DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0080
66 EXPRESSION.
been the seminary of learning and politeness. This school gave birth to Domenichino who pro-
duced the St. Jerome; and to Poussin who drew those admired pieces The Death of Germanicm
and The Slaughter of the Innocents. It was also in this school the immortal Raphael studied, who
far surpassed his predecessors, and to this day justly maintains the sovereignty over all other
artists. He alone justified the observation of Quintilian who affirmed (i that painting has more
power over us than all the arts of rhetoric." There is not a single picture of this great artist,
from the study of which the curious may not reap great benefit; particularly his Martyrdom
of St. Felicitas, his Transfiguration, Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's Dream, and The School of
Athens. The latter has often justly been stiled " A School of Expression." Among the excel-
lencies with which this piece abounds may be mentioned the expressive countenances of four boys
attending to the instructions of a mathematician. The preceptor, with compasses in his hands,
is giving them the demonstration of a theorem upon the ground. One of the boys reflecting
within himself stands at a little distance, with all the appearance of profound attention to the
reasoning of the master; another by his attitude and countenance discovers a greater quickness
of apprehension : while the third who has already anticipated the conclusion is endeavouring to
explain it to the fourth who, standing motionless with open arms, a staring countenance, and
an unspeakable air of dulness in his looks, indicates to „the observer at once his ignorance and
stupidity. It was from studying this group of figures that Albano, who was a strict follower of
Raphael, drew the following famous precept:—" that it behoves a painter to express more cir-
cumstances than one by every attitude ; and so to employ his figures that, by barely seeing what
they are actually about, one may be able to guess both what they have already been doing and
-are next going to do." This it must be confessed is a difficult precept; but the cultivation of it
is absolutely necessary for the attainment of perfection in this art. It is only by a strict atten-
tion to this rule that the eye and the mind can be made to hang in suspence upon a painted piece
of canvas. Without this expression the most highly finished pieces will appear lifeless and in-
animate. It is not enough that the artist be able to delineate his figures in an exquisite form,
compose them well together, and give them a graceful attitude : it is not enough to drape them
with propriety and in the most beautiful colours: it is not enough, by an artful disposition of
light and shade, to give them that chiaro obscuro as to make them pass for substantial objects,
and make the observer forget the canvass: none of these will render his pieces the objects of the
admiration of his contemporaries, much less that of posterity : no ; he must animate them with
the expressions of joy, hope, mirth, sorrow, fear, and all the other emotions which in their turns
possess the human mind. He must, in the words of an eminent artist, " give them life and
speech, and write on their countenances what they feel and what they think." It is in this branch
of the art, and in this alone, that the artist evinces superiority : it is here he makes the spectator
feel more than he expresses ; and while he touches the heart improves the understanding.
CHAP. VI.
of beauty and symmetry or proportion.
IT is not absolutely necessary that the student of the fine arts should understand the full extent
and meaning of these terms; it is sufficient if he know their causes; how to produce them in
visible objects, and their effects upon the mind of the beholder.
Beauty
been the seminary of learning and politeness. This school gave birth to Domenichino who pro-
duced the St. Jerome; and to Poussin who drew those admired pieces The Death of Germanicm
and The Slaughter of the Innocents. It was also in this school the immortal Raphael studied, who
far surpassed his predecessors, and to this day justly maintains the sovereignty over all other
artists. He alone justified the observation of Quintilian who affirmed (i that painting has more
power over us than all the arts of rhetoric." There is not a single picture of this great artist,
from the study of which the curious may not reap great benefit; particularly his Martyrdom
of St. Felicitas, his Transfiguration, Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's Dream, and The School of
Athens. The latter has often justly been stiled " A School of Expression." Among the excel-
lencies with which this piece abounds may be mentioned the expressive countenances of four boys
attending to the instructions of a mathematician. The preceptor, with compasses in his hands,
is giving them the demonstration of a theorem upon the ground. One of the boys reflecting
within himself stands at a little distance, with all the appearance of profound attention to the
reasoning of the master; another by his attitude and countenance discovers a greater quickness
of apprehension : while the third who has already anticipated the conclusion is endeavouring to
explain it to the fourth who, standing motionless with open arms, a staring countenance, and
an unspeakable air of dulness in his looks, indicates to „the observer at once his ignorance and
stupidity. It was from studying this group of figures that Albano, who was a strict follower of
Raphael, drew the following famous precept:—" that it behoves a painter to express more cir-
cumstances than one by every attitude ; and so to employ his figures that, by barely seeing what
they are actually about, one may be able to guess both what they have already been doing and
-are next going to do." This it must be confessed is a difficult precept; but the cultivation of it
is absolutely necessary for the attainment of perfection in this art. It is only by a strict atten-
tion to this rule that the eye and the mind can be made to hang in suspence upon a painted piece
of canvas. Without this expression the most highly finished pieces will appear lifeless and in-
animate. It is not enough that the artist be able to delineate his figures in an exquisite form,
compose them well together, and give them a graceful attitude : it is not enough to drape them
with propriety and in the most beautiful colours: it is not enough, by an artful disposition of
light and shade, to give them that chiaro obscuro as to make them pass for substantial objects,
and make the observer forget the canvass: none of these will render his pieces the objects of the
admiration of his contemporaries, much less that of posterity : no ; he must animate them with
the expressions of joy, hope, mirth, sorrow, fear, and all the other emotions which in their turns
possess the human mind. He must, in the words of an eminent artist, " give them life and
speech, and write on their countenances what they feel and what they think." It is in this branch
of the art, and in this alone, that the artist evinces superiority : it is here he makes the spectator
feel more than he expresses ; and while he touches the heart improves the understanding.
CHAP. VI.
of beauty and symmetry or proportion.
IT is not absolutely necessary that the student of the fine arts should understand the full extent
and meaning of these terms; it is sufficient if he know their causes; how to produce them in
visible objects, and their effects upon the mind of the beholder.
Beauty