Iconography

“ In this "translation" of a Greek statue into an English picture, no less than in the bust of Clytie, we see how in the hands of a great artist painting and sculpture may become as sister arts indeed, yet without invasion or confusion; how, without any forced alliance of form and colour, a picture may share the gracious grandeur of a statue, a statue may catch something of the subtle bloom of beauty proper to a picture. ”

“ When pictures are composed of beautiful colors, such as we usually think of when we speak of the art of painting, the greatest charm of pictures is reached, and all civilized people have admired and encouraged this art. It is true that the remains of ancient art now existing are principally those of architecture or sculpture, yet there are a sufficient number of pictures in color to prove how old the art of painting is. ”

“ But in this they correspond, that in none is mere imitation the final, or most exalted, object of the artist. In the fidelity of representation, and in the facility with which the originals in nature may be traced, Sculpture and Painting are superior to all the other imitative arts. Between the vivid creations of these, and the more varied, more imaginative, but less defined, efforts of poetry, the middle rank is occupied by Architecture, whose mighty masses and harmonious proportions fill the mind with awe or delight, as they recall the majesty or grace of the material world. ”

“ Compositions so produced are to poetry what mosaic is to painting. This instinct and intuition of the poetical faculty, is still more observable in the plastic and pictorial arts; a great statue or picture grows under the power of the artist as a child in the mother's womb; and the very mind which directs the hands in formation is incapable of accounting to itself for the origin, the gradations, or the media of the process. ”

“ We say advisedly “ornamental device in books,” for infinite almost are the applications of Symbol and Emblem to Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, as is testified by the Remains of Antiquity in all parts of the world, by the Pagan tombs and Christian catacombs of ancient Rome, by nearly every temple and church and stately building in the empires of the earth, and especially in those wonderful creations of human skill in which form and colour bring forth to sight nearly every thought and fancy of our souls. ”

“ And art is not spontaneous, but carefully intended; no babbling of a child, but a mutual fitting of form and content, in which efficient unison the artist’s intellect has worked. Such intellectual, such artistic endeavour, [Pg 20] was evinced in the long development of mediaeval plastic art. The sculpture and the painted glass, which tell the Christian story in Chartres Cathedral, set forth the patristic and antique matter in forms expressive of the feeling and emotion which had gathered around the scheme of Latin Christianity. ”

“ Hence the ancients greatly prized both the art and the artist, which thus attained the summit of highest excellence; very sure proof of which maybe found in the antique marble and bronze statues that yet are seen.132 And although painting is different from sculpture, both the one and the other spring from the same source, which is good design. Therefore, as the statues are divine, so we may believe the pictures were also; the more indeed because they are susceptible of greater skill. ”

“ Colors more brilliant than Titian or Allston could combine, join in harmonious effect on every side, and grace and vigor, beauty and grandeur, are blended in every scene and almost in every outline. Would you examine the famous statues of the world, and admire the symmetry of form and power of expression drawn forth by human skill from the hard, white stone? Or will the fragments of ancient art give delight for their expressive beauty, visible though in broken forms? ”

“ Because they are expressions of nature, and because the copying of the human body, of trees, clouds, and the like is an indispensable part of their practice, painting and sculpture have seemed to give support to the theory of art as imitation. Yet, although the activity of imitation is a means to the creation of picture and statue, the mere fact of being a copy is not the purpose of the completed work nor the ground of our pleasure in it. ”

“ Mediæval sculpture should go with painting, if it is found impossible to combine art of all ages.
117-8. Pictures should be protected by glass in every case. It makes them more beautiful, independently of the preservation,—Glass is not merely expedient, but essential.—Pictures are permanently injured by dirt.
119-20-21. First-rate large pictures should have a room to themselves, and a gallery round them.—Pictures must be hung on a line with the eye.—In one, or at most two, lines.—In the Salon Carre at the Louvre the effect is magnificent, but details of pictures cannot be seen. ”

“ It is not mere historical painting that he aims at, indeed his art bears the same relation to history as does the anecdote to serious narrative, a lighter species which nevertheless often throws a brighter light upon the past than scores of learned tomes. And this result is largely achieved by his love of detail, which causes him to crowd his canvas with masses of those authentic bibelots which ancient and recent excavations and the aid of photography have brought within the reach of all. ”

“ Painting, commencing with mosaic and enamels, contributing to the decoration of buildings jointly with stained glass and frescoes, embellishing and illuminating manuscripts before it arrived at its highest point of perfection, with the Art of Giotto and Raphael, of Hemling and Albert Dürer; Engraving on wood and metal, with which is associated the work of the medallist and the goldsmith; and after attempting to touch upon Playing-cards and Niello-work, we suddenly evoke that sublime invention destined to change the face of the world—Printing. ”

“ It is obvious that a statue is intended to imitate a living man, that a picture is designed to represent real persons in real attitudes, or the interior of a house, or a landscape, such as it exists in nature. And it is no less clear that a novel or drama endeavours to represent with accuracy real characters, actions, and words, giving as precise and faithful an image of them as possible. ”

“ For all we mould in clay or cast in bronze or carve in stone or tint with encaustic pigments or colour with paint, in a word, every attempt at artistic representation by the hand of man after a brief lapse of time loses its truth and becomes motionless and impassive like the face of a corpse. So far superior to all pictorial art in respect of truthful representation is the craftsmanship of the smooth mirror and the splendour of its art. ”

“ Its proper definition is, 'painting accented by sculpture;' on the other hand, in solid colored statues,—Dresden china figures, for example,—we have pretty sculpture accented by painting; the mental purpose in both kinds of art being to obtain the utmost degree of realization possible, and the ocular impression being the same, whether the delineation is obtained by engraving or painting. For, as I pointed out to you in my Fifth Lecture, everything is seen by the eye as patches of color, and of color only;—a fact which the Greeks knew well ”

“ Figures of the noblest sculpture; busts of historical interest; alto and basso relievos of antique elegance; marbles, alabasters, spars, and lavers of all colours, and in all forms; pictures glowing into life, and statues appearing to command their beholders;—all that, at another period, would have made her forget every thing but themselves, now vainly solicited a moment of her attention. ”

“ Nothing, perhaps, shewed the grandeur and the grasp of ancient art more strongly than the vigour with which the old painters used the effect produced upon the human mind by the power of contrast, and the infinite skill with which they employed that power, so as never to violate those essential principles of harmony which affect painting and sculpture fully as much as they affect music and poetry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many of the ancient statues certainly exhibit the appearance of some foreign substance having slightly penetrated the surface of the work to about one eighth of an inch, and its color is of a warmer tint than the marble below it; a process, be it observed, quite distinct from and not to be confounded with polychromy, or what is usually understood by painting sculpture with various tints, in imitation of the natural color of the complexion, hair, and eyes. ”

“ Take an illustration from another art. A statue has the symmetry of solid form. You can look at it from all sides, and from every side you can see the balance and rhythm of the parts. In a photograph this solidity of form disappears. You see only a flat surface. But you still recognize it as the reflection of a statue.
The Psalms were undoubtedly written, in the original Hebrew, according to a system of versification, and perhaps to some extent with forms of rhyme. ”

“ When artists paint on panels and on walls the events of ancient history, they alike delight the eye, and keep bright for many a year the memory of the past. Historians substitute books for panels, bright description for pigments, and thus render the memory of past events both stronger and more permanent, for the painter’s art is ruined by time. ”

“ Colour and shadow, aërial perspective and complicated grouping, denied to sculpture, but within the proper realm of painting, have their own significance, their real relation to feelings vaguer, but not less potent, than those which find expression in the simple human form. To painting, again, belongs the play of feature, indicative of internal movement, through a whole gamut of modulations inapprehensible by sculpture. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The grand portraits, heirlooms of that aristocratic family, men of the Revolutionary period, high-bred dames of a long-past generation in short bodices, puffed sleeves, towering head-dresses, and quaint golden chains—ancestors long since dead, not only valuable as likenesses that could not be duplicated, but acknowledged works of art—these portraits hung upon the walls, slashed by swords clear across from side to side, stabbed and mutilated in every brutal way! ”

“ A picture is the representation of things that are, or may be, as men, buildings, ships, and other things; of which the copy, by having the exact form and outlines of the real body, assumes the likeness. The ancients, who originally instituted this manner of decoration, at first imitated the varieties and marks of marble incrustation, then cornices, disposing between them divers silacious and miniaceous coloured ornaments. They proceeded afterwards to represent edifices with columns and pediments projecting ”

“ All which involves infinitely more important considerations than common history.
133. Dean of St. Paul's. When you speak of your objections to copies of pictures, do you carry that objection to casts of sculpture?—Not at all.
Supposing there could be no complete union of the great works of sculpture in a country with the great works of painting in that country, would you consider that a good selection of casts comprising the great remains of sculpture of all ages would be an important addition to a public gallery?—I should be very glad to see it. ”

“ Then, by the aid of camera, brush, and pencil, tints and forms are brought to the eye and hand of the sculptor and engraver, which in time take on material shape in bronze and stone, and the ideas pass into art and design, and thus culture is the gainer in the end. ”

“ The copyists were up on their ladders in galleries, which heap together civilizations that have disappeared, statues of gods and the mummies of kings, decayed grandeur pell-mell with fragments of columns and open tombs and women’s jewels. ”

“ His works in painting and engraving are equally admirable, evincing knowledge of the best principles of imitation. They still retain a degree of constraint—a remnant of the Gothic manner, of which the habits and prejudices of his countrymen, and his own ignorance of the antique, prevented the removal. Want of dignified design and grandeur of composition, hard and meagre outline, are his defects; truth, originality, and simplicity of thought, good coloring, and the invention, or at least perfecting, of etching on copper, form his contributions to the arts. ”

“ Beginning with the simple conception of sculpture as the art of fiction in solid substance, we are now to consider what its subject should be. What—having the gift of imagery—should we by preference endeavor to image? A question which is, indeed, subordinate to the deeper one—why we should wish to image anything at all. ”