DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0027
TINTORETTO
CHAPTER I
ENVIRONMENT
AS in the world of nature, every passing effect and variation
arises out of those that went before, as every wreathing
cloud and every storm and shower is the sequence and
the logical outcome of all that preceded it, so in the kingdom
of art, no development, however slight, stands alone, no one
man makes a beginning, each receives more than can ever
be reckoned from the long tradition of the past and adds his
storm and sunshine and moulds a little here and a little there,
before handing on the legacy. The unravelling of this chain
of influences is a task of endless fascination, and no doubt, if
we could do it more completely, we should be able to lay bare
many of the secrets of inspiration and to discern exactly how and
where each strain and tendency was first absorbed. We should
succeed, too, in determining in what measure each artist as he
passed was moulded by his environment; we should understand
in full the unconscious witness he bore to the world in which
he found himself—for art is but the expression of life, the declara-
tion of those surroundings in which the gods have placed both
genius and mediocrity. Nothing tells so unflinchingly as its arts,
what is in the mind and heart of a people; nowhere else do we
find such sure testimony to the aspiration or the freedom of this
age, the splendour of that, the artificiality or self-analysis of
another.
It is hard, wellnigh impossible, even for a great personality to
produce noble art in an ignoble age; on the other hand, the
greater eras of history are never lacking in adequate artists, so
T—1 1
CHAPTER I
ENVIRONMENT
AS in the world of nature, every passing effect and variation
arises out of those that went before, as every wreathing
cloud and every storm and shower is the sequence and
the logical outcome of all that preceded it, so in the kingdom
of art, no development, however slight, stands alone, no one
man makes a beginning, each receives more than can ever
be reckoned from the long tradition of the past and adds his
storm and sunshine and moulds a little here and a little there,
before handing on the legacy. The unravelling of this chain
of influences is a task of endless fascination, and no doubt, if
we could do it more completely, we should be able to lay bare
many of the secrets of inspiration and to discern exactly how and
where each strain and tendency was first absorbed. We should
succeed, too, in determining in what measure each artist as he
passed was moulded by his environment; we should understand
in full the unconscious witness he bore to the world in which
he found himself—for art is but the expression of life, the declara-
tion of those surroundings in which the gods have placed both
genius and mediocrity. Nothing tells so unflinchingly as its arts,
what is in the mind and heart of a people; nowhere else do we
find such sure testimony to the aspiration or the freedom of this
age, the splendour of that, the artificiality or self-analysis of
another.
It is hard, wellnigh impossible, even for a great personality to
produce noble art in an ignoble age; on the other hand, the
greater eras of history are never lacking in adequate artists, so
T—1 1