Display

“ The easy applicability of the revived art to the taste for fanciful display which characterised the fifteenth century, led to its universal adoption in decoration; but the wilder imaginings of the living artist always tampered with the grand features of the design. The panel, Fig. ”

“ The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication. ”

“ In some422 one of these classes may be found every kind of a display of products, irrespective of its purpose or individual name.
The development of the modern exhibition from the early fair has been confined to no one country nor people. Everywhere the purpose and process have been the same. ”

“ The adult human body was, in its entirety and in parts, shown in the natural state, in the form of models, paintings, lumières and drawings, all displayed in the most artistic form and executed by artists of the first order, the high walls and high windows admitting a flood of light and rendering inspection thorough and easy. ”

“ For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality. ”

“ And whether a picture be asserted at the date of its exhibition as advanced, or the contrary, as daring or dull, if it is born of the exhibition, it dies with the exhibition, and the brood to which it gives birth hold their life on the same tenure. ”

“ The spectator who misses the allusions, the meaning of his subject-pictures, nevertheless finds matter for full and intense enjoyment as he contemplates the lovely fabrics, the cool half-shades, the clear sunlight, the exquisite flowers, the heat-saturated sea and sky, the marbles and the bric-à-brac that appear on almost every canvas, and are painted with a skill, a consummate science that captivates the connoisseur, and with a reality that delights the uninstructed crowd. ”

“ The spectator may not and ought not to be aware that the lines of the background, the hangings of the room, the curves of the furniture, the branches of the trees, the forms of the mountains, help to point toward the figure of the woman who is to hold his mind. The shading of the lights, the patches of dark shadows, the vagueness of some parts, the sharp outlines of others, the quietness of some parts of the picture as against the vehement movement of others all play on the keyboard of our mind and secure the desired effect on our involuntary attention. ”

“ One has but to open the door to any forces of exhibition at all worthy of the name in order to see the imaging and qualifying agency called at once into play and put on its mettle. We may traverse acres of pretended exhibitory prose from which the touch that directly evokes and finely presents, the touch that operates for closeness and for charm, for conviction and illusion, for communication, in a word, is unsurpassably absent. ”

“ For I say this is their use, that as often as any one may wish to assign fulness to empty things, ornament to base things, speech to dumb things, and reason to senseless things, he may, from a little book of emblems, as from an excellently well-prepared hand-book, have what he may be able to impress on the walls of houses, on windows of glass, on tapestry, on hangings, on tablets, vases, ensigns, seals, garments, the table, the couch, the arms, the sword, and lastly, furniture of every kind. ”

“ For if we can not see a picture in a fine piece of music or hear the strains of a distant song in a picture,—if we can not drink of the beauty of both with the eye as well as the ear,—we had better seek entertainment in a picture gallery, where hang many a visible palpable specimen of colors rioting in quadrangles of gilded mouldings, of colors clamoring for recognition in the little square horizons of the artist's soul. ”

“ Has my reader not often noticed that in a picture-gallery the slightest change of place, a move to the left or right, a chance approach or retreat, suffices to make what seemed a hazy confusion of color and gloss a rich and beautiful picture? ”

“ But if, on the other hand, the work of art has for its object the adornment of a surface of any sort, as a weapon, a utensil, an article of costume, and if the natural objects represented or suggested are used only as suggestions to furnish pretty lines and pleasant tints, which lines and tints might have been after all represented apart from the object were man’s mind more creative than it is,—that is art of decoration. ”

“ If therefore you find some tales in one collection bearing a close resemblance with those you have read in another, you should make it a matter of interest to observe what is individual in the character of each, and to trace the points both of diversity and analogy in the mode of expression in which they are clothed, and which will be found just as marked as the difference in costume of the respective peoples who have told them each after their own fashion. ”

“ Observe a man at a picture exhibition—a man who begins at number one on the catalogue and goes right through with solemn persistence until he arrives at the longest number at the last page, and the uttermost corner of the last gallery. ”

“ After witnessing pictures so full of interest and so wonderful in color effect and action, one accustomed to democratic ideas could but wonder to see moving upon the screen, on a mechanically revolved table, so inanimate an object as a crown of jewels. ”

“ The figures cast on the screen in a theatre are on the flat, but have all the illusion of motion, distance, shadow, light and form. The figures of human memory I am content to accept as being in two dimensions. ”

“ Every shade of human expression may be observed in this motley throng, and he who has eyes to see will find many a charming tableau, many a pathetic scene or diverting situation that would enrich a sketch book, or prove a valuable addition to the collection made by the ready camera. The various changes of expression are worth studying, for where “luxuriant joy and pleasure in excess” appear at one moment, the next may behold an angry frown, and a struggle as if for life amid the surging tide of humanity. ”

“ If you can so work upon your delicate surface as to mould it close to your noble soul; if in the gallery of the world you can unveil yourself for a thousand pair of eyes to see, and praise God for the right to see—why, what an artist you are, and what an audience you have! ”

“ But in ordinary life the cultivation of taste is chiefly exhibited in the style, furniture, and decoration of private dwellings, and in the dress and ornaments of the person. In reference to these, there is the same opportunity for gratifying the eye as there is in the compositions of the fine arts. ”

“ To read their productions is like looking on a piece of mediaeval art, a stained-glass window, where the figures are grotesque and the fable futile, but the richly blended colours bind us by their beauty. ”

“ Imprisoned in a flattened universe bounded by the screen of the spectacle that has enthralled him, the spectator knows no one but the fictitious speakers who subject him to a one-way monologue about their commodities and the politics of their commodities. The spectacle as a whole serves as his looking glass. ”

“ Art.—The art side also may receive due attention in the general proportioning and arrangement of the stores, in the modeling of certain features from clay, as enumerated above, in the making of labels for boxes and cans, in the writing of signs and advertisements, and in the color combinations. These features are to a great extent incidental to other problems just as the use of good [Pg 74] taste is incidental to all the affairs of life and should receive corresponding emphasis. ”

“ It is strange to think how a scene, in itself uninteresting, becomes agreeable to look at in a picture, from the truth with which it is depicted, and a perfection of colouring which at once contrasts and harmonises the hues of sky and water. ”

“ Of the canvas you make a screen, you build a dwelling with the pile of stones, chisel a door-sill out of the block, with the vocabulary you write an essay. And in each case you work well and creatively, if your work be in harmony with God’s laws, if your screen be light, sightly, and protective, your dwelling healthful and commodious, your sill lie solid and square, your essay be judicious and sound. ”

“ Suppose, for example, that an art gallery is devoted to an exhibition illustrative of some great historical subject, like the career of Napoleon I. The value of the pictorial side of the subject at once stands forth with great prominence, and one can realize the educational value of art in the exposition of history. ”

“ One has the feeling of construction and the sense of ornamentation springing from fine tastes; his tales are like beautiful pieces of cabinet work in which, at first sight, the effects of form, of shapeliness and of beauty and power are felt; on a closer examination you fall to admiring the sure hand and the cunning art ”

“ Such a blotted paper held at a distance from the eye would strike the spectator as something excellent for the disposition of the light and shadow though he does not distinguish whether it is history, a portrait, a landscape, dead game, or anything else; for the same principles extend to every branch of art. ”

“ The eyes which roll in their ample sockets, like two shining orbs, and which are turned away from the spectator, only dart their glances the more powerfully into the soul; and the whole picture is a paragon of frank cordial grace, and transparent brilliancy of colouring. ”

“ The gain is in all the delicacies of modelling, tone-relations, form, and color. A hundred evanescent impressions come and go. There is often a tenderness of appeal about the most rugged face in the assembly. Humanity takes on its sacred aspect. ”

“ Its magnificent size, satisfying his love of spaciousness, its beautiful proportions and simplicity of design, its richness and completeness of decoration, producing a sense of harmony and perfection, seized his imagination at once, and seemed to “leave nothing to be desired.” ”

“ With what a glorious exhibition must those beings be entertained, who can look into this great theatre of nature, and see myriads of these tremendous objects wandering through those immeasurable depths of æther, and running their appointed courses! Our eyes may hereafter be strong enough to command this magnificent prospect, and our understandings able to find out the several uses of these immense parts of the universe. ”

“ To-day every exhibition shows an increasing number of worthy efforts at figure-painting in either the naturalistic or the ideal vein. We have pictures with subjects intelligently chosen and intelligibly treated, pictures with a pattern and a clear arrangement of line and mass, pictures soundly drawn and harmoniously colored as well as admirably painted. ”

“ The modern picture-exhibitions—I mean big shows like that of the Royal Academy—have perhaps done more to destroy the decorative relationship of the easel pictures than anything. An analogous effect is produced on the mind by the sight of so many pictures of so many different sorts, subjects, and scales, and treatments crowded together, to that produced by a surfeit of ornament, and pattern on pattern, in internal decoration. ”

“ We know that the point of sight is the eye of the spectator; and if you ask, how is a series of subjects, such as the life of a saint, to be represented, in different compartments on the same wall? I answer, that you are to place the principal event in the largest compartment, and make the point of sight as high as the eye of the spectator. ”

“ The material form stands in the same relation to Spirit that the image projected on the screen stands to the slide in the lantern. If we wish to change the exhibited subject we do not manipulate the reflection on the screen, but we alter the slide; and in like manner, when we come to realize the true nature of the creative process, we learn that the exterior things are to be changed by a change of the interior spiritual attitude. ”

“ The question was how by the aid of all the devices of colour to represent the multifarious forms of human activity: the phases and conditions of life, fashion as well as misery, work and pleasure, the drawing-room and the street, the teeming activity of towns and the quiet labour of peasants. ”

“ Don't sway the body, or nod the head, or shrug the shoulders, or move the feet, or make motions or gestures, unless the proper expression call for it, and your emotion prompts.
The eye.
The eye is particularly effective in expression, as there the [Pg 92] emotion first shows itself; and by it you can get and keep the attention of your audience. In reading, keep your eye off the book as much as possible, and on your audience. In recitation or extempore speaking, look at your audience. The eye leads in gesture, and, in many cases, looks in the direction of the gesture. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI - COLOR, HARMONY, TONE In viewing a picture exhibition the average man, woman and child would be attracted by different aspects of it; the man by the tone of the pictures, the woman by their color, the child almost wholly by the form or subject. ”

“ Suppose you turn to it and imagine yourself to be standing upon the banks of the Hudson, in a position commanding the view down the river; by examining the marked gestures you will be able to locate the entire scene. In the delivery of a piece, always try to see with your mind’s eye what you are describing to your audience, and if the object is supposed to be in sight, let the eye follow the gesture; this, however, should be avoided in emphatic gestures, or where the thing described is supposed to be hidden from view. ”

“ They were altogether free from that vulgar habit of comparing scene with scene which so poisons the eye to all true perception of natural beauty,—as though the one great end were to graduate all the various scenes of nature in the list of a competitive examination. ”

“ The variety of preparations, which become necessary where a full exhibition is intended, the accuracy of the different mixtures, and the adjustment of cases to wheels, whether vertical or horizontal, and the arrangement of the leaders, or communicators of fire, from one part to another of the work, with many other circumstances, in relation to stars, rain, &c. all require, from the artist, particular care and attention. ”