Naturalism (art)

“ The phases of the naturalistic patterns are constantly recurring. Art is always tending to realism, in the laudable effort to reach the motive without the shackles of rules. Each phase has fallen a prey to symbolism, to conventionalism, or to mannerism, which last symptom marks the decline and fall of art. We shall find these phases everywhere in the design of patterns.
Naturalism has always striven, by simple repetition, to reduce to patterns the forms of flowers, fruits, animals, birds, insects, reptiles, and other natural objects. ”

“ Thus no good artist would paint a finished and studied landscape on a dado, he would paint the scene flat, and colour it in appropriate harmony with surrounding objects, for that is the aim; and a workman not an artist would, of course, painfully elaborate and finish it so that it was neither a decorative work nor a painting in the ordinary sense. |Naturalism in decorative art.| In all good decorative work the same old story of naturalism holds good ”

“ If we mentally map out the readings of this barometer on a chart, we shall find naturalism triumphant as the apex of each curve, whilst in the ascending curve will be found the strugglers towards naturalism, and in the descending curve the fallers away from naturalism. |The masters.| On the apices of these curves will be found triumphant the masters, such as the sculptors of the Egyptian lions, the sculptors of the Assyrian lion-hunts, Pheidias, Van Eyck, Durer, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, Velasquez, Donatello, Rembrandt, De Hooghe, Corot, Millet, Gainsborough, and Whistler. ”

“ Relative tone or value is the difference in the amount of light received on the different planes of objects when compared with one another.
Sentiment. Artists speak of the “sentiment of nature” as a highly desirable quality in a picture. This means that naturalism should have been the leading idea which has governed the general conception and execution of the work. Thus the sentiment of nature is a healthful and highly desirable quality in a picture. ”

“ For these reasons, therefore, we prefer and have used the term “naturalism” throughout this work. But, as we have said, we regard the terms “impressionism” and “naturalism” as fundamentally synonymous, although we think the work of many of the so-called modern “impressionists” but a passing craze.
Interpreting. The method of rendering a picture as it appears to the eye has been called interpreting nature. Perhaps interpreting is as good an expression as any, for the artist in his language (for art is only a language) interprets or explains his view of nature by his picture.
Local Colour. ”

“ Thus the red of some sandstone rocks, seen by common white light, is their proper local colour, that of a snow mountain in the rays of the setting sun is an illumination colour.”—E. Atkinson, Ph.D., F.R.S.
Low art. See high art.
Naturalism. By this term we mean the true and natural expression of an impression of nature by an art. Now it will immediately 23be said that all men see nature differently. Granted. But the artist sees deeper, penetrates more into the beauty and mystery of nature than the commonplace man. The beauty is there in nature. ”

“ And I wonder much that men endeavour to prove Immaterial Spirits by corporeal Arts, when as Art is not able to demonstrate Nature and her actions; for Art is but the effect of Nature, and expresses rather the variety, then the truth of natural motions; and if Art cannot do this, much less will it be able to express what is not in Nature, or what is beyond Nature ”

“ Such are the great forces of Nature gathered up in what we call the æsthetic phenomenon, and it is these forces of Nature which, stolen from heaven by the man of genius or the nation of genius, and welded together in music, or architecture, in the arts of visible design or of written thoughts, give to the great work of art its power to quicken the life of our soul. ”

“ Let us not complain if we cannot possess works of art wrought by human brains and hands, when we often fail even to look at, much less appreciate, the daily art of Nature which is our birthright, and which perhaps we regard but lightly, because it is free to everyone with seeing eyes and beauty-loving soul. Let us rather cast off the scales that blind our eyes and hide from us the visible expression of a Creator’s love, the beauty of Nature. ”

“ Every increase in the power to represent nature, every advance in the mastery of the object, adds a new power over the expression of feeling, which varies with the object. The realist is, therefore, right in his demand that nature itself be painted; only he should remember that the nature which presents itself in art is never the naked object, but veiled in feeling ”

“ As in his early discourse he recognized {p69} two entities, Nature and the Soul, so to the last he believed Art to be simply the union of Nature with man’s will—Thought symbolizing itself by Nature’s aid. ”

“ If you can issue from the circle in which art keeps you enclosed and find nature again, if it shows itself to you in its greatness and in its calm, in its simple beauty, in its childlike innocence and simplicity, oh! then pause before its image, cultivate this feeling lovingly. It is worthy of you, and of what is noblest in man. Let it no more come into your mind to change with it; rather embrace it, absorb it into your being, and try to associate the infinite advantage it has over you with that infinite prerogative that is peculiar to you, and let the divine issue from this sublime union. ”

“ She is our creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life." Such is the highest hyperbole of the aesthetic creed. But what is creative instinct, if not an incessant living sympathy with Nature, a constant craving like that of Nature's own, to fashion something new out of all that comes within the grasp of those faculties with which Nature has endowed us? The qualities of vision, of fancy, and of imaginative power, are no more divorced from Nature, than are the qualities of common-sense and courage. ”

“ Do not they there grow in beauty, delighting to compare themselves in turn with the images of art which the mind of others has also embellished and beautified? I confess to you that my fondness for nature arises from the fact of my always seeing her so beautiful, so lovely, so brilliant, so ravishing, that the similation of the artist, even his imperfect imitation transports me almost as much, as if it were a perfect type. ”

“ I pray, Nature being Infinite, What figures and sizes may there not be, which our eyes with all the help of Art are not capable to see? for certainly, Nature hath more curiosities then our exterior senses, helped by Art, can perceive: Wherefore I cannot wonder enough at those that pretend to know the least or greatest parts or creatures in Nature, since no particular Creature is able to do it. But concerning Artists, you would fain know, Madam, whether the Artist be beholden to the conceptions of the Student? ”

“ This feeling in practice would not triumph over fear and greed; but the feeling is natural, and everybody with a grain of nature in him can imagine its triumph. Nature tends towards that impossibility, and art, lifting, so to speak, the lid which fact drops upon nature, reveals nature in belying fact. ”

“ There it is art, or nature clipped and twisted and trained, so far from its original simplicity, that you cannot recognise a single feature—in fact, Nature in masquerade; in brilliant, gorgeous masquerade, it is true, but hiding the naked loveliness of Nature’s self. ”

“ When applied to genius, it may be called the social inspiration, the simple statement of which seems to us of itself a solution of the oft-repeated question, "Why is it that genius always appears in clusters?" To Nature, indeed, we must all at last recur, as to the only true and permanent foundation of real excellence. But Nature is open to all men alike, in her beauty, her majesty, her grandeur, and her sublimity. ”

“ Nature, the best source we can go to for instruction, is 'always at hand!'—'but Nature herself is not to be too closely copied. There are excellencies in the art of painting beyond what is commonly called the imitation of Nature. A mere copyer of Nature can never produce any thing great; for the works of Nature are full of disproportion.' It is the beau ideal of the mind alone that reaches this great end. It is comparing our observations on Nature, that enables us to acquire this ideal perfection. ”

“ For the furnishing of a room, like the composing of a picture, should, as far as possible, be a work of art, and the artist, as you recollect, does not imitate nature. He selects from nature. Out of her unlimited storehouse of form and color he chooses for his purpose some few effects at a time and combines them in his work of art; guided in his choice and arrangement by the principles of beauty he has discovered in nature, particularly by the principle of harmony. And in this respect he has an advantage over nature. ”

“ To learn principles and methods, to secure a sound foundation for oneself; not to slavishly imitate results, and live on bound hand and foot in the swaddling clothes of precedent. Learn your business in the schools, but go out to Nature for your inspirations. See Nature through your own eyes, and be a persistent and curious observer of her infinite wonders. Yet to see Nature in herself is not everything, it is but half the matter; the other half is to know how to use her for the purposes of fine art, to know how to translate her into the language of art. ”

“ The outward purpose of this dominion of the Race over Nature is, as we have said in one of our first lectures, a double purpose:—Either that Nature may be subjected merely to the purpose of rendering our sensuous existence more easy and agreeable,—whence arise the Mechanical Arts; or that it may be subjected to the higher spiritual wants of man, and have stamped upon it the majestic image of the Idea,—whence arises Fine Art. ”

“ Nature is boundless in her powers, exhaustless in her variety; the powers of art and its capabilities of variety in production are bounded on every side. Nature herself, the infinite,327 has circumscribed the bounds of finite art; the one is the divinity; the other, the priestess. And if poetic art in the interpreting of nature share in her infinitude, yet in representing nature through material, form, and colour, she is,—oh, how limited! ”

“ With still greater force might it be said that he who attentively studies nature and fails to see in her ways the workings of Providence must, indeed, be blind. Who the guide of nature, but only the God of nature? In him we live, move, and have our being. Those things which nature is said to do are by divine art performed, using nature as an instrument. ”

“ But, as the mental 156 is the peculiar feature that places man apart from and above animals,—so ought all that he does to be apart from and above their nature; especially in the fine arts, which are the intellectual perfection of the intellectual. And nothing short of this intellectual perfection,—however much they may be pictures, poems, statues, or music,—can rank such works to be works of Fine Art. ”

“ But does it not often offend you to hear people speaking of Art and Nature as opposite and discordant things? Surely nothing can be more false. Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man. Indeed, Art signifies no more than this. Art is Power. ”

“ The humanity within us appears to be a synthesis of nature and art. Therefore, in a sense and to a degree, the nobler nature of man is self-created. Through this synthesis we catch the few glimpses of ourselves, just as we see something of our own earth in a ray of light from the sun. Art, of course, is natural but it is not nature. A poem is more than words, however skilfully combined: soil, air, moisture, and light are the least of a garden rose. Nature gives capability; art implies skill; science supplies knowledge; and the synthesis of nature and art implies a mysterious x. ”

“ What is a man but nature's finer success in self-explication? What is a man but a finer and compacter landscape than the horizon figures, — nature's eclecticism? and what is his speech, his love of painting, love of nature, but a still finer success? ”

“ Tradition, of course, very largely laid the foundation of this mode of thinking, and, from the Greeks to Ruskin, few seem to have realized how much beauty Art had already laid in Nature, before even the imitative artist could consider Nature as beautiful. ”

“ It follows, as a corollary from this, that external Nature also imitates Art. The only effects that she can show us are effects that we have already seen through poetry, or in paintings. This is the secret of Nature’s charm, as well as the explanation of Nature’s weakness. ”

“ When, then, we speak of beauty, we neither take into consideration the justness of the aims of nature in themselves, nor formally, the degree of adaptation to the principles of art which their combination could offer. ”

“ The Beautiful in Nature.—All real beauty is either natural or artificial. Natural beauty is that which characterizes what we call the “works of Nature” or the “works of God”. Artificial beauty is the beauty of “works of art”. ”

“ His ideas, his actions, his will, are the necessary effects of those properties infused into him by Nature, and of those circumstances in which she has placed him. In short, art is nothing but Nature acting with the tools she has furnished. ”

“ By this means the beautiful in art presents thought to us as incarnate. On the other hand, matter, nature, the sensuous as themselves possessing measure, end, and harmony, are raised to the dignity of spirit and share in its general character. Thought not only abandons its hostility against nature, but smiles in her. Sensation and enjoyment are justified and sanctified, so that nature and liberty, sense and ideas, find their justification and their sanctification in this union. ”