Retreat from Likeness in the Theory of Painting 9780231889735

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
I. The Copy Theory
II. Composite Likeness
III. Likeness Generalized: Aristotle and Sir Joshua Reynolds
IV. The Artist as Mystic: Plotinus and Schopenhauer
V. The Theory of Abstract Art
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

RETREAT FROM LIKENESS IN THE THEORY OF PAINTING

Retreat from Likeness in the Theory of Painting

FRANCES BRADSHAW

New

York:

BLANSHARD

Morningside

Heights

KING'S C R O W N PRESS 1945

Copyright 1945 by FRANCES B R A D S H A W B L A N S H A R D

Printed in the United States of America

K I N O ' S C R O W N PSBSS

is a division of Colombia University Press organized for the purpose of making certain scholarly material available at minimum cost. Toward that end, the publishers have adopted every reasonable economy except such as would interfere with a legible format. The work is presented substantially as submitted by the author, without the usual editorial attention of Columbia University Press.

To

M.R.B. and E.D.H.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS arc four writers to whom I owe a debt far exceeding my quotations from their works: Samuel Alexander, E. F. Carritt, R. G. Collingwood, Roger Fry. For patient and fruitful guidance throughout the progress of this study, I am grateful to Professor Helen Huss Parkhurst, though the responsibility for points stated here is mine alone. A friend and former student, Marietta Watson Korn, has kindly assisted me by reading the work in proof. My special thanks go to my husband for his loyal and continued encouragement. THESE

Many of the citations in this study arc from works too old to be under copyright, some, indeed, that arc hardly to be found except in the great libraries of Europe. I was fortunate in having access in 1938-39 to the rare and extensive collection in the British Museum. M y warm appreciation goes to the assistants in the Reading Room for their competence and courtesy. Citations from recent works have been made as follows: from Samuel Alexander, Beauty and Othtr Forms of Value, by permission of The Macmillan Company; from Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Cubism and Abstract Art, by permission of the Museum of Modern Art; from Paul Cezanne, Letters, translated by Marguerite Kay, edited by John Rewald, by permission of Bruno Cassirer; from Roger Fry, The Artist and Psychoanalysis, by permission of the Hogarth Press, and Vision and Design, by permission of Brentano's; from Wassily Kandinsky, "Empty Canvas, etc.," translated by P. Morton Shand, in The Painter's Object, edited by Myfanwy Evans, by permission of the Howe Company; from Stephen MacKenna's translation of Plotinus, by permission of the Medici Society; from W. Worringer, Form in Gothic, by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons; from Willard Huntington Wright, Modern Painting, by permission of Dodd, Mead and Company. F. B. B.

CONTENTS

I. II. III. IV.

Introduction

i

The Copy Theory

4

Composite Likeness

17

Likeness Generalized: Aristotle and Sir Joshua Reynolds

13

The Artist as Mystic: Plotinus and Schopenhauer

V.

41

The Theory of Abstract Art

63

Conclusion

80

Notes

84

Bibliography

100

Index

105

INTRODUCTION of "abstract a r t " during the present century have left no doubt that the defenders of the new schools of painting 1 see themselves as apostles of a great revolution. A "Copcrnican revolution," it has been called by one writer: "Artists of the Twentieth Century have discovered that the object is just as far from being the center of art as the earth is from being the focal point of the universe." 1 In the same vein: " T h e subject matter of painting, that is, the recognizable object, the human obstacle—had to be forced out" 1 to permit painting to achieve its rightful goal; so long as the artist had copied a model, "painting has been a bastard art—an agglomeration of literature, photography and decoration." 4 These writers represent many who hold the same position. They are attacking what they take to be a long-established but misguided notion that painting should be "life-like," that the artist should "hold a mirror up to nature." They are attacking the conception of painting as an art in which likeness is essential. They represent the extreme stage in what we have called the retreat from likeness in the theory of painting. What do we mean by "likeness"? Likeness is a term we have adopted to denote the relation of resemblance between a painting and its original, a resemblance that involves some degree of repetition of the original's color and shape. Likeness obviously was one of the many meanings of the classical term, "imitation," and of the modern "representation." We avoid these terms, however, because within the aesthetic tradition, each has various other meanings. Imitation 6 was the handy word of Greek aesthetics, applied to virtually every step in the creation and enjoyment of all the arts. Representation,6 while less inclusive, may denote not only likeness but also a painter's use of a certain subject-matter; furthermore, it is applied to the verbal as well as to the graphic arts. This transfer of terms from one art to another is here unfruitful if not misleading. The relation of resemblance between a painting and its original is dearly not the same as that between a character or scene in a poem or play and its prototype, whether in history or in the writer's imagination. In the graphic arts alone "likeness" seems an appropriate term. It is natural to say of a painting or a statue but not of a character in a story, that it is " a good likeness." ISCUSSIONS

1

INTRODUCTION

Before the advent of abstract art, paintings were normally expected to exhibit some degree of likeness; it was taken for granted that the canvas of an artist who had any technical skill would display "recognizable o b j e c t s . " The abstract artist has challenged this assumption. He has thereby called attention to what has been taken for granted and has placed its validity in question. At the other extreme from the theory of abstract art we find what we shall call the "copy theory" of painting. This is the theory implicit in the stories of the exploits of Zcuxis and Parrhasios in the fifth century before Christ. 7 Zcuxis painted grapes so perfectly that birds pecked at his canvas; Parrhasios painted a curtain that deceived Zeuxis himself into trying to pull it aside. The anecdotes 8 in which these feats arc admiringly reported imply that a painter's aim should be to copy the appearance of his model as accurately as possible, that likeness of the most complete kind is the cssencc of painting. This is the tenet of the "copy t h e o r y " : what is of prime importance in painting is likeness in the sense of a faithful repetition of the colors and shapes of the object. The copy theory stands at one extreme, the theory of abstract art at th« other. The copy theory represents the point of view of the naive enthusiast for illusionist technique, and of the sentimentalist w h o values a painting as a reminder of a pleasant scene or a charming person. The theory of abstract art represents the austere aestheticism of the purist who prizes only such paintings as make manifest the values he conceives to belong to painting and to nothing else, the values of "pure f o r m . " But in spite of the contrast between the two views, in spite of the lapse of twentythree centuries between Zeuxis and the early apologists for abstraction, the latter arc not the pioneers and revolutionaries that they are often held to be. Indeed, they seem rather to represent only one stage, though an extreme one, in a retreat which began when Zeuxis' younger contemporary, Plato, showed that the copy theory led to conclusions which could not be tolerated by anyone who set a high value on art. Plato said in effect: " A painting is the accurate copy of the appearance of a particular model, and nothing more; such copies are no better than childish make-believe; hence painters may justly be banned from the society of rational adults." 9 That this conclusion follows from the premises can hardly be gainsaid. If the devotee of art is t o challenge it, he must correct Plato's conception of painting in a way that will give the art a new status. So the retreat from the copy theory begins. The demand for likeness is not abandoned, but likeness is redefined as something different from a mirrored reflection. As the retreat proceeds, there emerges finally the conviction that likeness is burdened with irrelevant associations which prevent the recognition of the intrinsic worth of painting. Then follows the

INTRODUCTION

5

self-denying ordinance that the painter should dispense with recognizable objects altogether. Here the long retreat reaches its end. The purpose of this study is to trace stages of this retreat, to follow the movement of thought from the disciples of Zeuxis to the apologists for abstract art. The withdrawal has been no steady and gradual one, but curiously uneven and disorderly a movement in which a laborious advance to a new and more critical position has at times been completely forgotten, only to be made over again with a triumphant sense of originality many centuries later. A strictly chronological study of such "backing and filling" would be tedious. The most profitable kind of treatment is philosophical, one which subordinates the demands of chronology to those of logic. And logically the movement has proceeded through a series of fairly well marked stages. ( 1 ) The first is the afore mentioned copy theory which takes a painting to be simply the accurate copy of the appearance of a particular model. (2.) In the second stage, a likeness is held to be of no particular model, but of the most beautiful parts of many models. (3) In the third, likeness is of the many models that are members of a class: the painter's original is the form of a species. (4) The fourth stage is the aesthetic theory of the mystic in which likeness in the ordinary sense has reached the vanishing point; the attempt of the artist is now to reproduce a spiritual essence of which the physical object is only the vehicle. (5) With abstract art comes the theory that reproduction, even in this tenous sense, must be abandoned. Each of these stages, as we have said, represents a point of view that has been held at more than one period. Consequently it seems appropriate to illustrate each one by coupling together writers ancient and modern. Leonardo will be mentioned with Plato, Reynolds with Aristotle, Schopenhauer with Plotinus. In such parallels there is much that is instructive. In our conclusion we shall admit that the abstract artist has demonstrated with startling emphasis that a painting without likeness can be aesthetically effective; hence, that likeness is not essential to painting. He has pressed home a point that would hardly have been denied except by the copyist, that the sine qua non of painting is form. The painter is above all not a copyist but a creator of form. Having forced this lesson upon the eye of artist and public, the abstract artist has done his work. It remains for those whom he has instructed to see that he has gone astray by cutting himself off from a rich source of visual material, and has thereby impoverished his work. It remains for them to see that while likeness is not of prime aesthetic importance, natural forms, like all others, arc material which the artist's free vision can construct into form.

Chapter One THE COPY

THEORY

DNO the views of painting which assume that an artist's principal aim is to produce a likeness, the most naive may be called the copy theory. It has taken three somewhat different forms. In the first, the likeness is defined as the accurate repetition of the pattern of color and shape of some object in the "real world"; a good painting is held to resemble its original so perfectly as to be the equivalent of a photograph or a mirrored reflection; at its best it will actually deceive the spectator. The reason why the product satisfies is that we take pleasure in technical skill. In the second form of the theory, the center of interest is slightly shifted. Likeness is still emphasized, but less for its own sake than for the sake of the effect upon a spectator. A painting is conceived as a substitute for its original, with similar powers of arousing emotion and of influencing conduct, and hence is to be judged, as the original is judged, by its moral effect. The third form represents a critical scrutiny of likeness from the standpoint of metaphysics; a painting is set down as "nothing but" a copy, to which it is thoughtless and childish to attach the value of reality. All these forms of the copy theory first appear in the traditions of Greek painting and in Greek writing on art. All three, as we shall see, reappear from time to time throughout the history of painting, and are not unknown today.

The first form is clearly exemplified in the aim and the reputation of the earliest great painters in Greece, Zeuxis and Parrhasios, 1 who were traditionally supposed to have been masters of the technique of mirrorlike deception. According to the familiar anecdotes of Pliny, 2 their paintings succeeded in deceiving man, bird and beast. The story runs that Parrhasios and Zeuxis entered into competition, Zeuxis exhibiting a picture of some grapes, so true to nature that the birds flew up to the wall of the stage. Parrhasios then displayed a picture of a linen curtain, realistic to such a degree that Zeuxis, elated by the verdict of the birds, cried out that now at last his rival must

THE

COPY

THEORY

5

draw the curtain and show his picture. On discovering his mistake he surrendered the prize to Parrhasios, admitting candidly that he had deceived the birds, while Parrhasios had deluded himself, a painter. After this we learn that Zcuxis painted a boy carrying grapes, and when the birds flew down to settle on them, he was vexed with his own work, and came forward saying, with like frankness, " I have painted the grapes better than the boy, for had I been perfectly successful with the latter, the birds must have been a f r a i d . " ' Even these marvels were alleged to have been thrown in the shade by the work of the younger painter, Apelles, 4 who painted a horse so realistically that it brought other horses to neigh at it. 6 Why were the raconteurs of the fifth century who handed down these stories so preoccupied with accurate likeness? Probably because they recognized both the difficulty of making a painting lifelike, and the astonishing possibilities of naturalism in a technique then newly discovered: the art of painting in perspective. Skill in this art, by which a flat surfacc could be made to look like a solid object, had been developed with startling rapidity during the fifth century. In the first half of the century it was virtually unknown to the great painter, Polygnotus.' Zcuxis, in the last quarter, was thoroughly conversant with it; and he in turn was surpassed at the end of the century by Parrhasios. Many centuries later, when the mastery of painting in relief was in course of being achieved again and independently by the Italians, we find the same interest in technique, accompanied by the same ideal of fidelity in copying. Anecdotes appear in the Note Books of Leonardo da Vinci which more or less parallel those of Pliny. A painting representing the father of a family has had the good fortune to be caressed by his grandchildren, although they were still in long clothes: the dog and the cat of the household did likewise, and it was a wondrous sight to see. 7 I once saw a painting deceive a dog by its likeness to his master and the animal was overjoyed to see it. I have also seen dogs bark and eager to bite other dogs in a picture, and a monkey frolic like anything before the painting of a monkey, and swallows flying about and alighting upon the painted railings depicted on the windows of buildings.« A like degree of realism is attributed by Vasari to Leonardo's painting on a shield of a terrible dragon designed to frighten an attacker. When this shield was exhibited to a visitor, he, " n o t expecting any such thing, drew back, startled at the first glance, not supposing that to be the

6

THE COPY

THEORY

shield, or believing the monster he beheld to be a painting, therefore turned to rush out."* These tales, like Pliny's, are natural enough in the enthusiasm for newly discovered wonders in the technique of copying. Leonardo himself had made astounding progress in the use of effects of light and shade; 10 he also led the w a y in improving the accuracy of his drawing by scientific study of perspective and anatomy. 11 The great advance in the use of color made by the Flemish artists, Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, awoke fresh interest in the possibilities of exact reproduction in painting. The Van Eycks, though hardly deserving their traditional title of "discoverers" of oil painting, were among the first to succeed in mixing pigments with oil, 12 and so to produce paintings which had an extraordinary cfFect of lifelike color. It was admiration for this new kind of likeness that inspired the epitaph of Jan Van Eyck: Here lies Johannes, who was celebrated for his surpassing skill, and whose felicity in painting excited wonder. He painted breathing forms and the earth's surface covered with flowery vegetation, completing each work to the life. Hence Phidias and Apelles must give place to him, and Polycletus be considered his inferior in a r t . " Long after naturalistic technique had become an old story, it retained for many something of its original fascination. In the eighteenth, nineteenth and even in the twentieth centuries, w e find admiration of "speaking likenesses" as if they were, beyond question, the acme of the painter's art. For example, there was the critic condemned by Sir Joshua Reynolds w h o praised the painting of a fiddle because it "looks as if you could take it up." 1 4 Or again, the French acquaintance of Ruskin's w h o measured the success of painting by its achievement of completely rounded forms: "Monsieur, on ne peut plus—e'est un tableau admirable—inconcevable: Monsieur," said the Frenchman, lifting up his hands to heaven, as he concentrated in one conclusive and overwhelming proposition the qualities which were to outshine Rubens and overpower Buonarotti— "Monsieur, ILSORT!" 1 5 Ruskin tells also 16 of a man who flatters the owner of a landscape by pretending to mistake it for an actual view from a window. Such evidences of the prevalence of the copy theory could be multiplied indefinitely. Few persons w h o frequent exhibitions of paintings today can have failed to recognize the theory, accepted often as unconsciously as it is uncritically, in the comment that may be overheard in any gallery. It is plain that the interpretation of painting as the attempt at an accurate copy belongs to no one period in the history of art.

THE COPY THEORY

7

In the sccond form of the theory the emphasis is shifted. Resemblance is still important; the theory would not be a copy theory if it were not; but the resemblance is now valued chiefly as a means to something else, namely the production of desired effects upon the spectators. Such effects of course had their place in the first form of the theory; if the spectator were so completely taken in as to confuse the painting with its original, this was the most impressive sort of witness to good technique. Early reflection discovered, however, that a painting might produce many important effects that resemble those of the original even when deception did not occur. A man may look at a painting, knowing perfectly well that it is only a painting, and yet behave toward it in some respects as he would toward the things it represents. The painting may serve as a substitute for its original in stirring his emotions, even in influencing his conduct. That along with this likeness in effect go equally important differences was no doubt acknowledged, even when the emphasis was all on the likeness. It was recognized that although a painting of grapes might actually make a man's mouth water, he would not try to squeeze them—unless indeed he was close kin to the ape which Goethe describes as making a meal of the illustrations of a book on beetles.17 It was likeness, however, that was important, because of the possibility of influence for good or ill. The writer whose views above all others are of interest here is of course the younger contemporary of Zeuxis and Parrhasios, Plato. 18 Plato's remarks on painting in the Republic serve to illustrate not merely this second stage of the copy theory, but the other two stages as well. In the spirit of our anecdotes about Zeuxis and Parrhasios, he describes the painter as a man with a mirror who flashes it about, "catching the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other creations of art as well as nature, in the mirror." 19 When he paints a carpenter, " i f he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance." 20 Plato's best known passages on painting we shall mention later in presenting the third stage of the likeness theory, the metaphysical criticism of painting as "nothing but" an accurate copy. As a point of merely historical interest we note here that although Plato discusses painting and painters many times in several dialogues, he never mentions Parrhasios by name, and refers to Zeuxis only once, speaking of him on that occasion merely as a painter of figures.21 These omissions are surprising in view of Plato's habit of using well known names and incidents; the more surprising in that Parrhasios actually had a famous

8

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THEORY

conversation with Socrates, according to Xenophon's account in the MemorabiliaIt is tempting to surmise that if Plato refused to name these painters in spite of their prodigies of performance which were on everyone's tongue, it was because he had so little respect for them as men of character or knowledge. Both were reputed to be interested in painting anything, including "licentious objects" ; M both were notorious for their arrogancc and showmanship. Zeuxis was so proud of the wealth earned by his painting that he had his name embroidered in gold on the robe he wore to the Olympic Games.14 Parrhasios "carried his success with an arrogance that none has equalled," 2 ' and claimed a divine source of his genius, vowing that "he was of the seed of Apollo." 14 In view of the noisiness of these notables, it is small wonder, perhaps, that Plato placed the painter on the level with the Sophist,17 implying that they are alike in ignorance, superficiality and smugness. Nor is there much to be wondered at in his confidence that implied censure of individuals would be understood without naming names. Plato embarks upon the second stage of the copy theory when he insists that a picture of moral deformity duplicates the effect upon an observer of keeping bad company; both bad men and pictures of bad men corrupt him by causing him to become like what he beholds; hence the need of strict censorship of the graphic arts along with the art of dramatic poetry, the demoralizing effects of which Plato had already pointed out. He writes: But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in the land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.18

THE COPY THEORY

9

Plato's coupling of painting with poetry and his anxious scrutiny of both arts alike, become intelligible when we recall that Greek painting was primarily illustration, and that its favorite source was the Bible of the Greeks, the Iliad and the Odyssey. As it was customary to look to these poems for guidance in conduct," so it was only natural that their pictured companion pieces, such as the heroic murals of Polygnotus, 30 should be expected to reproduce in the spectator motives to action. And when a scene was unedifying ,its effects were likewise unedifying, whether it had been set forth in words or in pigments. This second stage of the copy theory, like the first, enjoys a perennial vitality in the history of art. From Plato until the end of the eighteenth century, it was commonly understood that the function of painting was to illustrate Biblical and secular history,"—to point a moral and adorn a talc. Throughout these centuries, artists and critics agree that painting and poetry arc sister arts:*2 painting is "silent poetry": poetry, "speaking painting." They are "sisters" in their common effect on feeling and conduct. From the Iconoclastic Controversy 83 in the seventh and eighth centuries until Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote at the end of the eighteenth century,' 4 paintings of the great characters of religious poetry were valued for their influence upon feeling and conduct, this influence supposedly duplicating the effects of their originals. It is a commonplace of criticism that the sister arts became alienated at the end of the eighteenth century, and that the rift was sharpened by Lessing's Laokoon,35 in which he pointed out the harm that had resulted from the failure to sec that one sphere belongs to poetry, another to painting and sculpture. But even after the painter had ceased to poetize, he was still judged by his ability to depict noble subjects which should make the beholder noble: witness the critical tenets of Ruskin. 36 And the introduction of " l o w " subjects, as by Courbet, for example, was deplored for its vulgarizing effect. 37 Today art on the lower planes of commercial advertising exemplifies this stage of the copy theory; that is to say, it is based on the assumption that a painting w i l l evoke the feelings which would be aroused by its original. Hence the never ending series of babies and pretty girls on magazine covers, intended to awaken the admiration and interest that arc normally felt for flesh and blood babies and pretty girls.

The third stage of the copy theory represents a critical approach to art from the standpoint of metaphysics. The metaphysician may class a painted likeness as "nothing but" an accurate copy of the appearance of a particular thing, a make-believe and thus an unreality. This is Plato's line of attack in the Tenth Book of the Republic. His strictures on paint-

IO

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ing have often been regarded as curiously unsympathetic and uncomprehending. But they are far more than the results of individual whim. They follow, or at least Plato believed them to follow, from the sharp cleavage in his system between appearance and reality, opinion and knowledge. Plato's system takes special cognizance of the fact that things as they appear to sense are in perpetual change; hence he argues that they have no stability, no reality; they can not form the basis of true knowledge but only of conjecture and opinion. 38 In contrast, the real—the permanent and unchanging—is above sense; it is constituted by the Ideas, the eternal patterns of all physical things, both natural and manufactured;' 9 insight into these Ideas is the only knowledge worthy of the name. T o achieve the most complete knowledge, a man must free himself from the trammels of opinion by understanding the limitations of sense perception, by seeing that it can never be more than superficial and deceptive. He must then go through a long and arduous training in mathematics and dialectic which will ultimately open his eyes to the vision of truth. 4 0 This kind of education is obviously beyond the capacities and the devotion of the ordinary man, who must be content to live by mere opinion or by partial knowledge. As an example of a man with partial knowledge, Plato cites a skilled artisan, a cabinetmaker. He knows the essential character, the eternal patterns of the articles he makes; how else would he be able to make them? 41 The cabinetmaker thereby demonstrates that he who makes a bed knows the Idea of a bed, but his real knowledge may go no farther. In Plato's scheme of things, how does the painter fare? Very badly indeed. The painter is preoccupied wholly with sense appearance, with the unstable realm of particulars of which no genuine knowledge is possible. His plight is far worse than that of the artisan who at least knows the nature of what he creates; when he makes a bed, he has true insight into that aspect of reality which constitutes "bedness." Not so the painter. When he paints a bed, he has no concern with its pattern laid up in heaven but only with the appearance of the particular bed put together by the cabinetmaker. Hence the painting of a bed is "thrice removed from reality." 4 2 One passage in Plato's dialogue is pertinent here: And now about the painter, I would like to know whether he imitates that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists? The latter. As they are, or as they appear? you have still to determine this. What do you mean?

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ii

I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view obliquely or directly, or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And this is true of all things. Yes, he said, they differ, but only in appearance. Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting— an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear—of appearance or of reality? Of appearance. Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. 4 * Painting or drawing and imitation in general is remote from truth, and is the companion and friend and associate of a principle which is remote from reason, and has no true or healthy aim. 44 Plato's condemnation of painting for its unreality reappears today in the Philistine criticism of art and artists familiar to us all: the criticism of painting as "no kind of work for a man," and of artists as grown-up children playing at life and living in a world of make-believe.

Plato's use of the copy theory is of special importance in this study, as will appear in a moment. But first let us mention briefly certain more or less obvious points that can be urged against this naïve view of painting as it survives in much common sense criticism, ( a ) It is clear enough that painting has not generally sought to deceive, ( b ) If a painter does entertain exact copying as his end, he is bound to be defeated, since such copying is psychologically impossible, (c) There is no correlation between the completeness of a painter's reproduction and his accepted artistic rank. In support of these points we shall use where we can the comments of writers whose words carry weight and interest because they are theirs. ( a ) Consider some of the witnesses against deception as the aim of painting—first, Adam Smith who had views on art as well as on economics: The works of the great masters in Statuary and Painting never produce their effect by deception. They never are, and it is never intended that they should be, mistaken for the real objects which they represent.45 Next Dr. Johnson (he is speaking of theatrical deception, but his words have a general bearing):

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Il

THEORY

The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players.46 Next Goethe, who insists that /Vlusion should not become Elusion: The highest problem of all art is to produce by illusion the semblance of a higher reality. But it is false endeavor to push the realization of the illusion so far that at last only a commonplace reality remains.47 It is worth observing, before quoting further, that Goethe here touches on the most obvious difficulty in the copy theory. The peculiar character of the likeness in art depends upon its being perceived in conjunction with an equally important difference, namely, a difference in the medium, the material of which a work of art is made. Awareness of this combination of likeness and difference prompted one of the earliest aesthetic judgments in the literature of Western Europe, an expression of admiration for the carving in gold on the shield of Achilles: the earth looked dark behind the plough, and like to ground that had been ploughed, although it was made of gold; that was a marvellous piece of work.** DeQuincey says, a little pedantically perhaps, of all the Fine Arts: the object is to reproduce in the mind some great effect, through the agency of idem in alio. The idem, the same impression, is to be restored, but in alio, in a different material—by means of some different instrument.49 Coleridge agrees: in all imitation two elements must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be perceived as coexisting. These two constituent elements are likeness and unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in all genuine works of art there must be a union of these disparates . . . If there be a likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting, and the more complete the delusion, the more loathesome the effect. 60 Hence the disagreeable impression of wax-work figures. Further evidence, if it were needed, that paintings arc neither meant nor felt as deceptions could be drawn from the custom of accentuating their "unreality" by mounting them in frames. Thus the painting is placed at a proper "aesthetic distance" 51 from the spectator, just as in the theatre a play is kept clear from confusion with everyday life by being set upon

THE COPY

THEORY

a stage. In sculpture also naturalistic coloring is avoided to prevent too close a resemblance. Indeed, against the theory that painting is intended to deceive, it is enough to object that artists could, if they would, deceive their public in countless ways which it never occurs to them to adopt. ( b ) A less obvious objection to the copy theory points out that it is based on faulty analysis ( i ) of the process of perception, and ( l ) of the artist's way of working. Holders of the copy theory assume that the artist's eye perccives an object as passively as the camera's lens registers patches of light and shade; that the artist's hand records precisely the vision of his passive eye. Actually these processes appear to be not passive and mechanical, but active and constructive. ( i ) In every act of perceiving there arc important processes of selection and organization. Some stimuli do not register themselves in sensation at all; others, owing to low intensity or lack of interest, register themselves only in a marginal way. And even those that manage to get effectively represented arc often modified profoundly by unsuspected tendencies working within the perceivcr's mind. T h e Gcstalt psychologists have made these "internal forces of organization" 5 2 a subject of detailed experimental study. Sometimes the inner tensions will prescribe to the given data the simplest possible shape, sometimes distort or supplement them for the sake of completing a pattern. A spot which is not quite a square will be perceived as a square; 65 simple, well-balanced figures arc perceivcd when irregular figures arc actually exposed; 64 the fact that we see rectangles everywhere is due to the fact that the true rectangle is a better organized figure than the slightly inaccurate one would be, and that only a slight dislocation is necessary to change the latter into the former. 66 Superimposed upon these innate forces are others which have developed in the course of the artist's experience, his feelings, taste and temperament, his knowledge of the structure and significance of the object before him. Although these forces arc normally below the level of consciousness when the artist is at work, their importance has long been apparent to critics and teachers of art. For example, the study of anatomy and of perspective has long been recognized as profoundly affecting an artist's perception of a body or a landscape. It was the possession of this scientific knowledge by the Florentine painters 66 and the Flemish painters' lack of it that accounted for their different worlds of " n a t u r e . " Sometimes the influence of such knowledge was conceded without any perception of how dangerous the concession was to the traditional copy theory. The Milanese painter of the Sixteenth Century, Lamozzo, writes:

i4

THE COPY

THEORY

Painting is an arte; because it imitateth naturall things most precisely, and is the counterfeiter and (as it were) the very Ape of Nature: whose quantity, eminencie, and colours, it ever striveth to imitate, performing the same by the help of Geometry, Arithmetic)», Perspective, and Naturall Pbilosophie, with most infallible demonstrations." The truth of the matter has been well put by M. Maritain, who writes of artists generally: they simply and honestly believe themselves to be copying Nature whereas in fact they are expressing in matter a secret which Nature has communicated to their souls . . . in order to imitate, the artist transforms, but without being himself aware, as a rule, that he is transforming." (z) Granted that perception is a process of active selection and organization, it follows that the process of painting can not be a mechanical recording of the vision of the passive eye. But may it be true that perception, rightly understood, provides the artist with a complete image which he proceeds to copy literally? Croce would say that it does so; he draws a sharp line between the image" which he holds to be complete in color and form in the mind of the artist, and the activity of externalizing this image by means of canvas and paint. It is possible that Croce gives a true account of the work of some artists in whom the power of visual imagery is unusually strong. But many painters would ccrtainly be unable to set their activities of painting and of perceiving completely apart. They would find their own way of working better explained in the account of Samuel Alexander. 60 He holds that the artist does not complete his perception and then proceed to paint; rather he becomes aware of what he is perceiving by painting, and through painting he is stimulated to more and more highly organized perceiving. This account rings true to the humble student whose artistic activities are limited to the drawing required in a course in laboratory science; there as he draws what he sees through a microscope, he sees more and more; until he has drawn it, he hardly knows what he is looking at. Or, again, painting is a kind of handwriting. When a man writes a letter, he usually becomes aware of what he has to say only as his pen forms the words; the act of writing, in turn, stimulates him to go on with inner and outer processes of expression. (c) It has become clear that to paint a perfectly accurate likeness is a psychological impossibility. But it is true, also, that a very high degree of accuracy is possible, and that some painters attain it while others do not. Do we find that this highest attainable degree of accuracy is an infallible mark of aesthetic excellence? The answer is obviously, No. While

THE COPY THEORY

15

there is undoubtedly some minutely accurate painting which would be acclaimed by competent critics, there is also some carefully naturalistic art that has nothing besides its accuracy to recommend it. As examples of the former, there is the work of the Van Eycks, of Vermeer, and of Courbet; of the latter, the painting and sculpture of the Niirnberg School of artists' 1 w h o delighted to represent every vein on the hand of an Apostle, every hair in his curly beard. Before painting such as this it would be appropriate to exclaim, as Mr. Roger Fry says, " N o t , 'what a thing is done!1" but, "How difficult it must have been to do it!' " M Even when accurate painting is on a high artistic level, it may be rated below paintings which are less accurate but on the basis of other standards, more effective. Taine makes such a comparison of a painting by Denner and a sketch by Van Dyck. Of Denner he says: This artist worked microscopically, taking four years to finish a portrait. Nothing in his heads is overlooked—the finest lines and wrinkles, the faintly mottled surface of the cheeks, the black specks scattered over the nose, the blueish flush of imperceptible veins meandering under the skin, even the reflection of objects in the vicinity of the eye. We are struck with astonishment. This head is a perfect illusion; it seems to project out of the frame. Such success and such patience arc unparalleled. Substantially, however, a broad sketch by Van Dyck is a hundredfold more powerful. 63 There is no need to accuracy and either necessary connection, accepted as good art,

multiply examples to show that between minute aesthetic success or aesthetic failure there is no since some "speaking likenesses" would be generally others as inferior.

To come now to Plato's use of the copy theory. The grounds upon which Plato condemned painting would seem to have determined important steps in the retreat from likeness. Plato had classed a painting as nothing but the likeness of a particular; Aristotle objected that a painting might be like more than one original: it might resemble the members of a whole species and present the type-form. Again, Plato had set the painter down as concerned only with sense appearance; his critics, among them on this point, Plotinus, denied that the artist was cut off from insight into the Ideas, and maintained that he could reveal them in his work. Plato censured painting for reproducing the evil effects of an evil model; Aristotle refused to agree that painting and original could be guaranteed to have the same effects. Since Plato had concluded that painting was of no value, those who answered him would seem to have felt obliged to gain recognition of its worth in terms that would have carried weight

i6

THE COPY THEORY

with Plato himself: such was the conception of painting as the likeness of a type-form, in a sense, universal and the source of a kind of knowledge; such the conception of painting as the likeness of an Idea and a source of insight into essential character. These answers to Plato took the line that likeness of some sort is essential to painting, but that likeness is something other than the accurate copy of a model's appearance, and that in this "something other" is to be found its peculiar worth. Each of these answers represents one stage in the retreat from likeness and is the subject of a later chapter.

Chapter Two COMPOSITE

LIKENESS

B

the "copy theory" of likeness had received its formulation at the hands of Plato, it had already begun to arouse critical doubts. Efforts to correct its obvious defects had gone through two stages of reflexion, one of which stands slightly prior to Plato in point of time, although logically both follow from his view. The first stage 1 arose, we may infer, when observers noted that works of art were, in a sense they did not trouble to define, "more beautiful" than any single model, and concluded that the artist had produced them by making a composite likeness of the most beautiful parts of many models. This conclusion, when artists attempted to put it into practice, revealed at once the lack of means of identifying the beautiful parts, and the want of explicit directions for combining them. Thence the second stage 2 of reflexion, representing the effort to provide formulae for constructing likeness in terms of mathematical proportions. Both stages appeared in Greek thought in Plato's time or earlier; both also reappeared in later reflection. EFORE

The view that the artist produces a composite likeness of beautiful parts of many figures is illustrated by anecdotes of the famous Parrhasios and Zeuxis of whom we have already heard in connection with the "copy theory." The fact that the same artists could be proverbially famous for paintings that were precisely like their originals and at the same time, more beautiful, suggests that the Greeks were little concerned with analysis of a likeness. The pertinent anecdote about Parrhasios has to do with his conversation with Socrates. Socrates asked: "When you would represent beautiful figures, do you, since it is not easy to find one person with every part perfect, select, out of many, the most beautiful parts of each, and thus represent figures beautiful in every part?" "We do so," said Parrhasios. 3 Zeuxis also is said to have found no single model adequate for his famous painting of Helen of Troy. So he turned to several models: "he inspected the maidens of the city naked, and chose out five, whose peculiar beauties he proposed to reproduce in his picture." 4 Cicero repeats

i8

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LIKENESS

the story, colored by his stoic view of nature. Zeuxis "did not believe that all the excellencies he needed for his beauteous image could be found in one body, for this reason, that nature never puts the finishing touch to all the parts of any one object. Therefore, precisely as though by bestowing everything on the one she would have nothing left for the rest, she confers some benefit, now here, now there, which is always inseparable from some defect." 5 In the fifteenth century, the same notion of eclectic beauty prompted the advice of Leonardo: " B e on the watch to take the best parts of many beautiful faces of which the beauty is established by general repute."® And likewise Albrecht Dürer: Thou therefore, if thou desirest to compose a fine figure, art forced to choose the head from one man and the chest, arm, leg, hand and foot from others. Seek diligently, therefore, through all members of every kind, for out of many beautiful things something good may be gathered, even as honey is gathered from many flowers. 7 What was the purpose of producing these paintings, "more beautiful" than anything in nature? The purpose would seem to have been to revive and heighten the pleasure afforded by natural " b e a u t y . " Here again, as in the copy theory, we find the assumption that painting and original produce like effects, and must be subjected to the same standards. The value of a painting would seem to depend upon its likeness to something already recognized as valuable in the real world. Here, however, we see an advance over the copy theory in that the value to be duplicated is not in the sphere of morals, but in " b e a u t y . " There is a recognition of a value peculiar to art. In their advice to artists, neither Socrates nor Leonardo nor Dürer attempts to define beauty, nor to give directions for identifying the " m o s t beautiful" features and limbs. Leonardo, as we have seen, is willing to accept the beauty which is "established by general repute." 8 A similar touchstone is suggested by Dürer—"everybody's opinion"; " w h a t all the world esteemeth beautiful and ourselves strive to produce the l i k e . " 9 But when " a l l the w o r l d " does not agree, what then? And can it be maintained that the beauty of a face or a figure depends upon the perfection of each part, considered separately? It is easy to imagine a collection of perfect features and limbs, that, put together inharmoniously, would be far from beautiful. The question is, how to combine them? The answer which appealed to the mathematically minded Greeks is one which Dürer and Leonardo also put forward in other connections, viz., that the beautiful can be identified and constructed by mathematical proportions.

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19

The Greek names traditionally associated with the application of mathematics to art arc Polykleitos, 10 the sculptor, and Pamphilus, 11 the painter. Polykleitos worked out the ideal proportions of the human body "in terms of so many fingers and palms" 1 2 and embodied them in a treatise and in a statue, both called his " C a n o n . " 1 1 "Thus the foot measured 3 palms, the lower leg 6, the thigh 6, the space from navel to car 6; the foot was as long as one-sixth of the total height, the face one-tenth, the hand one-seventh." M Pamphilos was described by Pliny as "the first painter who was thoroughly trained in every branch of learning, more particularly in arithmetic and geometry; without which, as he held, art could not be perfect." 15 Geometry, which is obviously essential to a knowledge of perspective, probably contributed also to the understanding of the proportions of the human figure, since these were almost certainly conceived to be not arithmetical, as has sometimes been supposed, but geometrical, in the sense that they expressed relations of volumes. 1 ' A point of historical interest here has to do with the traditional association of the concept of proportion, ava\6yia, (Analogy) with Pythagoras. According to legend, one of the great exploits of Pythagoras was the discovery in music of the mathematical relations between the lengths of the vibrating cords'7 of a stringed instrument and the tones in the octave, a discovery which had a profound effect on the Greek conception of the arts and indeed on their view of the world. Having seen that the intervals in music could be expressed by simple numerical ratios, the Greeks asked, says Professor Burnett, "Why not everything else? It is not too much to say that Greek philosophy was henceforward to be dominated by the notion of the perfectly tuned string." 1 8 That Pythagoras himself was convinced of the importance of mathematical proportions in the other arts is implied by his biographer, Iamblichus, in the final sentence of the chapter on the great discovery in music: "And having reduced it to a system, he [Pythagoras] delivered it to his disciples as subservient to everything that is most beautiful." 1 ' What is said of the Analogy suggests that it was held to have almost magical properties, a conception not inconsistent with the Pythagorean combination of beliefs in magic and mathematics. There is no evidence that Pythagoras directly suggested the extension of the Analogy to painting, although eighteenth century enthusiasts claimed that he did. Witness Lambert Hermanson Ten Kate whose French treatise was considered important enough to be translated into English. According to Ten Kate, Pythagoras guided the Greeks in applying the Analogy to all the arts, thereby laying the foundation for their subsequent exploits. An eighteenth century translation of Ten Kate's own statement is worth quoting for its quaintness:

2.o

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[the] Analogy of the ancient Greeks; or the true key for finding all harmonious proportions in Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Musick, etc. [was] brought home to Greece by Pythagoras. For after the great Philosopher had travell'd into Phoenicia, Egypt and Chaldea, where he convers'd with the Learned; he return'd into Greece about Anno Mundi 3484. Before the Christian Era 52.0, and brought with him many excellent Discoveries and Improvements for the Good of his Countrymen, among which the Analogy was one of the most considerable and useful. After him the Grecians, by the help of this Analogy, began (and not before) to excel other nations in Sciences and Arts, . . . . Pamphilus (. . . who taught, that no Man could excel in Painting withough Mathematicks) the Scholar of Pausias and Master of Apelles, was the first who artfully appli'd the said Analogy to the Art of Painting; as much about the same time the Sculptures, the Architects, &c. began to apply it to their several Arts, without which Science, the Grecians had remain'd as ignorant as their Forefathers.20 Since the lapse of time between the dates when Pythagoras and Pamphilus "flourished" was almost 2.00 years, the miraculous Analogy would appear to have been a little slow in taking hold. The effort to discover the mathematical proportions of the perfect human figure took on new life at the Renaissance.21 It was one of Leonardo's many scientific interests; he was reputed to have supplied the drawings to illustrate the treatise of his friend, Fra Luca de Pacioli, De Divina Proportioned Albrecht Diirer also produced four volumes of diagrams of human figures corresponding to tables of proportions.23 Michael Angelo was said to have taught his "scholler" Marcus de Sciena, "that he should al waies make a figure Pyramidall, Serpentlike, and multiplied by one two and three." 24 The last cryptic utterance is explained by Lamozzo, to whom we owe the quotation, as meaning: "For the Diameter of the biggest place, betweene the knee and the foote is double to the least, and the largest parts of the thigh triple." 25 All perfectly clear! Ten Kate, whose reference to the Analogy has just been quoted, considered that the most perfect master of the secret was Raphael. The tone of his eulogy of Raphael26 suggests that when an artist achieved great success, it was natural to assume that he must surely have plumbed the secret of true proportions. Hogarth makes these earlier treatises his point of departure in the preface of his Analysis of Beauty, 1753.

These two stages of reflection show an advance over the copy theory, though a halting and tentative one. To particularize:

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LIKENESS

( a ) When Socrates and his followers maintained that an artist could collect and combine the "most beautiful" parts of many models, they failed to sec, as has been noted, that they were providing no criteria of beauty and no suggestion for a method of putting parts together. Nevertheless their contention that one painting might have many originals was not only true; it led on to questions most embarrassing to the Platonists. A painting was for Plato merely the copy of a particular. If it turns out, however, that painting at its best provides a likeness of many particulars, may it not be that these particulars form a class and that the painting catches the gist of them, in short that it may lay hold of the universal? And if it docs that, who can deny that it expresses a kind of knowledge? The critics who raised these questions were confronting the copy theory with new and serious difficulties, as the chapter that follows will show. (b) It is evident that although the seekers for perfect mathematical proportions had escaped from the more elementary and slavish notions of reproduction, they were still ensnared by it in another form. The creative imagination of the artist was still supposed to bend and conform itself to a set of proportions scientifically fixed. N o w undoubtedly an artist will profit from the study of proportions; sensitivity to the relation of line and volume is an important part of his equipment. But rules about these things follow concrete successes and should be derived from them; they are not to be laid down as a straitjacket in which the creative work is to be improved. The true artist does not create by precept. As Bosanquet says: "Enquiry into proportional relations is one thing, the substitute of an abstract rule for creative perception in art is another . . . the analysis of an abstraction was made to do duty for the analytic criticism of concrete expressiveness. " 2 7 It is notorious that the best of abstract rules are likely to go by the board when an artist appears who follows resolutely the bent of his own taste and talent. The verdict of common sense on both the theories we have just been considering was pithily rendered by Bacon: There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man can not tell whether Apelles or Albert Diirer were the more trifler; whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions; the other by taking the best parts out of divers faces, to make one excellent. Such personages, I think, would please nobody but the painter that made them. Not but I think a painter may make a better face than ever was; but he must do it by a kind of felicity (as a musician that maketh an excellent air in music), and not by rule. A man shall see faces, that if you examine them part by part, you shall find never a good; and yet altogether do well. 28

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( c ) Finally and most obviously, the scarch for mathematical proportions stimulated advance by undermining confidence in the importance of likeness, as such. No copying of an original, however faithful and detailed, would now suffice. The painter was still, so to speak, under external control; he was by no means free to follow his impulse, even his aesthetic impulse; he must subject himself to the prescriptions of a norm scientifically determined. Nevertheless we may detect here the germ of a new conception of first importance in the history and theory of art. This was the conception of form as an artistic necessity. Furthermore, the emphasis in this view on the artist's need of knowledge suggested strongly that there are important elements in a painting contributed by the artist himself. In what follows we shall see both these seeds developing in significant fashion.

Chapter Three LIKENESS GENERALIZED: ARISTOTLE AND SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

O

UR earlier chapters have shown that the likeness in painting need not be a resemblance to any particular model, nor yet a composite and selective likeness taken from various originals. We have seen, however, that the latter theory has the merit of calling attention to an important fact; a painting normally is like many originals, and is often thought better because it is. These facts form the basis of the theory to be discussed in this chapter, that the models for a painting are the members of a species. Accordingly, what an artist paints is the type form. He imitates, to use the classical term, by generalizing. No longer aspiring to work mathematically, the artist now undertakes to become a natural scientist, examining many specimens to discover their common form. His painting is related to his model as a universal is related to its class; indeed, his painting is in a sense, universal. This view is to be gleaned from Aristotle's remarks on painting. It is stated explicitly in the Letters and Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

A.

Aristotle

Aristotle's chief references to painting appear in the Poetics, a work which may have been designed 1 to answer Plato's condemnation of both painting and poetry as nothing but the reproduction of particulars. We recall that Plato 2 regarded art from the standpoint of a mathematician and dialectician, absorbed in the supersensible Ideas, the unchanging, perfect patterns of everything in the physical world. The Ideas alone were real, and the sole source of knowledge worthy of the name. The physical world copied the Ideas, albeit imperfectly. The painter was confined to copying the physical world. Hence painting was remote from reality, the source of no knowledge, utterly worthless. 3 Aristotle, on the other hand, approached art as a biologist whose interest was preeminently in natural growth. 4 To him an important avenue to knowledge lay in tracing the development of a kind, and thereby discovering its "nature" 5 that is to say, the form which its own being impelled it to realize. When Aristotle turned to discuss poetry, he used the same methods of defini-

14

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GENERALIZED

tion, analysis and classification of specimens that he applied elsewhere to plants and animals. The same word, "nature," vi>cnv)." Poetics, 4, 1449a. The translations of the Poetics consulted are those by I. Bywater, 5. H. Butcher, and D. S. Margoliouth; quotations are from Bywater's translation unless acknowledged otherwise. Difficulties of interpretation rising from the cryptic form of the original texts are well known: for discussion, see Gilbert Murray's introduction to an edition of Bywater's translation, (1910). n't-niais applies to both; the word restricted to the graphic arts is drfuifeiv, to copy; this distinction is noted by Margoliouth, in the introduction to his translation of the Poetics, p. 43. VIII, V. Monro, D. B., The Modes of Ancient Greek Music, p. 119. Republic II, 375. Laws, II, 660. Politics, VIII, V. See below, Note 17. Sec quotation below. Sec above, p. 5. Poetics, 4, 1448b. Margoliouth's translation, p. 139. Poetics, 14, 1453a. Ibid, 15, 1461b. Ibid, 2.5, 1460b. Ibid, 8, 1451a. This is the reading of Bywater, Butcher, Margoliouth, whose translations have already been cited; also of Lane Cooper, in Aristotle's Poetics, p. 43-44. A different reading which would make our point invalid is proffered by G. R. C. Mure. (.Aristotle, p. 2.17) Interpreting the Poetics in the light of the Posterior Analytics I 6, he holds that "universal" for Aristotle usually means "necessary," and that this is its sole meaning in this passage. Certainly the critics mentioned

9° 15. 2.6. 17. 2.8. 19. 30. 31.

31.

NOTES above as well as many others have attributed to Aristotle the meaning adopted here, that art is universal in virtue of representing types. Metaphysics, I V , 4. Physics, II, viii, 199a. For the distinction between "fine" arts and practical arts, see Butcher, S. H., Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, p. 155, 115. Metaphysics, A . I, 981 b; Physics II, 8, 199a; Politics VII 8; VIII 1-3. Politics, loc. cit. Physics II, 8, 199a. See an account of the Seventeenth-Century artists' conception of their function: "In the back of their minds they had Aristotle's conception of nature as an 'immanent force working in the refractory medium of matter, towards a central, generalized form, but invariably deflected from this ideal form by accident.' Accordingly it was the artist's function to do what nature could not do, and to produce such a tree, valley, mountain, leaf, as most perfectly expressed that aspect of nature w h i c h he had chosen to portray." Christopher Hussey, The Picturesque, p. 8. Cf. Coleridge's "oath of allegiance'' to Aristotle: " I adopt w i t h full faith the principie of Aristotle, that poetry as poetry is essentially ideal, that it avoids and excludes all accident; that its apparent individualities of rank, character, or occupation must be representative of a class; and that the persons of poetry must be clothed w i t h generic attributes, w i t h the common attributes of the class; not w i t h such as one gifted individual might possible possess, but such as from his situation it is more probably beforehand that he would possess." Biographia Literaria, Vol. II, pp. 33—34.

33. Poetics, 2.5, 1461a; this passage states Aristotle's preference for Sophocles. A comparison of the characters of Oedipus and Medea shows the greater complexity of Euripides's delineation. 34. Ibid, z, 1448a. B. Reynolds 35. For a comment on his lack of classical attainments, sec Memoir by Henry William Bcechey, Works, Vol. I, p. 35. Reynolds was not a university man; his formal education in literature ended when, at eighteen, he was apprenticed to the painter, Hudson. 36. Translation by Thomas Twining, published 1789; the oldest referred to b y Bywater; the first listed by Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, V o l . II, p. 410. One of the earlier translations which Reynolds might have seen (published 1775) was said to be "so very literal . . . as to be absolutely unintelligible to any person not acquainted w i t h the original." Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual, I: 69. 37. Spingarn, Joel, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, p. 141. For comments on the influence of the Poetics on those w h o had never read it, sec Stocks, J. L. Aristotelianism, p. 141; p. 162.. 38. Saintsbury, George, History of Criticism, V o l . II, p. 408.

NOTES

91

39. 1 6 1 1 - 1 6 5 5 ; poet and painter; author of De Arte Grapbica which was translated into French and copiously annotated by De Piles. 40. Discusscd later in the chapter. 41. Malone, E., Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, (znd ed.) Vol. I, p. xli, and note. 41. Steegman, J . , Sir Joshua Reynolds, p. 43. 43. Hilles, Frederick, Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, p. 57. 44. Bos well, James, Life of Johnson, G . B. Hill, ed., Vol. Ill, p. 410. 45. Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 370. 46. Rasselas, Facsimile of the First Edition, p. 68-70. 47. Hussey, Christopher, op. cit., p. 18. 48. Edition of The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1905), Introduction. 49. Georgio Pietro Bellori, (1615-1696), art critic; the passage cited is from the introduction of his Vite de pittori, scultori, et architetti moderns. 50. Discussed in Chapter Four. 51. See below, p. 31. 51. Fry, op. cit. 53. Mr. Fry points out, however, that in some respects Reynolds' taste was in advance of his time (p. xi, xii) as appears in his comments on Flemish painters in the Journey to Flanders and Holland, and by the studies from Mantegna in his Italian sketchbook. 54. "Discourse I V . " 55. Number 76. Saturday, September 19, 1759. Number 79. Saturday, October 2.0, 1759. Number 81. Saturday, November 10, 1759. 56. Three editions of the Discourses have been consulted: those of Henry Williams Beechey (1835), Roger Fry (1905), Austin Dobson (1907). The last, published in " T h e World's Classics," is the source of quotations, unless otherwise noted. 57. A younger contemporary of Reynolds', Uvedale Price, mentions the direction of Reynolds' attack on the two earlier writers as though it would be universally recognized, (A Dialogue on the Distinct Characters of the Picturesque and the Beautiful, 1794.) 58. Letter to the Idler, No. 76: p. 1 5 1 . 59. Letter to the Idler, No. 82.: p. 2.58. 60. Letter to the Idler, No. 79: p. 1 5 3 - 1 5 5 . 61. " L e t t e r , " No. 81, p. 158. 6z. "Third Discourse," p. 17. 63. " L e t t e r , " No. 81, p. 156. 64. "Third Discourse," p. 2.7. 65. Ibid., p. 2.6. 66. " L e t t e r , " No. 81, p. 157. 67. Ibid., p. 2.57. 68. Ibid., p. 2.60. 69. Ibid., p. 159.

91

NOTES

70. "The most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black and white sketch of a portrait." (Poetics 6, 1450b.) 71. "The Fourth Discourse," p. 41, 43. 72.. Idler, No. 82.; loc. cit., p. 158. 73. Ibid., p. 2.59. 74. "Third Discourse," p. 2.9. 75. L/mk. 76. "Fourth Discourse," p. 40. 77. Ibid., p. 50. 78. The artist must avoid those species that have been "degraded by the vulgarism of life in any country," and must choose characters of great and general interest, such as the figures of Classical and Biblical history. "Fourth Discourse." p. 37. 79. "Alexander is said to have been of a low stature; a painter ought not so to represent him. Agesilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance; none of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero. In conformity to custom I call this part of the art history painting; it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is." Ibid., p. 39. ' 'A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his Art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He can not, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress the mind with great veneration for the character of the hero or saint he represents, though he lets us know, at the same time, that the saint was deformed, or the hero lame. . . . He cannot make his hero talk like a great man; he must make him look like one." Ibid., p. 40. 80. " T o give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling or artful play of little lights, or an attention to a variety of tints, is to be avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work; to which a breadth of uniform and simple colour will very much contribute." Ibid., p. 41. 81. Ibid., p. 40. 82.. Idem. 83. "The Fourth Discourse," p. 53. 84. "The Third Discourse," p. 31. 85- C I 7 4 7 - I 8 i 9 ) -

86. A Dialogue on the Distinct Characters of the Picturesque and the Beautiful, p. 64. 87. Fry's edition of the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, p. 42.. 88. Ibid., p. 43. 89. Parkhurst, Helen, Beauty, p. 118. 90. Leonardo da Vinci's Note-Books, translated by Edward McCurdy, p. 179. 91. Ibid., p. 172., 175, 176, 177. 92.. For an account of the artist's vision, see below p. 60. 93. Second edition, 1798; p. 60. These notes are included in the edition of Blake's Works by E. J . Ellis and William Butler Yeats (Vol. II).

NOTES

93

94. Ibid., p. 58. 95. Ibid., p. xcviii. 96. T a y l o r , A . E . : Platonism and its Influence, p. 37. 97. L o c k e : 1 6 3 1 - 1 7 0 4 ; Berkeley: 1 6 8 5 - 1 7 5 3 ; Reynolds: 1 7 1 3 - 1 7 9 1 . 98. Sec Boswell's Life of Johnson, Oxford Edition (1904), V o l . I, p. 3 1 5 . 99. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, B o o k II, Chap. I l l , Section 9. 100. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, par. 9, 16. 101. Loc. cit. 16. 1 0 1 . p. 1 6 . 103. p. 33, f. 104. p. 1 5 , f. 105. p. 34, f. 106. p. 1 4 . 107. " The F i f t h Discourse.''

Chapter Four 1. 1. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

See below, p. 45. See below, p. 94, n. 45. Cf. Bosanquet, op. cit., p. 50; Collingwood, R . J . , op. cit., p. 38. 151. nr. Ibid. Republic, X , 601. Ibid. Republic, V , 476. Ibid., 479. The fact of this cleavage between art and beauty in Plato's thought is accepted by most critics, and by some w i t h approval. (Cf. Collingw o o d , R . J . , op. cit., p. 38.) A different interpretation was urged b y Miss J a n e Harrison, w h o attempted to show that Plato distinguished t w o kinds of art, one of which imitated appearances, while the other represented the beauty of the Ideas. (Introductory Studies in Greek Art, Chap. V , 4 . ) She bases her argument in part on w h a t seems to be an unwarranted translation of a k e y w o r d , i\6na\os literally " l o v e r of b e a u t y , " w h i c h she takes to mean "ideal a r t i s t . " Plato uses this word in the myth of the Phaedrus when he classes the souls of human beings according to the clearness w i t h which they had seen the divine beauty in a previous existence. Among these souls he mentions both an " i m i tative a r t i s t , " XOITJTIKOS fj RORRI rtpi TIIFTTIAIV ns &\Xos ap/iocti (Phaedrus, 1 4 8 E ) and a ^iXoxaXw: the former he places low among the souls whose prenatal vision was obscure, the latter on the highest rung of most perfect vision. This distinction is perfectly in accord with Plato's characteristic separation between beauty and art. But Miss Harrison translates