No art, it may be said, was ever perfect, and not many noble, that
has not been mirthfully conceived.
And no man, it may be added, was ever anything but a wet blanket
and a cross to his companions who boasted not a copious spirit of
enjoyment. Whether as man or artist let the youth make haste to
Fontainebleau, and once there let him address himself to the spirit
of the place; he will learn more from exercise than from studies,
although both are necessary; and if he can get into his heart the
gaiety and inspiration of the woods he will have gone far to undo
the evil of his sketches. A spirit once well strung up to the
concert-pitch of the primeval out-of-doors will hardly dare to
finish a study and magniloquently ticket it a picture. The
incommunicable thrill of things, that is the tuning-fork by which
we test the flatness of our art. Here it is that Nature teaches
and condemns, and still spurs up to further effort and new failure.
Thus it is that she sets us blushing at our ignorant and tepid
works; and the more we find of these inspiring shocks the less
shall we be apt to love the literal in our productions. In all
sciences and senses the letter kills; and to-day, when cackling
human geese express their ignorant condemnation of all studio
pictures, it is a lesson most useful to be learnt. Let the young
painter go to Fontainebleau, and while he stupefies himself with
studies that teach him the mechanical side of his trade, let him
walk in the great air, and be a servant of mirth, and not pick and
botanise, but wait upon the moods of nature.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119