DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61012#0101
THE FIFTH DISCOURSE. Uj
sublime, being the highest excellence that human composition
can attain to, abundantly compensates the absence of every
other beauty, and atones for all other deficiencies, then
Michel Angelo demands the preference.
These two extraordinary men carried some of the higher
excellencies of the art to a greater degree of perfection than
probably they ever arrived at before. They certainly have
not been excelled, nor equalled since. Many of their suc-
cessors were induced to leave this great road as a beaten
path, endeavouring to surprise and please by something un-
common or new. When this desire of novelty has pro-
ceeded from mere idleness or caprice, it is not worth the
trouble of criticism ; but when it has been the result of a
busy mind of a peculiar complexion, it is always striking
and interesting, never insipid.
Such is the great style, as it appears in those who
possessed it at its height; in this, search after novelty, in
conception or in treating the subject, has no place.
But there is another style, which, though inferior to the
former, has still great merit, because it shows that those
who cultivated it were men of lively and vigorous imagina-
tion. This, which may be called the original or charac-
teristical style, being less referred to any true archetype
existing either in general or particular nature, must be
supported by the painter’s consistency in the principles
which he has assumed, and in the union and harmony of
his whole design. The excellency of every style, but of the
subordinate styles more especially, will very much depend
on preserving that union and harmony between all the
component parts, that they may appear to hang well
together, as if the whole proceeded from one mind. It is
in the works of art as in the characters of men. The
faults or defects of some men seem to become them when
sublime, being the highest excellence that human composition
can attain to, abundantly compensates the absence of every
other beauty, and atones for all other deficiencies, then
Michel Angelo demands the preference.
These two extraordinary men carried some of the higher
excellencies of the art to a greater degree of perfection than
probably they ever arrived at before. They certainly have
not been excelled, nor equalled since. Many of their suc-
cessors were induced to leave this great road as a beaten
path, endeavouring to surprise and please by something un-
common or new. When this desire of novelty has pro-
ceeded from mere idleness or caprice, it is not worth the
trouble of criticism ; but when it has been the result of a
busy mind of a peculiar complexion, it is always striking
and interesting, never insipid.
Such is the great style, as it appears in those who
possessed it at its height; in this, search after novelty, in
conception or in treating the subject, has no place.
But there is another style, which, though inferior to the
former, has still great merit, because it shows that those
who cultivated it were men of lively and vigorous imagina-
tion. This, which may be called the original or charac-
teristical style, being less referred to any true archetype
existing either in general or particular nature, must be
supported by the painter’s consistency in the principles
which he has assumed, and in the union and harmony of
his whole design. The excellency of every style, but of the
subordinate styles more especially, will very much depend
on preserving that union and harmony between all the
component parts, that they may appear to hang well
together, as if the whole proceeded from one mind. It is
in the works of art as in the characters of men. The
faults or defects of some men seem to become them when