Lectures on Art by Washington Allston
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Washington Allston >> Lectures on Art
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Leaving this to have the weight it may be found to deserve, we turn
to the original question; namely, What do we mean by Human or Poetic
Truth?
When, in respect to certain objects, the effects are found to be
uniformly of the same kind, not only upon ourselves, but also upon
others, we may reasonably infer that the efficient cause is of one
nature, and that its uniformity is a necessary result. And, when we also
find that these effects, though differing in degree, are yet uniform in
their character, while they seem to proceed from objects which in
themselves are indefinitely variant, both in kind and degree, we are
still more forcibly drawn to the conclusion, that the _cause_ is not
only _one_, but not inherent in the object.[2] The question now arises,
What, then, is that which seems to us so like an _alter et idem_,--which
appears to act upon, and is recognized by us, through an animal, a bird,
a tree, and a thousand different, nay, opposing objects, in the same
way, and to the same end? The inference follows of necessity, that the
mysterious cause must be in some general law, which is absolute and
_imperative_ in relation to every such object under certain conditions.
And we receive the solution as true,--because we cannot help it. The
reality, then, of such a law becomes a fixture in the mind.
But we do not stop here: we would know something concerning the
conditions supposed. And in order to this, we go back to the effect.
And the answer is returned in the form of a question,--May it not
be something _from ourselves_, which is reflected back by the
object,--something with which, as it were, we imbue the object, making
it correspond to a _reality_ within us? Now we recognize the
reality within; we recognize it also in the object,--and the affirming
light flashes upon us, not in the form of _deduction_, but of
inherent Truth, which we cannot get rid of; and we _call_ it
Truth,--for it will take no other name.
It now remains to discover, so to speak, its location. In what part,
then, of man may this self-evidenced, yet elusive, Truth or power be
said to reside? It cannot be in the senses; for the senses can impart
no more than they receive. Is it, then, in the mind? Here we are
compelled to ask, What is understood by the mind? Do we mean the
understanding? We can trace no relation between the Truth we would
class and the reflective faculties. Or in the moral principle? Surely
not; for we can predicate neither good nor evil by the Truth in
question. Finally, do we find it identified with the truth of
the Spirit? But what is the truth of the Spirit but the Spirit
itself,--the conscious _I_? which is never even thought of in
connection with it. In what form, then, shall we recognize it? In
its own,--the form of Life,--the life of the Human Being; that
self-projecting, realizing power, which is ever present, ever acting
and giving judgment on the instant on all things corresponding with
its inscrutable self. We now assign it a distinctive epithet, and call
it Human.
It is a common saying, that there is more in a name than we are apt
to imagine. And the saying is not without reason; for when the name
happens to be the true one, being proved in its application, it
becomes no unimportant indicator as to the particular offices for
which the thing named was designed. So we find it with respect to the
Truth of which we speak; its distinctive epithet marking out to us, as
its sphere of action, the mysterious intercourse between man and man;
whether the medium consist in words or colors, in thought or form, or
in any thing else on which the human agent may impress, be it in a
sign only, his own marvellous life. As to the process or _modus
operandi_, it were a vain endeavour to seek it out: that divine
secret must ever to man be an humbling darkness. It is enough for him
to know that there is that within him which is ever answering to that
without, as life to life,--which must be life, and which must be true.
We proceed now to the third characteristic. It has already been
stated, in the general definition, what we would be understood to mean
by the term Invention, in its particular relation to Art; namely, any
unpractised mode of presenting a subject, whether by the combination
of forms already known, or by the union and modification of known
but fragmentary parts into a new and consistent whole: in both cases
tested by the two preceding characteristics.
We shall consider first that division of the subject which stands first
in order,--the Invention which consists in the new combination of known
forms. This may be said to be governed by its exclusive relation either
to _what is_, or _has been_, or, when limited by the _probable_, to what
strictly may be. It may therefore be distinguished by the term Natural.
But though we so name it, inasmuch as all its forms have their
prototypes in the Actual, it must still be remembered that these
existing forms do substantially constitute no more than mere _parts_ to
be combined into a _whole_, for which Nature has provided no original.
For examples in this, the most comprehensive class, we need not refer
to any particular school; they are to be found in all and in every
gallery: from the histories of Raffaelle, the landscapes of Claude and
Poussin and others, to the familiar scenes of Jan Steen, Ostade, and
Brower. In each of these an adherence to the actual, if not strictly
observed, is at least supposed in all its parts; not so in the whole, as
that relates to the probable; by which we mean such a result as _would
be_ true, were the same combination to occur in nature. Nor must we be
understood to mean, by adherence to the actual, that one part is to be
taken for an exact portrait; we mean only such an imitation as precludes
an intentional deviation from already existing and known forms.
It must be very obvious, that, in classing together any of the
productions of the artists above named, it cannot be intended to
reduce them to a level; such an attempt (did our argument require it)
must instantly revolt the common sense and feeling of every one at all
acquainted with Art. And therefore, perhaps, it may be thought that
their striking difference, both in kind and degree, might justly call
for some further division. But admitting, as all must, a wide, nay,
almost impassable, interval between the familiar subjects of the lower
Dutch and Flemish painters, and the higher intellectual works of the
great Italian masters, we see no reason why they may not be left to
draw their own line of demarcation as to their respective provinces,
even as is every day done by actual objects; which are all equally
natural, though widely differenced as well in kind as in quality. It
is no degradation to the greatest genius to say of him and of the most
unlettered boor, that they are both men.
Besides, as a more minute division would be wholly irrelevant to the
present purpose, we shall defer the examination of their individual
differences to another occasion. In order, however, more distinctly to
exhibit their common ground of Invention, we will briefly examine a
picture by Ostade, and then compare it with one by Raffaelle, than
whom no two artists could well be imagined having less in common.
The interior of a Dutch cottage forms the scene of Ostade's work,
presenting something between a kitchen and a stable. Its principal
object is the carcass of a hog, newly washed and hung up to dry;
subordinate to which is a woman nursing an infant; the accessories,
various garments, pots, kettles, and other culinary utensils.
The bare enumeration of these coarse materials would naturally
predispose the mind of one, unacquainted with the Dutch school, to
expect any thing but pleasure; indifference, not to say disgust, would
seem to be the only possible impression from a picture composed of
such ingredients. And such, indeed, would be their effect under the
hand of any but a real Artist. Let us look into the picture and follow
Ostade's _mind_, as it leaves its impress on the several objects.
Observe how he spreads his principal light, from the suspended carcass
to the surrounding objects, moulding it, so to speak, into agreeable
shapes, here by extending it to a bit of drapery, there to an earthen
pot; then connecting it, by the flash from a brass kettle, with his
second light, the woman and child; and again turning the eye into
the dark recesses through a labyrinth of broken chairs, old baskets,
roosting fowls, and bits of straw, till a glimpse of sunshine, from
a half-open window, gleams on the eye, as it were, like an echo, and
sending it back to the principal object, which now seems to act on the
mind as the luminous source of all these diverging lights. But the
magical whole is not yet completed; the mystery of color has been
called in to the aid of light, and so subtly blends that we can hardly
separate them; at least, until their united effect has first been
felt, and after we have begun the process of cold analysis. Yet even
then we cannot long proceed before we find the charm returning; as we
pass from the blaze of light on the carcass, where all the tints of
the prism seem to be faintly subdued, we are met on its borders by the
dark harslet, glowing like rubies; then we repose awhile on the white
cap and kerchief of the nursing mother; then we are roused again by
the flickering strife of the antagonist colors on a blue jacket and
red petticoat; then the strife is softened by the low yellow of a
straw-bottomed chair; and thus with alternating excitement and repose
do we travel through the picture, till the scientific explorer loses
the analyst in the unresisting passiveness of a poetic dream. Now
all this will no doubt appear to many, if not absurd, at least
exaggerated: but not so to those who have ever felt the sorcery of
color. They, we are sure, will be the last to question the character
of the feeling because of the ingredients which worked the spell,
and, if true to themselves, they must call it poetry. Nor will they
consider it any disparagement to the all-accomplished Raffaelle to say
of Ostade that he also was an Artist.
We turn now to a work of the great Italian,--the Death of Ananias.
The scene is laid in a plain apartment, which is wholly devoid of
ornament, as became the hall of audience of the primitive Christians.
The Apostles (then eleven in number) have assembled to transact the
temporal business of the Church, and are standing together on a
slightly elevated platform, about which, in various attitudes, some
standing, others kneeling, is gathered a promiscuous assemblage of
their new converts, male and female. This quiet assembly (for we still
feel its quietness in the midst of the awful judgment) is suddenly
roused by the sudden fall of one of their brethren; some of them turn
and see him struggling in the agonies of death. A moment before he was
in the vigor of life,--as his muscular limbs still bear evidence;
but he had uttered a falsehood, and an instant after his frame is
convulsed from head to foot. Nor do we doubt for a moment as to the
awful cause: it is almost expressed in voice by those nearest to
him, and, though varied by their different temperaments, by terror,
astonishment, and submissive faith, this voice has yet but one
meaning,--"Ananias has lied to the Holy Ghost." The terrible words, as
if audible to the mind, now direct us to him who pronounced his doom,
and the singly-raised finger of the Apostle marks him the judge; yet
not of himself,--for neither his attitude, air, nor expression has
any thing in unison with the impetuous Peter,--he is now the simple,
passive, yet awful instrument of the Almighty: while another on the
right, with equal calmness, though with more severity, by his elevated
arm, as beckoning to judgment, anticipates the fate of the entering
Sapphira. Yet all is not done; lest a question remain, the Apostle on
the left confirms the judgment. No one can mistake what passes within
him; like one transfixed in adoration, his uplifted eyes seem to ray
out his soul, as if in recognition of the divine tribunal. But the
overpowering thought of Omnipotence is now tempered by the human
sympathy of his companion, whose open hands, connecting the past with
the present, seem almost to articulate, "Alas, my brother!" By this
exquisite turn, we are next brought to John, the gentle almoner of the
Church, who is dealing out their portions to the needy brethren. And
here, as most remote from the judged Ananias, whose suffering seems
not yet to have reached it, we find a spot of repose,--not to pass by,
but to linger upon, till we feel its quiet influence diffusing itself
over the whole mind; nay, till, connecting it with the beloved
Disciple, we find it leading us back through the exciting scene,
modifying even our deepest emotions with a kindred tranquillity.
This is Invention; we have not moved a step through the picture but at
the will of the Artist. He invented the chain which we have followed,
link by link, through every emotion, assimilating many into one; and
this is the secret by which he prepared us, without exciting horror,
to contemplate the struggle of mortal agony.
This too is Art; and the highest art, when thus the awful power,
without losing its character, is tempered, as it were, to our
mysterious desires. In the work of Ostade, we see the same inventive
power, no less effective, though acting through the medium of the
humblest materials.
We have now exhibited two pictures, and by two painters who may be
said to stand at opposite poles. And yet, widely apart as are their
apparent stations, they are nevertheless tenants of the same ground,
namely, actual nature; the only difference being, that one is
the sovereign of the purely physical, the other of the moral and
intellectual, while their common medium is the catholic ground of the
imagination.
We do not fear either skeptical demur or direct contradiction, when
we assert that the imagination is as much the medium of the homely
Ostade, as of the refined Raffaelle. For what is that, which has just
wrapped us as in a spell when we entered his humble cottage,--which,
as we wandered through it, invested the coarsest object with a
strange charm? Was it the _truth_ of these objects that we there
acknowledged? In part, certainly, but not simply the truth that
belongs to their originals; it was the truth of his own individual
mind superadded to that of nature, nay, clothed upon besides by his
imagination, imbuing it with all the poetic hues which float in the
opposite regions of night and day, and which only a poet can mingle
and make visible in one pervading atmosphere. To all this our own
minds, our own imaginations, respond, and we pronounce it true to
both. We have no other rule, and well may the artists of every age and
country thank the great Lawgiver that there _is no other_. The
despised _feeling_ which the schools have scouted is yet the
mother of that science of which they vainly boast. But of this we may
have more to say in another place.
We shall now ascend from the _probable_ to the _possible_,
to that branch of Invention whose proper office is from the known but
fragmentary to realize the unknown; in other words, to embody the
possible, having its sphere of action in the world of Ideas. To this
class, therefore, may properly be assigned the term _Ideal_.
And here, as being its most important scene, it will be necessary to
take a more particular view of the verifying principle, the agent, so
to speak, that gives reality to the inward, when outwardly manifested.
Now, whether we call this Human or Poetic Truth, or _inward
life_, it matters not; we know by _its effects_, (as we have
already said, and we now repeat,) that some such principle does exist,
and that it acts upon us, and in a way analogous to the operation of
that which we call truth and life in the world about us. And that the
cause of this analogy is a real affinity between the two powers seems
to us confirmed, not only _positively_ by this acknowledged
fact, but also _negatively_ by the absence of the effect above
mentioned in all those productions of the mind which we pronounce
unnatural. It is therefore in effect, or _quoad_ ourselves, both
truth and life, addressed, if we may use the expression, to that
inscrutable _instinct_ of the imagination which conducts us to
the knowledge of all invisible realities.
A distinct apprehension of the reality and of the office of this
important principle, we cannot but think, will enable us to ascertain
with some degree of precision, at least so far as relates to art,
the true limits of the Possible,--the sphere, as premised, of Ideal
Invention.
As to what some have called our _creative_ powers, we take it
for granted that no correct thinker has ever applied such expressions
literally. Strictly speaking, we can _make_ nothing: we can
only construct. But how vast a theatre is here laid open to the
constructive powers of the finite creature; where the physical eye is
permitted to travel for millions and millions of miles, while that of
the mind may, swifter than light, follow out the journey, from star to
star, till it falls back on itself with the humbling conviction that
the measureless journey is then but begun! It is needless to dwell on
the immeasurable mass of materials which a world like this may supply
to the Artist.
The very thought of its vastness darkens into wonder. Yet how much
deeper the wonder, when the created mind looks into itself, and
contemplates the power of impressing its thoughts on all things
visible; nay, of giving the likeness of life to things inanimate; and,
still more marvellous, by the mere combination of words or colors, of
evolving into shape its own Idea, till some unknown form, having no
type in the actual, is made to seem to us an organized being. When
such is the result of any unknown combination, then it is that we
achieve the Possible. And here the Realizing Principle may strictly be
said to prove itself.
That such an effect should follow a cause which we know to be purely
imaginary, supposes, as we have said, something in ourselves which
holds, of necessity, a predetermined relation to every object either
outwardly existing or projected from the mind, which we thus recognize
as true. If so, then the Possible and the Ideal are convertible terms;
having their existence, _ab initio_, in the nature of the mind.
The soundness of this inference is also supported negatively, as just
observed, by the opposite result, as in the case of those fantastic
combinations, which we sometimes meet with both in Poetry and
Painting, and which we do not hesitate to pronounce unnatural, that
is, false.
And here we would not be understood as implying the preexistence of
all possible forms, as so many _patterns_, but only of that
constructive Power which imparts its own Truth to the unseen
_real_, and, under certain conditions, reflects the image or
semblance of its truth on all things imagined; and which must be
assumed in order to account for the phenomena presented in the
frequent coincident effect between the real and the feigned. Nor does
the absence of consciousness in particular individuals, as to this
Power in themselves, fairly affect its universality, at least
potentially: since by the same rule there would be equal ground for
denying the existence of any faculty of the mind which is of slow or
gradual developement; all that we may reasonably infer in such cases
is, that the whole mind is not yet revealed to itself. In some of the
greatest artists, the inventive powers have been of late developement;
as in Claude, and the sculptor Falconet. And can any one believe that,
while the latter was hewing his master's marble, and the former making
pastry, either of them was conscious of the sublime Ideas which
afterwards took form for the admiration of the world? When Raffaelle,
then a youth, was selected to execute the noble works which now live
on the walls of the Vatican, "he had done little or nothing," says
Reynolds, "to justify so high a trust." Nor could he have been
certain, from what he knew of himself, that he was equal to the task.
He could only hope to succeed; and his hope was no doubt founded on
his experience of the progressive developement of his mind in former
efforts; rationally concluding, that the originally seeming blank
from which had arisen so many admirable forms was still teeming with
others, that only wanted the occasion, or excitement, to come forth at
his bidding.
To return to that which, as the interpreting medium of his thoughts
and conceptions, connects the artist with his fellow-men, we remark,
that only on the ground of some self-realizing power, like what
we have termed Poetic Truth, could what we call the Ideal ever be
intelligible.
That some such power is inherent and fundamental in our nature, though
differenced in individuals by more or less activity, seems more
especially confirmed in this latter branch of the subject, where the
phenomena presented are exclusively of the Possible. Indeed, we cannot
conceive how without it there could ever be such a thing as true Art;
for what might be received as such in one age might also be overruled
in the next: as we know to be the case with most things depending on
opinion. But, happily for Art, if once established on this immutable
base, there it must rest: and rest unchanged, amidst the endless
fluctuations of manners, habits, and opinions; for its truth of
a thousand years is as the truth of yesterday. Hence the beings
described by Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton are as true to us now, as
the recent characters of Scott. Nor is it the least characteristic
of this important Truth, that the only thing needed for its full
reception is simply its presence,--being its own evidence.
How otherwise could such a being as Caliban ever be true to us? We have
never seen his race; nay, we knew not that such a creature _could_
exist, until he started upon us from the mind of Shakspeare. Yet who
ever stopped to ask if he were a real being? His existence to the mind
is instantly felt;--not as a matter of faith, but of fact, and a fact,
too, which the imagination cannot get rid of if it would, but which must
ever remain there, verifying itself, from the first to the last moment
of consciousness. From whatever point we view this singular creature,
his reality is felt. His very language, his habits, his feelings,
whenever they recur to us, are all issues from a living thing, acting
upon us, nay, forcing the mind, in some instances, even to speculate on
his nature, till it finds itself classing him in the chain of being as
the intermediate link between man and the brute. And this we do, not by
an ingenious effort, but almost by involuntary induction; for we
perceive speech and intellect, and yet without a soul. What but an
intellectual brute could have uttered the imprecations of Caliban? They
would not be natural in man, whether savage or civilized. Hear him, in
his wrath against Prospero and Miranda:--
"A wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen,
Light on you both!"
The wild malignity of this curse, fierce as it is, yet wants the moral
venom, the devilish leaven, of a consenting spirit: it is all but
human.
To this we may add a similar example, from our own art, in the Puck,
or Robin Goodfellow, of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Who can look at this
exquisite little creature, seated on its toadstool cushion, and not
acknowledge its prerogative of life,--that mysterious influence which
in spite of the stubborn understanding masters the mind,--sending
it back to days long past, when care was but a dream, and its most
serious business a childish frolic? But we no longer think of
childhood as the past, still less as an abstraction; we see it
embodied before us, in all its mirth and fun and glee; and the grave
man becomes again a child, to feel as a child, and to follow the
little enchanter through all his wiles and never-ending labyrinth of
pranks. What can be real, if that is not which so takes us out of
our present selves, that the weight of years falls from us as a
garment,--that the freshness of life seems to begin anew, and the
heart and the fancy, resuming their first joyous consciousness, to
launch again into this moving world, as on a sunny sea, whose pliant
waves yield to the touch, yet, sparkling and buoyant, carry them
onward in their merry gambols? Where all the purposes of reality are
answered, if there be no philosophy in admitting, we see no wisdom in
disputing it.
Of the immutable nature of this peculiar Truth, we have a like
instance in the Farnese Hercules; the work of the Grecian sculptor
Glycon,--we had almost said his immortal offspring. Since the time of
its birth, cities and empires, even whole nations, have disappeared,
giving place to others, more or less barbarous or civilized; yet these
are as nothing to the countless revolutions which have marked
the interval in the manners, habits, and opinions of men. Is it
reasonable, then, to suppose that any thing not immutable in its
nature could possibly have withstood such continual fluctuation?
But how have all these changes affected this _visible image of
Truth_? In no wise; not a jot; and because what is _true_ is
independent of opinion: it is the same to us now as it was to the men
of the dust of antiquity. The unlearned spectator of the present day
may not, indeed, see in it the Demigod of Greece; but he can never
mistake it for a mere exaggeration of the human form; though of mortal
mould, he cannot doubt its possession of more than mortal powers; he
feels its _essential life_, for he feels before it as in the
stirring presence of a superior being.
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