DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0055
ART-HISTORY AS AN ACADEMIC STUDY
take henceforth a violently unreceptive attitude. But supposing him not
to be so narrowly Hellenophil, he may on the other hand get a very
strong added feeling from the peculiar emotional tone with which
Renaissance artists like Botticelli welcomed this rebirth of Classical
mythology—from the peculiar intensity with which its poetical imagery
was apprehended at that moment. This does not nearly exhaust the
appeals which such a picture makes—there is the conjunction of nude
figures with radiant skies and calm waters which evoke memories of
delightful physical sensations accompanied by vivid emotional states-
there are the figures floating in the air which stir vague desires for
freedom from our earthbound movements. And all this is concerned
merely with the subject, the pretext of Botticelli’s design. All this was
more or less the common property of Botticelli’s period; any one of a
dozen artists might have conceived something similar—indeed it is
probable that almost everything in the subject was suggested to Botticelli
by the poet Politian. But when we pass from the imagery to the mode in
which it is presented, to that which gives it its unique specific quality,
we are getting into closer contact with Botticelli’s spirit. The subject was
present to Botticelli’s consciousness, but the actual forms and colours
reveal to us profounder aspects of his nature, those stored-up uncon-
scious elements which forced him to give to the imagery its particular
essence. And at this point we begin to yield ourselves to the rhythmical
movements of Botticelli’s linear design, to its mazy interweft of curves
leading us on with a charmed motion from one to another with echoes
arising from all the different parts of the design. We get a quite special
emotion too from the recognition of the inevitable relation of one part
with another, of one note of colour with another. And these recognitions
arouse in us states of mind far too deep in our being, too vague, too
massive to be in any way analysed or described by words.
Now I suspect that almost any educated person is likely to respond to
those appeals which the imagery of this picture makes, but the extent to
which they will vibrate in unison with those deeper, vaguer, more
indescribable emotions which are evoked by the actual texture and
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take henceforth a violently unreceptive attitude. But supposing him not
to be so narrowly Hellenophil, he may on the other hand get a very
strong added feeling from the peculiar emotional tone with which
Renaissance artists like Botticelli welcomed this rebirth of Classical
mythology—from the peculiar intensity with which its poetical imagery
was apprehended at that moment. This does not nearly exhaust the
appeals which such a picture makes—there is the conjunction of nude
figures with radiant skies and calm waters which evoke memories of
delightful physical sensations accompanied by vivid emotional states-
there are the figures floating in the air which stir vague desires for
freedom from our earthbound movements. And all this is concerned
merely with the subject, the pretext of Botticelli’s design. All this was
more or less the common property of Botticelli’s period; any one of a
dozen artists might have conceived something similar—indeed it is
probable that almost everything in the subject was suggested to Botticelli
by the poet Politian. But when we pass from the imagery to the mode in
which it is presented, to that which gives it its unique specific quality,
we are getting into closer contact with Botticelli’s spirit. The subject was
present to Botticelli’s consciousness, but the actual forms and colours
reveal to us profounder aspects of his nature, those stored-up uncon-
scious elements which forced him to give to the imagery its particular
essence. And at this point we begin to yield ourselves to the rhythmical
movements of Botticelli’s linear design, to its mazy interweft of curves
leading us on with a charmed motion from one to another with echoes
arising from all the different parts of the design. We get a quite special
emotion too from the recognition of the inevitable relation of one part
with another, of one note of colour with another. And these recognitions
arouse in us states of mind far too deep in our being, too vague, too
massive to be in any way analysed or described by words.
Now I suspect that almost any educated person is likely to respond to
those appeals which the imagery of this picture makes, but the extent to
which they will vibrate in unison with those deeper, vaguer, more
indescribable emotions which are evoked by the actual texture and
< 19 >
2-2