Lectures on Art by Washington Allston
W >>
Washington Allston >> Lectures on Art
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 | 12 |
13 |
14
Now what was this new language but the product of other minds,--of
successive minds, amending, enlarging, elaborating, through successive
ages, till, fitted to all its wants, it became true to the Ideal, and
the vernacular tongue of genius through all time? The first inventor
of verse was but the prophetic herald of Homer, Shakspeare, and
Milton. And what was Rome then but the great University of Art, where
all this accumulated learning was treasured?
Much has been said of self-taught geniuses, as opposed to those who
have been instructed by others: but the distinction, it appears to
us, is without a difference; for it matters not whether we learn in a
school or by ourselves,--we cannot learn any thing without in some way
recurring to other minds. Let us imagine a poet who had never read,
never heard, never conversed with another. Now if he will not be
taught in any thing by another, he must strictly preserve this
independent negation. Truly the verses of such a poet would be a
miracle. Of similar self-taught painters we have abundant examples in
our aborigines,--but nowhere else.
But, while we maintain, as a positive law of our nature, the necessity
of mental intercourse with our fellow-creatures, in order to the full
developement of the _individual_, we are far from implying that
any thing which is actually taken from others can by any process
become our own, that is, original. We may reverse, transpose,
diminish, or add to it, and so skilfully that no scam or mutilation
shall be detected; and yet we shall not make it appear original,--in
other words, _true_, the offspring of _one_ mind. A borrowed
thought will always be borrowed; as it will be felt as such in its
_effect_, even while we are ourselves unconscious of the fact:
for it will want that _effect of life_, which only the first mind
can give it[3].
Of the multifarious retailers of the second-hand in style, the class
is so numerous as to make a selection difficult: they meet us at every
step in the history of the Art. One instance, however, may suffice,
and we select Vernet, as uniting in himself a singular and striking
example of the _false_ and the _true_; and also as the least
invidious instance, inasmuch as we may prove our position by opposing
him to himself.
In the landscapes of Vernet, (when not mere views,) we see the
imitator of Salvator, or rather copyist of his lines; and these we
have in all their angular nakedness, where rocks, trees, and mountains
are so jagged, contorted, and tumbled about, that nothing but an
explosion could account for their assemblage. They have not the
relation which we sometimes find even in a random collocation, as in
the accidental pictures of a discolored wall; for the careful hand
of the contriver is traced through all this disorder; nay, the very
execution, the conventional dash of pencil, betrays what a lawyer
would call the _malice prepense_ of the Artist in their strange
disfigurement. To many this may appear like hypercriticism; but we
sincerely believe that no one, even among his admirers, has ever been
deceived into a real sympathy with such technical flourishes: they
are felt as factitious; as mere diagrams of composition deduced from
pictures.
Now let us look at one of his Storms at Sea, when he wrought from his
own mind. A dark leaden atmosphere prepares us for something fearful:
suddenly a scene of tumult, fierce, wild, disastrous, bursts upon us;
and we feel the shock drive, as it were, every other thought from the
mind: the terrible vision now seizes the imagination, filling it with
sound and motion: we see the clouds fly, the furious waves one upon
another dashing in conflict, and rolling, as if in wrath, towards the
devoted ship: the wind blows from the canvas; we hear it roar through
her shrouds; her masts bend like twigs, and her last forlorn hope,
the close-reefed foresail, streams like a tattered flag: a terrible
fascination still constrains us to look, and a dim, rocky shore looms
on her lee: then comes the dreadful cry of "Breakers ahead!" the crew
stand appalled, and the master's trumpet is soundless at his lips.
This is the uproar of nature, and we _feel_ it to be _true_;
for here every line, every touch, has a meaning. The ragged clouds,
the huddled waves, the prostrate ship, though forced by contrast
into the sharpest angles, all agree, opposed as they seem,--evolving
harmony out of apparent discord. And this is Genius, which no
criticism can ever disprove.
But all great names, it is said, must have their shadows. In our Art
they have many shadows, or rather I should say, reflections; which
are more or less distinct according to their proximity to the living
originals, and, like the images in opposite mirrors, becoming
themselves reflected and re-reflected with a kind of battledoor
alternation, grow dimmer and dimmer till they vanish from mere
distance.
Thus have the great schools of Italy, Flanders, and Holland lived and
walked after death, till even their ghosts have become familiar to us.
We would not, however, be understood as asserting that we receive
pleasure only from original works: this would be contradicting
the general experience. We admit, on the contrary, that there are
hundreds, nay, thousands, of pictures having no pretensions to
originality of any kind, which still afford pleasure; as, indeed,
do many things out of the Art, which we know to be second-hand, or
imperfect, and even trifling. Thus grace of manner, for instance,
though wholly unaided by a single definite quality, will often delight
us, and a ready elocution, with scarce a particle of sense, make
commonplace agreeable; and it seems to be, that the pain of mental
inertness renders action so desirable, that the mind instinctively
surrounds itself with myriads of objects, having little to recommend
them but the property of keeping it from stagnating. And we are
far from denying a certain value to any of these, provided they
be innocent: there are times when even the wisest man will find
commonplace wholesome. All we have attempted to show is, that the
effect of an original work, as opposed to an imitation, is marked by
a difference, not of degree merely, but of kind; and that this
difference cannot fail to be felt, not, indeed, by every one, but by
any competent judge, that is, any one in whom is developed, by
natural exercise, that internal sense by which the spirit of life is
discerned.
* * * * *
Every original work becomes such from the infusion, so to speak, of
the mind of the Author; and of this the fresh materials of nature
alone seem susceptible. The imitated works of man cannot be endued
with a second life, that is, with a second mind: they are to the
imitator as air already breathed.
* * * * *
What has been said in relation to Form--that the works of our
predecessors, so far as they are recognized as true, are to be
considered as an extension of Nature, and therefore proper objects
of study--is equally applicable to Composition. But it is not to be
understood that this extended Nature (if we may so term it) is in any
instance to be imitated as a _whole_, which would be bringing our
minds into bondage to another; since, as already shown in the second
Discourse, every original work is of necessity impressed with the mind
of its author. If it be asked, then, what is the advantage of such
study, we shall endeavour to show, that it is not merely, as some have
supposed, in enriching the mind with materials, but rather in widening
our view of excellence, and, by consequent excitement, expanding our
own powers of observation, reflection, and performance. By increasing
the power of performance, we mean enlarging our knowledge of the
technical process, or the medium through which thought is expressed;
a most important species of knowledge, which, if to be otherwise
attained, is at least most readily learned from those who have left us
the result of their experience. This technical process, which has been
well called the language of the Art, includes, of course, all that
pertains to Composition, which, as the general medium, also contains
most of the elements of this peculiar tongue.
From the gradual progress of the various arts of civilization, it
would seem that only under the action of some great _social_ law
can man arrive at the full developement of his powers. In our
Art especially is this true; for the experience of one man must
necessarily be limited, particularly if compared with the endless
varieties of form and effect which diversify the face of Nature; and
the finest of these, too, in their very nature transient, or of rare
occurrence, and only known to occur to those who are prepared to seize
them in their rapid transit; so that in one short life, and with but
one set of senses, the greatest genius can learn but little. The
Artist, therefore, must needs owe much to the living, and more to the
dead, who are virtually his companions, inasmuch as through their
works they still live to our sympathies. Besides, in our great
predecessors we may be said to possess a multiplied life, if life
be measured by the number of acts,--which, in this case, we may all
appropriate to ourselves, as it were by a glance. For the dead in Art
may well be likened to the hardy pioneers of our own country, who have
successively cleared before us the swamps and forests that would have
obstructed our progress, and opened to us lands which the efforts of
no individual, however persevering, would enable him to reach.
Aphorisms.
Sentences Written by Mr. Allston on the Walls of His Studio.
1. "No genuine work of Art ever was, or ever can be, produced but for
its own sake; if the painter does not conceive to please himself, he
will not finish to please the world."--FUSELI.
2. If an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he will delight in
excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in
his own. This is the test of a true love.
3. Nor is this genuine love compatible with a craving for distinction;
where the latter predominates, it is sure to betray itself before
contemporary excellence, either by silence, or (as a bribe to the
conscience) by a modicum of praise.
The enthusiasm of a mind so influenced is confined to itself.
4. Distinction is the consequence, never the object, of a great mind.
5. The love of gain never made a Painter; but it has marred many.
6. The most common disguise of Envy is in the praise of what is
subordinate.
7. Selfishness in Art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at
home.
8. The Devil's heartiest laugh is at a detracting witticism. Hence the
phrase "devilish good" has sometimes a literal meaning.
9. The most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of lie is a
half truth. This is the peculiar device of a _conscientious_
detractor.
10. Reverence is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading
only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own
littleness by elevating itself into an antagonist of what is above it.
He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look
down. Of such minds are mannerists in Art; in the world, tyrants of
all sorts.
11. No right judgment can ever be formed on any subject having a moral
or intellectual bearing without benevolence; for so strong is man's
natural self-bias, that, without this restraining principle, he
insensibly becomes a competitor in all such cases presented to his
mind; and, when the comparison is thus made personal, unless the odds
be immeasurably against him, his decision will rarely be impartial.
In other words, no one can see any thing as it really is through the
misty spectacles of self-love. We must wish well to another in order
to do him justice. Now the virtue in this good-will is not to blind us
to his faults, but to our own rival and interposing merits.
12. In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate
others; for injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected
abroad. Never, therefore, expect justice from a vain man; if he has
the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can
expect.
13. The Phrenologists are right in placing the organ of self-love in
the back of the head, it being there where a vain man carries his
intellectual light; the consequence of which is, that every man he
approaches is obscured by his own shadow.
14. Nothing is rarer than a solitary lie; for lies breed like Surinam
toads; you cannot tell one but out it comes with a hundred young ones
on its back.
15. If the whole world should agree to speak nothing but truth, what
an abridgment it would make of speech! And what an unravelling there
would be of the invisible webs which men, like so many spiders, now
weave about each other! But the contest between Truth and Falsehood
is now pretty well balanced. Were it not so, and had the latter the
mastery, even language would soon become extinct, from its very
uselessness. The present superfluity of words is the result of the
warfare.
16. A witch's skiff cannot more easily sail in the teeth of the wind,
than the human _eye_ lie against fact; but the truth will oftener
quiver through lips with a lie upon them.
17. An open brow with a clenched hand shows any thing but an open
purpose.
18. It is a hard matter for a man to lie _all over_. Nature
having provided king's evidence in almost every member. The hand will
sometimes act as a vane to show which way the wind blows, when every
feature is set the other way; the knees smite together, and sound the
alarm of fear, under a fierce countenance; and the legs shake with
anger, when all above is calm.
19. Nature observes a variety even in her correspondences; insomuch
that in parts which seem but repetitions there will be found a
difference. For instance, in the human countenance, the two sides of
which are never identical. Whenever she deviates into monotony,
the deviation is always marked as an exception by some striking
deficiency; as in idiots, who are the only persons that laugh equally
on both sides of the mouth.
The insipidity of many of the antique Statues may be traced to the
false assumption of identity in the corresponding parts. No work
wrought by _feeling_ (which, after all, is the ultimate rule of
Genius) was ever marked by this monotony.
20. He is but half an orator who turns his hearers into spectators.
The best gestures (_quoad_ the speaker) are those which he cannot
help. An unconscious thump of the fist or jerk of the elbow is more
to the purpose, (whatever that may be,) than the most graceful
_cut-and-dried_ action. It matters not whether the orator
personates a trip-hammer or a wind-mill; if his mill but move with the
grist, or his hammer knead the iron beneath it, he will not fail of
his effect. An impertinent gesture is more likely to knock down the
orator than his opponent.
21. The only true independence is in humility; for the humble man
exacts nothing, and cannot be mortified,--expects nothing, and cannot
be disappointed. Humility is also a healing virtue; it will cicatrize
a thousand wounds, which pride would keep for ever open. But humility
is not the virtue of a fool; since it is not consequent upon any
comparison between ourselves and others, but between what we are and
what we ought to be,--which no man ever was.
22. The greatest of all fools is the proud fool,--who is at the mercy
of every fool he meets.
23. There is an essential meanness in the wish to _get the
better_ of any one. The only competition worthy, of a wise man is
with himself.
24. He that argues for victory is but a gambler in words, seeking to
enrich himself by another's loss.
25. Some men make their ignorance the measure of excellence; these
are, of course, very fastidious critics; for, knowing little, they can
find but little to like.
26. The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his
own genius.
27. Popular excellence in one age is but the _mechanism_ of what
was good in the preceding; in Art, the _technic_.
28. Make no man your idol, for the best man must have faults; and his
faults will insensibly become yours, in addition to your own. This is
as true in Art as in morals.
29. A man of genius should not aim at praise, except in the form of
_sympathy_; this assures him of his success, since it meets the
feeling which possessed himself.
30. Originality in Art is the individualizing the Universal; in other
words, the impregnating some general truth with the individual mind.
31. The painter who is content with the praise of the world in respect
to what does not satisfy himself, is not an artist, but an artisan;
for though his reward be only praise, his pay is that of a
mechanic,--for his time, and not for his art.
32. _Reputation_ is but a synonyme of _popularity_;
dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of
the voters. It is the creature, so to speak, of its particular age, or
rather of a particular state of society; consequently, dying with that
which sustained it. Hence we can scarcely go over a page of history,
that we do not, as in a church-yard, tread upon some buried
reputation. But fame cannot be voted down, having its immediate
foundation in the essential. It is the eternal shadow of excellence,
from which it can never be separated; nor is it ever made visible but
in the light of an intellect kindred with that of its author. It is
that light which projects the shadow which is seen of the multitude,
to be wondered at and reverenced, even while so little comprehended
as to be often confounded with the substance,--the substance being
admitted from the shadow, as a matter of faith. It is the economy of
Providence to provide such lights: like rising and setting stars, they
follow each other through successive ages: and thus the monumental
form of Genius stands for ever relieved against its own imperishable
shadow.
33. All excellence of every kind is but variety of truth. If we wish,
then, for something beyond the true, we wish for that which is false.
According to this test, how little truth is there in Art! Little
indeed! but how much is that little to him who feels it!
34. Fame does not depend on the _will_ of any man, but Reputation
may be given or taken away. Fame is the sympathy of kindred
intellects, and sympathy is not a subject of _willing_; while
Reputation, having its source in the popular voice, is a sentence
which may either be uttered or suppressed at pleasure. Reputation,
being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of
the envious and the ignorant; but Fame, whose very birth is
_posthumous_, and which is only known _to exist by the echo of
its footsteps through congenial minds_, can neither be increased
nor diminished by any degree of will.
35. What _light_ is in the natural world, such is _fame_
in the intellectual; both requiring an _atmosphere_ in order
to become perceptible. Hence the fame of Michael Angelo is, to some
minds, a nonentity; even as the sun itself would be invisible _in
vacuo_.
36. Fame has no necessary conjunction with Praise: it may exist without
the breath of a word; it is a _recognition of excellence_, which _must
be felt_, but need not be _spoken_. Even the envious must feel it,--feel
it, and hate it, in silence.
37. I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for
it; that is, _directly_. For, as fame is but the contingent of
excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before
its substance was obtained. Many, however, have so fancied. "I write,
I paint, for fame," has often been repeated: it should have been, "I
write, I paint, for reputation." All anxiety, therefore, about Fame
should be placed to the account of Reputation.
38. A man may be pretty sure that he has not attained
_excellence_, when it is not all in all to him. Nay, I may add,
that, if he looks beyond it, he has not reached it. This is not the
less true for being good _Irish_.
39. An original mind is rarely understood, until it has been
_reflected_ from some half-dozen congenial with it, so averse
are men to admitting the _true_ in an unusual form; whilst any
novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed. Nor
is this to be wondered at; for all truth demands a response, and few
people care to _think_, yet they must have something to supply
the place of thought. Every mind would appear original, if every man
had the power of _projecting_ his own into the mind of others.
40. All effort at originality must end either in the quaint or the
monstrous. For no man knows himself as an original; he can only
believe it on the report of others to whom _he is made known_, as
he is by the projecting power before spoken of.
41. There is one thing which no man, however generously disposed, can
_give_, but which every one, however poor, is bound to _pay_. This is
Praise. He cannot give it, because it is not his own,--since what is
dependent for its very existence on something in another can never
become to him a _possession_; nor can he justly withhold it, when the
presence of merit claims it as a _consequence_. As praise, then, cannot
be made a _gift_, so, neither, when not his due, can any man receive it:
he may think he does, but he receives only _words_; for _desert_ being
the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one
without the other. This is no fanciful statement; for, though praise may
be withheld by the ignorant or envious, it cannot be but that, in the
course of time, an existing merit will, on _some one_, produce its
effects; inasmuch as the existence of any cause without its effect is an
impossibility. A fearful truth lies at the bottom of this, an
_irreversible justice_ for the weal or woe of him who confirms or
violates it.
* * * * *
[From the back of a pencil sketch.]
Let no man trust to the gentleness, the generosity, or seeming
goodness of his heart, in the hope that they alone can safely bear him
through the temptations of this world. This is a state of probation,
and a perilous passage to the true beginning of life, where even the
best natures need continually to be reminded of their weakness, and
to find their only security in steadily referring all their thoughts,
acts, affections, to the ultimate end of their being: yet where,
imperfect as we are, there is no obstacle too mighty, no temptation
too strong, to the truly humble in heart, who, distrusting themselves,
seek to be sustained only by that holy Being who is life and power,
and who, in his love and mercy, has promised to give to those that
ask.--Such were my reflections, to which I was giving way on reading
this melancholy story.
If he is satisfied with them, he may rest assured that he is neither
fitted for this world nor the next. Even in this, there are wrongs and
sorrows which no human remedy can reach;--no, tears cannot restore
what is lost.
* * * * *
[Written in a book of sketches, with a pencil.]
A real debt of gratitude--that is, founded on a disinterested act of
kindness--cannot be cancelled by any subsequent unkindness on the part
of our benefactor. If the favor be of a pecuniary nature, we may,
indeed, by returning an equal or greater sum, balance the moneyed part;
but we cannot _liquidate_ the _kind motive_ by the setting off against
it any number of unkind ones. For an after injury can no more _undo_ a
previous kindness, than we can _prevent_ in the future what has happened
in the past. So neither can a good act undo an ill one: a fearful truth!
For good and evil have a moral _life_, which nothing in time can
extinguish; the instant they _exist_, they start for Eternity. How,
then, can a man who has _once_ sinned, and who has not of _himself_
cleansed his soul, be fit for heaven where no sin can enter? I seek not
to enter into the mystery of the _atonement_, "which even the angels
sought to comprehend and could not"; but I feel its truth in an
unutterable conviction, and that, without it, all flesh must perish.
Equally deep, too, and unalienable, is my conviction that "the fruit of
sin is misery." A second birth to the soul is therefore a necessity
which sin _forces_ upon us. Ay,--but not against the desperate _will_
that rejects it.
This conclusion was not anticipated when I wrote the first sentence of
the preceding paragraph. But it does not surprise me. For it is but a
recurrence of what I have repeatedly experienced; namely, that I never
lighted on _any truth_ which I _inwardly felt_ as such, however
apparently remote from our religious being, (as, for instance, in the
philosophy of my art,) that, by following it out, did not find its
illustration and confirmation in some great doctrine of the Bible,--the
only true philosophy, the sole fountain of light, where the dark
questions of the understanding which have so long stood, like chaotic
spectres, between the fallen soul and its reason, at once lose their
darkness and their terror.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 | 12 |
13 |
14