Modern Painters Volume III Part 5

[15] In the St. Cecilia of Bologna.

[16] In the Transfiguration. Do but try to believe that Moses and Elias are really there talking with Christ. Moses in the loveliest heart and midst of the land which once it had been denied him to behold,--Elijah treading the earth again, from which he had been swept to heaven in fire; both now with a mightier message than ever they had given in life,--mightier, in closing their own mission,--mightier, in speaking to Christ "of His decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem." They, men of like pa.s.sions once with us, appointed to speak to the Redeemer of His death.

And, then, look at Raphael's kicking gracefulnesses.

[17] Luther had no dislike of religious art on principle. Even the stove in his chamber was wrought with sacred subjects. See Mrs. Stowe's Sunny Memories.

[18] I do not know anything more humiliating to a man of common sense, than to open what is called an "ill.u.s.trated 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 Mana.s.seh, stir up thy strength, and come and help us;" preferring this:--

"Behold, how Benjamin expects, With Ephraim and Mana.s.seh joined, In their deliverance, the effects Of thy resistless strength to find!"

[19] "En 1780, age de quatre-vingt-deux ans, au moment de recevoir le viatique, il ra.s.sembla ses forces, et chanta, a son Createur:

'Eterno Genitor Io t' offro il proprio figlio Che in pegno del tuo amor Si vuole a me donar.

A lui rivolgi il ciglio, Mira chi t' offro; e poi, Niega, Signor, se puoi, Niega di perdonar.'"-- --DE STENDHAL, _Via de Metastasio_.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE FALSE IDEAL:--SECONDLY, PROFANE.

-- 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.

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 pa.s.sed 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.

-- 2. I said just now that we might be tempted to consider how this pursuit of the ideal _affected_ 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 _chief_ 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.

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 too little scope in the sanct.i.ties even of the softest womanhood; and the newly acquired conceptions of the n.o.bility 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 wors.h.i.+pped, in scorn of those whose hands were charged with chastis.e.m.e.nt.

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 suns.h.i.+ne, Persephone had reascended her throne in the deep.

-- 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; _now_ they sought for the same unnatural beauty in representing tales which they knew to be fict.i.tious, 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 G.o.ds. 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 subst.i.tuted for perception, and bodily beauty for spiritual life, it set itself to represent men it had never seen, customs it had never practised, and G.o.ds in whom it had never believed.

-- 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 princ.i.p.ally in two, pride and sensuality. To the pride, was attached eminently 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 circ.u.mstance 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 pa.s.sion, 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 t.i.tian, nor the Antiope of Correggio.

-- 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 n.o.ble ends, they took a thousand different forms; painting, however, of course being the most complying, aiming sometimes at mere amus.e.m.e.nt 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 G.o.ddesses 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.

-- 6. Meanwhile, the art of sculpture, less capable of ministering to mere amus.e.m.e.nt, was more or less reserved for the affectations of taste; and the study of the cla.s.sical statues introduced various ideas on the subjects of "purity," "chast.i.ty," 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 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 cla.s.s 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 fas.h.i.+onable, that is, complying with a momentary caprice of the upper cla.s.ses; but it means agreeing with the habitual sense which the most refined education, common to those upper cla.s.ses 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 coa.r.s.e 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, diminis.h.i.+ng 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-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 cla.s.s and cla.s.s, 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 n.o.ble art; and the name which is given to the feeling,--Taste, Gout, Gusto,--in all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it implies that art gives only a kind of pleasure a.n.a.logous to that derived from eating by the palate.

-- 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 cla.s.sical 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 coa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sions. 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 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 a.s.suredly find it to be) in its appeal to the lower pa.s.sions, 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 pa.s.sions, 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 a.s.suredly 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,[20] 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.

-- 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 sense, to detect the charm of pa.s.sing 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.

-- 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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.

-- 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 _is_ a n.o.ble 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 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 ign.o.ble and Perdita graceless.

-- 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 pa.s.sion can as easily distinguish as his utmost critical science; whereas, the observer who has accustomed himself to take human faces as G.o.d 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.

-- 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 pa.s.s 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 invention, 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.

-- 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 vanita, 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."[21]

[20] Ezek. xxiii. 14.

[21] Hosea, chap. iv. 12, 13, and 19.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE TRUE IDEAL:--FIRST, PURIST.

-- 1. Having thus glanced at the princ.i.p.al modes in which the imagination works for evil, we must rapidly note also the princ.i.p.al directions in which its operation is admissible, even in changing or strangely combining what is brought within its sphere.

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 antic.i.p.ations of future ones, under aspects which would bear the sternest tests of historical investigation, or abstract reasoning.

And in general this is, indeed, its n.o.blest 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 refres.h.i.+ng or animating power ordained to be in us for our help.

-- 2. (A). It was noted in speaking above of the Angelican or pa.s.sionate ideal, that there was a certain virtue in it dependent on the expression of its loving enthusiasm. (Chap. IV. -- 10.)

(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. III. -- 15.)

(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 fict.i.tious creatures. (Chap. IV. -- 5.)

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 cla.s.s, 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 _Grotesque_.

For this reason, we shall find it convenient to arrange what we have to note respecting true idealism under the three heads--

A. Purist Idealism.

B. Naturalist Idealism.

C. Grotesque Idealism.

-- 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.