A white canvas cannot produce an effect of sunshine; the painter
must darken it in some places before he can make it look luminous in
others; nor can the uninterrupted succession of beauty produce the true
effect of beauty; it must be foiled by inferiority before its own power
can be developed. Nature has for the most part mingled her inferior and
noble elements as she mingles sunshine with shade, giving due influence
to both. The truly high and beautiful art of Angelico is continually
refreshed and strengthened by his frank portraiture of the most
ordinary features of his brother monks, of the recorded peculiarities
of ungainly sanctity; but the modern German and Raphaelesque schools
lose all honour and nobleness in barber-like admiration of handsome
faces, and have in fact no real faith except in straight noses and
curled hair. Paul Veronese opposes the dwarf to the soldier, and the
negress to the queen; Shakspeare places Caliban beside Miranda, and
Autolycus beside Perdita; but the vulgar idealist withdraws his beauty
to the safety of the saloon, and his innocence to the seclusion of the
cloister; he pretends that he does this in delicacy of choice and
purity of sentiment, while in truth he has neither courage to front the
monster nor wit enough to furnish the knave.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220