Modern Painters Volume I Part 2

[G] There is a fine touch in the Frogs in Aristophanes, alluding probably to this part of the Agamemnon. "[Greek: Ego d' hechairon te siope kai me tout' heterpeu ouk hettou e nun hoi lalountes]." The same remark might be well applied to the seemingly vacant or incomprehensible portions of Turner's canvas. In their mysterious, and intense fire, there is much correspondence between the mind of aeschylus and that of our great painter. They share at least one thing in common--unpopularity. [Greek: 'Ho demos aneboa krisin poiein, XA. o ton panourgon; Ai. ne Di, ouranion g' hoson. XA. met'

Aischylou ho ouk esan heteroi symmachoi; AI. oligon to chreston estin].

[H] I do not know any pa.s.sage in ancient literature in which this connection is more exquisitely ill.u.s.trated than in the lines, burlesque though they be, descriptive of the approach of the chorus in the Clouds of Aristophanes,--a writer, by the way, who, I believe, knew and felt more of the n.o.ble landscape character of his country than any whose works have come down to us except Homer. The individuality and distinctness of conception--the visible cloud character which every word of this particular pa.s.sage brings out into more dewy and bright existence, are to me as refres.h.i.+ng as the real breathing of mountain winds. The line "[Greek: dia ton koilon kai ton daseon, plagiai]," could have been written by none but an ardent lover of hill scenery--one who had watched, hour after hour, the peculiar oblique, sidelong action of descending clouds, as they form along the hollows and ravines of the hills. There are no lumpish solidities--no pillowy protuberances here. All is melting, drifting, evanescent,--full of air, and light, and dew.

[I] Let not this principle be confused with Fuseli's, "love for what is called deception in painting marks either the infancy or decrepitude of a nation's taste." Realization to the mind necessitates not deception of the eye.

[J] I shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are principles of universal beauty common to all the creatures of G.o.d; and that it is by the greater or less share of these that one form becomes n.o.bler or meaner than another.

[K] Is not this--it may be asked--demanding more from him than life can accomplish? Not one whit. Nothing more than knowledge of external characteristics is absolutely required; and even if, which were more desirable, thorough scientific knowledge had to be attained, the time which our artists spend in multiplying crude sketches, or finis.h.i.+ng their unintelligent embryos of the study, would render them masters of every science that modern investigations have organized, and familiar with every form that Nature manifests. Martin, if the time which he must have spent on the abortive bubbles of his Canute had been pa.s.sed in working on the seash.o.r.e, might have learned enough to enable him to produce, with a few strokes, a picture which would have smote like the sound of the sea, upon men's hearts forever.

[L] "A green field is a sight which makes us pardon The absence of that more sublime construction Which mixes up vines, olive, precipices, Glaciers, volcanoes, oranges, and ices."

_Don Juan._

[M] The vegetable soil of the Campagna is chiefly formed by decomposed lavas, and under it lies a bed of white pumice, exactly resembling remnants of bones.

[N] The feelings of Constable with respect to his art might be almost a model for the young student, were it not that they err a little on the other side, and are perhaps in need of chastening and guiding from the works of his fellow-men. We should use pictures not as authorities, but as comments on nature, just as we use divines, not as authorities, but as comments on the Bible. Constable, in his dread of saint-wors.h.i.+p, excommunicates himself from all benefit of the Church, and deprives himself of much instruction from the Scripture to which he holds, because he will not accept aid in the reading of it from the learning of other men. Sir George Beaumont, on the contrary, furnishes, in the anecdotes given of him in Constable's life, a melancholy instance of the degradation into which the human mind may fall, when it suffers human works to interfere between it and its Master. The recommending the color of an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and the vapid inquiry of the conventionalist, "Where do you put your brown tree?" show a prostration of intellect so laughable and lamentable, that they are at once, on all, and to all, students of the gallery, a satire and a warning. Art so followed is the most servile indolence in which life can be wasted. There are then two dangerous extremes to be shunned,--forgetfulness of the Scripture, and scorn of the divine--slavery on the one hand, free-thinking on the other.

The mean is nearly as difficult to determine or keep in art as in religion, but the great danger is on the side of superst.i.tion. He who walks humbly with Nature will seldom be in danger of losing sight of Art. He will commonly find in all that is truly great of man's works, something of their original, for which he will regard them with grat.i.tude, and sometimes follow them with respect; while he who takes Art for his authority may entirely lose sight of all that it interprets, and sink at once into the sin of an idolater, and the degradation of a slave.

[O] I should have insisted more on this fault (for it is a fatal one) in the following Essay, but the cause of it rests rather with the public than with the artist, and in the necessities of the public as much as in their will. Such pictures as artists themselves would wish to paint, could not be executed under very high prices; and it must always be easier, in the present state of society, to find ten purchasers of ten-guinea sketches, than one purchaser for a hundred-guinea picture. Still, I have been often both surprised and grieved to see that any effort on the part of our artists to rise above manufacture--any struggle to something like completed conception--was left by the public to be its own reward. In the water-color exhibition of last year there was a n.o.ble work of David c.o.x's, ideal in the right sense--a forest hollow with a few sheep crus.h.i.+ng down through its deep fern, and a solemn opening of evening sky above its dark ma.s.ses of distance. It was worth all his little bits on the walls put together. Yet the public picked up all the little bits--blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn--all that was clever and pet.i.te; and the real picture--the full development of the artist's mind--was left on his hands. How can I, or any one else, with a conscience, advise him after this to aim at anything more than may be struck out by the cleverness of a quarter of an hour. Cattermole, I believe, is earthed and shackled in the same manner. He began his career with finished and studied pictures, which, I believe, never paid him--he now prost.i.tutes his fine talent to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his way to emolument and oblivion. There is commonly, however, fault on both sides; in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank tricks of the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the knowledge and labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he has himself formed in his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a common actor will oftentimes render apparently vapid the finished touches of perfect nature; and in the public, for taking less real pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate, the various powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate the excellence of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

It is with much regret, and partly against my own judgment, that I republish the following chapters in their present form. The particular circ.u.mstances (stated in the first preface) under which they were originally written, have rendered them so unfit for the position they now hold as introductory to a serious examination of the general functions of art, that I should have wished first to complete the succeeding portions of the essay, and then to write another introduction of more fitting character. But as it may be long before I am able to do this, and as I believe what I have already written may still be of some limited and partial service, I have suffered it to reappear, trusting to the kindness of the reader to look to its intention rather than its temper, and forgive its inconsideration in its earnestness.

Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever I have found a pa.s.sage which I thought required modification or explanation, I have cut it out; what I have left, however imperfect, cannot I think be dangerously misunderstood: something I have added, not under the idea of rendering the work in any wise systematic or complete, but to supply gross omissions, answer inevitable objections, and give some substance to pa.s.sages of mere declamation.

Whatever inadequacy or error there may be, throughout, in materials or modes of demonstration, I have no doubt of the truth and necessity of the main result; and though the reader may, perhaps, find me frequently hereafter showing other and better grounds for what is here affirmed, yet the point and bearing of the book, its determined depreciation of Claude, Salvator, Gaspar, and Ca.n.a.letto, and its equally determined support of Turner as the greatest of all landscape painters, and of Turner's recent works as his finest, are good and right; and if the prevalence throughout of attack and eulogium be found irksome or offensive, let it be remembered that my object thus far has not been either the establishment or the teaching of any principles of art, but the vindication, most necessary to the prosperity of our present schools, of the uncomprehended rank of their greatest artist, and the diminution, equally necessary as I think to the prosperity of our schools, of the unadvised admiration of the landscape of the seventeenth century. For I believe it to be almost impossible to state in terms sufficiently serious and severe the depth and extent of the evil which has resulted (and that not in art alone, but in all other matters with which the contemplative faculties are concerned) from the works of those elder men. On the continent all landscape art has been utterly annihilated by them, and with it all sense of the power of nature. We in England have only done better because our artists have had strength of mind enough to form a school withdrawn from their influence.

These points are somewhat farther developed in the general sketch of ancient and modern landscape, which I have added to the first section of the second part. Some important additions have also been made to the chapters on the painting of sea. Throughout the rest of the text, though something is withdrawn, little is changed; and the reader may rest a.s.sured that if I were now to bestow on this feeble essay the careful revision which it much needs, but little deserves, it would not be to alter its tendencies, or modify its conclusions, but to prevent indignation from appearing virulence on the one side, and enthusiasm partisans.h.i.+p on the other.

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION (1873).

I have been lately so often asked by friends on whose judgment I can rely, to permit the publication of another edition of "Modern Painters"

in its original form, that I have at last yielded, though with some violence to my own feelings; for many parts of the first and second volumes are written in a narrow enthusiasm, and the substance of their metaphysical and religious speculation is only justifiable on the ground of its absolute honesty. Of the third, fourth, and fifth volumes I indeed mean eventually to rearrange what I think of permanent interest, for the complete edition of my works, but with fewer and less elaborate ill.u.s.trations: nor have I any serious grounds for refusing to allow the book once more to appear in the irregular form which it took as it was written, since of the art-teaching and landscape description it contains I have little to retrench, and nothing to retract.

This final edition must, however, be limited to a thousand copies, for some of the more delicate plates are already worn, that of the Mill Stream in the fifth volume, and of the Loire Side very injuriously; while that of the Sh.o.r.es of Wharfe had to be retouched by an engraver after the removal of the mezzotint for reprinting. But Mr. Armytage's, Mr. Cousen's, and Mr. Cuff's magnificent plates are still in good state, and my own etchings, though injured, are still good enough to answer their purpose.

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.

PART I.

OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

SECTION I.

OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.

CHAPTER I.--Introductory.

PAGE -- 1. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long periods of time. 1 -- 2. And therefore obstinate when once formed. 4 -- 3. The author's reasons for opposing it in particular instances. 5 -- 4. But only on points capable of demonstration. 5 -- 5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable. 6

CHAPTER II.--Definition of Greatness in Art.

-- 1. Distinction between the painter's intellectual power and technical knowledge. 8 -- 2. Painting, as such, is nothing more than language. 8 -- 3. "Painter," a term corresponding to "versifier." 9 -- 4. Example in a painting of E. Landseer's. 9 -- 5. Difficulty of fixing an exact limit between language and thought. 9 -- 6. Distinction between decorative and expressive language. 10 -- 7. Instance in the Dutch and early Italian schools. 10 -- 8. Yet there are certain ideas belonging to language itself. 11 -- 9. The definition. 12

CHAPTER III.--Of Ideas of Power.

-- 1. What cla.s.ses of ideas are conveyable by art. 13 -- 2. Ideas of power vary much in relative dignity. 13 -- 3. But are received from whatever has been the subject of power. The meaning of the word "excellence." 14 -- 4. What is necessary to the distinguis.h.i.+ng of excellence. 15 -- 5. The pleasure attendant on conquering difficulties is right. 16

CHAPTER IV.--Of Ideas of Imitation.

-- 1. False use of the term "imitation" by many writers on art. 17 -- 2. Real meaning of the term. 18 -- 3. What is requisite to the sense of imitation. 18 -- 4. The pleasure resulting from imitation the most contemptible that can be derived from art. 19 -- 5. Imitation is only of contemptible subjects. 19 -- 6. Imitation is contemptible because it is easy. 20 -- 7. Recapitulation. 20

CHAPTER V.--Of Ideas of Truth.

-- 1. Meaning of the word "truth" as applied to art. 21 -- 2. First difference between truth and imitation. 21 -- 3. Second difference. 21 -- 4. Third difference. 22 -- 5. No accurate truths necessary to imitation. 22 -- 6. Ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation. 24

CHAPTER VI.--Of Ideas of Beauty.

-- 1. Definition of the term "beautiful." 26 -- 2. Definition of the term "taste." 26 -- 3. Distinction between taste and judgment. 27 -- 4. How far beauty may become intellectual. 27 -- 5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty. 28 -- 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty." 28

CHAPTER VII.--Of Ideas of Relation.

-- 1. General meaning of the term. 29 -- 2. What ideas are to be comprehended under it. 29 -- 3. The exceeding n.o.bility of these ideas. 30 -- 4. Why no subdivision of so extensive a cla.s.s is necessary. 31

SECTION II.

OF POWER.