DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0191
chap, ii ‘ Persian-Carpet' theory of Painting 171
of the art has been so often paraded in modern times that
no further illustration of it is requisite. It need hardly be
pointed out that this mode of regarding the subject is open
to the criticism that it takes account rather of intellectual
and moral qualities in the painter than of those more purely
artistic. Such a one may indeed have selected a subject of
the most elevated and edifying kind, and may have ren-
dered it with much intelligence and force, while yet the
result, as a -work of art, is too execrable for words. Noble
ideas tell immensely in art when expressed in artistic lan-
guage, but they will not by themselves make a work of art.
No artist can claim to be judged by his intellectual insight
or his moral fervour, except in so far as he has the gift to
make these effective in and through the artistic qualities of
his work.
§ 111. The opposite or ‘ Persian-Carpet ’ theory of
Painting stated and discussed.
If therefore it is a mistake to regard works of painting
merely as representations of nature, it is equally out of the
question to treat them merely as compositions of tone and
colour. Let it be again admitted that these are good pic-
tures that fulfil this condition and no other: it does not
therefore follow that these are the only conditions of effect
in all forms of the painter’s art. This can never really be
consistently maintained, as the following will show. The
best statement of the new pictorial program, from the pen
of a practical worker in art, is to be found in the little
book by the famous Belgian painter Alfred Stevens, entitled
Impressions sur la Peinture, in which we find the creed
of what he himself calls modernite expressed in a series of
terse and elegant aphorisms. Here are one or two charac-
teristic utterances. ‘ In painting one cando without subject.
of the art has been so often paraded in modern times that
no further illustration of it is requisite. It need hardly be
pointed out that this mode of regarding the subject is open
to the criticism that it takes account rather of intellectual
and moral qualities in the painter than of those more purely
artistic. Such a one may indeed have selected a subject of
the most elevated and edifying kind, and may have ren-
dered it with much intelligence and force, while yet the
result, as a -work of art, is too execrable for words. Noble
ideas tell immensely in art when expressed in artistic lan-
guage, but they will not by themselves make a work of art.
No artist can claim to be judged by his intellectual insight
or his moral fervour, except in so far as he has the gift to
make these effective in and through the artistic qualities of
his work.
§ 111. The opposite or ‘ Persian-Carpet ’ theory of
Painting stated and discussed.
If therefore it is a mistake to regard works of painting
merely as representations of nature, it is equally out of the
question to treat them merely as compositions of tone and
colour. Let it be again admitted that these are good pic-
tures that fulfil this condition and no other: it does not
therefore follow that these are the only conditions of effect
in all forms of the painter’s art. This can never really be
consistently maintained, as the following will show. The
best statement of the new pictorial program, from the pen
of a practical worker in art, is to be found in the little
book by the famous Belgian painter Alfred Stevens, entitled
Impressions sur la Peinture, in which we find the creed
of what he himself calls modernite expressed in a series of
terse and elegant aphorisms. Here are one or two charac-
teristic utterances. ‘ In painting one cando without subject.