Modern Painters Volume III Part 8

-- 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 _that_ with his feet. Let us see what the Lombardic workman saw him doing.

Remember, first, the griffin, though part lion and part eagle, has the united _power of both_. 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.

Well, among things essential to the might of a lion, perhaps, on the whole, the most essential are his _teeth_. 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.

Again; among things essential to the might of an eagle, next to his wings (which are of course prominent in both examples), are his _claws_. 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 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.

-- 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.

Well, what more does he tell us? Another thing, remember, essential to an eagle is that it should fly _fast_. 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 c.o.c.ked ears to catch the wind.

Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false griffin _has_ 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.

-- 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.

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 _stretch_ 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 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.

-- 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 _indolence_, 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.

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, p.r.o.ne 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, cras.h.i.+ng 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.

-- 18. Now observe how in all this, through every separate part and action of the creature, the imagination is _always_ right. It evidently _cannot_ 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.

-- 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 _nothing else_ 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.

-- 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 n.o.ble than those for the sake of which the truth was lost by the legalist. The ornamental lines in the cla.s.sical 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 ma.s.sively useful, 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 ma.s.s and breadth, which all composers desire more or less, but which they seldom so perfectly accomplish.

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.

-- 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, unenc.u.mbered 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 cla.s.sical 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 pa.s.sionate symbolism. Under its eagle's wings are two wheels,[36]

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,[37] In this unity it bears up the pillars of the Church, set for ever 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 _deadly_ wound is inflicted by itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. True and False Griffins. Mediaeval. Cla.s.sical.]

[30] On the Grotesque Renaissance, vol. iii.

[31] See Appendix I. Vol. IV. "Modern Grotesque."

[32] Cankred--because he cannot then bite hard.

[33] Though, perhaps, only in a subordinate degree. See farther on, -- 8.

[34] "So red, that in the midst of the fire she could hardly have been seen."

[35] 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.

[36] At the extremities of the wings,--not seen in the plate.

[37] Compare the Purgatorio, canto xxix. &c.

CHAPTER IX.

OF FINISH.

-- 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.

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 quant.i.ty of truth it grasped. And now the question, left undetermined some hundred pages back (Chap.

II. -- 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?

-- 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 n.o.bly 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.

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 _fallacious_ finish and a _faithful_ 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.

-- 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_mans.h.i.+p_, in our manufactures and general doings of any kind, but to despise totally the impressive finish which belongs to the _work_; 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_mans.h.i.+p_, which is done for vanity's sake, and to love the finish of _work_, 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.

Let us think over this matter.

-- 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 c.u.mbrous fastenings, and can only be forced asunder or together by some ingenuity and effort, and even then not properly. So with everything else--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 a.s.suredly made of the toughest leather. I am afraid, that if this peculiar character of finish in our workmans.h.i.+p 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 n.o.ble feeling; neither is it an ign.o.ble 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 faultful carelessness; but at all events we have no right at once to p.r.o.nounce 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 quant.i.ty of labor to the best account.

-- 5. Now, so far from the labor's being turned to good account which is given to our English "finis.h.i.+ng," 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 finis.h.i.+ng; the polis.h.i.+ng of its surface, useless.[38] 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 finis.h.i.+ng, namely, smoothness, delicacy, or fineness, _cannot_ in reality _exist_, in a degree worth admiring, in anything done by human hands. Our best finis.h.i.+ng is but coa.r.s.e and blundering work after all We may smooth, and soften, and sharpen till we are sick at heart; but take a good magnifying gla.s.s 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. G.o.d 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 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.

-- 6. But more than this: the fact is that in mult.i.tudes of instances, instead of gaining greater fineness of finish by our work, we are only destroying the fine finish of nature, and subst.i.tuting coa.r.s.eness 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 _his_ fas.h.i.+on, 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 k.n.o.bs, all equally shapeless, colorless, deathful, and frightful.[39] 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 "finis.h.i.+ng," but _un_finis.h.i.+ng 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 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.

-- 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, a.s.suredly 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 _that_ finish does not consist in smoothing or polis.h.i.+ng, but in the _completeness of the expression of ideas_. For in painting, there is precisely the same difference between the ends proposed in finis.h.i.+ng 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.

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 _completing_ the picture as _adding_ to it. It is not that what is painted is more delicately done, but that infinitely _more_ is painted. This finish is always n.o.ble, and, like all other n.o.blest 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 ill.u.s.trate it thoroughly.

-- 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 _outline only_. 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 _imit_ation, but a _limit_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 _shadow_ 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.

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 _know_ more or _see_ 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 Moses at the Burning Bush; and 6. from the foreground of Miller's Modern Italy, after Turner.[40]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 2. Drawing of Tree-Stems.]

All these represent, as far as the engraving goes, simply _nothing_.

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 l.u.s.trous, but has no resemblance to the original bough of Turner's, which is pale, and does not glitter.