Art Principles with Special Reference to Painting. Ernest Govett

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СКАЧАТЬ rel="nofollow" href="#ub4058bf2-000c-4be3-b38b-d319bd2eef78">15 This is axiomatic. There are proportions and propriety in all the arts, and the good artist is quite aware of the lines to be drawn in respect of the manner he adopts. Jan Van Eyck's picture of Arnolfini and his Wife, and Holbein's Ambassadors, both painted in the fine manner, are equally great works of art with Titian's portraits; and Raphael's portrait of Julius II. (the Pitti Palace example),16 which is in a manner midway between that of Holbein and Titian, is superior to the work of all other portrait artists.

But the most remarkable outcome of the spread of Impressionism is not the extravagant use of the broad manner, for vagaries of this sort will always find support among immature minds and undiligent hands, but the establishment of a species of cult connected with certain old masters who are not in the very first rank, and the attempted relegation to the background of public opinion, of the few sublime painters whose colossal genius and superiority are recognized by well balanced minds wherever the breath of man can open the door of his soul. It is unnecessary to enter upon a long enquiry as to the validity of these proceedings, but the new position in which two great masters have been placed can scarcely be ignored. These masters are Rembrandt and Velasquez, who appear to have been set upon the loftiest of pedestals in order that some of their glory may be shed upon the new varieties of Sprezzatura. It has been frequently said that these masters were the first of impressionists, but the connection between their work and Impressionism is hard to find.17 Not only is Rembrandt entirely distinct in his manner from Velasquez; not only were they both portrait painters primarily, while the great bulk of impressionist work is landscape; but their aims, their ideas, and the whole of their works are as far removed from the new school as the poles are asunder. The work of the two great painters deals almost entirely with expression, that of the impressionists with colour harmonies. In the one case intellectual beauty is sought to accompany the sensorial, in the other the production of beauty which is not purely or almost entirely sensorial, is not even pretended. While these differences are obvious, and while no man of ordinary intelligence is likely to be confused in his mind in respect of them, the fact remains that the movement, which was born with Impressionism some forty years ago, to raise Rembrandt and Velasquez to an elevation in art to which they are not entitled, has met with much success amongst that considerable section of the community which is interested in art and appreciates its value, but suffers from the delusion that special knowledge, which it has not acquired, is necessary for the recognition of high æsthetic merit. No definite propositions have been laid down in support of the movement: there has been no line of reasoning for the critic to handle, nor have the old standards been upset in the slightest degree: the position has been brought about chiefly by a continuous reiteration of vague assertions and mystic declarations, and by the glamour arising from the enormous prices paid by collectors for the works of the masters named, consequent upon the skilful commercial exploitation of this exaggerated approbation.

       PLATE 4 Venus Anadyomene (Sculpture after the painting of Apelles)

      (See page 113)

      PLATE 5 Venus Anadyomene (The painting of Titian)

      (See page 115)

      Portraiture is necessarily on a lower scale of art than historical painting (using this term in its higher application), firstly because ideals are not possible therein, and secondly in that the imagination of the artist is very restricted. The greatest portrait ever painted is immeasurably below a picture where a beautiful ideal form, with ideal expression is depicted; as far below in fact as the best ancient sculptured busts were inferior to the gods of Praxiteles. Neither Rembrandt nor Velasquez was capable of idealization of form, and so neither left behind him a single painted figure to take its place as a type. Rembrandt was a master of human expression, and in the representation of character he was perhaps unsurpassed by any painter, but if we analyze the feeling that is at the bottom of the appreciation of his portraits, we find that it largely consists of something apart from admiration of them as things of beauty. There enters into consideration recognition of the extraordinary genius of the artist in presenting character in such a way that the want of corporeal beauty seems to be unfelt. Instead of observing that the expression in a countenance harmonizes with the features, we involuntarily notice that the features harmonize perfectly with the expression, which seems in itself to be the picture. Of course inasmuch as the expression invariably appeals to the good side of our nature, it means intellectual beauty, but as the depth of any impression of this kind of beauty depends upon the development of the mind, the admiration must, except where the artist presents corporeal beauty, be confined generally to the cultivated section of the community. From the point of view of pure art, his fame as a great painter can only rest upon those of his pictures which are also appreciated for the corporeal beauty exhibited.

      The extraordinary power of Velasquez lay in the sure freedom of his execution, and in this he was equal to Titian. He was besides a master of balance, and so every portrait he painted is one complete whole, and has exactly the effect that a portrait should have—to direct the mind of the observer to the subject, and away altogether from the painter. But these high qualities as portrait painters do not place Rembrandt and Velasquez on a level with Raphael, and Michelangelo, and Correggio. Whatever the individual opinion, it is impossible to move aside from the long path of experience and the laws dependent upon natural functions, and so long as the world lasts, a work of ideal beauty, whether it be a Madonna by Raphael, a Prophet by Michelangelo, or a symbolical figure by Fragonard, will live in general estimation, which is the only test of high beauty, far above portraits from life and scenes of every day labour, however they may be painted. The beauty of the one is eternal and exalting; and of the other, sympathetic and more or less passive. The appreciation of Raphael and Michelangelo is universal, spontaneous, emphatic; of Rembrandt and Velasquez, sometimes imperative, but usually deliberative and cultivated. In fact it is only amongst a section of cultivated people, that is to say, a small percentage of the community, that Rembrandt and Velasquez are given a status which is not, and cannot be, accorded them if we adhere to the natural and time-honoured standards of judgment accepted by the first artists and philosophers known to the world since art emerged from the prehistoric shade. To place these artists above, or on a level with, the Italian artists named, is to cast from their pedestals Homer, Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Shakespeare, Dante, and every other admittedly sublime genius in art of whom we have record.

      Another baneful result of Impressionism is the attempt to raise landscape to a higher level in art than that to which it is properly entitled. This is perhaps a natural consequence of the elevation of colour at the expense of form, for the movement is based upon new methods of colouring, and the significance of colour is vastly greater in landscape than in any other branch of art. Elsewhere the disabilities of the landscape painter are pointed out, and it will be seen that fixed and unalterable restrictions compel an extreme limitation to his work. It is because of these restrictions that the very greatest artists have refrained from paying close attention to this branch of art as a separate department.

      From indirect records we may presume that landscape painting was well understood in the days of ancient Greece, but there is no evidence that it then formed a separate branch of art. In Roman times according to Pliny, landscape was used for mural decoration. Of its character we can only judge from the examples exposed during the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, which indicate that the pictures had but a topographical interest, or formed settings for the representation of industrial pursuits or classical adventures. Certainly there is no instance in Greek or Roman art recorded or exhibited, of any landscape as we understand it, that is, a work built up as a beautiful representation of nature, to be instantly recognized by the observer as a complete whole, as one sign in fact. The artists of the Italian Renaissance did not paint landscapes as separate pictures unless by way of study or experiment. They evidently considered landscape signs purely as accessories, and composed СКАЧАТЬ