52 STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE ENGLISH SCHOOL. employment of fresco, for a portion at least of the intended works, might be proposed conditionally, since it must necessarily depend on the evidence of inclination and qualification on the part of the artists, to work in that method. No. V. REPRESENTATION AS DISTINGUISHED FROM DESCRIPTION.* THE question respecting the selection of fit subjects for painting, in the decoration of an important building, cannot be fairly considered without referring to the nature of the art itself, and the variety of its styles. The general nature of the formative arts as distinguished from language or description, from which their subjects are often taken, is too familiar to require much comment. It may suffice to advert to those principles of representation which have been derived from such a comparison, and which affect the question proposed. In a subject taken from description it is required that the impression conveyed should be as nearly as possible equivalent to that of the written narrative; and this translation (for such it is) can rarely be accomplished without some deviation from the letter of the original, in order to render its true * [Extracts from a paper in the Appendix to the Third Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts, 1844, and from the notes to the translation of Goethe's "Theory of Colours."London, 1840.-ED.] meaning. It follows, that where it is absolutely impossible for painting, which only represents what passes in a single moment and in one view, to convey an impression equivalent to a given description, that description cannot be said to furnish a good subject for representation. Sir Joshua Reynolds gives an instance of an illadapted subject of this kind which was recommended to a painter. "It was what passed between James II. and the old Earl of Bedford in the council which was held just before the Revolution.* This is a very striking piece of history; but so far from being a proper subject, that it unluckily possesses no one requisite necessary for a picture; it has a retrospect to other circumstances of history of a very complicated nature; it marks no general or intelligible action or passion," &c. The question here is not whether a good picture * Dalrymple's Memoirs. The following appears to be the incident referred to:-" As soon as James entered the city, he summoned an assembly of the peers to ask their advice, and to make an apology to them for not having called a Parliament. In passing to the council he met with a shock, perhaps as severe as any he had felt. Meeting the father of the unfortunate Lord Russell, the old Earl of Bedford, who had offered 100,000l. for his son's life, but which the king, when Duke of York, had prevailed with his brother to refuse; he said to the earl, 'My lord, you are a good man; you have much interest with the peers; you can do me service with them to-day.' 'I once had a son,' answered the earl, sighing, 'who could have served your majesty upon this occasion.' James was struck motionless." could be made out of two persons in conversation; but whether the precise story could be told. It is evident that it could not; and that the representation could not be equivalent to the description. Among the changes which a subject may undergo in being transferred from description to representation, may be mentioned the omission of circumstances which, however forcible and satisfactory in words, would be disagreeable when presented to the sight. One well-known instance may suffice. In the Æneid the serpent coils itself twice round the neck of Laocoon. Suppose some Mæcenas, more conversant in poetry than in art, were to employ a sculptor or painter to copy this description literally; the admirable lines of Virgil, thus rendered, would produce a tasteless work of art.* Not only forms, but colours, however agreeable in description, might be unpleasant to the sight; and the assumption that poetical allusions of this kind may be literally adopted in pictures has sometimes led to false criticism. In this respect, the means of the two arts differ widely. An image is more distinct for the mind when it is compared with something that resembles it. An object is more distinct for the eye when it is compared with something that differs from it. Similarity is the auxiliary in the one case, contrast in the other. See Lessing, "Laokoon, oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerei und Poesie," where this subject is fully treated. The poet succeeds best in conveying the impression of external things by the aid of analogous rather than of opposite qualities: so far from losing their effect by this means, the images gain in distinctness. Comparisons that are utterly false and groundless never strike us as such if the end is accomplished of placing the thing described more vividly before the imagination, or of conveying an impression of excellence. In the common language of laudatory description the colour of flesh is "like snow mixed with vermilion ;" these are the words of Aretino in speaking of a figure of St. John, by Titian. Numerous instances of the kind might be quoted from poets even a contrast can only be strongly conveyed in description by another contrast that resembles it: as "Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, On the other hand, whenever poets have attempted the painter's method of direct contrast, the image has failed to be striking, for the mind's eye cannot see the relation between two colours; to say nothing of the vagueness of their names. It has been already observed that words, necessarily presented in succession, are, strictly speaking, inadequate to the expression of harmony, the elements of which must be simultaneous. Poets, to avoid competition with the painter's |
