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“ Every tool should be beautiful in itself, because no accumulation of misshapen tools can make one beautiful ornament. There is no objection to scrolls, leaves, flowers, stops, or any of the usual kind of ornaments; only let them all be in themselves beautiful. It is appropriate to introduce a harp on a book of songs, a stag's head on a book on hunting, a recognised ecclesiastical pattern upon a book of divinity or a prayer-book; a Greek or Roman design upon a classical work, or a Gothic design upon a book on Gothic architecture. ”

“ The three absolute essentials of ancient and mediæval painting, which also characterized the best work of the Renaissance, appear to have been a striving after the symbolic expression of the spirit of the subject, a restfulness and dignity of form, and the beauty of colour. Whatever else we look for, we ought to find these three essentials in a successful work of monumental painting. In this kind of art, and indeed in all art, small things should be sacrificed to great, and the commonplace or matter-of-fact to the rendering or expression of the idea ”

“ But the most remarkable object in the collection is a vase, on which the sculptor has lavished all his skill and all his thought. Those who feel the true end of art will not think that the labour and time he has bestowed upon this beautiful work have been thrown away, for it is not as a mere object of curiosity, but as a monument of art, that we must look at it. ”

“ Now if the essentials of monumental painting, which we have named, and the special functions of the art of the painter are united in any scheme of mural decoration, the result would be an ideal work of decorative art, examples of which may be found in the frescos of Giotto, and in those of the majority of the Italian painters who followed him, down to the sublime creations of Michael Angelo. ”

“ From the impression produced on our minds by the collection in the Louvre, we were led to form some general conclusions concerning the history and object of the arts of Painting and Sculpture, which we shall presume to state, as what suggested themselves to us on the contemplation of the greatest assemblage of the works of art which has ever been formed; but which we give, at the same time, with the utmost diffidence, and merely as the result of our own feelings and reflections. ”

“ Exquisite values and exquisite combinations are present in the masterpieces of every art. The sweet blending of musical tones which leads into a delicacy of overtones that no ear can distinguish; the subtle shadings of color in a painting, soft touches of pictorial harmony which can be felt more surely than they can be seen; tender curves in the most vigorous statue, and marble surfaces surging so slightly that their shadows scarcely linger ”

“ In these days one regards the three crosses, that the rage of rabid men and the slower but scarce less sure fury of the elements between them have alone left us of the twelve, as merely beautiful specimens of the wedded arts of Sculpture and Architecture ”

“ Wandering through a maze of long skylighted galleries where the master-works of Modern Art are conserved and cherished, he was to encounter the thought that haunted him in a myriad of images, wrought by the chisel, the brush, the burin, and the graving-tool in marble or bronze, upon canvas or panel, in ivory, or silver, or enamel, or gold. ”

“ That is one very essential reason. I think that after looking at sculpture one feels the grace of composition infinitely more, and one also [Pg 4] feels how that grace of composition was reached by the painter.
Do you consider that if works of sculpture and works of painting were placed in the same gallery, the same light would be useful for both of them?—I understood your question only to refer to their collection under the same roof. ”

“ When a pattern has been enduring and far spread, it is because it was originally the expression of an idea or a symbol.
In the earliest dawn of civilization, the arts were the repositories of the myths and mysteries of national faiths. Embroidery was one of these arts, and the border which edged the garment of a divinity, the veil which covered the grave of a loved one, or the flower-buds and fruit which fringed the hangings and curtains in the sanctuary, each had a meaning, and therefore a use. ”

“ In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries all sculptors were image-makers; but towards the close of the latter, and during the fifteenth, the term was specially applied to carvers of images in wood, ivory, etc. [170] Art still flourished in their ateliers in all its beauty, notably that of the goldsmiths, who carved images in high or low relief in precious metals, and who, thanks to the severely paternal regulations of the maîtrise, were enabled to bring French decorative art to the highest degree of perfection. ”

“ A finished coloured drawing or painting of the design, to a smaller, or even to the same scale as the fresco painting, must be prepared, and the artist should endeavour to make an exact copy of this on the plaster surface, as there is no time to experiment in colour schemes, or to make alterations from the original coloured design in the short period that is at the disposal of the painter when he is at work on the wet plaster. ”

“ Among modern portrait-statues I can remember few that make so sweet and serious an impression. In the composition of this figure one can trace unmistakably the effect of the sculptor’s close study of the antique, not only in the suppleness of movement and statuesqueness of pose, but also in the abstract appeal to one’s esthetic enjoyment that the composition of the figure yields. Moreover, this freedom, force and sensitiveness extend to the handling of the drapery, in which every fold has a grace of naturalness and also a value of expression. ”

“ They paint their statues, and inlay the eyes with jewels, and set real crowns on the heads; they finish, in their pictures, every thread of embroidery, and would fain, if they could, draw every leaf upon the trees. ”

“ And all the greatest art which the world has produced is thus fitted for a place, and subordinated to a purpose. There is no existing highest-order art but is decorative. The best sculpture yet produced has been the decoration of a temple front—the best painting, the decoration of a room. ”

“ The images of wood, ivory, and vermeil, that we figure as illustrating the art of the image-carvers from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, show that the old tradition was still cherished in this community. Their artists were so far swayed by iconographic convention that a certain hieratic [176] sentiment is perceptible in their works; but this is never allowed to outweigh fitness of action and expression, and their masterpieces are so instinct with taste and delicacy, composed with so much skill and executed with such freedom, that they are the admiration of modern artists. ”

“ Discourse and action show man as he is, more directly than the springing of the muscles and the moulding of the flesh; and over these poetry has command. Painting, by the flushing of colour in the face and dilatation of light in the eye—music, by its subtle range of tones—can refine most delicately upon a single moment of passion, unravelling its finest threads.
But why should sculpture thus limit itself to pure form? Because, by this limitation, it becomes a perfect medium of expression for one peculiar motive of the imaginative intellect. ”

“ This was the origin of illumination or miniature-painting, which went on from one step to another until, at its highest state, most beautiful pictures were painted in manuscripts in which rich colors were used on gold or silver backgrounds, and the effect of the whole was as rich and ornamental as it is possible to imagine.
Many of these old manuscripts are seen in museums, libraries, and various collections; they are very precious and costly, as well as interesting; their study is fascinating, for almost every one of the numberless designs that are used in them has its own symbolic meaning. ”

“ The disposition of the decoration, which at first seems stiff and formal, is not only in harmony with the shape of the beaker, but is the only one by which its beauty of form could be fully brought out. When historical incidents are the subjects of the painting, the execution of the figures is admirable. It is in such pieces that we can best appreciate the accuracy of the artist, and his admirable control of his brush. ”

“ How often, in turning over a number of choice engravings, do we tantalise ourselves by thinking ‘what a head that must be,’—in wondering what colour a piece of drapery is of, green or black,—in wishing, in vain, to know the exact tone of the sky in a particular corner of the picture! Throw open the folding-doors of a fine Collection, and you see all you have desired realised at a blow—the bright originals starting up in their own proper shape, clad with flesh and blood, and teeming with the first conceptions of the painter’s mind! ”

“ Then, when the tour is finished and a modest tapestry is hung at home, it represents to its instructed owner the concentrated tale of all he has seen and learned. In the weave he sees the ancient craftsman sitting at his loom. In the pattern is the drawing of the artist of the day, in the colours, the dyes most rare and costly; in the metal, the gold and silver of a duke or prince ”

“ Sculpture is one of the fine arts. In its most extended sense, it includes not only modelling figures in clay, wax, and plaster of Paris, and carving them in wood, stone, and marble, but also casting them in bronze, lead, or iron, as well as enchasing and engraving.
2. The productions of this art are known under various denominations, but the principal are statues, busts, and bas-reliefs. The first of these are entire representations of men or animals in full relief ”

“ In any complex system of ornament, one part should be chosen as the most important, and all the rest should lead up to it; but certain distinct parts, such as masses or flowers, may re-echo in a fainter way the main motive. In drawing, subordination is obtained by the principal mass being larger than the rest, and by its details being larger and more pronounced; in painting, by the above and by the principal part being more vivid in colour; in modelling, by greater size and relief. ”

“ Above all, it is the hands and the well-proportioned muscular feet, which show the power of the real artist escaping from the conventionality of his subject. On the back of the panel he has freed himself entirely from the spell of classical antiquity and drunk deeply of new oriental ideas, creating a most decorative design, illustrating the “Triumph of the Cross,” which rises, ornamented with roses, above the flowering earth, stretching up to the skies, which are thickly covered with stars, and bear the Greek inscription Jesus Christ Victorious. ”

“ The coarser and simpler tapestries of our ancestors are really more beautiful and effective in large spaces—flat in the arrangement of colours, and sharply outlined—than the imitations of paintings of the last two centuries, in which every detail of form and colour is sought to be expressed. ”

“ He of the brush may paint an exquisite picture, fine of line and detail; delicate in colouring, as in a miniature, a picture capable of bearing the closest scrutiny. Again he may pile the pigment upon his canvas as with a trowel, and those who view such work at close quarters will marvel how so much seeming roughness, lack of detail and carelessness can mean anything. But when this picture is viewed at a little distance, order comes forth from chaos; there is unfolded a landscape of surpassing loveliness. ”

“ This magical result of appearance can, however, be carried to such a pitch, that in contrast to it the exhibition of content becomes a matter of indifference, and painting tends to pass over, in the mere charm and perfume of its colour tones, and the contrast, fusion, and play of their harmonies, into the art of music, precisely as sculpture, in the elaboration of its reliefs, tends to associate itself with painting. ”

“ The extraordinarily rapid advance, both in artistic conception and in power of execution, during the preceding fifty years, fostered by the concurrent advance in sculpture and painting, hastened the vase-painter to his ruin. With the attainment of perfection in drawing, dexterity and grace are his sole aim, and in place of vigour and originality we meet with over-refinement and mannerisms, and florid pictorial compositions executed in a careless manner. ”

“ But sculpture, and, above all, painting, propose to themselves the imitation not only of the forms of nature, but of the characters and passions of the human soul. In those sublime arts the dexterity of the hand is of little avail, unless it is animated by fancy, and guided by the most correct taste and observation. ”

“ Nature to the decorative mind presents a variegated pattern from which to clip any shape which the color design demands.
The influence on pictorial art of the decorative tendency, has brought much into the pictorial category which has never been classified.
The Rose Croix influence has witnessed its seed maturing into the art nouveau, and what was nurtured under the forcing glass of decoration has suddenly been transplanted into the garden of pictorial art. ”

“ They show inclination rather than accomplishment—a wish to ornament or to represent, with only a crude knowledge of how to go about it.
The first aim of this primitive painting was undoubtedly decoration—the using of colored forms for color and form only, as shown in the pottery designs or cross-hatchings on stone knives or spear-heads. The second, and perhaps later aim, was by imitating the shapes and colors of men, animals, and the like, to convey an idea of the proportions and characters of such things. ”