Art patron

“ At these I look with such unalloyed delight, that I have been at moments tempted to wish that the artist had concentrated his powers on this department of art, in so high a degree does he exhibit the attributes of the master; a power of sympathy, which gives each landscape a perfectly individual character. Here the painter is merged in his theme, and these pictures affect us as parts of nature, so absorbed are we in contemplating them, so difficult is it to remember them as pictures. ”

“ Yet all these different phases are the work of one man, spring from the temperament and the sense of colour of one artist, intelligent always, a fine and true painter in his first, a turbulent painter in his second period and, in all, a distinguished master of the technical side of his art, who has undoubtedly not yet shown us his last formula and is keeping many exquisite surprises in reserve for us. ”

“ Taking the Fine Arts at their lowest value, as a mere source of pleasure, from the love of imitation or representation of agreeable objects—the remembrancer of scenes of interest, the elegant accomplishment by which homes are embellished and made more beautifully homely—surely some little gratitude is due, where it has been the fashion to be sparing of any praise, to those good and pious men who in their convents prepared, improved, and invented colours as well as implements of Art; were themselves the early painters, and by their extensive patronage may be called the Fathers of the Arts. ”

“ In short, he lived not like a painter, but like a prince. Wherefore, O art of painting, thou couldst then esteem thyself indeed most blessed, in possessing a craftsman who, both with his genius and his virtues, exalted thee higher than Heaven! ”

“ Some who glance over these opening remarks before entering upon the search for such material in the body of the book as may seem available for their immediate purpose, may consider that this view of the subject is unpractical; but we would remind such that all art, pictorial, sculptural, decorative, or what not, is only noble and worthy of the name so far as it affords food for thought in the spectator, and testifies to thought in the artist, and that the nobility of the work is in direct proportion to such evidence of inner life. ”

“ How eagerly the poet, the painter, the sculptor, would seek to recover some traits of their terrible lineaments, or of their softer outlines when they related to scenes of the gentler passions or of domestic life!—that either a stern grandeur or the romantic glow of a primitive state of existence might be imparted to some work of art. ”

“ It is like looking at ourselves through a glorifying medium, contemplating our own portrait from the brush of a distinguished court painter; which, judged by the walls of Royal Academy Exhibitions, is the highest, as well as the best paid form of art. ”

“ In the same rank, and perhaps of not so great merit, is the cold painter of portraits. But his correct and just imitation of his object has its merit. Even the painter of still life, whose highest ambition is to give a minute representation of every part of those low objects which he sets before him, deserves praise in proportion to his attainment;{39} because no part of this excellent art, so much the ornament of polished life, is destitute of value and use. ”

“ Comparing these several manifestations of creative power, we feel ourselves in the grasp of a painter who was essentially a poet, one for whom his art was the medium for expressing before all things thought and passion. ”

“ AND now we come to that great and important subject, the Fine Arts, which day by day are becoming more appreciated and find a rapid increase of patrons. It is true that there are some who do not regard Art as an essentiality, and who are even indifferent to it as an ornament. ”

“ Whether any other painter carried it to the same height of perfection as he did? Whether any other painter ever joined the same depth of shadow with the same clearness? Whether his tones were not as fine as they were true? Whether a more thorough master of his art ever lived? Whether he deserved for this to be nicknamed by the Writer of the Catalogue, or to have his works ‘kept under, or himself held up to derision,’ by the Patrons and Directors of the British Institution for the support and encouragement of the Fine Arts? ”

“ Otherwise, the world will never trouble themselves about you, or will very soon forget you. A celebrated artist of the present day, whose name is engraved at the bottom of some of the most touching specimens of English art, once had a frame-maker call on him, who, on entering his room, exclaimed with some surprise, ‘What, are you a painter, sir?’ The other made answer, a little startled in his turn, ‘Why, didn’t you know that? ”

“ The painter, honestly striving with his subject, and on lines of intimate understanding, has none of his physical reasons thrown into shade, either be it for the nobility of his art, or for urgency's sake, or for the softer assuaging of sensitiveness in the breasts of his academic audience, having no inclination to be stung when in the precincts, the hands of Art ”

“ Fortunately, this new artistic mode was developed sufficiently prior to the breakdown of art which was signalised by the career of a man in himself a very great artist—Raphael—to permit a full century of life, and at the hands of a people who had a peculiar appreciation of decoration and of decorative methods. ”

“ They are like the pictures of Madonnas and mediaeval saints done by a modern painter of genius with all the skill and technique of art, but without the sense of devotion which shows through the ruder sketches of the earlier and greatly inferior painters, who were inspired by something more than merely artistic enthusiasm. ”

“ There is a courage in the treatment of every art by a master in architecture, in sculpture, in painting, or in poetry, each cheering the mind of the spectator or receiver as by true strokes of genius, which yet nowise implies the presence of physical valor in the artist. ”

“ A painter must be content with the work his patrons set him to do and not indulge his own caprices. Well, well, admitting the range of the painter's art to have been cramped and limited, has any age or country the power to cramp the genius of an artist? Is high art only to be found in imaginative pictures? Does not a portrait become high art under a master hand? ”

“ For that power, which enables the Artist to conceive his subject with dignity, may be said to belong to general education; and is as much the Genius of a Poet, or the professor of any other liberal Art, or even a good critic in any of those arts, as of a Painter. ”

“ But our most original and most distinguished painters, those who give the tone to our exhibitions and the national accent to our school, are almost all engaged in trying to get back one or another of the qualities that marked the great art of the past. They have gone back of the art of the day and are retying the knots that should bind together the art of all ages. ”

“ The painter must in the end judge of painting, and the sculptor judge of sculpture. But there are two distinct sides{163} to a work of art,—to every work, for that matter: there is the relation between the worker and his work, and the relation between the completed work and the public,—the work being the intermediary between artist and people, his means of communication, his mode and manner of speech. ”

“ To wring from nature its countless harmonies of tone and colour, to seize and interpret the endless subtleties of individual form and character—these are the ideals that have inspired and have satisfied many of the greatest painters the world has produced. Who then shall say that Art has need of any other, any wider ambition? ”

“ The art of the painter consists in combining, according to certain rules of proportion and fitness of outline and color, certain objects, which, either from their peculiar character, or from the fitness of their combination in effecting a given design, awaken emotions of beauty or sublimity. ”

“ And all its incompleteness, its fragmentariness, its carelessness about persons, are intended, as are the slight parts in a skilful artist's handiwork, to emphasise the beauty and the sovereignty of that one central Figure on which all lights are concentrated, and on which the painter has lavished all the resources of his art. ”

“ In a word, in the briefest space of time I had become a finished connoisseur of the noble art of the painter, with the solitary drawback that I could in no case have told how the artist should go to work to make his picture better ”

“ I cannot help imagining that I see a promising young painter, equally vigilant, whether at home, or abroad in the streets, or in the fields. Every object that presents itself is to him a lesson. He regards all nature with a view to his profession; and combines her beauties, or corrects her defects. He examines the countenance of men under the influence of passion; and often catches the most pleasing hints from subjects of turbulence or deformity. ”

“ A sound judgment in literature, or an acquaintance with the general principles upon which all works of taste must necessarily be conducted, are not sufficient, without practical skill, truly to estimate a production of art. The poet employs [Pg 220] vehicles of thought and signs of expression familiar to all as the use of reason; the means and instruments of the painter constitute in their management a peculiar science, in which excellence or defect is less appreciable by natural or untrained observation. ”

“ The painter who knows his trade knows just what graduations of colour, what interrelation of masses and line—in brief, what design in detail and in whole—will, in their complex conjunction, rouse in those who receive them such feelings as he himself felt when he not only saw but spiritually exploited the landskip: and into that design he modulates what he saw. ”

“ The artist or the art-critic, discriminating still, even among these raw materials of human creation, derives an elaborate and subtle delight from the suggestiveness of their colours, their odours, and their fabrics—conscious all the while of wondrous and visionary evocations, wherein they take their place. ”

“ With a limitless wealth of material at his command, and gifted with enterprise, originality, and taste, the American artist can look confidently forward to taking his place beside the best the world has produced. ”

“ We will suppose 'those perfections which lie scattered among various masters, are now united in one general idea, which is henceforth to regulate his taste and enlarge his imagination, extending his capacity to more general instructions, he must now consider the art itself as his master. ”

“ I loved the painter's glorious art, which forms
A world like, but more beautiful than this;
Just catching nature in her happiest mood! ”

“ His function is to enable the listener to live the art as he himself lives it symbolically. In this respect he differs from the sculptor and the painter who, while cultivating this symbolic attitude, are clearly held to the necessity of utilizing objective realities. ”

“ O thou sculptor, painter, poet! Take this lesson to thy heart: That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art. ”

“ 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. ”

“ for I wish rather, in this lecture at least, to dwell on the effect that decorative art has on human life—on its social not its purely artistic effect. ”

“ Her function is more important: her craft is the art of living, and over other arts she is supreme. The quality of an artist’s action [947] depends on his motive: the sculptor may make a statue for money or to win fame or as a pious offering. ”

“ So, then, without any scruple, whatever branch of art you may be inclined as a student here to follow,—whatever you are to make your bread by, I say, so far as you have time and power, make yourself first a noble and accomplished artist; understand at least what noble and accomplished art is, and then you will be able to apply your knowledge to all service whatsoever. ”

“ And if the poet pleases the sense by means of the ear, the painter does so by the eye, which is the superior sense. I will enlarge no further on this theme save to say that if a good painter were to represent the fury of a battle, and if the poet were to describe one, and both representations were put before the public together, you will see before which of the two most of the spectators will stop, to which of the two they will pay most attention, which of the two will be the most praised and give the greater satisfaction. ”

“ Artists in Humble Work.—Among the ancient Greeks and the northern Italians of Renaissance days, says Prof. G. Aitchison, in a lecture on Decoration, beauty was adored. Every man who practiced a craft was as sure of fame, if he followed what we now call a humble one, as if he followed a noble one, provided that the articles he made could be endowed with beauty, and that he possessed a certain high degree of excellence. A carpenter, an armorer, a potter, a goldsmith, a lapidary, or a bronzer, was as certain to be famous as a sculptor, a statuary, a painter, or an architect. ”

“ One of the points of most importance in this connection is that whereas our art for the last thirty years has been in the direction of landscape, its tendencies are now rather toward the painting of the figure, and this is strikingly illustrated by the circumstance that both of these artists have done their strongest work in this department, and their influence will undoubtedly give a fresh impulse to figure-painting. ”