclusions correct, respecting +the grounds and component <i>elements</i> of the pleasure +which the moderns take in landscape, we have here to consider +what are the probable or usual <i>effects</i> of this pleasure. Is it a +safe or a seductive one? May we wisely boast of it, and unhesitatingly +indulge it? or is it rather a sentiment to be despised +when it is slight, and condemned when it is intense; a +feeling which disinclines us to labor, and confuses us in thought; +a joy only to the inactive and the visionary, incompatible with +the duties of life, and the accuracies of reflection?</p> + +<p>§ 2. It seems to me that, as matters stand at present, there +is considerable ground for the latter opinion. We saw, in the +preceding chapter, that our love of nature had been partly +forced upon us by mistakes in our social economy, and led to +no distinct issues of action or thought. And when we look to +Scott—the man who feels it most deeply—for some explanation +of its effect upon him, we find a curious tone of apology (as if +for involuntary folly) running through his confessions of such +sentiment, and a still more curious inability to define, beyond a +certain point, the character of this emotion. He has lost the +company of his friends among the hills, and turns to these last +for comfort. He says, "there is a pleasure in the pain" consisting +in such thoughts</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i6">"As oft awake</span><br /> +<span class="i0">By lone St. Mary's silent lake;"</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>but, when we look for some definition of these thoughts, all that +we are told is, that they compose</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i1">"A mingled sentiment</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of resignation and content!"<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></span><br /> +</div> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span> +<p>a sentiment which, I suppose, many people can attain to on the +loss of their friends, without the help of lakes or mountains; +while Wordsworth definitely and positively affirms that <i>thought</i> +has nothing whatever to do with the matter, and that though, +in his youth, the cataract and wood "haunted him like a passion," +it was without the help of any "remoter charm, by +thought supplied."</p> + +<p>§ 3. There is not, however, any question, but that both +Scott and Wordsworth are here mistaken in their analysis +of their feelings. Their delight, so far from being without +thought, is more than half made up of thought, but of thought +in so curiously languid and neutralized a condition that they +cannot trace it. The thoughts are beaten to a powder so small +that they know not what they are; they know only that in such +a state they are not good for much, and disdain to call them +thoughts. But the way in which thought, even thus broken, +acts in producing the delight will be understood by glancing +back to §§ 9. and 10. of the tenth chapter, in which we observed +the power of the imagination in exalting any visible object, by +gathering round it, in farther vision, all the facts properly connected +with it; this being, as it were, a spiritual or second +sight, multiplying the power of enjoyment according to the fulness +of the vision. For, indeed, although in all lovely nature +there is, first, an excellent degree of simple beauty, addressed to +the eye alone, yet often what impresses us most will form but a +very small portion of that visible beauty. That beauty may, for +instance, be composed of lovely flowers and glittering streams, +and blue sky, and white clouds; and yet the thing that impresses +us most, and which we should be sorriest to lose, may be a +thin grey film on the extreme horizon, not so large, in the space of +the scene it occupies, as a piece of gossamer on a near at hand +bush, nor in any wise prettier to the eye than the gossamer; +but, because the gossamer is known by us for a little bit of +spider's work, and the other grey film is known to mean a +mountain ten thousand feet high, inhabited by a race of noble +mountaineers, we are solemnly impressed by the aspect of it; +and yet, all the while the thoughts and knowledge which cause +us to receive this impression are so obscure that we are not conscious +of them; we think we are only enjoying the visible scene;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> +and the very men whose minds are fullest of such thoughts absolutely +deny, as we have just heard, that they owe their pleasure +to anything but the eye, or that the pleasure consists in anything +else than "Tranquillity."</p> + +<p>§ 4. And observe, farther, that this comparative Dimness +and Untraceableness of the thoughts which are the sources of +our admiration, is not a <i>fault</i> in the thoughts, at such a time. +It is, on the contrary, a necessary condition of their subordination +to the pleasure of Sight. If the thoughts were more distinct +we should not <i>see</i> so well; and beginning definitely to +think, we must comparatively cease to see. In the instance just +supposed, as long as we look at the film of mountain or Alp, +with only an obscure consciousness of its being the source +of mighty rivers, that consciousness adds to our sense of its sublimity; +and if we have ever seen the Rhine or the Rhone near +their mouths, our knowledge, so long as it is only obscurely suggested, +adds to our admiration of the Alp; but once let the idea +define itself,—once let us begin to consider seriously <i>what</i> rivers +flow from that mountain, to trace their course, and to recall +determinately our memories of their distant aspects,—and we +cease to behold the Alp; or, if we still behold it, it is only as a +point in a map which we are painfully designing, or as a subordinate +object which we strive to thrust aside, in order to make +room for our remembrances of Avignon or Rotterdam.</p> + +<p>Again: so long as our idea of the multitudes who inhabit the +ravines at its foot remains indistinct, that idea comes to the aid +of all the other associations which increase our delight. But let it +once arrest us, and entice us to follow out some clear course of +thought respecting the causes of the prosperity or misfortune of +the Alpine villagers, and the snowy peak again ceases to be visible, +or holds its place only as a white spot upon the retina, while +we pursue our meditations upon the religion or the political +economy of the mountaineers.</p> + +<p>§ 5. It is thus evident that a curiously balanced condition of +the powers of mind is necessary to induce full admiration of any +natural scene. Let those powers be themselves inert, and the +mind vacant of knowledge, and destitute of sensibility, and the +external object becomes little more to us than it is to birds or +insects; we fall into the temper of the clown. On the other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> +hand, let the reasoning powers be shrewd in excess, the knowledge +vast, or sensibility intense, and it will go hard but that the +visible object will suggest so much that it shall be soon itself +forgotten, or become, at the utmost, merely a kind of key-note +to the course of purposeful thought. Newton, probably, did +not perceive whether the apple which suggested his meditations +on gravity was withered or rosy; nor could Howard be affected +by the picturesqueness of the architecture which held the sufferers +it was his occupation to relieve.</p> + +<p>§ 6. This wandering away in thought from the thing seen to +the business of life, is not, however, peculiar to men of the +highest reasoning powers, or most active benevolence. It takes +place more or less in nearly all persons of average mental endowment. +They see and love what is beautiful, but forget their +admiration of it in following some train of thought which it +suggested, and which is of more personal interest to them. +Suppose that three or four persons come in sight of a group of +pine-trees, not having seen pines for some time. One, perhaps +an engineer, is struck by the manner in which their roots hold +the ground, and sets himself to examine their fibres, in a few +minutes retaining little more consciousness of the beauty of the +trees than if he were a rope-maker untwisting the strands of a +cable: to another, the sight of the trees calls up some happy +association, and presently he forgets them, and pursues the memories +they summoned: a third is struck by certain groupings +of their colors, useful to him as an artist, which he proceeds immediately +to note mechanically for future use, with as little feeling +as a cook setting down the constituents of a newly discovered +dish; and a fourth, impressed by the wild coiling of boughs and +roots, will begin to change them in his fancy into dragons and +monsters, and lose his grasp of the scene in fantastic metamorphosis: +while, in the mind of the man who has most the power +of contemplating the thing itself, all these perceptions and +trains of idea are partially present, not distinctly, but in a +mingled and perfect harmony. He will not see the colors of the +tree so well as the artist, nor its fibres so well as the engineer; +he will not altogether share the emotion of the sentimentalist, +nor the trance of the idealist; but fancy, and feeling, and perception, +and imagination, will all obscurely meet and balance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span> +themselves in him, and he will see the pine-trees somewhat in +this manner:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i5">"Worthier still of note</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of intertwisted fibres serpentine</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Perennially,—beneath whose sable roof</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes</span><br /> +<span class="i0">May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As in a natural temple scattered o'er</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">United worship."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>§ 7. The power, therefore, of thus fully <i>perceiving</i> any natural +object depends on our being able to group and fasten all our +fancies about it as a centre, making a garland of thoughts for +it, in which each separate thought is subdued and shortened of +its own strength, in order to fit it for harmony with others; the +intensity of our enjoyment of the object depending, first, on its +own beauty, and then on the richness of the garland. And men +who have this habit of clustering and harmonizing their +thoughts are a little too apt to look scornfully upon the harder +workers who tear the bouquet to pieces to examine the stems. +This was the chief narrowness of Wordsworth's mind; he could +not understand that to break a rock with a hammer in search of +crystal may sometimes be an act not disgraceful to human +nature, and that to dissect a flower may sometimes be as proper +as to dream over it; whereas all experience goes to teach us, +that among men of average intellect the most useful members of +society are the dissectors, not the dreamers. It is not that they +love nature or beauty less, but that they love result, effect, and +progress more; and when we glance broadly along the starry +crowd of benefactors to the human race, and guides of human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> +thought, we shall find that this dreaming love of natural beauty—or +at least its expression—has been more or less checked by +them all, and subordinated either to hard work or watching of +<i>human</i> nature. Thus in all the classical and mediæval periods, +it was, as we have seen, subordinate to agriculture, war, and +religion; and in the modern period, in which it has become far +more powerful, observe in what persons it is chiefly manifested.</p> + +<table summary="Subordinate and Intense examples"> + +<tr><td>(1.)</td><td class="tdl">It is subordinate in + +</td> <td>(2.)</td><td class="tdl">It is intense in</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Bacon.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Mrs. Radclyffe.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Milton.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">St. Pierre.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Johnson.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Shenstone.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Richardson.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Byron.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Goldsmith.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Shelley.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Young.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Keats.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Newton.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Burns.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Howard.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Eugene Sue.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Fenelon.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">George Sand.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td class="tdl">Pascal.</td> <td> </td><td class="tdl">Dumas.</td></tr> +</table> + + +<p>§ 8. I have purposely omitted the names of Wordsworth, +Tennyson, and Scott, in the second list, because, glancing at the +two columns as they now stand, we may, I think, draw some +useful conclusions from the high honorableness and dignity of +the names on one side, and the comparative slightness of those +on the other,—conclusions which may help us to a better understanding +of Scott and Tennyson themselves. Glancing, I say, +down those columns in their present form, we shall at once perceive +that the intense love of nature is, in modern times, characteristic +of persons not of the first order of intellect, but of +brilliant imagination, quick sympathy, and undefined religious +principle, suffering also usually under strong and ill-governed +passions: while in the same individual it will be found to vary +at different periods, being, for the most part, strongest in youth, +and associated with force of emotion, and with indefinite and +feeble powers of thought; also, throughout life, perhaps developing +itself most at times when the mind is slightly unhinged +by love, grief, or some other of the passions.</p> + +<p>§ 9. But, on the other hand, while these feelings of delight +in natural objects cannot be construed into signs of the highest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span> +mental powers, or purest moral principles, we see that they are +assuredly indicative of minds above the usual standard of power, +and endowed with sensibilities of great preciousness to humanity; +so that those who find themselves entirely destitute of them, +must make this want a subject of humiliation, not of pride. +The apathy which cannot perceive beauty is very different from +the stern energy which disdains it; and the coldness of heart +which receives no emotion from external nature, is not to be +confounded with the wisdom of purpose which represses emotion +in action. In the case of most men, it is neither acuteness of +the reason, nor breadth of humanity, which shields them from +the impressions of natural scenery, but rather low anxieties, vain +discontents, and mean pleasures; and for one who is blinded to +the works of God by profound abstraction or lofty purpose, tens +of thousands have their eyes sealed by vulgar selfishness, and +their intelligence crushed by impious care.</p> + +<p>Observe, then: we have, among mankind in general, the +three orders of being;—the lowest, sordid and selfish, which +neither sees nor feels; the second, noble and sympathetic, but +which sees and feels without concluding or acting; the third +and highest, which loses sight in resolution, and feeling in +work.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p> + + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> +<p>Thus, even in Scott and Wordsworth themselves, the love of +nature is more or less associated with their weaknesses. Scott +shows it most in the cruder compositions of his youth, his perfect +powers of mind being displayed only in dialogues with +which description has nothing whatever to do. Wordsworth's +distinctive work was a war with pomp and pretence, and a display +of the majesty of simple feelings and humble hearts, +together with high reflective truth in his analysis of the courses +of politics and ways of men; without these, his love of nature +would have been comparatively worthless.</p> + +<p>§ 10. "If this be so, it is not well to encourage the observance +of landscape, any more than other ways of dreamily and +ineffectually spending time?"</p> + +<p>Stay a moment. We have hitherto observed this love of +natural beauty only as it distinguishes one man from another, +not as it acts for good or evil on those minds to which it necessarily +belongs. It may, on the whole, distinguish weaker men +from stronger men, and yet in those weaker men may be of some +notable use. It may distinguish Byron from St. Bernard, and +Shelley from Sir Isaac Newton, and yet may, perhaps, be the +best thing that Byron and Shelley possess—a saving element +in them; just as a rush may be distinguished from an oak by +its bending, and yet the bending may be the saving element<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> +in the rush, and an admirable gift in its place and way. So +that, although St. Bernard journeys all day by the Lake of +Geneva, and asks at evening "where it is," and Byron learns +by it "to love earth only for its earthly sake,"<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> +it does not follow +that Byron, hating men, was the worse for loving the earth, +nor that St. Bernard, loving men, was the better or wiser for +being blind to it. And this will become still more manifest if +we examine somewhat farther into the nature of this instinct, as +characteristic especially of youth.</p> + +<p>§ 11. We saw above that Wordsworth described the feeling +as independent of thought, and, in the particular place then +quoted, he <i>therefore</i> speaks of it depreciatingly. But in other +places he does not speak of it depreciatingly, but seems to think +the absence of thought involves a certain nobleness:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i2">"In such high hour</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Of visitation from the living God</span><br /> +<span class="i0"><i>Thought</i> was not."</span><br /> +</div> + +<p>And he refers to the intense delight which he himself felt, and +which he supposes other men feel, in nature, during their +thoughtless youth, as an intimation of their immortality, and a +joy which indicates their having come fresh from the hand of +God.</p> + +<p>Now, if Wordsworth be right in supposing this feeling to be +in some degree common to all men, and most vivid in youth, +we may question if it can be <i>entirely</i> explained as I have now +tried to explain it. For if it entirely depended on multitudes +of ideas, clustering about a beautiful object, it might seem that +the youth could not feel it so strongly as the man, because the +man knows more, and must have more ideas to make the garland +of. Still less can we suppose the pleasure to be of that melancholy +and languid kind, which Scott defines as "Resignation" +and "Content;" boys being not distinguished for either of +those characters, but for eager effort and delightsome discontent. +If Wordsworth is at all right in this matter, therefore, +there must surely be some other element in the feeling not yet +detected.</p> + +<p>§ 12. Now, in a question of this subtle kind, relating to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> +period of life when self-examination is rare, and expression imperfect, +it becomes exceedingly difficult to trace, with any certainty, +the movements of the minds of others, nor always easy to +remember those of our own. I cannot, from observation, form +any decided opinion as to the extent in which this strange +delight in nature influences the hearts of young persons in general; +and, in stating what has passed in my own mind, I do not +mean to draw any positive conclusion as to the nature of the +feeling in other children; but the inquiry is clearly one in which +personal experience is the only safe ground to go upon, though a +narrow one; and I will make no excuse for talking about myself +with reference to this subject, because, though there is much +egotism in the world, it is often the last thing a man thinks +of doing,—and, though there is much work to be done in the +world, it is often the best thing a man can do,—to tell the exact +truth about the movements of his own mind; and there is this +farther reason, that, whatever other faculties I may or may not +possess, this gift of taking pleasure in landscape I assuredly possess +in a greater degree than most men; it having been the ruling +passion of my life, and the reason for the choice of its field +of labor.</p> + +<p>§ 13. The first thing which I remember as an event in life, +was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on +Derwentwater; the intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had +in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the +crag, into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with +all twining roots of trees ever since. Two other things I remember, +as, in a sort, beginnings of life;—crossing Shapfells (being +let out of the chaise to run up the hills), and going through Glenfarg, +near Kinross, in a winter's morning, when the rocks where +hung with icicles; these being culminating points in an early +life of more travelling than is usually indulged to a child. In +such journeyings, whenever they brought me near hills, and in +all mountain ground and scenery, I had a pleasure, as early as +I can remember, and continuing till I was eighteen or twenty, +infinitely greater than any which has been since possible to me +in anything; comparable for intensity only to the joy of a lover +in being near a noble and kind mistress, but no more explicable +or definable than that feeling of love itself. Only thus much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> +I can remember, respecting it, which is important to our present +subject.</p> + +<p>§ 14. First: it was never independent of associated thought. +Almost as soon as I could see or hear, I had got reading enough +to give me associations with all kinds of scenery; and mountains, +in particular, were always partly confused with those of +my favorite book, Scott's Monastery; so that Glenfarg and all +other glens were more or less enchanted to me, filled with forms +of hesitating creed about Christie of the Clint Hill, and the +monk Eustace; and with a general presence of White Lady +everywhere. I also generally knew, or was told by my father +and mother, such simple facts of history as were necessary to +give more definite and justifiable association to other scenes +which chiefly interested me, such as the ruins of Lochleven and +Kenilworth; and thus my pleasure in mountains or ruins was +never, even in earliest childhood, free from a certain awe and +melancholy, and general sense of the meaning of death, though +in its principal influence, entirely exhilarating and gladdening.</p> + +<p>§ 15. Secondly: it was partly dependent on contrast with a +very simple and unamused mode of general life; I was born in +London, and accustomed, for two or three years, to no other +prospect than that of the brick walls over the way; had no +brothers, nor sisters, nor companions; and though I could +always make myself happy in a quiet way, the beauty of the +mountains had an additional charm of change and adventure +which a country-bred child would not have felt.</p> + +<p>§ 16. Thirdly: there was no definite religious feeling +mingled with it. I partly believed in ghosts and fairies; but +supposed that angels belonged entirely to the Mosaic dispensation, +and cannot remember any single thought or feeling connected +with them. I believed that God was in heaven, and +could hear me and see me; but this gave me neither pleasure +nor pain, and I seldom thought of it at all. I never thought of +nature as God's work, but as a separate fact or existence.</p> + +<p>§ 17. Fourthly: it was entirely unaccompanied by powers of +reflection or invention. Every fancy that I had about nature +was put into my head by some book; and I never reflected about +anything till I grew older; and then, the more I reflected, the +less nature was precious to me: I could then make myself hap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span>py, +by thinking, in the dark, or in the dullest scenery; and the +beautiful scenery became less essential to my pleasure.</p> + +<p>§ 18. Fifthly: it was, according to its strength, inconsistent +with every evil feeling, with spite, anger, covetousness, discontent, +and every other hateful passion; but would associate itself +deeply with every just and noble sorrow, joy, or affection. It +had not, however, always the power to repress what was inconsistent +with it; and, though only after stout contention, might +at last be crushed by what it had partly repressed. And as it +only acted by setting one impulse against another, though it had +much power in moulding the character, it had hardly any in +strengthening it; it formed temperament, but never instilled +principle; it kept me generally good-humored and kindly, but +could not teach me perseverance or self-denial: what firmness +or principle I had was quite independent of it; and it came +itself nearly as often in the form of a temptation as of a safeguard, +leading me to ramble over hills when I should have been +learning lessons, and lose days in reveries which I might have +spent in doing kindnesses.</p> + +<p>§ 19. Lastly: although there was no definite religious sentiment +mingled with it, there was a continual perception of Sanctity +in the whole of nature, from the slightest thing to the vastest:—an +instinctive awe, mixed with delight; an indefinable +thrill, such as we sometimes imagine to indicate the presence of +a disembodied spirit. I could only feel this perfectly when I +was alone; and then it would often make me shiver from head +to foot with the joy and fear of it, when after being some time +away from the hills, I first got to the shore of a mountain river, +where the brown water circled among the pebbles, or when I saw +the first swell of distant land against the sunset, or the first low +broken wall, covered with mountain moss. I cannot in the least +<i>describe</i> the feeling; but I do not think this is my fault, nor +that of the English language, for, I am afraid, no feeling <i>is</i> +describable. If we had to explain even the sense of bodily +hunger to a person who had never felt it, we should be hard put +to it for words; and this joy in nature seemed to me to come of +a sort of heart-hunger, satisfied with the presence of a Great and +Holy Spirit. These feelings remained in their full intensity till +I was eighteen or twenty, and then, as the reflective and practi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span>cal +power increased, and the "cares of this world" gained upon +me, faded gradually away, in the manner described by Wordsworth +in his Intimations of Immortality.</p> + +<p>§ 20. I cannot, of course, tell how far I am justified in supposing +that these sensations may be reasoned upon as common +to children in general. In the same degree they are not of +course common, otherwise children would be, most of them, +very different from what they are in their choice of pleasures. +But, as far as such feelings exist, I apprehend they are more or +less similar in their nature and influence; only producing different +characters according to the elements with which they are +mingled. Thus, a very religious child may give up many pleasures +to which its instincts lead it, for the sake of irksome duties; +and an inventive child would mingle its love of nature with +watchfulness of human sayings and doings: but I believe the +feelings I have endeavored to describe are the pure landscape-instinct; +and the likelihoods of good or evil resulting from +them may be reasoned upon as generally indicating the usefulness +or danger of the modern love and study of landscape.</p> + +<p>§ 21. And, first, observe that the charm of romantic association +(§ 14.) can be felt only by the modern European child. It +rises eminently out of the contrast of the beautiful past with the +frightful and monotonous present; and it depends for its force +on the existence of ruins and traditions, on the remains of +architecture, the traces of battlefields, and the precursorship of +eventful history. The instinct to which it appeals can hardly +be felt in America, and every day that either beautifies our present +architecture and dress, or overthrows a stone of mediæval +monument, contributes to weaken it in Europe. Of its influence +on the mind of Turner and Prout, and the permanent +results which, through them, it is likely to effect, I shall have to +speak presently.</p> + +<p>§ 22. Again: the influence of surprise in producing the +delight, is to be noted as a suspicious or evanescent element in +it. Observe, my pleasure was chiefly (§ 19.) when I <i>first</i> got +into beautiful scenery, out of London. The enormous influence +of novelty—the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens +sensation, and exalts sentiment—is not half enough taken note of +by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. I think that what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> +Wordsworth speaks of as a glory in the child, because it has +come fresh from God's hands, is in reality nothing more than +the freshness of all things to its newly opened sight. I find +that by keeping long away from hills, I can in great part still +restore the old childish feeling about them; and the more I live +and work among them, the more it vanishes.</p> + +<p>§ 23. This evil is evidently common to all minds; Wordsworth +himself mourning over it in the same poem:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"Custom hangs upon us, with a weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."<br /></span> +</div> + +<p>And if we grow impatient under it, and seek to recover the +mental energy by more quickly repeated and brighter novelty, +it is all over with our enjoyment. There is no cure for this evil, +any more than for the weariness of the imagination already described, +but in patience and rest: if we try to obtain perpetual +change, change itself will become monotonous; and then we are +reduced to that old despair, "If water chokes, what will you +drink after it?" And the two points of practical wisdom in +this matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as possible +at a time; and, secondly, to preserve, as much as possible +in the world, the sources of novelty.</p> + +<p>§ 24. I say, first, to be content with as little change as possible. +If the attention is awake, and the feelings in proper train, +a turn of a country road, with a cottage beside it, which we have +not seen before, is as much as we need for refreshment; if we +hurry past it, and take two cottages at a time, it is already too +much: hence, to any person who has all his senses about him, a +quiet walk along not more than ten or twelve miles of road a +day, is the most amusing of all travelling; and all travelling +becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. Going by railroad +I do not consider as travelling at all; it is merely "being +sent" to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel; +the next step to it would of course be telegraphic transport, +of which, however, I suppose it has been truly said by Octave +Feuillet,</p> + +<blockquote><p> +"<i>Il y aurait des gens assez bêtes</i> pour trouver ça amusant."<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a> +<a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> +</blockquote> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> + +<p>If we walk more than ten or twelve miles, it breaks up the day +too much; leaving no time for stopping at the stream sides or +shady banks, or for any work at the end of the day; besides +that the last few miles are apt to be done in a hurry, and may +then be considered as lost ground. But if, advancing thus +slowly, after some days we approach any more interesting scenery, +every yard of the changeful ground becomes precious and +piquant; and the continual increase of hope, and of surrounding +beauty, affords one of the most exquisite enjoyments possible +to the healthy mind; besides that real knowledge is acquired +of whatever it is the object of travelling to learn, and a certain +sublimity given to all places, so attained, by the true sense of the +spaces of earth that separate them. A man who really loves +travelling would as soon consent to pack a day of such happiness +into an hour of railroad, as one who loved eating would agree, if +it were possible, to concentrate his dinner into a pill.</p> + +<p>§ 25. And, secondly, I say that it is wisdom to preserve as +much as possible the innocent <i>sources</i> of novelty;—not definite +inferiorities of one place to another, if such can be done away; +but differences of manners and customs, of language and architecture. +The greatest effort ought especially to be made by all +wise and far-sighted persons, in the present crisis of civilization, +to enforce the distinction between wholesome reform, and heartless +abandonment of ancestral custom; between kindly fellowship +of nation with nation, and ape-like adoption, by one, of the +habits of another. It is ludicrously awful to see the luxurious +inhabitants of London and Paris rushing over the Continent (as +they say, to <i>see</i> it), and transposing every place, as far as lies in +their power, instantly into a likeness of Regent Street and the +Rue de la Paix, which they need not certainly have come so far +to see. Of this evil I shall have more to say hereafter; meantime +I return to our main subject.</p> + +<p>§ 26. The next character we have to note in the landscape-instinct +(and on this much stress is to be laid), is its total inconsistency +with all evil passion; its absolute contrariety +(whether in the contest it were crushed or not) to all care, +hatred, envy, anxiety, and moroseness. A feeling of this kind +is assuredly not one to be lightly repressed, or treated with contempt.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> + +<p>But how, if it be so, the reader asks, can it be characteristic +of passionate and unprincipled men, like Byron, Shelley, and +such others, and not characteristic of the noblest and most +highly principled men?</p> + +<p>First, because it is itself a passion, and therefore likely to +be characteristic of passionate men. Secondly, because it is +(§ 18) wholly a separate thing from moral principle, and may +or may not be joined to strength of will, or rectitude of purpose<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>; +only, this much is always observable in the men whom +it characterizes, that, whatever their faults or failings, they +always understand and love noble qualities of character; they +can conceive (if not certain phases of piety), at all events, self-devotion +of the highest kind; they delight in all that is good, +gracious, and noble; and though warped often to take delight +also in what is dark or degraded, that delight is mixed with bitter +self-reproach; or else is wanton, careless, or affected, while +their delight in noble things is constant and sincere.</p> + +<p>§ 27. Look back to the two lists given above, § 7. I have +not lately read anything by Mrs. Radclyffe or George Sand, and +cannot, therefore, take instances from them; Keats hardly +introduced human character into his work; but glance over the +others, and note the general tone of their conceptions. Take +St. Pierre's Virginia, Byron's Myrrha, Angiolina, and Marina, +and Eugene Sue's Fleur de Marie; and out of the other lists +you will only be able to find Pamela, Clementina, and, I suppose, +Clarissa,<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> +to put beside them; and these will not more +than match Myrrha and Marina; leaving Fleur de Marie and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +Virginia rivalless. Then meditate a little, with all justice and +mercy, over the two groups of names; and I think you will, at +last, feel that there is a pathos and tenderness of heart among +the lovers of nature in the second list, of which it is nearly impossible +to estimate either the value or the danger; that the +sterner consistency of the men in the first may, in great part, +have arisen only from the, to them, most merciful, appointment +of having had religious teaching or disciplined education in +their youth; while their want of love for nature, whether that +love be originally absent, or artificially repressed, is to none of +them an advantage. Johnson's indolence, Goldsmith's improvidence, +Young's worldliness, Milton's severity, and Bacon's +servility, might all have been less, if they could in any wise have +sympathized with Byron's lonely joy in a Jura storm,<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> +or with +Shelley's interest in floating paper boats down the Serchio.</p> + +<p>§ 28. And then observe, farther, as I kept the names of +Wordsworth and Scott out of the second list, I withdrew, also, +certain names from the first; and for this reason, that in all +the men who are named in that list, there is evidently <i>some</i> degree +of love for nature, which may have been originally of more +power than we suppose, and may have had an infinitely hallowing +and protective influence upon them. But there also lived +certain men of high intellect in that age who had <i>no</i> love of +nature whatever. They do not appear ever to have received the +smallest sensation of ocular delight from any natural scene, but +would have lived happily all their lives in drawingrooms or +studies. And, therefore, in these men we shall be able to determine, +with the greatest chance of accuracy, what the real +influence of natural beauty is, and what the character of a mind +destitute of its love. Take, as conspicuous instances, Le Sage +and Smollett, and you will find, in meditating over their +works, that they are utterly incapable of conceiving a human +soul as endowed with any nobleness whatever; their heroes are +simply beasts endowed with some degree of human intellect;—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> +cunning, false, passionate, reckless, ungrateful, and abominable, +incapable of noble joy, of noble sorrow, of any spiritual perception +or hope. I said, "beasts with human intellect;" but +neither Gil Blas nor Roderick Random reach, morally, anything +near the level of dogs; while the delight which the writers +themselves feel in mere filth and pain, with an unmitigated +foulness and cruelty of heart, is just as manifest in every sentence +as the distress and indignation which with pain and injustice +are seen by Shelley and Byron.</p> + +<p>§ 29. Distinguished from these men by <i>some</i> evidence of +love for nature, yet an evidence much less clear than that for +any of those named even in the first list, stand Cervantes, Pope, +and Molière. It is not easy to say how much the character of +these last depended on their epoch and education; but it is +noticeable that the first two agree thus far in temper with Le +Sage and Smollett,—that they delight in dwelling upon vice, +misfortune, or folly, as subjects of amusement; while yet they +are distinguished from Le Sage and Smollett by capacity of +conceiving nobleness of character, only in a humiliating and +hopeless way; the one representing all chivalry as insanity, the +other placing the wisdom of man in a serene and sneering reconciliation +of good with evil. Of Molière I think very differently. +Living in the blindest period of the world's history, +in the most luxurious city, and the most corrupted court, of the +time, he yet manifests through all his writings an exquisite +natural wisdom; a capacity for the most simple enjoyment; a +high sense of all nobleness, honor, and purity, variously marked +throughout his slighter work, but distinctly made the theme +of his two perfect plays—the Tartuffe and Misanthrope; and +in all that he says of art or science he has an unerring instinct +for what is useful and sincere, and uses his whole power +to defend it, with as keen a hatred of everything affected and +vain. And, singular as it may seem, the first definite lesson +read to Europe, in that school of simplicity of which Wordsworth +was the supposed originator among the mountains of +Cumberland, was, in fact, given in the midst of the court of +Louis XIV., and by Molière. The little canzonet "J'aime +mieux ma mie," is, I believe, the first Wordsworthian poem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> +brought forward on philosophical principles to oppose the +schools of art and affectation.</p> + +<p>§ 30. I do not know if, by a careful analysis, I could point +out any evidences of a capacity for the love of natural scenery +in Molière stealing forth through the slightness of his pastorals; +but, if not, we must simply set him aside as exceptional, +as a man uniting Wordsworth's philosophy with Le +Sage's wit, turned by circumstances from the observance of natural +beauty to that of human frailty. And thus putting him +aside for the moment, I think we cannot doubt of our main +conclusion, that, though the absence of the love of nature is not +an assured condemnation, its presence is an invariable sign of +goodness of heart and justness of moral <i>perception</i>, though by +no means of moral <i>practice</i>; that in proportion to the degree +in which it is felt, will <i>probably</i> be the degree in which all nobleness +and beauty of character will also be felt; that when it +is originally absent from any mind, that mind is in many other +respects hard, worldly, and degraded; that where, having been +originally present, it is repressed by art or education, that repression +appears to have been detrimental to the person suffering +it; and that wherever the feeling exists, it acts for good on +the character to which it belongs, though, as it may often belong +to characters weak in other respects, it may carelessly be +mistaken for a source of evil in them.</p> + +<p>§ 31. And having arrived at this conclusion by a review of +facts, which I hope it will be admitted, whether accurate or +not, has at least been candid, these farther considerations may +confirm our belief in its truth. Observe: the whole force of +education, until very lately, has been directed in every possible +way to the destruction of the love of nature. The only knowledge +which has been considered essential among us is that of +words, and, next after it, of the abstract sciences; while every +liking shown by children for simple natural history has been +either violently checked, (if it took an inconvenient form for the +housemaids,) or else scrupulously limited to hours of play: so +that it has really been impossible for any child earnestly to +study the works of God but against its conscience; and the +love of nature has become inherently the characteristic of truants +and idlers. While also the art of drawing, which is of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> +more real importance to the human race than that of writing +(because people can hardly draw anything without being of +some use both to themselves and others, and can hardly write +anything without wasting their own time and that of others),—this +art of drawing, I say, which on plain and stern system +should be taught to every child, just as writing is,—has been +so neglected and abused, that there is not one man in a thousand, +even of its professed teachers, who knows its first principles: +and thus it needs much ill-fortune or obstinacy—much +neglect on the part of his teachers, or rebellion on his own—before +a boy can get leave to use his eyes or his fingers; so that +those who <i>can</i> use them are for the most part neglected or rebellious +lads—runaways and bad scholars—passionate, erratic, +self-willed, and restive against all forms of education; while +your well-behaved and amiable scholars are disciplined into +blindness and palsy of half their faculties. Wherein there is at +once a notable ground for what difference we have observed between +the lovers of nature and its despisers; between the somewhat +immoral and unrespectable watchfulness of the one, and +the moral and respectable blindness of the other.</p> + +<p>§ 32. One more argument remains, and that, I believe, an +unanswerable one. As, by the accident of education, the love +of nature has been, among us, associated with <i>wilfulness</i>, so, +by the accident of time, it has been associated with <i>faithlessness</i>. +I traced, above, the peculiar mode in which this faithlessness +was indicated; but I never intended to imply, therefore, that +it was an invariable concomitant of the love. Because it happens +that, by various concurrent operations of evil, we have +been led, according to those words of the Greek poet already +quoted, "to dethrone the gods, and crown the whirlwind," it +is no reason that we should forget there was once a time +when "the Lord answered Job <i>out of</i> the whirlwind." And if +we now take final and full view of the matter, we shall find that +the love of nature, wherever it has existed, has been a faithful +and sacred element of human feeling; that is to say, supposing +all circumstances otherwise the same with respect to two individuals, +the one who loves nature most will be <i>always</i> found to +have more <i>faith in God</i> than the other. It is intensely difficult, +owing to the confusing and counter influences which always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> +mingle in the data of the problem, to make this abstraction fairly; +but so far as we can do it, so far, I boldly assert, the result is +constantly the same: the nature-worship will be found to bring +with it such a sense of the presence and power of a Great Spirit +as no mere reasoning can either induce or controvert; and +where that nature-worship is innocently pursued,—i.e. with due +respect to other claims on time, feeling, and exertion, and associated +with the higher principles of religion,—it becomes the +channel of certain sacred truths, which by no other means can +be conveyed.</p> + +<p>§ 33. This is not a statement which any investigation is +needed to prove. It comes to us at once from the highest of all +authority. The greater number of the words which are recorded +in Scripture, as directly spoken to men by the lips of the Deity, +are either simple revelations of His law, or special threatenings, +commands, and promises relating to special events. But two +passages of God's speaking, one in the Old and one in the New +Testament, possess, it seems to me, a different character from +any of the rest, having been uttered, the one to effect the last +necessary change in the mind of a man whose piety was in other +respects perfect; and the other, as the first statement to all men +of the principles of Christianity by Christ Himself—I mean the +38th to 41st chapters of the book of Job, and the Sermon on +the Mount. Now the first of these passages is, from beginning +to end, nothing else than a direction of the mind which was to +be perfected to humble observance of the works of God in nature. +And the other consists only in the inculcation of <i>three</i> +things: 1st, right conduct; 2nd, looking for eternal life; 3rd, +trusting God, through watchfulness of His dealings with His +creation: and the entire contents of the book of Job, and of +the Sermon on the Mount, will be found resolvable simply into +these three requirements from all men,—that they should act +rightly, hope for heaven, and watch God's wonders and work +in the earth; the right conduct being always summed up under +the three heads of <i>justice</i>, <i>mercy</i>, and <i>truth</i>, and no mention of +any doctrinal point whatsoever occurring in either piece of divine +teaching.</p> + +<p>§ 34. As far as I can judge of the ways of men, it seems to +me that the simplest and most necessary truths are always the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> +last believed; and I suppose that well-meaning people in general +would rather regulate their conduct and creed by almost +any other portion of Scripture whatsoever, than by that Sermon +on the Mount, which contains the things that Christ thought +it first necessary for all men to understand. Nevertheless, I believe +the time will soon come for the full force of these two passages +of Scripture to be accepted. Instead of supposing the +love of nature necessarily connected with the faithlessness of +the age, I believe it is connected properly with the benevolence +and liberty of the age; that it is precisely the most healthy element +which distinctively belongs to us; and that out of it, cultivated +no longer in levity or ignorance, but in earnestness and as +a duty, results will spring of an importance at present inconceivable; +and lights arise, which, for the first time in man's +history, will reveal to him the true nature of his life, the true +field for his energies, and the true relations between him and +his Maker.</p> + +<p>§ 35. I will not endeavor here to trace the various modes in +which these results are likely to be effected, for this would involve +an essay on education, on the uses of natural history, and +the probable future destiny of nations. Somewhat on these +subjects I have spoken in other places; and I hope to find time, +and proper place, to say more. But one or two observations +maybe made merely to suggest the directions in which the reader +may follow out the subject for himself.</p> + +<p>The great mechanical impulses of the age, of which most of +us are so proud, are a mere passing fever, half-speculative, half-childish. +People will discover at last that royal roads to anything +can no more be laid in iron than they can in dust; that +there are, in fact, no royal roads to anywhere worth going to; +that if there were, it would that instant cease to be worth going +to,—I mean so far as the things to be obtained are in any way +estimable in terms of <i>price</i>. For there are two classes of +precious things in the world: those that God gives us for nothing—sun, +air, and life (both mortal life and immortal); and the +secondarily precious things which he gives us for a price: these +secondarily precious things, worldly wine and milk, can only be +bought for definite money; they never can be cheapened. No +cheating nor bargaining will ever get a single thing out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> +nature's "establishment" at half-price. Do we want to be +strong?—we must work. To be hungry?—we must starve. +To be happy?—we must be kind. To be wise?—we must look +and think. No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour, +nor making of stuffs a thousand yards a minute, will make us +one whit stronger, happier, or wiser. There was always more in +the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly; they +will see it no better for going fast. And they will at last, and +soon too, find out that their grand inventions for conquering +(as they think) space and time, do, in reality, conquer nothing; +for space and time are, in their own essence, unconquerable, +and besides did not want any sort of conquering; they wanted +<i>using</i>. A fool always wants to shorten space and time: a wise +man wants to lengthen both. A fool wants to kill space and +kill time: a wise man, first to gain them, then to animate them. +Your railroad, when you come to understand it, is only a device +for making the world smaller: and as for being able to talk +from place to place, that is, indeed, well and convenient; but +suppose you have, originally, nothing to say.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> +We shall be +obliged at last to confess, what we should long ago have known, +that the really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. +It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a +man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, +but in being.</p> + +<p>§ 36. "Well; but railroads and telegraphs are so useful for +communicating knowledge to savage nations." Yes, if you have +any to give them. If you know nothing <i>but</i> railroads, and can +communicate nothing but aqueous vapor and gunpowder,—what +then? But if you have any other thing than those to +give, then the railroad is of use only because it communicates +that other thing and the question is—what that other thing +may be. Is it religion? I believe if we had really wanted to +communicate that, we could have done it in less than 1800 years, +without steam. Most of the good religious communication +that I remember has been done on foot; and it cannot be easily +done faster than at foot pace. Is it science? But what sci<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> +ence—of motion, meat, and medicine? Well; when you have +moved your savage, and dressed your savage, fed him with +white bread, and shown him how to set a limb,—what next? +Follow out that question. Suppose every obstacle overcome; +give your savage every advantage of civilization to the full: suppose +that you have put the Red Indian in tight shoes; taught +the Chinese how to make Wedgwood's ware, and to paint it with +colors that will rub off; and persuaded all Hindoo women that +it is more pious to torment their husbands into graves than to +burn themselves at the burial,—what next? Gradually, thinking +on from point to point, we shall come to perceive that all +true happiness and nobleness are near us, and yet neglected by +us; and that till we have learned how to be happy and noble, +we have not much to tell, even to Red Indians. The delights +of horse-racing and hunting, of assemblies in the night instead +of the day, of costly and wearisome music, of costly and +burdensome dress, of chagrined contention for place or power, +or wealth, or the eyes of the multitude; and all the endless occupation +without purpose, and idleness without rest, of our +vulgar world, are not, it seems to me, enjoyments we need be +ambitious to communicate. And all real and wholesome enjoyments +possible to man have been just as possible to him, +since first he was made of the earth, as they are now; and they +are possible to him chiefly in peace. To watch the corn grow, +and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or +spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray,—these are +the things that make men happy; they have always had the +power of doing these, they never <i>will</i> have power to do more. +The world's prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing +and teaching these few things: but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, +or steam, in no wise.</p> + +<p>§ 37. And I am Utopian and enthusiastic enough to believe, +that the time will come when the world will discover this. It +has now made its experiments in every possible direction but +the right one; and it seems that it must, at last, try the right +one, in a mathematical necessity. It has tried fighting, and +preaching, and fasting, buying and selling, pomp and parsimony, +pride and humiliation,—every possible manner of existence +in which it could conjecture there was any happiness or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> +dignity; and all the while, as it bought, sold, and fought, and +fasted, and wearied itself with policies, and ambitions, and self-denials, +God had placed its real happiness in the keeping of the +little mosses of the wayside, and of the clouds of the firmament. +Now and then a weary king, or a tormented slave, found out +where the true kingdoms of the world were, and possessed himself, +in a furrow or two of garden ground, of a truly infinite +dominion. But the world would not believe their report, and +went on trampling down the mosses, and forgetting the clouds, +and seeking happiness in its own way, until, at last, blundering +and late, came natural science; and in natural science not only +the observation of things, but the finding out of new uses for +them. Of course the world, having a choice left to it, went +wrong as usual, and thought that these mere material uses were +to be the sources of its happiness. It got the clouds packed into +iron cylinders, and made it carry its wise self at their own cloud +pace. It got weavable fibres out of the mosses, and made +clothes for itself, cheap and fine,—here was happiness at last. +To go as fast as the clouds, and manufacture everything out of +anything,—here was paradise, indeed!</p> + +<p>§ 38. And now, when, in a little while, it is unparadised +again, if there were any other mistake that the world could +make, it would of course make it. But I see not that there is +any other; and, standing fairly at its wits' end, having found +that going fast, when it is used to it, is no more paradisiacal +than going slow; and that all the prints and cottons in Manchester +cannot make it comfortable in its mind, I do verily believe +it will come, finally, to understand that God paints the +clouds and shapes the moss-fibres, that men may be happy in +seeing Him at His work, and that in resting quietly beside Him, +and watching His working, and—according to the power He +has communicated to ourselves, and the guidance He grants,—in +carrying out His purposes of peace and charity among all +His creatures, are the only real happinesses that ever were, or +will be, possible to mankind.</p> + +<p>§ 39. How far art is capable of helping us in such happiness +we hardly yet know; but I hope to be able, in the subsequent +parts of this work, to give some data for arriving at a conclusion +in the matter. Enough has been advanced to relieve the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span> +reader from any lurking suspicion of unworthiness in our subject, +and to induce him to take interest in the mind and work +of the great painter who has headed the landscape school among +us. What farther considerations may, within any reasonable +limits, be put before him, respecting the effect of natural scenery +on the human heart, I will introduce in their proper places +either as we examine, under Turner's guidance, the different +classes of scenery, or at the close of the whole work; and therefore +I have only one point more to notice here, namely, the exact +relation between landscape-painting and natural science, +properly so-called.</p> + +<p>§ 40. For it may be thought that I have rashly assumed that +the Scriptural authorities above quoted apply to that partly superficial +view of nature which is taken by the landscape-painter, +instead of to the accurate view taken by the man of science. So +far from there being rashness in such an assumption, the whole +language, both of the book of Job and the Sermon on the +Mount, gives precisely the view of nature which is taken by +the uninvestigating affection of a humble, but powerful mind. +There is no dissection of muscles or counting of elements, but +the boldest and broadest glance at the apparent facts, and the +most magnificent metaphor in expressing them. "His eyes are +like the eyelids of the morning. In his neck remaineth strength, +and sorrow is turned into joy before him." And in the often +repeated, never obeyed, command, "Consider the lilies of the +field," observe there is precisely the delicate attribution of life +which we have seen to be the characteristic of the modern view +of landscape,—"They toil not," There is no science, or hint +of science; no counting of petals, nor display of provisions for +sustenance: nothing but the expression of sympathy, at once +the most childish, and the most profound,—"They toil not."</p> + +<p>§ 41. And we see in this, therefore, that the instinct which +leads us thus to attribute life to the lowest forms of organic nature, +does not necessarily spring from faithlessness, nor the deducing +a moral out of them from an irregular and languid conscientiousness. +In this, as in almost all things connected with moral +discipline, the same results may follow from contrary causes; +and as there are a good and evil contentment, a good and evil +discontent, a good and evil care, fear, ambition, and so on,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span> +there are also good and evil forms of this sympathy with nature, +and disposition to moralize over it.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> +In general, active men, of +strong sense and stern principle, do not care to see anything in +a leaf, but vegetable tissue, and are so well convinced of useful +moral truth, that it does not strike them as a new or notable +thing when they find it in any way symbolized by material nature; +hence there is a strong presumption, when first we perceive +a tendency in any one to regard trees as living, and +enunciate moral aphorisms over every pebble they stumble +against, that such tendency proceeds from a morbid temperament, +like Shelley's, or an inconsistent one, like Jaques's. +But when the active life is nobly fulfilled, and the mind is then +raised beyond it into clear and calm beholding of the world +around us, the same tendency again manifests itself in the most +sacred way: the simplest forms of nature are strangely animated +by the sense of the Divine presence; the trees and flowers seem +all, in a sort, children of God; and we ourselves, their fellows, +made out of the same dust, and greater than they only in having +a greater portion of the Divine power exerted on our frame, and +all the common uses and palpably visible forms of things, become +subordinate in our minds to their inner glory,—to the +mysterious voices in which they talk to us about God, and the +changeful and typical aspects by which they witness to us of holy +truth, and fill us with obedient, joyful, and thankful emotion.</p> + +<p>§ 42. It is in raising us from the first state of inactive reverie +to the second of useful thought, that scientific pursuits are to be +chiefly praised. But in restraining us at this second stage, and +checking the impulses towards higher contemplation, they are +to be feared or blamed. They may in certain minds be consistent +with such contemplation; but only by an effort: in their +nature they are always adverse to it, having a tendency to chill +and subdue the feelings, and to resolve all things into atoms and +numbers. For most men, an ignorant enjoyment is better than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span> +an informed one; it is better to conceive the sky as a blue dome +than a dark cavity, and the cloud as a golden throne than a +sleety mist. I much question whether any one who knows optics, +however religious he may be, can feel in equal degree the +pleasure or reverence which an unlettered peasant may feel at +the sight of a rainbow. And it is mercifully thus ordained, +since the law of life, for a finite being, with respect to the +works of an infinite one, must be always an infinite ignorance. +We cannot fathom the mystery of a single flower, nor is it +intended that we should; but that the pursuit of science should +constantly be stayed by the love of beauty, and accuracy of +knowledge by tenderness of emotion.</p> + +<p>§ 43. Nor is it even just to speak of the love of beauty as in +all respects unscientific; for there is a science of the aspects of +things as well as of their nature; and it is as much a fact to be +noted in their constitution, that they produce such and such an +effect upon the eye or heart (as, for instance, that minor scales +of sound cause melancholy), as that they are made up of certain +atoms or vibrations of matter.</p> + +<p>It is as the master of this science of <i>Aspects</i>, that I said, +some time ago, Turner must eventually be named always with +Bacon, the master of the science of <i>Essence</i>. As the first poet +who has, in all their range, understood the grounds of noble +emotion which exist in Landscape, his future influence will be +of a still more subtle and important character. The rest of this +work will therefore be dedicated to the explanation of the principles +on which he composed, and of the aspects of nature which +he was the first to discern.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> +Marmion, Introduction to canto II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> +The investigation of this subject becomes, therefore, difficult beyond +all other parts of our inquiry, since precisely the same sentiments may +arise in different minds from totally opposite causes; and the extreme of +frivolity may sometimes for a moment desire the same things as the extreme +of moral power and dignity. In the following extract from "Marriage," the +sentiment expressed by Lady Juliana (the ineffably foolish and frivolous +heroine of the story) is as nearly as possible what Dante would have felt, +under the same circumstances: +</p> + +<p> +"The air was soft and genial; not a cloud stained the bright azure of +the heavens; and the sun shone out in all his splendor, shedding life and +beauty even over the desolate heath-clad hills of Glenfern. But, after they +had journeyed a few miles, suddenly emerging from the valley, a scene of +matchless beauty burst at once upon the eye. Before them lay the dark blue +waters of Lochmarlie, reflecting, as in a mirror, every surrounding object, +and bearing on its placid, transparent bosom a fleet of herring-boats, the +drapery of whose black, suspended nets contrasted, with picturesque effect, +the white sails of the larger vessels, which were vainly spread to catch a +breeze. All around, rocks, meadows, woods, and hills mingled in wild and +lovely irregularity. +</p><p> +"Not a breath was stirring, not a sound was heard, save the rushing of a +waterfall, the tinkling of some silver rivulet, or the calm rippling of the tranquil +lake; now and then, at intervals, the fisherman's Gaelic ditty, chanted +as he lay stretched on the sand in some sunny nook; or the shrill, distant +sound of childish glee. How delicious to the feeling heart to behold so fair +a scene of unsophisticated nature, and to listen to her voice alone, breathing +the accents of innocence and joy! But none of the party who now +gazed on it had minds capable of being touched with the emotions it was +calculated to inspire. +</p><p> +"Henry, indeed, was rapturous in his expressions of admiration; but +he concluded his panegyrics by wondering his brother did not keep a cutter, +and resolving to pass a night on board one of the herring-boats, that he +might eat the fish in perfection. +</p><p> +"Lady Juliana thought it might be very pretty, if, instead of those +frightful rocks and shabby cottages, there could be villas, and gardens, and +lawns, and conservatories, and summer-houses, and statues. +</p><p> +"Miss Bella observed, if it was hers she would cut down the woods, and +level the hills, and have races."</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> + Childe Harold, canto iii. st. 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> +Scènes et Proverbes. La Crise; (Scène en calèche, hors Paris.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> +Compare the characters of Fleur de Marie and Rigolette, in the Mystères +de Paris. I know no other instance in which the two tempers are so +exquisitely delineated and opposed. Read carefully the beautiful pastoral, +in the eighth chapter of the first Part, where Fleur de Marie is first taken +into the fields under Montmartre, and compare it with the sixth of the +second Part, its accurately traced companion sketch, noting carefully Rigolette's +"Non, <i>je déteste la campagne</i>." She does not, however, dislike +flowers or birds: "Cette caisse de bois, que Rigolette appellait le jardin de +ses oiseaux, était remplie de terre recouverte de mousse, pendant l'hiver. +Elle travaillait auprès de la fenêtre ouverte, à-demi-voilée par un verdoyant +rideau de pois de senteur roses, de capucines oranges, de volubilis bleus et +blancs."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> +I have not read Clarissa.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> +It might be thought that Young <i>could</i> have sympathized with it. He +would have made better use of it, but he would not have had the same delight +in it. He turns his solitude to good account; but this is because, to +him, solitude is sorrow, and his real enjoyment would have been of amiable +society, and a place at court.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a></p> + + <div class="poem"> + <span class="i0">"The light-outspeeding telegraph</span><br /> + <span class="i0">Bears nothing on its beam."</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></span><br /> + </div> + <p>See Appendix III., Plagiarism.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> + Compare what is said before in various places of good and bad finish, +good and bad mystery, &c. If a man were disposed to system-making, he +could easily throw together a counter-system to Aristotle's, showing that in +all things there were two extremes which exactly resembled each other, but +of which one was bad, the other good; and a mean, resembling neither, but +better than the one, and worse than the other.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE TEACHERS OF TURNER.</h3> + + +<p>§ 1. The first step to the understanding either the mind or +position of a great man ought, I think, to be an inquiry into the +elements of his early instruction, and the mode in which he was +affected by the circumstances of surrounding life. In making +this inquiry, with respect to Turner, we shall be necessarily led +to take note of the causes which had brought landscape-painting +into the state in which he found it; and, therefore, of those +transitions of style which, it will be remembered, we overleaped +(hoping for a future opportunity of examining them) at the close +of the fifteenth chapter.</p> + +<p>§ 2. And first, I said, it will be remembered, some way back, +that the relations between Scott and Turner would probably be +found to differ very curiously from those between Dante and +Giotto. They differ primarily in this,—that Dante and Giotto, +living in a consistent age, were subjected to one and the same +influence, and maybe reasoned about almost in similar terms. +But Scott and Turner, living in an inconsistent age, became +subjected to inconsistent influences; and are at once distinguished +by notable contrarieties, requiring separate examination +in each.</p> + +<p>§ 3. Of these, the chief was that Scott, having had the blessing +of a totally neglected education, was able early to follow +most of his noble instincts; but Turner, having suffered under +the instruction of the Royal Academy, had to pass nearly thirty +years of his life in recovering from its consequences;<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> +this permanent +result following for both,—that Scott never was led into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> +any fault foreign to his nature, but spoke what was in him, in +rugged or idle simplicity; erring only where it was natural to +err, and failing only where it was impossible to succeed. But +Turner, from the beginning, was led into constrained and unnatural +error; diligently debarred from every ordinary help to success. +The one thing which the Academy <i>ought</i> to have taught +him (namely, the simple and safe use of oil color), it never +taught him; but it carefully repressed his perceptions of truth, +his capacities of invention, and his tendencies of choice. For +him it was impossible to do right but in the spirit of defiance; +and the first condition of his progress in learning, was the power +to forget.</p> + +<p>§ 4. One most important distinction in their feelings +throughout life was necessitated by this difference in early training. +Scott gathered what little knowledge of architecture +he possessed, in wanderings among the rocky walls of Crichtoun, +Lochleven, and Linlithgow, and among the delicate pillars +of Holyrood, Roslin, and Melrose. Turner acquired his +knowledge of architecture at the desk, from academical elevations +of the Parthenon and St. Paul's; and spent a large portion +of his early years in taking views of gentlemen's seats, temples +of the Muses, and other productions of modern taste and +imagination; being at the same time directed exclusively to +classical sources for information as to the proper subjects of art. +Hence, while Scott was at once directed to the history of his +native land, and to the Gothic fields of imagination; and his +mind was fed in a consistent, natural, and felicitous way from +his youth up, poor Turner for a long time knew no inspiration +but that of Twickenham; no sublimity but that of Virginia +Water. All the history and poetry presented to him at the age +when the mind receives its dearest associations, were those of +the gods and nations of long ago; and his models of sentiment +and style were the worst and last wrecks of the Renaissance +affectations.</p> + +<p>§ 5. Therefore (though utterly free from affectation), his +early works are full of an <i>enforced</i> artificialness, and of things +ill-done and ill-conceived, because foreign to his own instincts; +and, throughout life, whatever he did, because he thought he +<i>ought</i> to do it, was wrong; all that he planned on any principle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> +or in supposed obedience to canons of taste, was false and abortive: +he only did right when he ceased to reflect; was powerful +only when he made no effort, and successful only when he had +taken no aim.</p> + +<p>§ 6. And it is one of the most interesting things connected +with the study of his art, to watch the way in which his own +strength of English instinct breaks gradually through fetter and +formalism; how from Egerian wells he steals away to Yorkshire +streamlets; how from Homeric rocks, with laurels at the top +and caves in the bottom, he climbs, at last, to Alpine precipices +fringed with pine, and fortified with the slopes of their own +ruins; and how from Temples of Jupiter and Gardens of the +Hesperides, a spirit in his feet guides him, at last, to the lonely +arches of Whitby, and bleak sands of Holy Isle.</p> + +<p>§ 7. As, however, is the case with almost all inevitable evil, +in its effect on great minds, a certain good rose even out of this +warped education; namely, his power of more completely +expressing all the tendencies of his epoch, and sympathizing +with many feelings and many scenes which must otherwise have +been entirely profitless to him. Scott's mind was just as large +and full of sympathy as Turner's; but having been permitted +always to take his own choice among sources of enjoyment, Scott +was entirely incapable of entering into the spirit of any classical +scene. He was strictly a Goth and a Scot, and his sphere of +sensation may be almost exactly limited by the growth of heather. +But Turner had been forced to pay early attention to +whatever of good and right there was even in things naturally +distasteful to him. The charm of early association had been +cast around much that to other men would have been tame: +while making drawings of flower-gardens and Palladian mansions, +he had been taught sympathy with whatever grace or refinement +the garden or mansion could display, and to the close +of life could enjoy the delicacy of trellis and parterre, as well as +the wildness of the wood and the moorland; and watch the staying +of the silver fountain at its appointed height in the sky, +with an interest as earnest, if not as intense, as that with which +he followed the crash of the Alpine cataract into its clouds of +wayward rage.</p> + +<p>§ 8. The distinct losses to be weighed against this gain are,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> +first, the waste of time during youth in painting subjects of no +interest whatsoever,—parks, villas, and ugly architecture in +general: secondly, the devotion of its utmost strength in later +years to meaningless classical compositions, such as the Fall and +Rise of Carthage, Bay of Baiæ, Daphne and Leucippus, and +such others, which, with infinite accumulation of material, are +yet utterly heartless and emotionless, dead to the very root of +thought, and incapable of producing wholesome or useful effect +on any human mind, except only as exhibitions of technical skill +and graceful arrangement: and, lastly, his incapacity, to the +close of life, of entering heartily into the spirit of any elevated +architecture; for those Palladian and classical buildings which +he had been taught that it was right to admire, being wholly +devoid of interest, and in their own formality and barrenness +quite unmanageable, he was obliged to make them manageable +in his pictures by disguising them, and to use all kinds of playing +shadows and glittering lights to obscure their ugly details; +and as in their best state such buildings are white and colorless, +he associated the idea of whiteness with perfect architecture +generally, and was confused and puzzled when he found it grey. +Hence he never got thoroughly into the feeling of Gothic; its +darkness and complexity embarrassed him; he was very apt to +whiten by way of idealizing it, and to cast aside its details in +order to get breadth of delicate light. In Venice, and the towns +of Italy generally, he fastened on the wrong buildings, and used +those which he chose merely as kind of white clouds, to set off +his brilliant groups of boats, or burning spaces of lagoon. In +various other minor ways, which we shall trace in their proper +place, his classical education hindered or hurt him; but I feel it +very difficult to say how far the loss was balanced by the general +grasp it gave his mind; nor am I able to conceive what would +have been the result, if his aims had been made at once narrower +and more natural, and he had been led in his youth to delight +in Gothic legends instead of classical mythology; and, instead +of the porticos of the Parthenon, had studied in the aisles of +Notre Dame.</p> + +<p>§ 9. It is still more difficult to conjecture whether he gathered +most good or evil from the pictorial art which surrounded +him in his youth. What that art was, and how the European<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span> +schools had arrived at it, it now becomes necessary briefly to +inquire.</p> + +<p>It will be remembered that, in the 14th chapter, we left our +mediæval landscape (§ 18.) in a state of severe formality, and +perfect subordination to the interest of figure subject. I will +now rapidly trace the mode and progress of its emancipation.</p> + +<p>§ 10. The formalized conception of scenery remained little +altered until the time of Raphael, being only better executed as +the knowledge of art advanced; that is to say, though the trees +were still stiff, and often set one on each side of the principal +figures, their color and relief on the sky were exquisitely imitated, +and all groups of near leaves and flowers drawn with the +most tender care, and studious botanical accuracy. The better +the subjects were painted, however, the more logically absurd +they became: a background wrought in Chinese confusion of +towers and rivers, was in early times passed over carelessly, and +forgiven for the sake of its pleasant color; but it appealed somewhat +too far to imaginative indulgence when Ghirlandajo drew +an exquisite perspective view of Venice and her lagoons behind +an Adoration of the Magi;<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> +and the impossibly small boats +which might be pardoned in a mere illumination, representing +the miraculous draught of fishes, became, whatever may be said +to the contrary, inexcusably absurd in Raphael's fully realized +landscape; so as at once to destroy the credibility of every circumstance +of the event.</p> + +<p>§ 11. A certain charm, however, attached itself to many +forms of this landscape, owing to their very unnaturalness, as I +have endeavored to explain already in the last chapter of the +second volume, §§ 9. to 12.; noting, however, there, that it was +in no wise to be made a subject of imitation; a conclusion +which I have since seen more and more ground for holding +finally. The longer I think over the subject, the more I perceive +that the pleasure we take in such unnatural landscapes is +intimately connected with our habit of regarding the New Testament +as a beautiful poem, instead of a statement of plain facts. +He who believes thoroughly that the events are true will expect, +and ought to expect, real olive copse behind real Madonna, and +no sentimental absurdities in either.</p> + + + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_11" id="PLATE_11"></a> + <a href="images/illus352b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus352w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 11" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 11. Latest Purism. + </span> +</div> + + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span> + +<p>§ 12. Nor am I at all sure how far the delight which we +take (when I say <i>we</i>, I mean, in general, lovers of old sacred art) +in such quaint landscape, arises from its peculiar <i>falsehood</i>, and +how far from its peculiar <i>truth</i>. For as it falls into certain +errors more boldly, so, also, what truth it states, it states more +firmly than subsequent work. No engravings, that I know, +render the backgrounds of sacred pictures with sufficient care to +enable the reader to judge of this matter unless before the works +themselves. I have, therefore, engraved, on the opposite page, +a bit of the background of Raphael's Holy Family, in the Tribune +of the Uffizii, at Florence. I copied the trees leaf for leaf, +and the rest of the work with the best care I could; the engraver, +Mr. Armytage, has admirably rendered the delicate atmosphere +which partly veils the distance. Now I do not know how +far it is necessary to such pleasure as we receive from this landscape, +that the trees should be both so straight and formal in +stem, and should have branches no thicker than threads; or +that the outlines of the distant hills should approximate so +closely to those on any ordinary Wedgewood's china pattern. I +know that, on the contrary, a great part of the pleasure arises +from the sweet expression of air and sunshine; from the traceable +resemblance of the city and tower to Florence and Fésole; +from the fact that, though the boughs are too thin, the lines of +ramification are true and beautiful; and from the expression +of continually varied form in the clusters of leafage. And +although all lovers of sacred art would shrink in horror from +the idea of substituting for such a landscape a bit of Cuyp or +Rubens, I do not think that the horror they feel is because Cuyp +and Rubens's landscape is <i>truer</i>, but because it is <i>coarser</i> and +more vulgar in associated idea than Raphael's; and I think it +possible that the true forms of hills, and true thicknesses of +boughs, might be tenderly stolen into this background of +Raphael's without giving offence to any one.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <a name="FIG_5" id="FIG_5"></a> + <a href="images/illus354b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus354w.jpg" width="200" alt="FIG 5" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 5. + </span> +</div> +<p>§ 13. Take a somewhat more definite instance. The rock in +Fig. 5., at the side, is one put by Ghirlandajo into the background +of his Baptism of Christ. I have no doubt Ghirlandajo's +own rocks and trees are better, in several respects, than +those here represented, since I have copied them from one of +Lasinio's execrable engravings; still, the harsh outline, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span> +generally stiff and uninventful blankness of the design are true +enough, and characteristic of all rock-painting of the period. In +the plate below I have etched<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> +the outline of a fragment of +one of Turner's cliffs, out of +his drawing of Bolton Abbey; +and it does not seem to me +that, supposing them properly +introduced in the composition, +the substitution of the +soft natural lines for the hard +unnatural ones would make +Ghirlandajo's background +one whit less sacred.</p> + +<p>§ 14. But be this as it +may, the fact is, as ill luck +would have it, that profanity +of feeling, and skill in art, +increased together; so that +we do not find the backgrounds +rightly painted till +the figures become irreligious +and feelingless; and hence +we associate necessarily the +perfect landscape with want +of feeling. The first great +innovator was either Masaccio +or Filippino Lippi: their +works are so confused together +in the Chapel of the Carmine, +that I know not to +whom I may attribute,—or +whether, without being immediately +quarrelled with, +and contradicted, I may attribute +to anybody,—the landscape background of the fresco +of the Tribute Money. But that background, with one or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> +two other fragments in the same chapel, is far in advance +of all other work I have seen of the period, in expression +of the rounded contours and large slopes of hills, and the +association of their summits with the clouds. The opposite +engraving will give some better idea of its character than can be +gained from the outlines commonly published; though the dark +spaces, which in the original are deep blue, come necessarily +somewhat too harshly on the eye when translated into light and +shade. I shall have occasion to speak with greater speciality of +this background in examining the forms of hills; meantime, it +is only as an isolated work that it can be named in the history +of pictorial progress, for Masaccio died too young to carry out +his purposes; and the men around him were too ignorant of +landscape to understand or take advantage of the little he had +done. Raphael, though he borrowed from him in the human +figure, never seems to have been influenced by his landscape, and +retains either, as in Plate 11., the upright formalities of Perugino; +or, by way of being natural, expands his distances into +flattish flakes of hill, nearly formless, as in the backgrounds of +the Charge to Peter and Draught of Fishes; and thenceforward +the Tuscan and Roman schools grew more and more artificial, +and lost themselves finally under round-headed niches and Corinthian +porticos.</p> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_12" id="PLATE_12"></a> + <a href="images/illus355b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus355w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 12" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 12. The Shores of Wharfe. + </span> +</div> + +<br /> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_13" id="PLATE_13"></a> + <a href="images/illus358b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus358w.jpg" width="500" alt="PLATE 13" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 13. First Mountain Naturalism. + </span> +</div> + +<br /> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_14" id="PLATE_14"></a> + <a href="images/illus360b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus360w.jpg" width="500" alt="PLATE 14" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 14. The Lombard Apennine. + </span> +</div> + +<br /> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_15" id="PLATE_15"></a> + <a href="images/illus362b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus362w.jpg" width="500" alt="PLATE 15" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 15. St. George of the Seaweed. + </span> +</div> + + +<p>§ 15. It needed, therefore, the air of the northern mountains +and of the sea to brace the hearts of men to the development of +the true landscape schools. I sketched by chance one evening +the line of the Apennines from the ramparts of Parma, and I +have put the rough note of it, and the sky that was over it, in +Plate 14., and next to this (Plate 15.) a moment of sunset, +behind the Euganean hills at Venice. I shall have occasion to +refer to both hereafter; but they have some interest here as +types of the kind of scenes which were daily set before the eyes +of Correggio and Titian, and of the sweet free spaces of sky +through which rose and fell, to them, the colored rays of the +morning and evening.</p> + +<p>§ 16. And they are connected, also, with the forms of landscape +adopted by the Lombardic masters, in a very curious way. +We noticed that the Flemings, educated entirely in flat land, +seemed to be always contented with the scenery it supplied; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> +we should naturally have expected that Titian and Correggio, +living in the midst of the levels of the lagoons, and of the plain +of Lombardy, would also have expressed, in their backgrounds, +some pleasure in such level scenery, associated, of course, with +the sublimity of the far-away Apennine, Euganean, or Alp. +But not a whit. The plains of mulberry and maize, of sea and +shoal, by which they were surrounded, never occur in their +backgrounds but in cases of necessity; and both of them, in all +their important landscapes, bury themselves in wild wood; Correggio +delighting to relieve with green darkness of oak and ivy +the golden hair and snowy flesh of his figures; and Titian, +whenever the choice of a scene was in his power, retiring to the +narrow glens and forests of Cadore.</p> + +<p>§ 17. Of the vegetation introduced by both, I shall have to +speak at length in the course of the chapters on Foliage; meantime, +I give in Plate 16. one of Titian's slightest bits of background, +from one of the frescoes in the little chapel behind St. +Antonio, at Padua, which may be compared more conveniently +than any of his more elaborate landscapes with the purist work +from Raphael. For in both these examples the trees are equally +slender and delicate, only the formality of mediæval art is, by +Titian, entirely abandoned, and the old conception of the aspen +grove and meadow done away with for ever. We are now far +from cities: the painter takes true delight in the desert; the +trees grow wild and free; the sky also has lost its peace, and is +writhed into folds of motion, closely impendent upon earth, and +somewhat threatening, through its solemn light.</p> + +<p>§ 18. Although, however, this example is characteristic of +Titian in its wildness, it is not so in its <i>looseness</i>. It is only in +the distant backgrounds of the slightest work, or when he is in +a hurry, that Titian is vague: in all his near and studied work +he completes every detail with scrupulous care. The next +Plate, 17., a background of Tintoret's, from his picture of the +Entombment at Parma, is more entirely characteristic of the +Venetians. Some mistakes made in the reduction of my drawing +during the course of engraving have cramped the curves of +the boughs and leaves, of which I will give the true outline farther +on; meantime the subject, which is that described in § 16. +of the chapter on Penetrative Imagination, Vol. II., will just as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span> +well answer the purpose of exemplifying the Venetian love of +gloom and wildness, united with perfect definition of detail. +Every leaf and separate blade of grass is drawn; but observe +how the blades of grass are broken, how completely the aim at +expression of faultlessness and felicity has been withdrawn, as +contrary to the laws of the existent world.</p> + + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_16" id="PLATE_16"></a> + <a href="images/illus365b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus365w.jpg" height="500" alt="PLATE 16" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 16. Early Naturalism. + </span> +</div> + +<br /> +<div class="illo"> + <a name="PLATE_17" id="PLATE_17"></a> + <a href="images/illus367b.jpg" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus367w.jpg" width="500" alt="PLATE 17" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + 17. Advanced Naturalism. + </span> +</div> + + +<p>§ 19. From this great Venetian school of landscape Turner +received much important teaching,—almost the only healthy +teaching which he owed to preceding art. The designs of the +Liber Studiorum are founded first on nature, but in many cases +modified by <i>forced</i> imitation of Claude, and <i>fond</i> imitation of +Titian. All the worst and feeblest studies in the book—as the +pastoral with the nymph playing the tambourine, that with the +long bridge seen through trees, and with the flock of goats on +the walled road—owe the principal part of their imbecilities to +Claude; another group (Solway Moss, Peat Bog, Lauffenbourg, +&c.) is taken with hardly any modification by pictorial influence, +straight from nature; and the finest works in the book—the +Grande Chartreuse, Rizpah, Jason, Cephalus, and one or +two more—are strongly under the influence of Titian.</p> + +<p>§ 20. The Venetian school of landscape expired with Tintoret, +in the year 1594; and the sixteenth century closed, like a +grave, over the great art of the world. There is <i>no</i> entirely sincere +or great art in the seventeenth century. Rubens and Rembrandt +are its two greatest men, both deeply stained by the +errors and affectations of their age. The influence of the Venetians +hardly extended to them; the tower of the Titianesque art +fell southwards; and on the dust of its ruins grew various art-weeds, +such as Domenichino and the Carraccis. Their landscape, +which may in few words be accurately defined as "Scum +of Titian," possesses no single merit, nor any ground for the +forgiveness of demerit; they are to be named only as a link +through which the Venetian influence came dimly down to +Claude and Salvator.</p> + +<p>§ 21. Salvator possessed real genius, but was crushed by +misery in his youth, and by fashionable society in his age. He +had vigorous animal life, and considerable invention, but no +depth either of thought or perception. He took some hints +directly from nature, and expressed some conditions of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> +grotesque of terror with original power; but his baseness of +thought, and bluntness of sight, were unconquerable; and his +works possess no value whatsoever for any person versed in the +walks of noble art. They had little, if any, influence on Turner; +if any, it was in blinding him for some time to the grace +of tree trunks, and making him tear them too much into splinters.</p> + +<p>§ 22. Not so Claude, who may be considered as Turner's +principal master. Claude's capacities were of the most limited +kind; but he had tenderness of perception, and sincerity of purpose, +and he effected a revolution in art. This revolution consisted +mainly in setting the sun in heaven.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> +Till Claude's time +no one had seriously thought of painting the sun but conventionally; +that is to say, as a red or yellow star, (often) with a +face in it, under which type it was constantly represented in +illumination; else it was kept out of the picture, or introduced +in fragmentary distances, breaking through clouds with almost +definite rays. Perhaps the honor of having first tried to represent +the real effect of the sun in landscape belongs to Bonifazio, +in his pictures of the camps of Israel.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> +Rubens followed in a +kind of bravado, sometimes making the rays issue from anything +but the orb of the sun;—here, for instance, Fig. 6., is an outline +of the position of the sun (at <i>s</i>) with respect to his own +rays, in a sunset behind a tournament in the Louvre: and various +interesting effects of sunlight issuing from the conventional +face-filled orb occur in contemporary missal-painting; for +instance, very richly in the Harleian MS. Brit. Mus. 3469. But +all this was merely indicative of the tendency to transition +which may always be traced in any age before the man comes +who is to <i>accomplish</i> the transition. Claude took up the new +idea seriously, made the sun his subject, and painted the effects +of misty shadows cast by his rays over the landscape, and other +delicate aerial transitions, as no one had ever done before, and, +in some respects, as no one has done in oil color since.</p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> + +<p>§ 23. "But, how, if this were so, could his capacities be of +the meanest order?" Because doing <i>one</i> thing well, or better +than others have done it, does not necessarily imply large capacity. +Capacity means breadth of glance, understanding of the +relations of things, and invention, and these are rare and precious; +but there are very few men who have not done <i>something</i>, +in the course of their lives, better than other people. I +could point out many engravers, draughtsmen, and artists, who +have each a particular merit in their manner, or particular field +of perception, that nobody else has, or ever had. But this does +not make them great men, it only indicates a small special capacity +of some kind: and all the smaller if the gift be very peculiar +and single; for a great man never so limits himself to one +thing, as that we shall be able to say, "That's all he can do." +If Claude had been a great man he would not have been so steadfastly +set on painting effects of sun; he would have looked at +all nature, and at all art, and would have painted sun effects +somewhat worse, and nature universally much better.</p> + +<div class="illo"> + <a name="FIG_6" id="FIG_6"></a> + <a href="images/illus371.png" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img src="images/illus371.png" width="400" alt="FIG 6" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 6. + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 24. Such as he was, however, his discovery of the way to +make pictures look warm was very delightful to the shallow connoisseurs +of the age. Not that they cared for sunshine; but +they liked seeing jugglery. They could not feel Titian's noble +color, nor Veronese's noble composition; but they thought it +highly amusing to see the sun brought into a picture: and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> +Claude's works were bought and delighted in by vulgar people +then, for their real-looking suns, as pictures are now by vulgar +people for having real timepieces in their church towers.</p> + +<p>§ 25. But when Turner arose, with an earnest desire to paint +the whole of nature, he found that the existence of the sun was an +important fact, and by no means an easily manageable one. <i>He</i> +loved sunshine for its own sake; but he could not at first paint +it. Most things else, he would more or less manage without +much technical difficulty; but the burning orb and the golden +haze could not, somehow, be got out of the oil paint. Naturally +he went to Claude, who really had got them out of oil +paint; approached him with great reverence, as having done +that which seemed to Turner most difficult of all technical matters, +and he became his faithful disciple. How much he learned +from him of manipulation, I cannot tell; but one thing is certain, +that he never quite equalled him in that particular forte of +his. I imagine that Claude's way of laying on oil color was so +methodical that it could not possibly be imitated by a man +whose mechanism was interfered with by hundreds of thoughts +and aims totally different from Claude's; and, besides, I suppose +that certain useful principles in the management of paint, +of which our schools are now wholly ignorant, had come down +as far as Claude, from the Venetians. Turner at last gave up +the attempt, and adopted a manipulation of his own, which +indeed effected certain objects attainable in no other way, but +which still was in many respects unsatisfactory, dangerous, and +deeply to be regretted.</p> + +<div class="figright"> + <a name="FIG_7" id="FIG_7"></a> + <a href="images/illus373.png" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img style="margin-bottom: -1em;" src="images/illus373.png" width="300" alt="FIG 7" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 7. + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 26. But meantime his mind had been strongly warped by +Claude's futilities of conception. It was impossible to dwell on +such works for any length of time without being grievously +harmed by them; and the style of Turner's compositions was +for ever afterwards weakened or corrupted. For, truly, it is +almost beyond belief into what depth of absurdity Claude +plunges continually in his most admired designs. For instance; +undertaking to paint Moses at the Burning Bush, he represents +a graceful landscape with a city, a river, and a bridge, and +plenty of tall trees, and the sea, and numbers of people going +about their business and pleasure in every direction; and the +bush burning quietly upon a bank in the corner; rather in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span> +dark, and not to be seen without close inspection. It would +take some pages of close writing to point out, one by one, the +inanities of heart, soul, and brain which such a conception +involves; the ineffable ignorance of the nature of the event, and +of the scene of it; the incapacity of conceiving anything even +<i>in</i> ignorance, which should be impressive; the dim, stupid, +serene, leguminous enjoyment of his sunny afternoon—burn the +bushes as much as they liked—these I leave the reader to think +over at his leisure, either before the picture in Lord Ellesmere's +gallery, or the sketch of it in the Liber Veritatis. But all these +kinds of fallacy sprung more or less out of the vices of the time +in which Claude lived; his own peculiar character reaches +beyond these, to an incapacity of understanding the <i>main point</i> +in anything he had to represent, down to the minutest detail, +which is quite unequalled, as far as I know, in human nugatoriness. +For instance; here, in Fig. 7., is the head, with half +the body, of Eneas drawing his +Bow, from No. 180. of the Liber +Veritatis. Observe, the string is too +long by half; for if the bow were +unbent, it would be two feet longer +than the whole bow. Then the arrow +is too long by half, has too +heavy a head by half; and finally, it actually is <i>under</i> the bow-hand, +instead of above it. Of the ideal and heroic refinement +of the head and drapery I will say nothing; but look only at the +wretched archery, and consider if it would be possible for any +child to draw the thing with less understanding, or to make +more mistakes in the given compass.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> + + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span> + +<div class="figleft"> + <a name="FIG_8" id="FIG_8"></a> + <a href="images/illus374b.png" style="color: #FFFFFF; text-decoration: none;"> + <img style="margin-bottom: -1em;" src="images/illus374w.jpg" width="250" alt="FIG_8" /> + </a> + + <span class="caption"><br /> + <span class="smcap">Fig.</span> 8. + </span> +</div> + +<p>§ 27. And yet, exquisite as is Claude's instinct for blunder, +he has not strength of mind enough to blunder in a wholly +original manner, but he must needs falter out of his way to pick +up other people's puerilities, and be absurd at second-hand. I +have been obliged to laugh +a little—though I hope reverently—at +Ghirlandajo's +landscapes, which yet we saw +had a certain charm of +quaintness in them when +contrasted with his grand +figures; but could any one +have believed that Claude, +with all the noble landscapes +of Titian set before him, and +all nature round about him, +should yet go back to Ghirlandajo +for types of form. +Yet such is the case. I said +that the Venetian influence +came dimly down to Claude; +but the old Florentine influence +came clearly. The +Claudesque landscape is not, +as so commonly supposed, +an idealized abstract of the +nature about Rome. It is +an ultimate condition of +the Florentine conventional +landscape, more or less softened +by reference to nature. +Fig. 8., from No. 145. of +the Liber Veritatis, is sufficiently +characteristic of +Claude's rock-drawing; and +compared with Fig. 5. (p. 314), will show exactly the kind of +modification he made on old and received types. We shall see +other instances of it hereafter.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> +<p>Imagine this kind of reproduction of whatever other people +had done worst, and this kind of misunderstanding of all that +he saw himself in nature, carried out in Claude's trees, rocks, +ships—in everything that he touched,—and then consider what +kind of school this work was for a young and reverent disciple. +As I said, Turner never recovered the effects of it; his compositions +were always mannered, lifeless, and even foolish; and he +only did noble things when the immediate presence of nature +had overpowered the reminiscences of his master.</p> + +<p>§ 28. Of the influence of Gaspar and Nicolo Poussin on +Turner, there is hardly anything to be said, nor much respecting +that which they had on landscape generally. Nicolo Poussin +had noble powers of design, and might have been a thoroughly +great painter had he been trained in Venice; but his +Roman education kept him tame; his trenchant severity was +contrary to the tendencies of the age, and had few imitators +compared to the dashing of Salvator, and the mist of Claude. +Those few imitators adopted his manner without possessing +either his science or invention; and the Italian school of landscape +soon expired. Reminiscences of him occur sometimes in +Turner's compositions of sculptured stones for foreground; +and the beautiful Triumph of Flora, in the Louvre, probably +first showed Turner the use of definite flower, or blossom-painting, +in landscape. I doubt if he took anything from Gaspar; +whatever he might have learned from him respecting masses +of foliage and golden distances, could have been learned better, +and, I believe, <i>was</i> learned, from Titian.</p> + +<p>§ 29. Meantime, a lower, but more living school had developed +itself in the north; Cuyp had painted sunshine as truly +as Claude, gilding with it a more homely, but far more honestly +conceived landscape; and the effects of light of De Hooghe and +Rembrandt presented examples of treatment to which southern +art could show no parallel. Turner evidently studied these with +the greatest care, and with great benefit in every way; especially +this, that they neutralized the idealisms of Claude, and showed +the young painter what power might be in plain truth, even of +the most familiar kind. He painted several pictures in imitation +of these masters; and those in which he tried to rival +Cuyp are healthy and noble works, being, in fact, just what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> +most of Cuyp's own pictures are—faithful studies of Dutch +boats in calm weather, on smooth water. De Hooghe was too +precise, and Rembrandt too dark, to be successfully or affectionately +followed by him; but he evidently learned much from +both.</p> + +<p>§ 30. Finally, he painted many pictures in the manner of +Vandevelde (who was the accepted authority of his time in sea +painting), and received much injury from him. To the close +of his life, Turner always painted the sea too grey, and too +opaque, in consequence of his early study of Vandevelde. He +never seemed to perceive color so truly in the sea as he saw it +elsewhere. But he soon discovered the poorness of Vandevelde's +forms of waves, and raised their meanly divided surfaces into +massive surge, effecting rapidly other changes, of which more +in another place.</p> + +<p>Such was the art to which Turner, in early years, devoted +his most earnest thoughts. More or less respectful contemplation +of Reynolds, Loutherbourg, Wilson, Gainsborough, Morland, +and Wilkie, was incidentally mingled with his graver +study; and he maintained a questioning watchfulness of even +the smallest successes of his brother artists of the modern landscape +school. It remains for us only to note the position of +that living school when Turner, helped or misled, as the case +may be, by the study of the older artists, began to consider what +remained for him to do, or design.</p> + +<p>§ 31. The dead schools of landscape, composed of the works +we have just been examining, were broadly divisible into northern +and southern: the Dutch schools, more or less natural, but +vulgar; the Italian, more or less elevated, but absurd. There +was a certain foolish elegance in Claude, and a dull dignity in +Gaspar; but then their work resembled nothing that ever existed +in the world. On the contrary, a canal or cattle piece of +Cuyp's had many veracities about it; but they were, at best, +truths of the ditch and dairy. The grace of nature, or her +gloom, her tender and sacred seclusions, or her reach of power +and wrath, had never been painted; nor had <i>anything</i> been +painted yet in true <i>love</i> of it; for both Dutch and Italians agreed +in this, that they always painted for the <i>picture's</i> sake, to show +how well they could imitate sunshine, arrange masses, or articu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span>late +straws,—never because they loved the scene, or wanted to +carry away some memory of it.</p> + +<p>And thus, all that landscape of the old masters is to be considered +merely as a struggle of expiring skill to discover some +new direction in which to display itself. There was no love of +nature in the age; only a desire for something new. Therefore +those schools expired at last, leaving the chasm of nearly utter +emptiness between them and the true moderns, out of which +chasm the new school rises, not engrafted on that old one, but, +from the very base of all things, beginning with mere washes +of Indian ink, touched upon with yellow and brown; and gradually +feeling its way to color.</p> + +<p>But this infant school differed inherently from that ancienter +one, in that its motive was love. However feeble its efforts +might be, they were <i>for the sake of the nature</i>, not of the picture, +and therefore, having this germ of true life, it grew and +throve. Robson did not paint purple hills because he wanted +to show how he could lay on purple; but because he truly loved +their dark peaks. Fielding did not paint downs to show how +dexterously he could sponge out mists; but because he loved +downs.</p> + +<p>This modern school, therefore, became the only true school +of landscape which had yet existed; the artificial Claude and +Gaspar work may be cast aside out of our way,—as I have said +in my Edinburgh lectures, under the general title of "pastoralism,"—and +from the last landscape of Tintoret, if we look for +<i>life</i>, we must pass at once to the first of Turner.</p> + +<p>§ 32. What help Turner received from this or that companion +of his youth is of no importance to any one now. Of +course every great man is always being helped by everybody,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> +for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons; and +also there were two men associated with him in early study, who +showed high promise in the same field, Cousen and Girtin (especially +the former), and there is no saying what these men might +have done had they lived; there might, perhaps, have been a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span> +struggle between one or other of them and Turner, as between +Giorgione and Titian. But they lived not; and Turner is the +only great man whom the school has yet produced,—quite great +enough, as we shall see, for all that needed to be done. To him, +therefore, we now finally turn, as the sole object of our inquiry. I +shall first reinforce, with such additions as they need, those statements +of his general principles which I made in the first volume, +but could not then demonstrate fully, for want of time to prepare +pictorial illustration; and then proceed to examine, piece +by piece, his representations of the facts of nature, comparing +them, as it may seem expedient, with what had been accomplished +by others.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>I cannot close this volume without alluding briefly to a subject +of different interest from any that have occupied us in its +pages. For it may, perhaps, seem to a general reader heartless +and vain to enter zealously into questions about our arts and +pleasures in a time of so great public anxiety as this.</p> + +<p>But he will find, if he looks back to the sixth paragraph of +the opening chapter of the last volume, some statement of feelings, +which, as they made me despondent in a time of apparent +national prosperity, now cheer me in one which, though of +stern trial, I will not be so much a coward as to call one of adversity. +And I derive this encouragement first from the belief +that the War itself, with all its bitterness, is, in the present state +of the European nations, productive of more good than evil; +and, secondly, because I have more confidence than others generally +entertain, in the justice of its cause.</p> + +<p>I say, first, because I believe the war is at present productive +of good more than of evil. I will not argue this hardly and +coldly, as I might, by tracing in past history some of the abundant +evidence that nations have always reached their highest virtue, +and wrought their most accomplished works, in times of +straitening and battle; as, on the other hand, no nation ever +yet enjoyed a protracted and triumphant peace without receiving +in its own bosom ineradicable seeds of future decline. I +will not so argue this matter; but I will appeal at once to the +testimony of those whom the war has cost the dearest. I know +what would be told me, by those who have suffered nothing;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span> +whose domestic happiness has been unbroken; whose daily +comfort undisturbed; whose experience of calamity consists, at +its utmost, in the incertitude of a speculation, the dearness of a +luxury, or the increase of demands upon their fortune which +they could meet fourfold without inconvenience. From these, I +can well believe, be they prudent economists, or careless pleasure-seekers, +the cry for peace will rise alike vociferously, whether +in street or senate. But I ask <i>their</i> witness, to whom the war +has changed the aspect of the earth, and imagery of heaven, +whose hopes it has cut off like a spider's web, whose treasure it +has placed, in a moment, under the seals of clay. Those who +can never more see sunrise, nor watch the climbing light gild +the Eastern clouds, without thinking what graves it has gilded, +first, far down behind the dark earth-line,—who never more +shall see the crocus bloom in spring, without thinking what +dust it is that feeds the wild flowers of Balaclava. Ask <i>their</i> +witness, and see if they will not reply that it is well with them, +and with theirs; that they would have it no otherwise; would +not, if they might, receive back their gifts of love and life, nor +take again the purple of their blood out of the cross on the +breastplate of England. Ask them: and though they should +answer only with a sob, listen if it does not gather upon their +lips into the sound of the old Seyton war-cry—"Set on."</p> + +<p>And this not for pride—not because the names of their lost +ones will be recorded to all time, as of those who held the +breach and kept the gate of Europe against the North, as the +Spartans did against the East; and lay down in the place they +had to guard, with the like home message, "Oh, stranger, go +and tell the English that we are lying here, having obeyed their +words;"—not for this, but because, also, they have felt that +the spirit which has discerned them for eminence in sorrow—the +helmed and sworded skeleton that rakes with its white +fingers the sands of the Black Sea beach into grave-heap after +grave-heap, washed by everlasting surf of tears—has been to +them an angel of other things than agony; that they have +learned, with those hollow, undeceivable eyes of his, to see all +the earth by the sunlight of deathbeds;—no inch-high stage for +foolish griefs and feigned pleasures; no dream, neither, as its +dull moralists told them;—<i>Any</i>thing but that: a place of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span> +true, marvellous, inextricable sorrow and power; a question-chamber +of trial by rack and fire, irrevocable decision recording +continually; and no sleep, nor folding of hands, among the +demon-questioners; none among the angel-watchers, none +among the men who stand or fall beside those hosts of God. +They know now the strength of sacrifice, and that its flames can +illumine as well as consume; they are bound by new fidelities to +all that they have saved,—by new love to all for whom they +have suffered; every affection which seemed to sink with those +dim life-stains into the dust, has been delegated, by those who +need it no more, to the cause for which they have expired; and +every mouldering arm, which will never more embrace the beloved +ones, has bequeathed to them its strength and its faithfulness.</p> + +<p>For the cause of this quarrel is no dim, half-avoidable involution +of mean interests and errors, as some would have us +believe. There never was a great war caused by such things. +There never can be. The historian may trace it, with ingenious +trifling, to a courtier's jest or a woman's glance; but he does +not ask—(and it is the sum of questions)—how the warring nations +had come to found their destinies on the course of the +sneer, or the smile. If they have so based them, it is time for +them to learn, through suffering, how to build on other foundations—for +great, accumulated, and most righteous cause, their +foot slides in due time; and against the torpor, or the turpitude, +of their myriads, there is loosed the haste of the devouring +sword and the thirsty arrow. But if they have set their fortunes +on other than such ground, then the war must be owing +to some deep conviction or passion in their own hearts,—a conviction +which, in resistless flow, or reckless ebb, or consistent +stay, is the ultimate arbiter of battle, disgrace, or conquest.</p> + +<p>Wherever there is war, there <i>must</i> be injustice on one side +or the other, or on both. There have been wars which were +little more than trials of strength between friendly nations, and +in which the injustice was not to each other, but to the God +who gave them life. But in a malignant war of these present +ages there is injustice of ignobler kind, at once to God and man, +which <i>must</i> be stemmed for both their sakes. It may, indeed, +be so involved with national prejudices, or ignorances, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span> +neither of the contending nations can conceive it as attaching +to their cause; nay, the constitution of their governments, and +the clumsy crookedness of their political dealings with each +other, may be such as to prevent either of them from knowing +the actual cause for which they have gone to war. Assuredly +this is, in a great degree, the state of things with <i>us</i>; for I +noticed that there never came news by telegraph of the explosion +of a powder-barrel, or of the loss of thirty men by a sortie, +but the Parliament lost confidence immediately in the justice of +the war; reopened the question whether we ever should have +engaged in it, and remained in a doubtful and repentant state of +mind until one of the enemy's powder-barrels blew up also; upon +which they were immediately satisfied again that the war was a +wise and necessary one. How far, therefore, the calamity may +have been brought upon us by men whose political principles +shoot annually like the leaves, and change color at every autumn +frost:—how loudly the blood that has been poured out +round the walls of that city, up to the horse-bridles, may now +be crying from the ground against men who did not know, when +they first bade shed it, exactly what war was, or what blood +was, or what life was, or truth, or what anything else was upon +the earth; and whose tone of opinions touching the destinies of +mankind depended entirely upon whether they were sitting on +the right or left side of the House of Commons;—this, I repeat, +I know not, nor (in all solemnity I say it) do I care to know. +For if it be so, and the English nation could at the present +period of its history be betrayed into a war such as this by the +slipping of a wrong word into a protocol, or bewitched into unexpected +battle under the budding hallucinations of its sapling +senators, truly it is time for us to bear the penalty of our baseness, +and learn, as the sleepless steel glares close upon us, how +to choose our governors more wisely, and our ways more warily. +For that which brings swift punishment in war, must have +brought slow ruin in peace; and those who have now laid down +their lives for England, have doubly saved her; they have humbled +at once her enemies and herself; and have done less for +her, in the conquest they achieve, than in the sorrow that they +claim.</p> + +<p>But it is not altogether thus: we have not been cast into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span> +this war by mere political misapprehensions, or popular ignorances. +It is quite possible that neither we nor our rulers may +clearly understand the nature of the conflict; and that we may +be dealing blows in the dark, confusedly, and as a soldier suddenly +awakened from slumber by an unknown adversary. But +I believe the struggle was inevitable, and that the sooner it +came, the more easily it was to be met, and the more nobly concluded. +France and England are both of them, from shore to +shore, in a state of intense progression, change, and experimental +life. They are each of them beginning to examine, more distinctly +than ever nations did yet in the history of the world, +the dangerous question respecting the rights of governed, and +the responsibilities of governing, bodies; not, as heretofore; +foaming over them in red frenzy, with intervals of fetter and +straw crown, but in health, quietness, and daylight, with the +help of a good Queen and a great Emperor; and to determine +them in a way which, by just so much as it is more effective +and rational, is likely to produce more permanent results than +ever before on the policy of neighboring States, and to force, +gradually, the discussion of similar questions into their places +of silence. To force it,—for true liberty, like true religion, is +always aggressive or persecuted; but the attack is <i>generally</i> +made upon it by the nation which is to be crushed,—by Persian +on Athenian, Tuscan on Roman, Austrian on Swiss; or, as now, +by Russia upon us and our allies: her attack appointed, it +seems to me, for confirmation of all our greatness, trial of our +strength, purging and punishment of our futilities, and establishment +for ever, in our hands, of the leadership in the political +progress of the world.</p> + +<p>Whether this its providential purpose be accomplished, must +depend on its enabling France and England to love one another, +and teaching these, the two noblest foes that ever stood breast +to breast among the nations, first to decipher the law of international +charities; first to discern that races, like individuals, +can only reach their true strength, dignity, or joy, in seeking +each the welfare, and exulting each in the glory, of the other. +It is strange how far we still seem from fully perceiving this. +We know that two men, cast on a desert island, could not +thrive in dispeace; we can understand that four, or twelve,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span> +might still find their account in unity; but that a multitude +should thrive otherwise than by the contentions of its classes, or +<i>two</i> multitudes hold themselves in anywise bound by brotherly +law to serve, support, rebuke, rejoice in one another, this seems +still as far beyond our conception, as the clearest of commandments, +"Let no man seek his own, but every man another's +wealth," is beyond our habitual practice. Yet, if once we +comprehend that precept in its breadth, and feel that what we +now call jealousy for our country's honor, is, so far as it tends +to other countries' <i>dis</i>honor, merely one of the worst, because +most complacent and self-gratulatory, forms of irreligion,—a +newly breathed strength will, with the newly interpreted patriotism, +animate and sanctify the efforts of men. Learning, +unchecked by envy, will be accepted more frankly, throned +more firmly, guided more swiftly; charity, unchilled by fear, +will dispose the laws of each State without reluctance to advantage +its neighbor by justice to itself; and admiration, unwarped +by prejudice, possess itself continually of new treasure +in the arts and the thoughts of the stranger.</p> + +<p>If France and England fail of this, if again petty jealousies +or selfish interests prevail to unknit their hands from the +armored grasp, then, indeed, their faithful children will have +fallen in vain; there will be a sound as of renewed lamentation +along those Euxine waves, and a shaking among the bones that +bleach by the mounds of Sebastopol. But if they fail not of +this,—if we, in our love of our queens and kings, remember how +France gave to the cause of early civilization, first the greatest, +then the holiest, of monarchs;<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> +and France, in her love of liberty, +remembers how <i>we</i> first raised the standard of Commonwealth, +trusted to the grasp of one good and strong hand, witnessed +for by victory; and so join in perpetual compact of our +different strengths, to contend for justice, mercy, and truth +throughout the world,—who dares say that one soldier has died +in vain? The scarlet of the blood that has sealed this covenant +will be poured along the clouds of a new aurora, glorious in that +Eastern heaven; for every sob of wreck-fed breaker round<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span> +those Pontic precipices, the floods shall clap their hands between +the guarded mounts of the Prince-Angel; and the spirits +of those lost multitudes, crowned with the olive and rose among +the laurel, shall haunt, satisfied, the willowy brooks and peaceful +vales of England, and glide, triumphant, by the poplar +groves and sunned coteaux of Seine.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> +The education here spoken of is, of course, that bearing on the main +work of life. In other respects, Turner's education was more neglected +than Scott's, and that not beneficently. See the close of the third of my +Edinburgh Lectures.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> +The picture is in the Uffizii of Florence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> +This etching is prepared for receiving mezzotint in the next volume; +it is therefore much heavier in line, especially in the water, than I should +have made it, if intended to be complete as it is.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> +Compare Vol. I. Part II. Sec. I. Chap. VII. I repeat here some things +that were then said; but it is necessary now to review them in connection +with Turner's education, as well as for the sake of enforcing them by illustration.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> +Now in the old library of Venice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> +My old friend Blackwood complains bitterly, in his last number, of my +having given this illustration at one of my late lectures, saying, that I "have +a disagreeable knack of finding out the joints in my opponent's armor," +and that "I never fight for love." I never do. I fight for truth, earnestly, +and in no wise for jest; and against all lies, earnestly, and in no wise for +love. They complain that "a noble adversary is not in Mr. Ruskin's way." +No; a noble adversary never was, never will be. With all that is noble I +have been, and shall be, in perpetual peace, with all that is ignoble and false +everlastingly at war. And as for these Scotch <i>bourgeois gentilshommes</i> with +their "Tu n'as pas la patience que je pare," let them look to their fence. +But truly, if they will tell me where Claude's strong points are, I will strike +there, and be thankful.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> +His first drawing master was, I believe, that Mr. Lowe, whose daughters, +now aged and poor, have, it seems to me, some claim on public regard, +being connected distantly with the memory of Johnson, and closely with +that of Turner.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> +Charlemagne and St. Louis.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> + +<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX.</h2> + +<h3><a name="A_I" id="A_I"></a>I. <span class="smcap">Claude's Tree-drawing.</span></h3> + + +<p>The reader may not improbably hear it said, by persons who +are incapable of maintaining an honest argument, and therefore +incapable of understanding or believing the honesty of an adversary, +that I have caricatured, or unfairly chosen, the examples +I give of the masters I depreciate. It is evident, in the first +place, that I could not, if I were even cunningly disposed, adopt +a worse policy than in so doing; for the discovery of caricature +or falsity in my representations, would not only invalidate the +immediate statement, but the whole book; and invalidate it in +the most fatal way, by showing that all I had ever said about +"truth" was hypocrisy, and that in my own affairs I expected +to prevail by help of lies. Nevertheless it necessarily happens, +that in endeavors to facsimile any work whatsoever, bad or +good, some changes are induced from the exact aspect of the +original. These changes are, of course, sometimes harmful, +sometimes advantageous; the bad thing generally gains; the +good thing <i>always</i> loses: so that I am continually tormented +by finding, in my plates of contrasts, the virtue and vice I exactly +wanted to talk about, eliminated from <i>both</i> examples. In +some cases, however, the bad thing will lose also, and then I +must either cancel the plate, or increase the cost of the work by +preparing another (at a similar risk), or run the chance of incurring +the charge of dishonest representation. I desire, therefore, +very earnestly, and once for all, to have it understood that whatever +I say in the text, bearing on questions of comparison, refers +<i>always</i> to the <i>original</i> works; and that, if the reader has it in +his power, I would far rather he should look at those works than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span> +at my plates of them; I only give the plates for his immediate +help and convenience: and I mention this, with respect to my +plate of Claude's ramification, because, if I have such a thing as +a prejudice at all, (and, although I do not myself think I have, +people certainly say so,) it is against Claude; and I might, +therefore, be sooner suspected of some malice in this plate than +in others. But I simply gave the original engravings from the +Liber Veritatis to Mr. Le Keux, earnestly requesting that the +portions selected might be faithfully copied; and I think he is +much to be thanked for so carefully and successfully accomplishing +the task. The figures are from the following plates:—</p> + +<table style="margin-left: 2em;" summary="Engraving instructions"> +<tr><td class="tdr"> No.</td><td class="tdr">1.</td><td class="tdl">Part of the central tree in</td> <td class="tdc">No.</td><td class="tdr">134.</td><td class="tdl">of the Liber Veritatis.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td class="tdr">2.</td><td class="tdl">From the largest tree</td> <td class="tdc">"</td> <td class="tdr">158.</td><td class="tdl"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td class="tdr">3.</td><td class="tdl">Bushes at root of tree</td> <td class="tdc">"</td> <td class="tdr">134.</td><td class="tdl"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td class="tdr">4.</td><td class="tdl">Tree on the left</td> <td class="tdc">"</td> <td class="tdr">183.</td><td class="tdl"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td class="tdr">5.</td><td class="tdl">Tree on the left</td> <td class="tdc">"</td> <td class="tdr">95. </td><td class="tdl"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td class="tdr">6.</td><td class="tdl">Tree on the left</td> <td class="tdc">"</td> <td class="tdr">72. </td><td class="tdl"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td class="tdr">7.</td><td class="tdl">Principal tree</td> <td class="tdc">"</td> <td class="tdr">92. </td><td class="tdl"> </td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td class="tdr">8.</td><td class="tdl">Tree on the right</td> <td class="tdc">"</td> <td class="tdr">32. </td><td class="tdl"> </td></tr> +</table> + + +<p>If, in fact, any change be effected in the examples in this plate, +it is for the better; for, thus detached, they all look like small +boughs, in which the faults are of little consequence; in the +original works they are seen to be intended for large trunks of +trees, and the errors are therefore pronounced on a much larger +scale.</p> + +<p>The plate of mediæval rocks (10.) has been executed with +much less attention in transcript, because the points there to be +illustrated were quite indisputable, and the instances were needed +merely to show the <i>kind</i> of <i>thing</i> spoken of, not the skill of +particular masters. The example from Leonardo was, however, +somewhat carefully treated. Mr. Cuff copied it accurately from +the only engraving of the picture which I believe exists, and +with which, therefore, I suppose the world is generally content. +That engraving, however, in no respect seems to me to give the +look of the light behind Leonardo's rocks; so I afterwards +darkened the rocks, and put some light into the sky and lily; +and the effect is certainly more like that of the picture than it +is in the same portion of the old engraving.</p> + +<p>Of the other masters represented in the plates of this vol<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span>ume, +the noblest, Tintoret, has assuredly suffered the most +(Plate 17.); first, in my too hasty drawing from the original, +picture; and, secondly, through some accidental errors of outline +which occurred in the reduction to the size of the page; +lastly, and chiefly, in the withdrawal of the heads of the four +figures underneath, in the shadow, on which the composition +entirely depends. This last evil is unavoidable. It is quite impossible +to make <i>extracts</i> from the great masters without partly +spoiling every separated feature; the very essence of a noble +composition being, that none should bear separation from the +rest.</p> + +<p>The plate from Raphael (11) is, I think, on the whole, satisfactory. +It cost me much pains, as I had to facsimile the irregular +form of every leaf; each being, in the original picture, +executed with a somewhat wayward pencil-stroke of vivid brown +on the clear sky.</p> + +<p>Of the other plates it would be tedious to speak in detail. +Generally, it will be found that I have taken most pains to do +justice to the masters of whom I have to speak depreciatingly; +and that, if there be calumny at all, it is always of Turner, rather +than of Claude.</p> + +<p>The reader might, however, perhaps suspect me of ill-will +towards Constable, owing to my continually introducing him +for depreciatory comparison. So far from this being the case, I +had, as will be seen in various passages of the first volume, considerable +respect for the feeling with which he worked; but I +was compelled to do harsh justice upon him now, because Mr. +Leslie, in his unadvised and unfortunate <i>réchauffé</i> of the fallacious +art-maxims of the last century, has suffered his personal +regard for Constable so far to prevail over his judgment as to +bring him forward as a great artist, comparable in some kind +with Turner. As Constable's reputation was, even before this, +most mischievous, in giving countenance to the blotting and +blundering of Modernism, I saw myself obliged, though unwillingly, +to carry the suggested comparison thoroughly out.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span> + +<br /> +<h3><a name="A_II" id="A_II"></a>II. <span class="smcap">German Philosophy</span>.</h3> + +<p>The reader must have noticed that I never speak of German +art, or German philosophy, but in depreciation. This, however, +is not because I cannot feel, or would not acknowledge, the +value and power, within certain limits, of both; but because I +also feel that the immediate tendency of the English mind is to +rate them too highly; and, therefore, it becomes a necessary +task, at present, to mark what evil and weakness there are in +them, rather than what good. I also am brought continually +into collision with certain extravagances of the German mind, +by my own steady pursuit of Naturalism as opposed to Idealism; +and, therefore, I become unfortunately cognizant of the evil, +rather than of the good; which evil, so far as I feel it, I am +bound to declare. And it is not to the point to protest, as the +Chevalier Bunsen and other German writers have done, against +the expression of opinions respecting their philosophy by persons +who have not profoundly or carefully studied it; for the +very resolution to study any system of metaphysics profoundly, +must be based, in any prudent man's mind, on some preconceived +opinion of its worthiness to be studied; which opinion +of German metaphysics the naturalistic English cannot be led to +form. This is not to be murmured against,—it is in the simple +necessity of things. Men who have other business on their +hands must be content to choose what philosophy they have occasion +for, by the sample; and when, glancing into the second +volume of "Hippolytus," we find the Chevalier Bunsen himself +talking of a "finite realization of the infinite" (a phrase considerably +less rational than "a black realization of white"), and of +a triad composed of God, Man, and Humanity<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> +(which is a parallel +thing to talking of a triad composed of man, dog, and +canineness), knowing those expressions to be pure, definite, and +highly finished nonsense, we do not in general trouble ourselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span> +to look any farther. Some one will perhaps answer that if one +always judged thus by the sample,—as, for instance, if one +judged of Turner's pictures by the head of a figure cut out of +one of them,—very precious things might often be despised. +Not, I think, often. If any one went to Turner, expecting to +learn figure-drawing from him, the sample of his figure-drawing +would accurately and justly inform him that he had come to the +wrong master. But if he came to be taught landscape, the +smallest fragment of Turner's work would justly exemplify his +power. It may sometimes unluckily happen that, in such short +trial, we strike upon an accidentally failing part of the thing to +be tried, and then we may be unjust; but there is, nevertheless, +in multitudes of cases, no other way of judging or acting; and +the necessity of occasionally being unjust is a law of life,—like +that of sometimes stumbling, or being sick. It will not do to +walk at snail's pace all our lives for fear of stumbling, nor to +spend years in the investigation of everything which, by specimen, +we must condemn. He who seizes all that he plainly discerns +to be valuable, and never is unjust but when he honestly +cannot help it, will soon be enviable in his possessions, and venerable +in his equity.</p> + +<p>Nor can I think that the risk of loss is great in the matter +under discussion. I have often been told that any one who will +read Kant, Strauss, and the rest of the German metaphysicians +and divines, resolutely through, and give his whole strength to +the study of them, will, after ten or twelve years' labor, discover +that there is very little harm in them; and this I can well +believe; but I believe also that the ten or twelve years may be +better spent; and that any man who honestly wants philosophy +not for show, but for <i>use</i>, and knowing the Proverbs of Solomon, +can, by way of Commentary, afford to buy, in convenient +editions, Plato, Bacon, Wordsworth, Carlyle, and Helps, will +find that he has got as much as will be sufficient for him and his +household during life, and of as good quality as need be.</p> + +<p>It is also often declared necessary to study the German controversialists, +because the grounds of religion "must be inquired +into." I am sorry to hear they have not been inquired into +yet; but if it be so, there are two ways of pursuing that inquiry: +one for scholarly men, who have leisure on their hands, by read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span>ing +all that they have time to read, for and against, and arming +themselves at all points for controversy with all persons; the +other,—a shorter and simpler way,—for busy and practical men, +who want merely to find out how to live and die. Now for the +learned and leisurely men I am not writing; they know what +and how to read better than I can tell them. For simple and +busy men, concerned much with art, which is eminently a practical +matter, and fatigues the eyes, so as to render much reading +inexpedient, I <i>am</i> writing; and such men I do, to the utmost of +my power, dissuade from meddling with German books; not +because I fear inquiry into the grounds of religion, but because +the only inquiry which is <i>possible</i> to them must be conducted in +a totally different way. They have been brought up as Christians, +and doubt if they should remain Christians. They cannot +ascertain, by investigation, if the Bible be true; but <i>if it be</i>, +and Christ ever existed, and was God, then, certainly, the Sermon +which He has permitted for 1800 years to stand recorded as +first of all His own teaching in the New Testament, must be +true. Let them take that Sermon and give it fair practical +trial: act out every verse of it, with no quibbling or explaining +away, except the reduction of such <i>evidently</i> metaphorical expressions +as "cut off thy foot," "pluck the beam out of thine +eye," to their effectively practical sense. Let them act out, or +obey, every verse literally for a whole year, so far as they can,—a +year being little enough time to give to an inquiry into religion; +and if, at the end of the year, they are not satisfied, and still +need to prosecute the inquiry, let them try the German system +if they choose.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><a name="A_III" id="A_III"></a>III. <span class="smcap">Plagiarism</span>.</h3> + +<p>Some time after I had written the concluding chapter of this +work, the interesting and powerful poems of Emerson were +brought under my notice by one of the members of my class at +the Working Men's College. There is much in some of these +poems so like parts of the chapter in question, even in turn of +expression, that though I do not usually care to justify myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> +from the charge of plagiarism, I felt that a few words were +necessary in this instance.</p> + +<p>I do not, as aforesaid, justify myself, in general, because I +know there is internal evidence in my work of its originality, if +people care to examine it; and if they do not, or have not skill +enough to know genuine from borrowed work, my simple assertion +would not convince them, especially as the charge of plagiarism +is hardly ever made but by plagiarists, and persons of the +unhappy class who do not believe in honesty but on evidence. +Nevertheless, as my work is so much out of doors, and among +pictures, that I have time to read few modern books, and am +therefore in more danger than most people of repeating, as if it +were new, what others have said, it may be well to note, once +for all, that any such apparent plagiarism results in fact from +my writings being more original than I wish them to be, from +my having worked out my whole subject in unavoidable, but to +myself hurtful, ignorance of the labors of others. On the other +hand, I should be very sorry if I had <i>not</i> been continually taught +and influenced by the writers whom I love; and am quite unable +to say to what extent my thoughts have been guided by +Wordsworth, Carlyle, and Helps; to whom (with Dante and +George Herbert, in olden time) I owe more than to any other +writers;—most of all, perhaps, to Carlyle, whom I read so constantly, +that, without wilfully setting myself to imitate him, I +find myself perpetually falling into his modes of expression, and +saying many things in a "quite other," and, I hope, stronger, +way, than I should have adopted some years ago; as also there +are things which I hope are said more clearly and simply than +before, owing to the influence upon me of the beautiful <i>quiet</i> +English of Helps. It would be both foolish and wrong to +struggle to cast off influences of this kind; for they consist +mainly in a real and healthy help;—the master, in writing as in +painting, showing certain methods of language which it would +be ridiculous, and even affected, not to employ, when once +shown; just as it would have been ridiculous in Bonifacio to refuse +to employ Titian's way of laying on color, if he felt it the +best, because he had not himself discovered it. There is all the +difference in the world between this receiving of guidance, or +allowing of influence, and wilful imitation, much more, plagia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span>rism; +nay, the guidance may even innocently reach into local +tones of thought, and must do so to some extent; so that I find +Carlyle's stronger thinking coloring mine continually; and +should be very sorry if I did not; otherwise I should have read +him to little purpose. But what I have of my own is still all +there, and, I believe, better brought out, by far, than it would +have been otherwise. Thus, if we glance over the wit and satire +of the popular writers of the day, we shall find that the <i>manner</i> +of it, so far as it is distinctive, is always owing to Dickens; and +that out of his first exquisite ironies branched innumerable other +forms of wit, varying with the disposition of the writers; original +in the matter and substance of them, yet never to have been +expressed as they now are, but for Dickens.</p> + +<p>Many people will suppose that for several ideas in the chapters +on Landscape I was indebted to Humboldt's Kosmos, and +Howitt's Rural Scenery. I am indebted to Mr. Howitt's book +for much pleasure, but for no suggestion, as it was not put into +my hands till the chapters in question were in type. I wish it +had been; as I should have been glad to have taken farther note +on the landscape of Theocritus, on which Mr. Howitt dwells +with just delight. Other parts of the book will be found very +suggestive and helpful to the reader who cares to pursue the +subject. Of Humboldt's Kosmos I heard much talk when it +first came out, and looked through it cursorily; but thinking it +contained no material (connected with my subject)<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> +which I had +not already possessed myself of, I have never since referred to +the work. I may be mistaken in my estimate of it, but certainly +owe it absolutely nothing.</p> + +<p>It is also often said that I borrow from Pugin. I glanced at +Pugin's Contrasts once, in the Oxford architectural reading-room, +during an idle forenoon. His "Remarks on Articles in +the Rambler" were brought under my notice by some of the reviews. +I never read a word of any other of his works, not feeling, +from the style of his architecture, the smallest interest in +his opinions.</p> + +<p>I have so often spoken, in the preceding pages, of Holman +Hunt's picture of the Light of the World, that I may as well, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span> +this place, glance at the envious charge against it, of being plagiarized +from a German print.</p> + +<p>It is indeed true that there was a painting of the subject +before; and there were, of course, no paintings of the Nativity +before Raphael's time, nor of the Last Supper before Leonardo's, +else those masters could have laid no claim to originality. +But what was still more singular (the verse to be illustrated +being, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock"), the principal +figure in the antecedent picture was knocking at a door, knocked +with its right hand, and had its face turned to the spectator! +Nay, it was even robed in a long robe, down to its feet. All these +circumstances were the same in Mr. Hunt's picture; and as the +chances evidently were a hundred to one that if he had not been +helped to the ideas by the German artist, he would have represented +the figure as <i>not</i> knocking at any door, as turning its +back to the spectator, and as dressed in a short robe, the plagiarism +was considered as demonstrated. Of course no defence is +possible in such a case. All I can say is, that I shall be sincerely +grateful to any unconscientious persons who will adapt a few +more German prints in the same manner.</p> + +<p>Finally, touching plagiarism in general, it is to be remembered +that all men who have sense and feeling are being continually +helped: they are taught by every person whom they meet, +and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The greatest +is he who has been oftenest aided; and, if the attainments +of all human minds could be traced to their real sources, it would +be found that the world had been laid most under contribution +by the men of most original power, and that every day of their +existence deepened their debt to their race, while it enlarged +their gifts to it. The labor devoted to trace the origin of any +thought, or any invention, will usually issue in the blank conclusion +that there is nothing new under the sun; yet nothing +that is truly great can ever be altogether borrowed; and he is +commonly the wisest, and is always the happiest, who receives +simply, and without envious question, whatever good is offered +him, with thanks to its immediate giver.</p> + +<hr class="fn" /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> +I am truly sorry to have introduced such words in an apparently irreverent +way. But it would be a guilty reverence which prevented us from +exposing fallacy, precisely where fallacy was most dangerous, and shrank +from unveiling an error, just because that error existed in parlance respecting +the most solemn subjects to which it could possibly be attached.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> +See the Fourth Volume.</p></div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<hr class="chap" /> +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<div class="transnote" style="margin: auto; max-width: 35em;"> + +<p>Typographical changes to the original work are as follows:<br /> +<br /> +Minor punctuation (.,;'") changes have been made without annotation.<br /> +<br /> + +pg 242 paus/pause: Matilda pause where ...<br /> +pg 277 charater/character: the character of this ...<br /> +pg 330 cloads/clouds: clouds of rage ...<br /> +<br /> +Plate 10 Added missing reference numbers (4, 5, 6).<br /> +</p> +</div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Modern Painters Vol. III., by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN PAINTERS VOL. 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