DOI issue:
Quarterly notes - Vol. xii, No. 3. October, 1925
DOI article:Stokes, Hugh: The etchings of Sylvia Gosse
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51531#0438
of London life, can we hope to discover the secret of the
elusive charm of these etchings. And it is a tribute to
the quality of these same etchings that they impel us
to search afresh for some answer to that riddle which
every fine etching propounds to the student or the
connoisseur.
The test of true art is not what it tells us, but what
it awakens in us, and through this test these etchings
pass unfailingly. “It is the painter’s business to help
memory and imagination, not to supersede them,”
wrote Samuel Butler in his notebook. “ He cannot put
the whole before the spectator, nothing can do this
short of the thing itself ; he should, therefore, not try
to realise, and the less he looks as if he were trying to
do so the more signs of judgment he will show. His
business is to supply those details which will most
readily bring the whole before the mind along with
them. He must not give too few, but it is still more
imperative on him not to give too many.”
It is the painter’s business to help memory and
imagination. There is no actual message in the sound
of a vibrating chord, but as the cadence dies “ with
sudden swell and fall,” gates are unlocked of aspiration,
desire, regret, and joy, whilst we dream,
Beyond the seeming confines of the space
Made for the soul to wander in and trace
Its own existence . . .
In all the arts this power of awakening memory and
arousing the dormant imagination can only be quickened
by the response of the individual, and it is not always
the art of the greatest genius which will awake that
response. A few bars of music may mean nothing to
one man, and the whole world to another. A certain
318
elusive charm of these etchings. And it is a tribute to
the quality of these same etchings that they impel us
to search afresh for some answer to that riddle which
every fine etching propounds to the student or the
connoisseur.
The test of true art is not what it tells us, but what
it awakens in us, and through this test these etchings
pass unfailingly. “It is the painter’s business to help
memory and imagination, not to supersede them,”
wrote Samuel Butler in his notebook. “ He cannot put
the whole before the spectator, nothing can do this
short of the thing itself ; he should, therefore, not try
to realise, and the less he looks as if he were trying to
do so the more signs of judgment he will show. His
business is to supply those details which will most
readily bring the whole before the mind along with
them. He must not give too few, but it is still more
imperative on him not to give too many.”
It is the painter’s business to help memory and
imagination. There is no actual message in the sound
of a vibrating chord, but as the cadence dies “ with
sudden swell and fall,” gates are unlocked of aspiration,
desire, regret, and joy, whilst we dream,
Beyond the seeming confines of the space
Made for the soul to wander in and trace
Its own existence . . .
In all the arts this power of awakening memory and
arousing the dormant imagination can only be quickened
by the response of the individual, and it is not always
the art of the greatest genius which will awake that
response. A few bars of music may mean nothing to
one man, and the whole world to another. A certain
318