Tableau

“ By what art or mystery, what craft of selection, omission or commission, does a given picture of life appear to us to surround its theme, its figures and images, with the air of romance while another picture close beside it may affect us as steeping the whole matter in the element of reality? It is a question, no doubt, on the painter's part, very much more of perceived effect, effect after the fact, than of conscious design—though indeed I have ever failed to see how a coherent picture of anything is producible save by a complex of fine measurements. ”

“ In other words and as I shall never tire of repeating, the differentiating characteristic of art is that it makes you think back to the shape once that shape has conveyed its message or done its business of calling your attention or exciting your emotions. And the first and foremost problem, for instance of painting, is that of preventing the beholder's eye from being carried, by lines of perspective, outside the frame and even persistently out of the centre of the picture ”

“ It is the drawing—the design projected from that peculiar pictorial temperament or constitution, in which, while it may possibly be ignorant of true anatomical proportions, all things whatever, all poetry, all ideas however abstract or obscure, float up as visible scene or image: it is the colouring—that weaving of light, as of just perceptible gold threads, through the dress, the flesh, the atmosphere, in Titian's Lace-girl, that staining of the whole fabric of the thing with a new, delightful physical quality. ”

“ What then is realism in art—this drawing of eyes that follow you about the room, lips that seem parted as if to speak, and hands that you could shake? What is this painting of pots and pans to be picked up, and cows that walk out of the canvas? ”

“ To all this, the painter has added his own thoughts and feelings when he saw and when he painted this consummate picture. It is his idea of the place, and, like all realized ideals, it has first crept into his study of imagination, before it comes into the eye and prospect of his soul or of ours. We feel the spirit of the place, its gentleness, its unspeakable seclusion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Well, if you have carefully studied your portrait in the mirror, I think you must have discovered how large a part the contrast of light and shadow plays in the appearance of the figure, and therefore, what an equally important part it plays in producing an illusion of reality in the picture. I do not forget that an artist by simply drawing an outline with a pen or pencil can also suggest to us the appearance of an object. ”

“ Out of these few elements the artist has constructed a picture which it is impossible to forget, of which the most striking characteristic is its simplicity, and yet which overflows with perfection. Painted with extraordinary breadth and freedom, so that surface and texture are interpreted by the lightest hand, it glows with life, character and distinction, and strikes us as the most complete—with one exception perhaps—of the author’s productions. ”

“ He should picture some scene, in which the object of his devotion forms the central figure, building it up, bit by bit, as a painter paints a picture, putting in it gradually all the elements of the scene He must work at it as a painter works on his canvas, line by line, his brush the brush of imagination. ”

“ Able at last to interpret the painter's medium, the appreciator comes to seek in pictures not primarily an exhibition of the craftsman's skill, not even a recall of his own pleasurable experiences, but rather, beyond all this, a fuller visible revelation of beauty.
The essential significance of art, that art is revelation, is illustrated not only by painting but by the other arts as well. ”

“ The second form of our art is analogous to painting, and its result to a picture; it aims at reproducing not a character or a life, but a situation; it requires a background and a foreground, scenery and perspective, as well as unity and symmetry ”

“ Hence this art has an infinitely greater range and freedom than any form of sculpture. Near and far is all the same to it, and whatever comes into the field of vision can come also into the field of a picture; trees as well as persons, and clouds as well as trees, and stars as well as clouds; the Range of objects imitable by painting. ”

“ The office of painting and sculpture seems to be merely initial. The best pictures can easily tell us their last secret. The best pictures are rude draughts of a few of the miraculous dots and lines and dyes which make up the ever-changing "landscape with figures" amidst which we dwell. Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. ”

“ And so the art of painting has its correlative science of painting, involving laws of optics, and of form; the art of sculpture, its correlative science of sculpture, involving the science of human anatomy, &c.; and each one of the literary arts has its correlative science—the art of verse its science of verse, the art of prose its science of prose. ”

“ They are not the determining and fundamental characteristics of verse—those have already been discussed—but rather its sources of incremental beauty, of richness and, subtle power. To draw an illustration from another art, they add light and shadow, fullness, roundness, depth of perspective, vividness, to what would else be simple line-drawing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This second purpose is what makes the picture a work of art. And we found that the artist, in order to make his composition give pleasure to our sense of sight, relies upon the pleasure that we derive from repetition and contrast, and upon the instinct that we all have for keeping our balance. The elements of composition, in fact, are repetition and contrast in a state of balance, sometimes with the added charm of rhythm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Have you never wondered what it is in art that 106makes a painter’s interpretation of a scene more agreeable than the scene itself? If you had a few sheep, a French peasant, a straw-thatched cottage, and a barren plain you would have the materials for a Millet picture. ”

“ The touches combine to give the forms, the local colours, the depth, the solidity of nature, while at the same time the chief impression they convey is that of the opalescent play of changing tones and hues which, eluding the limitations of definite contours, make up to the painter’s eye the chief beauty of the external world. ”

“ I have taken up the art simply as I found it exemplified in the practice of the most approved Painters. That approbation which the world has uniformly given, I have endeavoured to justify by such proofs as questions of this kind will admit; by the analogy which Painting holds with the sister Arts, and, consequently, by the common congeniality which they all bear to our nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The arts of the poet and the story writer involve the presentation of a picture representing the complete composition, and in addition when the work is lengthy, of a series of pictures each of which strengthens the relief of the general design. The painter and sculptor each presents a complete picture, the meaning of which is immediately determined through the sense of sight, and the extent of the beauty is bounded by what can be recognized by this sense. ”

“ They were seeking effects of line, light, color—mere sensuous and pictorial effects, in which religion and classicism played secondary parts. They believed in art for art's sake; that painting was a creation, not an illustration ”

“ The fact that we divide a work of art into parts, as a poem into scenes, episodes, similes, sentences, or a picture into single figures and objects, background, foreground, etc., may seem to be an objection to this affirmation. ”

“ That represents a certain style of drawing or painting, a conventional kind of art. But, if we are honestly trying to draw light and shade, if we are drawing varied tones, painting not merely flat washes of colour, then we cannot ignore the truth. ”

“ And as the painter, by means of a certain order in the arrangement of the colours upon his pallet, readily mixes up what kind of tint he pleases, so may we mix up and compound in the imagination such fit parts as will be consistent with this or that particular character, or at least be able thereby to discover how such characters are composed, when we see them either in art or nature. ”

“ The painter, to produce a strong effect, makes a few parts of his picture large, distinct, and luminous, and keeps the remainder in shadow, or even beneath its natural size and colour, to give eminence to the principal figure. ”

“ In its narrowest acceptation, as we have already seen, this is the art of drawing in perspective; in a more comprehensive sense, it is the whole art of painting. A painting presents us with outlines drawn according to the rules of perspective ”

“ Knowledge, sympathy, imagination, are all divining-rods, with which he discovers treasure. Let a painter go through the grounds, and he will see not only the general colours of green and brown, but their combinations and contrasts, and the modes in which they might again be combined and contrasted. ”

“ So with almost every pursuit—there is opportunity to exercise it in the world of spirits. The painter finds nobler themes for his pencil, more angelic faces for his canvas; and the desire to reproduce them as they appear is as intense there as it is here. ”

“ In painting, what wonderful lights, what tender shadows, what exquisite chiaro-oscuro reveal them; and in sculpture, what breaking up into soft swellings and almost imperceptible lines is necessary before the hard material can be changed into living flesh. ”

“ I thought it necessary in a former discourse, speaking of the difference of the sublime and ornamental style of painting—in order to excite your attention to the more manly, noble, and dignified manner—to leave perhaps an impression too contemptuous of those ornamental parts of our Art, for which many have valued themselves, and many works are much valued and esteemed. ”

“ A scene which takes place in heaven or on earth should positively not be painted within four walls, but in the true light of morning or mid-day, evening or night. The illusion and effect produced by the picture cannot but gain by this, and the language of painting will become more expressive and intelligible.
23Perhaps the same might be said, with little variation, of sculpture, and even of music. All the arts are now, more than ever, brothers and sisters, and long ago should have been united in one temple of taste, intellect, and talent.
24 REALISM
I
An old Russian. ”

“ Sculpture, painting and poetry, then, are among the greater fine arts those which express and arouse emotion by imitating or evoking real and known things, either for their own sakes literally, or for the sake of shadowing forth things not known but imagined. ”

“ What I desire to enforce is the great truth that within the art of painting there exists, flourishes and advances a noble and glorious science which is essential and progressive.”
“Any one who can learn to write can learn to draw;” and every one who can learn to draw should learn to compose pictures. ”

“ The graphic branches of painting, owe everything to colour, which, if it does not constitute a picture, is its flesh and blood. Without it, the finest performances remain lifeless skeletons, and yield no pleasure. ”

“ With the history of art and the world's gallery of painting spread out before us, we may take a continuous view of the whole field. Leaving out the painters of the experimental era let us begin with the great masters of effect. ”

“ But the fact that certain varieties of the arts of form, more especially outline drawing, dispense with the pleasure of color, and even with that of light and shade, suggests that the pleasure of visual form includes a sensuous element as well as an intellectual. ”

“ To try to present a complete picture to the reader by enumerating in succession several parts or things which in nature the eye necessarily takes in at a glance, is an encroachment of the poet on the domain of the painter, involving a great effort of the imagination to very little purpose. ”

“ Of Subject and Portrait, in the art that leans for its support upon qualities of decorative design and in the direct and searching questionings of nature, noticeable in every direction and manifest specially in the treatment of landscape, there is a rich and abundant harvest in the present collection. ”

“ Drawings and paintings are divided into classes, according to the nature of the objects represented, the principal of which are historical, architectural, landscape, marine, portrait, still life, grotesque, botanical, and animal. ”

“ Do we conclude that a piece of painting is made by chance when we see in it either shades, or even some careless touches? The painter, we say, might have better finished those carnations, those draperies, those prospects. ”