Studio: international art (8.1896)

Reviews of Recent Publications

this point, comes as something of a surprise, and
is welcome as a thoroughly original treatment of
the most essential problems of representative art.
The author does not discuss beauty in the abstract,
nor the evolution of form, but, restricting himself
consistently to the point of view of the enjoyer of
art, and taking as his theme the masterpieces pro-
duced in Florence during the Renaissance, he
endeavours to explain how great art is appre-
ciated.

The Florentine school depends upon its treat-
ment of form, not upon any of the accessories that
play so important a part in other schools—attrac-
tiveness of types, wealth of colour, or effects of
space-composition. The fact that the energies of
the greatest Florentines, from Giotto to Michel
Angelo, were devoted to representing the human
figure in repose or movement, explains the im-
portant place which the art of Florence has con-
sistently held among cultivated Europeans, for, as
Mr. Berenson points out, the human figure is the
subject upon which good drawing and good model-
ling produce their quickest and most impressive
effects.

His theory, stated by himself in clear, brief
language, and illustrated at each point by reference
to definite masters and definite works of art, may
be baldly summarised as follows. The tasks
specific to the art of painting are to give impres-
sions of solidity by means of flat surfaces, and of
movement by means of objects actually motionless.
These problems it solves by modelling and draw-
ing. Successful modelling and successful drawing
are such as give to the beholder the impression of
relief and of movement (or life) in the objects
represented. But, it may be objected, the
panorama and the photograph do the same. The
enjoyment of represented form begins, however, to
be aesthetic or artistic only when the objects are
represented in such a way as to give the spectator
a feeling of increased energy. Art must, above all,
be "life enhancing." But how can represented
form—mere solidity—be life enhancing? Only,
Mr. Berenson says, by stimulating the ideated
sense of touch and muscular pressure and strain to
unwonted activity, so that we realise things more
quickly and more completely than in life. In life
we pass over the contemplation of form to consider
objects in their dynamic relations. We have for-
gotten that, as children, we learnt to appreciate
solidity by touching and by muscular movements
of all kinds. But when form is isolated and pre-
sented to us in such a way that this dormant or
forgotten muscular sense is roused, as it is not
182

commonly roused by nature, or by mechanical
reproductions of nature, then it inevitably enhances
life, giving pleasure on the general evolutional
principle that all conscious healthy functioning is
enjoyable.

The pleasure of what is called "movement" in
painting arises in an analogous way. We tend to
imitate every movement we see represented, even
if the movement be only that of a swift line. This
impulse to imitate stimulates ideated muscular
tensions, which, although not at all so powerful as
the sensations in real life, are apt to be more
pleasurable, as they are freed from actual hind-
rances to enjoyment—fatigue, weight, and the
like.

Around this formula of the life enhancing effect
of art through the ideated muscular sensations
which it calls up, Mr. Berenson groups the Floren-
tine painters, finding here the explanation of the
supremacy of such masters as Giotto, Masaccio,
Leonardo, Botticelli, and Michel Angelo, over their
famous fellow craftsmen, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo,
Fra Bartolomeo, Andrea, and the rest. We
have no space to quote the felicitous " apprecia-
tions " of the different artists, terse as they are, nor
to speak of the scholarly and almost complete lists
of their works which close this important little
volume, the second of a series which is to include
the whole of Italian Renaissance painting.

It is not with " life enhancement " that we turn
to another volume in a series issued by Messrs.
Putnam. Mr. Armstrong's "Lorenzo de' Medici,"
the sixteenth volume in the "Heroes of the
Nations " series, stands in sharp contrast to the
close-packed and original work of Mr. Berenson.
It is not illumined by any general principle, original
or otherwise, and, instead of being the outcome of
personal research and experience, it is nothing but
a dry and superficial compilation, presented in a
literary style to which we are only too well inured
in the world of journalism. It is unnecessary here
to speak of anything but the inevitable section
devoted to art. In this, the author has scarcely
made an attempt to reconcile the conflicting views
of the various writers from whom he has taken his
material. Morelli, Mrs. Jameson, and Mlintz—
scientist, sentimentalist, and archivist—jostle each
other on every page. Names are mis-spelled, per-
sonages are confused, places and subjects are care-
lessly bungled. All this, however, we might
pardon if we found anything to help us to enjoy
or understand the great artists of the time. But the
treatment of the most important of them, of Botti-
celli, illustrates the hoplessness of serving up art