DOI article:
Charles H. [Henry] Caffin, Symbolism and Allegory
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30586#0036
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I anticipate your objection—why this hair-splitting ? Is it not a sacri-
fice of ideas to terminology ; the reduction of what is fluent and evasive to a
dry-as-dust classification ? Easily, I admit, it might be; but I have been
thinking of the distinction, not as it was in the earlier world, but as it has
come to be to-day. Symbolism in art has grown to be once more a vital
quality, whereas the modern residuum of allegory is that vacuous kind of art
misnamed “ideal.”
For, in order to be, what in modern studio jargon is called a “ painter
of the ideal,,, or (Heaven help us !) an “ ideal painter,” a man need have
no imagination. Given a model, possibly well-shaped — but this is not
indispensable, for he can “ make her over” in the drawing—some drapery,
not much of it, and a few old stage “ props ” : a globe, a stuffed snake, a
cornucopia, a lyre, and such like, he will turn you out “ ideal figures,” as
long as you are willing to pay for them. It is, you see, “ dead easy.” He
poses the model, preferably in an attitude that she would not naturally
assume—places the globe in her hand, and lo ! she is Ourania; add a pair
of compasses in the other hand, and she becomes “Geography.” He makes
a pass, substitutes for these emblems a stuffed snake, and presto ! she is
Truth or Wisdom. Should there seem to be any doubt as to which, it can
be settled by painting in the name. Such is the formula by which the
average “painter of the ideal,” after consulting a classical dictionary, evolves
his mural masterpieces.
It has a cherished pedigree all the way through to Raphael, whose
Jurisprudence, in the Vatican, is the most creditable example of such kind of
painting. For Raphael was at least a great master of space composition ;
and, considered purely as decoration, this lunette is beautiful. But it is
merely pleasurable, making no appeal to the higher emotions, neither
prompted by nor capable of stirring the imagination. What had been to
Botticelli the mystery of Hellenic revelation was to Raphael staled by famil-
iarity, a mere resource of elegant inventions. The allegory form, which to
the older man had still a meaningfulness, so that its very naїveté had a fresh
ring of truth, was become with Raphael emasculated to a mere convention.
While Botticelli lifted allegory into the region of symbolism, Raphael
reduced his to a pretty formalism.
His modern imitators, tame munchers of predigested food, having
neither his skill of composition nor facility of decorative invention, have
still further reduced the substance to a shadow. And with none of
Raphael's excuse ; since he, at least, worked for patrons to whom the classics
were once more a living language; whereas to the people of our day
classical allusion is either unintelligible or intolerably trifling. Nevertheless,
for a hundred years past, these imitators with coldly calculating, laborious
perseverance have persisted in representing nature as it is not, for the benefit
of a world that was daily becoming more engrossed in realism, that is to say,
in the study and representation of nature as it is. And perpetually they
have upheld the doctrine that the perfecting of form is the “ ideal,” so that
this word has taken on a new meaning. In its original sense it meant, as it
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fice of ideas to terminology ; the reduction of what is fluent and evasive to a
dry-as-dust classification ? Easily, I admit, it might be; but I have been
thinking of the distinction, not as it was in the earlier world, but as it has
come to be to-day. Symbolism in art has grown to be once more a vital
quality, whereas the modern residuum of allegory is that vacuous kind of art
misnamed “ideal.”
For, in order to be, what in modern studio jargon is called a “ painter
of the ideal,,, or (Heaven help us !) an “ ideal painter,” a man need have
no imagination. Given a model, possibly well-shaped — but this is not
indispensable, for he can “ make her over” in the drawing—some drapery,
not much of it, and a few old stage “ props ” : a globe, a stuffed snake, a
cornucopia, a lyre, and such like, he will turn you out “ ideal figures,” as
long as you are willing to pay for them. It is, you see, “ dead easy.” He
poses the model, preferably in an attitude that she would not naturally
assume—places the globe in her hand, and lo ! she is Ourania; add a pair
of compasses in the other hand, and she becomes “Geography.” He makes
a pass, substitutes for these emblems a stuffed snake, and presto ! she is
Truth or Wisdom. Should there seem to be any doubt as to which, it can
be settled by painting in the name. Such is the formula by which the
average “painter of the ideal,” after consulting a classical dictionary, evolves
his mural masterpieces.
It has a cherished pedigree all the way through to Raphael, whose
Jurisprudence, in the Vatican, is the most creditable example of such kind of
painting. For Raphael was at least a great master of space composition ;
and, considered purely as decoration, this lunette is beautiful. But it is
merely pleasurable, making no appeal to the higher emotions, neither
prompted by nor capable of stirring the imagination. What had been to
Botticelli the mystery of Hellenic revelation was to Raphael staled by famil-
iarity, a mere resource of elegant inventions. The allegory form, which to
the older man had still a meaningfulness, so that its very naїveté had a fresh
ring of truth, was become with Raphael emasculated to a mere convention.
While Botticelli lifted allegory into the region of symbolism, Raphael
reduced his to a pretty formalism.
His modern imitators, tame munchers of predigested food, having
neither his skill of composition nor facility of decorative invention, have
still further reduced the substance to a shadow. And with none of
Raphael's excuse ; since he, at least, worked for patrons to whom the classics
were once more a living language; whereas to the people of our day
classical allusion is either unintelligible or intolerably trifling. Nevertheless,
for a hundred years past, these imitators with coldly calculating, laborious
perseverance have persisted in representing nature as it is not, for the benefit
of a world that was daily becoming more engrossed in realism, that is to say,
in the study and representation of nature as it is. And perpetually they
have upheld the doctrine that the perfecting of form is the “ ideal,” so that
this word has taken on a new meaning. In its original sense it meant, as it
20
