Chapter 15

What country maiden charms thee,However fair her face,Who knows not how to gatherHer dress with artless grace?

But the grace of pose never appears to be artless, after the first inspection, unless there is something in the expression to hold the mind. Without this appeal to the mind the portrait must soon tire, and the pose become artificial and stiff, that is to say, in representations of life size, for in miniature portraiture the countenance seldom or never crosses the vision involuntarily.

In the ancient Greek forms, Winckelmann distinguishes four kinds of grace—lofty, pleasing, humble,and comic—but the grace exhibited by sculptured forms necessarily depends upon the harmony of expression, character of form, and pose. This should be the case with painted portraits also, but drapery restrictions and accessories commonly compel a limitation in the design of the artist. In three quarter and full length portraits it is impossible to depart from the dress customary at the period of execution, unless the sitter assume a classical character, and this is only possible in comparatively few instances. In any case the pose should always be subordinated to the expression.

[a]Free translation (quoted by Wharton), the term "artless grace" being implied but not expressed by Sappho.

The remarkable range of Raphael in expression has been commented upon by many critics, and practically all agree with Lanzi in his eloquent summary[a]:

There is not a movement of the soul, there is not a character of passion known to the ancients and capable of being expressed in art, that he (Raphael) has not caught, expressed, and varied in a thousand different ways, and always within the bounds of propriety.... His figures are passions personified; and love, hope, fear, desire, anger, placability, humility, and pride, assume their places by turns as the subject changes; and while the spectator regards the countenances, the air, and the gestures of the figures, he forgets that they are the work of art, and is surprised to find his own feelings excited, and himself an actor in the scene before him.

[a]History of Painting in Italy, vol. i., Roscoe translation.

This Pompeian fresco is supposed to be a copy of the picture of Timanthes, but there is an ancient marble relief of the same subject at Florence, the design of which is also said to have been taken from the Grecian painter,though it differs considerably from the fresco. Quintilian observes as to the work of Timanthes, that having rendered Calchas sad, Ulysses still more sad, and Menelaus with the deepest expression of grief possible in art, the painter could not properly portray the countenance of Agamemnon, who as father of Iphigenia was presumed to be the most deeply affected of all present, and so covered his head, leaving the intensity of his suffering to be understood.[a]

[a]School of Oratory, ii.

The authenticity of the Boston example of Mona Lisa is still in dispute. So far no serious objection to it has been brought forward, and there are certain points in its favour, as the presence of the columns which are reproduced in Raphael's sketch, and the bold brushwork of the drapery where this can be distinguished. But there is another example of the work in existence, and this fact, with the natural hesitation in pronouncing definitely on so important a matter, will probably leave the authenticity of the picture undecided for a long time. Meanwhile the literature upon Mona Lisa is ever increasing, and some important facts have been recently brought out. Amongst these is an announcement by A. C. Coppier that the lady was not a Florentine, but a Neapolitan of the Gheradini family, and that she was married in 1495, when eighteen years of age.[a]She would therefore be twenty-seven years old in 1504 when the picture which Raphael sketched is supposed to have been painted. But the Mona Lisa in the Louvre was completed between 1515 and 1519; hence there is much to ascertain as to the history of the work.

[a]Les Arts, No. 145, 1914.

The various suggestions that have been made as to the meaning of Mona Lisa's smile, seem to have no other foundation than the fancies of mystic minds. The smile has been called dangerous, sinister, ambiguous, provocative, purposely enigmatic, significant of a loose woman, expressive of sublime motherhood, reminiscent of Eastern intrigue, and so on, the mildest criticism of this kind affirming that the smile will ever remain an enigma. It is of course impossible for any meaning to be put into a smile by the painter, other than that of pleasure. Psychological suggestions are possible with the poet or novelist, but not with the painter. If there be any enigma or mystery in a picture, then the art is bad, for the work is incomprehensible, but there is no problem to be solved in Mona Lisa's smile. It is not different from any other smile except in degree, and of course in the quality appertaining to the particular countenance. Lionardo, with his scientific turn of mind, was not likely to attempt the impossible by trying to mix psychology with paint.

It is necessary to dissent from the conclusion of Lessing as to the representation of ugliness by the poet. He says in referring to Homer's portrayal of Thersites[a]:

Why in the case of ugliness did he adopt a method from which he so judiciously refrained in that of beauty? Does not a successive enumeration of its compound parts diminish the effect of ugliness, just as a similar enumeration of its parts destroys that of beauty? Undoubtedly it does, but in this very fact lies Homer's justification. For the very reason that ugliness in the poet'sdescription is reduced to a less repulsive appearance of bodily imperfection, and in point of its effect ceases as it were to be ugliness, the poet is enabled to make use of it.

It is true that as he cannot present a particular form of beauty by description, so the poet cannot describe an ugly countenance in such a way that it may be pictured on the mind as a whole; but on the other hand, as he can, by reference to its effect, or by imagery, present a greater beauty than the painter can portray, so he may by similar means suggest a more hideous form of ugliness. And apart from this, while a detail in the description of a beautiful countenance is immaterial until it is combined with other details, a detail of ugliness may in itself be sufficient to render the countenance wholly repulsive to the reader. Thus, if one said of a maid that her cheeks were a compound of the lily and the rose, this would not necessarily imply that she was generally beautiful; but if it were said of a man that he had a large bulbous nose, we should consider him ugly whatever the character of his other features. It was only necessary for Milton to refer to one or two details of the figure of Sin, to throw upon our minds a form of appalling ugliness.[b]

A successive enumeration of its component parts, does not therefore diminish the effect of ugliness, as Lessing claims, but increases it. On the other hand a successive enumeration of the parts of beauty does not destroy the beauty, but simply fails to represent it.

The poet may use ugliness where the painter cannot, because his ugly form does not dominate the scene, save for an instant or two, being quickly subordinated by surrounding conditions of speech and action; whereas the ugly figure of the painter is fixed for ever. Further, the poet may surround his description of the ugly thingwith beautiful imagery and lofty sentiment, practically hiding the ugliness with a cloak of beauty; but the painter can only depict the ugly thing as it is, naked to the sight, without gloss or apology.

[a]Laocoon, Ronnfeldt translation.

[b]Paradise Lost, ii.

It has been suggested that the foot of Hercules in this fine bronze was placed upon the skull of an ox to indicate a successful hunt,[a]but Hercules was a demigod, and so could not be connected in art with any but a superhuman task or exploit. Moreover the only instance recorded in mythological history where Hercules fought with an ox (unless the feat of strength against the white bull of Augeas be called a fight), is that of the Cretan bull, which was captured and not killed. There is no other sculptured figure now known where a foot is placed on the skull of an ox, but Pausanias records that he saw one in a temple of Apollo at Patræ, the figure being that of the god himself.[b]Pausanias attributes the motive of the design to Apollo's love of cattle. There is no doubt about the significance of the Frick bronze. The skull of an ox, and rams' heads are frequently found on ancient tombs, and acanthus leaves were commonly used both in Greece and Rome as funereal signs, while the base of the statuette, which is cast with the figure, is clearly intended to represent an altar. It is noticeable that the form of acanthus leaf used is Roman, suggesting that Pollaiuolo had access to the reproductions of tomb inscriptions made to the order of Lorenzo de' Medici.

There is apparently no other existing design of a hero contemplating death, but Lysippus carved several figures,now lost, of Hercules in a sad or depressed mood. In the most celebrated of these, the demigod was seated in a thoughtful attitude on a lion's skin, and it is possible that this design was connected with the contemplation of death, because it was produced in relief soon after the time of Lysippus, and later in a Pompeian fresco, in both cases in the presence of Lichas, the bearer of the poisoned garment.

[a]Bode's Preface to theCatalogue of the Morgan Bronzes.

[b]Pausanias, vii.

The attempt of Ruskin to raise landscape to a high level in the art of the painter[a]need scarcely be referred to here, so completely have his arguments been refuted elsewhere.

The authority of Alexander Humboldt has been sometimes quoted in support of the assertion that landscape can appeal to the higher attributes, the passage relied upon affirming that descriptive poetry and landscape painting "are alike capable in a greater or lesser degree of combining the visible and invisible in our contemplation of nature." But it is clear from the whole references of the writer to these arts, that he means nothing more by his statement than that a painting or descriptive poem may, like an actual landscape, induce a feeling of wonder at the powers of the original Cause of nature. The opinion of Humboldt upon the position of landscape painting may be gathered from his definite observation that it has "a more material origin and a more earthly limitation than the art which deals with the human form."[b]

[a]Modern Painters, vols i. and ii., and the preface to the second edition of the work.

[b]Cosmos, vol. ii.

It is doubtful whether an artist can invent a form of tree which does not exist in nature, without producing something of the character of a monstrosity. From the point of view of dimensions, the two extreme forms oftrees used in painting, are represented in Raphael's Madonna with the Goldfinch[a]as to the slender forms, and as to the giant trunks, in two or three of Claude's pictures. The very beautiful trees of Raphael have been often regarded as pure inventions, and Ruskin was actually surprised that the artist did not delineate the "true form of the trees and the true thickness of the boughs";[b]but as a matter of fact precisely similar trees (a variety of ash) are to be found in the valleys of the Apennines to this day. All the change that Raphael made was to transport the trees from a sheltered spot to an open position. Very similar trees are introduced in the same master's Apollo and Marsyas.[c]Perugino was the first painter to use them, and in some of his earlier works he made them of great height,[d]but he gradually modified the form till he approached the perfect symmetry and delicacy of Raphael's examples.[e]Marco Basaiti introduced them into at least three of his pictures, and they are also to be found in works by Timoteo della Viti and Francia.[f]Higher and equally slender trees have been appropriately used by Antonio della Ceraiuolo,[g]and even by so late a painter as Nicholas Poussin.[h]

[a]Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

[b]Modern Painters, vol. iv.

[c]The Louvre.

[d]Baptism of Christ, Perugia; and The Crucifixion, Florence.

[e]The Deposition, Pitti Palace.

[f]Madonna and Child in a Rose Garden, Munich.

[g]The Crucifixion, Florence Academy.

[h]Diana sleeps in the Forest, Prado, Madrid.

In noting the fact that the great landscape artist invents his designs, Byron observes that nature does not furnish him with the scenes that he requires, and adds[a]:

Nature is not lavish of her beauties; they are widely scattered, and occasionally displayed, to be selected with care, and gathered with difficulty.

Had Byron been a painter, he would have known that the trouble of the artist is due to the over, and not the under, supply of beauty by nature. The artist sees the beauty, but cannot identify it with particular signs, and so has to invent a scene himself, using nature only for sketches or ideas.

[a]Art and Nature.

"The force of natural signs," says Lessing, "consists in their resemblance to the things they represent."[a]In a criticism upon the second part ofFaust, G. H. Lewes writes[b]:

The forms which are his (the artist's) materials, the symbols which are his language, must in themselves have beauty and an interest readily appreciable by those who do not understand the occult meaning. Unless they have this they cease to be art: they become hieroglyphs. Art is picture painting, not picture writing.

While this is generally true, beauty in the lesser signs of the poet is of greater importance than in those of the painter, because a painting is looked upon direct as a whole, while a poem has to be comprehended in its parts before it can be properly considered as a whole.

[a]Laocoon.

[b]Life of Goethe, 2d edition.

Although those of the fifteenth-century artists who treated landscape seriously did not thoroughly understand perspective, yet they were seldom at a loss in representing distance, that is, in the clear atmosphere which they invariably used. They were diffident in attemptingdistance with unbroken level country, and till quite the end of the century there is no instance where middle and far distance are shown together, even with the assistance of hilly ground. The almost invariable practice of the leading painters who made landscape a feature in their works, was to introduce water leading back from the foreground, so that breaks therein could be used to indicate distance. More or less numerous jutting forks of low lying land were thrown into the stream from either side, this plan being successfully adopted in Italy,[a]Flanders,[b]and Germany.[c]

Early in the sixteenth century much improvement was made in the use of water for providing distance, and a few of the Venetian painters gave some consideration to aerial perspective, but the most perfect example of this perspective in the period is contained in an early work of Raphael.[d]In the background is a lake extending into a gradually deepening haze, and in this a boat is so skilfully placed as to increase considerably the apparent distance to the horizon. This picture is a distinct advance upon the Venetian distance work of the time.[e]Later on in the century an artist rarely introduced water into a view specially to assist in producing distance by means of boats, more advanced methods being adopted. Titian used sunlight effects with varying shadows,[f]oralternating clear and wooded ground.[g]These plans, and the use of water with the addition of trees and low hills,[h]constitute the chief devices to be found in the late sixteenth-century Italian pictures. Some of the sun effects rendered for distance purposes even before Titian's best time are quite effective, though formal.[i]

[a]See Piero di Cosimo's Death of Procris, National Gallery, London, and Mars and Cupid, Berlin.

[b]Van Eyck's Chancellor Rollin before the Virgin, and Bout's Adoration of the Magi.

[c]Lucas Moser's Voyage of the Saints (1431), Tiefenbroun, Germany.

[d]Central panel in a triptych of the Crucifixion, Hermitage, Petrograd. This picture has been sometimes attributed to Perugino, but it is unquestionably from the hand of Raphael.

[e]See Titian's Jacopo Pesaro presented to St. Peter, Antwerp.

[f]Charles V. at Mühlberg, Madrid.

[g]Meeting of Joachim and Anna, Padua; and others.

[h]Bronzino's Venus and Cupid, Uffizi, Florence.

[i]Schiavone's Jupiter and Io, Hermitage.

PLATE 29PLATE 29Greek Sculpture of Ariadne(Vatican)(Seepage 329)

(Seepage 329)

Lessing apparently overlooked the possibilities of landscape painting in his dictum as to progressive actions. He writes[a]:

If painting on account of the signs and means of imitation which it employs, and which can only be combined in space, must entirely renounce time, then progressive actions cannot, in so far as they are progressive, be included in the number of its subjects, but it must content itself with coexistent actions, or with mere bodies, which on account of their position cause an action to be suspected.

It is true that a series of progressive human actions cannot be included in one painting, but progressive natural actions can be so included when the progression is regular and repeated and the actions are clearly separated to the eye. Although the painter can only depict a moment of time, he can show the whole progression, which is not the case in a series of human actions, as in the example quoted by Lessing, of Pandarus arranging his bow, opening his quiver, choosing an arrow, and so on.

Strange to say, De Quincey, in an explanatory note to Lessing's observations, also overlooks the movement of water broken by rocks, though he refers specially to landscape painting. He says[b]:

In the succession of parts which make up appearance in nature, either the parts simply repeat each other (as in the case of a man walking, a river flowing, etc.), or they unfold themselves through a cycle, in which each step effaces the preceding, as in the case of a gun exploding, where the flash is swallowed up by the smoke effaced by its own dispersion.

But for the purpose of the painter, the action of water breaking over ledges and boulders does not correspond with the case of a man walking or a river flowing, because the series of events forming the progression in the case of the water breaking, cover such time and space that the events can be distinctly separated by the eye. Clearly also this action should not be included in De Quincey's second category, because the repetition is both regular and (to all intents and purposes) perpetual. There should therefore be a third category to comprise those repeated progressive acts in which the events can be so separated by the eye as to be portrayed on canvas in the order of their progression, and in such a way that the whole progression, and the meaning of it, are at once apparent.

[a]Laocoon, Phillimore translation.

[b]Essay on "Lessing."

Professor Clausen relates that Whistler told him that his object in painting nocturnes was to try and exhibit the "mystery and beauty of the night." It is obvious that Whistler was here confusing psychological with visual impressions. The depth of gloom, the apparently limitless dark void which the eye cannot penetrate, mean mystery in a sense, because we can never accustom ourselves to the suggestion of infinity involved in something which is boundless to the senses. A sensation of the sublime may consequently arise, and this means beauty in a psychological sense. But we are considering art and not psychology. Where nothing is distinguished, nothing can be painted, and if there be sufficient light for objects to be determined, there can be no mystery for the painter. If he be desirous of representing Night, he must follow the example of Michelangelo and symbolize it.

It is curious that since the death of Whistler, a picture entitled Mysteries of the Night has been painted by another American artist—J. H. Johnston. A figure of a beautiful nude woman is standing on a rocky shore in a contemplative attitude, with the moonlight thrown upon her. The design is excellent, but the realistic modelling of the figure effectually kills any suggestion of mystery.

Vasari mentions that Michelangelo, though admiring the colour and manner of Titian regretted that the Venetian painters did not pay more attention to drawing in their studies.[a]In quoting this, Reynolds observed[b]:

But if general censure was given to that school from the sight of a picture by Titian, how much more heavily and more justly would the censure fall on Paolo Veronese, and more especially on Tintoretto.

Reynolds himself rightly excluded Titian when he condemned the later Venetian painters of the Renaissance for their exaggeration of colour, and no doubt Titian was also exempted by J. A. Symonds in his trenchant criticism of the work of this school. When dealing with the decline of Lesbian poetry after the brilliant period of Sappho, he wrote[c]:

In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provençal troubadours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art on the beauty of colour, the voluptuouscharms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued.

[a]Life of Titian.

[b]Reynolds's Fourth Discourse.

[c]Studies of the Greek Poets, vol. i.

Sir George Beaumont relates of Reynolds[a]:

On his return from his second tour over Flanders and Holland, he observed to me that the pictures of Rubens appeared much less brilliant than they had done on his former inspection. He could not for some time account for this little circumstance; but when he recollected that when he first saw them he had his notebook in his hand for the purpose of writing down short remarks, he perceived what had occasioned their now making a less impression than they had done formerly. By the eye passing immediately from the white paper to the picture, the colours derived uncommon richness and warmth; but for want of this foil they afterwards appeared comparatively cold.

[a]Cunningham'sLives of the British Painters.

Rodin[a]observes that in giving movement to his personages, the artist

represents the transition from one pose to another—he indicates how insensibly the first glides into the second. In his work we still see a part of what was, and we discover a part of what is to be.

Rodin points to Rude's fine statue of Marshal Ney, and practically says that here the illusion is created by a series of progressive actions indicated in the attitude: the legs remaining as they were when the sword was about to be drawn, and the hand still holding the scabbard away from the body, while the chest is being thrown out and the sword held aloft. Thus the sculptor

compels, so to speak, the spectator to follow the development of an act in an individual. The eyes are forced to travel upwards from the lower limbs to the raised arm, and as in so doing they find the different parts of the figure represented at successive instants, they have the illusion of beholding the movement performed.

Rodin himself has followed a similar course with much success. The ancient Greek sculptors, when representing a figure in action, invariably chose a moment of rest between two progressive steps in the action. The Discobolus and Marsyas of Myron, and particularly the Atalanta in the Louvre, are fine examples.

[a]Art, by Auguste Rodin, compiled by Paul Gsell, 1916.

Mengs, in referring to the arrangement of the drapery in Raphael's figures, says[a]:

With him every fold has its proper cause; either in its own weight or in the motion of the limbs. Sometimes the folds enable us to tell what has preceded; herein too Raphael has endeavoured to find significance. It can be seen by the position of the folds, whether an arm or a leg has been moved forwards or backwards into the attitude which it actually occupies; whether a limb has been, or is being, moved from a contracted position into a straightened one, or whether it was extended at first and is being contracted.

[a]The Works of Anton Raphael Mengs, vol. ii., D'Azara translation.

Besides assisting in providing an illusion, the title of a picture may lend great additional interest to it. Thus in Millet's The Angelus the associations called up by the title act most powerfully on the mind, and one almost listens for the sound of the bell.[a]A work of a similarcharacter is Bonvin's Ave Maria, where the nuns of a convent are answering the call[b]; and Horace Walker has a picture with the same title, in which a boy who is driving cattle, stops in front of a Crucifix by the wayside[c]. An excellent example of this added interest is the title of Turner's great picture of theTemeraire,[d]as to which R. Phillimore writes[e]:

It is not difficult to imagine the picture of an old man-of-war towed by a steam tug up a river. The execution of such a subject may deserve great praise and give great satisfaction to the beholder. But add to the representation the statement that it is "The fighting Temeraire towed to her last berth, " and a series of the most stirring events of our national history fills our imagination.

[a]The Louvre.

Back to Index Next