Lectures on Art by Washington Allston
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Washington Allston >> Lectures on Art
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Whether the position we have endeavoured to establish be disputed or
not, the absolute correspondence between the Moral and the Physical
is, at any rate, the essential ground of the Plastic arts; which could
not else exist, since through _Form alone_ they have to convey,
not only thought and emotion, but distinct and permanent character.
For our own part, we cannot but consider their success in this as
having settled the question.
From the view here presented, what is the inference in relation to
Art? That Man, as a compound being, cannot be represented without an
indication as well of Mind as of body; that, by a natural law which we
cannot resist, we do continually require that they be to us as mutual
exponents, the one of the other; and, finally, that, as a responsible
being, and therefore a free agent, he cannot be truly represented,
either to the memory or to the imagination, but as an Individual.
It would seem, also, from the indefinite varieties in men, though
occasioned only by the mere difference of degrees in their common
faculties and powers, that the coincidence of an equal developement of
all was never intended in nature; but that some one or more of them,
becoming dominant, should distinguish the individual. It follows,
therefore, if this be the case, that only through the phase of such
predominance can the human being ever be contemplated. To the Artist,
then, it becomes the only safe ground; the starting-point from
whence to ascend to a true Ideal,--which is no other than a partial
individual truth made whole in the mind: and thus, instead of one
Ideal, and that baseless, he may have a thousand,--nay, as many as
there are marked or apprehensible _individuals_.
But we must not be understood as confining Art to actual portraits.
Within such limits there could not be Art,--certainly not Art in its
highest sense; we should have in its place what would be little better
than a doubtful empiricism; since the most elevated subject, in the
ablest hands, would depend, of necessity, on the chance success of a
search after models. And, supposing that we bring together only the
rarest forms, still those forms, simply as circumscribed portraits,
and therefore insulated parts, would instantly close every avenue
to the imagination; for such is the law of the imagination, that it
cannot admit, or, in other words, recognize as a whole, that which
remains unmodified by some imaginative power, which alone can give
unity to separate and distinct objects. Yet, as it regards man,
all true Art does, and must, find its proper object in the
_Individual_: as without individuality there could not be
character, nor without character, the human being.
But here it may be asked, In what manner, if we resort not to actual
portrait, is the Individual Man to be expressed? We answer, By
carrying out the natural individual predominant _fragment_ which
is visible to us in actual Form, to its full, consistent developement.
The Individual is thus idealized, when, in the complete accordance of
all its parts, it is presented to the mind as a _whole_.
When we apply the term _fragment_ to a human being, we do not
mean in relation to his species, (in regard to which we have already
shown him to be a distinct whole,) but in relation to the Idea, to
which his predominant characteristic suggests itself but as a
partial manifestation, and made partial because counteracted by
some inadequate exponent, or else modified by other, though minor,
characteristics.
How this is effected must be left to the Artist himself. It is
impossible to prescribe a rule that would be to much purpose for any
one who stands in need of such instruction; if his own mind does not
suggest the mode, it would not even be intelligible. Perhaps our
meaning, however, may be made more obvious, if we illustrate it by
example. We would refer, then, to the restoration of a statue, (a
thing often done with success,) where, from a single fragment, the
unknown Form has been completely restored, and so remoulded, that the
parts added are in perfect unity with the suggestive fragment. Now the
parts wanting having never been seen, this cannot be called a mere
act of the memory. Nevertheless, it is not from nothing that man can
produce even the _semblance_ of any thing. The materials of the
Artist are the work of Him who created the Artist himself; but over
these, which his senses and mind are given him to observe and collect,
he has a _delegated power_, for the purpose of combining and
modifying, as unlimited as mysterious. It is by the agency of this
intuitive and assimilating Power, elsewhere spoken of, that he is able
to separate the essential from the accidental, to proceed also from a
part to the whole; thus educing, as it were, an Ideal nature from the
germs of the Actual.
Nor does the necessity of referring to Nature preclude the
Imaginative, or any other class of Art that rests its truth in the
desires of the mind. In an especial manner must the personification
of Sentiment, of the Abstract, which owe their interest to the common
desire of rendering permanent, by embodying, that which has given us
pleasure, take its starting-point from the Actual; from something
which, by universal association or particular expression, shall recall
the Sentiment, Thought, or Time, and serve as their exponents; there
being scarcely an object in Nature which the spirit of man has not, as
it were, impressed with sympathy, and linked with his being. Of this,
perhaps, we could not have a more striking example than in the Aurora
of Michael Angelo: which, if not universal, is not so only because
the faculty addressed is by no means common. For, as the peculiar
characteristic of the Imaginative is its suggestive power, the effect
of this figure must of necessity differ in different minds. As in many
other cases, there must needs be at least some degree of sympathy with
the mind that imagined it, in order to any impression; and the degree
in which that is made will always be in proportion to the congeniality
between the agent and the recipient. Should it appear, then, to any
one as a thing of no meaning, it is not therefore conclusive that the
Artist has failed. For, if there be but one in a thousand to whose
mind it recalls the deep stillness of Night, gradually broken by the
awakening stir of Day, with its myriad forms of life emerging into
motion, while their lengthened shadows, undistinguished from their
objects, seem to people the earth with gigantic beings; then the dim,
gray monotony of color transforming them to stone, yet leaving them
in motion, till the whole scene becomes awful and mysterious as with
moving statues;--if there be but one in ten thousand who shall have
thus imagined, as he stands before this embodied Dawn, then is it, for
every purpose of feeling through the excited imagination, as true and
real as if instinct with life, and possessing the mind by its living
will. Nor is the number so rare of those who have thus felt the
suggestive sorcery of this sublime Statue. But the mind so influenced
must be one to respond to sublime emotions, since such was the
emotion which inspired the Artist. If susceptible only to the gay and
beautiful, it will not answer. For this is not the Aurora of golden
purple, of laughing flowers and jewelled dew-drops; but the dark
Enchantress, enthroned on rocks, or craggy mountains, and whose proper
empire is the shadowy confines of light and darkness.
How all this is done, we shall not attempt to explain. Perhaps the
Artist himself could not answer; as to the _quo modo_ in every
particular, we doubt if it were possible to satisfy another. He may
tell us, indeed, that having imagined certain appearances and effects
peculiar to the Time, he endeavoured to imbue, as it were, some
_human form_ with the sentiment they awakened, so that the
embodied sentiment should associate itself in the spectator's mind
with similar images; and further endeavoured, that the _form_
selected should, by its air, attitude, and gigantic proportions, also
excite the ideas of vastness, solemnity, and repose; adding to this
that indefinite expression, which, while it is felt to act, still
leaves no trace of its indistinct action. So far, it is true, he may
retrace the process; but of the _informing life_ that quickened
his fiction, thus presenting the presiding Spirit of that ominous
Time, he knows nothing but that he felt it, and imparted it to the
insensible marble.
And now the question will naturally occur, Is all that has been done
by the learned in Art, to establish certain canons of Proportion,
utterly useless? By no means. If rightly applied, and properly
considered,--as it seems to us they must have been by the great
artists of Antiquity,--as _expedient fictions_, they undoubtedly
deserve at least a careful examination. And, inasmuch as they are the
result of a comparison of the finest actual forms through successive
ages, and as they indicate the general limits which Nature has been
observed to assign to her noblest works, they are so far to be valued.
But it must not be forgotten, that, while a race, or class, may be
generally marked by a certain average height and breadth, or curve and
angle, still is every class and race composed of _Individuals_,
who must needs, as such, differ from each other; and though the
difference be slight, yet is it "the little more, or the little less,"
which often separates the great from the mean, the wise from the
foolish, in human character;--nay, the widest chasms are sometimes
made by a few lines: so that, in every individual case, the limits in
question are rather to be departed from, than strictly adhered to.
The canon of the Schools is easily mastered by every student who has
only memory; yet of the hundreds who apply it, how few do so to any
purpose! Some ten or twenty, perhaps, call up life from the quarry,
and flesh and blood from the canvas; the rest conjure in vain with
their canon; they call up nothing but the dead measures. Whence the
difference? The answer is obvious,--In the different minds they each
carry to their labors.
But let us trace, with the Artist, the beginning and progress of a
successful work; a picture, for instance. His method of proceeding may
enable us to ascertain how far he is assisted by the science, so called,
of which we are speaking. He adjusts the height and breadth of his figures
according to the canon, either by the division of heads or faces, as most
convenient. By these means, he gets the general divisions in the easiest
and most expeditious way. But could he not obtain them without such aid?
He would answer, Yes, by the eye alone; but it would be a waste of time
were he so to proceed, since he would have to do, and undo, perhaps twenty
times, before he could erect this simple scaffolding; whereas, by applying
these rules, whose general truth is already admitted, he accomplishes his
object in a few minutes. Here we admit the use of the canon, and admire
the facility with which it enables his hand, almost without the aid of a
thought, thus to lay out his work. But here ends the science; and here
begins what may seem to many the work of mutilation: a leg, an arm, a
trunk, is increased, or diminished; line after line is erased, or
retrenched, or extended, again and again, till not a trace remains of the
original draught. If he is asked now by what he is guided in these
innumerable changes, he can only answer, By the feeling within me. Nor can
he better tell _how_ he knows when he has _hit the mark_. The same feeling
responds to its truth; and he repeats his attempts until that is
satisfied.
It would appear, then, that in the Mind alone is to be found the true
or ultimate Rule,--if, indeed, that can be called a rule which
changes its measure with every change of character. It is therefore
all-important that every aid be sought which may in any way contribute
to the due developement of the mental powers; and no one will doubt
the efficiency here of a good general education. As to the course of
study, that must be left in a great measure to be determined by the
student; it will be best indicated by his own natural wants. We
may observe, however, that no species of knowledge can ever be
_oppressive_ to real genius, whose peculiar privilege is that of
subordinating all things to the paramount desire. But it is not likely
that a mind so endowed will be long diverted by any studies that do
not either strengthen its powers by exercise, or have a direct bearing
on some particular need.
If the student be a painter, or a sculptor, he will not need to be
told that a knowledge of the human being, in all his complicated
springs of action, is not more essential to the poet than to him. Nor
will a true Artist require to be reminded, that, though _himself_
must be his ultimate dictator and judge, the allegiance of the world
is not to be commanded either by a dreamer or a dogmatist. And
nothing, perhaps, would be more likely to secure him from either
character, than the habit of keeping his eyes open,--nay, his very
heart; nor need he fear to open it to the whole world, since nothing
not kindred will enter there to abide; for
"Evil into the mind ...
May come and go, so unapproved, and leave
No spot or blame behind."
And he may also be sure that a pure heart will shed a refining light
on his intellect, which it may not receive from any other source.
It cannot be supposed that an Artist, so disciplined, will overlook
the works of his predecessors,--especially those exquisite remains of
Antiquity which time has spared to us. But to his own discretion must
be left the separating of the factitious from the true,--a task of
some moment; for it cannot be denied that a mere antiquarian respect
for whatever is ancient has preserved, with the good, much that is
worthless. Indeed, it is to little purpose that the finest forms are
set before us, if we _feel_ not their truth. And here it may be
well to remark, that an injudicious _word_ has often given a
wrong direction to the student, from which he has found it difficult
to recover when his maturer mind has perceived the error. It is a
common thing to hear such and such statues, or pictures, recommended
as _models_. If the advice is followed,--as it too often is
_literally_,--the consequence must be an offensive mannerism;
for, if repeating himself makes an artist a mannerist, he is still
more likely to become one if he repeat another. There is but one model
that will not lead him astray,--which is Nature: we do not mean what
is merely obvious to the senses, but whatever is so acknowledged by
the mind. So far, then, as the ancient statues are found to represent
her,--and the student's own feeling must be the judge of that,--they
are undoubtedly both true and important objects of study, as
presenting not only a wider, but a higher view of Nature, than might
else be commanded, were they buried with their authors; since, with
the finest forms of the fairest portion of the earth, we have also in
them the realized Ideas of some of the greatest minds. In like manner
may we extend our sphere of knowledge by the study of all those
productions of later ages which have stood this test. There is no
school from which something may not be learned. But chiefly to the
Italian should the student be directed, who would enlarge his views
on the present subject, and especially to the works of Raffaelle and
Michael Angelo; in whose highest efforts we have, so to speak,
certain revelations of Nature which could only have been made by her
privileged seers. And we refer to them more particularly, as to the
two great sovereigns of the two distinct empires of Truth,--the
Actual and the Imaginative; in which their claims are acknowledged
by _that_ within us, of which we know nothing but that it
_must_ respond to all things true. We refer to them, also, as
important examples in their mode of study; in which it is evident
that, whatever the source of instruction, it was never considered as a
law of servitude, but rather as the means of giving visible shape to
their own conceptions.
From the celebrated antique fragment, called the Torso, Michael Angelo
is said to have constructed his forms. If this be true,--and we have
no reason to doubt it,--it could nevertheless have been to him little
more than a hint. But that is enough to a man of genius, who stands
in need, no less than others, of a point to start from. There was
something in this fragment which he seems to have felt, as if of a
kindred nature to the unembodied creatures in his own mind; and he
pondered over it until he mastered the spell of its author. He then
turned to his own, to the germs of life that still awaited birth,
to knit their joints, to attach the tendons, to mould the
muscles,--finally, to sway the limbs by a mighty will. Then emerged
into being that gigantic race of the Sistina,--giants in mind no less
than in body, that appear to have descended as from another planet.
His Prophets and Sibyls seem to carry in their persons the commanding
evidence of their mission. They neither look nor move like beings to
be affected by the ordinary concerns of life; but as if they could
only be moved by the vast of human events, the fall of empires, the
extinction of nations; as if the awful secrets of the future had
overwhelmed in them all present sympathies. As we have stood before
these lofty apparitions of the painter's mind, it has seemed to us
impossible that the most vulgar spectator could have remained there
irreverent.
With many critics it seems to have been doubted whether much that
we now admire in Raffaelle would ever have been but for his great
contemporary. Be this as it may, it is a fact of history, that, after
seeing the works of Michael Angelo, both his form and his style
assumed a breadth and grandeur which they possessed not before.
And yet these great artists had little, if any thing, in common;
a sufficient proof that an original mind may owe, and even freely
acknowledge, its impetus to another without any self-sacrifice.
As Michael Angelo adopted from others only what accorded with his
own peculiar genius, so did Raffaelle; and, wherever collected, the
materials of both could not but enter their respective minds as their
natural aliment.
The genius of Michael Angelo was essentially _Imaginative_. It
seems rarely to have been excited by the objects with which we are
daily familiar; and when he did treat them, it was rather as things
past, as they appear to us through the atmosphere of the hallowing
memory. We have a striking instance of this in his statue of Lorenzo
de' Medici; where, retaining of the original only enough to mark the
individual, and investing the rest with an air of grandeur that should
accord with his actions, he has left to his country, not a mere
effigy of the person, but an embodiment of the mind; a portrait
for posterity, in which the unborn might recognize Lorenzo the
Magnificent.
But the mind of Raffaelle was an ever-flowing fountain of human
sympathies; and in all that concerns man, in his vast varieties and
complicated relations, from the highest forms of majesty to the
humblest condition of humanity, even to the maimed and misshapen, he
may well be called a master. His Apostles, his philosophers, and most
ordinary subordinates, are all to us as living beings; nor do we feel
any doubt that they all had mothers, and brothers, and kindred. In
the assemblage of the Apostles (already referred to) at the Death of
Ananias, we look upon men whom the effusion of the Spirit has equally
sublimated above every unholy thought; a common power seems to have
invested them all with a preternatural majesty. Yet not an iota of the
_individual_ is lost in any one; the gentle bearing and amenity
of John still follow him in his office of almoner; nor in Peter does
the deep repose of the erect attitude of the Apostle, as he deals the
death-stroke to the offender by a simple bend of his finger, subdue
the energetic, sanguine temperament of the Disciple.
If any man may be said to have reigned over the hearts of his fellows,
it was Raffaelle Sanzio. Not that he knew better what was in the
hearts and minds of men than many others, but that he better
understood their relations to the external. In this the greatest names
in Art fall before him; in this he has no rival; and, however derived,
or in whatever degree improved by study, in him it seems to have risen
to intuition. We know not how he touches and enthralls us; as if he
had wrought with the simplicity of Nature, we see no effort; and we
yield as to a living influence, sure, yet inscrutable.
It is not to be supposed that these two celebrated Artists were at all
times successful. Like other men, they had their moments of weakness,
when they fell into manner, and gave us diagrams, instead of life.
Perhaps no one, however, had fewer lapses of this nature than
Raffaelle; and yet they are to be found in some of his best works. We
shall notice now only one instance,--the figure of St. Catherine in
the admirable picture of the Madonna di Sisto; in which we see an
evident rescript from the Antique, with all the received lines of
beauty, as laid down by the analyst,--apparently faultless, yet
without a single inflection which the mind can recognize as allied to
our sympathies; and we turn from it coldly, as from the work of an
artificer, not of an Artist. But not so can we turn from the intense
life, that seems almost to breathe upon us from the celestial group of
the Virgin and her Child, and from the Angels below: in these we have
the evidence of the divine afflatus,--of inspired Art.
In the works of Michael Angelo it were easy to point out numerous
examples of a similar failure, though from a different cause; not from
mechanically following the Antique, but rather from erecting into
a model the exaggerated _shadow_ of his own practice; from
repeating lines and masses that might have impressed us with grandeur
but for the utter absence of the informing soul. And that such is the
character--or rather want of character--of many of the figures in his
Last Judgment cannot be gainsaid by his warmest admirers,--among whom
there is no one more sincere than the present writer. But the failures
of great men are our most profitable lessons,--provided only, that we
have hearts and heads to respond to their success.
In conclusion. We have now arrived at what appears to us the
turning-point, that, by a natural reflux, must carry us back to our
original Position; in other words, it seems to us clear, that the
result of the argument is that which was anticipated in our main
Proposition; namely, that no given number of Standard Forms can with
certainty apply to the Human Being; that all Rules therefore, thence
derived, can only be considered as _Expedient Fictions_, and
consequently subject to be _overruled_ by the Artist,--in whose
mind alone is the ultimate Rule; and, finally, that without an
intimate acquaintance with Nature, in all its varieties of the moral,
intellectual, and physical, the highest powers are wanting in their
necessary condition of action, and are therefore incapable of
supplying the Rule.
Composition.
The term Composition, in its general sense, signifies the union of
things that were originally separate: in the art of Painting it
implies, in addition to this, such an arrangement and reciprocal
relation of these materials, as shall constitute them so many
essential parts of a whole.
In a true Composition of Art will be found the following
characteristics:--First, Unity of Purpose, as expressing the general
sentiment or intention of the Artist. Secondly, Variety of Parts, as
expressed in the diversity of shape, quantity, and line. Thirdly,
Continuity, as expressed by the connection of parts with each other,
and their relation to the whole. Fourthly, Harmony of Parts.
As these characteristics, like every thing which the mind can
recognize as true, all have their origin in its natural desires, they
may also be termed Principles; and as such we shall consider them. In
order, however, to satisfy ourselves that they are truly such, and not
arbitrary assumptions, or the traditional dogmas of Practice, it may
be well to inquire whence is their authority; for, though the ultimate
cause of pleasure and pain may ever remain to us a mystery, yet it is
not so with their intermediate causes, or the steps that lead to them.
With respect to Unity of Purpose, it is sufficient to observe, that,
where the attention is at the same time claimed by two objects, having
each a different end, they must of necessity break in upon that free
state required of the mind in order to receive a full impression from
either. It is needless to add, that such conflicting claims cannot,
under any circumstances, be rendered agreeable. And yet this most
obvious requirement of the mind has sometimes been violated by great
Artists,--though not of authority in this particular, as we shall
endeavour to show in another place.
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