DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5596#0114
THE IDEAL.
89
nearer to divinity than himself." " I lay it down
as a principle," says Cicero, " that there is nothing
of whatever kind so beautiful, but that there is
something, above and beyond it, which, though
our outward senses do not perceive it, is distin-
guishable by the mind and intellect." Burke, whose
name is associated with all that is elegant and re-
fined, thus expresses himself in a letter to Barry,—
" This is the true principle of poetry and beauty.
Homer and Shakspere had perhaps never seen cha-
racters so strongly marked as those of Achilles and
Lady Macbeth, and yet we feel those characters are
drawn from nature; the limbs and features are
those of common nature, but elevated and improved.'"
This is the real secret. Ideal art must be founded
upon nature, and is not independent of it. That
artist will go astray who seeks to idealize before
he is conversant with the forms of nature. The
student should be well practised in drawing from
the life, before he sets himself to study the antique.
Raffaelle, who must be acknowledged as no less an
authority in all that is beautiful and sublime, has
expressed this almost in the same words: " II
modello mio e lodato da molti belli ingegni: ma io
mi levo, col pensier, pin alto ; ed essendo carestia di
belle donne, io mi servo di certe idee che mi vengono
nella mente."1
1 "Ace moment, il se produit dans Fame de l'artiste une idee
nouvelle: la chose imparfaite qu'il contemplait et sur laquelle sc-s
89
nearer to divinity than himself." " I lay it down
as a principle," says Cicero, " that there is nothing
of whatever kind so beautiful, but that there is
something, above and beyond it, which, though
our outward senses do not perceive it, is distin-
guishable by the mind and intellect." Burke, whose
name is associated with all that is elegant and re-
fined, thus expresses himself in a letter to Barry,—
" This is the true principle of poetry and beauty.
Homer and Shakspere had perhaps never seen cha-
racters so strongly marked as those of Achilles and
Lady Macbeth, and yet we feel those characters are
drawn from nature; the limbs and features are
those of common nature, but elevated and improved.'"
This is the real secret. Ideal art must be founded
upon nature, and is not independent of it. That
artist will go astray who seeks to idealize before
he is conversant with the forms of nature. The
student should be well practised in drawing from
the life, before he sets himself to study the antique.
Raffaelle, who must be acknowledged as no less an
authority in all that is beautiful and sublime, has
expressed this almost in the same words: " II
modello mio e lodato da molti belli ingegni: ma io
mi levo, col pensier, pin alto ; ed essendo carestia di
belle donne, io mi servo di certe idee che mi vengono
nella mente."1
1 "Ace moment, il se produit dans Fame de l'artiste une idee
nouvelle: la chose imparfaite qu'il contemplait et sur laquelle sc-s