DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0042
XXXviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
value, and inscribed with some musically-sounding and
magnificent name, and sees nothing in it to justify its
celebrity, let him not hastily conclude that there is nothing
in it; nor as hastily give up the point, and profess “to
have no taste for old pictures still less affect the admira-
tion he does not feel—there is stupidity as well as false-
hood in that. Let him rather inquire, and try to under-
stand on what this consecration rests—on what this cele-
brity is founded. There are pictures of little intrinsic
beauty or merit, which yet have great value and interest;
they mark the transition from one style to another, or
they mark a particular phase in the life of the individual
painter, or they illustrate a certain aspect of faith, of civil-
ization, of morals, in the country which produced them.
Boundless, beyond what the uninitiated can imagine, are
the associations connected with a taste for the fine arts !
—the widening of the horizon round us, as knowledge
grows out of love, and the clear vision perceives and
embraces the relation which exists between things appa-
rently distant and dissimilar! But do such taste, such
knowledge, such extended vision, come at once, or by
chance ? They are more frequently the acquisition of a
whole life.
A preference for some particular school of art, is often
an indication of character; an exclusive predilection for a
particular school is sometimes an accidental bias, grafted
on a natural taste; sometimes a merely artificial, conven-
tional taste, or habit of liking. Where there is quickness
of perception, and a strong natural sensibility to beauty,
combined with opportunities of study and observation,
there will be preferences, arising out of indestructible,
inborn sympathies, but hardly exclusive tastes. I remem-
ber a time when I did not like Rubens; when his coarse
women and glaring colours absolutely repelled me; when
the revels of drinking boors, and ladies and gentlemen
value, and inscribed with some musically-sounding and
magnificent name, and sees nothing in it to justify its
celebrity, let him not hastily conclude that there is nothing
in it; nor as hastily give up the point, and profess “to
have no taste for old pictures still less affect the admira-
tion he does not feel—there is stupidity as well as false-
hood in that. Let him rather inquire, and try to under-
stand on what this consecration rests—on what this cele-
brity is founded. There are pictures of little intrinsic
beauty or merit, which yet have great value and interest;
they mark the transition from one style to another, or
they mark a particular phase in the life of the individual
painter, or they illustrate a certain aspect of faith, of civil-
ization, of morals, in the country which produced them.
Boundless, beyond what the uninitiated can imagine, are
the associations connected with a taste for the fine arts !
—the widening of the horizon round us, as knowledge
grows out of love, and the clear vision perceives and
embraces the relation which exists between things appa-
rently distant and dissimilar! But do such taste, such
knowledge, such extended vision, come at once, or by
chance ? They are more frequently the acquisition of a
whole life.
A preference for some particular school of art, is often
an indication of character; an exclusive predilection for a
particular school is sometimes an accidental bias, grafted
on a natural taste; sometimes a merely artificial, conven-
tional taste, or habit of liking. Where there is quickness
of perception, and a strong natural sensibility to beauty,
combined with opportunities of study and observation,
there will be preferences, arising out of indestructible,
inborn sympathies, but hardly exclusive tastes. I remem-
ber a time when I did not like Rubens; when his coarse
women and glaring colours absolutely repelled me; when
the revels of drinking boors, and ladies and gentlemen